We already had an equivalent of DARPA. It was called DERA. It should hardly come as a surprise though that the government of the time thought it best to flog it to the highest bidder (a large chunk of DERA is now QinetiQ).
Michael Gove says Britain needs to create its own DARPA
Alasdair Gray, the acclaimed Glaswegian writer and artist, penned a phrase now engraved on a wall of the Scottish Parliament: “Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.” Michael Gove, the controversial Caledonian Brexiteer, journalist and Conservative politician, has in turn declared his intention to seek the …
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Monday 4th July 2016 22:26 GMT Tom -1
@anonymous coward - first commenter
I'm not aware that we had a Tory PM any time between 2003 ans 2007, while the selling off of DERA at a bargain price to Tony's cronies was played out.
If your suggesting that Blair was a tory prime minister you re just crazy - no tory prime minister in history was such disgraceful right wing twit as that man.
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Monday 4th July 2016 04:07 GMT streaky
DSTL still exists which was part of DERA. But yeah it's the kind of thing where smart people would say "privatisation of a good thing that was doing well f**ked us in the ass". Not for nothing but the entire reason it was privatised was down to EU rules so on some levels he's completely right that post-EU we could expand DSTL into areas QQ work but it'd be.. y'know, weird.
Smart thing might be for the govt to aquire QQ if this was going to be a thing - seems like taxpayer would get bent over on that at least inititally though.
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Friday 1st July 2016 15:21 GMT Vimes
He wanted all schools to be 'above average'. That ought to tell you everything you need to know about him.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmeduc/uc1786-i/uc178601.htm
(see Q98 onwards)
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Friday 1st July 2016 16:13 GMT TitterYeNot
"Well given his track record whilst at the helm of education, forgive me if I appear less than enthusiastic about his abilities."
Yes, I imagine that if Gove gets to be PM, the only 'Leaving' going on will be the UK population buggering off to Europe and claiming political asylum. Last one out turn off the lights please...
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Friday 1st July 2016 16:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Well given his track record whilst at the helm of education, forgive me if I appear less than enthusiastic about his abilities.
It is very difficult to make much headway in schools when the very left unions are actively fighting against any change that would cause their members to actually do some teaching rather than running the socialist utopian experiment of PSism, Common Purpose and so on. It ranges from primary school to university and the standard of engineering graduates is deplorable. Several of our clients have had to look to other countries for replacement engineers because theu don't have the time or structure to run remedial classes for what the universities are sending out.
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Friday 1st July 2016 20:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
@AC I seem to remember he was moved out of the Edudation dept because parents were becoming vocal and an election was looming
That may be the case, after all you will always get a vocal minority that follow the party line, but it does not change the fact that most teachers are violently against any change that might require them to actually teach you only have to look at the goings on at the last NUT general meeting.
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Sunday 3rd July 2016 16:14 GMT What_Does_Not_Kill_You_Makes_You_Stronger
As a little heads-up, the Teachers have to teach what they are told !!!
If the 'Experts' come up with a crappy Curriculum and ignore the input of the people that teach, what do you expect.
The Universities then have to work with what they get and hence you get the 'Not quite Engineers'.
The whole Acadamy idea was the way to work around the problem as above but then went the other way giving them too much freedom.
No doubt we are due a swing back to the other extreme soon !!!!
(It is this constant idiocy that has driven so many Teachers out, as the stress is too much when you are blamed for all without any input being taken to fix the problem.)
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Saturday 2nd July 2016 02:47 GMT Kurt Meyer
Re: Terrifying
@ massivelySerial
Take your tin-foil hat off, it will make things easier for you when you pull your head out. This advice also holds true for those wet-brained individuals who have upvoted your ridiculous post.
There is no one in English politics who even remotely resembles an "American style neo-conservative", and for that you should be everlastingly grateful. I am, and I'm not English. For that matter, in my opinion, the rest of the world is grateful for that as well.
Neither Gove, nor anyone else, is going to "create a military industrial complex" in England. The English economy couldn't take the strain, and the English people wouldn't stand for the waste.
Ask yourself these questions; To what end? Arms sales? The reconquest of the Empire? Miscellaneous military adventurism?
Great Britain, with it's current industrial output is, I believe, ranked third in the world in arms sales, behind only the US and Russia. With all the will in the world, the UK, whether united or not, won't be surpassing those two countries in arms sales, not even in your grandchildren's lifetime.
Reconquista? Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else in the world believes that could or would happen.
Adventurism/Intervention? When was the last time Britain hared off on its own? Suez in '56? Do you see something similar in Britain's future, and a steady diet of it, to boot?
