Oh Obama... I'd never do that

My friend DK sent me this prank video where I have been singled out as the fucker responsible for Obama's defeat.

Don't be a non-voter. It could mean another four years of Republican horror.

Mapping Sarah

In this hilarious rant against the profound dumbness of Sarah Palin, Aden Renkai puts her in her place:

Sarah Palin is a stupid, self important, ignorant bitch who I wouldn’t put in charge of wiping her own ass. And it’s not just that she’s dumb - which she is - it’s that she’s willfully ignorant of the facts and yet absolutely dead-bang certain that she’s right about her opinions. It’s more of this “governing from the gut” bullshit that we’ve been Chimping along with for the past eight years.

And here's Palin's debate flowchart from Aden Renkai's caustically funny take on the vice-presidential debate.

Thanks Adam.

Rotten Carrot, Permanent Stick

Last month I'd written about the core issues around the US-Indo Nuclear deal. Yesterday the House of Representatives in the US Congress cleared the Nuclear Deal with 298 out of 415 members voting in favor. With only ten Republicans against it, most of the opposition (107 votes) came from the Democrats. It might be insightful to study the fund-raisers and contributions by the neo-conservative USINPAC to those who voted in favor. Even though the US Senate still has to clear it, after a 71% vote from Congress chances are that this is a done deal. And we are done for as Manmohan tells Bush:

“Mr. President, People of India deeply love you”.

In my initial rage I hurled abuses at both the huggers, especially the turbaned one for having the audacity to lick ass of a depraved criminal using our name, but soon returned to sanity. There is enough insanity going on. At least the turbaned one is displaying some emotion which is otherwise comparable to that of a paper-weight.

The Playboy and the Town Girl

This son of a rich Karachi businessman, Asif Ali Zardari, was never meant to be the President of Pakistan. He was the guy you'd write about only if discussing corrupt husbands living in the shadows of 10% commission. The moniker Mr. Ten Percent, though appropriate, seems incomplete to describe him. He's also a man known for his frills, a philandering playboy and a lecherous womanizer.

Every time he opens his mouth, he begins by raising the specter of his late wife "Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto" as a copyrighted trademark. Once the formalities of announcing his claim to fame have been dispensed with, he'll break into the most gratuitous display of teeth, which he thinks passes off for a welcoming smile. One can almost see that behind the grinning eyes lies a conniving idiot-savant figuring out the rules of this new game he's playing. With this non graduate at the helm of power in Pakistan, I think the subcontinent has found its local version of President Bush. Just like Bush's Bushims, we can begin compiling Zardari's Zardarisms.

I'll start by pointing out this one:

Get Your War On: The Cross

Another awesome GYWO episode - thanks to the hilarious work being done at 236

Speaking of Nuclear matters

Over the last month, I have been struggling to understand the nuclear deal and its intricacies. It was all made more complex by the acronyms (NSG, ENR, 123, Hyde Act), the cacophony (The Left, the BJP), the babel (Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Indian Media) and then the crisis (The July no-confidence motion against the UPA government). Somewhere in this mayhem, we lost perspective on what this ruckus is all about. Most "expert" opinions seemed to be either following ideology or emotional dribble rather than offering any logical arguments.

To be for it or against it, it is first important to understand it. I will try to explain it as simply and clearly as possible. The Hyde Act is a good place to start. It is an act initiated by the late Republican Rep. Henry J. Hyde and passed by the US Congress in January 2006. Current US policy forbids dealing, in nuclear technology, with nations that are not part of the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty. Currently India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are the only countries that are not part of it. The Hyde Act is an unusual exception made only for India. In fact, both Israel and Pakistan have demanded similar treaties but the US has refused.

While it may be of interest to think about why Uncle Sam is making this exception for India (after all, he's not really your Uncle), I think this line of thought opens up a hornet's nest of other political discussions (China, Afghanistan, India's anti-Iran vote, US hegemony, geopolitics etc.) and takes us away from the most moot question. One that we in India should really be asking.

India needs much more energy for its economy to grow and nuclear energy has been around for almost half a century. There are currently over 30 countries, including India, that are using nuclear power for energy purposes. None of these other nations have any special treaties with the US. So why does India need special permission? Once you ask yourself that question, the cacophonous din begins to die and the puzzle starts making sense.

The Sixties as Fables of Protest

Just finished watching Chicago 10 and my first reactions are that today's modern world is the servile anti-thesis of the sixties. Free, critical thought encouraged to question authority and power has been annihilated by a materialist education system. Brett Morgen's Chicago 10 is a documentary film about eight antiwar protesters who were put on trial for attempting to disrupt the 1968 Democratic Convention being held in Chicago.

It is told using archival footage mixed with animation and some stellar rock music and takes you back to 1968, the days of Lyndon B. Johnson.

It was a time very much like today. The Vietnam antiwar sentiment, like the Iraq antiwar sentiment was at its peak. At that time it was not the Republicans but the Democrats who were in power. Johnson, when he took office after JFK's assassination, escalated the war from 16,000 American soldiers in Vietnam to 550,000 by the end of his term. John Frankenheimer's A Path to War is an excellent film about the LBJ years.

But coming back to Chicago 10, one the most noticeable differences of today's world and the sixties is how independent and critical the news media was of the government and the authorities. I mean today's media is reduced to a mouthpiece of the government and the corporate world. Just forty years ago, this was not the case and this film documents that so interestingly.

Memories of War

On August 6 and 9, 1945, 63 years ago, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attacked with nuclear weapons. "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and "Fat Man" was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

Many of us were not alive yet, but on those two days 220,000 people were killed, most of them vaporized within minutes. Over the years thousands more have died in the region due to radiation and exposure.

Keiji Nakazawa, who was 6 years old at the time, is one of the few survivors from the attacks. He went on to create Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen), a manga (comic book series) about his memories. It became hugely popular and was adapted into three live action films.

His work becomes ever more pertinent today as we move to an age where nuclear weapons are considered safety nets and touted as weapons of peace.

Manufacturing Consent

As Indian mainstream media starts looking more and more like a bad Xerox copy of American media, viewers must equip themselves with the knowledge and vocabulary on how the media helps manufacture consent. This should be required viewing for you and your children, especially since they might be learning fascism at school.

Our Whistleblowers, their Whistleblowers

India often likes to compare its highly dubious 'democratic' credentials to America. The idea is to somehow make-believe that America and India are natural allies since both are 'democracies'. In some other sections of Indian society, America and all western culture is frequently referred to as the great Satan. While I have no religious moorings, American foreign policy can certainly seem that way to its victims.

But what makes America great? It is not its fluff pop culture, its lame-ass suburban shopping malls or its oligarchic corporate greed. These are the things that India is most voraciously aping. What stands out in America is its freedom of speech which is a guaranteed constitutional right. A right which is often denied them, but their democracy fights back. This is something India has yet to understand. Even though the Indian Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, albeit very differently from the United States, in practice it is a mockery of the constitution.

I was just listening to Glenn Greenwald's podcast at Salon. His podcast debut interview was with Daniel Ellsberg, a prominent political whistleblower whose release of the Pentagon Papers expedited the end of the Vietnam war.

Glen Greenwald - Daniel Ellsberg Podcast

Hearing the podcast, it struck me how Indian whistleblowers fared in comparison. After all, true sister democracies have to have this fundamentally important shared value.