YOUNG ACTIVISTS ARE READY TO BE EFFECTIVE PEACEBUILDERS

 

Are governments ready to have us at the table?

Words: Yuko Yokoi

Date: December 11th, 2020

American youth are facing a historic juncture. COVID-19 has disrupted our lives and marches for racial justice have shaken our conscience. But youth like myself are also celebrating because this week marks the fifth anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS)­. Resolution 2250 defines “youth” as persons between the ages of 18 and 29 years old and identifies this age group as key stakeholders for sustainable peace. The resolution also calls for member states to prioritize their needs and set up mechanisms that ensure meaningful youth inclusion in all aspects of peacebuilding, including peace processes, prevention, and conflict resolution. Since it passed, the resolution has provided the foundation for a global movement of young people working for peace.

Today’s youth is at the forefront of building bridges that promote peace locally and globally. For example, growing up in Japan and the United States, I often translate for my Japanese parents. Committed to gender equality, I also try to localize ideas of feminism and equality in the Japanese context, which has helped me to think critically about cultural differences and their impact on creating peace. With the introduction of HR 6175 in March 2020, known as the YPS Act, Congress is taking a bipartisan approach to implementing this global policy framework within the United States. The incoming Biden administration, therefore, is facing an unprecedented moment when it comes to youth mobilization and peace promotion and should encourage Congress to pass the YPS Act.

THE MISUNDERSTOOD YOUTH

Around the world, young people are already working in peacebuilding and routinely make unique contributions. Yet they are often ignored and left out of political processes. For example, the Afghan youth are not included in the ongoing intra-Afghan peace talks, even though 63% of Afghanistan’s population is under the age of 25. This routine exclusion of the young signals that their voices don’t matter in society — an exclusion that has led to several misconceptions about youth actions.

One of the most common misconceptions is that adolescents are more susceptible to violence but empirical evidence indicates that this is not the case. “The Missing Peace,” a major progress study commissioned by the UN on youth’s contribution to peace and security, debunks the assumption that burgeoning youth is at “risk” that must be managed. The study further explains that this assumption has led to the adoption of repressive approaches by political leaders, who label the young critical of the government as “terrorists.” In 2016, the UN Human Rights Council alerted the international community on how several governments use terms such as “terrorist” and “ violent extremism” without a clear definition to silence political dissents and justify the violation of their human rights. The media also reinforces the stereotype of youth as perpetrators of violence by sensationalizing any violence committed by them. Young people from diverse regions including the Americas and Africa interviewed in the study repeatedly commented on the media’s role of disproportionately highlighting youth violence and its insufficient coverage of youth’s peaceful organizing. In fact, a repressive approach only fosters mistrust of the government amongst the young and exacerbates the exclusion of youth from civic spaces. The YPS Act may help to stop this vicious cycle worldwide.

THE WORLD IS EXPERIENCING A BURGEONING YOUTH POPULATION, WHERE 1.8 BILLION PEOPLE ARE BETWEEN THE AGES OF 10 AND 24 — MORE THAN HAVE EVER EXISTED. BUT  MANY YOUTH-LED PEACEBUILDING EFFORTS ARE UNDERFUNDED.

Adolescents in vulnerable states are perceived to be more susceptible to violent extremism. In reality, however, the vast majority of teenagers and young adults choose to respond to conflicts in non-violent and positive ways — some even addressing the root causes of violence. In Yemen, young adults are creating “viable alternatives” for their peers to protect them from extremist groups by building youth networks, offering counternarratives through media and theater, and promoting human rights.

The world is experiencing a burgeoning youth population, where 1.8 billion people are between the ages of 10 and 24 — more than have ever existed. But  many youth-led peacebuilding efforts are underfunded. A survey conducted as part of the UN progress study showed that half of the responded organizations operated on less than USD $5,000 per year, and respondents cited the lack of funding as a major constraint against greater impact. With respect to the US stance on mobilizing youth for peace, only 0.14% of US global foundation giving goes to peace work focused on children and young adults, indicating a lack of prioritization of youth programs, which is short-sighted.

WHY THE YPS ACT MATTERS

The YPS Act, introduced to the House by Representatives Grace Meng (D-NY) and Susan Brooks (R-IN) earlier this year, redefines those between the ages of 16 and 29 as key stakeholders in global security. For example, the YPS Act calls for the US government to encourage youth participation in all levels of peacebuilding processes that it funds and supports worldwide, as well as investing in and providing resources to young peacebuilders working in conflict-affected areas. The bill will set up a Youth, Peace and Security Fund that is dedicated to support youth-led peacebuilding efforts and an advisory group of experts to integrate the interests and perspectives of young people into the development and implementation of US peace and security strategies.

