The Media Marker

I HAVE MOVED: Please Visit New Blog

2011-10-06T12:43:00.003-04:00

Dear Friends, Readers and Well Wishers:

Please note that I have moved my blog to a new address. Please visit http://onefinalblog.wordpress.com from now on. I hope you come back and read my new write-ups.

In fact, you'll be happy to know that in just over a month since floating the new blog, I got over 3,000 hits.

I promise to continue writing and expressing in a warm, friendly and positive way. It's just not my blog; it's yours too. I promise.

Thank you for your precious friendship and support.

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

India-Pakistan World Cup Cricket: Fixed?

2011-04-01T20:48:00.003-04:00

India-Pakistan World Cup semifinal match: fixed?

FYI. (Please make a note that I'm not doing it because I'm anti-India, anti-Pakistan, or anti-anything. I'm only asking people to think calmly and objectively about the scandals and lies that cheat us and our children; there's NO difference when it comes to India, Pakistan or any other big power.)

It deeply troubles me, and keeps me awake. Here's my two cents on this. I hope you do something about it.

Were a billion-plus people (and especially children and youth) cheated by the people in power and their cronies on the field? Was there small or big-time fixing, group politics, gambling, spot-fixing, fancy-fixing, political pressure, personal rewards, threats or intimidation to sway the game and the overall outcome of 2011 World Cup Cricket?

Can we investigate, and prove or disprove the allegations?

I've played a lot of cricket in my years, and always kept in touch with it. Here's my "evidence" to bring a prima facie case with an allegation that the match could well have been fixed.

(1) Pakistan strike bowler Umar Gul's huge run giveaways in the first few overs; and yet, captain Shahid Afridi gave him the ball in the final overs when he gave away many more runs to give India a respectable total (completely unnecessary: Abdul Razzak who only bowled a couple of overs, was not given the ball, and he looked grim).

And was it true that Afridi refused the final bowling power play, making it even easier for India? (Personally, I'd want to believe that he was a helpless onlooker of group pressure and politics.)

(2) Pathetically slow batting by Pakistan batsmen: it was a pain sitting through watching it (especially by aggressive batsmen like Misbah and Younis), yielding an impossible asking run rate (it went up from 4 or 5 per over in the beginning of their innings to almost 9 in the middle of the innings; and India's bowling was truly below-average). The way some of the Pak batsmen threw their wickets away was horrible: couldn't possibly happen in a normal scenario.

(3) Pakistan players' body language was very suspicious: especially of Umar Gul, Kamran Akmal and Younis Khan; they looked face stiff even from the start of the game. Why?

(4) Pakistan constantly excluded star bowler Shoaib Akhtar even in the India match (who announced retirement after World Cup, expressing "disgust" the way he's been treated). Maybe, he knew something? Can we ask him?

(5) India played three ordinary pace bowlers especially Munaf and Nehra who bowled miserably; yet, star Pakistani batsmen would not make strokeplays against them.

(6) Pakistani wicketkeeper and other Pak players' gestures after dropping "Man of the Match" (?) Sachin four or five times were telling (and this wicket keeper is notoriously unscrupulous, many say). Come on, was it Sachin's Man-of-the-Match game? Why not young Riaz?

(7) Pakistan's recent political troubles are massive and it extremely needed to mend ties with India by any means; beating India in India would not go well with that fence-mending, and India would also perhaps be thrown in a Shiv Sena type turmoil (SS had already warned of dire consequences of a Pakistan win). ICC or BCCI would not want something that would cut into their profits and reputation (or whatever is left of the reputation). India govt., for that matter, needed something big for a diversion: India's economic situation is scary, and opposition is gaining ground.

The April 3 New York Times article said Sonia Gandhi got what she asked for: diversion from major IPL, Commonwealth and 2G scandals that rocked India.

(8) Pakistani minister's prior warning to players "not to fix" the India match was ominous. Maybe, it's time to have an interview with him?

(9) Pakistan's recent-past wicketkeeper Zulkarnain Haider's new allegations (and some other individuals' action including the Lahore court petition to investigate fixing) that the match was set up must be followed on.

All conjectures? Could be. But it's a question of thinking critically, and finding circumstantial evidence.

I have no doubt that you'd understand the gravity of the situation.

I'd be very happy if after investigation (a real one), it turns out to be all clean.

(Then we'll talk about the billion-dollar bookies in IPL and T-20, but we'll save it for now).

Thanks for listening.

Partha Banerjee

Brooklyn, New York

April 1, 2011

(Revised on April 4)

Sudan secession "inspiration to the world!" Whose inspiration?

2011-01-16T19:43:00.002-05:00

Sudan secession "inspiration to the world!" Whose inspiration?

President Obama called the Sudan secession vote "an inspiration to the world." I am not so sure.

I had the privilege to have a Voice of America interview on the Sudan secession vote this morning. Gave them my two cents, without being an Africa expert. Mainly talked about the oil and human rights issues and the primary players. But I was surprised how the following article included a number of things I said (didn't get to read it before the interview: in a way, it was a good thing). Read article at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22736

I quote a few sections below.

Thanks for reading and reacting.

________

The Balkanization of Sudan: The Redrawing of the Middle East and North Africa

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Global Research, January 16, 2011

The limelight is on the January 2011 referendum in South Sudan. The Obama Administration has formally announced that it supports the separation of South Sudan from the rest of Sudan.

The balkanization of Sudan is what is really at stake. For years the leaders and officials of South Sudan have been supported by America and the European Union.

The Politically-Motivated Demonization of Sudan

A major demonization campaign has been underway against Sudan and its government. True, the Sudanese government in Khartoum has had a bad track record in regards to human rights and state corruption, and nothing could justify this.

In regards to Sudan, selective or targeted condemnation has been at work. One should, nonetheless, ask why the Sudanese leadership has been targeted by the U.S. and E.U., while the human rights records of several U.S. sponsored client states including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the U.A.E., and Ethiopia are casually ignored.

Khartoum has been vilified as a autocratic oligarchy guilty of targeted genocide in both Darfour and South Sudan. This deliberate focus on the bloodshed and instability in Darfour and South Sudan is political and motivated by Khartoum's ties to Chinese oil interests.

[...]

Distorting the Violence in Sudan

While there is a humanitarian crisis in Darfour and a surge in regional nationalism in South Sudan, the underlying causes of the conflict have been manipulated and distorted.

The underlying causes for the humanitarian crisis in Darfour and the regionalism in South Sudan are intimately related to economic and strategic interests. If anything, lawlessness and economic woes are the real issues, which have been fuelled by outside forces.

Either directly or through proxies in Africa, the U.S., the E.U., and Israel are the main architects behind the fighting and instability in both Darfour and South Sudan. These outside powers have assisted in the training, financing, and arming of the militias and forces opposed to the Sudanese government within Sudan. They lay the blame squarely on Khartoum's shoulders for any violence while they themselves fuel conflict in order to move in and control the energy resources of Sudan. The division of Sudan into several states is part of this objective. Support of the JEM, the South Sudan Liberation Army (SSLA), and other militias opposed to the Sudanese government by the U.S., the E.U., and Israel has been geared towards achieving the objective of dividing Sudan.

It is also no coincidence that for years the U.S., Britain, France, and the entire E.U. under the pretext of humanitarianism have been pushing for the deployment of foreign troops in Sudan. They have actively pushed for the deployment of NATO troops in Sudan under the cover of a U.N. peacekeeping mandate.

[...]

The Long-Standing Project to Balkanize Sudan and its links to the Arab World

In reality, the balkanization project in Sudan has been going on since the end of British colonial rule in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Sudan and Egypt were one country during many different periods. Both Egypt and Sudan were also one country in practice until 1956.

Up until the independence of Sudan, there was a strong movement to keep Egypt and Sudan united as a single Arab state, which was struggling against British interests. London, however, fuelled Sudanese regionalism against Egypt in the same manner that regionalism has been at work in South Sudan against the rest of Sudan. The Egyptian government was depicted in the same way as present-day Khartoum. Egyptians were portrayed as exploiting the Sudanese just as how the non-Southern Sudanese have been portrayed as exploiting the South Sudanese.

[...]

The Yinon Plan at work in Sudan and the Middle East

The balkanization of Sudan is also tied to the Yinon Plan, which is a continuation of British stratagem. The strategic objective of the Yinon Plan is to ensure Israeli superority through the balkanization of the Middle Eastern and Arab states into smaller and weaker states. It is in this context that Israel has been deeply involved in Sudan.

Israeli strategists viewed Iraq as their biggest strategic challenge from an Arab state. This is why Iraq was outlined as the centre piece to the balkanization of the Middle East and the Arab World. The Atlantic in this context published an article in 2008 by Jeffrey Goldberg called "After Iraq: What Will the Middle East Look Like?" [2] In the Goldberg article a map of the Middle East was presented that closely followed the outline of the Yinon Plan and the map of a future Middle East presented by Lieutentant-Colonel (retired) Ralph Peters in the U.S military's Armed Forces Journal in 2006.

It is also no coincidence that aside from a divided Iraq a divided Sudan was shown on the map. Lebanon, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Somalia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan were also presented as divided nations too. Of importance to East Africa in the map, illustrated by Holly Lindem for Goldberg's article, Eriteria is occupied by Ethiopia, which is a U.S. and Israeli ally, and Somalia is divided into Somaliland, Puntland, and a smaller Somalia.

[...]

The Hijacking of the 2011 Referendum in South Sudan

What happened to the dreams of a united Africa or a united Arab World? Pan-Arabism, a movement to unit all Arabic-speaking peoples, has taken heavy losses as has African unity. The Arab World and Africa have consistenly been balkanized.

Secession and balkanization in East Africa and the Arab World are on the U.S., Israeli, and NATO drawing board.

The SSLA insurgency has been covertly supported by the U.S., Britain, and Israel since the 1980s. The formation of a new state in the Sudan is not intended to serve the interests of the people of South Sudan. It has been part of a broader geo-strategic agenda aimed at controlling North Africa and the Middle East.

The resulting process of "democratization" leading up to the January 2011 referendum serves the interests of the Anglo-American oil companies and the rivalry against China. This comes at the cost of the detriment of true national sovereignty in South Sudan.
________

Full article at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22736

###

The HUGE Media Scandal that Could Rock India but Wouldn't

2010-11-25T17:53:00.002-05:00

NOTE: I'm not here to pass judgment on the journalists personally. I'm posting the article here with my comments because of its extreme serious nature. I've rarely seen such a directly exposed breach of journalistic ethics.

Photo Source: The Pioneer.

__________

Dear Friends:

Here's my two cents and an article on: The HUGE Media Scandal that Could Rock India but Wouldn't.

Since graduating from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (and going through the pro-status-quo, pro-establishment climate there), I took special interest to expose corporate media's role as a propaganda wing of corrupt, repressive and undemocratic governments across the world, and I emphasized on USA and India because of my personal knowledge and experience with both systems. For ten years, I ran a mailing list called J4TEAM (Journalists for Truth, Ethics and Awareness in Media), and then found a more effective platform on Facebook; I shut the list down.

I continue the mission because of its relevance now more than ever before. I hope you also join in on the cause and expose big media's political agenda, bias and complete lack of objectivity. In that world now, only profit matters vis-a-vis We the People.

India media is now, with exceptions, following the U.S. corporate media model where journalistic objectivity and ethics have taken a far-behind back seat. Media have relinquished its democracy-torchbearer role and purposefully decided to create a world of mass confusion, distortions and half truths. People like us who want to take our democracy back for the ordinary, working people and families need to appreciate the gravity of the situation. The Indian media story has direct relevance to the U.S. media scenario today.

Why this HUGE scandal would not rock India now? As The Hindu put it, "Perhaps because of the large number of journalists involved in the controversy, most Indian newspapers and TV channels have not covered [it]." Same could be said about the U.S.

Please read and take action. Comments and feedback would be much welcome.

Partha

P.S. -- I'm also posting a link here to my Outlook India oped last year on this very subject. It's at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?240578 . I'm glad that Outlook India is still on it.

___________________

From: The Hindu, India.

Published: November 24, 2010 02:59 IST | Updated: November 24, 2010 15:20 IST November 24, 2010

The spotlight is on the media now

by Priscilla Jebaraj

The Hindu MEDIA FOCUS: "Perhaps because of the large number of journalists involved in the controversy, most Indian newspapers and TV channels have not covered the Radia tapes at all."

The Niira Radia episode raises questions about the boundary between legitimate news gathering, lobbying and influence peddling.

The publication of taped conversations between Niira Radia — a lobbyist for [billionaire business magnets] Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata with a keen interest in the allocation of ministerial portfolios — and editors, reporters, industrialists and politicians has shone a harsh and even unwelcome light on the web of connections which exist between the worlds of business, politics and journalism.

The transcripts — drawn from 104 phone conversations recorded between May and July 2009 when the [India Prime Minister] Manmohan Singh government was in the process of beginning its second innings — also raise questions about the boundary between legitimate news gathering, lobbying and influence peddling. Even as the journalists involved have strongly defended their conduct, others in the media are divided with some believing the boundary was transgressed.

The transcripts were published last week by Open and Outlook magazines, which sourced them to audio recordings submitted recently to the Supreme Court by advocate Prashant Bhushan as part of a PIL on the 2G scam [a telecommunication bribery deal involving billions of dollars and national politicians and govt ministers]. The magazines claim the recordings were made by the Income Tax department as part of its ongoing surveillance of Ms Radia. The recordings are believed to be part of a wider set of phone taps, though who leaked this particular selection and why is not known.

In the tapes, NDTV Group Editor Barkha Dutt and Hindustan Times' Advisory Editorial Director Vir Sanghvi [two celebrity journalists] both appear to be offering to use their connections and influence with [ruling] Congress leaders to pass on messages from Ms Radia, who seemed to be representing a section of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam [a Tamil political party] interests. Other senior business journalists have discussions with Ms Radia about the gas pricing dispute between the Ambani brothers, mostly regarding favourable coverage for Mukesh Ambani. Prabhu Chawla, India Today's editor of language publications, appears to be offering her “advice” on how to pursue an appeal in the Supreme Court.

On the political front, in multiple conversations, both Ms Dutt and Mr. Sanghvi offer to mediate between the Congress and the DMK, and even help to set up meetings, in order to dispel misgivings between them on the specific role of Dayanidhi Maran and the allocation of portfolios more generally. In what seems to be an ongoing conversation during the stalemate between the Congress and the DMK over Cabinet berths, Ms Dutt asks Ms Radia what she should tell her Congress contacts. “Oh God. So now what? What should I tell them? Tell me what should I tell them?” she asks.

After listening to Ms Radia's instructions, she promises to speak to Congress leaders. “OK, let me talk to them again,” she says. In a later conversation, she says, “That's not a problem, I'll talk to [Congress leader Ghulam Nabi] Azad —I'll talk to Azad right after I get out of RCR [which has been read as Race Course Road, where the Prime Minister lives].” In separate conversations with A. Raja and Atal Bihari Vajpayee's foster son-in-law, Ranjan Bhattacharya — who also, surprisingly, appears to be playing the role of a conduit to the Congress — Ms Radia speaks of Ms Dutt's help. “I made Barkha call up Congress and get a statement,” she tells Mr. Bhattacharya. In response to questions on Twitter, however, Ms Dutt has categorically denied acting on any promise to pass on messages to the Congress.

