http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20160205/OPINION02/160209740

February 05,2016

Like a high-stakes poker game, commodities trading is open only to those who can bring a big pile of money to the table. Commodities are big business, getting bigger. Want a job with a bright future? Become a commodities broker, make money on every trade. Whether things go up or down, you win either way. You can buy weather futures now; what used to be hail insurance for farmers is now a commodities business where you can buy insurance on gambling risk.

Commoditization. A cumbersome word. The public good has now been commoditized; it can be bought and sold. A “certificate of public good” is now just a new name for an old concept: the doctrine of Manifest Destiny bringing with it a new era of robber barons, another name for pirates. 

Ambrose Bierce said it well in his “Devil’s Dictionary,” defining “piracy” as “commerce without its follyswaddles.”

And now we have the commoditization of justice and legal ethics, all available to the highest bidder. One of the canons of legal ethics is that pro se parties are to be treated with respect and given the benefit of the doubt due to the obvious disadvantage of having to face off against lawyers. Now, when lawyers are faced with the prospect of losing on the merits to non-lawyers, they can invent a new crime — not being a lawyer — and subject the pro se parties to virtual prosecution. They bought the ethics commodity, so they can make a “crime” out of “almost a crime,” a new concept where you can make criminal accusations without any evidence any crime has occurred, or been committed. There is a name for “virtual prosecution” and it is “persecution.”

Now we come to the ultimate commodity, civil rights. This is the obstacle to the ultimate takeover of our society by the fascist cabal: money, government and corporations. The voice of the people being silenced should they dare to speak out in their own defense against the cabal. The pirates have bought civil rights futures and risk insurance. All it takes is money.

BILL ROSS

Danby