There has been a lot of talks about communism in modern America and many people fear it, while others do not understand it and promote the dangerous ideology. Many of the local news airwaves have been overtaken by communist leaders. In fact, people that proport that they are journalists, are actually uneducated activists. Communism is a political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (exempli gratia, mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Communism is thus a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates. Communism and socialism are basically synonyms. The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. The major problem confronting the people of the United State of America and free peoples everywhere in the first quarter of the 21^st century is the threat to peace and freedom presented by the militant aggressiveness of international communism. We recognize that we must retain our present military and economic advantage over the Communist bloc. Communism is a false idea, and the answer to a false idea is truth, not ignorance. With the triumph of communism, classes will disappear. Communism will supplant and destroy the market economy of capitalism. Communism is the easiest system to sell to the people who are poor, not because poor people are any less worthy than the affluent, but because it sounds so reasonable, fair, and workable. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

The promises of communism sound sweet, warm, and affectionate—the poor can take in the opulence of the rich without putting in the work. The reality is that the tenets of Communism are, indeed, workable; the only problem is that they produce super inefficient economies, such that, even though people in a communist system fully support its ideals, they soon start conducting themselves in a manner what shows their deep yearning for the freedoms of Capitalism. Communism has always, still does, and always will fail. China is doing so well because it abandoned communism in the 1970s when it introduced capitalism reforms which have led to rapid economic growth. China is now a mixed economy. Socialism, another form of communism, destroyed Venezuela. The worsening humanitarian crisis on corruption, mismanagement, failing oil prices, or U.S.A. sanctions came about because of the rise of socialism. The policies implemented by dictator Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro caused these problems. There are three main policies implemented by Mr. Chavez since 1999 that produced the current crisis: Widespread nationalization of private industry, currency and price controls, and the fiscally irresponsible expansion of welfare programs. One of Mr. Chavez’s first actions was to start nationalizing the agriculture sector, supposedly reducing poverty and inequality by taking from rich landowners to give to poor workers. From 1999 to 2016, his regime robbed more than 6 million hectares of land from its rightful owners. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Nationalization destroyed production in affected industries because no government has the capacity to run thousands of businesses or the profit motive to run them efficiently. Instead, government officials face incentives to please voters by selling products at low prices and hiring more employees than necessary, even when that is the wrong industry decision. As economic theory predicted, as state control of the agricultural industry increased, Venezuela’s food production fell 75 percent in two decades while the country’s population increased by 33 percent. This was a recipe for shortages and economic disaster. After agriculture, the regime nationalized electricity, water, oil, banks, supermarkets, construction, and other crucial sectors. And in all these sectors, the government increased payrolls and gave away products at low cost, resulting in days-long countrywide blackouts, frequent water service interruptions, falling oil production, and bankrupt government enterprises. Ye taking over the most important sectors of the economy was not enough for the socialist regime. In 2003, Mr. Chavez implemented a foreign currency control scheme where the government set an overvalued exchange rate between the Venezuelan currency and the U.S.A. dollar. One goal of the scheme was to reduce inflation by overvaluing the currency, subsidizing imported products. However, the currency control meant the regime had to ration available U.S.A. dollars to importers since, at an overvalued (cheap) exchange rate, there was more demand for U.S.A. dollars than supply. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

Naturally, an illegal market for foreign currency emerged and corrupt regie members and lucky individuals assigned cheap U.S.A. dollars obtained large profits. Even worse, the scheme actually increased inflation since overvaluing the currency reduced government oil revenues in Venezuelan currency, leading the regime to print money to cover the ensuing budget deficit. The socialist regime also implemented price ceilings on hundreds of basic products such as beef, milk, and bathroom hygiene paper. At artificially low prices, more people were willing to buy these products but the few private factories left—not nationalized—could not profit at the government-capped price, so they reduced or halted their production. Instead of benefiting the poor, price ceilings predictably resulted in shortages that forced them to stand in lines for hours, while supermarket employees and the well-connected obtained the products they needed. However, perhaps the most harmful part of the Venezuelan socialist project is the part that the international media and leftist figures used to praise most frequently: welfare programs. The socialist regime created social “missions” aimed at tackling poverty, illiteracy, healthcare, and more. However, despite enjoying higher government oil revenues due to a tenfold rise in oil prices from $10 a barrel in 1999 to more than $100 in 2008, the regie financed a growing deficit by printing more currency. Expansive welfare programs and massive public-works projects provided ever-growing opportunities for still greater corruption. Printing money to pay for endless state programs unsurprisingly led to high rates of inflation. Socialism and communism are sort of alter opportunism. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Many people can see the United State of American heading down this same path with rent control, importing foreign produce and meats, borrowing from China, and student loan forgiveness. Corrupt regimes can certainly cause many problems, but without socialism, hyperinflation and widespread shortages are not usually among them. Venezuelans have learned over the past few decades that there is no such thing as a free lunch. “Free things” come at a high price. Offenses motivated purely by either irresistible opportunities or overwhelming situational inducements are relatively rare. We have been discussing carjacking, another way people use to get something for nothing. Most carjackings occur between these extremes, where situational inducements merge with potential opportunities to create circumstances ripe for offending. What follows are descriptions of offenses spurred by the combination of internal or external situational inducements and acceptable (or near acceptable) levels of risk and reward. The degree which a given situation was compromised of rewards and risk on the one hand ad internal and external pressures on the other varied, but when the combination reached a certain critical level, a carjacking resulted. Offenders often described situation in which inducements were present, but not pressing, where they had some money or some drugs on them, but realized that the supply of either or both was limited and would soon run out. In such cases, the carjackers engaged in a state referred to as alert opportunism. The offenders are not desperate, but they anticipate need in the near term and become increasingly open to opportunities that may present themselves during the course of day-to-day activities. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Here, would-be carjacking prowled neighborhoods, monitoring their surroundings for good opportunities, allowing potential victims to present themselves. Corleone, a sixteen year-old with over a dozen carjacking under his belt, had been committing such offenses with his cousin since the age of 13. The two were walking the street of Sacramento one afternoon looking for opportunities for quick cash when they saw a man walking out of a barbershop toward his parked car, keys in hand. Motivated by the obliviousness of their pray and the lightness of their wallets, they decided to take his car. Corleone: “it was down in the city of Downtown Sacramento. We was just walking around, you know. We just look for things to happen you see just to get money. We just walk around and just see something that’s gonna make us money We just happened to be going to the Chinaman [a restaurant] to get something to eat. [We had] about five or six dollars in our pocket which ain’t nothing. It was this man driving a blue BMW. It has some chrome wheels on there. He just drove up and he was going to the Chinaman and…my cousin was like, ‘Look at that car, man, that’s tough [nice]. I’m getting that. I want that.’ [I was] like, ‘Straight up, you want to do it?’ He was like, ‘Yeah.’ He was all G[ood] for it. Then he [the victim] came out the barbershop. It was kind of crowded and we just did what we had to do. There was this little spot where [my cousin] stash[es] his money, drugs and all that type of stuff and then he got the gun [from the stash]. He got around the corner. He say, ‘Hey, hey.’ I asked him for a cigarette so he went to the passenger’s side [of the vehicle to get one]. I ran on the driver’s side with a gun. Put it to his head and told him to get out of the car.’ #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

INT: “Did you know that you were going to do carjacking or…?” Corleone: “No. Not necessarily. But since that was what came up, that’s what we did.” No mater how alert one is, however, good opportunities do not always present themselves. Over the course of time, situational inducements mount (that is, supplies of money and drugs inevitably dry up), and the option of waiting for ideal opportunities correspondingly diminishes. Such conditions cause offenders to move from a “passive” state of alert opportunism to an “active” state of what could be referred to as motivated opportunism (creating opportunities where none previously existed or modifying existing non-optimal opportunities to make them less hazardous or more rewarding). Here, attention and openness to possibilities expands to allow offenders to tolerate more risk. Situations that previously seemed unsuitable start to look better. Binge, a 45 year old veteran offender who had engaged in burglary, robbery, and carjacking for over 20 years, discussed his most recent decision to get a car on a wintry January day. He had been carrying a weapon (a 9mm Glock) since that morning, looking to commit a home invasion. After prowling the streets for hours and encountering few reasonable prospects, he happened on an easy opportunity—a man sitting parked in a car, its engine running, at a Lightrail (trolley) station. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