In his conversations with Ms Radia on the Cabinet issue, Mr. Sanghvi claims to be passing on information from Congress leader Ahmed Patel. “I spoke to Ahmed … Ahmed is the key figure. Ahmed says, ‘We told him, we told Maran also that we'll deal with Karunanidhi, so he has gone back',” he tells Ms Radia. Later, she asks him to pass on the message that the Congress must deal directly with DMK chief M. Karunanidhi. “I was supposed to meet Sonia today but I've been stuck here. So, now it's becoming tomorrow. I've been meeting with Rahul, but tell me ... So, who should they talk to?” When she replies, “They need to talk directly to Karunanidhi,” Mr. Sanghvi's response is: “Let me try and get through to Ahmed.”

On his part, Mr. Sanghvi has indignantly denied any wrong-doing. “When there's a fast moving story like the formation of government, you talk to all kinds of sources. Most of the time, they're quite busy doing whatever they want and they don't actually give you the information unless you string them along,” he told The Hindu. “It just seemed easier to say, ‘Yeah, yeah, I'll do it' and then forget about it.” He insisted that he had never acted on Ms Radia's requests to call Mr. Patel or anyone else in the Congress “as anyone in the government will know.” However, even if he had called Mr. Patel as promised, it would not have been unethical if it was not privileged or secretly communicated information, he felt.

Ms Dutt declined to answer The Hindu's questions, citing legal concerns, but she has been freely offering answers to similar queries on her Twitter account over the past few days. “Let's put it like this, unless we only cover news based on bland press conferences, we have to talk to all sorts, good and bad,” she said in one tweet. “I think there is nothing wrong in stringing along a source for info… I think EVERY journo has the right to engage a source, its NO CRIME … as a matter of record, I never passed the message. But info sharing per se is not immoral in a fluid news situation,” she tweeted.

In an official response to the publication of Ms Dutt's conversations in Open magazine, NDTV said it was “preposterous” to “caricature the professional sourcing of information as ‘lobbying'.”

Other senior journalists are not so sure about the appropriateness of the conversations but admitted there are growing gray areas in the ethics of journalism. “Cultivating a source, giving him a sense of comfort, that you are not antagonistic, massaging his ego — all that is fine. But acting as an intermediary is inappropriate,” said one senior television journalist who asked not to be named. The same editor felt that increased competition led to today's journalists being in more constant and informal touch with their sources, and he admitted that misusing this legitimate proximity was now easier than ever. But he hastened to add that political reporters often make tall claims or promises to get their sources to part with information.

The same argument is echoed by Diptosh Mazumdar, national editor of CNN-IBN, who endorsed Ms Dutt's insistence that she had done nothing wrong. “Regarding Nira Radia tapes, let me say that accessing info is a difficult job and ur promises to ur source is often a ploy to get more info,” he said on Twitter. “When there are fast moving Cabinet formation stories, you make every possible move to get the info out, those promises mean nothing …” Rajdeep Sardesai, IBN's editor-in-chief tweeted in response to the Open story: “Conversation between source and journo is legitimate. If quid pro quo is shown, expose it. Else, don't destroy hard earned reputations.”

Apart from the portfolio-related recordings, many of Ms Radia's conversations dealt with the tussle between the Ambani brothers over gas pricing. She is heard berating financial journalists for the poor placement of stories she had passed on. In one conversation, Mr. Sanghvi asks Ms Radia — who represents Mukesh Ambani — what kind of story she wants him to do on the gas dispute between the two Ambani brothers. Ms Radia talks of gas being a national resource and that the younger brother should have no right to insist that “a family MoU” he signed with her client be placed above “national interest.” Mr. Sanghvi's column in the Hindustan Times the next day makes precisely the same argument. His defence is that this was genuinely his own view, and that the conversation with Ms Radia was only one of multiple inputs for his column.

In another conversation, India Today's Prabhu Chawla advises Ms Radia on Mukesh Ambani's strategy in appealing the apex court against the Bombay High Court ruling in the gas pricing case. “You should convey to Mukesh that the way he is going about the Supreme Court is not the right way,” he tells her.

However, Mr. Chawla insists he was not giving any advice regarding the case. Instead, he told The Hindu that he was indulging in “social chit chat” with a source who called him, and merely giving his opinion that the Ambani brothers should come together since “when the brothers fight, the nation suffers.”

Perhaps because of the large number of journalists involved in the controversy, most Indian newspapers and TV channels have not covered the Radia tapes at all, even though they include conversations with Mr. Raja himself and Ratan Tata, head of the Tata group. This despite foreign newspapers like Wall Street Journal and Washington Post taking note of them and none of the protagonists denying the genuineness of the recorded conversations.

Though the blogosphere has been filled with outrage over the seemingly cosy relationship between the media and corporate lobbyists (one website has spoken sarcastically of ‘All India Radia'), questions have also been raised about privacy issues, especially since some of the conversations seem to be personal, with no direct news linkage. “I don't agree that tapes of private individuals not breaking law should be aired,” Ms Dutt said on Twitter.

Outlook editor-in-chief Vinod Mehta defended his publication of the tapes, but declined to comment on the recorded conversations or answer further questions. “We printed the story because it was hugely in the public interest,” he told The Hindu. “Our purpose is not to pass judgment, but to put information in the public domain.”

Keywords: 2G spectrum scam

###

A Quick Midterm "Day-After"

2010-11-03T16:21:00.004-04:00

Related analysis: Media Misreading Midterms. Link at http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4190 .

November 3, 2010

So, yesterday, in the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans with support from far right Tea Party got a big victory; Democrats lost the House and state governorships, but kept the Senate.

Many compared 2010 with the midterm elections of 1994 when far right Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan and their so-called Contract with America swept Republicans to huge Congressional victories. I see some differences between the two; I see some similarities as well.

Let's find the differences first. In 1994, Republicans captured both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In 2010, Republicans got the House taking back 60-odd seats across the country; but they failed to capture the Senate. In fact, in some bellwether Senate seats, Democrats fought off well-oiled, big-funded Tea Party candidates: Senate majority leader Harry Reid defeated a fiercely right wing Sharron Angle by a not-so-narrow five percent points; in California, Ebay CEO billionaire Meg Whitman got defeated in the governor's election; in West Virginia, Joe Manchin won over another Tea Party resurgent.

The one single, primary factor in this election was the state of the economy: many call 2010 a "Great Depression 2" year (more "popularly" called the Great Recession) with huge unemployment for the ordinary people, with no end in sight. In contrast, years preceding the 1994 midterm elections were not so catastrophic, although economic hardship returned with the beginning of the first Iraq war and the resulting spike in oil prices, which in turn increased inflation and for the next several years, high unemployment, massive government budgetary deficits, and slow GDP growth. Contrary to the economic disaster now that caused a global havoc, in 1994, the rest of the world was less affected.

But because of a strange, exclusive way corporate media reported the economic crisis and the measures Obama government took to try to bring the down economy back to life, the ordinary electorate never understood it; my personal experience to work with thousands of labor union workers over the past three years has been that even some of the more politically savvy and informed workers did not understand some of the primary causes the meltdown happened (years of deregulation, lobbying and financial law overturns, and extreme inequality), or the basic, pro-people actions Obama implemented that actually stopped the U.S. economy from completely imploding. One of the measures was the $787 billion-plus economic stimulus package that brought back many individuals and small businesses from the brink of death; yet, media’s portrayal of the stimulus was indifferent if not negative, compared to how they covered Bush government’s historic $1.3 trillion bailout money with which many financial giants gave themselves big bonuses.There was no comprehensive discussion at all as to the root causes of the crisis.

But, going back to comparing the two elections four midterms apart, there were certain similarities too between 1994 and 2010. Just like Contract with America, the forces of Tea Party were propelled to national limelight with backdoor support of mega corporations and super-rich individuals such as the Koch brothers, and not-so-secret support from avidly pro-Wall Street, anti-labor media behemoths such as Murdoch's Fox Network. In fact, Fox political commentator Glenn Beck, with help from far right "star" politicians like Sarah Palin, was able to put together a major rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, on the anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. That was ominous. Ilks of Rush Limbaugh and their right-wing radio shows created knee-jerk paranoia about Obama’s “socialist” and “big government,” "high tax" measures – an allegation never refuted or analyzed by other so-called objective media organizations, some of them having dubious connections with Wall Street and with perennial disdain for the labor movement. They conveniently forgot to mention that the big bank bailout was also big government, or the $1 trillion-plus deficit-exploding Iraq-Afghanistan warfare was also big government (pushed by war and oil industries). They used a double standard to report and analyze facts; worse, they didn't analyze them. They never reminded today's voters that FDR and his America-transforming New Deal were also labeled socialist back in the forties.

There’s one other important similarity. After the Republican landslide of 1994, it was the elite, centrist Democrats that pushed Bill Clinton to drastically get rid of pro-people laws and reforms to make compromises with the Republicans. The threat to pull political support out of Clinton was real: the day after the election results came in, Alabama’s senator Richard Shelby quit his Democratic Party and joined Republicans. The rest of his first term, Clinton complied, passed anti-labor NAFTA that broke the backs of workers both in Mexico and the U.S., and accelerated Reagan's mantra of shipping jobs out of the U.S. Under pressure from the right wing, he also “reformed” welfare for the American poor. His Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) replaced a 60-year-old program initiated during the New Deal-entitled Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). What Republicans couldn’t do since the New Deal, Clinton did it in 1994, and corporate America loved it. In two years, Clinton got re-elected, trouncing Republican Bob Dole.

Now, 2010 on, corporate America is determined to do the same with Obama, with help from their people in Congress; not just the Republicans, status-quo centrist Democrats will join hands with them, just the same way they did it almost two decades ago. Two of the major victims on their chopping block would perhaps be the health care reform and financial sector reform; in all likelihood, they will push for drastic reversals on both fronts, turning the clock back on America’s working people and families. In all likelihood, pro-labor Employee Free Choice Act would now be forced to be put on the back burner, or else, pushed into oblivion. A meaningful immigration reform would perhaps be shelved for a long time to come, keeping millions of enslaved immigrants underground.

Corporate America and its media want it. If Obama shows guts to resist their red eyes, in two years, they’ll find a complying president – Republican or Democrat. The selection process will begin soon. Just watch out.

And a post script: why was Hillary Clinton MIA during the campaign of such a critically important election, especially when her husband was stomping for his favored candidates? Who did her followers vote for this time?

Media wouldn’t discuss it either. We the ordinary, working Americans must find out.

###

This November 2010, I'm voting for Barack Obama

2010-10-24T16:53:00.003-04:00

This November 2010, I'm voting for Barack Obama

Yes, you've heard it right!

On Tuesday, November 2, 2010, I'm going to vote for Barack Obama even though he's not a candidate. Here's my small endorsement for him even though he's not running.

I'm going to vote for his politics and principles, which I believe have been major, positive departures from eight fascist years of Bush, Cheney and Rove, and eight neoliberal years of Clinton. I know Clinton is campaigning for centrist-Dem candidates (Boeing's Patty Murray and anti-immigrant Heath "Tancredo" Shuler included), and drawing big crowds. Good for him. But my vote is for Obama and not for Clinton.

Am I happy that Obama is still continuing the brutal Afghanistan war, and seeking help from Washington insiders and Wall Street operatives to resolve the disastrous economic crisis? No. I wish he'd completely moved away from them. When I worked for his victory in November, 2008, I voted for a peace candidate. When I campaigned hard for him, I did it to support his pro-working-people, futuristic politics. That's why I chose Obama and not Hillary. To me, Obama was future, and Hillary was past. Obama was progressive, and Hillary was status quo.

I know Obama's handicaps. But I'm still supporting him because I've seen things happening in these two years that I haven't seen in twenty five years -- since 1985 -- when I came to America waking up to the nightmare of Ronald Reagan. The nightmare continued. When Obama became the president, in spite of my deep reservation for the deeply-entrenched Republocrat system, I knew that I was able to breathe freely, for the first time ever, when nobody was going to choke me anymore.

I wrote and spoke in various forums about the urgency to build solidarity across the working-class spectrum -- the sane and moderate majority I call the Second Circle. After decades of working at the grassroots level, first with the right and then with the left, I've moved away from the divisive left-right boxed politics, because I believe that the divide is artificial and destructive for the ordinary working people and families. There are many more overlaps than differences across the working class. I shunned the far right. I shunned the far left. And I shunned the iron-walled, elite center.

In my opinion, Bush-Cheney-Rove-Rumsfeld-Sarah Palin-Glenn Beck-Tea Party is a dark, Jim Crow force that our young generation -- black, white and brown -- has rejected once and for all. In my opinion, the Clintons and their centrist cronies are symbols of an inaccessible, elite status quo that our young generation has decided not to return to. Even the Clinton remnants we've seen damaging the progressive, pro-ordinary-people Obama agenda have been bad enough; I'm glad Obama is slowly but surely doing away with them. With strong support from labor unions, grassroots constituencies and young people that made an impossible Obama presidency possible, in the coming years, a re-charged Obama administration will be able to do much more to get America moving -- up and not down, forward and not backward.

I'm sure of it.

Let's quickly highlight some of the measures Barack Obama has accomplished, against all odds. They are (1) overturning of Bush-era limits of accessibility on federal documents; (2) ending of Bush-era practice of circumventing established FDA rules for political reasons; (3) announcing intentions to close Guantanamo prison camp; (4) negotiating deal with Swiss Bank to permit U.S. government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals; (5) beginning of phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq; (6) authorizing the U.S. auto industry rescue plan; (7) authorizing the housing rescue plan and new FHA residential housing guarantees; (8) authorizing $787 billion economic stimulus package with one-third in tax cuts for working-class families; (9) authorizing the Cash for Clunkers program removing polluting cars; (10) extending unemployment benefits for millions of workers; (11) instituting enforcements for equal pay for women; and of course, (12) signing a historic health care reform bill.

And that's only a small, partial list.

Obviously, corporate media have not been truthful to tell the story clearly and candidly. They won't do it because of their vested interest in crony capitalism; moreover, American big media survive on Nielsen ratings that in turn thrive on keeping people fearful, and on edge -- whether it's war, terrorism, bird flu, stimulus package, or health care. Remember just two years ago, when we all knew McCain-Palin was a lost ticket, yet CNN, etc. kept turning in close poll predictions? And we're not even talking about the Foxy, Rushy filth.

We don't need big media to tell us the truth. We have our own knowledge. We have our own analysis. We may have lack of money and power, but we have no lack of intelligence and experience.

This November 2, 2010, I'm going to use some of that knowledge and insight. I ask you to make up your mind, come out and do the same. Too much is at stake -- for us and our children.

Support Obama. Endorse a pro-people politics. Reject profit and profiteers. Embrace the future. Reject the past.

###

Courtesy: Obama accomplishment list from IBEW Local 3's newsletter Union World, October 22, 2010. Graph from Pew Center, 2009.

