We tend to live as though money, lots of money, is a necessity for the lives we choose to live. Some people wander from their faith because of the love of money. “For the love of money, people will steal from their mother. For the love of money people will rob their own brother. For the love of money people can’t even walk the streets because they never know who in the World they’re gonna beat,” those are the lyrics from the song “For the Love of My,” by the O’jays, and they are most certainly true. The decision to commit robbery, then, is motivated by a perceived need for cash. Why does this need express itself as robbery? Presumably the offenders have other means of obtaining money. Why do they choose robbery over legal work? Why do they decide to commit robbery rather than borrow money from friends or relatives? Most important, why do they select robbery to the exclusion of other income-generating crimes? That the decision to commit robbery typically emerges in the course of illicit street action suggests that legitimate employment is not a realistic solution. Typically, the offenders’ need for cash is so pressing and immediate that legal work, as a viable money-making strategy, is untenable: Payment and effort are separated in space and time and these offenders will not, or cannot, wait. Moreover, the jobs realistically available to them—almost all of whom were unskilled and poorly educated—pay wages that fall far short of the funds required to support a cash-intensive lifestyle. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
“Education-wise, I fell late on the education. I just think it’s too late for that. They say it’s never too late, but I’m too far gone for that…I’ve thought about [getting a job], but I’m too far gone I guess…I done seen more money come out of [doing stick-ups] than I see working.” Legitimate employment also was perceived to be overly restrictive. Working a normal job requires one to take orders, conform to a schedule, minimize informal peer interaction, show up sober and alert, and limits one’s freedom of movement for a given period of time. The “conspicuous display of independence” is a bedrock value on which street-corner culture rests. To be seen as cool, one must do as one pleases. This ethos clearly conflicts with the demands of legitimate employment. Indeed, robbery appealed to a number of offenders precisely because it allowed them to flaunt their independence and escape from the rigors of legal work. This is not to say that every offender summarily dismissed the prospects of gainful employment. If someone gave them a “good-job”—the emphasis on being goo–twenty-five of the 75 unemployed respondents claimed they would stop robbing. “My desire is to be gainfully employed in the right kind of job…If I had a union job making $20 or $25 [an hour], something that I could really take care of my family with, I think that I could become cool with that. Years ago I worked at one of the [local] car factories; I really wanted to be in there. It was the kind of job I’d been looking for. Unfortunately, as soon as I got in there they had a big lay off.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
Others alleged that, while a job may not eliminate their offending altogether, it might well slow them down: “[If a job were to stop me from committing robberies], it would have to be a straight up good paying job. I ain’t talkin’ about no $12 an hour…I’m talkin’ like $20 to $21 an hour, something like that. But as far as $10 or $12 an hour, no! I would have to get like $20 to $21 an hour, full-time. Now something like that, I would probably quit doing it [robbery]. I would be working, making money, I don’t think I would do it [robbery] no more…I don’t think I would quit [offending] altogether. It would probably slow down and then eventually I’ll stop. I think [my offending] would slow down.” Even if the offenders were able to land a high-paying job, it is doubtful they would keep it for long. The relentless pursuit of street action—especially hard drug use—has a powerful tendency to undermine any commitment to conventional activities. Life as party ensnares street-culture participants, enticing them moment. Though functional in lightening the burdensome present, gambling, drinking, and drugging—for those on the street—become the proverbial “padlock on the exit door,” and fertilize the foreground in which the decision to rob becomes rooted. In theory, the offenders could have borrowed cash from a friend or relatively rather than resorting to crime. In practice, this as not feasible. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Unemployment, unskilled, and uneducated persons caught in the throes of chronically self-defeating behavior cannot, and often do not, expect to solve their fiscal troubles by borrowing. Borrowing is a short-term solution, and loans granted must be rapid. This itself could trigger robberies. As one offender explained, “I have people that will loan me money, [but] they will loan me money because of the work [robbery] that I do; they know they gonna get their money [back] one way or another.” Asking for money also was perceived by a number of offenders to be emasculating. Given their belief that men should be self-sufficient, the mere prospect of borrowing was repugnant: “I don’t like always asking my girl for nothing because I want to et her keep her own money…I’m gonna go out here and get some money.” The possibility of borrowing may be moot for the vast majority of offenders anyway. Most had long ago exhausted the patience and goodwill of helpful others; not even their closet friends or family members were willing to proofer additional cash: “I can’t borrow the money. Who gonna loan me some money? Ain’t nobody gonna loan me no money. Sh*t, [I use] drugs and they know [that] and I rob and everything else. Ain’t nobody gonna loan me no money. If they give you some money, they just give it to you; they know you ain’t giving it back.” When confronted with an immediate need for money, then, the offender perceived themselves as having little hope of securing csh quickly and legally. However, this does not explain why the respondents decided to do robbery rather than some other crime. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