Binge: “Well, I was out hustling trying to get me a little money and I was walking around. I was cold. I was frustrated. I couldn’t get in [any] house[s] or nothing, so I say [to myself], ‘Well I’ll try and get me a little car, and you know, just jam off the heat and sh*t that he [the vehicle’s owner] got,’ you know? I was strapped [carrying a firearm] and all that, you know and I was worried about the police catching me, trying to pull my pistol off, and I see this guy. Well, he was at the Lightrail you know, nodding [falling asleep] in his car. So I went up to the window. I just think that I just peeped it on [happened on the situation]. I was at the Lightrail you know, I was standing at the bus stop trying to keep warm and so I just walked around with no houses to rob, and I seen this dude you know sitting in his car, you know, with the car running. And I said ‘Ah man, if I can get a wag at this [take adventure of this opportunity],’ you know. It wasn’t just an idea to keep warm or nothing like that. I was cold and worried, and it just crossed my mind and I thought I can get away with it, and I just did it. I’d do anything man, I’d do anything. If I want something and I see I can get away with it I’m gonna do it. That’s what I’m saying. That night I saw an opportunity and I took it, you know. It just occurred to me.” Just as compelling were instances where third parties placed demands on offenders. A number of our respondents indicated that they engaged in car jacking to fulfill specific orders or requests from chop shop owners or other individuals interested in a particular make and model of car or certain valuable car part. The desire to fulfill such orders quickly created conditions ripe for motivated opportunism. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Goldie, for instance, was experiencing strong internal situational pressures (the need for cash) and external pressures (the demand for a particular vehicle by some of his criminal associates) combined with a moderately favorable opportunity (inside information on the driver of the wanted vehicle and its location): Goldie: “He’s from my neighborhood. He’s called Mucho. He’s from the same neighborhood but like two streets over. Them two streets don’t come over on our street. You know, we not allowed to go over on they street. It was a nice car. The paint, the sound system in it, and the rims. [It] had some beats, rims. Rims costs about $3,000, some chrome Daytons. 100 spokes platinums.” INT: “OK. That’s a lot of money to be putting on a car. What does he do for a living?” Goldie: “I don’t know. I’ don’t ask. What they told me was they wanted this car and they are going to give me a certain amount of money.” INT: “You say they told you they wanted this car. You mean they told you they wanted his car or they wanted a car like that?” Goldie: “His car. His car. They want [Mucho’s] car. They said, ‘I need one of these, can you get it for me?’ And they knew this guy. So now, I need that car. That car.” Low-Down also specialized in taking orders from chop shops. Low-Down: What I do, I basically have me a customer before I even go do it. I ask a few guys that I know that fix up cars, you know what I’m saying. I ask them what they need then I take the car. But see, I basically really got a customer. I’m talking about this guy over in East Sacramento. Me and Bob, we real cool. He buy ‘em cause he break ‘em down, the whole car down and her got an autobody shop. He sell parts. He’ll take the car and strip it down to the nitty gritty and sell the parts. He get more money out of selling it part by part than selling the car. And, before I get it I already set the price.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

Low-Down also had a drug habit: Low-Down: “The main reason basically why I did it was I be messing with heroin, you know what I’m saying. I be using buttons [heroin housed in pill-form]. I be snorting some, but I be snorting too much, you know? I got a habit for snorting cause I be snorting too much at a time, that’s how I call it a habit. I probably drop about 5 or 6 [buttons] down first [thing in the morning.] [So] I basically really sick and my daughter needed shoes and sh*t like that and my girlfriend was pressuring me about getting her some shoes. She had been pressing me about two or three days. Baby food and stuff like that. But the money I had, I had been trying to satisfy my habit with it. Basically I just thought it was a good thing to do. It was a good opportunity.” (This is essentially why many professionals and affluent people ride in their cars with the windows up, at all times, and the doors always up and never give anyone a cigarette, light, or money. The church in the twenty-first century must recognize the powers of darkness. To this end the Christian Church must recognize that the existence of deceiving, lying spirits is as real in the twenty-first century as in the time of Christ and that their attitude toward the human race is unchanged: that their one ceaseless aim is to deceive every human being. Yes, that they are given up to wickedness all day long, and all night long, and that they are ceaselessly and actively pouring a stream of wickedness into the World and are satisfied only when they succeed in their wicked plans to deceive and ruin men. Yet the servants of God have been concerned only to destroy their works—to deal with sin—not recognizing the need of using the power given by Christ to resist by faith and prayer this ever-flowing flood of satanic power pouring in among men. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Hence both men and women, young and old, Christian and non-Christian, become deceived through their guile, because of ignorance about them and their wiles. These supernatural forces of Satan are the true hindrance to revival. The power of God which in 1904 broke forth in Wales, with all the marks of the days of Pentecost, was checked and hindered from going on to its fullest purpose by the same influx of evil spirits as met the Lord Christ on Earth and the apostles of the early Church—with the difference that this inroad of the powers of darkness found the Christians of the twenty-first century, with few exceptions, unable to recognize and deal with them. Evil-spirit possession has followed and checked every similar revival throughout the centuries since Pentecost. If the Church is to advance to maturity, these things must now be understood and dealt with—understood not only with respect to the degrees of possession recorded in the Gospels and Acts, but in light of the social forms of manifestation suited to the close of the age. For now these spirits have appeared under the guise of Holy Spirit, yet having some of the very characteristic marks in bodily symptoms which are seen in the Gospel accounts, when all who observed the manifestations knew that it was the work of the spirits of Satan. It my have been so short a time that one has been able to share with another the coldness, blackness, and emptiness of the void experienced as loneliness and alienation. And, deeply as one loves relationships and encounters, one may also need solitude to grow in another way, to regenerate and reintegrate. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

How many times the change within one (“insight,” “solution,” or simply new perspective) has come in the solitude after the encounter which made it possible. This may be enough different from those around one to make one feel alien at times. One’s feelings are step children so long, and one’s hear mute. At a point, one may come through a siege of depression and self-doubt during which one may have overlooked one’s dark side and shared fears and despair with another for the first time in one’s life. Some may face life once gain with some joy, some hope. One may feel so much but cannot find any words for these feelings. It is possible to stammer out something about hoping one has not been too much bother, and another individual may communicate one’s love as well as one’s acceptance of one—ALL of one. This individual who has seen your weaknesses and your negative feelings—he or she could care? You feel the most intense pain of your life than and sit for minutes with closed eyes, reeling under it. It hurts like pent-up life rushing into a chilled and starved soul. It may have been such a good hurting. One may not be able to say for sure, but it might be as though only when one is no longer alone and alien one can stand the pain of loneliness and the hunger of one’s heart for understanding, for relationship that does not exclude part of one. Perhaps just being so open to feeling and to immediate experiencing is painful. Only later when the experience has lost a little of its overwhelming intensity does the words of a poem pour out and one can weep with joy. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

The response to attack of pain can lead to growth and resolution into relationship. For one to strike back does not ease one’s pain but often adds more. This is hard enough to understand for many, but when one experiences understanding, another’s caring—this too can be painful—one may experience such disbelief that one falls silent. Often people can enrich an individual’s life and gladdened one’s heart. The power which grasps the individual in the experience of faith is the quality of the “unconditional,” a term often used in describing faith an ultimate concern. Unconditional or ultimate concern, subjectively, is a concern that demands total involvement. However, the unconditional, absolute character of the demand stems from the unconditionality of the object of faith. The power grasping us in the state of faith is not a being beside others, not even the highest; it is not an object among objects, not even the greatest; but it is a quality of all beings and objects, the quality of pointing beyond themselves and their finite existence to the infinite, inexhaustible, and unapproachable depth of their being and meaning. Here, then, we are principally interested in that quality of things which unconditionally grips man’s spirit. A fuller exposition of that toward which this quality points, the “depth of their being and meaning.” We use the term “unconditional” because the German equivalent for unconditional is unbedingt, the connotation being that something is conditioned or limited by being made into a thing (Ding). Thus, the unconditional ( das Unbedingte ) is not “thingish” at all, but rather “a quality which we experience in encountering reality.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

The “ultimate concern” also means unconditional. The ultimate concern is was unbedingt angeht (what concerns us unconditionally). Since faith is effective in all of man’s spiritual functions, both theoretical and practical, it cannot be identified with any one of them. Faith comes to expression in these functions, and they, in turn, are rooted in faith. Tendency toward the unconditional must be understood in connection with the concept of Sinn, which is best translated into English by “meaning” and into French by sens. The relation of unconditioned meaning to individual things must be understood as a polarity of form and content. This polarity stands in constant tension, for the unconditional never ceases to demand fulfillment in what would be conditional form. However, unconditioned form is a contradictory notion impossible of realization, for the ground meaning (Sinngrund) is also the abyss of meaning (Sinnabgrund) which transcends every form. The inexhaustibility of meaning (Sinnunerschopflichkeit) would be rendered finite if it could be contained in a form. Nonetheless, each act of meaning must hearken to the demand that is strive to being form and content to unity of filament. Two points are to be underscored in this theory of Sinn: the unconditional is meaning, and in the act of faith one tends toward it, but not as toward an object, since meaning is not an object or thing. One turns to a holy object in which the unconditional is symbolically expressed, but then faith passes beyond this object to the ground and abyss upon which it resist. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Abstract and difficult though it be, the analysis of faith in the unconditioned meaning of life makes it a very human issue. For unless some spark of that faith is present, there can be no spirit, for to live spiritually is to live in the presence of meaning, and without an ultimate meaning everything disappears into the abyss of meaninglessness. Faith is unconditional, absolute, and ultimate, because without it man ceases to live as man. One of the greatest power imbalances on Earth today divides the rich countries from the poor. That unequal distribution of power, which affects the lives of billions of us, will soon be transformed as the new system of wealth creation spreads.. Since the end of World War II the World has been split between capitalist and communist, North and South. Today, as these old divisions fade in significance, a new one arises. For from now on the World will be split between the fast and the slow. To be fast or slow is not simply a matter of metaphor. Whole economies are either fast or slow. Primitive organisms have slow neutral systems. The more evolved human nervous systems processes signals faster. The same is true of primitive and advanced economies. Historically, power has shifted from the slow to the fast—whether we speak of species or nations. In fast economies, advanced technology speeds production. However, this is the least of it. Their pace is determined by the speed of transactions, the time needed to take decisions (especially about investment), the speed with which new ideas are created in laboratories, the rate at which they are brought to market, the velocity of capital flows, and above all the speed with which data, information, and knowledge pulse through the economic system. Fast economies generate wealth—and power—faster than slow ones. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

