GROUND ZER0, New York, N.Y.--July 29, 2003-- The American government is turning Terrorism into a betting pool.   You can log on to a special website sponsored by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects division and bet on the assassination or overthrow of a nation's leader.   It's called "future Terrorism trading."
      The website, located at www.policyanalysismarket.org, invites future traders to bet on certain crises.  If you're lucky and they come to pass, you win.  
       The initiative, called the Policy Analysis Market, is an experiment in predicting future events.  The idea is that the "market," the average investor, can foresee things that often the most sophisticated intelligence cannot.
        This includes the toppling of regimes, assassinations, drops in oil prices and Terrorist attacks.  The morbid side of the coin is that the betting is being done over the bones of bodies.   The future contracts are about death, destruction, mayhem and brutality erupting here or there.   Critics of the government-sponsored betting program are enraged that more than $8 million dollars has been put behind the program, one geared to attract anonymous betters, some of whom could include Terrorists themselves betting on their next attack.

         Personally, I find the idea repulsive.    Not because it is an issue of gambling or grotesque in nature to bet on the death, destruction and mayhem of human beings.  My issue is the waste factor.
         Betting on Terrorism feeds the Beast of Terror.
         Betting on Vigilance starves him.

         I wonder about the government emphasizing the result of Terrorism instead of betting on how to protect against such attacks.
         I would rather see a Vigilance Pool than a Terrorism one. 
         If people bet on the next act of Courage, the next example of Conviction, the next Right Action that helped future generations, we would strengthen the muscle of Vigilance, not weaken it.
        Instead, by betting on the worst of events--killing, tyranny, destruction, war, assassination, we focus on the Beast's food, his delicacies of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.
        I don't think I'm going to bet in the Terrorism Pool.
        I'm putting my money on Vigilance.

July 28--Birth of the World Wars:  Infamy or Vigilance?

©2001 - 2004, VigilanceVoice.com, All rights reserved -  a ((HYYPE)) design

The Pledge Of Vigilance