Managing Political Volatility

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Uber-Nomenklatura (International Pirates of Opportunity):
For "Ultimate Play On Volatility" (to consolidate rule of Uber-Nomenklatura), see http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/bidens_generated_crisis.html.
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Managing Political Volatility

Masters of Piracy and Change:

Volatility --- in power, politics, society, business, and profiteering --- can be managed with religion, assassinations, threats, intimidation, servility, insanity, facades, luck, bad luck, drugs, or integrity. When your ship comes in is no time to rest on laurels for currency manipulation and volatility.

George Soros, like other professional pirates, knows full well that he cannot very well pillage disproportionate profits out of proportionate smoothness. Rather, as any Chicago player can tell you, to leverage enough “change” to service extreme payoffs necessitates inducing extreme changes in volatility.

But, the U.S., as a bulwark of stability and smooth transition, calms opportunities that otherwise would present based on global volatility. So, those competing to parlay skills in games of volatility tend to breed near weak points for targeting American defenses. Obviously, it well serves purposes of ilk such as Reverend Wright to incite hatred for America.

Unfortunately, the half of the electorate that is below average in intelligence tends to be disproportionately naïve or weak in evaluating practical executive experience.

Unfortunately, purveyors of volatility (or anarchism or nihilism) find such persons to be easy marks, to be duped by usefully-conditioned idiots (such as leftist media and their educators), who easily lead in confusing self esteem and book learning about abstractions with merit, smartness, and civilizing competency, and who easily lead in confusing collectivist pillaging with individual virtue.

Unfortunately, disloyal opportunists easily become skilled to recruit ever more opportunists, teaching them to discard appreciation or loyalty to any broad philosophy that values human freedom and dignity over collectivist pillaging.

Unfortunately, once human freedom and dignity perish, such virtues become quite difficult to recover.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuTEAjO6YXg;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D-ai59EQHw;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI6e0MWqtQA; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW9RtfIiMog; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJXzohdF-MA;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T45MsH6pwM4.

Appreciate this: It is hardly racist to prefer to elect as President someone who has actual executive experience to go along with his book learning, especially when his philosophy is evidently more oriented in respect of human freedom and dignity than to collectivist pillaging.

Appreciate this: It is hardly racist to prefer to elect as Vice President a woman who is at least as capable and experienced as her opposing candidate for President.

Note to MSNBC Staffers For Leftists: Get a grip. And grow up!

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BTW: To what part of the American ideal is Obama loyal or patriotic? Is his loyalty to the ideal of opportunity to pursue individual freedom and dignity, or is his loyalty to payoffs, paybacks, and payola availed by inciting collectivist pillaging and co-dependency? On what basis should we judge him, in respect of his deeds, successes, personal relationships, or examples of character shown in facing up to hardships?

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MANUFACTURING VOLATILITY FOR PLAYING POLITICAL POWER AND MARKET WEALTH:

Supposedly, ethical playing of stock and commodities markets “on a level playing field” consists in placing buys based on skilled predictions of future needs and volatility, but without illegally acquiring or using “inside information.”

Of course, few things, including rules about inside information, are amenable of being made perfectly clear. Rather, one skilled in speculating and betting beyond “objective conditions” may bluff, feint, persuade, or cheat other players in order to instill and convert their perceptions to one’s own purposes, especially upon acquiring or leveraging enough resources to demand attention to one’s tactics.

One may attract attention among co-conspirators for engaging such tactics:

(1) legally, with mind games,

(2) illegally, by resorting to direct manufacturing of inside information, or

(3) ambiguously, by navigating a gray area between legality and illegality, between conspiracy and law making.

One may train, time, tip, shove, leverage, or manufacture inside information, rumors, or deceptions about market volatility concerning human needs and interests in shortages, overages, obsoletes, novelties, bottlenecks, or cornerings in any number of ways.

Examples: One may conspire to exploit swells and opportunities in media disinformation, agricultural clothing and food crops, medical pharmaceuticals, glamorizing of fashions, fads, and products, entertaining, mesmerizing, seducing, persuading, deceptively misdirecting, destabilizing, tracking, spying, infecting, intimidating, blackmailing, threatening, assassinating, regulating, innovating, patenting, monopolizing, hoarding, dumping, exploiting of natural disasters, artificial disasters, wars, accessorizing, computerizing, communicating, encoding, or exploiting of money markets.

All a conjuring conniver needs is a stake or sponsor for parlaying skill for predicting or manipulating asymmetrical connections among emerging volatilities.

No politician can compete in big time markets without insinuations by sponsors. Among sponsors, which factions are sponsoring Obama and which are sponsoring McCain?

In what ways are major sponsors united in an unholy alliance, for which Red Ass Moderates are obliged to be clear sighted?

Those Illuminati pulling the most influential strings for serious political parties are bent to an unholy alliance for promoting globalism, no matter how high the resulting volatility. Many seem unfazed by much concern for fellow empathy. Their globalistic agenda is not primarily driven either by patriotism or by humanitarianism, but by practiced love for gaming volatility.

Red Ass Moderates (and Mavericks) must be diligently alert and not buy into globalists' protestations of patriotism! Man the fire hoses!

Fair Trade and "National Strategery"

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(Continued from “Time To Tax Consumption,” “Free Trade that is Fair,” and “Managing Volatility with Sales Taxes and Tariffs,” below.)