By contrast, in less affluent societies economic processes move at a glacial pace. Traditional, ritual, and ignorance limit socially acceptable choices. Communications are primitive; transport, restricted. Before the market system arose as an instrument for making investment choices, tradition governed technological decisions. Tradition, in turn, relied on rules or taboos to preserve productive technique that were proven workable over the slow course of biological and cultural evolution. With most people living at the bare edge of subsistence, experiment was dangerous, innovators were suppressed, and advances in the methods of wealth creation came so slowly they were barely perceptible from lifetime to lifetime. Moments of innovation were followed by what seemed like centuries of stagnation. The historical explosion we call the industrial revolution stepped up the economic metabolism. Roads and communications improved. Profit-motivated entrepreneurs actively searched for innovations. Brute force technologies were introduced. Society has a large surplus to fall back on, reducing the social risks of experimentation. With technological experimentation now so much less costly, productive methods [can] change more rapidly. All this, however, merely set the stage for today’s super-fast symbolic economy. The bar code on the pack of Marlboros, the computer in the Federal Express truck, the scanner at the Safeway checkout counter, the bank’s automatic teller, the spread of the extra-intelligent data networks across the planet, remotely operated robots, the informationalization of capital, all are preliminary steps in the formation of a 21-century economy that will operate at nearly real-time speeds. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

In due course, the entire wealth-creation cycle will be monitored as it happens. Continual feedback will stream in from sensors built into intelligent technology, from optical scanners in stores, and from transmitters in trucks, planes, and ships that send signals to satellites so managers can track the changing location of every vehicle at every moment. This information will be combined with the results of continuous polling of people and information from a thousand other sources. The acceleration effect, by making each unit of saved time more valuable than the last unit, thus creates a beneficial feedback loop that accelerates the acceleration. The consequences of this, in turn, will be not merely evolutionary but revolutionary, because real-time work, management, and finance will be radically different from even today’s most advanced methods. Even now, however, well before real-time operations are achieved, time itself has become an increasingly critical factor of production. As a result, knowledge is used to shrink time intervals. This quickening of economic neural responses in the high-technology nations holds still-unnoticed consequences for low-technology or no-technology economies. For the more valuable time becomes, the less valuable the traditional factors of production, like raw materials and labor. And that, for the most part, is what these countries sell. The acceleration effect will transform all present strategies for economic development. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Another solution for the manufacturing crisis America is facing is transferring production to China and other emerging market countries to cut cross and raise price competitiveness. To go multinational. More and more firms, not only large, but also small and medium, are stepping along this road. The number of multinational small and medium-size manufacturers in America, Europe, and Japan is increasing at a remarkable speed—not least because of the Chinese challenge. The emergence of strong micro-multinationals is an important global trends. At the present time, there are some 60,000 multination corporations (MNCs) Worldwide, controlling more than 500,000 subsidiaries. They are responsible for half of international trade, especially due to the scale of inta-company trading (between subsidiaries of the same company). More and more manufacturing micro-multinationals from industrially developed states shift their production to China and other emerging countries, seeking to cut profits. However, for their home countries, without the expansion on a comparable scale of new manufacturing activities, such multinationalization poses a threat of the hollowing-out of domestic industries and significant job losses (even though opening of a factory overseas creates some additional jobs at home, especially office jobs needed to coordinate, support, and monitor its activities). These interests of multinationals and the countries of their origin become less and less identical. In the past it was taken for granted that everything that is good for General Motors is good for America. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Nowadays it is still true: American cars keeps manufacturing jobs and money in America. If our manufacturing jobs are being hollowed out, instead of just transferring factories overseas, there should be a clause that these factories are also able to transfer their workers and make sure they can afford the same type of life, if a better quality. Also, those living on government benefits should be allowed to move to other countries because due to inflation and rising costs of rents, many of them can no longer afford to live in America and some income-based housing is just second chance housing for criminals and good people should not be caught up in a hood with criminal thugs. In many of these places, the senior citizens are robbed, physically attacked, threatened by the management, harassed, their apartments are frequently broken into, their keys are floating around and their cars are often broken into and vandalized also. And the thugs are not evicted, taken to jail, nor held responsible for their crimes. The victims are made to suffer and live in fear, and some people involved in management and operations may be criminals, too. Nonetheless, the performance of every country’s manufacturing sector, its national economy as a whole and that well-being of its citizens increasingly depend on its ability to attract manufacturing and other companies from all around the World—China being one of the most vivid examples in this regard. The United States of America needs to attract more planet who want to manufacturing good in America, but with American wages being so high, it is a hard bargain to accomplish. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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With many people driving cars that are flashy and very expensive, carjacking is a subject of concern. Need was not the only factor implicated in carjacking. Some carjackers indicated that they were influenced by the appeal of targets that represented effortless or unique opportunities (exempli gratia, isolated or weak victims, vehicles with exceptionally desirable options, rare vehicles). Here, risks were so low or potential rewards so great that, even in the absence of substantive internal or external situational inducements, they decided to commit a carjacking. Such opportunities were simply too good to pass up. Po-Po (short of “Piss Off the PO lice”) described just such an opportunity-driven incident. She and her brother had spent the day successfully pickpocketing individuals at the Golden 1 Center, in Sacramento. On their way out, she noticed an easy target, an isolated woman walking to her car, preoccupied with the lock on her car door. Po-Po: “It was a fancy little car. I don’t know too much about names of cars, I just know what I like. A little sporty little car like a Mercedes Benz like car. It was black and it was shiny and it looked good. I just had to joy ride it. She was a white lady. It looked like she worked for [a news station] or somebody. We just already pick pocket[ed] people in the arena, but f*ck. So we just walked down stairs and [I] said, ‘You want to steal a car? Come on dude, let me get this car.’ I didn’t have a gun on me. I just made her think I had a gun. I had a stick and I just ran up there to her and told her, ‘Don’t move, don’t breathe, don’t do nothing. Give me the keys and ease your a** away from the car.’ I said, ‘You make one sound I’m going to blow your mother*cker head off and I’m not playing with you!’ I said, ‘Just go on around the car, just scoot on around the car.’ Threw the keys to my little brother and told him go on and open the door. And she stood around there at the building like she waiting on the bus until we zoomed off. We got away real slow and easy.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Likewise, Kow, and older carjacker and sometimes street robber, was on his way to a friend’s house to complete a potentially lucrative drug deal when he happened on an easy situation—a man sitting in a parked car, talking to someone on a pay phone at 2A.M. INT: “What drew you to this guy? What were you doing? Why did you decide to do this guy?” KOW: “Man, it ain’t be no, ‘What you be doing?,’ [it’s] just the thought that cross your mind be like, you need whatever it is you see, so you get it, you just get it. I was going to do something totally different [a drug deal] but along the way something totally different popped up so I just take it as it comes. I was like, ‘Whew! Get that.’ I don’t know man, your mind is a hell of a thing. On our way to this other thing. It just something that just hit you, you know what I’m saying? Plus, [he looked like] a b*tch. I don’t know, it’s just something, he look like a b*tch, just like we could whip him, like a b*tch, you know what I’m saying. Easy.” Not all irresistible opportunities were driven solely by the prospect of monetary gain. In a city the size of Sacramento, offender run into one another all the time, at restaurants, malls, movie theaters and night-clubs. As a result, individuals with shared histories often encounter unique chances for retaliation or personal satisfaction. Goldie emphasized how such opportunities could pop up at a moment’s notice. While cruising the north side of Sacramento, he spotted an individual who had sexually assaulted one of his girlfriends. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Goldie: “I did it on the humbug [spontaneously]. I peeped this dude, [saw that] he [was] pulling up at the liquor store. I’m tripping [excited] you know what I’m saying, [as I’m] walking there [towards the target]. You know, peep him out, you dig? He [was] reaching in the door to open the door. His handle outside must have been broke cause he had to reach in [the window] to open the door. And I just came around you know what I’m saying. [I] put it [the gun] to his head, ‘You want to give me them keys, brother?’ He’s like, ‘No, I’m not givin’ you these keys.’ I’m like, ‘You gonna give me them keys, brother. It’s simple as that!’ Man, he’s like, ‘Take these, motherfu*ker, f*ck you and this car. F*ck you!’ I’m like, ‘Man, just go on and get your a** home.’ [Then I] kicked him in his a**, you know what I’m saying, and I was like, ‘F*ck that, as a matter of fact get on your knees. Get on your knees, mother*cker…’ Then I seen this old lady right, that I know from around this neighborhood. I was like ‘F*ck!,’ jumped on in the car [and] rolled by. I wanted to hit him but she was just standing there, just looking. That’s the only thing what made me don’t shoot him, know what I’m saying? ‘Cause he’s f*cking with one of my little gals. ‘Cause he f*cked one of my little gals. Well, she was saying that he didn’t really f*ck her, you know, he too the p***y, you know what I’m saying? He got killed the next week so I didn’t have to worry about him. Motherf*ckers said they found him dead in the basement in a vacant home. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

That the apostle after Pentecost recognized and dealt with the denizens of the invisible World is evident both from the Acts of the Apostles and from references in the Epistles. During their three years’ training by the Lord, the disciples were being prepared for Pentecost and the exposure to the supernatural World resulting from the coming of the Holy Spirit. They had watched Jesus deal with the wicked spirits of Satan, and had themselves learned to deal with them too. So the power of the Holy spirit could be safely given at Pentecost to men who already knew the workings of the foe. We see how quickly Peter recognized Satan’s work in Ananias (Acts 5.3), and how unclean spirits came out at his presence even as they had with his Lord (Acts 5.16). Philip likewise found the evil hosts subservient to the word of his testimony (Acts 8.7) as he proclaimed Christ to the people. And Paul definitely knew the power of the name of the risen Lord (Acts 19.11) in dealing with the powers of evil. It is therefore clear from Christian Bible history that the manifestation of the power of God invariably meant active dealing with the satanic hosts; that the manifestation of the power of God at Pentecost, and through the apostles’ subsequent ministry, meant an aggressive attitude toward the powers of darkness. We can therefore conclude that growth and maturation of the Church at the end of the New Testament dispensation will require the same recognition and the same attitude toward these satanic hosts—with the same co-witness of the Holy Spirit to the authority of the name of Jesus—as was fond in the early Church. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

