The Dalai Lama on Sex, Readers on Thomas Friedman, Shilling for War

December 1st, 2008 - by: danny

NEWS TRUST: FINDING THE BEST GLOBAL NEWS SOURCES

As fierce fighting continued between soldiers and those behind this week’s attacks in India’s southern port city of Mumbai, so did the frenzy of Twitter messages complaining about how media were covering the event.

FOCUS

One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex

David Barstow, The New York Times: “In the spring of 2007 a tiny military contractor with a slender track record went shopping for a precious Beltway commodity. The company, Defense Solutions*, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the right to supply Iraq with thousands of armored vehicles.”

* Editor’s link.

60 Minutes:

Lara Logan was back Sunday tonight with one more breathless story about the bravery of our troops, in this case a female medic in Afghanistan who wins a silver star. The focus, as usual, is on the hero or in this case a “she-ro,” with no larger context. Lara will probably win the Medal Of Honor for her supportive coverage.

YOUR LETTERS REGARDING MY COMMENTARY ON THOMAS FRIEDMAN

These letters comment on my latest commentary now on other websites. It will be posted on Mediachannel.org on Monday.

Neil Gorter writes from Portland, Oregon:

I read with interest your article “Blaming ‘the Stupids’ for the Financial Disaster”.

The following brief narrative explains why I believe that the bailout will remain ineffective until the $50 Trillion in gambling debts involved in Credit Default Swaps is addressed.

Statistics to remember:
Total value of all mortgages is $11.2 Trillion.
Total value of all Corporate Bonds in this country is $5 Trillion.
Total value of Credit Default Swaps based on those debts is about $50 Trillion. This is where the financial melt down exists.

What are Credit Default Swaps? They started out as a form of
insurance on Corporate Bonds. If a regulated company, like AIG sold a
$100 million insurance policy, it would need to have a $100 million in
assets available so it could pay off the policy in case of a claim.

Credit Default Swaps are totally unregulated so sellers of this “insurance” could gamble by having assets only worth a small fraction of the amount insured. Originally this fraction was set at 10 to 1 allowing them to insure $100 million while only having $10 million in assets available to pay off claims. This allowed them to collect 10 times as much in premiums. By the time of the melt down the ceiling had been raised to about 30 to 1. That meant that they could insure $100 million if they only had $3.3 million in assets.

Banks and insurance companies could buy and sell these totally unregulated “insurance polices”. They could even buy “insurance” on bonds they didn’t even own. That is like buying insurance on the house down the street betting that it will burn. The only downside risk is the premium paid, but if the house burns you win an amount equal to the value of the house. This is not managing risk, it is gambling.

When home buyers started defaulting, the “insurance” had to be paid. With available assets only worth 1/30 of the amount insured, banks and insurance companies quickly started running out of cash. With the current and anticipated level of defaults banks and insurance companies are essentially out of the cash needed to pay the actual and anticipated “insurance” claims.

The $7.7 Trillion in bailout and loans already advanced to banks and insurance companies doesn’t even make a dent in the $50 Trillion in Credit Default Swap liabilities. This is why no one is making loans. They need the cash to pay off the staggering “insurance” liability. This is the real “Melt Down”.

Doug Latimer from Oakland CA writes [check out his blog]:

Hello Danny,

Hello Danny,

I imagine you know I agree with you on the necessity of a “jailout”. Trouble is, that would put just about every one of Obama’s economic appointees in those stylish institutional orange jumpsuits, wouldn’t it?

So the odds are rather slim of any justice coming from the new boss Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ believing that would be a prime example of the audacity of false hope. Not that I think you engage in such, but there are a lot of folks out there that do Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ and the term “stupid” wouldn’t be too far off the mark in their cases, would it?

Let’s just say they’re ignorant Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ many wilfully so.

As for Friedman and his corpress ilk Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ it’s not a matter of being blind to others’ pain. hey just simply don’t give a rodent’s rear. I can’t see any other logical explanation for it, can you? If you don’t belong to their class, what happens to you and your family means bupkes to them. You may as well be a bug splattered on the windshield of a late-model Mercedes.

And, indulging my penchant for punnery, do you think we need a catchy name for all the trickle up? How about “wealth-fare”?

Ian Campbell writes:

Main stream media gurus who characterize others as “STUPIDS” really need to look in the mirror.

I suppose the so-called journalists fear that their corporate bosses will can them if they ever dare speak truth to power.