Fair Trade and "National Strategery":

Leftists tend to want to “think” with their Feelings and emotions, while demanding objective Reasoning from Conservatives.

However, smart Moderates should season reason with empathetic, enlightened Intuition, recognizing that political and social choices are inter-permeated with incompleteness and subjectivity. That is, there is no encompassing formula for making completely objective decisions about fair trade. Rather, one’s notions about fair trade quickly reduce to nonsense, unless guided by a meaningful, defining philosophy.

In my philosophy, one should encourage one’s countrymen to respect human Freedom and Dignity in promoting governance that seems most likely to avail civilizing Sustenance, Sustainability, and options for Surpassing excellence. We must encourage and tolerate freedom, without tolerating its being undermined by collectivism or fascism --- whether secular or religious.

Freedom and dignity entail respect for individual initiative, innovation, and self reliance. Not entailed are empowering and encouraging sloth, victim mongering, zombie addiction, emotional blackmailing, and gang-style, collectivist robbing.

One may fantasize to try to “objectify” fair trade. For example, one may suggest that each nation should arrange its trade policies in “fair” respect for all other nations. One may suggest that one’s government or nation: (1) ought not “disproportionately arm-twist” other nations so as to “cheat” their citizens out of the fair exchange value their work adds to their resources and production; and (2) ought not allow other nations to cheat one’s own nation out of the fair exchange value its citizens’ work adds to their own resources and production.

However, at least four problems seriously intrude upon such fantasy:
(1) The fantasy assumes “givens” (objective measurability of value added) can be measured, even though such “givens” are more insuperable than given;
(2) The fantasy assumes “capacity to arm twist” is not, or should not be, in itself, a legitimate aspect of a nation’s natural resources;
(3) The fantasy assumes other nations can naturally be counted on to reciprocate, symmetrically and in kind, by trading fair-dealing for fair-dealing; and
(4) The fantasy assumes other nations and their citizens share in having assimilated America’s core values and philosophies relating to individual freedom, dignity, and fairness, as opposed to values of co-dependency, cultural entitlement, and collectivist pillaging.

Regardless, events have brought us to a point such that a notion of “free trade that is fair” has become of meaningful import. Such meaningfulness, however, is not found in “objectification,” but in respect for core values that define our civilization.

History has brought us to a date such that wealthy and powerful “Cosmopolitan’ists,” of an unholy alliance among both the Left and the Right, with little learning, loyalty, or love for national patriotism, humane philosophy, or Western Civilization, are alarmingly undermining the borders, symbols, and values that gird America's freedom and dignity.

It is one thing to accord decent respect or tolerance for trading partners. It is an altogether unenlightened, weak, and repugnant thing to extend such tolerance to such a point as to participate in our own destruction.

The line for “fair trade” becomes this: We must not allow “free trade” to be used as a zombie-inducing mantra for sacrificing Western freedom and dignity to such Globalists and their allies as seek to reduce freedom-loving Americans to debt slaves.

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NWO / NAFTA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14Li0Wa5rc0;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brYWujMC-0k;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdxI0zClV_Y.

Managing Volatility with Sales Taxes and Tariffs

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(Continued from "Time To Tax Consumption" and "Free Trade that is Fair," below.)

Managing Volatility with Sales Taxes and Tariffs:

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FLAT TRANSACTION TAXES: Allowing the effectuation of differential rates for taxes on sales and imports of different products could be a tool for encouraging or discouraging the production or distribution of socially desirable versus undesirable products.

PROGRESSIVE CONSUMPTION TAX: Allowing the effectuation of progressively increasing rates for taxing individuals on gross yearly consumption could be a tool for reducing gulfs in economic power between “haves” and “have nots.”

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POWER TO TAX IS POWER TO DESTROY:

PROBLEMS for deciding and implementing tariff policies would be similar to problems for deciding and implementing sales tax policies, subject to added complexity, respecting relations among affected nations and governments.

In many cases, unless an individual taxpayer may be represented by a party, union, monopolist, or foreign government, the taxing government will have decidedly uneven power to impose its will.

Assuming social and political volatility could be managed with enlightened governmental policies for sales taxes and tariffs (whether by positive collections or by refunding disbursements), challenges may be considered in three respects:

First: For each product, figure out the “best” policy in respect of taxes on sales and imports.
Second: Devise political means for legitimizing the governmental effectuation of such policy.
Third: Coordinate effectuation with feedback so as to enhance, rather than diminish, the policy objectives.

Grading the “best” policy for sales taxes and tariffs entails considerable subjectivity and volatility in weighing various factors, some less legitimate than others.

Thus, one who makes decisions on behalf of government may wish:
1) To access available sources of tax revenue;
2) To respect the virtue of private property and initiative by encouraging free markets;
3) To encourage innovation for virtuous products and consumption;
4) To discourage harmful products and consumption;
5) To grow the economy;
6) To protect local, national, or allied industries and jobs;
7) To punish unfair competitors and nations;
8) To reward politicians’ personal favorites;
9) To fish for campaign contributions for politicians who are members of the ruling political party;
10) To opportune one’s nation or friends with playable volatility;
11) To err on the side of ensuring good will;
12) To remain within bounds of human decency; and
13) To inspire respect for national independence and integrity.