The Church of Christ will reach its high-water mark when it is able to recognize and deal with demon possession: when it knows how to “bind the strong man” by prayer and “command” the spirits of evil in the name of Christ, thus delivering men and women from their power. We want a theology which beats in rhythm with the pulse of modern life. Christian symbols must speak to and be understood by humans in present existential situation. Questions should spring from the depth and not the surface of existence, for we employ ontology. If one wants to know, one cannot escape ontology. Ontology removes us from those theologians who shun philosophy of any kind or who attempt to theologize in purely biblical categories. Ontology injects into our system a refreshing intellectual vigor and an antibody against narrowness. The result has unquestionably made a great contribution to the revival of metaphysical thinking within Protestant circles in our day. Since we represent the here and now existential situation, things tend to be vibrant, demanding, and so tends to steal the spotlight from the theological symbols which have already been on the stage for several thousand years. For us the Bible is not the unique source. The theological source, adequately understood, includes the history of the church, of religion, and of culture, for these are the areas in which revelation is received and expressed. Both Protestants and Catholics alike can profit from this enrichment of the wellsprings of theology in order to avoid the impoverishment of a narrow biblicism or of a cramped clerical view of the history of salvation. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

The goal is to restore to theology its oft neglected historical perspective with an amplitude that surpasses the commonly accepted notion of tradition. If the Christian Bible is not directly employed, its influence is present in every part of the system. The goal is to produce mountains of information about what it the Bible meant to the people at the time it was produced by trying to make it more relevant in modern examples. The theological norm is the New Being in Jesus as the Christ as our ultimate concern. Ultimate concern appears to be not just an accessory gadget, but the mainspring of the system. The moment or act in which one is grasped by the holy is a thunderstorm at night, when the lightning throws a blinding clarity over all things, leaving them in complete darkness the next moment. Reality is seen as something new. Its ground has become visible in an ecstatic experience, called “faith.” Faith is equated with the ultimate concern: Faith is a total and centered act of the personal self, the act of unconditional, infinite and infinite passion. Some people feel like they do not belong no matter where they go’ somehow, as always, they are left in the cold, alone, by themselves. And no matter how much they try to be themselves and have friends, and be alive; each time, their friends depart, go their own way, achieve their goal, and one is left alone. It may have always been that was since one was a child. Some kids play alone in the backyard, planting flowers and trees, or making patterns and designs with things they find in the backyard. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

One may remain alone, and play by oneself, build something, grow something, or paint with paint or draw crayon pictures—they would be all right; one would feel strong and better; night, silence, these would not bother one at all. However, some may have felt like they never belonged in their own family, even though they turned to them so very much. But every family needs an individual to look down on to make themselves feel better. They all need someone to talk about and make fun or, someone to depress and ruin. The goal is to create something in the aloneness, then one will be all right, and will not really be alone and will not really suffer, for in being alone, you can grow. Faith is ultimate concern and infinite passion. Consequently its all-consuming urgency requires that it be an act of total personality. Faith is not a special faculty nor is it a special function of man’s being. Faith involves the whole person, and thus it is the integrating factor which gives unity and direction to all man’s other concerns. In the fact of faith every nerve of man’s body, every striving of man’s soul, every function of man’s spirit participates. An infinite passion is all-pervading, and no area of man’s being can escape it: one’s body, for ultimate concern is passionate concern; one’s unconscious strivings, for they relate to the symbolic expression of faith; one’s conscious life, for faith concentrates man’s activities upon the object of ultimate concern. Because faith is such a centered act, its identification with any one function leads to what is called intellectualistic, voluntaristic, or emotionalistic distortion of faith. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

Since faith cannot spring from any of man’s spiritual functions, but implies a power which unites and transcends all of them, faith has a receptive character, its mere passivity in relation to the divine Spirit. This accords with the basic theology truth that in relation to God everything is by God. Man’s spiritual functions cannot attain the ultimate, although they tend toward it, but the ultimate can grasp all of these functions and raise them beyond themselves by the creation of faith. Although faith is in man, it is not from man. The passive character of faith has to be grasped. Faith is the state of being grasped by the ultimate concern. In contrast to this, faith healing is a psychological phenomenon of autosuggestion which emphasizes an act of intensive concentration and self-determination. However, nothing could be farther from the receptive character of genuine religious faith, the state of being grasped by the Spirit. Once a person has been grasped by the power of the ultimate, one possesses an absolute certainty of the fact which springs from an immediate awareness of it. In ecstasy, anxiety, an even in despair, one is as certain of the experience of the holy as one is of one’s own self. In fact, it is the self in its self-transcending quality. All this, of course, is on the subjective side of faith, for objectively there is always room for doubt about the content of faith. We may not grasp anything in depth of our uncertainty, but that we are grasped by something ultimate, which keeps us in its grasp and from which we may strive in vain to escape, remains absolutely certain. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Advances in science and technology have been so extraordinary since World War II they hardly need elaboration. If nothing had occurred but the invention of the computer and the discovery of DNA, the postwar period might still go down as the most revolutionary in scientific history. However, in fact, much more has happened. We have not only improved our technologies, we have begun to operate at deeper and deeper levels of nature, so that instead of dealing with gross chunks of matter, we can now create a layer of material so incredibly thin that the electrons in it are effectively moving in only two dimensions. We can etch lines that are only 20 billionths of a mete wide. We will soon be able to assemble things one atom at a time. This is not “progress,” but upheaval. The U.S. Nation Academy of Engineering in 1989 listed what it considered the ten most important engineering achievements of the previous twenty-five years. It began the list with the Apollo moon landing, which it ranked in history with the building of the Egyptian pyramids. Next came the development of satellites, micro-processors, lasers, the jumbo jet, genetically engineered products, and other breakthroughs. Since the beginning of the 1950s, when the new wealth-creation system began sprouting in the United States of America, humans, for the first time in history, opened the pathway to the stars, identified the biological program of life, and invented intellectual tools as important as writing. This is an astonishing set of achievements in what amounts to a single generation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

Nor is it only scientific or technological knowledge that has made, or is about to make, remarkable strides. In everything from organization theory to music, from the study of ecosystems to our understanding of the brain, in linguistics and learning theory, in studies of nonequilibrium, chaos, and dissipative structures, the knowledge base is being revolutionized. And even as this occurs, competing researchers in fields like neural networks and artificial intelligence are providing new knowledge about knowledge itself. These transformative advances, seemingly remote from the Worlds of diplomacy and politics, are in fact inescapably linked to today’s geopolitical eruptions. Knowledge is the “K-Factor” in global power struggles. Consider, for example, the implications of the knowledge factor for Soviet power Today’s historic powershift, as we have seen, has made two of the most basic sources of power—violence and wealth—increasingly dependent on the third source: knowledge. Because of the spread of knowledge-based technology and the relatively free circulation of ideas, the United States of America, Europe, and Japan have been able to leave the socialist nations in the dust economically. However, the same technology made possible a vast leap in military power as well. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

A fighter airplane today is the equivalent of a computer with wings. Its effectiveness depends almost entirely on the knowledge packed into its avionics and weaponry—and into its pilot’s brain. In 1982, Soviet military planners suffered a collective case of ulcers when eighty Soviet-built MiG fighters, flown by the Syrians, were destroyed by Israeli pilots, who lost not a single plane. Soviet-built tanks also did badly against Israeli armor. Even though the U.S.S.R. had brilliant military scientists, and nukes enough to incinerate the World, it could not keep place in the race toward super-high-technology conventional weapons or in the dash for strategic defense systems. The growing sophistication of information-based conventional weapons (which, in fact, are not conventional at all) threatened Soviet superiority on the ground in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the extremely knowledge-intensive Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) threatened to negate the vale of Soviet long-range missiles. Critics of SDI complained that it would never work. However, the very possibility alarmed Moscow. If SDI could, in fact, block all Soviet nuclear missiles before they hit the United State of America, they were useless. That would also mean that the United States of America could launch a first-strike nuclear attack without fear of retaliation. If, on the other hand, as is more reasonable, SDI was only fractionally effective, blocking some but not all warheads, it would leave Soviet war panners wondering which fraction of U.S.A. missiles would survive. In either case, SDI raised the ante, and made theoretical Soviet use of nuclear weapons, never very likely, even riskier for Moscow. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

On the ground and in space, then, the Soviets confronted a double threat. Faced with these sobering realities, plus its own economic decline, Moscow rationally concluded that it could no longer protect its Eastern European perimeter militarily, except at an unacceptable and skyrocketing cost. For both economic and military reasons, therefore, a reduction of its imperial commitments became necessary. In the end, what did in the Soviets was not arms or economics, but the K-factor—the new knowledge on which both military strength and economic power are increasingly dependent. The same K-factor helps explain the fragmentation of “developing countries” and the rise of three distinct groupings among them. For example, once the most advanced economies began to shift to computer and information-based technologies, yielding higher value-added products, they transferred many of the old muscle-based, less information-intensive operations to countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and now to Thailand and other places. As Europe, Japan, and the United States of America moved to Third Wave tasks to another tier of nations. This speeded their industrialization and they left the other LDCs behind. (Many of these “newly industrialized economies,” or NIEs, in turn, are now racing to pawn off Second Wave processes on still poorer, more economically backward countries—along with the accompanying pollution and other disadvantages—while they, in turn, try to make the transition to more knowledge-intensive production.) The different speeds of economic development have separated the LDCs from one another. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

