By Saswat Pattanayak

As Nepal is declared normal, I find something is clearly missing...and I thought....


People of Nepal have finally “gained victory”
Although why the Crown relented appears a mystery
After weeks of active resistance; in face of military excesses
Took 14 deaths for the King to grant freedom to his subjects

Just when I thought, a specter was almost haunting Nepal
A specter of hope, and struggle to erase writings off the wall
The Monarchy has now heeded to its Big Brothers in crime
And the world media are already replacing remnants of grime

For the comrades: before the battle is won, the war has been lost!
Powers have hijacked the purpose of resistance at every single cost!
For I believe, freedom is ours to possess; not for the Royals to offer
Even as they recreate their myths, and even as we continue to suffer…!

Tags: Saswat, Nepal, News, Poem, Activism, Third World

Medha Patkar is a relentless and indomitable revolutionary. Her active campaigns for indigenous peoples’ causes form the means. Her endless struggles against corporate greedy motives shape her purpose.

She leads to inspire generations of collective beings that we often don’t find time and inclination to become while working within the framework of capitalistic expansions of individualistic self-centrism– to love our common land, our river, and the mother earth. And her convictions enthuse the world to consider genre of critical values that we often fail to notice—suffering all alone, and celebrating with others. Fighting on behalf of the landless. And fighting against the land-grabbers.

Sometimes, human beings as simple and beautiful as Medha Patkar are all we need for making the world a better place to live in.

Thanks are due, to fellow traveler Sivagami Subbaraman who sends me a thought-provoking critical article. Read More...

Tags: Saswat, News, Environment, Activism, India, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Fellow blogger Mahesh Poudyal sent me a link indicating a hope that Nepal’s big brother might at last, have decided to take peoples’ side now! I went carefully through the Indian foreign secretary Shyam Sharan’s statements that he was alluding to. And although I certainly stand by Mahesh’ sentiments and support his enthusiasm, I may have to disagree with some of his optimism.

What Sharan says in regards to Nepal is two-fold. One, he offers an apology for a diplomatic faux pas. Yes, India had officially chosen to support the twin pillar of ‘monarchy and democracy’. At least one element, the monarchy, was something that huge majority of Nepalese people had got thoroughly fed up of. And Sharan’s recent statement that everything should be rather left for people of Nepal to decide is a poor rejoinder to correct the official stance. Two, even as he said it, this was an apology that was not meant to be. Because Indian administration still continues its big-brotherly demeanor towards Nepal, even within this narrative. I will explain the stances.

Apology:
The twin pillars of constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy is a hoax. Sharan, and every matured Indian strategist knows that no place can have both a democracy and a monarchy at the same time. Or at least when they are together, the existence is based upon dominance of one over another. In Sweden, the monarchy is a misnomer. And in Saudi Arabia, the democracy is.

The reason why Government of India officially lends support to the twin pillars is to maintain the status quo. For the alternative, long struggled for by the militant leftists, has simply not been an acceptable position for India. So India would rather have a Hindu royal killer call the shots, than have godless landless communists take over.

It was this apprehension that always led India’s cautious stance towards its neighbors and dealing with them through its Shark (spelled SAARC) diplomacy. The ruling elites of India, forever afraid of its own peoples’ movements clearly have never understood the resentments of peoples of neighboring countries against their own ruling elites. Except for a brief period when Indira Gandhi decisively stood with Bangladeshi peoples, India has always continued its apathy towards neighboring peoples’ struggle against their ruling class. And so, the administration’s ‘welcoming’ Nepalese King’s suggestions should not have left Indian foreign secretary chuckling after a day. India rendered a rather much delayed reaction only after the consistently engaged active resistance led by brave Nepalese peoples on the streets that invited global attention.

And Sharan, chose the biggest diplomatic line that’s never practiced, as the quick fix remedy: We have nothing to do with another country’s problems. Let their people decide.