The quality of journalism seems to have deteriorated since a university degree became a requirement to get into the business. I’m a university graduate, but I can see that obtaining a degree has more to do with becoming a member of the club than upgrading one’s smarts. Journalism is a trade/craft that needs to be learned on the job.

Rich Moniak writes from Juneau, Alaska:

We all may be guilty in the eyes of the Archbishop of the New York Times but some are far, far guiltier. Why don’t we find out just who, with a National Commission of Investigation with subpoena power and the right to seize documents and cross-examine, is the “someone” that has to be held accountable!”

I agree, and perhaps such an investigation would be a start. But more than likely it will leave to many players breathing a sigh of relief, and many many more unaware that they benefited somewhere along the way from the wrongdoing of those exposed.

I’m no fan of Friedman, but is there something deeper to his accusation that even he isn’t aware of?

Enron was investigated and the scams revealed. Yet how many people invested in Enron through a portfolio built by an intelligent investor who was totally and genuinely unaware of the ongoing fraud that would ultimately bring it all down? How many people on the various rungs of the investor ladder sold Enron stocks before they tanked without any foresight that something was wrong? How many made a nice little profit on what was essentially illegally created wealth?

I’ve never understood the stock market and stayed away out of ignorance. Except, that word that means there is no escape from contributing even a little to the problem, except I had a relatively small deferred compensation account left over from my divorce. Someone invests that money for me into stocks and whatever that I have no understanding of while at the same time I may gain the dividends, made legally or not, unethically or not, and regardless of where my moral values are in relation to the companies involved.

Another exception. Until this past year, I took my “free” money from the Alaska Permanent Fund without understanding how that fund grew from investments I know nothing about. I never asked questions such as ‘do they invest in the defense industry which I detest’ or businesses with what I believe are unethical practices such as Wal-Mart. The list can go on and on. I didn’t apply for it this past year because these questions no longer haunted me in the privacy of my thoughts where I could keep my hypocrisies tamed.

In March I attended a protest on the steps of the state capitol building about the PFD’s investments in companies doing business in the Sudan. The chant that the first speaker tried to energize the crowd with was “PFD, Conscience Free, We don’t need that”. I was struck by my ignorance of its meaning. Was she saying we don’t need a dividend (yes, handout) that includes earnings attained without a conscience, or did she want to be able to receive it without having to engage her conscience to wonder where the money comes from, in other words, to blindly trust that all earnings made legally are ethical and just in accordance with one’s conscience.

Legally seemed to a key to it all. Just like our governor who wanted the country to believe she had an unwavering moral compass on right and wrong, she was in the legal right while being morally wrong for collecting per diem while living in her real home away from the state capital and governor’s mansion. Legal, just like I collect a ridiculous level of per diem (up to $88 day for meals and incidental expenses in Anchorage) without feeling it’s wrong for being unjustly inflated. Legal, in more than a few instances, becomes our excuse to do what we know in our heart is wrong because it threads a certain needle of approval in our conscience.

Money does that when it comes to us without our labors. We earn it legally when we really haven’t earned it all by doing the hard, and mostly impossible work of ensuring the dividends we get is wealth returned in compliance with the dictates of our true conscience.

I’ve lived in Alaska for 18 years. I’ve collected the PFD every year. In the last 10 years I used it to pay off the mountain of debts from my divorce, to help save for the house I eventually bought, and to make additional payments on the loan’s principal, as well as before all that, I used it to buy stuff I needed (that I didn’t really need). Ironically, or pathetically, I also saved my per diem from my travels while working for the feds and applied it to the same purposes. So who am I to criticize our governor?

But what did the protestor mean by “conscience free”, I wondered last winter, as I prepared to write my monthly column for the local paper. It taunted me over and over. I realized that by expressing my belief publicly I could not hide from my hypocrisy because others would see it clearly. Writing is a new endeavor for me. I enjoy the privilege of expressing my viewpoints and asking questions in hopes of stirring up a meaningful discussion in the community. But up till that point it was without such interior strife.

I decided I couldn’t apply for the PFD and pose questions of conscience to the reading public. But then I became conflicted in two new ways. First was disclosure. I didn’t know how to take the position and include my decision in the column because it made me feel unjustifiably self-righteous (as if all self-righteousness isn’t already unjustified). But I didn’t want to be trashed by the readers for being a hypocrite.