Most of the offenders had committed a wide range of income-generating offenses in the past, and some continued to be quite versatile. Why, then, robbery? For many, this question was irrelevant; robbery was their “main line” and alternative crimes were not considered when the pressing need for cash arose: “I have never been able to steal, even when I was little and they would tell me jut to be the watch-out man…Sh*t, I watch out, everybody gets busted. I can’t steal, but give me the pistol and I’ll go get some money…[Robbery is] just something I just got attached to.” Some of the offenders who favored robbery over other crimes maintained that it was safer than burglary or dope dealing: “I feel more safer doing a robbery because doing a burglary, I got a fear of breaking into somebody’s house not knowing who might be up in there. I got that fear about house burglary…On robbery I can select my victims, I can select my place of business. I can watch and see who all work up in there or I can rob a person and pull them around in the alley or push them up in a doorway and rob them. You don’t got [that] fear of who…in that bedroom or somewhere in another part of the house.” A couple of offenders reported steering clear of dope selling because their strong craving for drugs made it took difficult for them to resist their own merchandise. Being one’s own best customer is a sure formula for disaster. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
The following respondent seemed to understand well about why being one’s own customer is a bad idea: “A dope fiend can’t be selling dop because he be his best customer. I couldn’t sell dope [nowadays]. I could sell a little weed or something cause I don’t smoke too much of it. But selling rock [cocaine] or heroin, I couldn’t do that cause I mess around and smoke it myself. [I would] smoke it all up! Now you see what G-Eazy and Snoop D are talking about in their respective songs, “I Wanna Rock.” Without doubt, some of the offenders were prepared to commit crimes other than robbery; in dire straits one cannot afford to be choosy. More often than not, robbery emerged as the “most proximate and performable” offenses available. The Universe of money-making crimes from which these offenders realistically could pick was limited. By and large, they did not hold jobs that would allow them to violate even a low-level position of financial trust. Nor did they possess the technical know-how to commit lucrative commercial break-ins, or the interpersonal skills needed to perpetrate successful frauds. Even street-corner dope dealing was unavailable to many; most lacked the financial wherewithal to purchase baseline inventories—inventories many offenders would undoubtedly have smoked up. The bottom line is that the offenders, when faced with a pressing need for cash, tend to resort to robbery because they know of no other course of action, legal or illegal, that offenders as quick and easy a way out of their financial difficulties. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
The clothing industry is one of the best ways to conceal drug dealing. Speaking of the clothing industry, China does not lead in manufacturing production and exports all across the board. Also, the range of its exports lead is narrower than the range of production lead because in many industries the increments in production are absorbed by the rapidly expanding domestic market. Besides, the rise in exports is supported by a dynamic growth of the imports of production inputs: intermediate products and equipment. Depending on China’s position versus other major producers and exporters, all manufacturing industries can be divided into three groups. Group One Industries: China is the top producers and top exporter. This group of industries consists of two major pillars. The first one is the office and telecommunications equipment sector, along with electrical machinery. The second is a variety of light industry goods: textiles and clothing, footwear, toys and games, travel goods, furniture, travel items and so on. In the 2000s, these sectors’ production in China increased dramatically, while in the West and other major producing nations, mainly Asian, it grew at a slow pace, stagnated, or declined. As a result, China established itself as the number one producer and exporter, often running far ahead of the follower. Office and telecom equipment, electrical machinery—the most vivid example is the office and telecommunication equipment sector. It consists of two big blocs. The first one is electronic data processing (EDP) and office equipment; the second is telecommunication and sound-recording/reproducing apparatus and equipment. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
EDP equipment means computers, printers, computer peripheral equipment, and software. Sound-recording and reproducing equipment includes TVs and various audio-video products. The data about production of the four key items belonging to this sector (LED TVs, drones, wearable electronics, powerbanks, cloud servers, telecom infrastructure, video products, mobile phones, and personal computers, and digital cameras indicating that China underwent a fundamental and abrupt change. Within two decades, China has become cemented as the World leader in producing these electronics with a global output of 40 percent. It is the World’s most extensive electronics manufacturing ecosystem with a labor force of electrical goods workers close to 150 million. The shares of North America and Europe in the production of all electronics plummeted. Therefore, when you shop for electronics and cars, please try to buy American made products so we do not continue to lose jobs and operate at a deficit. It is a very serious matter. East Asian countries have also drastically increased production of their parts, components, and materials, which in great part were exported to China, where final products were assembled. This is one of the major reasons why East Asian preserves the dynamism of its manufacturing industries. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Also, it goes without saying that China’s dramatic upswing to the number one position (as both a producer and an exporter) was largely the result of the production activities of multinational companies. However, in this regard, too, East Asian, not Western multinationals took the lead. The data on exports indicates that China’s shares have been rising at an enormous speed. In another important development, along with the office and telecommunication equipment sector, China established itself as the leading producer and exporter of electrical machinery (including home electric appliances). Its electrical machinery exports was US$898.96 billion in 2021. Electrical equipment manufacturing in the USA in 2023 is $49.2 billion. The market size of the electrical equipment manufacturing industry in America is expected to increase by 5.2 percent in this same year. In the production of textiles, in 2021, approximately 24 billion units of apparel had been produced in China. The U.S.A. industry is the third largest exporter of textile-related products in the World with value of $34 billion in 2021. As of 2022, China’s textile and garment export total is up to around $316 billion and their retail up to $672 billion. China has been ranked as the World’s largest manufacture since 2010. In 2020, China topped the ranking of the largest machine tool producing countries Worldwide. With machine tool production to the value of about $24 billion, China’s market share increased to 31 percent from 29 percent the year before. China’s motor vehicle production was reported at 27,020, 615 units in 2022. The United States of America comes in second with 9.17 million units, and Germany comes in 6th with 3.31 million. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
The steel industry is one of the most important in the World, not just in terms of direct value and job creation, but also because it is intrinsic to several other major trillion dollar industries such as the construction sector. Iron is used in the production of steel, which in turn is over 1,000 times stronger than iron. Steel is one of the smokestack industries and one of the oldest alloys in the World, with steel knives being dated back to the 11th century BC. The most commonly used metal in the World, total steel production in 2021 amounted to 1,951 million tonnes. The biggest steel producing country is currently China, which produces 60 percent of the World’s steel. Whereas the United States of America accounts for only 4 percent of steel produced in the World, but is reported to have some of the best quality steel known to man. Ethylene glycol is a useful industrial compound found in many consumer products. Examples include antifreeze, hydraulic brake fluids, some stamp pad inks, ballpoint pens, solvents, paints, plastics, films, and cosmetics. It can also be a pharmaceutical vehicle. In 2021, China was the country with the highest ethylene glycol (EG) capacity was 51.54 mtpa in 2021 and is expected to achieve an AAGR of more than 7 percent during 2021-2026. In the same year, the USA came to 40 mtpa. China’s production of the four major plastics (polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, and polyvinyl chloride) accounts for 32 percent of global plastic material production, making it the World’s plastic leader by far. The total Worldwide production of plastics in 2021 amounted to some 391 million metric tons. The United States of American produces about 10 percent of the global plastic production. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Overall, today’s China is leading in both production and exports of a wide and widening range of final goods, especially electronic/electrical products and light industry consumer items. It has also joined the ranks of major producers and exporters of electronic components. China exports much more than it imports. China’s annual trade surplus, one of the irritants that prompted President Trump to hike tariffs, has reached a record $878 billion. $404.1 billion of that surplus comes from China’s trade with the United States of America. Overall USA trade deficit with China grew 8.3 percent annually to $382.9 billion. Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have become big net importers. China’s imports for 2021 was $3,091.26 billion, an increase of 30.17 from 2021. Forecasters expect Chinese export growth to weaken as the possibility of recession in Western economies increases. We now face the ultimate political power shift. We can redesign democracy for the 21st century—or descend into a new Dark Age. One path moves power from the state toward the individual. The other threatens to shrink the individual to zero. Nothing in the foreseeable future is about to take the gun out of the hands of the state. Nothing will prevent the state from siphoning wealth into its hands and disposing of it for its own power-enhancing purposes. What is likely to change, as we have already begun to see, is the state’s ability to control knowledge. The new economy thrives on freer expression, better feedback between rulers and ruled, more popular participation in decision-making. It can produce a less bureaucratic, more decentralized and responsive government. It can create a greater independence for the individual, a power shift away from the state—not its “withering away” but its humanization. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
Yet any new alliance of democratic groups will face three giant forces now racing toward convergence in the Worldwide crusade that could, if we are not careful, sweep us into a new Dark Age. Organized religion, in one form or another, had a virtual monopoly on the production and distribution of abstract knowledge in the pre-smokestack era, the time before the Enlightenment, before the birth of democracy in the West. Today, forces are at work seeking to restore that monopoly control of the mind. The resurgence of religio-politics around the World may seem to have little to do with the rise of the computer and the new economy. But it does. The knowledge-based wealth-creation system, of which the computer is the symbol, rings down the curtain on three centuries during which the industrial nations dominated the Earth. Within the smokestack nations, this period was marked by a war for the mind between the forces of religion, aligned with the power elites of the agrarian age, and secular forces that fought for industrial “modernism” and mass democracy. By the middle of the industrial era, these secular forces had managed to subdue organized religion, weakening its hold on the schools, on morality and on the state itself. However, a demon has moved in to become the opioid of the masses. The TV news media has choke hold on schools, no morality, and on the state. They focus on school shootings to promote violence on school campuses to make people unsafe and as a means of stripping the 2nd Amendment rights from the people, which may be very important in the foreseeable future. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