Because of inherent aspects of subjectivity and volatility entailed in reconciling all such wishes, there may be no objective way to calculate, predict, or promise the “best” policy or tax rate.

Rather, much scheming and subjective adjusting may be needed, notwithstanding public ideals, or expectations of at least pretenses, of “transparency” and objectivity.

Thus, production, consumption, and trade are inherently volatile. And no electorate is very well equipped to demand or prescribe precisely, in advance, what should be the tax policy or rate for any particular product or trading partner.

Government is inherently vulnerable to incompetence, temptation of overreaching, and bribery of decision makers. Government is not inherently reliable for respecting overarching “best” needs and ideals for a civilization.

Nevertheless, may some sort of relatively independent, apolitical, cabinet level department be instituted or advisable, for recommending, determining, or effecting policies and rates for various taxes on sales and imports?
Would such a department more likely lead us to more enlightened protection of American industry and independence?
If so, what system of checks and balances may help protect citizenry against such a department’s temptations and abuses?

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COMMENT:

There is already an agency, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) in the United States Department of Commerce, which provides grants to economically-distressed communities to generate new employment, help retain existing jobs and stimulate industrial and commercial growth.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Development_Administration and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_Commerce. However, it lacks a range of unilateral discretion or authority to adjust, raise, or lower rates for taxes on sales or imports of specific categories of products based on judgments about overall economic needs.

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COMMENTS: Problems in conceptualizing “givens” which cannot be given (Insuperable Cognitive Limits):

FROM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_taxes :
Perhaps the biggest problem with the Pigovian tax is the "knowledge problem" suggested on page 6 of Pigou's essay "Some Aspects of the Welfare State" (1954) where he writes, "It must be confessed, however, that we seldom know enough to decide in what fields and to what extent the State, on account of [the gaps between private and public costs] could interfere with individual choice." In other words, the economist's blackboard "model" assumes knowledge we don't possess — it's a model with assumed "givens" which are in fact not given to anyone. Indeed, this is knowledge which could not be provided as a "given" by any "method" yet discovered, due to insuperable cognitive limits theorized by economists like Friedrich Hayek and researchers in the various fields of nonlinear dynamics.

FEDERAL CIGARETTE TAX: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298663,00.html.

FUEL TAXES: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax.

OIL PRICE INCREASES: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_price_increases_since_2003#Fuel_taxes.

SEE ALSO: Genuine Progress Indicator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_Progress_Indicator); Gross National Happiness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_happiness); Ecological Taxation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotax); Carbon Tax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax); Carbon cap and trade systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading).

JEWS

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JEWS:

For whatever confluence of reasons, much of humanity’s volatility, historically, has somehow been “chosen” to become aligned for and against Jews.

There are various superficial groups and tribes that are more into promoting their own than in assimilating to any higher cause. Some people think Jews behaving tribalistically are at the root of trends towards elitist collectivism over representative republicanism. The entire discussion at https://jordanbpeterson.com/psychology/on-the-so-called-jewish-question/ is interesting in that regard. But it should be read in its entirety, to get all sides. Including the comments of Keely Swan at the bottom. The comments correct some of the miscalculations of Jordan Peterson (even though I usually like his analyses). It is not hateful to make oneself aware of facts.

DIASPORA:

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora.
8th-6th century BC: Conquests of the ancient Jewish kingdoms.
66 -- 70 C.E.: Romans drove Jews out of Israel and massacred many at Masada.
(Many Jews were then scattered after losing their state or were sold into slavery throughout the empire.) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada.


Snippets from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora:

The complete destruction of Jerusalem, and the settlement of several Grecian and Roman colonies in Judea, indicated the express intention of the Roman government to prevent the political regeneration of the Jewish nation. Nevertheless, forty years later the Jews put forth efforts to recover their former freedom. With Palestine exhausted, they strove, in the first place, to establish upon the ruins of Hellenism actual commonwealths in Cyrene, Cyprus, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. These efforts, resolute but unwise, were suppressed by Trajan (115-117); and under Hadrian the same fate befell the attempt of the Jews of Palestine to regain their independence (133-135). From this time on, in spite of unimportant movements under Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, and Severus, the Jews of Palestine, reduced in numbers, destitute, and crushed, lost their preponderance in the Jewish world. Jerusalem had become, under the name "Ælia Capitolina," a Roman colony, a city entirely pagan. The Jews were forbidden entrance, under pain of death. Nevertheless, 43 Jewish communities in Palestine remained in the sixth century: 12 on the coast, in the Negev, and east of the Jordan, and 31 villages in Galilee and in the Jordan valley. Further Jewish revolts erupted in the years 351, 438 and 614 in alliance with the Persians who governed Jerusalem for five years.
The destruction of Judea exerted a decisive influence upon the dispersion of the Jewish people throughout the world, as the center of worship shifted from the Temple to Rabbinic authority.
Some Jews were sold as slaves or transported as captives after the fall of Judea, others joined the existing diaspora, while still others remained in Judea and began work on the Jerusalem Talmud. For those Jews in the diaspora, they were generally accepted into the Roman Empire, but with the rise of Christianity, restrictions grew. Forced expulsions and persecution resulted in substantial shifts in the international centers of Jewish life to which far-flung communities often looked; although not always unified due to the Jewish people's dispersion itself. Jewish communities were thereby largely expelled from Judea and sent to various Roman provinces in the Middle East, Europe and North Africa.
During the Middle Ages, Jews divided into distinct regional groups which today are generally addressed according to two groupings: the Ashkenazi (Northern and Eastern European Jews) and Sephardic Jews (Spanish and Middle Eastern Jews). These groupings incorporate parallel histories sharing many series of persecutions and forced expulsions, which finally culminated in events in the 20th century that led to the State of Israel.
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Numerous subsequent exiles and persecution, as well as political and economic conditions and opportunities, affected the numbers and dynamics of Jewish diaspora.
As of 2006, the largest number of Jews lives in Israel (5,309,000), United States (5,275,000), France (492,000), Canada (372,000), and the United Kingdom (297,000). As of 2006 it is estimated that the country with the largest number of Jews is the State of Israel, with the United States falling to #2 due to assimilation and a low birth rate.
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See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Ghetto; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust.


