[Buddha-l] Students as potential spooks?

[sjziobro at cs.com]

Richard, this sort of recruitment has been going on for over 50 years.  I'm surprised you've only now become acquainted with the effort.  By the way, you'd make an ideal spy.  

Stan

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu>
To: Buddhist discussion forum <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Sent: Sun, Jan 22, 2012 10:04 am
Subject: [Buddha-l] Students as potential spooks?


Dear denizens,

At my university there is an entity known as the National Security Studies 
Program. Its purpose is to recruit students for a career in various 
"intelligence" operations in the US government. NSSP is especially eager to 
recruit students in religious studies. (I somehow doubt that specialists in 
Indian Buddhism are at the top of their wish list, but ¿Quién sabe? A Mādhyamaka 
logic-twister might make a perfect Minister of Disinformation.)

I'm getting old and find myself increasingly baffled by and alienated from 
current academic culture (as, come to think of it, I have been my whole life, so 
maybe age is not a factor after all). Idealist that I am, I still think of 
students in philosophy and religious studies as the next generation of scholars, 
teachers, dissidents, anarchists and gadflies, and it breaks my heart to think 
of them instead as the next generation of spies. Of course, I am aware the texts 
on effective governance in ancient India recommended Buddhist monks as ideal 
spies, because everyone trusts monks and they hear a lot from ordinary people, 
but I think I had always assumed (or at least hoped) those texts were being 
ironic for comic effect. 

Please tell me I'm not alone in seeing the recruitment of students into 
spookwork as yet another sign that America has totally lost its moral compass 
and has drifted into treacherous and hazardous waters. 

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
(name of university classified information)


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