The Brave Chilean Miners

2010-10-14T07:53:00.002-04:00

October 13, 2010

(revised October 14)

On reaching freedom, Mario Sepulveda, or “Super Mario” as a British newspaper dubbed him, lived up to his reputation with a jubilant display. All the thirty-three trapped miners in the Copiapo San Jose copper mine in Chile are now safely out. They're all rejoicing.

We are, too.

During the post-rescue press conference, Sepulveda gave a powerful statement. He said, “I met God. I met the devil. God won.” Despite his flair on-camera, Sepulveda went on to say he was not a showbiz icon.

He said, “I’d like you to treat me like I am, a miner.”

He then also said something the U.S. media completely excluded from their reports (I've checked the New York Times, CNN and Associated Press). However, Reuters and Euronews reported it. He said: "I think that this country has to understand once and for all that we have to change the way we work. The working world needs lots of changes. We, the miners, we won’t let it rest.”

Talking about changes, I'm sure, two of the things that were on his mind were the mining corporation's complete disregard for the labor union's repeated warnings and protests about the unsafe working conditions and possible danger; I'm sure he was also talking about the no-pay the thirty-three miners and their families went through during the 70-day nightmarish ordeal.

U.S. media excluded that discussion too in their usual "fair and objective journalism."

It's the strength of the workers that charged me the most. What courage, what resilience, what organization and optimism even against the most extreme adversities! Miracle? Sure, we all know that; we'd say the same thing if one of our family members had experienced the situation. But it's also much more than that. It's the fighting spirit of the working people. It's their solidarity.

We must not forget this chapter -- in my opinion, one of the most important episodes of human history. I'm glad and grateful I've been able to witness it in my lifetime. American homes for the first time in a long time got a glimpse of what workers' rights and solidarity are really all about, however difficult the circumstances have been. This episode unfolding in a distant corner of the world forced corporate media to tell the story to us all, as is, even though they did their best to censor some important points. It is now our role to fill people in with the missing information and analysis.

For the first time in a long time, ordinary workers and their families across the world felt strong and vindicated, because of the solidarity action of the Chilean miners.

"Chi-Chi-Chi...Le-Le-Le." Workers of the world, this is our time!

###

The Un-Common Wealth Games Begin

2010-10-03T11:40:00.007-04:00

Incredible India, It Stinks

Homeless Indians sleeping on flyover renovated for the Games

Jim Yardley writes in New York Times today: As Global Games Begin, India Hopes for Chance to Save National Pride. Wrong title, Mr. Yardley. India doesn't hope to save national pride: it's the violent, corrupt and inefficient people on top who're trying to save their national power, with help from corporate media -- Indian and international. It's shameful.

This is a quick summary of the so-called Commonwealth Games, 2010. (1) Rounding up and jailing of poor people with their children off Delhi's streets; (2) massive corruption of the ruling Congress leaders who allegedly stole millions of dollars by doling out big corporate contracts with outrageously inflated prices; (3) major failing to meet important deadlines causing international derision; (4) paying 15-20 cents or less per hour (and working them 12-14 hours a day) to the thousands of workers, and falsely promising them housing, health care, child care, education, etc.; (5) creating an oppressive and unsafe work climate where at least 40 workers have died from on-the-job injuries, etc. while working on the Games sites; (6) organizers rampantly used child labor; (7) the govt. shut down schools, colleges and govt. offices for the games with no make-up time for lost studies or work -- unprecedented in modern world history; (8) major construction debacles including the road bridge collapse in Delhi last week; (9) historic number of international athletes pulling out of the games; (10) massive arrogance of the Congress govt, International Olympic Committee and Commonwealth Games executives who took millions of dollars, yet didn't deliver.

Other than some no-name, local, grassroots groups, international human rights bodies or the United Nations did not produce any audible screams against such rights and justice violations (bizarre, because the big-name groups in particular wouldn't miss any opportunity to raise hell on other politically expedient lapses in select places across the globe.)

The entire cost that has nothing to do with welfare of the ordinary people (totaling billions of dollars) has been and will be dumped on the broken backs of the average and poor Indian citizens who couldn't care less about the Games; their lives will not change a bit after the fiasco is all over. Mr. Yardley, you might challenge the status quo the Games' sponsor corporations and their trustee governments are perpetuating. That's the real problem big media need to address.

And we're not even talking about the painful and pathetic legacy of the Commonwealth hegemony. As if two hundred years of looting a once-prosperous country and leaving a torn, bloody, violent and impoverished three pieces of land with carefully chosen cronies weren't enough.

If anything, the British Queen and her administration owe a long-overdue apology with major reparation to the one billion-plus people they tyrannized in South Asia. That would be a real good start. Everything else falls short.

Second Circle: the Middle Majority of Working People

2010-04-12T08:03:00.007-04:00

Updated on August 4, 2010

Second Circle: the Middle Majority of Working People

A Simple Spin Wheel Model to Build Alliance and Power across the Soft “Left and Right”

(Because the divide is artificial: sane working people have more in common than difference)

By Partha Banerjee

Short Description: There are more overlaps than divides among the moderate “left and right” working people. Creating broad-based alliance and synergy across this democracy, equality and justice spectrum is critical today.

Long Description: Working people who consider themselves moderate "left" or 'right" have more overlaps than differences. Below are a few examples -- the moderate working people feel similarly and strongly about the following:

1. Economic disparity and frustrations on social mobility: living wages, unpredictable workplace, loss of health care, education costs for children, loss of home and savings, and consequent psychological trauma and depression are major issues.

2. Feeling of being left out: not being a part of the election-time promises to be included in democratic processes.

3. Discontent on lack of peace, right, justice and human dignity issues: state repression, global warfare and poverty issues hit the average home.

4. Helplessness on destruction of the earth and environment: the BP disaster, Hurricane Katrina, Afghanistan and Iraq wars are examples.

5. Fast-worsening stability and security situation for the children: terrorism and violence are all-time high.

Can the poor, working man and woman strengthen themselves to a position of power? Can we empower the Middle Majority -- which I call the Second Circle -- driven by coalition building across the working class, political education, and will power, in a non-violent way? What are the obstacles?

I propose a simple "spin wheel" model to create cooperation and collaboration across the moderate left and right working class spectrum, eventually empowering the Second Circle middle majority, and through the process, disempowering the iron-walled elite center and separatist and violent far right and far left. I believe that with evolving action plans (including but not limited to elections), moderate working people will win and assume power.

The artificial left-right divide is deliberately created by the forces in power aided by corporate media; it's been detrimental for the working class people and families. It's time we go beyond the archaic box and come together.

Obama and FDR -- Revisiting American History (quickly)

2010-03-27T11:59:00.005-04:00

Obama and FDR -- Revisiting American History (quickly)

March 27, 2010

Now, this is a serious historical discussion that should be done by serious historians. I'm not one of them. My little knowledge about American history and society comes from a twenty-five years of first-generation immigrant existence in this country, and that too, an existence of struggle, spending valuable time on unmemorable, mundane events. Still, as a student of political history as well as an unflappable cheerleader of human spirit, I find urge to chronicle history of this land where I spent half of my life, as it's been unfolding my way. Hope is, friends are gracious enough to forgive any possible impudence.

About Barack Obama, the man who made history. However much I want to support him (and I do, still) and however much time and energy I'd put in for an Obama victory, I'm skeptical about the way he's doing business. This is after I threw in all my support for this health care reform bill, irking my three and a half admirers worldwide.

This is a very important discussion, and I hope we continue it. Briefly, I just came back from an annual conference of my college where a paper was read about the Obama vision of "One America." The young, vibrant, erudite historian quoted many Obama speeches to show how he's been able to create a sense of race harmony and futuristic vision for America through his enviable eloquence. Sure, I love the Obama eloquence, but not sure if I'm totally sold on the liberal, centrist theme. If anything, I said during the questionnaire that Obama has said things that new-generation, educated or otherwise privileged Americans want to hear, without ever addressing the issue of class, corporatism or globalized, neo-colonization and economic-cultural enslavement a la Monsanto, Union Carbide, McDonald's, IBM, MTV or Hollywood. That's not the vision of One America that other leaders such as MLK or even FDR or Lincoln had stood for.

[Of course, young America has matured a bit (and their election of Obama over dark-age, divisive forces is greatly reassuring), but has it gotten the difference between a liberal, individualistic concept of glossed-over diversity and one from a grassroots, working America pov? Not sure at all. I'd ask the same question for the country where I spent the other half of my life: India.]

In fact, in this extreme economic downturn caused by corporate America and its crony Republocrats (the JoeLieb ilk), one might take a lesson or two from FDR and his New Deal: how he tried to take on the Wall Street criminals in 1930's and how his administration passed pro-people, pro-labor laws (Wagner, Norris-LaGuardia, WPA...), curtailing the power of corporate America and their massive deregulation and out-of-control profiteering -- shockingly similar chain of events that caused the 1929 stock market crash, mortgage and banking collapse and the subsequent Great Depression.

Obama, surrounded by some sinister characters, has failed to replicate FDR. The crony Republocrats would not let him do it; in fact, the health care reform that finally passed with a razon-thin, heart-stopping margin passed after many concessions and carrots to corporate lobbyists: insurance companies themselves are big beneficiaries. It's a far cry from any serious reform. Still, we have no choice but to take it because the alternative is horrific.

American working people, courtesy big media, do not understand the centrist, elitist, entrenched status-quo politics, other than what they read, hear or watch at their living rooms -- "analysis" thrown at them by self-styled experts and media celebrities. But they do understand history, they do remember FDR, and millions of Americans (some of whom I work with on a daily basis) understand the hypocrisy of the Obama government (not necessarily himself) to bail out with a $1.5 trillion historic reward the same people who should've been put behind bars. These are ordinary, hard-working, family Americans some of whom, with the lack of an honest political analysis -- again courtesy big media and corporations -- now throw their support behind the Tea Party thugs. We can certainly blast them for joining hands with bigots, but we cannot and must not criticize the reasons of their frustration; after all, countless are out of work while blessed bank bullies keep giving themselves big bonuses.

This is a critical time in history, and in a few months come November, we'll know whether health care reform would make or break Obama once and for all. It could be that we're going to see a repeat of the 1994 New Gingrich far right takeover of Congress, given how money keeps pouring in to Republocrats' election coffers.

Instead of perpetuating and falling victims of the so-called left-right divide that distorts history of the American people, we need to find overlaps between the moderate working class -- the so-called left of center and right of center vast majority that share many commonalities -- and build alliance so that we gradually assume power for ourselves and slowly disempower the extremists, and more importantly, the centrist JoeLieb power of status quo.

I call it my Second Circle model: the large, majority concentric ring of honest, sincere, yet powerless, vulnerable people taken advantage of by the center circle of power, as well as people targeted by an outermost circle of fringe, violent forces. I hope to talk more about this model in the coming days.

Here's a diagram of the model. We'll expand more.

Thanks for the opportunity to share my two cents. Much appreciate comments, and if it's any worth, a circulation.

In solidarity (and hope for a united future),

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

The Real Slumdog Story: India's Ghastly Commonwealth Cleanup

2010-03-14T12:36:00.006-04:00

Courtesy: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/all-aboard-delhis-beggar-express-1914922.html

(See more related links at the bottom of this post.)

I'm deeply troubled. Very deeply troubled.

An inconspicuous report in British paper Independent shows how the Delhi administration in India is sweeping up hundreds of thousands of poorest of the poor -- men, women and children -- from the city's streets and jailing them randomly. I heard they are doing it because of the upcoming Commonwealth Games in October when sports personalities, politicians, dignitaries and most importantly, corporate businesses will come to our once-colonized land and spend their royal time and money to celebrate another round of the so-called global fraternity. Oh yes, some of them will run, jump and play ball too.

And Indian middle class will cheer.

So, in order to make the city look clean, the streets beggar-free, and the country wear a First World image, Delhi and India governments have taken on an urgent mission, with a religious zeal, to pick up the countless, hapless, half-naked, starving Indians -- men, women and children -- and are indefinitely putting them in India's dreaded jails before they're shipped out to somewhere across the country. What will happen to these God-forsaken millions and their lives, livelihoods, social connections and dignities? I'm sure they'll let us know when the celebrities and business houses check out after the Games. Normally, in India, middle class don't query on social connections or education of street children.

We've seen such grotesque acts of violence in India many times over the past, particularly since India graduated from its mediocre non-alignment, "socialist" days to a glitzy-globalized "democracy" days. We've seen numerous, bloody communal riots, barbaric genocide of the poor in the name of religion and caste, and international terrorism. We've also seen a massive change of government with transition of power from a so-called right wing dark force to a so-called centrist liberal enlightened. The new leaders of India are not the zealots and bigots, but internationally known economists and academics, United Nations celebrities, and of course, the Gandhi Dynasty -- I'm sure they have certain qualifications too.

In 2002, when a barbaric carnage took place in Gandhi's state of Gujarat when thousands of poor Muslims were slaughtered by a bigoted chief minister and his bigoted administration, there was international uproar: the New York Times, BBC, CNN, PBS, NPR and all other big-name media organizations gave us the ignorant a thorough coverage and insider information on the ghastly violence. In 2008, when a group of Pakistan-based terrorists snuck in to the five-star Taj International in the Indian Wall Street city of Mumbai and killed hundreds of hotel residents, there was another series of media uproar; CNN provided unprecedented, round-the-clock, "ticker-tape" coverage of the terrorism. We were delighted to see the extent of responsibility corporate media displaying to unearth major events happening on the other side of the world.

I'll make it short. This time around, however, when another major act of violence is happening in the capital of West-blessed India, I see no outrage -- barring a few small news blips here and there -- either by the mighty human rights groups and their liberal followers, or by the mighty media that spent so much of their precious time and money to uncover Gujarat or Mumbai. I'm sad and disappointed, but not truly surprised.

The liberal outrage -- either of the international rights and justice groups or of corporate media -- is selective, and media keeps manufacturing peoples' consent for or against a social, political or economic event. If the Gujarat (or the 1992 Babri Mosque) carnage is ghastly (and they are), then the Delhi clean-up of the begging destitute is equally grotesque. In the former, poor people die immediately; in the latter, poor people die a slow but sure death because of police torture, forced displacement, starvation, hunger, poverty and depression. In case of the latter, women and children suffer the most. In both cases, the brutality leaves lifelong, negative impacts on the surviving children who'd spare no time to act back against the repressive system with their own acts of violence.

I hope ordinary people both in India and the West (and perhaps some conscientious media people) pick up on this new fascism of the India government, and force them to stop this state-sponsored violence and brutality.

Again, I'm deeply troubled -- to see the inaction and lack of outrage, especially of the elite liberal that screamed their lungs off before. You can't have a double standard to denounce hate.

Thank you for reading my quickly drafted note.

Partha Banerjee
Brooklyn, New York
March 14, 2010

###

Post Script.

Prof. Noam Chomsky wrote back today: "Very ugly story. I saw it on a smaller scale in New Delhi in 70's, when I was there as a Nehru lecturer. At that time, in downtown Delhi (I think Connaught Square) there were about 50,000 people in tents or no protection at all. We drove by every day on the way to talks. One day, it was empty. I asked the driver what had happened, and he said, casually, that the city had to be cleaned up for some Asian fair. I asked what happened to the people. He said they were loaded into trucks and dumped somewhere in the countryside. All very casual. No one seemed to care. I saw the same in Barcelona before the Olympics, though there it was not on the same horrendous scale.