COMMENTS:

Thus, of historical necessity, many Jews became disproportionately skilled for leveraging wealth, power, and knowledge, and many who did not were culled from the gene pool.

It is as if Something has "chosen" Jews as counterpoints, but for which little of historically significant definition or direction would have been given to the cultural evolution and progress of humanity.

Thus, Jews have figured historically and prominently, often as victims, in many financial changes or upheavals, wars, scientific advancements, and predictions of Armageddon.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_Semitism; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Rothschild; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon.

Lists of famous Jews: See http://famous.heebz.com/nobel1.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_Jews.

Why else would the least skilled, most dependent, and beggarly of non-Jews so often be so enviously hateful of disproportionately successful Jews?

BIGOTRY:

Regardless, America has undertaken a responsibility not to allow another Jewish holocaust.
Regardless, we must learn to resist being easily divided and herded by “artisans of ignorance and volatility” into camps organized for preying upon one another based on nothing more than evil-induced racial hatred and religious intolerance and bigotry.

Rather, decent civilization should encourage institutions for conditioning us with feelings of enlightened fellow-empathy and appreciation of “God.” A worthwhile civilization should inculcate decent family values, while also teaching us how not to condone those who would divide (even exterminate) us based on nothing more than bigotry.

LIMITS OF TOLERATION:

We must summon will to establish and enforce bounds, so that we tolerate neither criminal indecency nor those who seek our demise.
However, given this "Age of Liberal Toleration," it remains far from certain that Western Civilization will summon the nerve needed to preserve itself.

PURPOSE OF VOLATILITY AND CHANGE

Reaching out
Originally uploaded by Brentjp99

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PURPOSE OF VOLATILITY AND CHANGE:

One appreciating holographic signs of emerging volatility may next learn to gamble on, exploit, or market such signs. Thus, emerging signs may come to cloak or take on human personalities. Some signs one may come to advertise or wear, sort of like clothes, making signs part of one’s style, even one’s persona or signifier of gang membership.

One comes to wonder: What is the Holographic-IT that seems to facilitate such signs? What are IT’s purposes? Where does IT deign to lead us? Where should IT be intuited to be leading us? What does one’s enlightened empathy lead one to intuit about IT’s purposes?

After all, how could IT not have purpose? Does not even lack of purpose entail a form of purpose? Does choosing not to decide not entail a form of choice?

Intuiting IT has purposes, one comes to inquire: What does one’s empathy or intuition suggest, regarding what are IT’s fiery urges and purposes? Surely, IT’s purposes entail something beyond fomenting conflicts, such as race conflicts, merely for the sake of fomenting conflicts. Surely, we are not doomed always to divide into opposing armies, each ordained to coalesce around bogus apparitions (such as skin color).

Must IT choose “peace,” merely in a sense of calm symmetry? Rather, must not there always be potential for volatility, boiling beneath the surface of even the calmest of seas? Otherwise, how could we distinguish or appreciate the calm?

Abstracting beyond peace, conflicts, and historical grudge-memes to be propagated and telescoped throughout space-time, does IT idealize “arts of change?” Predictably, even when those prone to practice gambling on volatility are not stirring things up by race baiting, must they not be conniving to “shake dice” to add overlays of volatility in some other way?

In respect of laws, checks, and balances, how should a moral civilization seek to fulfill its fiery urge for the “art of change?” Beyond laws, what remains essential to preserve a moral civilization from lapsing into evil?

As a civilization comes to believe its legal Constitution “lives,” but that God does not, does not Evil come to reign? As a civilization comes to foreclose God’s purposes to interpretations by mind-control freaks, rather than to each holographic-citizen’s individually evolving empathy and intuition, so also, does not Evil come to reign? Does not Evil opportune upon the foreclosing of all notions of “God” or “Enlightened Goodness” from one’s empathetic intuition?

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Methods for conniving to "shake dice" to exacerbate VOLATILITY, in order to enhance positions for skilled control freaks and gamers:

Fear mongering.

Victim mongering.

Race baiting.

Hate inciting.

Media disinforming, propagandizing, persuading, and recruiting.

Greed inciting.

Inciting rumors of shortages and panic speculations.

Creating artificial shortages by market leveraging and cornering.

Political bribery and criminal force.

Partnering with empire builders and axis.