And as far the inter-capitalist rivalry among Europe, Japan, and the United States of America, the fabulous success of the U.S.A. postwar policy, which promoted the rebuilding of both the European and Japanese economies, helped both of them restore their shattered industrial structures. This meant the chance for a fresh start and the opportunity to replace old prewar machines with the shiniest new technology, while the United States of America, whose plants had not been bombed into rubble, still needed to amortize its existing industrial base. For a variety of reasons, including a future-oriented culture and the regional economic stimulation resulting from the Vietnam War, and, of course, because of the tremendous hard work and creativity of its postwar generation, Japan leaped ahead. Its eyes always focused on the 21^st century, it culture always emphasizing the importance of education, business intelligence, and knowledge in general. Japan seized on the computer and all its derivatives in electronics and information technology with an almost erotic passion. The economic results as Japan transited from the old to the new system of wealth creation were stunning—but they threw Japan into inevitable competition with the United States of America. In turn, a terrified Europe launched its drive for economic and political integration, after years of dawdling. At every step, the new knowledge-based system of wealth creation has been either a majority contributor, or a primary cause of, the great historical shift of power now reshaping our World. There are global implications. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

A memory of a very recent past. Several years ago, amid heated debates about the undervalued yuan and China’s currency manipulation, one of America’s major TV channels interviewed an owner-manager of a stocks-making company. He was bitterly complaining that he would not keep afloat if yuan did not appreciate and Chinese-made socks continued to sell for some 65 cents a pair. I understood his feelings. However, the more I listened to his talk, the more I felt that he was not on the right track: The yuan appreciation, perhaps, might somewhat ease his pain for a certain period of time, but, unfortunately, could not provide a solution. According to various estimates, the yuan is currently undervalued by 40-60 percent. Even if a miracle happens and its exchange rate goes up 60 percent right away, cost differentials between China and the United States of America will remain significant, as the average wage of a Chinese worker in the manufacturing industries is currently less than one-seventh that of his U.S.A. colleague (and the socks-producing industry is hardly an exception). The mentality has to change. Time has come to realize the U.S.A.—based markers of socks for everyday use are no longer in a position to compete with their Chinese counterparts—be it at their domestic market or anywhere else. Furthermore, it is hardly relevant and desirable for America to force its consumers to pay more for their everyday-wear socks—not least because for many of them global competition exerts strong downward pressure on wages. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

One more example from the recent past. In the mid-2000s, U.S.A. bedroom furniture makers formed the American Furniture Manufacturer Committee for Legal Trade and began to press the government to give them protection from Chinese exports, insisting that they threatened “our way of life, our culture and the competitiveness of American in the World.” Really confusing. So high and passionate wording was obviously in contradiction with the harsh reality, namely the racket to buy protection. Chinese makers paid cash to their American competitors who had the right to as the U.S.A. Ministry Commerce to review important duties. References to values and culture are hardly relevant. It rather resembles the World depicted in The Godfather by Mario Puzo. Essentially, there is no more economic rationale of U.S.A. and other Wester-based factories to produce goods belonging to the first and also, increasingly, the second segment. This is the golden rule of the globalized economy. In a sense, they do not have the right to produce them (it is not about a legal right, of course, but about the right stemming from economic common sense, and maybe even about the moral right if you assume that producers have to serve the society—do they not?), because Chinese and other Third World factories can provide the same customer value at a lower price (to repeat—even if the yuan becomes 1.5 times or even twice as heavy as it is now). Consequently, Western governments basically do not have the “right” to protect such producers by higher tariffs and other means, because it will have the vast majority of their countries’ households. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

If you play by the rules of the globalized economy, the only genuine solution for a Western-based manufacturer can be a shift to the third or the fourth segment: product differentiation. Trying to compete with Chinese-made products on price is mostly meaningless. In today’s World, whether a Western-based factory has the “right” and rationale to continue operating, depends on its ability to produce differentiated products—preferably those that are in demand internationally because the domestic market may be too small. If you want to continue makings socks in the United States of America, try to make them character goods, think of a peculiar design attractive for particular groups of customers, bet on special features like high durability, sweat-absorbing ability, or whatever. It is advisable to shift from regular socks as a mass product to high-grade socks as a fashion item and to do your best to establish the brand. (This may be why so many people support labor from people who have immigrated illegally. It tends to be less expensive, they want to stay in business, and the labor tends to be more affordable, but it may displace American workers and reduce their wages.) If you want to produce bedroom furniture, develop strong attractive American brands, popular not only in the United States of America but also around the World and capable of competing with internationally recognized Italian, French, Spanish, or Swedish makers. Otherwise you are doomed to lose, and the yuan appreciation will not be of help. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

The emergence of China as a major competitor brings about a deep polarization in the global manufacturing industry, creating three groups of winners and one group of losers. The winners are Chinese domestic companies, Western multinationals using China as a production platform, and Western non-multinationals making differentiated, especially high-end products and increasing their exports to rapidly expanding markets in China and other developing countries. The losers are numerous unrecognizable non-multinational companies in the West making mass products: largely, but not only, small and medium-size firms. The key issue is how the latter can address the challenge and what policy can help them to succeed. The first option is to pursue aggressive product differentiation. To switch to the fourth segment, establishing a position as a high-end goods marker. If you are a domestic market-oriented company, development of external markets is indispensable to expand the range of customers. (I still think there is a market for trucks and cars without all the computers and windows you can roll up and down by hand and doors you have to individually lock, but everyone is focused on high-end only.) However, it is more easily said that done. Many Western businesses are simply unprepared for it both psychologically—lacking the will and persistence to work hard to achieve the goal—and organizationally: most of all due to the shortage of capable human resources, both at the managerial and the shop-floor level. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Yes, the developed West has to make a very, very big step forward in human capacity building to train people capable of transforming its struggling companies and industries. The shift from mass to differentiated, especially high-end products making is usually a difficult and risky thing. You have to find or newly create your group of customers and appeal to them so that they become found of your brand name. You have to persuade people to pay more for every unit of your product than they did before. The number of buyers in your home country will inevitably become smaller, so you will have to expand or newly create your customer base overseas, including remote Third World countries whose markets are most dynamic. Most likely, you will have to make a tremendous effort and to bear a lot of expense to introduce more advanced technologies and more state-of-the-art equipment, to employ more high-skilled workers, to develop various products promotion channels, and so on—and you will have to do all this while you still remain in terra incognita, not knowing whether your potential customer will react in a beneficial way or not. The high-end product niches are usually already occupied by World-famous brand markers, which will make your mission even more challenging. Presumably, product differentiation, especially a shift to the fourth, high-end products segment, can be handled only by a small portion of Western companies, and those who fail to access the limited market space will be squeezed out or, for the best, will have to struggle to make ends meat. The process has already started. A narrow circle of successful Western factories are differentiating their products and establishing a strong global position—largely (but not only) in the high-end products segment, while most domestic producers, especially small and medium are either washed out or clutching to a straw. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

The overall number of manufacturers is falling. Take Japan, famous for its strong manufacturing base. On the one hand, a cohort of small and medium-size domestic manufacturers is successfully capturing or even monopolizing important niches of the global market due to their outstanding technological capabilities, vigorous quality control, dynamic innovation, and persistent market development in various parts of the World. Nippon Ceramic is the World leader in the production of infrared sensors for security systems. Teibo manufacturers about half of the World’s fiber pen nibs, praised by NASA for their ability to write in space. Nakashima Propeller controls that lion’s share of the global market for supersize screws for ships, and JAMCO for the lavatories for passenger planes. On the other hand, the overall number of manufacturing companies is decreasing, including companies belonging to the famous manufacturing clusters, like Ota Ward in Tokyo or Higashi-Osaka (Easter Osaka) in the Osaka Prefecture. Traditionally, clusters of this kind generated strong synergy effects stemming from regular intercompany interactions and networking, and contributed a lot to the country’s competitiveness in manufacturing. However, as much as 40 percent of the companies in those cluster areas closed down almost 40 years ago. Lots of manufacturers are frustrated. For instance, Japanese mold models (prototypes that produce objects) makers who were World leaders some 10 or even 5 years ago, are now facing strong competition from Chinese and Korean rivals, which appears to be very difficult if not impossible to overcome. In real life, more and more small entrepreneurs and their employees are left with no choice but to retreat and accept low-paid jobs in the service sector or even to shift (back?) to such traditional occupations as fishing to earn their living. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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We live in a World where many look on the marketplace as a ruthless arena where the buyer must beware, where no one is obligated to do more than the law requires, and where fraud is not fraud unless you can prove it in court. However, as American citizens, we must have a higher standard. Some seize wealth by trafficking in illegal drugs, or by carjacking. Carjacking is defined as the theft of an automobile by threat or force. Despite its growing reputation, little is known about the thoughts and behaviors of persons who turn to this hybrid form of violent crimes. To this end, we draw upon interviews with twenty-eight active offenders to illustrate how they engage in the planning, enactment, and aftermath of carjacking events. Offenders are described as opportunists who rely on carjacking as a source of reputation enhancement and income. The data show that stolen cars are sometimes used for short-term transportation but eventually get converted to cash through the use of a third party (id est, chop shops) or by personally selling off in-demand accessories (id est, rims, stereo components) on the street. A variety of internal and external pressures are shown to shape carjacking motivations. Offenders may choose to engage in the crime in response to peer pressure, boredom, or a perceived need for money, drugs, or transportation. The term “alert opportunism” refers to those theft in which the offenders do not actively seek to steal a car but take advantage of a soft target. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25

