@HalifaxCB

Check her website. Do you consider this also art? Link is not-safe-for-work.

http://www.mirukim.com/photosPig.php

Yes, it does sound posthumous.

Happy Birthday.

I am not fully aware of the present state of "Campaign Finance Reforms" but sometime back I read The Scandal of Campaign-Finance Reform; Hypocritical law. which I found to be very enlightening on the whole issue for beginners.

Please share if there is any article more insightful than the above article on CFR issue.

Could you please add daily and weekly newsletter feature.

Thanks,

varun82vijay@gmail.com

Let me quote from Rich Lowry's Sputnik Fallacy

The Apollo program put a man on the moon, creating a shining moment of national pride. It also fed liberalism’s disastrously simplistic view of how progress happens — spend a lot of federal money, put a lot of experts in a room, and wait for the wondrous results.

The patriotic rhetorical trappings don’t make it any less arrogant or foolish.

Liberal technocrat elites believed that If they can put a man on the moon, they can also reform society or manage markets etc.

varun82vijay@gmail.com

Technical word for it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_essentialism

Strategic essentialism is a major concept in postcolonial theory. The term was coined by the Indian literary critic and theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. It refers to a strategy that nationalities, ethnic groups or minority groups can use to present themselves. While strong differences may exist between members of these groups, and amongst themselves they engage in continuous debates, it is sometimes advantageous for them to temporarily 'essentialize' themselves and bring forward their group identity in a simplified way to achieve certain goals.

As an outside observer of American politics, I consider "Open Primaries" to be the uniquely greatest thing about American political system. No other democratic nation has it.

Quote:

But such generalised invective against the entire political class is both empty and dangerous — our representatives are as we are. Besides, such anti-politics nearly always serves as a cover for politics. As Edmund Burke memorably wrote, this cynicism about politics and, by extension, Parliament only makes you “think ill of that very institution which, do what you will, you must religiously preserve, or you must give over all thoughts of being a free people”.

via Make it better

Hi Claire, Rather than writing anything myself, I decided to act as a gatekeeper and post  editorials, I found very insightful on Indian political affairs, on ricochet occasionally. I started with this.

Hi Claire,

None of the points I made appear in any of the mainstream Indian press either. India is not as free as it's assumed to be by many westerners.

Examples:

India Ranks 3rd in Censoring & Removal Requests To Google – A Detailed Look

Indian Government Made 1061 Requests To Google For User Data;

Google Complied to 50% Content Removal Requests from Indian Government

I feel that it takes more than time, active interest and broadband connection to get a handle on political affairs. Often it is very easy to be misled by information overloading.

I have not yet felt strong zeal for writing (at least for mass consumption). I am more eager to become an erudite (influence of Nassim Taleb's books "Fooled by Randomness" and "Black Swan"). Also being a software developer (though a reluctant one) which gets quite demanding occasionally, I found it very difficult and time-consuming to write anything (in addition to keeping myself in sync with all current affairs). So I found twitter most appropriate to exchange and test my ideas and thoughts.

True. I have read more of her articles in the past. Some of her views are pre-capitalist and slightly environmentalist.

Hi Larry,

Indian Congress is the great Satan of Indian politics. I am not optimistic of any movement which does not weaken Congress stronghold in a significant way.

Varun

Yes, her anti-americanism is directed at left-wing americans in that article.

Internationalists are trying to undermine nationalists in every country.

The way I look at this whole Anna Hazare thing:

There is a lot of anti-Congress (major party in ruling coalition UPA) outrage among public over the rampant corruption. Congress dreads whether this popular outrage be utilized by opposition parties to undermine Congress in coming state & central elections. So I suspect all these Congress stooges & hacks (who also maintain enough plausible deniability from Congress to call themselves non-political and true grassroots representatives of masses) astroturfed a fake movement to hijack this anti-Congress sentiment (lest it be taken advantage by opposition political parties) and lead it along a course least harmful to Congress interests.

I might have come off as a conspiracy theorist. But that is exactly how I see this whole thing.

Just as we had Kremlinology to study Soviet politics during Cold War, we need a separate field of political science to study Indian politics. Because most of what happens in Indian politics seems tragically ludicrous from an American perspective.

Hello Claire,
I have been following this farce by Anna Hazare thoroughly.
I have not written any commentary myself but I can definitely point you to one of the best analysss of it done by Sandhya Jain.
I have not done full research but she is incriminating Rockefeller foundation.
Quote:
"the main object of Anna Hazare’s fast –to elevate a select coterie as national super cop and super judge"  ....
"Anna Hazare’s gigantic exercise to delegitimise the elected UPA and elected Members of Parliament, and insist that a self-appointed group of moral guardians shall determine the contours of a proposed national legislation to tackle corruption in government, is an assault on the letter and spirit of the Constitution."

quoting Burt Prelutsky

[Which reminds me, it recently occurred to me why among my least favorite musical genres is the one known as the blues. It's because the songs all reek of self-pity, which is one of the most nauseating of all human emotions.]