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VOLATILITY:

Masters of advantage-seeking divine the direction of flow of volatility, predict the direction of volatility, manipulate the direction of volatility, advise those who manipulate the direction of volatility, and predict the advice of those who advise the manipulation of the direction of volatility.

Such masters predict, feint, divide, and rule the schemes of others for gaming on volatility. Thus do they master the “action-art of change.”

Such mastery is often leveraged in proportion to one’s secretive skill in sacrificing all other principles to a game for winning wealth and power out of artificially, dishonestly induced ebbs and flows of volatility. Capacity to acquire wealth and power by exploiting volatility may well correlate with Machiavellian skill for deception.

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Does not Evil easily opportune upon the foreclosing of all notions of “God” or “Enlightened Goodness” from one’s empathetic intuition?

Finding yourself misled after following connivers, whom do you blame? And what do you learn?

Trust no blank slates; look to deeds as keys to character.

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VOLATILITY:

All knowledge special to a perspective of Will is potentially powerful, precisely in respect that such knowledge is “inside information.”
What meaning or pattern would ever emerge, were no discriminatory choices ever made or willed?
Beyond physical conditioning, ultimately, one may seek to enlighten wilful choices in respect of a sort of received, or spiritual, empathy.
Thereby, one may season all choices with meaningfulness.
Thus, everyone plays with volatile choices, sort of like playing with fire.
Sometimes fire is good, sometimes not.
Everyone brings habits to bear while playing with volatility.
Some habits mark acquired good taste.
Some mark bigotry.
For the most disadvantaged and ignorant, bigotry may cloak a psychologically protective unity.
Democrats may feel their party marks good taste, while the Republican party marks bigotry.
Republicans may feel vice-versa.
But, both “good taste” and “bigotry” are forms of discrimination.
Some discrimination is good, some not.
Some choices are “good,” some not.
Yet, we have no choice but to make choices, based on “inside information.”
Will must will, and volatility is its home.
All, incorrigibly, must gamble with volatility.
Play the game, brother!

But season it with fellow empathy!

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Were privacy and inside information once made public, how frantic, then, would become the games of volatility?

Asymmetrical Demographic Warfare

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Among prospects for Community Organizers, what character traits are sought or prized, if not traits for broadcasting blame against one’s country for not having provided all that to which one felt (by greed?) entitled?

Asymmetrical Demographic Warfare
Against Common Environment:

SEE COMMENTS BELOW.

Media Monopolists

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Rat Racing Media Monopolists:

Few families still converse at church, dinner tables, or anywhere else concerning important issues about spiritual, political, social, cultural, artistic, or moral ideals.

Rather, the mass education and political indoctrination of American youth and voters has been turned over to global business media owners and advertisers, aided by hired and trained allies in academia, entertainment, virtual reality, and journalism.

Result: Traditional families are being re-fitted and sub-divided into ICU's (individual consumption units) and debt slaves (much like Matrix "batteries").

I doubt a media "Fairness Doctrine" could slow or reverse such process. After all, the same monopolists who control media would simply influence the politicians and judges who would decide fairness issues. Indeed, a "Fairness Doctrine" would likely become doublespeak for excusing unfairness. Indeed, I doubt monopolists are conditioned to want "fairness."

Rather, in many respects, media monopolists pretend to oppose one another. In reality, they themselves are conditioned to engage with an emerging, unholy alliance, bent on keeping the hoi polloi confused, divided, race-baited, and volatile --- all the better to keep us running and turning the grindhouse water (rat) wheel.

The media that may help individuals retain a grasp on freedom and dignity seems to be the Internet --- assuming it does not accelerate its devolution towards erasing all speech that is "hateful" (i.e., opposed to monopolists).

For preserving freedom and dignity, there are some things thoughtful "Red Asses" could do, in respect of laws, protests, and examples.

Some "No-Brainer" Moderate Examples:

1a) Reform the Federal Reserve;
1) Protect American borders, defend America;
2) Fight for a line item veto against corrupt legislative earmarks;
3) Promote tax incentives for developing alternative energy sources;
4) Promote free trade that is fair;
5) Stop tolerating politicians' race-baiting games of victim-mongering;
6) Promote a progressive consumption tax;
7) Regulate or bust up monopolies;
8) Promote family values that are fundamental to sustaining civilization;
9) Agree to manage a sustainable population (environmental stewardship would therewith become much simpler);
10) Forcibly rehabilitate dangerous public addicts;

11) Banish Ivy League fleece artists from governmental "service;"
12) And restore and respect a general notion of spirituality and/or morality.

Congressmen, long ago, should have enacted commensurate measures, but, being reduced to status as handmaidens to lobbyists and monopolists, have been grossly and corruptly derelict in failing to do so. Now, Responsible Moderates need to get the "Red Ass" and energetically reassert adult supervision! Otherwise, we shall fall together into the indignity of an abyss of tyranny.

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Media Monopolies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership;
http://www.benbagdikian.com/;
http://www.corporations.org/media/.

In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.

See also:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/CommunCartel_Bagdikian.html.

* The country needs easy, inexpensive licensing of low-power, city- and neighborhood-range radio and TV stations. Japan has them and so can the United States. As it is, local communities and ordinary local businesses have been effectively excluded from the air by national broadcasters and advertisers.

* Paid political advertising should be banned from American broadcasting, as it is in most democracies. In the two months before elections, every station should be required to provide prime time hours for local and national candidates, with fifteen-minute minimums for presentations to avoid the slick sound biter without content that now dominate broadcast election campaigns.