Although the Act directly benefits youth abroad, it has important implications for young people in America as well. For the first time, this law will recognize the role of adolescents as viable partners in conflict prevention. If passed, the YPS Act will serve as an important precedent in Congress that can benefit young people working to forge social justice and reconciliation in divided communities within the United States. Although many youth activists in America do not identify as peacebuilders, they have stood up for human rights and called for action on local and national levels, which in its essence is peacebuilding at its finest. For example, young people across the nation have protested police brutality and racism against Black people and marched to stop climate change. The YPS Act will be a starting point to recognize their agency and efforts, and will hopefully create a path to include American youth in decision-making circles more meaningfully.

Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) must prioritize the passage of this legislation and adoption of a US national strategy on YPS. The incoming Biden administration must also integrate YPS as a central mechanism in their plan to build peace globally. This won’t be just another stand-alone strategy to put on the shelf, but will be central to the US  strategy on women, peace, and security which is supported by members of both parties because of its preventative and cost-effective approaches to building peace.

In the major UN progress study, young people expressed that their exclusion from civic and political spaces is a form of structural and psychological violence. If President-elect Joe Biden supports the YPS Act, it would mean not only legitimizing young people’s efforts and voices in peacebuilding but also advocating for the elimination of violence that affects them. The Biden administration’s support could create a path for young adults like myself where they see themselves as stakeholders and effective peacebuilders. We’re ready to take on this role. The question is: are governments ready to have us at the table?

Yuko Yokoi is a Youth Peace Volunteer for Search for Common Ground.

https://inkstickmedia.com/young-activists-are-ready-to-be-effective-peacebuilders/

Why the Far Left Is More Dangerous Than the Far Right

The Birdseye

• Demographics and institutional capture drive the far left into a pole position to transform America.
• An extremist mindset now dominates progressive ideology that lives up the religious fervor of past and current fanatical religious movements.
• Much needed economic reforms are taking a backseat to vicious culture wars and attacks on once bipartisan American values such as freedom of speech and the liberty to debate.

I still remember the good old days.

When the biggest internal danger to America was Bible Thumping McDonald’s addicts and a spontaneous KKK takeover of the White House. I was a young brown kid growing up in a post-9/11 America. Politics was one of the last things on my mind and easily summed up as Democrats = “tolerance” and Republicans = “racist.” Barack Obama’s 2008 victory showed me that a minority in the United States could achieve anything.

All was well.

Then an apparent apocalypse happened in 2016 when the Anti-Christ was elected. I still remember watching the CNN panel go from Manhattan arrogance to DC downplaying to Rust Belt frustration to Portland freakout – the coast to coast American experience all within a day. And I kind of shared that fear too. I liked Bernie, voted for Hillary, and was aghast at Trump. I still believed my old Republican and Democrat dichotomy.

Then I decided to take a second look. I started to notice unnerving parallels between American and Indian politics, particularly those on the left end of the spectrum. Looking at it from a different angle, I realized I was misjudging the waves for the tide.

Quick Maths

Let’s get this out of the way before you start calling me a far right conservative like my group chat friends after I dunk on their late-night show politics. I am a registered Democrat who supports or am leaning towards universal healthcare, a carbon tax, reducing economic inequality, state-based marijuana legalization, am pro-choice, and believe UBI may be needed for a sustainable future. I value diversity in background and thought as well as free speech. Totally Nazi, I know.

Why then am I so much more afraid of the far left? Because the numbers resoundingly point in that direction.

The traditional conservative is literally a dying breed and demographic. As death catches age and urbanization rises, the white percentage of America will diminish (eventually hitting under 50%). The core Republican vote bank of suburban, rural, and lesser-educated whites is disappearing.

Young Republicans sound more like Clinton and Obama on issues such as climate change, immigration, and identity. This is good news for moderate Republicans but bad news for the cliché and overstated “white nationalist” types that attract a vastly disproportionate amount of media space.

Simply put, Republicans have no choice but to cater to minorities and youth, and insane white nationalist positions cannot be on the menu. The numbers just don’t add up to the hysteric media premonition of Charlottesville protestors hijacking the White House.

