Cooper Union - From Grace to Disgrace
 

 

Date: 06-07-04

Author: Barry Pittard

 
Once host to Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Great Hall in New York last Saturday June 12 hosted a gathering of The Sri Sathya Sai Organization of America.

The featured speaker was Michael G. Goldstein, M.D., of Covina California. Chairman of the 'Prasanthi Council' who is responsible for the administration of Sri Sathya Sai Organizations in all countries outside of India. Invitations had been sent to all their members and the public was invited to attend on Saturday, June 12, 2004 from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm at 7 East 7th Street, New York N.Y. 10003.
 
At short notice, former devotees from countries round the world rallied to inform the Executives of Cooper Union about what the Sathya Sai Organization is bound to hide from the public and, for that matter, from rank-and-file members of the organization itself.
 
Although my letter was addressed to the whole Executive of Cooper Union, I found myself palmed off into the hands of the booking manager!
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 9:17 PM
Subject: Sathya Sai Organization Matter. Cooper Union. Please Ensure Executive Decision Process
 
To Cooper Union Executive, New York.
 
Dear Mr Greenstein,
 
I request that this letter go to the Executive of Cooper Union. Although I respect your position as booking person for the Union, I really think that there needs to be a wider spread of Executive decision-making in such a potent issue as this. It involves a multi-billion dollar empire that has a hidden agenda to gain respectability - even though it faces large exiting from its ranks because of the seriousness and sheer scale of the accusations against its founder.
 
The fact that Ms Claire McCarthy, Director of Public Affairs for Cooper has apparently spoken so brusquely and given such short shrift to Glen Meloy fills me with concern. Mr Meloy is one of the world's most respected experts on the allegations facing Sathya Sai Baba, and noted as an exceptionally reasonable and decent individual.
 
I shall copy a highly-researched article of mine: Sathya Sai Baba Exposé: An Update
 
 
 
(so that one of your speed readers can at least scan it and see that the Sathya Sai Baba matter is a very serious one indeed.
 
I trust Cooper Union will do what a number of very distinguished University Vice-Chancellors and other institutional heads have done - they cancelled their association with the Sathya Sai Organization. Recently, even though it meant last-minute cancelling of a major booking by the Sathya Sai Organization, the University of South Australia, one of our foremost Universities in Australia, after appointing a senior investigator, took the moral and ethical high-ground and cancelled its venue undertakings with the Sai National Conference that had been scheduled for April 2003. The University handed back $AUS. 30.000 to the Sathya Sai Organization, whose threats, like countless others, do not get carried out - clearly because court action would inevitably raise the lid on its hidden agendas, and its long history of cover-up of horrendous crimes - where there has been no conviction simply because in India Sathya Sai Baba has a power that few of us in the West can imagine: to make or break governments.
 
I can personally put you in touch with a number of most eminent persons (at the peak of responsibility in the police, judiciary, government, psychology, etc,...) who will speak to you knowledgeably about the Sathya Sai Baba cult. I can also put Cooper Union in touch with a number of very qualified sexual abuse therapists well acquainted with the accusations by young males and their parents and guardians that have been made against Sathya Sai Baba. (One of these was among the first psychologists to be called into Ground Zero in your great city in the immediate aftermath of 9/11).
 
Barry Pittard, Australia
(Address and phone contact provided)
 
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Greenstein" davidg@cooper.edu
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 2:01 AM
Subject: Re: Sathya Sai Organization Matter. Cooper Union. Please Ensure Executive Decision Process
 
Mr. Pittard,

The Cooper Union will be happy to rent The Great Hall to you or your organization on the same terms offered to Sathya Sai Organization. We still have many open dates in June.

Sincerely,

David Greenstein

 
----- Original Message -----
To: David Greenstein    
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 2:36 AM
Subject: Re: Sathya Sai Organization Matter. Cooper Union. Please Ensure Executive Decision Process 
 
Dear Mr Greenstein,

Sorry to decline your crisp hussle to use Cooper Union for my business. I have my eye on the Sydney Opera House instead.

I formally request (and I shall be putting it in the hands of my international lawyer) that you copy this email to the attention of the most senior Cooper Union executive as well as their legal advisors.

When the Sathya Sai Organization manages to secure a prestigious fixture such as the Cooper Union, you must expect it to feature the event in both pictures and words on its official websites. Not smart advertizing for Cooper Union, especially with the BBC and other major broadcasting Corporation interest fast looming....!

I personally offer to mediate your contact with a number of heads of 'Ivy League' institutions such as Universities and mainstream religious leaders who have cut off all further association with the Sathya Sai Baba Organization. Not one of them sustained a legal action by the Sathya Sai Organization, which has far too much to lose by exposure in courts of law.

Should you allow your facility to be used by the Sathya Sai Organization you are, both personally and corporately, most certainly morally and ethically accountable, and even indeed may be legally liable.

Would you have failed to listen to prior sensible warnings of Jonestown? Would you not heed quality advice anticipating problems arising from, for example, a new analog to the Klu Klux Klan?

What will be the case if one young male can be shown in the courts to have been sexually molested as a result of a 'successful' recruitment drive by the Sathya Sai Organization by parents who first were attracted to Sathya Sai Baba - a direct result of the meeting at Cooper Union on Saturday June 12, 2004?

Mr Greenstein, does it sit well with your conscience that an organization with a desperate agenda of hiring prestigious venues for recruitment and damage control purposes should use Cooper Union to gain spurious respectability?  

The guest speaker at the scheduled venue is Dr Michael Goldstein, the Chairman of  what is called the 'Prashanthi Council,' which has specifically been set up to counter the effects of worldwide accusations of many and terrible actions by Sathya Sai Baba and the massive cover-up by key leaders of his worldwide organization. To quote Dr Goldstein's own text - "the 'Prashanti Council' is a resource for intervention in difficult circumstances where the sanctity of the Divine Name or the welfare of the Sai Organisation can be affected". Here, 'Divine Name' means God, of whom Dr Goldstein and millions of others believe Sathya Sai Baba to be the fullest incarnation of in world history, and here to rule the world before SSB leaves in AD 2022/Jewish Calendar 5687.

Does Jehovah sexually molest children?

Barry Pittard, Australia
(Contact details provided)
 
Mr Greenstein's letter may be said to summarize the Cooper Union's fall from Grace since Abraham Lincoln's appearance. He is the small, front-office functionary behind whom the big institutional heads hide their far greater cynicism and refuse to see how the historic ambience of their venue is used by those even more cynical than themselves.