Posted by
peripheral on Monday, April 19, 2010 6:36:20 AM
From My Perspective - - -
What is Fact? What is Fiction? What is True? What is False? Has
Fantasy, Fraud, and Fiction supplanted Fact, Truth, and Reliability?
Does it matter any more? Truth and Integrity seem to have been
sacrificed; fiction has been substituted for reality; and journalism
has yielded to “something feigned, invented, or imagined.” However, the
Associated Press Headline article By Liz Sidoti this morning reads: “Poll: 4 out of 5 Americans don't trust Washington.”
She writes: “America's Great Compromiser, Henry Clay, called government
the great trust, but most Americans today have little faith in
Washington's ability to deal with the nation's problems. Public
confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half
century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8
in 10 Americans say they don't trust the federal government and have
little faith it can solve America's ills, the survey found.”
Peggy Noonan is a very gifted and creative writer. In The Wall Street Journal: April 9, 2010, she wrote: “After the Crash, A Crashing Bore.”
In her desire to see some indication of Transparency in the climate of
our times, she resorted to both Fiction and Hyperbole (an extravagant
statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally) to
make an important point: “The men behind the bailout take refuge in
impenetrable jargon. Like all Americans, I continue to seek to
understand exactly what moods, facts, assumptions, dynamics, agendas
and structures underlay and made possible the crash and the Great
Recession…That’s why this week’s Financial Industry Inquiry Commission
hearings were so exciting, such a public service. The testimony of
Charles Prince, former CEO of Citigroup, a too-big-to-fail bank that
received $45 billion in bailouts and $300 billion in taxpayer
guarantees, was riveting. You’ve seen it on the news, but if you were
watching it live on C-Span, the stark power of his brutal candor was
breathtaking. This, as you know, is what he said: Let’s be real. This
is what happened the past 10 years. You, for political reasons, both
Republicans and Democrats, finagled the mortgage system so that people
who make, like, zero dollars a year were given mortgages for $600,000
houses. You got to run around and crow about how under your watch
everyone became a homeowner. You shook down the taxpayer and hoped for
the best. Democrats did it because they thought it would make everyone
Democrats: Look what I give you! Republicans did it because they
thought it would make everyone Republicans: I’m a homeowner, I’ve got a
stake, don’t raise my property taxes, get off my lawn!’ And Wall
Street? We bundled the mortgages and sold them to fools, or we held
them, called them assets, and made believe everyone would pay their
mortgage. As if we cared. We invented financial instruments so
complicated no one, even the people who sold them, understood what they
were. You’re finaglers and we’re finaglers. I play for dollars, you
play for votes. In our own ways we’re all thieves. We would be called
desperadoes if we weren’t so boring, so utterly banal in our
soft-jawed, full-jowled selfishness. If there were any justice, we’d be
forced to duel, with the peasants of America holding our cloaks. Only
we’d both make sure we missed, wouldn’t we?”
Noonan continues: “OK, Charles Prince didn’t say that - he would never
say something so dramatic and intemperate. I made it up. It wasn’t on
the news because it didn’t happen. It would be kind of a breath of
fresh air though, wouldn’t it?” But then - the News on April 16:
“The government on Friday accused Wall Street's most powerful firm of
fraud, saying Goldman Sachs & Co. sold mortgage investments without
telling the buyers that the securities were crafted with input from a
client who was betting on them to fail. And fail they did. The
securities cost investors close to $1 billion while helping Goldman
client Paulson & Co., a hedge fund, capitalize on the housing bust.
The Goldman executive accused of shepherding the deal allegedly boasted
about the exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding
all of the implications of those monstrosities!!!" What separates Truth
from Fiction? A Biblical Guideline that should be embraced and adhered
to is: II Corinthians 8:20-21,
“We want to avoid any criticism…For we are taking pains to do what is
right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men.”
And, Romans 12:17,
“Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.” To walk in
Truth and Integrity is a life-choice and a life-style. It has been
called – “Spiritual Breathing!” We need to do it! Consider these things
with me!