Now of course, liberal youth usually grow more conservative as they age; but what separates the present from the past is a liberal stranglehold of media, academia, and institutions. Soft power centers that combine in a furious trident to meld our society and culture. From tech titans blatantly censoring conservatives to the overwhelming left tilt of academia (Liberals outnumber conservatives in academic administration 12 to 1) to the radicalization of celebrated NGOs such as the NAACP and others, so much of what influences us and what we consume is being directed by coddled extremists. Our cultural centers have been seized by those who prioritize sacrificing the sacred cow of free speech and debate at the “Altar of Wokeness.”

The New Puritans

People love religion. Whether or not they believe in a supernatural force is irrelevant. What is relevant is the ritual, the path, a notion of salvation and deliverance, a forging of identity, a unity, a mythic utopia, the prophets, and so many more parts of religious ideology.

America is witnessing the birth of a new religion. Taking advantage of the horrible and unfortunate murders of innocent black lives at the hands of law enforcement, affluent self-flagellating white progressives have driven a radical movement of blind revenge disguised as justice. If one commits blasphemy against its vague and nebulous ideals, then a horde of journalists, corporations, and social media lackeys will descend upon them and viciously admonish them in public. They have deemed speech as violence while actual violence as a voice. All while minority communities and businesses have been decimated by their engineered and encouraged riots. And god forbid if a person of color speaks out against this lunacy. Hell hath no fury like a progressive scorned by a minority who has spoken out of turn.

Whether one calls it “wokism” or radical progressivism is irrelevant. What is relevant is that America is witnessing an intolerant minority, a demographic as Nassim Taleb historically points out that can influence and steer society in major ways if they are not kept in check. And as mentioned previously, this intolerant minority now dominates Big Tech, mainstream media, and of course universities in a degree never seen before. These universities, where our best and brightest are supposed to form the building blocks of the future, are now cobblestone alleys filled with coddled minds. Reason is conquered by emotion and empiricism falls to anecdote for the new American intellectual caste.

A Cultural Revolution

In an effort to distract from colossal economic failures that naturally come from communism, just as crying racism over any and every disagreement naturally comes to radical progressives, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 – a movement to annihilate China’s beautiful traditional culture and history by placing the blame of its current economic woes onto social and cultural factors. Sound familiar?

Now I wouldn’t call the people shutting down a few blocks of Seattle the Chinese Communist Party, but there is an uncanny resemblance in the zeal to shatter American history, culture, and tradition that I’ve never seen before. The central danger I am seeing is crushing the liberty of America and freedom that makes it succeed not just on an economic level but also on an individual level.

Adherents to radical progressivism claim theirs is a revolution of thought and politics, yet it has the ardent support of companies so wealthy that they would induce immediate and violent nausea in their Prophet, Karl Marx. Megacorporations and “woke” capital have taken swift advantage of our national chaos as they’ve continued the crushing march over small businesses crippled by coronavirus. Far left acolytes who fought for economic reform prior are now in lockstep with corporations enforcing this new religion amongst their consumers and employees. While private companies have already bent the knee, what happens when these extremists ascend onto Capitol Hill?

Capture

Already we are witnessing a totalitarian attitude towards free speech and debate. Luckily the constitution explicitly protects our right to freedom of speech in a public sense so I do not see a scenario where words are written into laws that restrict the words coming out of your mouth. The silencing of heretics will continue to be a private and cultural push as we’ve seen with the ravenous backlash to the Harper’s Open Letter condemning the fall of free speech rather than Old World-style legal restrictions of speech. Democrats will use the web instead of Washington to continue the stampede over free thought as social media companies continue their crackdown.

Also disconcerting is the facade of the left being the protectors of the oppressed. Hypocrisy is a natural color on the political spectrum yet it is most pronounced on the far left today. When was the last time you saw a progressive politician or organization speak up for the Hindus of Pakistan, Buddhists of Bangladesh, Sikhs of Afghanistan, Yazidis of Iraq, and Christians of Egypt with the same fire and brimstone as when they speak against racism against their designated protected groups? How can one say they stand up against oppression while engaging in a stunning silence on some of the most oppressed people on the planet?

This cascades into even deeper issues of foreign policy where far left international relations resemble a blue check journalist’s Twitter mashed with Qatar’s Al-Jazeera. Domestically, far left activists incessantly promote identity politics, thereby widening fissures ripe for exploitation by foreign powers. Antipathy and outrage better reserved for much more violent regimes and states are instead barraged at much more tolerant countries that demonstrate diversity and pluralism much better than the far left’s favorite cast of countries featuring utopias such as Venezuela, Cuba, China, and a rotating seat for the latest flavor of oppressive Islamist regime. In the midst of a cold conflict with China, progressives are more interested in lambasting a pluralistic and diverse country such as India rather than bolstering ties with this potential and essential ally that could decide the result of the US-China quarrel.

