[Vision2020] Naiveté vs Paranoia

[Ted Moffett]

Tom wrote:
>
>"Just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean that they AREN'T after >you."
>

Naive trust in people guarantee's they're after you!!  Choice pickings for 
the sophisticated scam artist, many of whom speak of God from pulpits making 
unreal promises that would induce many snake oil salesman to blush.  G. 
Bush's "compassionate conservative! line, for example."  Yeah, right!

Rational suspicion is the sensible response to the truth that the powerful 
in business and politics are certainly out to manipulate the common person 
to serve their ends.  The "common" person is usually only too happy to 
oblige.

About 5 years back when I worked at the U of I, I predicted the current 
decimation of academia ongoing at that august institution.  Some of the 
professors I discussed this trend with at that time looked at me as though I 
was paranoid, a victim of some kind of conspiracy theory.  I remember 
specifically one professor at that time who thought it impossible that the 
Philosophy Dept. at the U of I would be gutted, when I predicted that this 
could happen.  I have heard from reliable sources that this option is now on 
the table at the U of I.  It appears some of the professors I knew were 
naive about forces at work in American who were working to undermine and 
marginalize the power base of academia.

Ted

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