* Teach serious media literacy in the schools, using independently created curricula. Some already are available and others are being developed. The average American child will spend more time in front of a TV set than in front of a teacher. The young are targets for slick materialism. They need to know how this important element in their lives operates and how it can be analyzed.

See also http://filmtv.eserver.org/media-monopoly.txt.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega
Re --- Surrender of Manuel Noriega:
“The troops guarding it instead used psychological warfare, attempting to force the defeated ruler out by using the continuous noise from a low flying helicopter and playing hard rock music and The Howard Stern Show outside the residence.
The Vatican complained to President Bush because of this and U.S. troops stopped the noise.”

Stupidity Polluting National Water Supply

I'm back! And walking on water!!!
Originally uploaded by sphynge

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Stupidity Polluting National Water Supply:

Has stupidity polluted The Nation's water supply? How to account for stupidity among our politicians, both among those leading the Left and the Right, as well as among those who elect them?

What explains Americans' burgeoning abilities to rationalize all manner of abstract doublespeak? (Given vaguespeak of pol's such as Obama, what specifically could they not do, consistent with their vapid speech?) Can it be that the "education" of most of our electorate, professoriate, and political "leadership" has become so unseasoned by experience or hardship as to be essentially worthless and meaningless?

Why are Democrats so enthralled with leaders utterly lacking in military or entrepreneurial experience?

Why are Republicans so hell bent to subsume our national borders under some fantasy of globalism?

Why have not more Moderates gotten the Red Ass!?

Given omnipresent insistence of modern advertisers bent upon monopolizing our attention, constant preoccupation with choosing among which offerings to consume, dual earner families, demise of church participation, lack of family dinner time, lack of time or interest for news, history, or philosophy, dumbing down of media, dumbing down of peers and teachers, natural selection mechanisms in place in academia for making adolescents into professors, ask:

Is it any wonder that young voters and newly "educated" elites tend to favor happy-faces-on-sticks as their leaders, especially when unseasoned by any significant military or entrepreneurial experience?

Having conferred the right to vote upon so many "educated" flakes (i.e., fools with energy), is it any wonder that they should prefer to vote for flakes?

We would fare better had we the blind leading the blind, rather than what we presently have --- the vacuous leading the vacuous.

Red Ass Moderates must stand athwart stupidity and yell, "Stop!"

****

STUPIDITY IN THE GREEN PARTY:

The Democrat Party seems to be under the control of the Green Party, whose agenda (see http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7443):
* Views socialism as the economic model of choice;
* Wants to shut down America's oil drilling, coal mining and nuclear energy initiatives;
* Views the U.S. as a racist nation;
* Claims that the American criminal-justice system is rife with discrimination;
* Promotes affirmative action, the welfare state, redistribution of wealth, universal health care, and open borders;
* Opposes Israel as a sovereign Jewish state.

****

EVIL IN LEAPING TO TRUST ONLY “BOOK SMARTS,” UNSEASONED BY HARD EXPERIENCE:

Inherited wealth, connections, position, and power, especially when unaccompanied by concrete, hard experience, such as military or entrepreneurial, often leads to disconnects with reality and moral purposefulness.

Adolescent whining and “acting out,” as if others “owe you,” apart from willingness to engage diligently in order to look after your own and your posterity’s interests, is not only obnoxious, but also provides openings for evil, through sloth, envy, and gluttony, as well as through sordid sins they invite along.

So, why do Democrats work so hard to recruit whining felons, welfare abusers, and addicts? And why do Republicans work so hard to justify opportunists bent on whining and justifying the sell out of America and our environment?

Advocacy bent on recruiting and training members of any political party in support of such whining is both obnoxious and evil. So, where are the Moderating Adults, who should be enforcing discipline and instilling character?

Why should decent folks wish to make common cause with any political party that actively panders to evil whining?

****

REASON:

Responding to Secular Humanists’ claims of fealty to reason: One wishing to see stupidity-in-action, even profane emotionalism masquerading as “reason,” need only go to one or more common, vulgar blogs frequented by vaunted “reasonable” secular humanists. Being untethered to God, reason, or civilizing foresight, “humanists” rouse themselves to action by rousing their feelings and emotions. Such is their way of "keeping it real."

Borders, Globalization, Treason and Un-Patriotism

Watching the Border
Originally uploaded by Steve Hopson

(Click title above.)

Borders, Globalization, Treason and Un-Patriotism:

BORDERS:

REGARDING WILD WEST BORDERS:

“Open economic borders” equates to “open moral borders.” Leaving the border open to be crossed, illegally, by anyone makes it open season on this side of it for folks to work out for themselves their cultural, familial, and moral differences. That is, insane politicians and their groupies are extending their invitation to reduce law and order to the Wild West.

GLOBALIZATION:

Internationaly fungible and speculative oil "market": See http://newsmax.com/insidecover/oil_speculators/2008/08/21/124032.html.

For extreme, eggheaded, globalistic, non-patriotic elitism, see this documentation about what passes for elites’ “intelligent border policy”:
Open Borders --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZtuDKU0-OU.

Where's the fence!?