Now I don’t think this is some grand deep state conspiracy. I think it’s just simply the coalescing of several factors such as the incubation of progressivism in US academia/media, the activist economic complex, and loss of religion in America. But these causes deserve another expansion themselves.

This isn’t to excuse America’s far right. Their ideas are backwards and probably much more brutal than the far left’s. But while I am afraid of what the far right can do, I am more afraid of what the far left will do. Time and democracy are tilting left; and with time, the far left may be a danger to democracy itself.

“I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”

EVELYN BEATRICE HALL, THE FRIENDS OF VOLTAIREhttps://theemissary.co/why-the-far-left-is-more-dangerous-than-the-far-right/

Some Thoughts About American Governance

Evidence of democratic decay

“Three years into the Trump administration, American democracy has eroded to a point that more often than not leads to full-blown autocracy, according to a project that tracks the health of representative government in nations around the world. ..... V-Dem’s findings are bracing: The United States is undergoing “substantial autocratization” — defined as the loss of democratic traits — that has accelerated precipitously under President Trump. This is particularly alarming in light of what the group’s historic data show: Only 1 in 5 democracies that start down this path are able to reverse the damage before succumbing to full-blown autocracy.” --- Washington Post, Sept. 18, 2020

The increasing rancor and irrationality of politics over the last ~30 years, especially over the last four years, sometimes leads to the thought that our form of government is irretrievably broken. Some experts are sounding that alarm. Social media is a new toxic power that demagogues, liars, kleptocrats and tyrants can bring to bear. It is making matters much worse than would otherwise be the case. American society certainly has not kept up with antidotes to relentless anti-democratic, pro-authoritarian social media poison.

Is America and its representative democracy effectively governable any more?  Specifically, are we expecting too much of politicians and politics? Is the mess we are in more than any human or political party be expected to effectively deal with? Or, are we just in a phase that will pass and relative calm and order will reassert itself in due course?

To keep such issues in context, one needs to think about it in view of the following relevant factors:

• A society that is presently unable to recognize the things that most Americans have in common to help them work in reasonable cooperation --- dark free speech and other forces intentionally designed to tear us apart, keep us apart and create a deep distrust to block both cooperation and compromise have done the democracy and social and political comity wrecking job quite well 
• Deeply divided government
• Often irrational and reality-detached political thinking
• Often irrational, tribal political thinking (motivated reasoning)
• Government intentionally designed to be hard to operate
• Deeply divided, often irrational society
• Endless, relentless, ruthless and increasingly effective dark free speech that is knowingly intended to foment irrational, unfounded fear, anger, hate, bigotry, intolerance, racism, and just plain stupidity
• Deep distrust in, or complete rejection of, inconvenient science, experts, inconvenient press and news media, political opposition, fellow citizens with opposing political opinions and/or beliefs
• Ruthless, immoral, well-funded special interests, backed by hundreds of millions to buy influence and a supreme court willing to defend the attendant corruption
• A powerful, toxic radical right libertarianism ideology relentlessly promoted by vicious billionaires hell bent on destroying the capacity of the federal government to function competently or even functioning at all (drown it in a bathtub)
• Toxic social media and siloed citizens no longer willing to even listen to, tolerate or accept opposing or inconvenient argument, points of view or facts
• A dominant, market-oriented morality and mindset that largely negates human moral and social concerns in the name of market efficiency and ideals, e.g., immoral meritocracy, that alienate many people and often leads to unhappiness and bad outcomes including our current president and his corrupted political party

When one puts themselves in the position of an American politician or president who is trying to govern transparently, honestly and in the name of the public interest, what can one conclude? Can any politician or party succeed? Can a politician even be transparent and honest and still be effective?[1] At present, who can succeed under current conditions, including Biden and the democratic party?

Assuming the foregoing description of political and social reality is basically correct, it can lead one to conclude that our system of government, coupled with toxic politics and a poisoned society is failing and America is moving maybe irretrievably into some kind of a corrupt, vicious, incompetent demagogic dictatorship-plutocracy-Christian theocracy, accompanied by collapse of civil liberties.

Question: Is that over the top, about right or understated?