Noam

###

Follow-up articles:

Commonwealth clean up targets Delhi’s beggars

Ratnabai Kale was picked up at the start of the drive in September, along with her daughter Aarti, 16, and her sister Shobha, 30. "They said, 'You're not going on that bus. Get on to this one.' I asked why; they said because we were beggars. I said, 'First of all, we're not beggars, we're honest labourers', But the police didn't listen,” she said. “They told us we'd be given a four-year sentence in jail if we didn't go along."

http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/commonwealth-clean-up-targets-delhi2019s-beggars

Have A Budget For Beggars

Delhi’s notoriously rough and inefficient mobile anti-begging squads are already in battle formation. (It is well known that to keep their jobs the squads habitually pick up anyone in rags, even though s/he may not be begging). In recent months these units have rounded up 224 alleged beggars, and locked up 124 of them in one of 12 homes for the destitute — all of which are bursting at their seams. A 13th home is being planned for transgenders and eunuchs. By April the beautifiers also expect to have a 24-hour toll-free Beggar Hotline in place — for the city that a survey last week pronounced as the country’s most livable.

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main44.asp?filename=Bu200310have_a.asp

Delhi to banish beggars ahead of Commonwealth Games

"Before the 2010 Commonwealth Games, we want to finish the problem of beggary from Delhi."

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/delhi-to-banish-beggars-ahead-of-commonwealth-games/100424-3.html

Govt to ask for NGO help in rehabilitating city's beggars

"With space for only 2,100 beggars in its homes, no rehabilitation plan in place"

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Govt-to-ask-for-NGO-help-in-rehabilitating-citys-beggars/articleshow/5677900.cms

Related articles:

Delhi NGOs, Cops Lock Horns over Beggars

NGO representatives at the workshop said beggars were a distressed lot, compelled to migrate to this city from other states in search of a living. Said Sanjay Gupta, an activist with Childhood Enhancement through Training and Action (Chetna): "Begging is one of the responses of acute poverty. People are not born beggars and do not become so by taking alms, but are victims of lack of employment opportunities in rural and urban areas. "They are often incapable of working because of old age and physical handicap. Before beginning to solve this problem with strict anti-poverty laws, the government should modify its policies and schemes."

http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/176/32007.html

Please beggar off

(An Indian middle class response to the problem)

"Slumdog Millionaire was embarrassing enough for many people. But their discomfort on finding beggars tugging on foreigners’ sleeves, pleading non-Indians in beggar-English for money during the 15 days when the land that has an economy more powerful than Mother Teresa’s love plays host to an international sporting event will be acute. It’s one thing to cope with a harmless bed-wetting 30-year-old cousin and quite another if he comes out in his underwear while you’re hosting a party in your living room."

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Please-beggar-off/H1-Article1-515993.aspx

###

India's IMF Budget

2010-03-06T07:38:00.000-05:00

Note: I acknowledge a few sections used from online articles and blogs.

opinion
The Khaas Aadmi Budget
It’s time people got—or took—direct charge of budget-making

Partha Banerjee

http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?264559

In a euphoric moment, when the country was celebrating Sachin Tendulkar’s double century in ODIs, Pranab Mukherjee, finance minister and International Monetary Fund’s governor-designate for India, presented his budget. And we might say, “It’s not cricket!”

In a non-election, no-risk year, he announced the following important news for his fellow countrymen. (1) Rich Indians will get Rs 26,000 crore of tax break in 2010-11; (2) food subsidy for the poor will be decreased by Rs 424 crore; (3) fertiliser subsidy for low-income farmers will be pared by Rs 3,000 crore; and (4) real estate magnates and hotel owners will get huge tax concessions. Then, he announced even more important news. In an already high-inflation situation, petrol and diesel prices will be increased. Everyone knows what that would do to the urban/rural poor and lower middle class.

Major corporate media, following a new-found, ‘successful’ US model, praised the budget. They said that following the announcements, India’s stockmarkets jumped. “The market lapped it up and the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex boomed,” a Financial Times article said. Big NRI businessmen too made positive statements.

But wait a minute. I’m an NRI too, living in the US for 25 years. I teach blue-collar American labourers coming back to get a college education. I see how corporations here are laying off these workers in thousands and yet getting themselves millions of dollars in bonuses using the Obama government’s bailout money. I see how American media is completely bypassing the suffering poor workers. And now I see how a section of Indian media houses is following the footsteps of their American mentors, and suppressing the real stories around this major, extremely skewed budget. I find it unbelievable that nobody is questioning and challenging the so-called democratic government of Pranab babu, Manmohan Singh and the Gandhi dynasty on how the 80 per cent poor—rural and urban—would now be able to find food or kerosene for their families, pay rent, or get healthcare for ageing parents. Does anybody really care?

Let’s look at the history of Indian budgets since the so-called post-Soviet, post-non-alignment, liberalisation days. Since then, the series of policy measures launched by the Indian government are part of the so-called structural adjustment programmes (SAP). Indian governments have since taken up the following IMF-World Bank-dictated measures to implement SAP: (a) Massive devaluation of rupee; (b) new industrial policy allowing more foreign investments, thereby destroying traditional Indian businesses; (c) rampant disinvestment of government equity in profitable public sector enterprises; (d) ‘reforms’ of the financial sector by allowing in private banks; (e) cuts in social spending to reduce fiscal deficit; (f) market-friendly approach and less government intervention; and (g) liberalisation of the banking system.

Twenty years ago, the World Bank secretly submitted the above SAP elements to the government; we now know that the group of senior officials in the finance ministry—all ex-World Bank/IMF employees—who were involved with this memorandum did not disclose it to the then PM, Chandra Shekhar. Have we heard about this from Pranab babu or his predecessors P. Chidambaram or Manmohan Singh?

Clearly, the focus of the new budget is to provide more help to the corporate sector and the rich, with an illusion that the new growth would percolate down to the downtrodden—what is called “trickle-down economics” in the US. It has now crashed the US economy, and it’s going to crash India and its vast middle class in the coming days.

If Indian leaders were not so indebted to Western institutions, they’d have come up with a people’s budget following the successful model of Brazil’s Lula De Silva: a transparent economic blueprint where ordinary people have open access to create and modify it based on their own national, regional or local needs.

In a truly democratic, transparent, people’s budget that India should have developed over the recurrent, five-year plans, we’d see serious investment in small-scale industry, agriculture, education, healthcare, land/water reform, training for unskilled workers, incentive for poor women’s entrepreneurial efforts and ‘Grameen’-type banking, development of a sustainable environment and sports for young Indians with tangible goals. On that list, we’d now definitely add disaster preparedness and evacuation strategies, given what we’ve just seen in Haiti and Chile. I shudder even to think of the extent of possible destruction in the event of a large earthquake in Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore.

Pranab babu’s IMF budget has no clue on any of the above. Who can answer correctly? Soniaji, or maybe, the next media-predicted prime minister—Rahul Gandhi?

(Partha Banerjee is a New York-based human rights activist.)

The New Jingo Bells

2010-03-04T18:35:00.000-05:00

The New Jingo Bells

By Partha Banerjee

Published in Outlook India, March 1, 2010.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264313

A brutal war and killing spree just resurged in Afghanistan—a sudden and rapid escalation of violence. The ostensibly objective and liberal New York Times announced: “Thousands of American, Afghan and British troops attacked the watery Taliban fortress of Marjah early Saturday...to destroy the insurgency’s largest haven and begin a campaign to reassert the dominance of the Afghan government across a large arc of southern Afghanistan.” Gallant, indeed.

The huge surge of military assault, as well as the NYT’s reporting, were eerie reminders of what we experienced when, in 2003, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld began the “shock and awe” offensive in Iraq. We remember how Judith Miller of the NYT had at that time written non-stop columns on how Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction—stories supported by a single, dubious Iraqi insider source named Ahmed Chalabi—stories that had later proved to be fake. Politically conscious Indians laughed.

Seven years went by. A new Obama administration took office, after winning a historic, landslide election on a much-touted peace platform. In fact, the singular factor that separated Barack Obama from his formidable rival for presidency, Hillary Clinton, was his anti-war position. How times have changed! Even people like us, who worked like crazy for an Obama victory, are stunned by the way his administration is mirroring the war years of Bush and Clinton. But why this sudden escalation in Afghanistan? And, how huge is it?

The National Public Radio, also considered objective and liberal, echoed the NYT: “The long-awaited assault on Marjah is the biggest offensive since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and is a major test of a new NATO strategy focused on protecting civilians.”

Protecting civilians? The last time we checked, even long after the initial blanket-bombing of Kabul and Kandahar that killed thousands of innocents—of which pictures were self-censored by the US media—missiles from drones killed hundreds of Afghans at wedding celebrations and family gatherings. A new NATO strategy? Since when?

What’s the guarantee that this so-called new strategy would work now, and civilians would not be slaughtered? There are reports that innocent Afghans have been massacred on Valentine’s Day, of which an NYT report said, “a rocket went astray during operations..., killing 12 civilians”. Valentine’s love gods did not particularly have a field day in Marjah; the new bloodshed in Pune rejected them too.

We’re very disturbed. We did not work for another four years of Bush genocide under a different name.

But that’s only one half of the problem. The other half is: Why now, and where’s the urgency?

Here’s why. The Obama government’s credibility is in serious jeopardy. With the catastrophic economic crisis of historic proportions, the American public is raging. Labour unions and the far-right Sarah Palin Tea Party gang are bringing on unprecedented mass resistance to Washington. Obama’s bad-choice insiders are getting exposed daily.

The 2010 congressional elections are not far away. These people at the elite centre of power need a serious diversion, and a desperate “victory”—maybe, a “big prize” —to stay on top. The anti-Iran rhetoric didn’t go very far; after all, even the geography-inadequate American main street now knows the similarity between Iraq and Iran, and the US politics around them. No, the election thing didn’t go very far in Iran, sadly.

The new Afghan drumbeat, blown up by media mouthpieces, is a last-straw effort by war industry profiteers and Wall Street puppeteers alike to divert attention from the simple facts—that Obama’s healthcare reform efforts are now all but dead; that, in most states, unemployment is at a Great Depression-level high; big banks and their bigger CEOs are still getting themselves millions of dollars in bonuses; and overall, the American people are not in a Valentine’s Day mood. Therefore, the new escalation in, on and around poor Afghanistan. Therefore, the new jingo bells.

Ironically, the NYT story got some not-so-rave reviews from its own readers. Here’s one: “You invade one of the poorest, most battle-scarred corners of the planet and spin it as some sort of lofty stand against the greatest threat to the security of mankind since the Third Reich.” Another reader quoted from George Orwell’s 1984: “The war isn’t meant to be won; it’s meant to be continuous.”

A continuous treachery against humankind, that is. That’s the real name of the game.

(The writer is a rights activist based in New York.)

###

$9 million "Goldman Chief's Bonus...Show of Restraint." - NYTimes

2010-02-06T11:48:00.000-05:00

Courtesy: The Independent

"Goldman Chief’s Bonus Seen by Some as Show of Restraint." - New York Times story, February 6, 2010.

Visit link at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/06bonus.html?hp

I almost cried that the GS chief got only $9 million bonus. I'm like: How could you?

(Of course, who am I to say it? New York Times did not interview a single person on the street or any member of the labor community to react on the bonuses. I'm sure, otherwise, they would've showed similar sympathy I did. Maybe, more. Times missed that opportunity. Times also, notably, didn't have a Readers' Comments section on the story.)
____

Excerpt from the Times story:

"The timing, too, seemed deft: hours earlier, JPMorgan Chase had announced that its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, would receive a $16.6 million bonus and $1 million in salary. For once, Goldman, known for its big paydays, had grabbed the high ground by paying its chief executive less money. At the top, John G. Stumpf, chief of Wells Fargo, was paid $18.4 million in cash and stock for 2009 though he runs a less complex company."

Free Idiots and Born Into Brothels: The Lie Saga is On

2010-01-26T17:23:00.003-05:00

Free Idiots: An Indian Amir's New Stooges (Also read below reposted insider exposé on Born Into Brothels, the Osca-rated documentary)

(Caution: Don't spend your time, money or patience on it. Believe me. I just did. By default, I'm now a free idiot.)

Is the new-generation India so painfully dumb that it can't understand the difference between truth and make-believe, reality and dream, or even fun and pain? Or, it's way too complicated when it's a new-wave Bollywood version of entertainment-awareness-social-change-cocktail served by Coke messiah Amir Khan?

When truth is layered-in with a fake cake in such a cumbersome way that you don't really know which one to choose: cheap fun or grim reality? You want to be a part, if not protagonist, of the desperately-needed social change, but you know that something's dead wrong in the messaging, and yet, you can't quite figure out where the problem is. But you paid handsomely at the box office to get in, and you don't want to come home not laughing or not crying. However hard you need to force yourself to do it, like a bad gas that simply wouldn't pass. (Sorry, but Khan used the element plenty.)

Three hours of non-stop Hindi Blitzkrieg of dialoguing, monologuing, dancing, donkeying, monkeying, stomping, romping, jumping, kissing, pissing, sciencing, philosophizing, teaching, testing, teasing, cheating, beating, stealing, healing, sobbing, crying, tear-jerking, gate-crashing, driving, dying and birthing...you name it...just to drive on one message...like that bad gas...that it's time the Indian supercolonial academia change...and free itself of learning by rote...and enter an era of free thinking!

Wow!

Unfortunately, every bit of masala Amir Khan and his idiots uses to cook up the story is straight from the dingiest Bollywood kitsch kitchen, where the entire purpose of filming is done around the known theme of profit by making the dumb dumber, and the dumber the dumbest. And when so many idiots are employed, free and licensed to teach free thinking to new-generation India, it's no more a dream. It's a nightmare.

It's a nightmare just to sit through the three endless hours of plotting, subplotting, sub-subplotting, flashbacking and backflashing. It's three hours of a very painful trial. Trial of your civility, social skills and patience. When completely disgusted after an hour and a half into the show, you just want to stand up, scream, kick the back of the front seat in the darkness of the theater, and leave. But you can't. After all, you're not really free to do that. Even an idiot wouldn't do it.

My readers, friends, supporters and especially my critics always want to know what my problem is: why can't I simply get some fun and be happy with fun and happy stuff? Why do I always have to be such a naysayer and badmouther at every Bollywood benchmark? After all, what's so cool about always blasting big media and thereby making myself depressed, even more so than ever before? I did that with notable, famed and prospered big-ticket items such as Born Into Brothels and Slumdog Millionaire; I'm now web-spewing the same, predictable criticism of another big blockbuster that's taking Indian families by storm -- both in India and abroad! Why can't I make some peace with reality, and learn to live with it?

Yeah, that's a serious mental case, indeed.

Now, people are so tired of rave reviews, critiques and eulogies that 3 Idiots (I'm sure you've long figured it out) got, it wouldn't be wise to do a shot-by-shot, sequence-by-sequence post-mortem, although one would be tempted to do it, just for the "fun." I'd rather select a handful only for a hindsight.

