[P2P-F] Fw: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and OWS... Who Knew?

Tue Nov 22 11:25:36 CET 2011

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: John Fullerton <jfullerton at capitalinstitute.org>
To: Robert Searle <dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk> 
Sent: Monday, 21 November 2011, 23:00
Subject: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and OWS... Who Knew?

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The Joint Chiefs of Staff and OWS... Who Knew? 

I had the privilege last week to meet with recently retired US Marine Corp Colonel Mark (“Puck”) Mykleby, who authored with Navy Captain Wayne Porter “A National Strategic Narrative,” under the pen name “Mr Y.” Their paper was intended to begin to define the narrative that will replace “containment”—which became the central doctrine of US foreign policy after George Kennan wrote “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” under the pseudonym “X” in 1947.
Mykleby's and Porter’s paper, part of a project authorized in 2009 by the Joint Chiefs to develop a new “Grand Strategic Narrative,” is very high level and sweeping. At its core is a recommendation that our national security will be dependent upon a switch from “containment to sustainment,” a play on the word “sustainability.” What impressed me was how the most senior members of our military seemed to grasp the sustainability imperative as a national security priority, more so than many of our political leaders, and more so than many in the private sector.
Like OWS, the intent of the new "Grand Strategic Narrative" project is to spark a national conversation. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and OWS ... Who Knew? Read more here.  
John Fullerton Speaks at Yale 

John Fullerton gave a talk last Tuesday at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies as part of the school’s "Grasslands Speakers Series." The series hosted a variety of speakers from around the country who are engaged in activities related to grassland ecology, conservation, and restoration, and the use of grasslands as working land. Speakers included renowned natural systems agriculture researcher and founder of The Land Institute Wes Jackson. View the slide show of John’s talk here, and read Capital Institute’s case study of Grasslands here, part of our Field Guide to Investing in a Resilient Economy series.

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A Breath of Fresh Air

On Thursday night, following the eviction of the OWS movement's flagship occupation in Liberty Plaza, a diverse group of 35,000 people peacefully marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to show support for the occupation. The march didn't produce policy papers or business plans, but it did bring together the biggest gathering of people for the values of the Occupy movement since its beginnings two months ago. 
This is what the movement is about and answers all of the process questions being raised by Occupy's detractors. Community-based activists don't draft policy proposals, policy-makers do. The movement needs to continue to show it has the capacity to amass the people, and the policy-makers need to take note. Read more here.

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Last Week at Capital Institute 
Dan Swinney stopped by our offices in Greenwich last week to talk about his ground-breaking work with the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council and the Center for Labor and Community Research. Swinney worked for 15 years as a turret lathe operator and labor organizer in North Chicago. In 1982, after his last employer, Taylor Forge, was taken over and milked for cash by Gulf & Western Corporation Swinney founded the Center for Labor and Community Research.
We must now block off the “low road” of short-termism and speculation that is plunging us deeper into societal and environmental malaise, and destroying our nation’s critical productive capacity, says Swinney. Reviving and redirecting that capacity to support our transition to a more just and sustainable economy and to build new wealth for all Americans will require labor, community, government and the private sector to abandon their adversarial relationships and work collaboratively. The Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council, with its unlikely collaboration among 65 local manufacturing companies, labor unions, the inner city Chicago community of Austin, and Austin Polytechnic High School (founded by Swinney) is showing the way. Stay tuned to Capital Institute for more on this remarkable project. What We're Reading 

In his paper "Time for Social Contract 2.0?" Allen L. White, Director of Corporation 20/20 and cofounder of the Global Reporting Initiative, notes that “amid the rancorous climate fueling the Occupy Wall Street movement, one concept has emerged as a shared banner among politicians and pundits on both the left and right: the 'social contract.'" In his paper White explores the conservative and progressive movements’ conflicting interpretations of the social contract. He concludes that “it is the progressive version of the contract that represents the enlighted path forward.”

Meanwhile, in his paper “Building the Bridge to the High Road," Dan Swinney of the Center for Labor and Community Research proposes a new social contract that rejects both “left” and “freemarket” approaches. The new contract will be “written” between the firm and the community, government and civil society—where all are “committed to economic democracy and an expanded level of public participation in all aspects of society and in all aspects of the economy."

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Quote of the Week 

"I would sympathize... with those who would minimize rather than those who would maximize, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel - these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily local."
John Maynard Keynes, National Self Sufficiency, 1933 

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Comments of the Week 

From Responding to Occupy Wall Street:
"What the Harvard Students intuit is the same that the French economics students at the Sorbonne intuited about ten years ago when they walked out on their professors. The French students issued a statement declaring their economics professors ... unwilling to see that which is right in front of their eyes. The website that evolved to capture their spirit is now called Real World Economics Review http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/"
Chuck Willer

From Braintrust Series: Peter Victor:
"In response to Peter Victor's question, 'can we at least build institutions that can take the longer and broader view?' let me suggest we do already have some of these. They are our biggest Institutional Investors: Pensions, Endowments, Insurance. There is also much anecdotal evidence that individual investors, both the wealthy and the not-so-wealthy, can and do want to balance short-term and longer-term choices." Tim

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