Not an apology:
It’s well known that Indian administration welcomed Nepalese monarchy, even though it did not have a necessity to lend a supportive ear to a brutal anti-democratic regime. And yet, at the same breadth, upon this realization, India has officially never condemned the monarchy for its anti-people stances, even as now, there is a necessity to offer some constructive criticisms, at the very least. When India mouths ‘words of support’ to the unjust regime, then Sharan does not see it as an interference! Only when despite pricking conscience, India decides to remain silent, then the bureaucrat justifies it on grounds of non-interference policy! Nice for the dynasty. Unfair to the people who are braving police atrocities just so that someone will take notice and come to aid.

But with due respects, Mr Sharan’s sentiments are suspect. “Not accepting or refusing” King’s offer does not amount to “not taking sides”. Every diplomat of any worth should know that indifference means taking sides of the present ruling class. By not “condemning” in strongest possible words the police atrocities of Nepalese monarchy, its inhuman curfew impositions that has claimed more than a dozen civilian lives in the hands of perpetrators, and its continued state of emergency that has paralyzed peoples’ liberties –India has actively demonstrated its role in letting things remain the way they are, in effect, in favor of the monarchy.

Not only India has chosen sides to support the monarchy, simply by not supporting the people who are on the streets now, it has also chosen to amplify its anti-people stance too, by condemning the Maoists. Sharan says, “When we said India stands for multiparty democracy and constitutional monarchy, we were reflecting nothing more than what the people of Nepal themselves and the political parties themselves had committed to. So, you should not take this as something that was prescribed by the Government of India.”

This is the classic case of double-talk. Obviously, for Sharan, ‘people’ must be a different breed. For he and his likes have always conveniently overlooked the people who have been oppressed and murdered because of anti-people regime in Nepal. For, these are not the people who have ever welcomed “constitutional monarchy” as much as Indian administration has fancied.

Naturally enough, Sharan says, “We are in touch with the political parties and we have been in touch with the Palace as well essentially to try and play as constructive a role as we can to defuse the situation. We have not been in touch with the Maoists.” That the Government of India is in touch with the Palace and yet not in touch with the main opposition, the Maoists, says a lot about the governmental bias. For more than decade, Maoists have been the only group of people protesting monarchy on matters of principles, and Indian administration has not just ignored them, but also condemned them from time to time. Within its own territory, Indian government has outlawed any such outfit too. Sharan knows only too well, that unlike anywhere else in the world, Maoists have a huge support base in Nepal among common people. So is there an official line?

Sharan says, “If there are negotiations through which the Maoists can be brought into the political mainstream, but on the basis of the principles of multiparty democracy and on the clear abandonment of violence as a political tool, I think this is something that should be welcomed. So, yes, certainly there is a need for them to be brought into the political mainstream but it has to be on the basis of the principle of multiparty democracy and the renunciation of violence.”

It’s another classic case of big-brother arrogance. First to think that “multiparty democracy” is the solution, is to address the event, not the issue. India, the greatest multiparty democracy in the world, is a cruel joke in the name of participatory governance. Of course the bureaucrats gain the most from such system in India, and hence Sharan may not see the problem as yet. But people in Indian subcontinent know only too well, the fallacies of multiparty democracies in countries that do not have basic living amenities. No country is yet ripe for a true electoral democracy, simply because the developing economies (and large parts of first world as well) are just full of ignorant people devoid of any critical knowledge to distinguish one party from another. In so-called democracies, they merely end up voting one rogue or the other. And because enticing words like ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ are so addictive, and have a subsuming power to overwhelm people to sense of inaction, they are the least challenged terms as well. They are the most effective way to maintain ruling class status quo and ruling elites everywhere always benefit from such rhetoric.