1. The opening sequence of idiot Farhan's faked illness on a just-took-off Air India plane. (Please don't try it. You'll be quickly arrested, beat up and jailed, maybe, even on terrorism charges). The once-wildlife-photographer-aspirant, father-forced engineering student, who's now suddenly an accomplished photographer with a number of books out, gets a call from one Rancho, his face turns green, as if scared to death. But Rancho, they later tell us, is only his pal, his soul brother he met ten years ago -- calling from some unknown place for some unknown reason. But to answer him, Farhan decides to feign a heart attack on board, and forces the pilots to turn around for an emergency landing. He then walks out of his wheelchair with a simple comic gesture, and dissolves into the street crowd.

(My critic: "But didn't you get the fun, you wet blanket? Oh, it was so funny! Loved it.")

2. Rancho straps himself with idiot Raju's critically ill, paralyzed father on a scooter, and drives him to hospital for a save, thereby meeting his doctor girlfriend Pia who was also, as it turns out, daughter of the Hitler-ish college director. (Please don't try this method to save a patient. You'll kill them; and law will quickly get back to you. Unless you're an Indian Amir or a member of his now-famous idiot club). In my time I've seen quite a few Bollywood insanities, and this one would definitely make a short list. And it's so inhumane to the point of cruelty, only to match with Raju's poor mother scratching his bed-ridden husband's eczema with a roller pin and then using it to make rotis for her son and his invited friends.

(Critic: "Ha ha, was it funny! Laugh laugh laugh...giggle giggle giggle...")

3. A climax-subclimax drama of idiot Rancho and his idiot Indian engineering gang delivering Pia's sister Mona's baby at the college, taking online-video instructions from Pia. (Please don't try it, period). Other than the totally ludicrous and nonsense drama of the pingpong-tabletop-childbirthing under Rancho's stewardship and collective laboring, the corniness is simply absurd and truly unbearable. I've never seen so many otherwise healthy-looking men crying so much, so pathetically.

(Critic: "You just don't get it. It was a metaphor, a symbol, a dream scenario. Like, this is how it should be. It's an Amir utopia. He's making the young generation think. Love it.")

I have another metaphor in my mind. In ten years the movie spans, no one idiot grows up. Telling, the globalized Indian generation considered. We might say, not ten, it's twenty.

I have a feeling had one looked carefully, they could even find those idiots wearing the same stars-and-stripes underpants they wore ten years ago. The ones they flashed globally. That was "balatkar" indeed.

Ah..."All Izz Well."

###

Born Into Brothels Kids Sue Filmmakers!!??

(But it doesn't matter: once a lie is always a lie)

News source at http://www.anandabazar.com/archive/1080807/7cal4.htm

(in Bengali; gist below)

On August 7, 2008, Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP), a major daily newspaper in Calcutta, India (the location of the documentary) broke news that some children portrayed in the film brought a breach of promise lawsuit against the filmmakers. They did it on the ground that those including the much-publicized children who were promised that they'd share in some of the huge profit the film made did not receive any money after all.

I have a feeling the lawsuit may also have included the fact that the children's names were publicized across the globe, while the filmmakers had promised that their identities would be safeguarded. One of the featured kids also alleged that he didn't even know he was being filmed and interviewed for the purpose of making a documentary. In fact, that was an allegation frequently made by the sex workers themselves, and corroborated by the sex workers' union Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) -- I've personally met with some of the leaders of the organization.

In my original letter to Hollywood AMPAS, I'd questioned whether the sex worker mothers' permissions had ever been obtained by the filmmakers when they'd intruded deeply into their personal lives. I subsequently found out by talking to these women that indeed, no such permission had ever been secured; as I mentioned above, DMSC told me that they were never informed that the filmmakers were filming them for this purpose.

(Additionally, Born Into Brothels directors copiously used Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy music, when the copyright holders for Ray films had specifically asked them not to do it. It's plain plagiarism.)

I translated about one hundred tapes full of such gross violation of privacy and intrusion into sex workers' personal lives and professions; and I did not get to translate many more. I know what was on the tapes I'd translated -- the large majority of which was never used in the documentary; I also know what came out as the final, edited product. In my opinion, it's scandalous, full of egregious lies, and purposefully biased against Calcutta (now called Kolkata), India and some of its less-fortunate people.

(Zana Briski told me a number of times that she hated Kolkata and would never want to go back: great gesture considering what she got out of exploiting its people and how the poor sex workers had protected her from any harms!)

I must tell you that even though as a media and human rights activist, I'm totally aware of big media's lies and craving for sensationalism (I frequently write about it -- read my blogs), in this case, the ABP journalist who broke this important story did a great job. I spoke with her on this too.

The fact is, the filmmakers' attempt to show off in the U.S. one of the featured kids named Avijit as the poster boy of their "successful mission" is outrageous. This now-pompous teenager also phoned me in New York and forced a long, rough argument with me. (How he got my phone number is anybody's guess.)

The fact that a happy and jovial girl like Puja (who was greatly exploited by the filmmakers) is now a disclosed-identity sex worker at this very young age, and the other children featured on the film are hopeless and lost (not to mention the sex worker mothers who now feel cheated and violated) is enough reason for bringing any breach of promise lawsuit against the filmmakers.

Nobody has approached me on this lawsuit and I don't know what the real motive is behind it, but if anyone asks me to testify to narrate my insight and experience, I'd be more than happy to do it.

I have no sympathy for self-aggrandizement and Hollywood-blessed lies, and that too, at the expense of poor peoples' privacy and misery. I believe that AMPAS revisit the issue, and revoke the Oscars it awarded to Born Into Brothels, on plagiarism and violation of ethics charges.

Thanks for your attention and action.

-Partha

Ted Kennedy's Last Wishes

2009-08-26T10:48:00.000-04:00

Ted Kennedy was one of the precious few in Washington who opposed the immoral, brutal Iraq war. He was truly special to us for his lifelong stand on peace, rights and justice.

In 2004 and 2005, when the immigration reform movement reached its peak and stormed America, some of us activists working on the ground traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet Sen. Edward Kennedy. At that time, several Congressional measures including a bipartisan bill authored by Sen. Kennedy on the Democratic side and Sen. John McCain on the Republican side were gathering steam. Important constituencies such as organized labor, the Church and grassroots rights and justice groups came out to support the Kennedy-McCain legislation.

Later, however, Sen. McCain withdrew his critical support from the bill to cajole the right wing into re-inflating his then-faltering presidential campaign. And by doing so, he took away the sail from a most urgent, humane reform movements that would save lives and dignity of millions of poor, undocumented immigrant workers, families and children, and bring them out to light. Conservative John McCain's politically expedient flip-flop sent the "illegal" immigrants back to the dark days of forced-labor, detention, deportation, hopelessness and misery.

But Sen. Kennedy, in spite of his failing health, did not give up on his crusade to pass the comprehensive reform act. Although, in 2007 and 2008, in the face of the fiercest campaign of anti-immigrant forces in Congress and on corporate media -- powers looking for opportunities to exploit on the "they steal our jobs" propaganda against Barack Obama's candidacy -- Kennedy shifted his focus on another watershed effort: the health care reform. One of the greatest and astute statesmen in modern American history, even called so by his staunchest critics, Sen. Kennedy threw his weight as the lead liberal icon and family prestige behind the health care initiatives, thereby garnering new momentum for a first-time and black Illinois senator aspiring to become the next U.S. president. And did his game plan work!

Looking back, without the pivotal, early, enthusiastic support from Sen. Kennedy, President Barack Obama would still be called Sen. Obama, notwithstanding his millions of miracle workers -- both on the ground and online -- sweating out passionately all across the country. Without that precipitous moment when Sen. Kennedy came out strongly to endorse the Obama candidacy, in all likelihood, liberal-brand media and other big Democratic sponsors would rally around Sen. Hillary Clinton, who even less than two years ago was all but certain to clinch the Democratic nomination. Even die-hard believers like us hesitated to believe then that a black man could be the next U.S. president. Miracles happen, only with the best possible mentors found at the best possible time.

When Sen. Kennedy announced a couple of years ago that he would step down from Congressional Judiciary Committee and give up his gavel as chairman of the immigration subcommittee, he said: “I remain deeply committed to civil rights, equal opportunities and immigration reform, and I will always be involved in those important debates and discussions.”

Kennedy-bashing conservatives knew it. Anti-immigrant, anti-healthcare-reform, anti-Obama forces grudgingly admitted the towering influence Sen. Kennedy had on American politics for decades. Said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, “Kennedy for forty years has been the engine driving immigration legislation in Congress.”

New-immigrant citizens working to pass a comprehensive reform, we felt his commitment and passion for the cause at our Washington meetings.

We also saw the same intensity of dedication to the cause when he re-energized his long, hard campaign for a comprehensive health care reform. Time magazine wrote, "No one in Congress, after all, has put more into the cause of health reform than committee chairman Ted Kennedy, who introduced his first national health-insurance bill all the way back in 1970. But Kennedy...has been away from Washington for most of this year — and it shows in the chaos that surrounds the panel as it begins to try to turn his long-held dream of universal health coverage into reality."

Sen. Kennedy's ability to get things done even on business-as-usual Capitol Hill was magical. Sen. Tom Harkin, another progressive icon of American politics, once said, "As we always say around here, if you want to get a bill through, give it to Kennedy. He just knows how to get the deals and get everybody working together."

I have no doubt in my mind that with a few more active months in hand, Sen. Kennedy would be there, wave his magic wand, and get that health care reform bill through. At this time of purposefully-propagated confusion, chaos and exclusion of facts, President Obama would sorely miss his support. We the activists on the ground would miss him dearly.

Sen. Edward Kennedy had three last wishes, one of which has come true. Can we bring the other two to reality? America's poor immigrants and America's sick citizens look up to that fulfillment of their dreams.

###

Minutes: Obama's Health Care Strategy Meeting, August 20, 2009

2009-08-20T15:53:00.000-04:00

I took some quick, draft, unedited "minutes" of today's health care web town hall where Obama spoke. Here they are in case someone is interested. I have my comments interspersed too (in parentheses).
_______

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Obama's Health Care Strategy Meeting, August 20, 2009

10 minutes into speech: talks about misinformation...(good.)

16 min: mentions drug companies' profit, better medicare coverage, deficit hawks' flawed logic...

18 min: mentions FDR, Kennedy, Johnson and socialism screams we had those days.

(Did not bring in any new ideas or strategies. Re-emphasized existing workplan.)

21 min: Q&A: status quo is unsustainable.

25 min: Private-public option...with govt help

pre-existing conditions can't be denied. (didn't mention enforcement as to how people can go after insurance companies if they're denied.)

27 min: Q from OFA volunteer: are we winning support from Congress members? Great q. (Obama bypasses the question.)

29 min: Obama mentions media's selling "bad" town halls with fights and screams.

30 min: mentions insurance companies' outrageous profits and Medicare Advantage controlled by insurances.

33 min: Q. where do lies come from?

36 min: news reporting slanted: mentions death panel, abortion, "illegal" immigrants, govt takeover -- all misinformation; (undocumented immigrants lucked out.)

38 min: talks about Clinton, 1993-94, house takeover plan by right wing (glad he has it on his radar screen).

41 min: Charles Grassley of Iowa, Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Olympia Snow of Maine -- 3 Republicans -- working on it.

42 min: how pay for hc?

43 min: (Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) doesn't know how much we're spending on Iraq!!) Glad Obama mentioned Iraq costs: $6-8 billion per month.

45 min: prevention, wellness, saving $ -- $1 trillion over 10 years. 1/3rd will be really needed.

47 min: small employers can switch to public option and don't need to pay for employees' hc if they can't afford it. No tax burden on middle class.

50 min: Q. public option only option. (brave q from an OFA volunteer in NC.)

(No controversial, hard questions yet: $80 billion "support" from drug companies, etc. OFA pre-screened received qs.)

58 min: lifestyle, fitness, president's family, wellness question. Medicare could've saved trillion dollars with right lifestyle choice, if had been emphasized and implemented.

62 min: Outlets for kids, obesity, school lunch programs...

65 min: farmer-school-distribution-health connection.

68 min: young adults not covered by parents. extension to 25 or 26 years for young adults.

70 min: young adults must have minimum health ins; we don't want their sudden or serious illness subsidized by rest of us.

Ends with positive note.

(Nobody mentioned the word "single-payer.")

###

Iran Turmoil and the Manufacturing of Consent

2009-06-23T22:25:00.000-04:00

Courtesy: americanprogress.org

“What point of view would you expect to come out of this? I mean without any further assumptions, what you'd predict is that what comes out is a picture of the world, a perception of the world, that satisfies the needs and the interests and the perceptions of the sellers, the buyers and the product.”

-- Noam Chomsky

In a 1992 interview on his seminal work Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media – a treatise on how U.S. establishments function with active aid from corporate media – Prof. Noam Chomsky said:

“It's basically an institutional analysis of the major media, what we call a propaganda model. We're talking primarily about the national media, those media that sort of set a general agenda that others more or less adhere to, to the extent that they even pay much attention to national or international affairs.

Now the elite media are sort of the agenda-setting media. That means The New York Times, The Washington Post, the major television channels, and so on. They set the general framework. Local media more or less adapt to their structure.

And they do this in all sorts of ways: by selection of topics, by distribution of concerns, by emphasis and framing of issues, by filtering of information, by bounding of debate within certain limits. They determine, they select, they shape, they control, they restrict -- in order to serve the interests of dominant, elite groups in the society.”

Today, in June 2009, since the Iran turmoil broke out as an aftermath of the election results, Prof. Chomsky’s analysis seems more prophetic than ever before. In the post-9/11 days, when the U.S. govt. was preparing for a brutal and immoral war on Iraq, we saw similar mass manipulation on the now-trashed excuse of Weapons of Mass Destruction. It’s eerie to realize how quickly many people forget about the not-so-distant past!

In 2000, when I was a student at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, a few friends and I had organized a lecture of Noam Chomsky at the journalism school; at our insistence, Prof. Chomsky came to speak at the department for the first time. The lecture hall was packed, but with not too many students from the journalism department. Nonetheless, I remember how he brought up New York Times’ then-journalist Judith Miller whose series of WMD stories de facto validated the war Bush, Cheney, Rove and Rumsfeld had already orchestrated to wage on Iraq.

There were many corroborations of Chomsky on the above. In March of 2004, when the Iraq war was full-blown, Antony Loewenstein wrote in Sydney Morning Herald:

“In the run-up to the Iraq War, [Judith] Miller became a key reporter on that country’s supposedly documented WMDs. She wrote many articles relayed around the globe on the Bush administration’s doomsday reading of Saddam’s regime. She painted a terrifying picture of his arsenal with apparently sound intelligence sources to back her claims.

However, it emerged that the vast majority of her WMD claims came through Ahmed Chalabi, an indicted fraudster and one of the leading figures in the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the group keen to militarily overthrow Saddam. Miller relied on untested defectors’ testimonies (usually provided by Chalabi) to write several front-page stories on this information. Michael Massing from Columbia Journalism Review suggests her stories were “far too reliant on sources sympathetic to the (Bush) administration".

"Those with dissenting views – and there were more than a few – were shut out.”