The media also wants people to be less moral, and not fear God so that violence in the streets will continue, making it easy for them to find things to report and compete with highly rated television shows like SWAT starring Mr. Shemar Moore. The made also has a choke hold on the state as it steals, leaks, and distorts government documents and takes control of election coverage where it commits voter fraud that goes unrecognized because no one investigates these criminal broadcasting systems. Also, the TV news media wants to take a fatalistic look on the World by doing nothing but presenting doom and gloom, and with its fatalistic outlook, people feel like the World is ending and all hope is lost. Because of the corrupt TV news media, the three great religions of the West, where industrialism had triumphed, have all seen their social, moral, and political power diminish. It is, however, precisely at this moment that the computer actually started changing the way wealth is produced. The technology that has most radically undermined the blue-collar, factory-based economy have moved more rapidly out of the laboratories and a few corporate and government installations, and into general use. Coinciding with this revolutionary development, most advanced in the United States of America, have arose the hippie movement, which launched a savage attack on the cultural premises of the industrial age, including its secularism. With the patchouli oil, lack of deodorant, and drug smoke came a bitter technophobia , hate of politics and religion, and widespread interest in musty cults and “free love.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
The movement looked at industrial society, hated what it saw, and urged a return to some haloed, mythical parts. The hippies reject the cutter cooker homes with clean lines, and family values They year for a return to preindustrial culture. This was the seed from which sprang today’s sprawling, burgeoning New Age movement, with its lack of regard for law and order. The signs of crisis in the old industrial society are everywhere. Life itself has been threatened. Urban systems, healthy systems, housing systems, banking systems, the automotive industry and education systems, all have plunged into crisis. Our greatest corporations have been forced to restructure. Our labor unions have declined. Our communities are torn apart by financial and mora conflict, devastated by drugs, crime, family breakup, and other agonies. The rejection of traditional Christianity, in a country founded on Christianity, upset the breakup of the familiar World, Christian fundamentalists have also began a counterattack on secularism that has taken the form of highly effective political action. Here, again, is a violent rejection of the messy, painful present and a search for absolutist certainties of the past. However, around the World, many people have followed in the footsteps of American colonialism, and today are in frenzy. However, they would not be if industrial civilization in America were not itself in a moral and social crisis, no longer offering a very attractive model for emulation by the rest of the World. Indeed, the industrial states, now torn apart internally, no longer seem a invincible as they one had. Now hostage-taker, terrorists, and petroleum sheiks were able to jerk them around, seemingly at will. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
The problem is that America has lost professionalism, religious foundations, family values, pride in their country. The uprise of feminism has promoted single parent homes, and has influenced men to transition into women because paternal dominance has been incorrectly labeled as deviant and accused of being responsible for all the ills in society. As the dominance of America has ended in production, its reigning philosophy has been attacked from within and without, from many sides at once, to the point that the United States of America’s Constitution has been thrown in the trash, along with the flag, Christianity and national pride. The flames have grown stronger as Christian farms are stolen, cattle mutilated, and Americans are being beaten and their cars and homes stoned by radicals whose ideas and social models were shaped by deviant subcultures and foreign ideas. This destructive model of rebellion has ripped across the United States of America, and destroyed peaceful, traditional suburban communities because rejects want revenge, no matter the cost, even if it requires breaking the law. What is happening is a sky-darkening attack on the ideas of the Enlightenment which helped usher in the most prosperous era in American history—the smokestack era, also known as the industrial age. Fanatics are breeding lazy and uneducated children who are committed to controlling the by popularizing entitlement, greed, theft, and the party life. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Tolerance of diversity is the first commandment of the demassified society, including tolerance of the intolerant—up to a point. Because somethings are just not normal, nor are they acceptable. However, it is okay to be unique and love life, life your country, your family and God. We should not try to impose control on people who are seen as normal. What is not compatible with being America is to be at war with your people and your religion, your employ, your neighbor, your friends, law enforcement, nor the government. People need to go back to doing their jobs, following the rules and doing what is expected of them. In America, peace and respect and cleanliness is what is considered normal. Have you notice since we have outsourced our jobs and criticized the uniform style of the McMansion that the beautiful streets have become laces with crime and tent cities? This new lazy, live out loud, party generation has created a lethal combination of toxicity on the American way of life. They are determined to size power over the state, the country, your mind, private property, privacy, and own rule over every aspect of human life. They are also determined to roll back freedoms that make democracy possible and make being young and beautiful a sin They are the agents of a new Dark Age. The characteristics of these wicked spirits are, and how they able to dwell in the bodies and minds of human beings, as well as their power to interfere with, mislead and deceive even servants of God has amounted to such astronomical proportions that study groups have set up to monitor them due to the fact the there is some kind of ritual abuse going on. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Evil spirits are generally looked upon as “influences,” and not as intelligent beings. They have a desire of a dwelling place to rest, they possess great wickedness, much power of rage, and act as a combination of the maddest and most wicked persons in existence, but all their evil is done with the fullest intelligence and purpose. They know what they do, they know it is evil, terribly evil, and they will to do it. They do it with rage, and with the full swing of malice, enmity and hatred. They act with fury and bestiality like an enraged bull, as if they had no intelligence. And yet with full intelligence they carry on their work, showing the wickedness of their wickedness. They act from an absolutely depraved nature, with diabolical fury, and with an undeviating perseverance. They act with determination, persistency, and with skillful methods, forcing themselves upon mankind, upon the Church, upon America, and still more upon the spiritual man. The history of religion and of Christianity is an immense reservoir of religious experience, and in this sense it is content and, therefore, the source of theology. However, experience as event is the medium. The event is a revelatory event, id est, “the manifestation of the ultimate ground and meaning of human existence. It is a matter of ultimate concern. The theologian must share in the revelator character of one’s source, for we can speak of it only if it has become revelation for us, if we have experienced it existentially. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
The awareness of the ultimate, of being-itself, is inherent in the Christian message. Humans seek a reality to overcome the estrangement of existence, a reality of reconciliation and reunion, of creativity, of meaning, and hope. This reality is the New Being, and it is manifest in Jesus as the Christ. Therefore, the material norm of this systematic theology is the New Being in Jesus as the Christ as our ultimate concern. The Bible is far too general, and a more concrete norm is required—for example, Luther’s justification by faith. Hence, one can say that the norm is derived from the Bible, and then governs the use of the Bible. The question of the canonicity of the biblical books clearly shows that the Bible is a source, not a norm. The norm results from an encounter between the church and the biblical message. Consequently, the norm is provided in church history, and every era consciously and unconsciously contributes to its formation. Because the church does not live in a vacuum, the norm is conditioned by the particular religio-cultural environment in which it is produced. The norm is also dependent upon the theological medium, for it is born in and nurtured by the collective experience of the church. However, at the same time it is the criterion of this experience. In brief, the norm is derived from the Bible, produced in the church, conditioned by culture, and vivified by experience. Therefore, I will not participate in the gaiety around me when in my heart I know you are alone. I do not know the meaning of joy when I see the sadness in your eyes. I speak but the words embrace a darkness that no bright sun can invade. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
My footstep are weighted with not knowing. You move with a willingness and enter swiftly the dark clouds, the rainy nights and the setting suns. You merge easily with distant stars. I refuse to submit. I continue to live in conflict, stumbling, not knowing the way. I wonder if the darkness in me touches you and increases your suffering. For me, there is no substitute—only the pain fully expresses my love. I know that when the time comes, I will go with you into the unknow, not quietly but strongly protesting the injustice with every fiber of my being. The inevitable truth about gambling is that one person’s gain must be another person’s loss. This it is especially important to evaluate a gamble from the other side’s perspective before accepting. For if they are willing to gamble, they expect to win, which means they expect you to lose. Someone must be wrong, but who? The method of correlation explains the contents of the Christian faith through existential questions and theological answers in mutual interdependence. Revelation contains answers, but they are meaningful only if correlated with questions about the whole of human existence. And man can never get the ultimate answer to one’s own questions unless he seeks it in the revelatory events. The fact that man is able to ask the question of this existence reflect his essential unity with the infinite. The fact that he must ask it reflects his existential estrangement from it. Consequently, the procedure of the theologian is first to analyze the existential situation. One examines the cultural creations in which man expresses his interpretation of existence: philosophy, sociology, depth psychology, the novel, drama, poetry, and so forth. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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Randolph Harris II International 