The other conflict was I could take it and donated it to charities, or my parents or children, who needed money more than me. But then this became confusing too. Wouldn’t I taint my goodwill with tainted money? If I could get past this point, could I rectify the false sense of generosity that appeared next to a higher level of underserved self righteousness?

I chose not to touch it. When I submitted the final draft to my editor, I put a ‘for the record’ note under my name that disclosed this decision.The Empire printed the column without edits except they added in the tagline that I didn’t apply for the PFD.

I heard both compliments and remarks that place me in the category of foolish, stupid, self-righteous and phony. I refused to read the comments in the online edition. Writing sucks sometimes.

Along the way though I realized a way out that I know won’t dismiss the dismissive labels I garnered. I understood with such clarity the translation of being able to turn down the handout because I could afford to get by without it. I wasn’t even near the edge of financial disaster like my parents were 4 years ago, and like I was twice that far back as I barely escaped filing for bankruptcy. I wasn’t even near the cliff anymore, and that is partly because I haven’t been generous enough in helping out family, friends, and strangers less fortunate than me. Which meant I still had enough left without the PFD to donate it as if I had taken it.

For a lifelong scrooge this isn’t a time and place for bragging, or teaching others anything at all as if I have discovered something vital to the world’s ailments. Looking hard to see our hypocrisies is a task for each of us in our own time and way, maybe nudged a little by thoughts of others, maybe more by those we don’t like to be challenged by.

We are all guilty, and yes, some more than others, but money has a way of not looking at us in the mirror because we can’t see the many faces of others who once held the money we think of as ours for the moment. Most of them aren’t looking in the mirror for our face either. The buck doesn’t stop with us, but maybe it should stop after it starts, between the first hands of exchange, when it has the possibility of holding the most honest meaning of fairness and goodwill, because that’s the only time the eyes in the exchange can ever meet.

Julie Jones writes from Sonoma CA

This reminds me of what the banks did to the family farms — encourage loans, buy equipment they did not need, owe the banks, not make payments, land is forclosed and sold to ConAgra and Cargill, etc. They have control of food, gas and now homes!!! A financial coup d’etat. Citizen Julie

OTHER PERSPECTIVES

Grace Lee Boggs writes on Obama in the Michigan Citizen:

Two weeks ago in my first post- election column, I wrote that I will not be among those organizing or participating in protest demonstrations against Obama’s actions or inactions, trying to hold his feet to the fire. Neither will I wear a hair shirt, regretting that I voted for Obama instead of Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney whose policies are more in line with mine.

That is because my support for Obama was never based on his policies or promises which, with few exceptions, are not that different from those of other Democrats. From the outset my eyes were on the people at his rallies, especially the youth who, inspired by his persona and his eloquence, shed the fears instilled by the Nixons, Reagans and Bushes since the 60s and, imbued with a new hope, began organizing on his behalf.

For me, not just Obama’s victory but that transformation of “we the people” from Fear to Hope, from passivity to activity, from looking on as spectators to participating as citizens was what was so historic about this period.

EDITOR’S NOTE: “The struggle we’re dealing with these days, which, I think, is part of what the 60s represented, is how do we define our humanity?” — Grace Lee Boggs.

At 92, Grace Lee Boggs has been a part of almost every major movement in the United States in the last 75 years, including: Labor, Civil Rights, Black Power, Women’s Rights and Environmental Justice. She is active in Detroit Summer, a multicultural, intergenerational youth program/movement to rebuild, redefine and respirit Detroit from the ground up. She writes a column in the weekly Michigan Citizen and does a monthly commentary on WORT-FM in Madison, Wisconsin. Her autobiography, Living for Change (University of Minnesota Press, 1998), is widely used in university classes on social movements, the history of Detroit and Asian-American studies. You can watch the full PBS Bill Moyers Journal with this legend here.

Joan Brunwasser of OpEd News on terrorism:

Terrorists can pop up literally anywhere, at any time. Luxury liners can be invaded in the middle of the ocean. It happened in 1985, when the Achille Lauro was hijacked by terrorists off the coast of Egypt. A wheelchair-bound Jewish passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, was murdered and dumped overboard. Nowhere feels very safe these days. And let’s not forget our homegrown crazies who blow up federal buildings killing hundreds and injuring hundreds more (Oklahoma City), disgruntled students slaughtering their fellow students (Columbine and elsewhere), and others who go “postal” for unknown reasons at shopping malls, universities, and post offices.