Secondly, Sharan knows he is beating around the bush deliberately when he talks of bringing Maoists to “mainstream politics” through clear abandonment of violence as a political tool. First this is deliberate because he knows that left wing political activists are not “mainstream” politicians, and neither are they going to preach Gandhism (nor does nuclear power state India does, btw). Second, Sharan needs to remind himself that India is cozily in touch with the “Palace” which is owned by a violent oppressor of the first degree, who is a trigger-happy police-state ruler. Before actually “interfering” with Nepalese peoples’ aspirations of supporting the so-called violent Maoists who get killed every now and then, over the Palace, (out of the 14 deaths, Maoists did not kill a single person. 13 were killed civilians killed by ruling power!), Indian administration needs to mend its own ways.

Tags: Saswat, Nepal, Communism, Third World

So who do the largest democracies of the world recognize? The power of the monarch, or the power of the people?

Who do the India, USA, EU listen to? The Nepali royal's roars, or the Nepali subjects' pleas?

Whose ways and manners the so-called civilized approve of? The gun-trotting police hounds; the abusers of basic human rights; the murderers of hapless civilians; the killers of women, children, the unemployed youth; the police dogs of a royal murderer-aggressor; the oppressors of teeming unheard millions?

Or

the marginalized voices long silenced; the women who refuse to anymore tolerate; the children with the non-violent weapon of protest; the organized unemployed; the unduly browbeaten; the peoples who remind the rest of the world that if not for 'advanced' world's stoic privileged indifference, they would be also be enjoying lives of dignity.

More power to the Nepalese peoples for freedom, liberty, and ‘real’ democracy—-none of which is ever bestowed, nor negotiated, nor offered as a compromise.

The white American freedom was not ‘granted’ through negotiations with the Kings of England, the elite French liberty was not attained via cowardly compromise either, the bourgeois Indian democracy was not gifted by well-meaning British—each of them were snatched, and millions sacrificed their lives in protest against the oppressors.

‘Tis time, the preachers of today realized the only options they have left the Nepalese (and so many indigenous peoples in India too) are sense of frustration, alienation and revolution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More pictures here....

Tags: Saswat, Nepal, Communism, War, Third World

The following article is authored by two of my dearest comrades.

In the quest for What Needs to be Done!

Read More...

Tags: Saswat, Media, Capitalism, Racism, USA

By Saswat Pattanayak

Vikram Buddhi could be anyone. He could be the mindful mathematician, eloquently solving world riddles. He could be the calculative genius on behalf of pacifist Einstein. He could have been framed as his family is pleading . He could have himself posted the messages as he is admitting.

I see two dimensions to it: one, the action itself (online participation) and two, the ideology, if any (the politics of it).

The question is what are the circumstances that might have led to his erratic and clearly unjustified postings? As an example, in a chatroom, any frequent visitor will notice the oh-so-frequent postings of hate lines all the time. Clueless people on both sides of political spectrum spit venoms at each other, initially beginning with racist comments like “you Indians always smell curry” or nationalist comments like “why do you all land up in my country” to personal assaults like “get the hell out of here, else we’ll bomb you like we do”.

None of the lines above are manufactured. As a researcher in digital media interactions, I frequent public chatrooms to sense the happenings and all the time face such ballistics. Considering my lifetime trysts with misdirected wraths from the conservatives and casteists, Hindu fanatics and average theists in India, I never ‘confront’ or ‘counter’ such irrational and outlandish racist comments. I fully empathize that the atomized people living in secluded apartment houses as individualistic wholes, without any interaction with neighbors, whom they do not know incidentally (since they speak different languages) or intentionally (since many are immigrants); where behaviors from both issues of immigration and language have been made suspect (how many television shows or films are produced to depict normal behavior from foreign language immigrants?), people then turn to online interactions as a good outlet. There, isolated individuals find others in a community. In America, the community that should be existing in the real neighborhoods actually exists in virtual world.