Footnote: 

1. I mention transparency and honesty to point out that they are prime targets for political opposition. It is well-known in politics that once a person states a position, it is then subject to both rational and irrational attacks. And these days, irrational emotion-provoking attacks are de rigueur among conservatives. The tendency to be politically opaque is potent and toxic. The need for political opacity poisons congress, as radical right Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) accurately summarized in 2018:

“. . . . . the people don't have a way to fire the bureaucrats. What we mostly do around this body is not pass laws. What we mostly decide to do is to give permission to the secretary or the administrator of bureaucracy X, Y or Z to make law-like regulations. That’s mostly what we do here. We go home and we pretend we make laws. No we don’t. We write giant pieces of legislation, 1200 pages, 1500 pages long, that people haven’t read, filled with all these terms that are undefined, and say to secretary of such and such that he shall promulgate rules that do the rest of our dang jobs. That’s why there are so many fights about the executive branch and the judiciary, because this body rarely finishes its work. [joking] And, the House is even worse.”

The Current Election Lawsuit Explained: Whacky Statistics & Invisible Fraud

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

(Motto: “I didn't do it. I'm innocent! I want a pardon.”)

The lawsuit in brief

Washington Post articles describe the latest lawsuit to overturn the election. It was filed by republican Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. It aims to nullify all votes in GA, MI, PN and WI and award the election to the president because he won. The president is demanding all republicans in congress to join the lawsuit as a show of loyalty. So far, 17 republican state attorneys general have file briefs in support of the case. 

The statistical argument

The lawsuit differs from past failed lawsuits that have claimed widespread voter fraud and/or other problems serious enough to cause the president to lose the electoral college. One new line of argument is that (1) the odds of Biden winning WI are 1 in 1 quadrillion (1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000) and (2) the odds of Biden winning GA, MI, PN and WI are less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power (<1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). The statistical argument is blithering nonsense based on smoke and mirrors. Someone just made stuff up and Paxton put it in his lawsuit.

The invisible fraud argument

The other new line of attack on the voting in GA, MI, PN and WI is that widespread fraud happened but it is not detectable because elections officials, not voters, did illegal things that hid or obscured evidence of the fraud. WaPo writes:

“Despite the chaos of election night and the days which followed, the media has consistently proclaimed that no widespread voter fraud has been proven,” the lawsuit says (and that proclamation is accurate). “But this observation misses the point. The constitutional issue is not whether voters committed fraud but whether state officials violated the law by systematically loosening the measures for ballot integrity so that fraud becomes undetectable.”  

“The unlawful actions of election officials effectively destroy the evidence by which the fraud may be detected,” it says. 

The lawsuit does not claim evidence of fraud in the vote-tabulation process but rather says, “The public record demonstrates a ballot-counting process replete with chaos, confusion, and partisan bias.”

In essence, this lawsuit abandons claims in prior lawsuits that fraud can be proven. Now, the backup legal position is that the fraud was real but was made undetectable by bad election officials. From what I recall, there was no significant chaos, confusion or partisan bias on election night or in the following days. That's what all the experts said and that is what videos that I saw showed.

Ken Paxton

Mr. Paxton is a colorful and playful character. He may be under investigation by the FBI for a slew of crimes. If so, this lawsuit is most likely a bid for a pardon from the president. Given the apparent levels of corruption among GOP politicians, maybe the other state attorneys general and republicans in congress who join this crackpot lawsuit are also looking for pardons.

Slate describes the overall high level of sleaziness of Paxton's lawsuit and his likely motive in filing it. What Slate describes as going on in Texas is just off-scale nuts:

Paxton’s suit is shot through with conspiracy theories and constitutional claims with no basis in law. Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins, who typically authors the office’s lawsuits, did not sign on to this one, nor did his deputies; instead, Paxton brought in a “special counsel” from outside the agency. His suit is so ridiculous that it led some commentators to wonder whether the attorney general might have another motive for filing it. Paxton, after all, is reportedly under investigation by the FBI for alleged bribery and abuse of office. Trump, meanwhile, has been distributing pardons to his allies like candy. Paxton’s suit makes more sense as pardon-bait than it does as a legal document. And he may need presidential clemency to escape the federal criminal charges that could be imminent. 

He also embarked upon a relentless crusade to suppress voting rights in the run-up to the 2020 election. Paxton fought to prevent young people from voting by mail, then threatened to prosecute Texans who voted absentee due to fear of COVID-19. He prevented counties from sending absentee ballot applications to all voters, prohibited any county from offering more than one ballot drop box, and unsuccessfully sought to ban drive-thru voting. No state official did more than Paxton in 2020 to restrict the franchise. It is not entirely surprising that he now asks, after the election, that SCOTUS toss out millions of ballots. 