Conversely, the term “motivated opportunism” is used to describe a predatory state in which the offender actively seeks out potential targets. These findings demonstrate a loose rationality behind carjacking, one that is fueled by an ongoing need for cash and status, and leads to a number of patterned behaviors. With the exception of homicide, probably no offense is more symbolic of contemporary urban violence than carjacking. Carjacking, the taking of a motor vehicle by threat of force, has attained almost mythical status in the annuals of urban violence and has played an undeniable role in fueling the fear of crime that keeps urban residents off of their own streets. What is more, carjacking has increased dramatically in recent years. There is an aggregate annual average of 35,500 carjackings per year. Offenders used a weapon in 77 percent of all attempted and completed carjackings. Carjackings are most likely to occur in the evening and at night away from the victims home. Twenty-nine percent of carjackings took place in a parking lot or garage, and 45 percent occurred in an open area, such as on the street. Eighteen percent occurred at or near the victims home. Although carjacking has been practiced for decades, the offense first made national headlines in 1992 when a badly botched carjacking in suburban Washington, D.C., ended in a homicide. Pamela Basu was dropping her 22-month-old daughter at pre-school when two men commandeered her BMW at a stop sign. In full view of neighborhood residents, municipal workers, and a school bus driver, the two men tossed her daughter off with Mrs. Basu’s arm tangled in the car seat belt. She was dragged over a mile to her death. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

This incident focused a nationwide spotlight on carjacking and legislative action soon followed with the passing of the Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992. Carjacking was made a federal crime punishable by up to a 25-year term in prison or—if the victim is killed—by death. Like other forms of robbery, carjacking bridges property and violent crimes. Although a manifestly violent activity, it appears often to retain elements of planning and calculation typically associated with instrumental property crimes such as burglary. Unlike most robberies, however, carjacking apparently is directed at an object rather than a subject. Mot of the research on carjackings is based on official police reports or large pre-existing data sets such as the National Crime Victimization Survey. From this research, we know that carjackings are highly concentrated in space and time, occurring in limited areas and at particular hours. These studies also indicate that carjackers tend to target individuals comparable to themselves across demographic characteristics such as race, gender, and age. We know that weapons are used in 66-78 percent of carjackings, and tht weapon usage increases the chance that an offense will be successful. Finally, these studies suggest that carjacking is often a violent offense; approximately 24-38 percent of victims are injured during carjackings. Despite these studies, much about carjacking remains poorly understood. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

By their very large-scale nature, such studies are incapable of providing insight into the interaction between motivational and situational characteristics that govern carjacking at the individual level. What is more, they overrepresent incidents in which the offenders and victims are strangers. Recent literature on the nature of acquaintance robbery and drug robbery suggests that this limitation may represent a crucial gap in our understanding of the social and perceptual dynamics associated with carjacking. If, for example, offenders target victims who they know or “know of,” the chance of serious injury or death may increase because within-offense resistance and post-offense retaliation both are more likely. We conducted a field-based study of active carjackers, focusing on the situational and interaction factors (opportunities, risks, rewards) that carjackers take int account when contemplating and carrying out their cries. Drawing on a tried and tested research strategy, we recruited 28 active offenders (with three asked back to participate in follow-ups) from the street of St. Louis, Missouri, and interviewed them at length about their day-to-day activities, focusing on the motivations, planning, execution, and aftermath of carjackings. This methodological strategy allowed us to examine the perceptual links between offenders’ lifestyles and the immediate situational context in which decision to offend emerge, illuminating the contextual uses that mediate the carjacking decision. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

Interviews focused on two broad issues: motivation to carjack ad vehicle/victim target selection, and aftermath of carjacking offenses (including vehicle disposal, formal and informal sanction risk management, use of cash, et cetera. The issue of how carjacking occurs (id est, offense enactment) is covered across the discussion of these two broader themes, because enactment represents a behavioral bridge that unites them. Thus, the procedural characteristics of carjacking naturally emanated from discourse regarding motivation, target selection, and aftermath. In area of motivation, our interviews focused on the situational and interactional factors that underlie the decision to commit a carjacking, and the transition from unmotivated states to those in which offenses are being contemplated. On its face carjacking seems risky. Why risk a personal confrontation with the vehicle owner when one could steal a parked car off the street? Respondents felt that car theft was more dangerous because they never knew if the vehicle’s owner or law enforcement might surprise them. Low-Down: “I done did that a couple of times too, but that ain’t nothing I really want to do ‘cause I might get in a car [parked on] the street and the motherfu*ker [the owner of the vehicle] might be sitting there and then it [might not] be running [any] ways. I done got caught like that before, got locked up, so I don’t do that no more. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

“I can’t risk no motherfu*king life just to get into a car and then the car don’t start. That’s a waste of time. I would rather catch somebody at a light [or] a restaurant drive-thru of something like that.” Throughout the interviews, two global factors emerged as governing motivation, planning, and target selection: the nature of a given carjacking opportunity (that is, its potential risk and rewards) and the level of situational inducements (such as peer pressure, need for cash or drugs, or revenge). When these factors, in some combination, reached a critical minimal level, the decision to carjack became certain. Scheming promoters with glib tongues and ingratiating manners deceive their neighbors. Unlike carjacking, difficulties of proof make fraud a hard crime to enforce. However, the inadequacies of the laws of man provide no license for transgression under the laws of God. Though their method of thievery may be immune from correction in this life, sophisticated thieves in white shirts and ties will ultimately be seen and punished for what they are. Most of us can be relatively comfortable when a message on the Golden rule in the workplace uses examples like illegal drugs and theft by deception. What follows is more challenging. And it should be. If we measure our conduct against the Savior’s command, “I would that ye should be perfect even as I” (3 Ne. 12.48), we cannot be comfortable. To following the footsteps of the only perfect person who ever lived, we must expect to stretch our souls. Followers of Christ have the moral responsibility of earning their livings and conducting their financial transactions in ways that are consistent with the principles of the gospel and the teachings of the Savior. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25

Yes, evil spirits are at work today. The control of spirits over the bodies of those they possess is seen in several Gospel cases. The man with the legion was not master over his own body or mind. The spirits would “seize him,” “drive him” Luke 8.29, compel him to cut himself with stones (Mark 5.5), strengthen him to burst every fetter and chain (v. 4), “cry out” aloud (v. 5), and fiercely attack others (Matt. 8.28). They boy with the dumb spirit would be dashed to the ground (Luke 9.42), and convulsed; the spirit forced him to cry out, and tore him, so that his body became bruised and sore (v. 39). Teeth, tongue, vocal organs, ears, eyes, nerves and muscles are seen to be affected and interfered with by evil spirits in possession. Weakness and strength are both produced by their working, and men (Mark 1.23), women (Luke 8.2), boys (Mark 9.17), and girls (Mark 7.25) are equally open to their power. That the Jews were familiar with the fact of evil-spirit possession is clear from their words when they saw the Lord Christ cast out the blind and dumb spirit from a man (Matt. 12.24). It is evident also that there were men among them who knew some method of dealing with such cases (v. 27). “By whom do your sons cast them out?” asked the Lord. That such dealing with evil spirits was not truly effective may be gathered from the several instances given, where it appears that alleviation of the sufferings from evil-spirit possession was the most that could be done: exempli gratia, the case of King Soul, who was soothed by the harp playing of David; the sons of Sceva, who were professional exorcists, yet who recognized power in the name of Jesus which their exorcism did not possess. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

In both these cases, the danger connected with the attempted alleviation or exorcism, because of the power of evil spirits to resist, is strikingly shown in contrast to the complete results achieved by Christ and His apostles. David playing to Saul is suddenly aware of the javelin flung by the hand of the man he was seeking to soothe. And the sons of Sceva found the possessed man leaping upon them, and overpowering them, when they used the name of Jesus without the divine co-working given to all who exercise personal faith in Him. Among the heathen also—who know the venom of similar wicked spirits—the best that can be accomplished is ere propitiation and the soothing of the spirits; hatred, by obedience to them. The language of theology consists of symbols and ontological terms. In a very strict sense, myth and symbol are not the language of theology, but of religion, id est, of man’s encounter with the holy. The task of theology is to interpret the Christian symbols of this encounter in relation to the existential situation and in ontological terms. In brief, theology speaks ontologically about Christian symbols. Symbols, therefore, necessarily enter into the theologian’s vocabulary and method. A sign—for example, the red light on the street corner—is an arbitrary convention that does not participate in the reality signified, while a symbol—for instance, the king of a country—does participate in the power and meaning of the reality symbolized. Symbols open up levels of reality that cannot be attained in any other way. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

 And corresponding to levels of reality, levels of the soul are also opened up by symbols. A watercolor, a poem, or a symphony mediates something for which another mode of expression or even another painting or sonnet is utterly inadequate. Thus symbols are irreplaceable; new ones cannot be invented. They are born out of the “collective unconscious” which produces or at least accepts them. They die when they no longer respond to the “inner situation of the human group.” When it comes to religious symbols, the level of reality they open up is the depth dimension, the ground of all reality, being-itself or the ultimate power of being. In the soul they excite the experience of this ultimate reality, of the holy.  But caution must be hastened. Although symbols participate in the holy, they are not identified with it. The constant danger of symbolism is demonization. There are two levels within all religious symbols. The transcendent level goes beyond the empirically encountered reality and includes the idea of God, his attributes, and his acts. The immanent level is encountered within empirical reality and includes incarnation and sacraments. Now, we must consider the truth of religious symbols. Their truth is their adequacy to the religious situation in which they exist. They cannot be proven wrong or “killed” by historical and scientific criticism, but they die when they no longer mediate the religious experience of a community. Such was the case of the symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary which died among Protestants because of their loss of the ascetic ideal of virginity and because of their rejection of any mediator between God and man. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25