As an oasis in human society, people flock into bulletin boards to at least find people who can ‘talk’ to them, and not merely put up smileys on the roads. The chatrooms and bulletin boards are of course all moderated. And moderated by people who are political beings themselves. Where it’s the machine, there are words which are censored. Of course the words that are censored are themselves a limited list, and that list consists only of some English words that are recognized as offensive to one culture and omits all the hundreds of words that could be otherwise offensive to other cultures. Cultures here mean, not just countries, but also religions, non-religions, sexual orientation, gender issues in foreign countries, and political philosophies etc. Although everyone is allowed free entry into the boards, their freedom is clearly demarcated.

This is what makes the case of online interactions less interesting. A hegemonic set of rules determine what’s called a hate speech. Where ACLU might have got it right and the pro-rule advocates wrong is this fine line. Incidentally today’s world is not one singular nation. With several different cultural codes and the freedom for interaction among all cultures (anyone from Finland can be part of a chatroom of Seattle), that’s been provided by online forums, it’s virtually impossible to deconstruct every insults. And the rules will only help suppress the voices of the minorities whose words and intentions are more susceptible for charges.

Free speech has always worked in favor of those who are free to exercise them. That said, it has also been used to preclude the minority voices. Preclude them on several grounds. And there are several minorities in this country. This case pertains to political diversity.

Clearly, Buddhi is not a liberal or a guy on the left. His views have no consonance with the progressives. No person of any amount of critical thinking skill can even lend support to his words. Basic elementary understanding of the left is that sporadic violence does not lead to any solution. Elected presidents of any country or their party people are truly innocent. The guilty in an electoral democracy where ignorance about general knowledge of cultural history and political geography of the world is rife, are the larger gamut of voters who vote without slightest knowledge of their role in perpetuating an unjust political environment. What Buddhi announced on bulletin board shows either he was provoked into doing so (considering that he had apparently no criminal background), or he was having being completely naïve, stupid, and perhaps idiotic. People may also consider him anything else, and I shall not stand in the way.

However, I have been asked by some friends to take a stand on him. And I shall take one. Clearly I am not in favor of anything that he has said. If his act be considered political, then this is my view. People who want to change the world for the better do the basic minimum homeworks: they need to know a lot of history of all kinds of peoples, they need to organize people on common progressive causes, they need to educate others who could not afford to spend all that time on understanding differences. These steps need not be guided by principles of violence or non-violence. They need to be guided by purposes. And the purpose needs to be for overall betterment of the world, starting with the world’s poorest, the ones who have been historically deprived, the working class and the hungry mass. None of these involve any thoughts around mindless postings of a privileged nutcracker.

All that being said, I could be reading too much into Buddhi’s politics. He may not be a political guy at all. As Mahablog responds to a right-winger, “Hey, buddy, welcome to my world! Do you really think “your” side doesn’t send threats and obscenities to us?” The point is Buddhi episode is an excuse for the folks on the right to make merry and rejoice, by unnecessarily pulling the left into the discourse.

I do not agree that he had anything to do with politics, let alone American party politics. Buddhi has neither done anything which amounts to online political activism, or grassroots political activism or anything that’s worth considering when one looks at what political activism denotes. So I cannot support him on any political ground.

On principle, however, I will support ACLU if freedom of an individual to express something is concerned. This is a shady area, I know. There are all these people who are using homophobic languages and indeed murdering people merely based on their sexual orientations. When ACLU defends the gay activists, it is branded as supporting hate crimes (where speaking in favor of LGBT is considered as hate-speech…ouch!). The fine line between who propagates hate is just that: a fine line. Especially after 9/11, it is more so. And I am not sure if we can tolerate all hate-speeches and protect them under first amendment. Buddhi's talks are cheap and hateful. He must face consequences. But let him not be singled out because he is a foreign national. For, before him, in recent many times, scores of hate speakers have been getting standing ovations. One in a responsible position of authority even went ahead to call for assassination of another elected leader. Many neo-nazi websites are daily preaching hates. And they are fine and running and getting great google ranks! On educational campuses including University of Maryland, one can see preachers all over. I have been stopped by in the campus and my apartment, where preachers come in fake identities to proclaim love and then soon say how all other religions are evil and there is no such thing as a God from other religion.

