Who Has the Courage of His Convictions?

On Tuesday God was in his heaven and Bear Stearns was selling at sixty-three. An investor bought $1.7 in options. The trade conditions amounted to a wild bet the Bear Stearns stock price would decline to 30 within nine days or less.

Suddenly, stock market insiders launched an intense bear attack on Stearns. There was an avalanche of naked short selling and of buying credit swaps. By Friday, the stock price had declined to thirty at the close of the market.

The insiders kept busy during the week-end dropping the price to $2 per share for J.P. Morgan. The goings-on helped our investor convert $1.7 millions in options into $270 millions in cash.

The niggling nabobs of negativism cried, "Foul!" They howled at the stock manipulation by industry insiders. A major financial institution had vanished within the week. The SEC gave the deal the once-over and pronounced everyone clean. Including our investor [known at the SEC but not to the general public], the cognoscenti went forward to wreck Lehman Brothers with a similarly suspicious bear attack.

Further revelations emerged. The US was in a recession that already had gone on for a year. As a profession, the economists had missed the downturn. The banks had indulged in the selling of assets quickly recognized as toxic. The taxpayers had to bail out the banks and to cover the losses of the asset holding financiers. The institutions were too big to fail, but the six billions human beings on the planet are not.

Moral Courage Most noticeable throughout this worldwide recession is the dearth of knowledgeable people willing to speak to power. The operative word is fear and the method is intimidation. If the authorities can't beat and incarcerate the entire mob, they will persecute selected demonstrators until the great mass of them retreats. A successful prosecution [such as Kent State] can still dissent for years.

The bathtub drowning of two investigative journalists discouraged the members of the profession from meaningful work activities. Many whistle blowers are near retirement age no longer in fear of being fired.

Speaking the truth to power causes one to face his mortality.

Irshad Manji

To bring the US situation into focus, it is instructive to view what has happened in the Islamic World. Irshad Manji speaks of the era [800 to 1200 A.D.] when Islam nourished the world's leading civilization. The only two universities of the world were Muslim ones at Baghdad and Cordoba. There were 70 libraries in Spain alone. The Koran encourages debate and reasoned dissent. It rejects female infanticide and most forms of intimidation of women. It asserts the rights of religionists to question the authorities.

After 1200 the primitive tribalism of the Arabian Peninsula returned. Islam became prohibitive bound by superstition, hatred and fear.

The leaders refused debate making it virtually impossible to resolve differences peacefully. Does this sound familiar?

The people long suppressed don't dare to speak out to authority. The males in charge see no reason to alter the status quo.

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