However, the external criterion of all religious symbols which guard them from being demonized is the cross of Christ, for he who embodies the divine presence sacrificed himself so as not to become an idol. The theologian has in his hands the rich treasure of Christian symbols. How is one to interpret them? The method of correlation directs one to begin with an existential analysis of the religious situation. This analysis reveals that the questions asked are ontological ones, questions of being and non-being, of ontological anxiety, and of the ambiguities of life. Consequently, if the Christian symbols are to be relevant to the situation, the answers must also be in ontological terms. However, there now arise the serious objection that ontology is alien to the biblical message and that to use it is to betray the very source of theology. Biblical religion is characterized by its personalism, for, in the Bible, God appears as a person in the I-Thou revelator encounter. Ontology, on the other hand, asks the question of being-itself, describes the structure of being, and searches for ultimate reality. The extremes of these definitions serve to highlight the conflict: a concrete person versus abstract being-itself. One finds the same opposition in other concepts, for instance, faith. Biblical faith is passionate, confident, and committed, while ontology is detached, questioning, doubting. Each of the biblical symbols drives inescapably to an ontological question and answers are given by theology necessarily contained in the ontological elements. There is a hidden but close correlation between biblical imagery and ontological concepts once one probes beneath the surface. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

China’s economic and military transformation has the potential to rival that of America. China is starting to pursue differentiation of their products: both low-tech and high-tech. One of their most popular tools to achieve this goal is buying the brands of internationally famous Western companies, along with acquiring their product departments, initiating tie-up arrangements, or, more and more often, acquiring them altogether. The trend gained strength in the 2000s. Lenovo became famous for its acquisition for the PC department of IBM in 2004. It made its own name recognizable all around the World and effectively contributed to the establishment of the Lenovo brand associated with an attractive cost-quality mix, dynamism, entrepreneurial spirit, newcomer’s aggressiveness (in the positive meaning of the word), quick learning, desire to innovate, openness, and readiness to integrate different business culture. Having invested more than $500 million, the country’s second largest TV maker TCL established a joint venture with the French electronic giant Thomson and became its majority partner. Thompson also owns the World-famous American brand RCA. The tie-up opened the way for producing under both Thompson and RCA brands and was also used to promote products under the brand of TCL itself, though mostly in the developing nations. Then, through its subsidiary, TCL also acquired the cellular phone business of Alcatel. Pearl River Piano, controlling 60 percent of China’s piano market, acquired a small British maker exporting pianos under the German brand Ritmuller. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

However, buying the brand is not at all an easy and not necessarily a successful game. Its costs are very high—especially as Chinese firms usually target famous but ailing companies or poorly performing product divisions their Western counterparts are eager to sell. Thus, as a rule, Chinese acquirers have to bear a heavy financial burden without any guarantee that the company or the division they have purchased will be put back on track. TCL’s venture has been in the red from the very start. Lenovo’s profit margins are extremely low, and it is pressed back by Dell, HP, and Acer. In 2006, due to it poor performance, the Hong Kong Exchange removed it from the list of companies included in the key Hang Seng Index. In another development, step-by-step, slowly but surely, a cohort of domestic companies is gradually establishing international brands of their own, without embarking on costly acquisitions. For instance, sports apparel maker Li Ning is challenging Nike and Adidas in terms of design and product selection. In January 2010, it opened its first retail store in Portland, Oregon. Furthermore, it started design operations near Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, hiring American personnel. Tsingtao Brewery has become a popular name in many countries of the World as one of the symbols of the Chinese taste. Other examples of increasingly recognizable Chinese brands include air-conditioner producer Midea, telecom equipment maker ZTE, car marker Chery and Geely, clean technology company LDK Solar, and so on. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

In the West it is often argued that, with a few exceptions, Chinese companies are lacking brand-building capabilities. Sometimes it is even considered proof that China is not an economic superpower. This argument is not convincing. True, China’s progress in this area is much slower than in others. However, besides the evidence of progress already achieved, we have to take into account the fact that most Chinese companies that are seriously working on differentiating their products are establishing brands in their own way, going through several stages. They start not from America, Europe, or Japan, but from China itself: the most rapidly expanding and the most familiar market in the World. Then they move or will move on to other developing countries, taking advantage of the markets’ dynamism and comparatively weak competition from other brand-builders. In the Third World they can also capitalize on their still relatively low production and sales costs. And only after that, having acquired brand-building skills and experience, some of them will go to America, Europe, Japan, and other developed states. The interviews conducted by the China Market Research Group with several hundred senior executives of Chinese consumer goods-making companies, showed that over 50 percent of the respondents expected to enter the United States of American in five years, but only after they target their home market and regions like Africa and the Middle East. If they realize their plans, in the second half of this decade Chinese and Western brands will start genuinely competing in the U.S.A. territory. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

For instance, MINISO USA, a Guangdong-based seller of toys and household products, opened a flagship store in New York City’s SoHo in February of 2022. MINISO USA’s estimated annual revenue is currently $49.2M per year. MINISO USA has 156 Employee, and grew their employee count by 5 percent last year. When considering diversity, one of the characteristics of the Dark Age village was extreme xenophobia—hatred for the newcomer, or sometimes recent immigrants have hatred for established cultures (recent immigrants can be naïve for a city, for instance, but a high influx of them may migrate to a region where their culture is not dominant and create culture shock for the established culture). With the coming of the smokestack era, individual and mass loyalties were gradually transferred from village to nation. However, xenophobia, chauvinism, hatred of the outside, the stranger, the greenhorn, continued to be a tool of state power. Today’s shift to a knowledge-based economy requires more cross-national interdependence than the smokestack economy it replaces. Inevitably, this restricts the range of independent action by nations. This, in turn, leads to a xenophobic backlash in everything from commerce to culture. Today, governments throughout Europe are bracing themselves for an onslaught of imported culture, primarily television and movies, because of the integration of the European market. They are especially jitter about the packaging of news by newcomers. Le Monde charges that the EC’s plan for Television Without Frontiers “risks accelerating the implantation of Anglo-Saxon producers and distributors who have taken a decisive lead in the creation of all-European networks.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

Europeans were nervous about plans for a Moroccan network to begin satellite broadcasts in Arabic to Europe’s 44 million or more mainly Islamic immigrants. And they are projected to compose 8 percent or 58 million by 2030. Concerned has deepened as Muslin fundamentalists scored voting success in secular Algeria. This, however, is only a portent of things to come. Satellite technology and other new media tools are cracking open national cultures. In the opinion of satellite expert Dan Goldin of TRW, the day may well come when home satellite receivers can sold for a fraction of their already low price, and millions around the World will be able to pick up transmission from abroad—a Brazilian variety show, a Nigerian newscast, a South Korean drama, a Libyan propaganda program. This cross-communication, however, threatens the “national identity” that governments seek to preserve and propagate for their own self-serving purpose. When fears of culture deracination are intensified by large-scale immigration, identity becomes and explosive issue. The promoters of a European single-market, urging open borders for capital, culture, and people, seek to displace traditional nationalist sentiment with “supra-nationalism” instead. However, precisely because the new economy is becoming more globally integrated, exporting joblessness, pollution, and culture along with products and services, we see a mounting backlash and the revival of nationalism in the high-tech World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25

The Le Penist movement in France, with its viciously anti-Arab propaganda, led by a former legionnaire who terms the Nazi gas chambers “a minor point,” appeals to the knee-jerk xenophobic emotions. His party holds tend seats in the European Parliament. The Republikaner Party in West Germany, formed by an ex-Waffen-SS non-com, Franz Schoenhuber, attacks not merely Turkish migrant workers but even ethnic Germans immigrating from Poland and the Soviet Union who are allegedly taking jobs, housing, and pensions away from “real Germans.” With links to the Le Penists in France and extremist parties elsewhere in Europe, the Republikaner won eleven seats in the West Berlin legislature in 1989, and six in the European Parliament. Under banners proclaiming “Germany first,” Schoenhuber, like Mr. Hitler after the Versailles Treaty, portrayed Germany—now one of the World’s richest countries—as a “victim” nation. Schoenhuber, according to the respected German analyst Josef Joffe, writing in The Wall Street Journal, has issued a “call to arms against the rest of the World, which seeks to oppress Germany by shacking it to the past”—meaning that the World will not let Germany forget Mr. Hitler’s ravages. (Schoenhuber has since quit they part, terming it too extremist.) Any country continually cudgeled for the sins of a much earlier generation can, of course, expect an eventual backlash, a reassertion of national pride. However, pride about what? Instead of urging Germany to become a World leader in developing a more advanced, 21^st-century democracy, the neo-nationalists appeal to many of the anti-democratic pathologies of the German past, thus providing neighboring countries good cause for not wanting Germany to forget its alleged crimes. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

