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Signing Off for Now
Posted Friday, January 8, at 1:25 PM
Since April of 2009 Jim Frost and I have been writing this blog in order to examine the most critical problems people of the world face today as well as offer our views on solutions.
We have made almost 75 posts, have had well over 3,500 hits, and received dozens of comments. In the huge marketplace of ideas that today's technology makes possible we feel we have made a contribution to the furtherance of progressive and open-minded pursuit of answers to some of the questions that plague us all.
The blog format has been a wonderful medium for us. Among its advantages is that our comments and those of our viewers will be online forever at berkleybedellblog.com. And we will continue to accept comments and respond to them.
But for now we are taking a break to concentrate on another medium--a book that will explain my developing theory that people act the way they do because to survive as a species we have had to be selfish and combative.
The more I look at terrorism, war, governance, capitalism, energy use, medicine, religion and other human activities, the more it seems to me that a pattern emerges. This pattern is based in the inherent and inborn human characteristics, selfishness and fighting.
We will keep you posted about our progress and plan on announcing a publication date that will be sometime in 2010. After its publication, excerpts from the book will be posted on the blog.
Happy New Year--Berkley Bedell.
Perilous Times, Drastic Measures The changes suggested in our writing about military spending may be drastic but they are logical, and drastic times demand they be made. Ten steps will assure their success:...
Step Six: Homeland Security The Department of Homeland Security has the following goals: These are lofty and legitimate goals. In spite of the department's failures, particularly in New Orleans in 2005, their accomplishment is essential if American citizens are to be protected in today's world...
Step Five: Intelligence Gathering The United States now has 17 intelligence gathering agencies. These should immediately be combined (with the exception of the FBI, which would remain in the Department of Justice, its role limited to domestic crime). One can argue that so many snoops are operating at the expense of vital information going forward appropriatly--to say nothing of the dollar cost and the fact that if our leaders have an agenda condraticted by an intelligence report from one agency, they can simply look for another that agrees with it.. ...
Step Four: Reserve Force The first level of reservists should be a person-to-person backup for each and every member of the active force--from new recruit to commanding general. After one year of full-time training, these service persons would maintain their proficiency by participating in a one-day session each week and four weeks of active duty each year as part of fully-equipped units that would mirror the regular Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force. ...
Step Three: Active Duty Forces If current U.S. armed forces are too large yet ill-prepared to face the real threats of today's world, and if this can be changed, what should replace them? And how can it be accomplished? U.S. Marines--as of Feb. 5, 2007, there were 179,695 U.S. ...
Step Two: Nuclear Ban Enforcement In 1968, 138 countries agreed to nuclear non-proliferation. If a United Nations mandate is in place, it would require a commitment of only 500 troops by each of these countries to create a truly multinational U.N. force of nearly 70,000 troops to be made responsible for enforcing non-posssession. ...
Step One: Nuclear Deterrence Until nuclear weapons are eliminated from earth, the threat of attack, howevere remote, must be considered. The two possible scenarios are massive attack from a nuclear power or limited attack by a terrorist or rogue government. Prevention of a massive attack will continue to be based on the policy of mutually assured destruction; its threat is a decreasing possibility. ...
Defense: What Must Be Done Here is a summary of what must be done. Over the next few weeks we will deal with how to acomplish each point. These are our needs. Our military spending should be capped when they are met--Berkley Bedell and Jim Frost....
Wrapping Up the Threats Air travel, seaport and border threats are also real and should be added to the list. The answer to these threats might be military but just as important is their not-at-all-subtle connection to military spending--we have squandered so many of our resources in unnecessary wars that not enough money is available to properly deal with them...
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Berkley Bedell--Retirement from the U.S. Congress in 1987, neither dulled my interest in the well-being of the people of the United States nor my worries about our governance. I began work in 2006 on a book outlining the country's problems and offering solutions.
Jim Frost--I share Berkley's concerns and in 2007 began the job of researching, editing and assisting with writing his book.
By early 2009, after finally weathering George W. Bush and recognizing how much the past eight wasted years have set the world back, our focus changed. We had seen no meaningful progress in the efforts to stem the threat of nuclear weapons, reverse global warming, preserve natural resources, reduce military spending, fight disease and hunger, improve health care, deal with the increasing gulf between rich people and poor people, establish a workable economic system, or clean up the political process.
For us, these three things became self-evident:
First, the problems are global; the U.S. cannot by itself control or solve them.
Second, the perfect storm of worldwide catastrophe is already upon us; what must be said cannot wait.
Third, in seeking solutions, the problems must be put before as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
This blog is the result. There will be much more. We invite you to participate.
Hot topics Signing Off for Now(0 ~ 1:25 PM, Jan 8)
Perilous Times, Drastic Measures
Step Six: Homeland Security
Step Five: Intelligence Gathering
Inertia and Its Cost
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