Buddhi is not an exception in the pool of hate-preachers. Indeed, he is only the most recent (well...almost). And possibly the most inconsequential. And possibly, the most rightist among them.

Tags: Saswat, Capitalism, India, Colonialism, Media, Technology

By Saswat Pattanayak

“This is our function. Our Founding Fathers understood that government by its nature tends to oppress those it has power over. Our Founding Fathers decided that there must be, there had to be, there should be and there is, an institution that keeps an eye on government. That is what we do. There is nothing in the Constitution about the freedom to practice law. There is nothing in the Constitution about the freedom to practice medicine. There is nothing in the Constitution about the freedom to engage in commerce. There is nothing in the Constitution about teaching or learning. But there is something in the Constitution about the freedom of the press. Our Founding Fathers understood that it would be necessary to have a watchdog on government, and that is our role: to keep a watch out.”
--Jack Anderson (1922-2005) in a speech at Utah State University six years ago.

Even the legendary Anderson was under the illusion!

And as the documents of one of the greatest investigative journalists, are now being accessed by FBI for editing, his thundering words of trust in the freedom of press falls short of vindication.

Anderson’s family wants to donate his papers to George Washington University. And NPR reports that the FBI wants to review the archive and remove items it deems confidential.

Question is not about the onus of ownership. It’s certainly neither about the authenticity of what should be considered ‘confidential’. It’s not even about respecting the right of Anderson’s family to put forth the request.

What’s at stake is what’s being excavated. What’s at stake is the nature of materials that Anderson had access to, both as the friend of McCarthy, and subsequently as his nemesis. As being member of the then American President’s notorious list. As arch-enemy of the then FBI’s director, possibly the most illustrious director of all time. As someone constantly distancing himself from the powerful and always aligning himself with the working class sources. As an example, today completely lacking among mediocre media showbiz.

Anderson attested how the so-called ‘cold war’ has been fraught with several hot-blooded wars that have caused millions of deaths. And Anderson’s contribution to exposing at least parts of that cannot be undermined. Recently official documents released by White House showed America’s active role in destabilizing Indian subcontinent. It confirmed the Nobel Prize for Peace winner Henry Kissinger’s actual Warmongering motives. It showed how misunderstandings were being deliberately created between Vietnam, China and USSR, for gains that would cause genocides in Bangladesh.

And coming into light of these knowledge is no mean achievement. For one, it clearly demonstrate that so-called democratic regimes are not governed either by its peoples (most Americans are peace-loving working class people), or for its peoples (most Americans suffer the burdens of international terrorism). And most importantly, Anderson’s documents clearly deconstruct the larger narrative of North-South, First World-Third World dichotomies, where traditionally, even according to primary textbooks, people from the “underdeveloped” economies are mean-minded savages. Anderson’s documents prove quite an upset to that.

Anderson also exposed CIA conspiracy to assassinate Fidel Castro. He too exposed threadbare the FBI Hoover’s various dubious, and often monstrous links. He traced to core the position of Mafia in American political circles. As the longest running and widest read political commentator of the country, his readers believed he and his team investigated daily, what Woodward and Bernstein did just once in Watergate.

And many of the papers, apart from their gory portrayals of sinister cold war period, could actually educate the entire country on more authentic history of the peoples, from the lens someone who stood in the circle of the people, than basked in the glories of the official press lobby. And for these acts of conviction, during his lifetime, his murder was attempted by top political agents. And today, after his death, its way ironic, that he would even to this day haunted by the people in power for his documents.

For in his lifetime, he would not have let anyone take possession of the papers, in order to hide them. For an investigative journalist, the entity lies in “exposing” the findings to the public and “concealing” the source. Not, exposing the sources, and concealing the findings. No matter, the intentions of the founding fathers, as Anderson quotes, the foundation understanding of press functions lack authenticity today.