The attorney general also has a long history of legal trouble that predates his alliance with Trump. In 2015, a Texas grand jury indicted the attorney general on charges of felony securities fraud. Paxton allegedly urged his friends to buy shares in a company without disclosing his secret commissions or registering as a securities broker with the state. He has already paid a fine for this transgression, and remains under indictment to this day. But his case has never gone to trial, in large part because his friends in the county government defunded the prosecution. Paxton’s wife, a Republican state senator, also filed legislation that would allow her husband to issue exemptions from the securities regulations he allegedly violated.

This fall, Paxton’s own staff accused him of even more serious crimes. On Oct. 1, seven senior staff members asked federal law enforcement to investigate the attorney general for “violating federal and/or state law including prohibitions related to improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses.” The group was led by Jeff Mateer, who served as Paxton’s top assistant before resigning. Mateer has sterling GOP bona fides: In 2017, Trump nominated him to the federal bench, but he withdrew after CNN reported that he had derided transgender children as part of “Satan’s plan,” condemned same-sex marriage as “debauchery,” and endorsed “conversion therapy.” Paxton dismissed Mateer and his colleagues as “rogue employees” and fired aides who refused to resign after reporting their boss. These aides then launched a whistleblower lawsuit against the attorney general.  

Mateer’s letter did not explain the allegations against Paxton. But in a leaked text message, he told Paxton that the complaints involved his “relationship and activities with Nate Paul.” A real estate developer in Austin, Paul donated $25,000 to Paxton’s 2018 campaign. The two are, at a minimum, acquaintances: While Paxton was having an affair with an aide to a GOP state senator, he encouraged Paul to hire his mistress. (Paxton has acknowledged the affair but denied pulling strings for his mistress; Paul has denied that he hired the individual at Paxton’s request.) (emphasis added)

Gadzooks!! Something smells very fishy in GOP Texasland politics. 

American Hunger Rising

NYPD cop decides to pay for food a woman 

was caught trying to steal 

The New York Times reports:

Early in the pandemic, Joo Park noticed a worrisome shift at the market he manages near downtown Washington: At least once a day, he’d spot someone slipping a package of meat, a bag of rice or other food into a shirt or under a jacket. Diapers, shampoo and laundry detergent began disappearing in bigger numbers, too.

Since then, he said, thefts have more than doubled at Capitol Supermarket — even though he now stations more employees at the entrance, asks shoppers to leave backpacks up front and displays high-theft items like hand sanitizer and baking yeast in more conspicuous areas. Park doesn’t usually call the police, choosing instead to bar offenders from coming back.

“It’s become much harder during the pandemic,” he said. “People will say, ‘I was just hungry.’ And then what do you do?”

Shoplifting is up markedly since the pandemic began in the spring and at higher levels than in past economic downturns, according to interviews with more than a dozen retailers, security experts and police departments across the country. But what’s distinctive about this trend, experts say, is what’s being taken — more staples like bread, pasta and baby formula.

Meanwhile, an estimated 54 million Americans will struggle with hunger this year, a 45 percent increase from 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. With food aid programs like SNAP and WIC being reduced, and other federal assistance on the brink of expiration, food banks and pantries are being inundated, reporting hours-long waits and lines that stretch into the thousands.

With no stimulus aid and her savings gone by May, Jean said she was out of options. So she began sneaking food into her son’s stroller at the local Walmart. She said she’d take things like ground beef, rice or potatoes but always pay for something small, like a packet of M&M’s. Each time, she’d tell herself that God would understand.

“I used to think, if I get in trouble, I’d say, ‘Look, I’m sorry, I wasn’t stealing a television. I just didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t malicious. We were hungry,’ ” said Jean, 21, who asked to be identified by her middle name to discuss her situation freely. “It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s what I had to do.”  

But the coronavirus crisis, she said, ushered in a new level of desperation. Finding a job and child care became increasingly difficult. When money became tight, she prioritized rent and car payments over groceries. “My car, my apartment were things that could be taken from me — and then where would that leave me and my son?” she said. “This is going to sound bad, but at least I could try to get food in other ways.” 