I won't speculate on the future form of the NHS, but I am willing to wager that whatever else the future holds for England and the other nations in the UK, the NHS will survive.
The current turmoil in England and the rest of the United Kingdom calls for clear thinking and calm voices.
You do your country no good by running around the barnyard sqawking "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"
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Saturday 2nd July 2016 15:08 GMT Kurt Meyer
Re: Terrifying
@ druck
Yes, the Falklands war in '82. Certainly not adventurism, nor intervention for that matter. The proper term might be closer to "defeating an invasion of Britain's sovereign territory", quite different than the Suez incident. A perfectly correct response to unprovoked aggression.
That said, the UK was hardly "on its own", nor was Argentina. both countries enjoyed support from third parties, although the two were the only direct combatants.
The Vulcan, the mighty Vulcan. An unworthy heir to the Lancasters, Stirlings, and Halifaxes of yesteryear. Perhaps the less said of this "wonder weapon" the better.
Although the Vulcans flew and fought, the UK would, in the opinion of many, have been better served had the Royal Navy still possessed a proper carrier, instead of the airy-fairy, ski ramped, jump jet, pseudo-carriers that HM government chose to equip them with.
How much better would the task force have fared with HMS Ark Royal on station, armed with Phantoms and Buccaneers? A lot better, no doubt at all.
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Sunday 3rd July 2016 13:05 GMT TheOtherHobbes
Re: Terrifying
How much better would the task force have fared if the Falklands problem had been solved diplomatically - not least by granting the islanders full UK citizenship in 1981, when they asked for it, and by not withdrawing the token Navy presence - before it needed to become a shooting war?
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Sunday 3rd July 2016 14:07 GMT Kurt Meyer
Re: Terrifying
@ TheOtherHobbes
I don't think that citizenship for the islanders would have solved the diplomatic dilemma, given Argentina's insistance on their claims of ownership, which they continue to make today.
Your second point is, in my opinion, right on the money. Without the presence of HM forces ( the navy would have been the obvious choice for that ), the chance to present Britain with a fait accompli was too tempting to resist.
A further endorsement for your second point comes from the present garrision of the islands, which is enough of a deterrent to maintain peace in the south Atlantic.
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Sunday 3rd July 2016 16:21 GMT What_Does_Not_Kill_You_Makes_You_Stronger
Re: Terrifying
@Kurt Meyer
So glad someone can see that the panic is not neccessary !!!
Just which it was someone in the UK who was able to take control and lead.
Refuse to comment on the various leaders to be, other than to have my fingers crossed that someone has been hiding their 'True' 'Churchillian leadership skills' all this time !!! :) :)
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Sunday 3rd July 2016 18:46 GMT Kurt Meyer
Re: Terrifying
@ What_Does_Not_Kill_You_Makes_You_Stronger
Thank you for the kind words.
Over the course of their long, long histories, the peoples that make up today's United Kingdom have faced many, many crises of varying sorts. I speak here of internal matters, not of wars with other nations/empires.
They have always found a way to surmount the problems facing them, and I have no doubt they will overcome this latest issue.
"Churchillian leadership skills" is a very high mark to aim for, and I might laugh out loud at the contrast between one of Britain's greatest Prime Ministers, and the selection of clowns currently available to you.
As I said, I might laugh, but I am too busy weeping over the utter lack of leadership on offer in my own land.
The best of luck to you all.
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Friday 1st July 2016 15:07 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: Gove v. May
In fact, in a contest between GoveNoccio and Joseph Vissarionovich May it is difficult to think of a third party who will not look positively attractive.
On a second thought: https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bd41f9f3719c75bcad2cdae50aa83bc78ada35ca/147_49_1434_860/master/1434.jpg?w=1920&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=a7f837712fbf25d2371d44777f7ae93f
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Friday 1st July 2016 15:33 GMT James 51
Re: "...Theresa May, who is considered more moderate..."
That just means she really wants to be PM and wants to shed her image as the crazy cat lady as there isn't sufficient support. In a few years things might change. After all once we don't have the EU to scapegoat the Tories are going to need another external agency to blame for the country's ills.
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Friday 1st July 2016 15:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: An immigrant PM?
At the very least, he will have to apply for a work permit. As someone who has once upon a time suffered from having to deal with Lunar House in Croydon, I am going to sell tickets and popcorn for the ones willing to observe Mr Gove's interview. It will be a sight to behold.
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Friday 1st July 2016 16:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
The way this country voted last week, I can't see Britain capable of building a hitchBOT, let alone anything worthy of comparison to DARPA.