Tags: Saswat, Media, USA, Academic, Communism, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

The “liberal-bias” of the media has again come to light. In the recent Los Angeles Times report “Doubts About Taking On Tehran”, the bias is evident. Clearly it’s a headline that works for the liberals. The headline exhumes that “About half those polled support military action if Iran continues its nuclear activity but don't trust President Bush to make the call.”

Throughout the widely circulated article, the substantiated assumption is that half of Americans doubt President Bush’s decision making potential and sense of good judgment when it comes to Iran.

For all the findings, please click the larger story here.

The article clearly posits a sense of comfort among the liberals that the President does not have support of even more than a half of people in this country. Good for the Democrats and other opposition blocs, if any. And in my view, bad for the world.

Media are the agents of sustainable interpretations in any western democratic regime. By that I mean, they play the role of the necessary critic. The necessary criticism of the existing political power is a necessary ingredient to promote the existing system; and media houses (which are essentially big corporate ventures) are the best bets.

Just as in a majoritarian democratic model, everything appears to be ruled by the “freely” elected representatives, their fourth estate, the Press, also make it appear that the news selection, placement and interpretations are done almost as democratically. Hence the press, just like the government, never hesitate to proclaim that they provide the whole truth in an objective fashion, because they know what’s good for the society to know (just as the state knows what’s good for the society to be governed by).

And so all that we know about how we are being governed is conveniently decided by the governors of our lives (the government) by letting the knowledge providers (the media) be the disseminators.

The only catch here, is that unlike in an “authoritarian”/peoples’ regime, where the press has the sole role of working as the official agent for dissemination of governmental news (and hence people are aware of the role already and make up their minds accordingly regarding the news source as clear “party propaganda”—and rise up against it in case it disbelieves in anything), in western democratic model, the press plays the subverted role of a propagator. To the extent, that the government in such democracies refuse to have their own propaganda Media. Because only then, the power structure cannot be challenged upfront. It needs to be challenged only through a comfortable space it has created between it and the people: the press. And this press, in return creates an illusion that it is actually with the people, not with the government. So it acts as a platform for “buffer opposition”.

LA Times provides no surprise through such articles. And the modern-day press system in any democratic regimes also knows how to eliminate any doubt factor that may creep in when it comes to evaluate their strategies. So the smart way is to involve some of the people to validate what they have been trying to say. So the press then go ahead and involve some people’s voices! In this article, there were 1,357 people who were polled! So by interviewing less than 1500 people “nationwide”, the paper has come to a conclusion that half of the people do not trust Bush.

Serious Issues:
1. The method of deriving at such finding is notoriously wrong. The sample needs to be way bigger. At least 50% people need to be asked the questions about “Iran War”, before coming to a conclusion. Secondly, if a national newspaper has branches all over, they need to interview people from all the centers, representing people from all geographical regions and specify the details. Clearly a person in the east-coast is more liberal than the person from the rural America, simply because of the quality of interaction people have with multicultural environment. The Republican states are thus ignorant because of the phobia of Muslims they live by. The liberal state residents are more enlightened because of the reality of Muslim friendships they preserve. These reflect on the findings. We need to be told about the disparities and of the suggested remedies. Thirdly, telephone polls are always tricky. With all the collaborations with polling agencies, they need to hire more interviewers who can go door to door in diverse areas (white, black and immigrant settings) and “talk with” people—conduct in-depth interviews if needed, and not merely quiz them.

2. The investigations into how much one knew about a topic before answering on the topic needs also to be taken into account. There are people in this country who still think Canada is a smaller neighborhood country, let alone knowing where Iran actually is on the map. One of these people on a chat with me once asked me where I was from. I said Maryland. She says, “You sound so funny. Where exactly are you from?” Because she refused to believe there was a place called “Mary”land. In such an environment, it will help to “know”, if not to explain (that education cannot happen without a propagandist tool, you see!), how much the people knew about Iran before responding. After all, we don’t waste time asking a 5-year child about effectiveness of Durex condoms and publish a finding. Why to ask people who don’t know anything about why Shah of Iran fled in 1979 despite American support, regarding why American needs to bomb the country today?