To see more about what responsible folks are up against, see the following:
(Close The Borders!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuH7uJczrxM;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAcIGx-nxdI;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD6cN14Xq1k;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90SDkhwnEIo;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kmTLk2Fgas;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9pr0SlZHkY;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQxy-q2rDpI;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y60TNXfaX8E;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc1XAQc8hS8;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SugF_dQlYBw;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2w97qRwxAU;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTwO457C8bQ;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVvIL6vX5kM;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l4eHfHjNXQ;
http://townhall.com/columnists/MikeGallagher/2007/11/16/border_insanity;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States–Mexico_barrier;
http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/060901_patrol.htm.

*****

TREASON:

See http://www.ibdeditorials.com/series5.aspx http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=278291149224647

National Review
AUGUST 23, 2004 VOL. LVI, NO. 16
Lawyer of Jihad
The story of Lynne Stewart—an attorney
accused of helping Islamist terrorists—is a
powerful illustration of how easily radical leftist
dissatisfaction with America becomes cheerful
support for America’s enemies, and how a so-called
defender of the public becomes a defender of the
public’s enemies.
www.nationalreview.com
By Rachel Zabarkes Friedman

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynne_Stewart.

*****

UNPATRIOTISM, MARXISM

and ---

Deconstructing Chomsky:
Mark Bauerlein April 2005

See: http://www.reason.com/news/show/36575.html.
Re: The Anti-Chomsky Reader, edited by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, San Francisco: Encounter Books.

*****

NATIONAL DEFENSE:
Snippet from http://www.powerlineblog.com/:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/08/021295.php
August 21, 2008
Has the Gaffe Machine Gone Too Far?
Via Gateway Pundit and InstaPundit

So our "charging into" Iraq--with dozens of allies, supported by a U.N. resolution, as a last resort after six months of build-up and negotiations, to unseat one of the cruelest dictators of modern times who had twice invaded neighboring states, was in violation of more than a dozen U.N. resolutions and was responsible for the deaths of something like two million people, who was shooting at American aircraft and had tried to assassinate a former President of the United States, in Obama's childish mind, was just like Russia's "charging into" Georgia, which resembles Saddam's Iraq in no respect. And, of course, we invaded a horrifying charnel-house so as to establish a democracy, whereas Russia invaded a peaceful democracy that it wants to re-incorporate into its empire.

Is Obama an idiot? I don't think so, really. But one of the many problems with being a leftist is that it leads you to say lots of stupid things. Today, the Obama gaffe machine went into overdrive. By November, I suspect that most voters will have heard enough to know that Barack Obama is unqualified to be a middle-manager in a well-run company, let alone President of the United States.

****

Population and Immigration:
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/

Where’s The Fence:
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/news/august-20-2008/virtual-fence-construction-halted.html .

Oil Bid'ness

(Click title above.)

Oil Bid'ness:

Having recently consulted goat entrails and my Ouija board, I offer my own jeremiad.

Entrails tell me there is not much of an “arms-length market” in the oil bid’ness.

Had our national treasury not been so deliberately run into a ditch, it would make more sense if our government could participate by making its own moderating, hedge investments in vital resources, sort of like a “virtual emergency oil stockpile.”

As things stand, Obama (naivete be upon him) is right about one thing: Our federal government needs to coordinate a consumption or fuel tax policy, to wean energy users to alternative sources. IF we could trust our governance, hardship could be mitigated by applying tax revenues to rebates or infrastructure, rather than to enriching those who seek and gamble on our demise.

Otherwise, we shall come soon to need to socialize the oil industry.

Meantime, capitalism has evolved an especially volatile, Machiavellian game for bold, high stakes deceivers, addicted to playing markets in a nether echelon. These progeny of the House of Rothschild have no star to guide them, but only the rush from pursuing and occasionally winning ever more outlandish jackpots.

Capitalism, in pure form, is not “the best system.” Rather, up to now, capitalism has served us better than any other system only because its natural excesses have been regulated and moderated in respect of an assimilated sense of Judeo-Christian ethics (which is now being quickly dismantled by an unholy alliance among secular leftists and blue blood rightists).

If we wish, for our children, to help preserve the best system, i.e., Western Civilization plus Capitalism, and not to succumb to history’s inexorable cycle of rage and despair, we, including blue blood Republicans among us, had best recover our senses regarding the absolute necessity of a source of “national ethics” — and right quick!

The present “gimme mine” ethics that lures and blinds Democrats and Republicans alike, funded by the likes of Soros and friends, has little to do with enlightened empathy, but much to do with high-echelon games-playing addictions. Rank and file Democrats are being used as mere mice, to be piped off to serfdom.

The game is all about who gets to “win” in order to become Jabba the Hut — the ultimate liberal.

*******************
Oil Problems:

Snippets from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR2008082003898.html?referrer=emailarticle :


A Few Speculators Dominate Vast Market for Oil Trading
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 21, 2008

Regulators had long classified a private Swiss energy conglomerate called Vitol as a trader that primarily helped industrial firms that needed oil to run their businesses.

But when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission examined Vitol's books last month, it found that the firm was in fact more of a speculator, holding oil contracts as a profit-making investment rather than a means of lining up the actual delivery of fuel. Even more surprising to the commodities markets was the massive size of Vitol's portfolio -- at one point in July, the firm held 11 percent of all the oil contracts on the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange.