Maybe you're right. Personally I see it last week's vote as the embodiment of bloody minded exceptionalism in the face of received wisdom that is the root of much innovation.
Of course, it was DARPA that invented radar, tanks, jet engines, internet protocol, wasn't it?
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Friday 1st July 2016 20:45 GMT colinb
Yep but a Cold War would do at a push, Russia sending Sputnik a satellite the size of a beach ball, into Orbit, caused DARPA to be created and US wallets to be opened.
So now it would require the EU to mine ore on the Moon and send it back to Earth to loosen equivalent UK funding.
Although i was remain for the UK, the EU has the perfect foil to compete with if it chooses to use it, lets face it human advancement is based on competition in one form or another.
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Friday 1st July 2016 15:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Another pre- prime ministerial U turn coming
Haven't you heard? The new, hip politicians don't do U turns any more, they do Crazy Ivans, because that's just out of date enough for them to have heard of it.
In other news, I note the petition to sanction politicians who deliberately lie has stalled.
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Friday 1st July 2016 15:30 GMT John Smith 19
May gets the thumbs down for the Snoopers Charter and being Remain when it's a Leaving do
Plus I'm loving the "Double Brutus" nick name.
I think "Double B" sounds appropriately gangster, don't you? Let's be honest the Tory party love someone with demonstrated ruthlessness, who's not afraid to
stab a friend in the backmake the hard choices.Meanwhile the lurking Boris bides his time before getting ready to pounce like a giant floppy haired bear....
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Friday 1st July 2016 15:47 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: May gets the thumbs down for the Snoopers Charter and being Remain when it's a Leaving do
May was more LEAVE than the whole lot that led LEAVE as she did not just want to LEAVE Eu, she wanted to LEAVE all European mechanisms, period.
She just bide her time to let Gove and Co get burned by the immediate fallout.
The mere fact, that all the Tory grandees which said that the next prime minister must be a leave supporter did not bat an eye lid when she threw her hat in the ring says everything there is to be said here.
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Friday 1st July 2016 15:34 GMT leon clarke
Questions
In creating a startup culture, where is the venture capital to come from. Surely that'd be helped by doing things that increase the amount of spare money sloshing around in the city, instead of scaring it all away.
Wouldn't startups also want a certainty of access to markets
What are the specific EU rules that prevent the UK from creating a more entrepreneurial state
What reassurances will be given that entrepreneurial high-tech companies will have access to the skilled staff they need? If staff are to come from abroad, how will they and their dependents be welcomed?
Would it be a good idea for a fan of democratic accountability to call an election after becoming leader of the ruling party, in order to give the best possible opportunity for the new PM to answer as directly as possible to the people.
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Friday 1st July 2016 17:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Questions
@leon clark "In creating a startup culture, where is the venture capital to come from. Surely that'd be helped by doing things that increase the amount of spare money sloshing around in the city, instead of scaring it all away."
Wrong sort of startup, he means the ones that build billion pound carriers with only one fighter jet.
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Friday 1st July 2016 18:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Questions
" If staff are to come from abroad, how will they and their dependents be welcomed?"
Leave campaigner Government minister Priti Patel said BREXIT would mean barring EU immigrants - and they should then get more from the Indian subcontinent. Her reasoning was that immigrants from the Indian subcontinent are more entitled to settle in Britain by virtue of historical Empire connections than people from European countries.
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Friday 1st July 2016 15:37 GMT H in The Hague
Democracy
Gove "“... was about democratic accountability.” ...... Prime Minister"
Call me cynical, but to me his statement about accountability is not entirely compatible with the new Prime Minister being elected by the members of the Conservative Party rather than the electorate as a whole.
When in 2015 the Conservatives got 36.9% of the votes, and 331 out of 650 seats, the electorate were under the assumption that they were (indirectly) voting for Cameron as Prime Minister, not someone to pop up later as a result of feuding within the party.
Contrasts rather starkly with the President of the "undemocratic" European Parliament being elected MEPs.
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Friday 1st July 2016 16:20 GMT amanfromMars 1
East leading West/West leading East? ...... Who or What Cares, ....
...so long as IT Provides All for Everything to Everyone ‽ .
Michael Gove says Britain needs to create its own DARPA
Seconded, Michael, and make sure it is something exercising personnel and programs with projects which both terrify and tittilate/take over and make over command and control of mass markets and media and money supply. Something alien and both a known unknown and unknown unknown ensuring and assuring and insuring ITs own stealthy delivery for special clients worthy of its Sublime Advanced IntelAIgently Researched Services.
Anything less will see it in opposition and competing and failing repeatedly against such a facility starring and providing crazy bounty for others elsewhere around the planet.