Nearly 26 million adults — or 1 in 8 Americans — reported not having enough food to eat as of mid-November, according to the latest data from the Census Bureau. That figure has climbed steadily during the pandemic, and has hit record highs since the government agency began collecting such data in 1998.

Other reports on negotiations between the McConnell and House democrats indicate that democrats have moved from asking for about $2-3 trillion in aid to about $905 billion. McConnell has gone from $500 billion to about $905. It is not clear how likely it is that the two sides will reach a compromise. Both sides blame each other for not compromising. McConnell accusing democrats of being controlled by lawyers. Democrats blame the GOP for being more interested in helping and protecting businesses against consumers, while not having much concern for unemployed workers who are in increasingly desperate straits.

So, while politicians are unable to compromise, increasing numbers of Americans are forced to resort to stealing food because they are hungry.

What an unnecessary mess. It's a disgrace. Guess I need to find a local food bank to donate money to. Since our government is broken and the GOP really does not care about human suffering, regular people have to step in and try to help. 

Fun With Computer Security: Three Levels of Hell

FireEye needs to reimagine it's security protocols 'cause 

those sneaky Russkis stole 'em

I hope this isn't TL/DR.

The first level

The New York Times reports that a top cybersecurity firm, FireEye, has been hacked, probably by the Russian government. The attack is thought to probably be in retaliation for the firm's past anti-hacking successes against businesses and governments. The NYT writes: 

WASHINGTON — For years, the cybersecurity firm FireEye has been the first call for government agencies and companies around the world who have been hacked by the most sophisticated attackers, or fear they might be.

Now it looks like the hackers — in this case, evidence points to Russia’s intelligence agencies — may be exacting their revenge.

FireEye revealed on Tuesday that its own systems were pierced by what it called “a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities.” The company said hackers used “novel techniques” to make off with its own tool kit, which could be useful in mounting new attacks around the world.

It was a stunning theft, akin to bank robbers who, having cleaned out local vaults, then turned around and stole the F.B.I.’s investigative tools. In fact, FireEye said on Tuesday, moments after the stock market closed, that it had called in the F.B.I. 

The $3.5 billion company, which partly makes a living by identifying the culprits in some of the world’s boldest breaches — its clients have included Sony and Equifax — declined to say explicitly who was responsible. But its description, and the fact that the F.B.I. has turned the case over to its Russia specialists, left little doubt who the lead suspects were and that they were after what the company calls “Red Team tools.”

That is is just a reminder of the reality and intensity of forever cyberwar. Now Russia (or whoever hacked the company) can use the company's tools to hack everyone else. 

Being a fairly regular critic of Putin and his endless lies and kleptocratic thuggery, Dissident Politics has gone to permanent Red Alert! status. (Shields up Warf! Warf: Huh?)

The next level: This is even more disturbing 

China is reporting exciting news about a new generation of quantum computers that is fast at doing some specifically hard-wired calculations & stuff. The Chinese government has developed a new way to do quantum computing using a few photons, optical fibers and mirrors. It's almost smoke and mirrors. LiveScience reports:

A team of Chinese scientists has developed the most powerful quantum computer in the world, capable of performing at least one task 100 trillion times faster than the world's fastest supercomputers.

In 2019, Google said it had built the first machine to achieve "quantum supremacy," the first to outperform the world's best supercomputers at quantum calculation, Live Science previously reported. (IBM disputed Google's claim at the time.) The Chinese team, based primarily at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, reported their quantum computer, named Jiuzhang, is 10 billion times faster than Google's. [That's pretty darn fast]

Success is measured in terms of number of photons detected. Jiuzhang, which itself is an optical circuit, detected a maximum of 76 photons in one test and an average of 43 across several tests. Its calculation time to produce the list of numbers for each experimental run was about 200 seconds, while the fastest Chinese supercomputer, TaihuLight, would have taken 2.5 billion years to arrive at the same result. That suggests the quantum computer can do GBS 100 trillion times faster than a classical supercomputer.

In the future: Experts believe that quantum computers will be able to hack essentially all encryption keys in use today, making everything available to thieving hackers and hostile nations at cyberwar with any nation, group, company or person they choose to go to attack. Quantum computing technology keeps inching toward that glorious day when essentially all encryption fails and most everything encrypted becomes hackable. 

Countermeasures today: Fortunately, changes to cope are underway. Experts are working on an old technology called the sneakernet. Sneakernet is people typing on typewriters, and walking to deliver stacks of their typed papers to other people. So far, it is believed that quantum computers cannot hack that kind of a high tech, paper-based security system, which was invented whenever the typewriter was invented. Of course, burglars can still potentially hack that kind of a system.