The discovery revealed how an individual financial player had gained enormous sway over the oil market without the knowledge of regulators. Other CFTC data showed that a significant amount of trading activity was concentrated in the hands of just a few speculators.

The CFTC, which learned about the nature of Vitol's activities only after making an unusual request for data from the firm, now reports that financial firms speculating for their clients or for themselves account for about 81 percent of the oil contracts on NYMEX, a far bigger share than had previously been stated by the agency. That figure may rise in coming weeks as the CFTC checks the status of other big traders.

Some lawmakers have blamed these firms for the volatility of oil prices, including the tremendous run-up that peaked earlier in the summer.

"It is now evident that speculators in the energy futures markets play a much larger role than previously thought, and it is now even harder to accept the agency's laughable assertion that excessive speculation has not contributed to rising energy prices," said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.). He added that it was "difficult to comprehend how the CFTC would allow a trader" to acquire such a large oil inventory "and not scrutinize this position any sooner."

....

The biggest players on the commodity exchanges often operate as "swap dealers" who primarily invest on behalf of hedge funds, wealthy individuals and pension funds, allowing these investors to enjoy returns without having to buy an actual contract for oil or other goods.

....

To build up the vast holdings this practice entails, some swap dealers have maneuvered behind the scenes, exploiting their political influence and gaps in oversight to gain exemptions from regulatory limits and permission to set up new, unregulated markets. Many big traders are active not only on NYMEX but also on private and overseas markets beyond the CFTC's purview. These openings have given the firms nearly unfettered access to the trading of vital goods, including oil, cotton and corn.

....

A second turning point came when Congress passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 [MY COMMENT: AKA, “YEPAW,” or “Your Elected Prostitutes At Work”]. The law formally allowed investors to trade energy commodities on private electronic platforms outside the purview of regulators. Critics have called this piece of legislation the "Enron loophole," saying Enron played a role in crafting it.

....

In the coming years, commodity investments by funds could grow to $1 trillion, veteran hedge fund manager Michael Masters said in testimony before the Senate earlier this year. In an interview, he said this trend could raise commodity prices for everyone in the coming years and "have catastrophic economic effects on millions of already stressed U.S. consumers."

....

In the coming months, swap dealers expect to have yet another venue for oil speculation. The CFTC has stated it would not stand in the way of trading in U.S. oil contracts overseas in Dubai. Goldman Sachs and Vitol are among the major investors in this new exchange.

********************

MY COMMENTS:

A series of strictures constrained our founders to find common principles under which to unite or die. Now, we have so successfully satiated most needs as to deceive ourselves that we need no longer feel constrained by principles.

Principally, Democrats now orient towards class, not principles. Sorted by income, if you are in the lower 75 percent, Democrats target you as a potential voter. Regardless of legal status, felony convictions, addictions, vices, or desires, Democrats will promise to serve you, so long as you “give back” or are among the lower 75 percent.

Principally, Republicans orient towards short-term advantages, not principles. So long as you exploit a niche, Republicans target you as a potential voter. Regardless of cumulative detriment to environment, Republicans will promise to serve your niche, so long as you “give back.”

Principally, among those who lead our parties of Democrats and Republicans, few principles are found.

International moguls, corporations, and lobbyists, who thrive on global and market volatility for reducing ordinary persons to debt slaves, control the funding of our politicians, thereby directing our politics, thereby directing our academia and media, and thereby directing the political opinions of our weak minded, dis-educated, professoriate and electorate.

Imagine a “friendly,” high stakes, volatile poker game among Bill Gates, Warren Buffett,

Rupert Murdoch, George Soros, T. Boone Pickens, et al, where all others are just poker chips. Having become conditioned and addicted to the game, has all other philosophy and history become lost to them? Is the inexorable cycle of rage and despair that their game will visit upon their posterity lost to them?

Many such moguls, admirably, seem not to want the bulk of their wealth to go to their children, to establish any plutocracy. To what, then, do they wish their wealth to go? Do they wish to finance: (1) civilizing purposes (dignified charity); or (2) the efficient reduction of all non-entrepreneurs to serf labor within some sort of super-efficient, world-wide, organized “Borg” (herd organization); or (3) their kin in spirit for perpetuating ever-recurring incarnations of “Jabba the Hut” (chaining all to serve whims of the fittest whip-master)?

Most of us likely hope the better of the moguls among us will elect alternative (1), but we fear alternative (3).

Will not a mogul who has sacrificed years and years to acquire great wealth and power often tend to have become so conditioned and addicted as to desire such game to continue, even to be played by a successor Jabba?

After all, how often do current moguls (and even entire generations) sacrifice and enslave their posterity to the rule of dead hands of past emperors (see http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_North_American_Review/Volume_171/Issue_526/The_Empire_of_the_Dead)?


Shall our political parties ever facilitate our summoning of will to move us towards principles above mere greed, narcissism, hedonism, filth, and degradation, which could empower us to live as more than mere poker chips and to rise above petty financial jealousies and exploitations?

If not, I shall remain a passionate Independent.

*****

Game: Soap Bomb Hippies: http://www.fundmental.com/flash/recreate68/.

Comment: Impose tariffs on foreign oil; impose export taxes on home produced oil that is exported; increase fuel taxes; encourage alternative development of nuclear, solar, and wind power; encourage development of more resources and refineries at home.