And bravo, Michael Gove, that is surely something representative and indicative of genuine PM leadership in a Westminster palace awash with wannabe sheep and sock puppets.
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Friday 1st July 2016 16:27 GMT Flocke Kroes
Saw Gove on the news this morning
He talked about how he spoke passionately for having the referendum, MPs being held accountable for their actions and that he would deliver on campaign promises.
For me, the immediate result of the referendum was a hefty kick in the pension fund. I am so glad that he and the other Brexit MPs are going to personally reimburse me. My mum works for the NHS. A week has passed and she has yet to see evidence of the promised £350M extra funding.
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Friday 1st July 2016 16:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
Ugh
As an American, I really wish the UK would learn from our crony capitalist / "crapitalist" mistakes rather than copying them. Yes, DARPA occasionally puts out an interesting new bit of tech. What's left unmentioned is the billions and billions of dollars in cash just burned away on stuff that doesn't pan out, and like all government programs favoritism, lobbying, and being in the right congressional district are far more important than the sanity of the project, technical qualifications and track record. It's still far more efficient than the government doing these projects themselves (same poor results with five times the overhead), but just put out a bounty and let private groups risk their own money and cash in if they find success.
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Friday 1st July 2016 18:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Ugh
Seconded.
I supplied the "brains" for a couple of Darpa applications by USAisians a while back. The only thing which gets DARPA sponsorship is building some super duper ultra expensive "smart" weapon.
The idea of getting a couple of equations together and firing 3 cheap missiles into correct pre-computed positions to close the box on a target - forget it. If you submit a project which uses real science, namely math (optimal control and game theory) and physics instead of the super duper obscenely expensive engineering (with no science and no real research) product - it will be rejected outright.
That is for a reason - DARPA is a front to the self-feeding USA military procurement machine. If you have 3 cheap (and god forbid existing already developed) missiles doing the job of the to be developed ultra expensive supermissile - where is the pork in that?
Corollary to that is that DARPA as it is now, is definitely not to be copied by a nation which does not have USA finances to waste. Also, any expectations that DARPA will deliver anything anywhere near what it delivered in the past are a bit far fetched.
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Friday 1st July 2016 22:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Do you mean Macbeth?"
The press were not calling him "MacGove" just because he is Scottish. His wife's email machinations seem to have some bearing on his subsequent assassination of his erstwhile ally
BanquoBoris in order to secure his claim to the throne. If he gets the crown then the ghost may yet come back to haunt him.Gove is unlikely to get the prize. Like the Emperor Claudius the Tory party are grateful for the assassination - but like Caligula's Praetorian Guard he will be condemned for such an act of treachery.
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Friday 1st July 2016 19:13 GMT colinb
It's not rocket science
The recipe for innovation in the US or Irael has long been known, it involves
1. billions (millions wont cut it) of cash trickling into universities and private research labs for
2. speculative projects targeting the military industrial complex DARPA or big science CERN
3. funding guys in sandals like Jon Postel who don't know the day of the week but invent things you dont understand
4. with managers in Suits with funny names like Vint Cerf who can design protocols in 1974 you wont use until 1989
5. by shooting the bean counters (DARPA has just 13 mangers, 140 technical bods)
6. sit back, relax and watch as s**t happens in 10 or 15 years
7, ok yeah, actually it is rocket science
Coming from a Conservative who doesn't need 'Experts' excuse me while i die laughing.
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Friday 1st July 2016 20:09 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
Keep calm & do not worry. Everything will be all right.
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Saturday 2nd July 2016 06:21 GMT amanfromMars 1
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose and everything to gain .... Like a Rolling Stone*
Ye Gods, what madness abounds here with so many thinking there is democracy in any land with governments and civil and federal services into taxing almost everything, creating inflation and destroying nations and to raise public funds for private ventures. Banks are where the money is invented and bankers are the ones thinking they can be in command and control of who and/or what gets whatever is needed to maintain whatever current virtual reality is presently in vogue and playing itself out on mainstream media streams.
Democracy is the Jolly Roger flag of convenience behind which all shenanigans and dealing and the true workings of the real rogue and renegade systems which driver the madness are hidden. Take away the breeze and windbags flying the flag, and the virtual reality you live in, is perfectly clear to see. And once seen, you can easily change it, for its virtually remote power and deep dark energy systems levers are known to you, and they be easily shared with anyone and everything anywhere nowadays, practically in a flash, to cause any great number of immediate market crashes.
And that be a new breed of weapon too.
