Americans to Blame for GM’s Demise?

I saw Barney Frank on TV last night … yeah, it was a channel-surfing accident where I carelessly paused on MSNBC thinking that the mindless hate-fest going on there was a comedy central skit one channel over (note to self: channel surfing is hazardous to your intelligence). He was ranting on about how GM’s demise was largely the public’s fault because the public kept buying GM’s gas-guzzlers until the oil spiked, leaving GM with a glut of undesirable cars and no desirable manufacturing lines.

Yeah. Apparently their downfall had nothing to do with their lack of planning (despite years of obvious warning signs), nor did it have anything to do with their relatively atrocious corporate structure (compared to the competition) and higher than average wages.  While their competitors were building more efficient cars and trucks he somehow feels it was the public’s fault that GM executives focused only on the present and didn’t prepare for the future despite the warning signs.

So America, it’s your fault that GM executives are complete idiots.  Shame on you.  You can only redeem yourself by bailing out GM with flimsy contingencies they can easily bypass, allowing them to maintain what got them into this mess.  Otherwise a bankruptcy would force the restructuring and wages they need to become viable and competitive, and we don’t want that because that’s not the Barney way.

However Barney’s take should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his part in the sub-prime disaster that he also blamed on private enterprise and a lack of socialist oversight.  Never mind that the bulk of GM’s problems came from their socialist-ingrained anti-competitive corporate infrastructure that stinks remarkably like a federal government entity.  No wonder Barney doesn’t want that to change – GM is his kind of company.

It takes a special kind of person to think like Barney thinks. A special piece of work that only Massachusetts could put into congress …. again … and again … and again … and again.

The Dalai Lama: At odds with marriage & family

I read somethings today that the Dalai Lama said that really highlighted what a clueless mindset comes from living like a hermit-king.  I’m not quite sure why the Dalai Lama is regarded as a great sage of wisdom but I wonder if another reason the media worships him (while disparaging the original pacifist, Jesus Christ) is because of his anti-marriage and anti-family message.

The only people I know who honestly think [celibacy] is “better” than marriage because marriage involves sex, are embittered losers who have a purely self-gratifying interpretation of human sexuality.

Similarly, only self-absorbed people who are clueless about human intimacy would think that “[attachment] towards your children, towards your partner,” is “one of the obstacle or hindrance of peace of mind”.

The Dalai Lama said both of these things though … and nonetheless it seems he gets more respect and reverence today than any other religious leader dead or alive.

Now, I’ll admit when you have kids that seem to be doing everything you’ve taught them not to do, including screaming and crying over practically nothing while in your face is anything but peaceful, but “peaceful surroundings” is entirely different than “peace of mind”.

For example, the times I had the least peace of mind were times when I was most detached from commitments and relationships around me like when I was nearly 30, still single, and trying to figure out where I fit in the world.  What’s more, I’ve never felt more peace of mind than when in a committed interdependent relationship with whom I could share everything, despite the fact that I was overwhelmed with far more commitments than I’d ever had.  Peaceful surroundings is not peace of mind.

At first glance, this wouldn’t seem like an issue worth tackling: the fact that the Dalai Lama says marriages and family attachments prevent peace of mind, as I’m happy to leave people to believe anything so long as it leads them to do good (Matt 7:16), but I’m convinced this idea forwarded by the Dalai Lama is one of the most destructive ideas ever.

The mere idea that the family unit is bad, or at least the idea that it has some harmful effects for society, especially with regard to peace is ludicrous and should be loudly repudiated.

What’s even more disturbing to me is that this idea seems to be one of the fastest growing doctrines of men today.  It’s growing quickly and becoming wildly popular to deride the traditional family unit and family oriented policies.

Calling family commitments the enemy to peace of mind and contributing elements to murder and suicide (both assertions of the Dalai Lama) is remarkably clueless.  It’s akin to calling religion the root of all the atrocities of mankind.

You’ve heard that, we all have, that religion is bad because terrorists kill in the name of God, or that the “Holy Wars” were done in the name of Christianity.  The argument is so absurd as to mock reason, and yet seemingly intelligent people make it, completely disregarding the fact that murder and violence is almost unanimously condemned in all mainstream religions, and that hypocrisy is a reflection on the soul of the hypocrite, not the religion which is corrupted in the process, and that people will justify the same atrocities by any vehicle they can find be it a tradition, political philosophy, or just plain old prejudice.

Now we see those same kinds of irrational arguments being promoted by the media to disparage traditional families and traditional marriage, with the Dalai Lama as thier prophet.