3. The News factor: I remember in my journalism school, how I was also taught about the news factor. When a “dog bites man”, its no news, the professor used to say. When the “man bites dog”, it’s the news. I always wonder why it needs to be so. Why should we look for sensations/exceptions and portray them as news, all the while ignoring the everyday life journeys. Mundane as they are, issues like poverty, ignorance and helplessness of people in democratic regimes are not considered news, as they are not sensational. What sells for corporate media are the shock value, and they will go any extent to even produce some of them. The current news in my view, SHOULD HAVE BEEN, that Majority of those polled Americans actually are war-mongers, shameful chapters in the world history. Come to think of it, half of Americans actually want war! Wow…I think that’s news in every sense. The headline should have read: “We interviewed sick warmongers who want to kill innocent civilians through airstrikes”. Yes, one question asked if people would support military action, if Iran continued to produce materials that could be used to develop nuclear weapons. 48% said, yes they would want military action, and only 40% opposed it. That’s news for me. Because hey, we all know India has even tested nuclear. And all western European countries have the same material resources. Canada is vast. France is winner. America leads. Now the common excuse even does not work. That the elite countries don’t use the materials for weapons is also false. And that nuclear energy can be used constructively is also a reality. To assume that western countries are the responsible carriers of energy (considering the bombing of Japan, and history of interventions of conventional warfare nature—ALL initiated by these countries, and also considering the hoax excuse called WMD to wipe out Iraqi civilization), and the rest of the world are irresponsible, amounts to blatant racism. Yet, the news of the LA Times indicates the good, (that Americans doubt Bush), but omits the bad (that Americans want the war).

4. Fact checking and priority of news: I think news is in the question when it’s asked: “Suppose George W. Bush decides to order military action against Iran, which action would you support”? And the choices were a) Airstrikes/no ground troops, b) Combination of airstrikes and ground troops, c) Ground troops, d) No military action and e) Don't know. The responses. Only 20% say “No military action”. 44% want to see action in the air! 19% want both ground and air strikes. Sick and more sick. Come to think of it: 80% of people did not want a peaceful dialogue, a change in stance, a removal of bias--all these are facts…The American media clearly choose to ignore these.

What’s important is not if people trust Bush. Clearly it’s a misnomer. Because it hardly matters. He cannot contest another time anyway. His tenure will be done with. So, will they trust someone else with the weapons. Of course yes. Because what’s at stake should not be which political party should come to power in order to annihilate Iran, the question ought to be: should we allow such a draconic thought even to pass our mind. The question is why the poll didn’t ask some vital questions as they come to mind..: Do you love to kill fellow human beings whose flesh you cannot eat? Or do you love to kill humans who have never damaged your life in any way (Iranians don’t impose taxes, they don’t even impose health insurances). If the answer is NO (which is the most logical answer), then the next questions should be: Do you then need to support the idea of a war as a solution? Do you want your tax money to be spent on killing innocent civilians in a foreign country? Do you want to lay down your children’s lives fighting for an ideal they have no idea about? Do you want to live lives in misery in memories of your children who died while killing someone else’s children on the front of the war? Do you believe that war is natural and human beings are natural murderers? Do you know if only way less than one percent of population in the world has ever committed murder in order to be called naturally violent and on many occasions they have killed for a personal reason? Do you have a personal reason in murdering any Iranian citizen? If not, then go have a good meal and we will spread the good word on your behalf: love others.

Its not that we don’t know the answers…its just that we need to know the right questions. It’s high time we asked the questions that matter to us, not respond to questions that help the power structure continue to use our responses to further its ends.

Tags: Saswat, Media, Capitalism, War, Bush, Iran