CORPORATE-THINK

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/1/06)

Most Americans think that America led by the Bush Administration is headed the wrong way. The middle-class is being wiped-out. President Bush deceived us into an unwinable war. Our government is corrupt. What is there about the Bush Administration that makes it so tawdry? Corporate-think!

Corporate-think wants to invest the least to get the most. We forget that Donald Rumsfeld at the Defense Department made his mark before Bush’s Iraqi War as a Republican functionary and drug company executive. Clues one and two. Against senior military advice, he used the least number of troops, forgetting General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s dictum, “I git thar firest with the mostest men.” It’s called “overwhelming force.” As with most corporate-thinkers, Rumsfeld cheaped out, skimping on armor and shorting the troops to do the job.

Corporate-think is behind the immigration crisis about which Bush done nothing for six years. Corporate-think wants low wages which means eliminating the middle-class, hiring illegal aliens at poverty wages, and reducing America to a third-world status. This means government inaction, porous borders, and national insecurity. Corporate-thinkers fight terrorism by letting down our guard, selling out our country for a buck.

With corporate-thinkers anything goes. They speak of the profit-motive which means greed and corruption. Third clue. They produce medicines that kill, make cars that guzzle and pollute, ill arm our soldiers, sell inferior products, profit by war, and so forth and so on. Exxon, Halliburton, Wal-Mart, Enron, etc. are sociopathic organizations, motivated by greed which inevitably leads to corruption.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2006

AHMADINEJAD AND BOLLINGER

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (10/1/07)

While Columbia University showed admirable courage by inviting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, to speak at the University recently, Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia University, did a serious disservice to academic integrity and free speech with his rant against Mr. Ahmadinejad. While agreeing with nearly everything Mr. Bollinger said, an attack on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s character was out of order. Better that he had disputed things that Mr. Ahmadinjead has said and done, rather than calling him ignorant and stupid. As abhorrent as Mr. Ahmadinejad may be, he was an invited guest. Guests are not attacked. Also, Mr. Bollinger committed the fundamental logical fallacy of the argumentum ad hominem. He attacked the man rather than his argument, thereby vitiating his own point.

The purpose of the invitation was enhancing free speech. The invitation furthered that purpose. Mr. Bollinger set it back. The fact is that Mr. Ahmadinejad made such a fool of himself by his statements and arguments that he did not need to be publicly ridiculed. He is more than ignorant and stupid; he’s either deluded or hallucinatory.

Finally, Mr. Bollinger may have set back American foreign policy. His rant against Mr. Ahmadinejad may have made him more popular in Iran where his popularity is already marginal. An American academic bully boy would not play well in Iran. Clearly, the United States will be better off if Mr. Ahmaninejad disappears. Mr. Bollinger may have lengthened his tenure and, consequently, endangered all of us with his anally explosive self-righteousness.