MORE ON “THE INFINITE MIND” CONTROVERSY

Producer Bill Lichtenstein writes:

NPR’s On The Media and The Infinite Mind

In the wake of the November 22, 2008 New York Times article, which revealed Dr. Fred Goodwin, former host of public radio’s “The Infinite Mind,” had received $1.3 million for lecturing on behalf of a pharmaceutical company, NPR has continued to distance itself from the problem and has used its airwaves and web site to unfairly blame “The Infinite Mind’s” producers for the situation.

Most recent is a November 28, 2008 segment on NPR’s “On The Media,” that purports to report on “The Infinite Mind” controversy. However, the “On The Media” broadcast itself failed when it comes to four basic journalistic standards, troubling for a national public radio program that prides itself on covering the press.

First, despite the intense controversy surrounding this important matter, neither I, as executive producer, nor any of the senior producers of “The Infinite Mind” were contacted by “On The Media,” invited to be on the segment, or asked to respond to the criticism leveled at us by NPR in the show.

Second, the reporting in the segment relies on an unnamed, anonymous source, undoubtedly a disgruntled former “The Infinite Mind” employee, who previously worked for “On The Media.”

Third, “On The Media” is produced for NPR by radio station WNYC/New York, but the report, critical of “The Infinite Mind,” failed to disclose that for nine years “The Infinite Mind” was “produced in association” with WNYC, an affiliation contained in the credits of each week’s “The Infinite Mind” show.

Finally, the report on NPR’s “On The Media” relied solely on one guest (with a brief appearance by Senator Charles Grassley). That guest was NPR’s media correspondent, David Folkenflik. Even though Folkenflik was aware, he failed to reveal that Dr. Fred Goodwin had appeared as a guest expert on various NPR programs from All Things Considered to Talk of the Nation, discussing medication studies. In these stories, NPR identified Dr. Goodwin to its listeners only as a professor, public radio host, and former government official. In none of these cases did NPR make any reference to the fact that Dr. Goodwin had connections to the pharmaceutical industry. NPR was apparently in the dark, as were we.

The issue of disclosure goes well beyond Dr. Goodwin.

A friend of mine, a mental heath worker, commented: “the show, in the few brief times I tuned in, seemed so “medical model” it failed to engage my attention. There is not enough coverage of anything about mental health issues out there that presents more than one point of view.”

TODAY ON NPR: MEXICO 68: A Movement, a Massacre, and a 40-Year Search for the Truth

In the summer of 1968, students in Mexico began to challenge the country’s authoritarian government. But the movement was short-lived, lasting less than three months. It ended on October 2, 1968, ten days before the opening of the Olympics in Mexico City, when military troops opened fire on a peaceful student demonstration. The shooting lasted over two hours. The next day the government sent in cleaners to wash the blood from the plaza floor. The official announcement was that four students were dead, but eyewitnesses said hundreds were killed. The death toll was not the only thing the government covered up about that event.

The Massacre of Tlatelolco has become a defining moment in Mexican history, but for forty years the truth of that day has remained hidden.

Mexico ’68 airs on NPR’s All Things Considered at 430pm (ET) Monday December 1st. You can also hear the story and see photographs of the 1968 student movement in Mexico, along with secret government footage and declassified documents about the massacre at: RadioDiaries.org

SOME THOUGHTS ON SEX AND ATTACHMENT

FROM THE DALAI LAMA

LAGOS (AFP) – The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader, on Friday said sex spelt fleeting satisfaction and trouble later, while chastity offered a better life and “more freedom.”

“Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually I think is short period satisfaction and often, that leads to more complication,” the Dalai Lama told reporters in a Lagos hotel, speaking in English without a translator.

He said conjugal life caused “too much ups and downs.

“Naturally as a human being … some kind of desire for sex comes, but then you use human intelligence to make comprehension that those couples always full of trouble. And in some cases there is suicide, murder cases,” the Dalai Lama said.

He said the “consolation” in celibacy is that although “we miss something, but at the same time, compare whole life, it’s better, more independence, more freedom.”

Considered a Buddhist Master exempt from the religion’s wheel of death and reincarnation, the Dalai Lama waxed eloquent on the Buddhist credo of non-attachment.

“Too much attachment towards your children, towards your partner,” was “one of the obstacle or hindrance of peace of mind,” he said.

I will meditate on this advice. Your comments are welcomed.

Write: dissector@mediachannel.org

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