Do you imagine the likes of a DARPA/IARPA are in command and control of them with some sort of crazy NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive football which can boot and reboot crashed and vulnerable to flash crashing systems, and not at all like that other cold war relic being traipsed all across the world as if it were something dangerous and important? Or be they likely to be currently working to invent them for moving into future theatres of hot interest/borders of competitive conflict, for all of the benefits which deliver the passionate fruits and succulent rewards of superior advantage?
Go UKGBNI, Go, if that be the madness you’re harbouring and fighting, however, and such is only natural and fully to be expected in these fabulous new times with novel cyber spaces, it is bound to fly Eastwards to lush green fields there, and remarkably quickly too, whenever not rightly to be first and exercised here.
If you want to lead with AI in a Great Game, pull on a few levers and monitor and mentor reactions to the Play, unfolding Counter Plays and Competitive Movements/Big Picture Scenery Shifting.
* ... Like a Rolling Stone ...... very APT ACTive lyrics :-)
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Saturday 2nd July 2016 09:03 GMT MK_E
To be fair to him, I watched that interview with Gove. He was cut off towards the end of his sentence, but he didn't say "the general public are sick of experts", he said "the general public are sick of experts getting it wrong".
So presumably referring to all the people banging on about how the Euro was gonna be a great thing and Britain was going to be left behind by not joining and so on and so forth, who were mysteriously quiet when the euro crisis happened in... just about exactly the way that other commentators (who were largely ignored the first time around) said it would.
So it's more of a swipe at Heseltine (who's been pro-Europe in precisely the wrong places for the last two decades) than a general anti-intellectual statement.
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Saturday 2nd July 2016 12:49 GMT David 164
As leave camp promised all of the EU savings to be devoted to the NHS, how does he (Gove )intend to replace the funding that UK scientists will lose once we leave the EU?
Considering their will be calls from farmers for the replacement of CAP, an I'm sure numerous other parties who are going to lose money from us leaving the EU, how does Gove intend to make sure UK scientists voices won't get lost amongst even more powerful lobbying groups such as Landowners and farmers in calls for replacement funding?
It already good calling for a UK version of DARPA but does he also intend to adopt it management style as well? Allowing it to be led by scientists and engineers and not by politicans.
How would the UK research councils and UKSA interact with this UK version of DARPA?
What kind of budget do you envision UK Darpa receiving on a per year basis?
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Sunday 3rd July 2016 12:52 GMT John Brown (no body)
"As leave camp promised all of the EU savings to be devoted to the NHS, how does he (Gove )intend to replace the funding that UK scientists will lose once we leave the EU?"
Well, to be fair (ha ha!) that £350m per week was supposed to be the excess money we put into the EU. The assumption was that the money put into the EU and already coming back in grants would just be handed out direct from gov.uk.
Sorry, I can't go on. I'm giggling to much at the though of defending the leave lies.
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Sunday 3rd July 2016 07:38 GMT amanfromMars 1
Re: Lessons for the former education minister
Thanks for that lesson 1, hammarbtyp. Quite fundamental to the understanding of the working of wise guy/wide boy governments and how they be easily destroyed from within via the exploitation of inherent zeroday vulnerabilities in the chains of controlling on demand commanding media, which of course is essential for the programming of the notion there be a need for austerity when there's never ever been so much funny money before pumped into the system to maintain and retain it and stop the crazy merry-go-round from collapsing.
Makes you wonder who's pocketing all the newly minted bank wealth, replacing it as a mounting compound interested debt charged to others, which can never be repaid by future generations ..... and in so deliberately doing, holding entire nations and populations to ransom with the cunning stunt.
There is one clear word, ...cleverly missing in this classic video clip .... which surely sums them up beautifully? .... https://youtu.be/Lj-9lSEBBm0. Thanks, Mrs Merton. RIP
And why do representatives of governments elected into office allow the destabilising scam? Are they all stupid or not nearly clever enough to lead and powerless against such soft forces and sharp practices. Is democracy corrupt and perverted and rigged to have the masses administered to by intellectual weaklings and moral cowards?
Those be real worthy of revolutionary times with all manner of smart actions and cunning stunts welcome to exorcise the cancerous growth from the body politic and render the world stage with more blank canvas on which to beta deliver a Better Bigger Picture and Greater IntelAIgent Game to Play.
Capiche? Or do you need the Essential Guides and Star Chambered Workshop Manuals to proceed and succeed ....... to process success into delivering prosperity? Although I do agree that last question be a real dumb no-brainer, given all of the evidence daily given by media and wrapped up as news to be believed as true and correct, rather than false and contrived to server quite particular and peculiar hidden self interests, which are finding it nowadays increasingly difficult, if not even impossible, to hide.
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