Simmons,
I am often in settings where what I call the “local command” shows up (e.g., judges, city and State officials, senior bureaucrats), but also through my family I have sometimes have access to senior oil company executives, key industry lawyers, etc.
But through my professional work I also often find myself with C-level people of prominent foundations and charities and NGO personalities and figures. For example, recently I was able to meet the senior executive heading up the NGO providing America’s contribution to relief of the refugees from the fighting in Dafur.
These are lily-white venues. The occasional nonwhites in them do not mean anything. These venues are full of aggressive, interesting, and competitive people heavily involved in doing real things.
My conversations are heavily Whitaker influenced which makes for impressive conversations. Armed with Whitaker, you cut through the bullshit quick.
By the way, it has been a while but I was actually able to have a chat with a former CEO of America’s largest oil refinery and I picked his brain on the oil business. Invaluable information.
Here are facts he related to me (you will never get them from the mainstream): Because of the huge advances in geological imaging, the risk of the development of new properties has declined significantly. Economically extractable oil is running 1% ahead of the increases in demand, one of the greatest rates in history (demand is increasing 2% annually, new discoveries 3% annually).
Because of financial innovation, there is far more participation by the speculators in the futures markets. The difference between cash prices and futures prices has for last several years been unprecedented. This has been a bonanza for the oil giants. They have been more than happy to sell to the speculators on the most advantageous terms they have ever had.
The distributors have been buying any container, any ship, any form of warehousing they possibly can because of the high spread between oil cash and oil futures.
Our high gas prices are due to speculators (hedge funds and bank trading desks), not oil shortages. Oil is in great abundance and will be, absent general war, for the foreseeable future.
The refinery industry and oil giants love it. They get to book record profits at the expense of dumb speculators and blame it all on “peak oil”. Like any other commodity, oil is usually in oversupply. The commercials (oil giants) know their bonanza can’t last. It never does.
#1 by Simmons on 11/15/2007 - 10:16 am
Oil futures are in backwardation, buying spot to sell in the future at lower prices with storage fees added, okay fine by me. What this post tells me that even smart white men are specialists who talk their “book” and little else. Like wacky white libs who teach in non-white schools they too are looking for leadership beyond the sloganeering engineered by the bimbos and poofty cosmopolitans of the day. When I do confront someone beyond the mental level of a tube zombie I never launch into the spiel I ask them to explain what they think, they fail miserably, I apply mantra sense. I’ve never been one for the rabbi technique of the word of god is my authority nonsense or its liberal version, but I get by.
#2 by Dave on 11/15/2007 - 1:48 pm
Simmons,
What you need to understand about “elites” is that having to deal with real things tunes people up.
It is deadly to competence not to have to cope with a lot.
I’ll give you an example that illustrates a little known foundation of America’s military policy: There was a big battle that erupted outside of Marche Belgium just after New Years Day, in 1945. It was a truly weird battle because Marche Belgium is a tourist village (stone houses and Cafes) in the highlands overlooking the Meuse River (Belgium’s industrial area). The battle took place in a relatively small space of a couple of square miles. On one side were completely green, never seen combat, American and British troops. On the other were Waffen SS (German, Dutch, and Belgium) who were combat tested and hardened troops.
It was a ghastly battle that lasted 3 days. 3,000 British and Americans were killed and about 6,000 Germans, Dutch, and Belgium died in it.
The Pentagon later studied it in detail for lessons learned. One-half of the American officers simply fell apart when tossed into the combat. It was clear there was absolutely no relationship between the officer’s ratings (their “peer reviews” by fellow officers) and training grades and their actual performance in combat. None. No relationship at all.
What happened was that fully one-half of the American troops and officers couldn’t perform at all despite extensive training and preparation including superior weapons, clothing, food, and other equipment and support. For the one-half that did perform (and ultimately won the battle), there was no predictor for their success. They were the ones who could simply endure the stress of situation. That’s all.
The “take away” is that training and preparation, grades, and reviews, were entirely irrelevant. Accordingly, the only way to have an effective military is to have a “combat experienced” military. The combat itself is the sieve, the filter, for military personnel. No other means exists for accomplishing this. That is why the Pentagon wants America to be continually engaged in warfare (the completely opposite attitude of our “European allies”).
Consider how this relates to “elites”. The segment of the “elites” I want on our side is the segment that is experienced with exercising real power and heavily involved in real things (vigorously acting in the real world, commanding power, and influence). They have already navigated (made their way through) many “sieves” and “filters” proving their competence and ability to foment and exercise power.
And whenever I meet people in senior level positions who shoulder big time real responsibility, they have the same attitudes that Robert Whitaker has about academics, nothing but contempt. All they care about is who can really perform.
You need to get the chip off your shoulder regarding “elites”. You don’t know what you are talking about. We need real competence wherever we can find it. I look for where it most logically resides.
It is counterproductive to our cause to have ”general purpose” contempt for “elites”. Whether people are rich or poor, advantaged or disadvantaged is beside the point. Whether they function inside or outside of the establishment is beside the point.
What matters is winning.
#3 by AFKAN on 11/15/2007 - 2:42 pm
Simmons and Dave have addressed a point that does horrible things to my blood pressure.
Dave discussed the TRUE “Elites,” the meritocratic Elites who, in the space of a generation, bypass the pro forma “Elites.” As an example, consider how, a generation ago, the Shriver Family (as in Sargeant Shriver) were considered members of the Elite.
Now, they are mere posers, hangers-on to what remains of the Kennedy-Camelot Era, which was the organic outcome of one man who WAS a member of the Meritocratic Elite, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
The idea of the soft, degenerate, foolish, poofter “Aristocracy” came from films made during the First Great Depression, as camouflage to divert the attentions of the Working Classes.
In fact, the true Aristocracy, the Jeffersonian Meritocratic Elite described by Aristotle, are groomed with an eminently fair, eminently ruthless system of “education,” as well as formal schooling organized to educate the Rulers of the Nation, who were also, pretty much, the Owners of the Nation. Such was the training and schooling given to Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.
This includes “etiquette,” a code word for the mastery of the social graces that act as a screen for the personal values of members of a certain sociocultural strata.
“The Hidden Rules of Class At Work,” by Payne and Waybill, is a remarkable book that demonstrates, among other things, WHY etiquette is so important. I have discussed relevant sections with my nephews, and they see that the people who run the Show have much more in common with each other, than the Drones who are their fellow countrymen.
In short, Race has a VERTICAL Component, as Devi, Yockey, and so many others have discussed, as we dare not admit.
The Development of the Meritocratic Aristocracy is one of the first duties of any wise sovereign; the painful fact that so few are worthy to be members of the Meritocratic Aristocracy, and the subsequent feelings of envy, and rage, requires this be done as an Open Conspiracy among those who have no illusions about human equality.
That such an Elite must be invisible is a topic, like the Vertical component of Race, that is suitable for discussing at another time.
Did I mention my nephews are engaged in productive activities for a solid ten hours a day, as I try to impress on them the importance of focused, disciplined efforts towards constructive, well-defined Racial Goals?
And etiquette lessons are part of that effort…