In the 1992 interview, Prof. Chomsky said:

“The New York Times is certainly the most important newspaper in the United States, and one could argue the most important newspaper in the world. The New York Times plays an enormous role in shaping the perception of the current world on the part of the politically active, educated classes.”

In today’s globalized communication when the politically active, educated classes all the over world check out the name-brand media outlets such as the Times, BBC, CNBC or CNN before they form their opinions on important issues, it’s all the more relevant to understand the nature of the propaganda, or for those that would rather opt for a less harsh phraseology, “advocacy journalism.” In fact, some Columbia Journalism professors always complained that I was practicing too much of advocacy journalism at the school: at that time I was telling people that the stock market craze was a made-up bubble, destined to crash. I was no economist, but my little prediction that came true soon after, was never liked by the neoliberal academics.

With the above thoughts in mind and lessons I learned from my own experience at the elite Columbia Graduate School of Journalism – a select incubator for would-be-journalists working for U.S. and global media organizations alike – I came up with the following thoughts on the current Iran fallout, and shared them with a few friends. I wrote (quoting in verbatim):

1. Western media including the Times, CNN and BBC are portraying Iran vote as fraud, even though the first election story that came out in the Times had a line that Ahmedinejad enjoyed wide popularity in the villages where the majority of Iranians live. So, why so much raucous?

2. Notwithstanding the fact that the Ahmedinejad regime is neither democratic nor transparent, it conducted an open election where at least four major candidates ran with wide press coverage (unlike the U.S., where we basically don't hear about candidates outside of the two big parties).

3. Iran govt. has not banned massive opposition rallies, like the ones we just saw in Tehran. How many media reporting have we seen of such opposition rallies in Saudi Arabia? Or, for that matter, in other U.S.-blessed autocratic regimes such as Burma?

4. Media is not showing us the real political interests we have in Iran: such as Israel.

5. Media is not showing us the real economic interests we have in Iran: such as oil.

In that email communiqué, I also said that I have no special love for the secretive and heavyhanded Iran regime. However, I said, the media propaganda is pathetic. And this is happening at a time when the entire economy in the U.S. is collapsing, with people losing jobs, houses and health care (and the govt. is bailing out failed corporations). It's often the case that under these circumstances, the people in power, including corporate media, need serious diversion. Iran and North Korea could be some of those diversions.

Some young Iranian men and women were angry at my insistence that the media propaganda could be deemed as politically motivated diversions. These friends were of course fiercely anti-Ahmedinejad and mostly West-educated. However, I think we have an obligation to explain to them our points of view. The street protest is real: Iranian people have lost their lives.

In the context of the WMD propaganda Judith Miller style, the other question I later asked was, is Ahmedinejad our new bogeyman just the way Saddam Hussain was before he was destroyed along with his country and entire family? And just to remember one more time, during the decade-long Iran-Iraq war in the 1980’s, wasn't it the fact that the U.S. govt. had supported Saddam with tons of money and weapons? Just to reminisce, wasn't it true that Saddam was invited to the U.S., and was presented with an honorary citizenship with a ceremonial key to the city of Detroit?

Well, to be fair, Ahmedinejad was never given a similar hero’s welcome in the U.S. even though not very long ago, he was invited by Columbia University to speak to the faculty and students, much to the opposition of certain groups. To make up for his “error,” the president of the university gave a “welcoming speech” for the invited guest using a language that was anything but welcoming. In fact, it broke all the known decorums.

Now, in the light of what I wrote, let’s come back to some more observations Prof. Chomsky made in his 1992 interview.

“The major agenda-setting media -- after all, what are they? As institutions in the society, what are they? Well, in the first place they are major corporations, in fact huge corporations. Furthermore, they are integrated with and sometimes owned by even larger corporations, conglomerates -- so, for example, by Westinghouse and G.E. and so on.

So what we have in the first place is major corporations which are parts of even bigger conglomerates. Now, like any other corporation, they have a product which they sell to a market. The market is advertisers -- that is, other businesses. What keeps the media functioning is not the audience. They make money from their advertisers. And remember, we're talking about the elite media. So they're trying to sell a good product, a product which raises advertising rates. And ask your friends in the advertising industry. That means that they want to adjust their audience to the more elite and affluent audience. That raises advertising rates. So what you have is institutions, corporations, big corporations, that are selling relatively privileged audiences to other businesses.

Well, what point of view would you expect to come out of this? I mean without any further assumptions, what you'd predict is that what comes out is a picture of the world, a perception of the world, that satisfies the needs and the interests and the perceptions of the sellers, the buyers and the product.”

In fact, in several articles during the 2008 election campaign when I was actively working for Barack Obama, I observed that corporate media were keeping the so-called election tension alive and making up a false neck-to-neck competition between Obama and McCain even when people -- Democrats and Republicans alike working on the ground -- already knew that McCain’s chances, even with Sarah Palin and the far-right-wing coming together, were remote. I wrote that big media, for the sake of making big profit out of the elections selling the campaign "news" and "predictions," kept the high-tension wire alive.

Keeping the above in mind, I now ask some follow-up questions:

1. Is it possible to accept the relentless media blasting of the Ahmedinejad govt. and the so-called election fraud without a discussion of political history? Are we told what his U.S.-supported rival Moussavi really stands for? Or, is it that our knowledge and perception don't matter?

2. Considering how the U.S. govt. always used such turmoil in other countries (many say, fomented major problems with the use of CIA and other instigating and funding agencies), how credible is the current reporting on Iran?

3. Who really benefit if the Ahmedinejad regime is more discredited, and perhaps eventually falls? Who despise Ahmedinejad the most: is it the right-wing Israeli groups and their U.S. counterparts, and/or is it the so-called free-market enterprises (including oil and arms industries) that are greatly upset at the non-compliance of the “closed-door” Iran regime?

4. For powerful media such as CNN, BBC, New York Times and Washington Post with their 24/7 time and space, is it objective reporting when they measure Iran and its theocracy narrowly by one standard and those in Saudi Arabia with another? After all, in Saudi Arabia, there’s not even an iota of market-driven Western democracy that U.S. is so desperate to impose!

5. For that matter, is it fair and balanced reporting (and I’m not even talking about right-wing Fox TV or GE-owned NBC) when media puts one type of spin on “rogue” countries such as North Korea, yet excludes from that discussion U.S.-blessed authoritarian, repressive regimes such as Burma, Pakistan, Turkey or Colombia?

Therefore, in the current context of Iran, it’s important to know the similarities of the various media spins and propaganda we’ve seen over the history. It’s important to find parallels between super-rich, corrupt and mass-abhorred puppet personalities such Chalabi of Iraq, Karzai of Afghanistan and Rafsanjani of Iran. It’s important to know what they've done before, and what connections they have had with groups both in the U.S. and elsewhere.

It’s not just enough to be content that Barack Obama has so far kept his balanced and measured stance against all the pressures and provocations from the anti-Iran forces. It’s important for us – the politically active and educated class that Prof. Chomsky talks about – to understand in-depth what’s going on, and expose the hidden political agenda of the people in power.

And it’s not enough to find resemblances between the alleged fraud in Iran 2009 and now-known fraud in Florida 2000. Or, the fact that big media in U.S. never even told us the whole story about the Florida voting fraud, which many say was one of the greatest scandals in U.S. history.

Most importantly, we don’t need to support a secretive Iran regime with history of human rights violations to criticize the barrage of lies, half-truths, exclusions and double standards that pass by the name of elite journalism in the West.

In fact, challenging them on the above is the essence of a true democracy.

End-note: Paraphrasing Noam Chomsky, “it's extremely important if history is going to be shaped in an appropriate way, that certain things appear, certain things not appear, certain questions be asked, other questions be ignored, and that issues be framed in a particular fashion.”

It’s upon us – small people state establishments and corporate media neglect, undermine and exclude from the conversation – to shape the history. We’ll do it our way.

_______________________

Postscript -- Iran elections were perhaps fraud, and I need to say it

In my latest email communiqué with friends, activists and scholars on the subject of Iran, I received a message from Prof. Noam Chomsky who took time to read my “Iran Turmoil and the Manufacturing of Consent” article and sent me feedback. He also sent me an Eric Hooglund article that clarified a lot on the Iran election. The article can be found at http://agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=2034 .

One paragraph in the Hooglund article was significant. He wrote about the Iranian elite: "But that political elite is divided over how Iran should be governed: a transparent democracy where elected representatives enact laws to benefit the people or a ‘guided democracy’ in which a select few make all decisions because they do not trust the masses to make the right ones. This astute political insight is one that is prevalent in Iran but seems to have escaped the notice of the Western reporters who are trying to explain Iran’s political crisis with resort to simplistic stereotypes."

I thought his observation was equally applicable to the system we have in the U.S. -- one that is touted as democracy but has in fact been far removed from it.

In my own little piece, I put a lot of emphasis on how Western media including New York Times and CNN kept spinning the Iran news the usual biased and exclusionary way, but did not take time to show my support for those in Iran who braved the clampdown and stormed the street for a morally upright cause.

As a longtime foot soldier of rights and democracy movements, I must offer my apologies to those brave soldiers in Iran. Regardless of how sinister the media spin has been, there should not be any doubt that the Iran vote was perhaps fraud (I'm using the word "perhaps" because the media smokescreen actually prevented us from knowing more about the nature and extent of the fraud), and if that was the case, I unequivocally condemn it, if my condemnation matters to anyone at all.

Of course, democracy, rights and freedom are terms that are interpreted one way by small people and solidarity soldiers like us, and another way by corporate America, conservative commentators, right wing Iranians, Indians or Israelis and their counterparts in the U.S. who wouldn't miss a single opportunity to blast any governments and personalities such as Iran and Ahmedinejad, Venezuela and Chavez, Cuba and Castro ... those they despise, and yet use a totally different standard for others such as Pakistan and Musharraf, pre-war Iraq and Saddam, Burma, Haiti and the military generals, or Saudi Arabia, etc. and their medieval oil-rich monarchies. I've rarely seen such raucous on media when Musharraf or our then-ally Saddam got “elected” with 98 percent of popular votes. In fact, I've seen U.S. establishments and media endorsing tyrants such as Suharto, Pinochet, Marcos and Botha for decades when the rest of the world was up in arms and screaming for justice.

In short, my major gripe has been much more about the media manipulation of peoples' opinions without discussing history, and much less about the Iran election itself. How come even now, while reporting on Iran and the Middle East, corporate media don’t make any connections with other election frauds we supported, or tyrants we aided and kept in power. I find that dishonest. PBS, for example, reported yesterday that Iranian people protesting from California were mostly those who left Iran after the fall of the Shah. But PBS stopped there and did not say a word about who the Shah was, what his regime did to Iranian poor, and how the U.S. govt. always went to bed with him. And what these Shah-supporters mean by democracy. Is that honest, objective journalism? Then, who are the powerful insiders putting so much pressure on Obama so that he can't stick to his measured and balanced stance on the Iran fallout? Where is that discussion? Which corporations despise the Iran regime the most? Why? Where is that analysis on the Times, NBC or CNN?

Enough ranting (again). I just thought I have the obligation to write this post-script to clarify my position. It may or may not mean anything to you. Forgive me for any perceived impudence.

________

###

Incredible India Elections: Jay Ho!

2009-04-26T17:30:00.000-04:00

Courtesy: starmajha.com

Over the past few weeks, I've been watching the Indian parliamentary election coverage on big media, both here in the U.S. and back home. Of course, being in New York, my source of Indian papers and television is primarily through online search, and secondarily through email and phone conversations with family and friends in Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai. I presume though, in this day and age, that’s more than sufficient: you don’t have to be physically there.

I must say I'm frustrated to see the rampant bias in favor of the ruling party. It's more frustrating that over the years – since my own political days in India – it hasn't changed at all. Back then, in the 70’s and 80’s, it was a Putin-like favoritism for Indira Gandhi and then Rajiv, both of whom were made “peoples’ leaders” practically overnight by upper-class establishments. In the 90’s and now in the first decade of 2000, it’s been for Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, and following traditions, Rahul Gandhi. The media-supported rise of Rahul Gandhi as the next potential prime minister of India is eerily similar to the rise of Rajiv and his brother Sanjay, particularly for those who remember the tumultuous days.

Government-owned Doordarshan TV and All India Radio – both of which fell from grace in this privatized, U.S.-modeled era – have always shown bias for the party in power; in fact, Congress Party, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi had conceptualized the pro-government spin the Ronald Reagan way. At least in the Nehru regime, it was rather by default than by engineering. During the post-1947 days, especially after the Gandhi assassination, Nehru became larger than life; just like Congress with its pair of bullocks became an imposed household symbol. Nehru’s out-of-touch, elitist rule complete with toppling democratically elected governments in various parts of India never got rightful exposure. To Indian media, he was the true Bharat Ratna.

If Nehru did it by default, Indira Gandhi did it by her violent exercise of power never to be questioned by the media. When her Garibi Hatao (kick the poverty) slogan miserably failed in the first half of 1970’s and people on the street began mocking it as Garib Hatao (kick the poor), and when even sane Congressis started revolting against Indira’s extreme nepotism to bring her younger, wayward boy Sanjay to national limelight, and especially when the poor started organizing against the out-of-control poverty, inflation and state repression, an arrogant, royal lifestyle and cult worshipping (the most famous was then Congress president Devkant Barua’s “Indira is India” catchphrase), the first and only woman prime minister exercised illegal power, clamped down on the opposition with a 1975 emergency rule to void the Allahabad High Court rule against her election victory, amended the constitution, imprisoned thousands of opposition party activists including most of the leaders, and put a blanket censorship on the press.

Even for someone like me who was deeply involved with political activism, it came as a shock that Indira put Jay Prakash Narayan, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L. K. Advani, Raj Narayan (Indira’s personal nemesis in Rai Bereilly), George Fernandes and the top brass of Indian politics in jail, indefinitely, on charges of “anti-India activities.” She passed emergency legislations in an opposition-free parliament – laws that we can easily compare with today’s TADA or POTA of India or the PATRIOT Act of Bush government – the “führer” of all repressive laws.

Notable was that Indian big media never really opposed such autocratic measures. A handful of journalists such as Barun Sengupta, Gaur Kishore Ghosh and Jyotirmoy Datta of Kolkata protested; they were promptly arrested and put behind bars. Patna’s daily Searchlight was torched.

It is important to remember the stained history of India’s ruling class, particularly the Congress Party, because the younger generation does not know it, again, thanks to the exclusive coverage and distortions of history. A quick lesson puts the developments today in perspective. It helps us to understand and analyze.

Today, India has witnessed an explosive growth of privatized media corporations: their national and local channels as well as print and online publications mushroomed across the country. Globalization has helped create alliances between Indian, European and American media giants; just like the recent marriages of soft drinks, energy or insurance companies between India and U.S., hyphenated media organizations, more powerful than ever before, have now pervaded India’s upper- and middle-class drawing rooms. Globalized and Americanized private media have wielded an unprecedented influence on Indian people and electorate, especially the younger generation. Just like in the U.S., media have taken advantage of the age-old perception: “if it’s in the news, it must be true!”