With the Berlin Wall down and the de facto reunification of Germany well advanced, what happens in Bonn and Berlin has ramifications throughout Europe, and many all over the continent are watching the Republikaners carefully. However, similar nationalist movements are found all over Western Europe, from Belgium to Italy and Spain, wherever free-flowing culture and communication and border-crossing migrants threaten the old national self-conceptions. The resurgence of flag-waving xenophobia, however, is not limited to Europe. In the United States of America, too, there is a growing nationalist backlash. Fed by a fear that America is in economic and military decline, weary of being told they are too imperialist, materialist, violent, uncultured, et cetera, et cetera, even normally apolitical Americans are responding to nationalist demagogy. Anti-immigration sentiments runs hot, encouraged by eco-extremists who claim the influx of Mexican immigration is damaging to the U.S.A. environment. This born-again nativism, however, is only one manifestation of a new flag-waving nationalism. The 1990 ruling of the Supreme Court that burning the flag is a form of free political expression, protected by the U.S.A. Bill of Rights, led to an outpouring of high-octane emotion. Radio call-in shows were besieged by outraged callers. The White House instantly proposed changing the Constitution to ban the practice, which is something many Americans would still like to do to this very day. Another indication of the new mood is Japan-bashing, a popular sport these days among protectionist and ordinary Americans worried about the trade imbalance and the Japanese buy-up of U.S.A. companies and real estate. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

In Japan, meanwhile, a parallel ultra-nationalism is spreading. Resurgent nationalists call for changes in the constitution to permit a more aggressive military buildup. Japan, they say, did “nothing to be ashamed of” during World War II—a view that upsets China and other nearby countries invaded by the Japanese. For suggesting that Emperor Hirohito may have shared responsibility for World War II, the then mayor of Nagasaki, Hitoshi Motoshima, became the victim of an attempted assassination. A leading daily Asahi Shimbun, one of those whose reporters had previously been murdered, presumably by nationalists, warns that such violence “will lead to fascism.” The ultras claim, moreover, that Japan has a national “soul” and language different from and superior to that of any other nation. The cult of “Yamatoism,” which promotes this concept of unique superiority, is called upon to offset a loss of national identity resulting from postwar Westernization. Having been treated patronizingly by the United States of America since the way, and sick of being criticized by others for economic policies that have brought it tremendous success, some Japanese are willing to listen to the nationalist pitch. This patriotic hubris comes hand in hand with extraordinary financial clout on the World scene and a fast-growing military capability, and is associated with the most anti-democratic forces in Japanese society. Finally, what makes the widespread resurgence of nationalism truly extraordinary is its reemergence as a powerful political force in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

In fact, rather than democratic uprisings, the upheavals in Eastern Europe could equally well be described as nationalist uprisings among nations bent for nearly half a century to Soviet will. Reframing the concept of “nation” is one of the most emotional and important tasks to face the World in the decisive decades before us, and maintaining national control over certain functions, rather than allowing them to be either localized or globalized, is essential. However, blind tribalism and nationalism are both dangerous and regressive. And when linked to the notion of racial or God-conferred superiority, they gave birth to violence or repression Significantly, in the U.S.S.R., where ethnic passions rocked the state itself, they are often linked to both environmentalism and religious fundamentalism. Ecological themes are exploited to arouse ethnic sentiment against Moscow. In Tashkent a movement called Birlik, which started up to block the building of an electronics plant, has taken on an Islamic fundamentalist coloration. Even more significant than the mounting demands of ethic minorities in the Baltic regions, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and other parts of the U.S.SR. for autonomy or independence is the upsurge of ethnicism in the dominant Great Russian population. Writing about Tolstoi, the historian Paul Johnson described Russian nationalism in words that could apply today. It was, Mr. Johnson says, a “chauvinist spirit, the conviction that the Russians were a special race, with unique moral qualities (personified in the peasant) and a God-ordained role to perform in the World.” #RandolphHarris 20 of 25

This attitude is expressed in extreme form in today’s anti-Semitic, anti-foreigner Pamyat organization, which claims thirty branches around the Soviet Union, 20,000 members in Moscow alone, and has strong links to both the military and KGB, as well as best-selling authors and cultural figures are members. Pamyat, now facing criminal prosecution for spreading hate, resembles the Black Hundreds moment, which organized pogroms under the Tsar at the turn of the century. Pamyat and similar groups themselves as merely interested in preserving ancient monuments, or repairing the environment, but has as their goal the re-creation of the same village-based society that the Green fundamentalist exalt. Some call for a restoration of the Tsarist monarchy, linked to religious orthodoxy. Like Mr. Schoenhuber in Germany, who disclaims anti-Semitism but mouths Hitler-era propaganda about Jews, Pamyat claims innocence but issues virulent diatribes against “International Zionism and Freemasonary,” and its members threaten pogroms. A pamyat manifesto lashes out at all who have “reduced our churches, temples, monasteries, and graves of national heroes of our Motherland” and who have “reduced the ecology of the country to a catastrophic state.” It urges a massive return to the land—“Down with the giant cities!”—and a revival of the “centuries-old institution of the ploughman.” Here, then, we find xenophobic ethnicism explicitly linked to religious fundamentalism and eco-medievalism—all three in a single Dark Age package. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

It is a combustible convergence of forces that could blow up in the face of democracies wherever they now exist. In its worst case, it conjures up the image of a racist or tribal, eco-fascist, theological state—a maximal recipe for the suppression of human rights, freedom of religion, and private property as well. Such a state seems hard to imagine—except, perhaps, as a result of some immense crisis and tragedy, an eco-spasm combining ecological upheaval with vast economic crisis, terror, or war. However, one need not imagine the worst-case scenario to feel a chill in the bones. It is not necessary for such movements, or a convergence of them, to seize control of a state in order for them to savagely restrict or destroy a form of democracy that, even in the high-tech nations, is already fragile because it is increasingly out of sync with the emerging economy and society. Governments controlled or heavily influenced by extremists who put their particular brand of religion, ecology, or nationalism ahead of democratic values do not stay democratic long. The system of advanced wealth creation now spreading around the Earth opens expanded opportunities for democracy. For the first time, as we say, it makes freedom of expression not just a political good but an economic necessity. However, as the old industrial society enters it terminal tailspin, counterforces are created that could destroy both democracy and the option of economic advance. To save both development and democracy, political systems need to leap to a new stage, as the economy itself is doing. Whether that enormous challenge can be met will decide whether the ultimate powershift tht approaches will protect or enslave the individual. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

In the Powershift Era ahead, the primary ideological struggle will no longer be between capitalist democracy and communist totalitarianism, but between 21^st-century democracy and 11^th-century darkness. The three-way duel—three antagonists, Larry, Mo, and Curly, are engaged in a three-way duel. There are two rounds. In the first round, each player is given one shot: first Larry, then Mo, and the Curly. After the first round, any survivors are given a second shot, again beginning with Larry, then Mo, and then Curly. For each duelist, the best outcome is to be the sole survivor. Next best is to be one of two survivors. In third place is the outcome in which no one gets killed. Dead last is that you get killed. Larry is a poor shot, with only a 30 percent chance of hitting a person at whom he aims. Mo is a much better shot, achieving 80 percent accuracy. Curly is a perfect shot—he never misses. What is Larry’s optimal strategy in the first found? Who has the greatest chance of survival in this problem? Although backward reasoning is the safe way to solve this problem, we can jump ahead a little by using some forward-looking arguments. We start by examining each of Larry’s options in turn. If Larry shoots at Mo, what happens? If Larry shoots at Curly, what happens? If Larry shoots at Mo and hits, then he signs his own death warrant. It becomes Curly’s turn to shoot, and he never misses. Curly will not pass at the chance to shoot Larry, as this leads to his best outcome. Larry shooting at Mo does not seem to be a very attractive option. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25

If Larry shoots at Curly and hits, then it is Mo’s turn. Mo will shoot at Larry. [Think about how we know this to be true.] Hence, if Larry hits Curly, his chance of survival is les than 20 percent (the chance that Mo misses). So far, neither of these options looks to be very attractive. In fact, Larry’s best strategy is to fire up in the air! In this case, Mo will shoot at Curly, and if he misses, Curly will shoot and kill Mo. Then it becomes the second round and it is Larry’s turn to shoot again. Since only one other person remains, he has at least a 30 percent chance of survival, since that is the probability that he kills his one remaining opponent. The moral here is that small fish may do better by passing on their first chance to become stars. We see this every four years in presidential campaigns. When there is a large number of contenders, the leader of the pack often gets derailed by the cumulative attacks of all the medium-sized fish. It can be advantageous to wait, and step into the limelight only after others have knocked each other and themselves out of the running. Thus, your chances of survival depend on not only your own ability but also whom you threaten. If the stronger players kill each other off, a weak player who threatens no one may end up surviving. Curly, although he is the most accurate, has the lowest chance of survival—only 14 percent. So much for survival of the fittest! Mo has a 56 percent chance of winning. Larry’s best strategy turns his 30 percent accuracy into a 41.2 percent chance of winning. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25

Today’s duels are more likely to be fought between takeover specialist T. Boone Pickens and the target management over who will end up with control of the board of directors. However, if you do not think far enough ahead, things do not always come out as planned. Throughout my life I has associated with all classes of people. I have few prejudices and my greatest wealth lies in the fact that I have dear, true, faithful friends in all classes. Some of the wealthiest down to some of the poorest are my friends. I am proud to have these friends and proud of the fact that I can talk to them and speak out my heart to them, thus assisting them in some way. However, until now I could never help myself. I wanted to feel free but I never have. Every door I ever entered led to frustration sooner or later. I always got the feeling that I did not “belong.” When I made new friends and found new and interesting things to do I was happy for a while but soon I would become frustrated. I cannot control myself when it comes to spending money. I seem to always be in debt. I always seem tied down. I have always felt as though I were searching for a star that never existed. I have already been lonely! However, I have been given confidence in myself and confidence that I can help others. I consider every human being a sacred thing. Many do not. That is my greatest complaint against the World in general. What can I do to create a stream of sensitivity in the hearts of those around me so that they might consider others? #RandolphHarris 25 of 25

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