Digression: The new Chinese computer works so fast that reality is distorted and a landscape looks like this to a human:

Well, not really. Landscapes still look like this:

Going to play Donkey Kong

(staring at that makes me dizzy - gotta stop)

The third level: This one is the worst

At present, essentially all important government, business, staches of private kiddy porn and other kinds of criminal information is maintained under some sort of encryption that cannot be hacked or decrypted** by technology in existence today. That's good, sort of, I think. Maybe.

** In this context, decrypting does not refer to stealing or otherwise removing dead bodies from a crypt. It refers to the process to of breaking encryption of electronic data or other information that makes it unreadable to anyone without a key to unlock the encryption. Applying logic, it is clear that encryption in this context does not refer to putting bodies into a crypt.[1]

Among the high jinks that modern hackers employ is a complex technique called harvesting attacks. Actually, it's a simple technique. In this method, hackers steal encrypted information, the encryption key and store it. Then they wait for quantum computers or some other new technology to develop to the point that the encryption key can be decrypted or broken. Once that happens, the thieves can read, use and/or and sell all the previously stolen content. All that data, information and naughty videos can then be sold on whatever market it can be sold on, probably the black market. Harvesting attacks have been around for years and years. Some hackers read things and gain foresight therefrom.

RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) = a public-key cryptosystem that is widely used for secure data transmission

A well-known source to all of us, PSBE Cyber News Group, reports: 

China now joins Google in claiming ‘quantum supremacy’ with new technology, creating RSA decryption concerns.

China’s top quantum-computer researchers have reported that they have achieved quantum supremacy, i.e., the ability to perform tasks a traditional supercomputer cannot. Although an exciting development, the inevitable rise of quantum computing means security teams are nearer to facing a threat more challenging than anything previous.

Quantum computing is not there quite yet. The Chinese are no closer to being able to decrypt RSA than Google or IBM, but it is only a ‘matter of time’, predicted experts.

A harvesting attack right now could grab an RSA encryption key to be filed away until quantum computing catches up, he added.

“There is no time to waste, because of other classical security problems like harvesting attacks which occur today,” Prisco explained.

“A harvesting attack is the theft of encrypted data & the RSA encryption key used to encrypt that data. While the key cannot be hacked today with the currently available quantum computer, an adversary can steal the data & the key, store it inexpensively in memory, & decrypt the info when they have access to a more powerful quantum computer that can break the key.”

Wait! What?: If hackers have stolen massive amounts of encrypted information and in time the encryption key gets cracked, what will that mean? That will mean that highly capable criminal groups and adversary countries like Russia and China will have additional boatloads of stolen information to use for themselves and/or to use against us. The value of that could run to the hundreds of billions, or more likely trillions. In February 2018, the US Council of Economic Advisers estimated that malicious cyber activity cost the U.S. economy between $57 billionand $109 billion in 2016. Because companies tend to not be honest about their losses to cybercrooks, my estimate is that the cost was at least $200 billion for 2016.

In general, the data theft will be from advanced western democracies, which tend to have the best and most valuable technologies and secret information. Lots of data is not encrypted, so all the advanced stuff is beside the point.[2]

Footnotes: 

1. This is completely unrelated to stealing bodies from the crypt or putting them in. 

Wikipedia: Crypto Wars is an unofficial name for the U.S. and allied governments' attempts to limit the public's and foreign nations' access to cryptography strong enough to resist decryption by national intelligence agencies (especially USA's NSA). Crypto wars implicates free speech concerns and is the subject of ongoing lawsuits.

An export-restricted munition or weapon

Wikipedia's caption: Export-restricted RSA encryption source code printed on a T-shirt made the T-shirt an export-restricted munition, as a freedom of speech protest against US encryption export restrictions. (The shirt's back shows relevant clauses of the United States Bill of Rights under a 'VOID' stamp.) Changes in the export law means that it is no longer illegal to export this T-shirt from the US, or for US citizens to show it to foreigners.

2. The Varonis data security blog writes: As more and more companies experience crippling security breaches, the wave of compromised data is on the rise. Data breach statistics show that hackers are highly motivated by money to acquire data, and that personal information is a highly valued type of data to compromise. It’s also apparent that companies are still not prepared enough for breaches even though they are becoming more commonplace. In fact, the 2019 Data Risk Report found that companies still keep thousands of files unprotected and open for anyone inside the company to access.