In this backdrop, the role of government as well as private media such as ZeeTV, NDTV, Star-Anand, CNN-IBN, Times of India, etc., along with their many local and regional offshoots, to show extreme bias for parties and candidates of their choice is gravely ominous for democracy. Contrary to the much-touted American media doctrine of a fair and objective reporting – doctrine they always preach but seldom practice – the new Indian media have resorted to an unrestricted, one-sided coverage of the Congress Party and its leaders. Any half-hour news segment, interspersed between relentless cricket matches or Bollywood stars’ imbecile dances, would find headlines and wrap-ups featuring a feeble and visibly energy-less Manmohan Singh, a typical pin-striped, unemotional Hindi speech of Sonia Gandhi, or meaningless, elitist rhetoric of Rahul or Priyanka (again, eerily reminding us about their father), and that too, about the so-called rise of India as the “next superpower” in the world stage.

Sadly, even now during the election times, voters can find nearly no reporting of the fact that a vast majority of Indians still have no access to health care, education, drinking water or electricity. One wouldn’t know that in India, a world-record number of farmers committed suicide because of economic desperation and multinational companies’ forced seed-bank replacements. By reading or listening to media’s interpretations, one would think India is now equally and equitably prosperous like Japan, Korea or China. After all, Nano has rolled out!

We don’t hear about the destruction of Indian environment and massive pollution and energy crisis. We don’t hear about the extreme lack of women’s rights (sure, we now have more fashion shows and jewelry models on the catwalk!). We don’t hear that India is now the fastest-growing AIDS country (and contrary to Thailand or USA, talking AIDS is still very much a taboo). We don’t know that police brutality and abuses on social and religious minorities are abysmal. We’re never told that international organizations have called India as one of the worst countries to protect human rights and promote equality. We’re not reminded that India has seen a massive number of communal riots, big and small, in recent years: not just in Gujarat, Ayodhya or Mumbai. And that our governments have failed miserably to protect us from terrorism.

Problem is, as “Guru” Goebbels said long time ago, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Goebbels also said, “It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

It’s not that Indian opposition parties are telling the truth about the state of affairs either; if anything, the big opposition parties’ hands are badly dirty. But then, in a much-glorified Western democracy India has followed so keenly, what’s the layperson’s alternative? They must know the truth, and media is perhaps the only place where an average, apolitical voter can get it.

That is, outside of their day-to-day, working-class experience; the only ray of hope is that poor Indians, if they decide to vote, will vote based on their real-life experience, and not so much because of the incessant pressures from the media, political mafia, village panchayats, town strongmen or family bosses.

But that’s only a hope indeed – a utopian dream. In reality, it doesn’t much happen. And that is why Indian media’s suppression of truth and generous donation to ruling class’s rampant lies are even more worrisome. In their election coverage today, opposition parties find minimal amount of time and importance. Third parties and especially those who have mass support to boycott elections are not given any time at all.

Big media have belittled opposition alliances, and brought them to ridicule. Let me cite a rather “civilized” example. On April 16, Times of India reported:

Not ruling out taking its support again to form the government at the Centre after the Lok Sabha elections, external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee has said that the 'Fourth Front' comprising SP, LJP and RJD would split secular votes.

"They will clearly waste votes. That is their main objective," the Congress leader said in an interview.

When asked to comment on reports that in the post-poll situation, the Congress might take their support, he said, "I do not know. It will depend on numbers. After all democracy is a game of numbers. What I can say is, we will get adequate number of seats. I can't predict. We are fighting to win the elections."

So, according to mighty Mukherjee-saab, democracy is only "a game of numbers"; it’s not about real people and their real lives or real problems. It’s not about the future of India and her children. Shouldn’t the all-important Times of India have challenged it? Also, wasn’t it time to find the reasons why there’s a fourth front mostly of disillusioned ex-Congressis? Why is that pre-poll surveys suggest that neither the Congress nor BJP is going to get more than a third of the total number of parliamentary seats, in spite of their big money and muscle power?

I want to cite a different example.

Recently, I had the opportunity to watch an NDTV "Town Hall" where well-known journalist Barkha Dutt brought in personalities from various parties to talk about terrorism, economics, etc. – things that matter to the electorate. Even though she did a commendable job to put on her show a diverse array of politicians, in reality, it was a skewed coverage in favor of the so-called secular state the Congress way where religion and spirituality does not seem to count, and also in favor of the “modern India way” where Pakistan in particular is the accepted enemy, where no questions can be asked about the politics India governments have always played around Pakistan (and which power kept supporting Pakistan’s military governments with money and arms). The TV Town Hall of invited guests also heavily favored the now-doomed market-driven U.S. capitalist system where the reasons for the doom were never explained, as if there was no need to question the corrupt, inefficient and poverty-causing system, a system that now made the U.S. a cataclysmic economy.

The biggest irony to me is that a pro-Hindu, upper class, feudal, oppressive system is vindicated in India, and that too, in the name of a Western, liberal democracy. With this, who needs the BJP? Worse, what’s the real difference between them?

India is a country where status quo is the name of the game. Nothing really changes. Elections only validate the status quo. We do the democracy exercise every five years spending stupendous amount of money we can’t even afford. Then we go to sleep; rather, we’re put to sleep. The rich and the powerful live happily ever after.

Incredible India, Indeed. Jay Ho!

###

Buffalo plane crash exposes big media's spin

2009-02-13T14:01:00.000-05:00

Today's tragic plane crash in Buffalo, New York where 50 people, including one person on the ground, unnessarily died, reminded us once again about U.S. media's pro-corporation spin and extreme lack of pro-people ethics. Continental Connection Flight 3407 nosedived into a house in suburban Buffalo and exploded.

Just a month ago, on January 15, a U.S. Airways plane (Flight 1549) crash-landed on the icy Hudson river in New York; the passangers survived. However, instead of reporting on the airline's serious flaws that may have caused the near-disaster, U.S. media decided to put their spin on the gallant heroism of the pilot who crash-landed. Peoples' already-short attention span was successfully diverted from the cause by CNN, Fox, Times, and other news giants.

Without taking away the professionalism, efficiency and bravery of the 1549 pilot who was able to save lives, if big media had focused on the reasons behind the averted disaster, perhaps it would fix some of those safety holes -- almost always unchecked by corporations for profit reasons -- and save some precious lives today.

But that's not what will happen in this country. What's more, our governments and political establishment will now put more emphasis, as usual, on the sentimental side of the story. That's another tragedy!

Slumdogs and Millionaires

2009-02-04T14:43:00.000-05:00

Slumdogs will always be slumdogs, and millionaires will always be millionaires. An Indian slumdog will never be a millionaire. At least not the fantastic way the movie flaunted it.

Oscar-coaxing producer Christian Colson, director Danny Boyle, and the now-famed storytellers Simon Beaufoy and Vikas Swarup together create a violent, obnoxious, and even not-so-artistically-sound celluloid big-frame that’s likely to be showered with more profits and trophies. Talking about art, of course, in this day and age of in-your-face, obese entertainment, who’s afraid of Satyajit Ray, or even Ronny Howard or Spike Lee?

Slumdog Millionaire is completely in line with the new-trend, part-documentary, part-fiction, part-narrative, part-activist, West-glorified exploitation of Third World’s poor and vulnerable: Born Into Brothels, City of Joy, or Lagaan would come to mind as immediate examples. There’s no sense of history, peoples’ grassroots struggle, and in case of Slumdog, dignity; the big, loud screen shuffles fast in a vacuum. At least, Lagaan was fun.

I feel sorry for the young performers who poured their hearts out on and off camera (even though Westernized Dev Patel or Freida Pinto is too cool and sophisticated to be slum bastards; Freida’s Latika would quickly contract HIV from her years of Pila Street prostitution); I feel even sorrier for the young-generation Bollywood patriots who crave to see some Indian honor on a real international scene (as opposed to the 10-nation-only cricket gold rush). If I were their age, I’d be charged up too and pump my fist. After all, it’s all make-believe; after all, it’s all for the big green bucks. The axiomatic, end-of-the-day message is: “Don’t think too much into it.” Or plainly, don’t think.

But I’m older and wiser, and can still think. I’ve seen quite a bit of slum, poverty and destitution in my life; I’ve even seen how an open-air, wood-platform, makeshift toilet seat actually works. I have a feeling none of the millionaire moviemakers experienced the thick of it. Their deliberate attempt to desensitize the younger audience thus doesn’t work, not because it’s grotesque, but it’s violent with its horror, lies and distortions.

(Photo: Partha Banerjee)

And would Amitabh Bachchan off his helicopter really sign an autograph for a feces-smeared rat who somehow rubbed past throngs of star-crazed crowd? No way -- it’s a lie. And that’s why it’s really horrible. Show poverty, show disparity – it’s fine, it’s even more than fine: show it the Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Govind Nihalani, Shyam Benegal way. But don’t raise false optimism, don’t create false hope.

That “yellow” situation sets up the grimy, slimy, slithery and smelly theme early on; we quickly get to sense how the rest of the melodrama will unfold. In a disjunct, average-made way, Slumdog entertains us, with all the prescribed elements right off the Hollywood-Bollywood book, including the Devdas-type sacrifice of Salim and his Godfather-style death. In its fervent zeal to show a “real” India, the movie steals poverty, kiddy sex, hunger, shooting guns, and even attempted comedy from Salam Bombay, Born Into, and that fresh line of products.

The laundry list of essential elements was complete even with a communal riot scene; of course, Hindu fascists in Mumbai have slaughtered Muslim slum dwellers in the 1992 post-Babri-Mosque demolition era. But even the dumbest Shiv Sena or BJP goon knows that mob lynching is never a smart thing to do without provocation; and Jamal-Salim’s mom and washerwoman neighbors were suddenly rounded up and butchered without a provocation. Heck, even Aparna Sen in Mr. and Mrs. Iyer had set a believable stage for Hindu-Muslim violence.

The overarching, majorly ludicrous thread is the game itself. It appeared as if Who Wants to Be a Millionaire the Indian variety was tailored into Jamal’s opportune and handy slum experiences: an American tourist couple to display their American generosity put a 100-dollar bill (!) in suffering Jamal’s hand, and the blinded singer boy – whom Jamal rediscovers years later – touches it, knows it’s a dollar bill, and helps him to learn the name of Ben Franklin printed on the money. Talk about preposterous!

Oh yes, blinding of the poor is not unheard-of in India: we remember the Bhagalpur atrocities during Indira Gandhi’s regime, and similar grotesque human rights abuse in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat.

But in the movie, it was too imposed, too far-fetched, and tear-jerking. Such was the array of meaningless police torture situations; I’m yet to figure out what it was really all about, and what Irrfan Khan – the good-bad-good cop was trying to do in the first place! Then again, today’s it’s not the time to reason; it’s only time to accept whatever is thrown at your face, especially if it comes from the millionaire movie powerhouses, and especially if it’s blessed by corporate media, Hollywood, and AMPAS-Oscar.

A slumdog will always be a slumdog; a millionaire will always be a millionaire, especially if you can deprive the poor shanty actors and their parents of their dues, and profit more. The Indian slumdog will never be a millionaire, however hard Hollywood-Bollywood wants us to believe it.

(Photo: Partha Banerjee)

###

Gateway to Genocide

2008-12-02T13:32:00.000-05:00

In the wake of Thanksgiving week’s horrific terrorism in Mumbai and death of many innocent people – both Indians and Westerners – barrage of anti-government protests, name-calling and finger pointing have begun. Many fear that the genocide at the Gateway of India is going to unfold a new stained chapter in the violent, bloody history of the British-partitioned subcontinent.

Intellectuals and liberal oped writers have flooded the print, TV and cyber media with their instant thoughts and esteemed analyses. I’ve collected a few articles for my files. I share with you some excerpts and my personal thoughts.

It’s not easy to filter through the three days of horror, chaos and mass confusion exacerbated by the Indian and U.S. media and people in power. Also, I’m not from Bombay and don’t particularly know the city so well. But I know India like the back of my palm, and I know its political landscape. I’ll therefore use some of those notable overviews, and offer my two cents.

Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found and journalism professor at New York University, wrote in the New York Times: What They Hate About Mumbai http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/opinion/29mehta.html

"Mumbai is a “soft target,” the terrorism analysts say. Anybody can walk into the hotels, the hospitals, the train stations, and start spraying with a machine gun. Where are the metal detectors, the random bag checks?"

[Mehta also writes: "In Mumbai, it’s impossible to control the crowd. In other cities, if there’s an explosion, people run away from it. In Mumbai, people run toward it — to help." To me, that’s too condescending: people in other parts of India would not appreciate that comment. Ask anyone from Kolkata.]

The security collapse theme is now central in anti-government allegations in India, and they are quite justified. Just like the Bush administration had completely failed to protect the lives of three thousand civilians on September 11, the U.S.-blessed Indian government led by Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi have shown their laughable inefficiency to save the industrial metropolis. The only difference in the immediate aftermath is that the powerful Indian home minister Shivraj Patil, the man in charge of the nation’s domestic security, has now resigned yielding to public criticism, in stark contrast to the post-9/11 mayhem when John Ashcroft and other U.S. strongmen never took any responsibility, and assumed unprecedented power; the corporate media and two-party oligarchy never put any serious pressure on them for their grotesque failures. Consequently, we saw the immediate passing of the PATRIOT Act, mass round-up of countless “perceived terrorists,” and other rampant breach of civil rights and liberties. The Afghanistan and Iraq genocides began soon thereafter.

India is getting ready to hold its five-year ritual of elections in a few months, and these horrific incidents bring the possibility of the ultra-right wing to come back to national power. Particularly in the city of Mumbai and its parental state Maharashtra and adjacent state Gujarat, the two most affluent provinces, Hindu chauvinism and fanaticism have garnered maximum strength: in both places, extremists have caused anti-minority barbarism in recent years. Contrary to Mehta’s assertions, in the possible scenario of a future anti-minority hate resurgence, very few including the local governments would show up to the rescue of the poor and the vulnerable.

(Of course, as Mehta pointed out, Amitabh Bachchan would sleep tight with his gun tucked under his pillow.)

And Mehta knows very well that the Indian police forces are notoriously inefficient and corrupt: everyone who knows the country knows that practically the only two-fold role the police play there is brutalize the powerless and extort bribes. They also have active and direct collusion with the underworld smugglers and political mafia – powers that rule especially the city of Mumbai and its precious Bollywood.

Recent Indian governments, especially in the last two decades, have followed the footsteps of its police malfunction and resorted to extreme corruption, muscle flexing and underworld money laundering to remain in power. Basic administrative services changed hands from once-reputed state machineries to arrogant and violent political goons sponsored by New Delhi bosses. The very visible consequence: countrywide terrorist activities on one hand and massive, escalating rich-poor disparity and civil service failure on the other.

The fact is that the Mumbai carnage is not the first of its kind; just in the past few months, a number of gruesome, parallel violent incidents have occurred in various parts of India, resulting massive bloodshed. Shashi Tharoor, author and former senior UN official, mentioned it in TheDailyBeast.com: City Under Siege http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-26/terror-in-mumbai/

"This year alone, terrorist bombs have taken lives in Jaipur, in Ahmedabad, in Delhi and […] several different places on one searing day in the state of Assam. Jaipur is the lodestar of Indian tourism to Rajasthan; Ahmedabad is the primary city of Gujarat, […]; Delhi is the nation’s political capital and India’s window to the world; Assam was logistically convenient for terrorists from across a porous border. Mumbai combined all four elements of its precursors: by attacking it, the terrorists hit India’s economy, its tourism, and its internationalism, and they took advantage of the city’s openness to the world. A grand slam."

And then, we have the usual “strength and resilience” platitude often exercised by the liberal elite: ones we’ve seen in the post-9/11 "soul-searching." Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek gave an interview to the magazine’s online edition: The Mayhem in Mumbai http://www.newsweek.com/id/17100

"I think India is showing remarkable resilience. They're trying to get back to business as usual. They were planning to open the stock market, which is not far from the Taj; they ultimately decided that that might have been a bridge too far, but they're encouraging people to go back to work. That's the best thing about an open society. They're trying to project an image of resilience."

Remember the Republocrat resilience rhetoric?

What else can you do? What else especially the subcontinent's working poor and middle class can do? From New York, I called my sister and nephew in Mumbai on the morning after the terror strike. Both of them work in the private sector, one as a receptionist, and other as a junior computer professional. Both of them told me that their companies had not called them yet not to come to work, even though it was extremely dangerous to go out and even in Mumbai where the subway is the lifeline of millions of commuters, it was all but shut down. Resilience? Of course, my sister and nephew must go back to work and “show courage” to stand up against those ghastly cowardice forces. Or else, Zakaria must know, the private sector would show them the door.

Welcome to the globalized, neo-liberal, Wall Street-modeled world, India being at its forefront, along with its corrupt, criminals and crooks.

Post-script: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already announced that an Indian version of Homeland Security is on the way! What's next? Follow the Giuliani-Bush-Ashcroft-Rumsfeld daily diaries. On the other side of the football field, note how the Indian KKK are busy chalking up the next round of mob lynching.

[To be continued]

Sonal Shah of Obama Team and Her Alleged Hindu Extremist Nexus

2008-11-13T15:25:00.000-05:00

Dear Friend:

[Background info for those who need it:

1. Sonal Shah, an Indian-American advocate, has been chosen by Barack Obama to work on his transition team. Initially, the news was warmly received by the South Asian community both here in the U.S. and in Europe and India.

2. VHP (English: World Hindu Council) and BJP (English: Indian Peoples' Party) are right wing Hindu extremist political forces in India; they've been directly responsible for inciting massive violence and genocide in India to gain political mileage -- if you're interested, you can read my little book on BJP and its mentor group the RSS (English: National Volunteer Corps). In short, RSS is the Indian version of Christian Coalition or Moral Majority -- it preaches and practices Hindu supremacist doctrine, and its premier leaders have borrowed heavily from the Third Reich.

3. Some non-resident Indian groups here in the U.S. and left-wing scholars have brought new allegations that Sonal Shah and her family have been deeply involved with the Hindu extremist groups: according to them, Shah's father and brother have been active members of VHP and Overseas Friends of BJP. Read one story at:

http://www.twocircles.net/2008nov10/nri_groups_ask_sonal_shah_clarify_vhp_links.html

4. Sonal Shah has vehemently denied her links with any extremists. See one story at

http://www.bjp.com/2008/11/11/sonal-shah-denies-baseless-and-silly-reports-of-rightwing-links/]

I'd like to draw your attention to the newly unfolding saga. I'm troubled by it, especially if there's indeed a nexus. I'd also be greatly troubled if it was another ploy by renegade anti-Hindu extremists (and the far left) to tarnish Shah and consequently, the Obama administration, whom they don't like in the first place (I've had my share of disagreements with the far left); my fear is that only the corporate media and right wing Republicans will take advantage of it.

I invite your thoughts and action. Thank you.

-Partha

P.S. -- It's an utmost irony that RSS, BJP and VHP (and a more fascistic group Shiv Sena -- even its acronym SS is uncanny) are now most powerful in the Western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra; it's ironic because Gandhi, a Gujarati, was assassinated by an ex-RSS member Nathuram Godse, who was from Maharashtra. But that's another story: let me know if you're interested to hear it.

###

The American Football of Lies and Prejudice -- Can Obama Really Win It?

2008-10-22T14:23:00.000-04:00

By Partha Banerjee

(Author is a college teacher and human rights and media activist in New York City. Email: banerjee2000@hotmail.com. Web: http://www.geocities.com/chokmoki.)

Just in a few days Americans will vote to elect their president. This historic election will decide the course of social, political and economic movements, not just for the U.S., but for the entire world.

As a foot soldier of democratic rights, justice and peace movements, I’ve always supported the candidacy of Barack Obama. In diverse capacities, I’ve worked for his election campaign in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania; I’ve also written and spoken in various forums to promote his candidacy and the significance of his victory. Apparently, based on the gallup and tracking polls, the wind is behind his sail. Still, in these final hours just before the November 4 elections, I express my doubts and fears whether Obama is really going to win. Because, the climate of lies, prejudice and divisive politics that is now pervading this country is unprecedented; one might compare it with the fourth and final quarter of a game of American football – a game where the heretofore losing team has suddenly turned violent, and is desperate to steal the show by any underhanded, unimaginable means.

Can a principled, issue-based, straight-talking Obama fight off the heinous opponent and still win it?

Way back when, during my school days in Calcutta, I played minor league football (the international version where feet, and not hands, move the ball around). Along the way of playing across the city, I discovered Kajal the Referee – infamously known as Kajal the Crook. I discovered that he was a millionaire black-market broker, with shady dealings with Calcutta’s two leading football clubs. This man would provide muscle power for the club elections, kidnap the young rising star players during the pre-season signing, and keep them under his personal surveillance til the period was over. He would sponsor the neighborhood minor leagues, fix matches, descend on the field himself as the celebrity referee, and employ his cadres of thugs to jumpstart violence should his match-fixing ploy not work well; at the least, his musclemen would make sure the opponent’s young, talented kid is kicked unconscious, when the referee himself would look the other way. We were also told that because both the teams in the championship match were sold to him, it didn’t matter who won: Kajal the Crook and his army would just manipulate the tension high through the end.

When I look at the way the U.S. corporate media work, I can’t help but remember that manipulative referee. The way big media keeps making up new, sensational stories round the clock, the sole purpose being build and perpetuate high-electricity tension – never mind the lies, half-truths and cooked-up scandals – is no different from the way that Calcutta crook played his game; the striking resemblance is that both shoot for the same goal: reaping maximum profit (I'm afraid using the phrase "by hook or by crook" would be chastised by redundancy-conscious readers).

Here’s the real story about big media here in the U.S. They work on a couple of basic premises. One, almost all of them work directly for or under some multinational corporations such as General Electric, Walt Disney, Westinghouse or Rupert Murdoch’s star empire – where the primary political tenet is that they would not allow anybody outside of their own beltway to pose as a serious contender for the prize of presidency; just as none other than the two big teams would ever win the Calcutta Football League, nobody but some insider Democrat or Republican would ever be promoted by big media to become the U.S. president (or members of the Congress) – I can only imagine big media were in a shock when Barack Obama defied all the conventional wisdom, defeated the Clinton powerhouse, and actually became the Democratic presidential candidate. Big media such as CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, PBS or NPR made sure even within the Democratic Party, anti-status-quo voices such as Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton, et al. were silenced long ago; we’re not even talking about right-wing nuts and the ilks of Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Dobbs, Hannity, Malkin or Drudge.

Two, U.S. media's primary objective is profit and their worldwide business survives and flourishes on their commodity: news. Just the way potato farmers and distributors would need various brands of chips, fries and salads to create, sustain and increase their profits, media corporations would need various news and views packages to make their money. As a result, in order to keep you on the edge, media would bring in fake, hollow and meaningless news and analyses by so-called experts, which in turn would find the all-important ratings to stay ahead in their own competitive world. The higher the Nielsen and other ratings are, the more media companies make money through mass consumption, and especially through commercials from car, food, make-up, beer, insurance or drug companies. Mega-dollars of revenue would make them mega-rich.

Following this simple logic, big media have built an extreme tension on the election battle between Obama and McCain, excitement that one can normally find in the fourth quarter of a Super Bowl game. They must do it because after all, the incredulously high amount of fundraising by the two campaigns (especially when the U.S. economy is such tatters) is essential to feed the media dinosaurs and their insatiable appetite for advertisement dollars. Especially in a country where a virtual society has largely replaced the real society, TV, radio and Internet commercials are the street corner rallies, main-street marches, even though Obama has recently managed to physically meet a 100,000-strong crowd in St. Louis; in an exceptional departure from American politics-as-usual, he’s done it repeatedly especially since August.

Following the time-tested formula, however, big media have manufactured an array of package – diet, regular, salty, unsalted, sweet and sugar-free -- to sale and to profit. Thus, in this end game, media have manufactured a star out of Sarah Palin and her far right wing “base” (whose activity and rhetoric remind me of Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena or Jamat of India). Media have brought into the drama a new character named Joe the Plumber. Following the footsteps of the “success” they had with Rev. Jeremiah Right, they’ve now brought in the so-called terrorist connections between Obama and Bill Ayers of Chicago. As backup entertainment, they’ve added grassroots group ACORN and its so-called far left agenda. They’ve included in this potpourri the Lieberman-fashioned, unguarded remarks of Joe Biden.

Yet, each of these packages has proved to be trash, and should’ve been trashed. After the revelations of the Alaska wrongdoings of Sarah Palin and her husband, media should’ve challenged them more vigorously instead of rewarding them with further stardom and insipid interviews. After it was known that Ohio’s Joe ran his business without a license (i.e., perhaps ran it tax-free?), was a registered Republican who meant to harangue Obama, and would actually be benefited by Obama’s tax cuts, media should’ve dropped the Joe the Plumber issue altogether. After it was came to light that Bill Ayers could not have political connections with Obama during the sixties – for the simple fact that Obama was eight years old at that time – media should’ve faced off with McCain and Palin on exploiting it.

But they decided not to do it, again, for the simple reason that keeping tensions and excitements – however false – would be profitable; after all, mega-rich owners and their rich anchors and hosts would not lose much should either Obama or McCain be the next president. (I sometimes wonder whether media corporations lost wealth the Lehman Brothers or AIG way even in these horrific, meltdown days!)

Consequently, even those American voters who’ve miserably suffered during the past eight years of Bush-Cheney-Rove-McCain destruction of the economy, those who’ve lost jobs, mortgage, health care, retirement savings, are not able to send their children to college, are still undecided, unsure. Can we rather say that the vested interest have purposefully kept them unsure?

And on top of that, we now have witnessed in the U.S. a resurgence of hate, bigotry, racism and violence; the fringe but powerful far right, with help from airwave hate talks, are screaming for blood. Even today, a sizeable population in this country is too prejudiced to stomach the possibility of a black man to be their president, even though this black man is a Harvard-educated lawyer and has proved to have more than the necessary presidential character, composure and judgment (particularly in comparison to his opponents). On his side are now elite personalities such as Warren Buffet who’s carefully heard by Wall Street; he has on his side Colin Powell, a top general respected by both parties. Most importantly, millions of new-generation students, youth and workers – black, white, brown and yellow -- have come out to be on his side. This is an unprecedented, formidable coalition! I’ve seen this revolutionary coalition at work during my campaign days in New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania.

Just don’t forget our Calcutta referee Kajal the Crook. His mastermind is always busy fomenting trouble: who knows what’s up his sleeves now? There could be mass fraud and voter suppression the 2000 Florida way, there could be violence instigated on election eve, or there could be a backlash against the equality doctrine of Obama that WSJ, CNN, PBS or Times never likes anyways. Now that Pat Buchanan has fatwah’ed that with Obama’s rise, “center-right” America will surely turn into a far-left state, the so-called center-right church and social leaders under the auspices of Newt Gingrich, Pat Robertson or Phyllis Schafly would preach last-minute sermons to their devotees to defeat the demon of communism. All the other issues namely jobs, money to buy food and gas, education for our children or Medicare for our elderly parents would be sermoned to be less significant.

This Halloween is going to be mighty spooky.

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Oscar-winning Born Into Brothels kids sue filmmakers!!

2007-04-18T13:38:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends:

I hope some of you remember the scandalous saga around the Oscar-winning documentary Born Into Brothels (2005). Briefly, I was involved with the film as its post-production translator; later, I was infuriated when I saw the final 80-minute product: I found it to be an extremely biased work full of self-aggrandizement, extreme distortion of facts, as well as massively unethical activities.

If you like, read the following letter I wrote to Hollywood before the film got the Oscars. My letter along with a relevant Outlook India story can be found at:

http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/partha_ban/born_into_brothels.htm .

(You can also Google it under Partha Banerjee and Born Into Brothels.)

NOW THIS BREAKING STORY:

http://www.anandabazar.com/archive/1080807/7cal4.htm

(in Bengali, gist below)

Yesterday, on August 7, Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP), a major daily newspaper in Calcutta (the location of the documentary) broke the news that some children portrayed in the film brought a breach of promise lawsuit against the filmmakers. They did it on the ground that those including the much-publicized children who were promised that they'd share in some of the huge profit the film made did not receive any money at all. I have a feeling the lawsuit also includes the fact that the children's names were publicized across the globe, while the filmmakers had promised that their identities would be safeguarded. One of the kids also alleged that he didn't even know he was being filmed and interviewed for the purpose of making a documentary. In fact, that was an allegation frequently made by the sex workers themselves.

In my original letter to Hollywood AMPAS, I questioned whether the sex worker mothers' permissions were ever obtained by the filmmakers when they'd intruded deeply into their personal lives and professions. I subsequently found out by talking to these women that indeed, no such permission had ever been secured; moreover, the sex workers' union also told me that they were never informed that the filmmakers were filming them for this purpose.

(Additionally, music from Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy was used on Born Into Brothels, when the copyright holders specifically asked them not to use it.)

I translated about one hundred tapes full of such breach of privacy; and I did not get to translate many more. I know what was on the tapes, and I know what came out as the final product. Did I say it's scandalous?

I must tell you that even though as a media and human rights activist, I'm totally aware of big media's lies and distortions (I frequently write about it), in this case, the journalist who broke this important story is pretty much telling the truth.

The fact is, the filmmakers' attempt to show off one of the kids Avijit as the poster boy of their "successful mission" is outrageous. This kid also phoned me in New York and had a long, rough argument with me. How he got my phone number is anybody's guess.

The fact that a happy and jovial girl like Puja (who was greatly exploited by the filmmakers) is now a disclosed-identity sex worker at this very young age, and the other kids on the film are hopeless and lost (not to mention anything about the sex worker mothers who now feel cheated) is enough reason for bringing any breach of promise lawsuit against the filmmakers.

Nobody has approached me on this lawsuit and I don't know what the real motive is behind it, but if anyone asks me to testify on it to narrate my insight and experience, I'd be more than happy to do it.

I have no sympathy for self-aggrandizement and Hollywood-blessed lies, and that too, at the expense of poor peoples' privacy and misery.

Thanks for your attention and action.

-Partha

http://www.geocities.com/chokmoki

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Partha Banerjee
M.Sc. (Journalism), Ph.D. (Biology)
http://www.geocities.com/chokmoki