One consumer at a time is the wrong approach

Welcome to today's episode of "If only people listened to me!"

For years, I have been ranting writing and saying that mantras like "recycle" or "become a vegetarian" is nothing but individuals feeling good about how they are helping the natural environment, but is really nothing more than, well, like peeing on oneself on a cold night to feel warm for a couple of seconds!

And this rant is from a nature-loving (mostly) vegetarian who is conscientious about his trash and recycling.

The rant against feel-goodism is because it means that "we have accepted individual responsibility for a problem we have little control over."  We consumers have been brainwashed into believing that we created these problems and that we can solve these ourselves, if only we behaved "correctly" in our homes.

Awful bullshit that is.

And that's what this review of  Inconspicious Consumption: The Environmental Impacts You Don’t Know You Have points out about the book's message:

[Tatiana] Schlossberg says, “it is not the fault of the consumer that cashmere is cheap, and it’s not wrong to want nice things or to buy them, sometimes. ... It’s not within your control how some company sources and produces its cashmere, or the size of the herd that they got it from. That should be the corporation’s burden … or governments should make sure they act responsibly.”

Like I said earlier, welcome to today's edition of "If only people listened to me!"

So, does it mean that we individuals cannot do any damn thing?  We merely come up with ideas like Extended Producer Responsibility and circular economy that seemingly go nowhere?

Well, yes, as individuals who recycle and reduce trash while being a vegetarian, we are powerless.  But, get a few of us together and ...

Governments and corporations, of course, don’t do such things automatically — they need citizens to push them. But it doesn’t require every citizen to push in order to make change (since apathy cuts both ways, social scientists estimate that getting 3 or 4 percent of people involved in a movement is often enough to force systemic change, whereas if they acted solely as consumers that same number would have relatively little effect). You can obviously do both, and all of us should try — but fighting for the Green New Deal makes more mathematical sense than trying to take on the planet one commodity at a time.

You want an example?  I can give you plenty from my own blog.  But then who cares for sriram's rants, right?  Here's from the review:

[Instead] of trying to figure out every single aspect of our lives, a carbon tax would have the effect of informing every one of those decisions, automatically and invisibly. The fuel efficiency standards that the Obama administration put forward and Trump is now gutting would result in stunningly different outcomes. And so on.

In a democracy (call it a republic if you are one of those rightwing nutcases!) we collectively deal with these issues via elections and the government.

We aren’t going to solve our problems one consumer at a time. We’re going to need to do it as societies and civilizations, or not at all.

Elections have consequences, as 63 million people reminded us!

BTW, who is the reviewer, you ask?  None other than Bill McKibben.  

Elections have consequences

It does not really surprise nor shock me that neither my adopted country nor the old country is really doing anything about climate change.  Both are DINOs--democracies in name only.  But, at least they are DINOs and not anything worse!

I have no say in what India does or does not do; that's up to Indians to worry.  I am pissed off at the US that apparently cannot be bothered about climate change.

Bill and Melinda Gates write about the challenge of climate change in their annual letter.  And they refer to a summary by IPCC:

Source

I am not a big fan of all this "philanthropy" work that rich people do.  They hire an army of accountants and lawyers to figure out how to avoid paying taxes.  They also hire lobbyists to advocate to lower taxes for the filthy rich.  These taxes are what society needs in order to address our collective problems--from homelessness to higher education to ... yes, climate change too.

After such immoral but legal tax avoidance, these rich dudes then prioritize whatever they want to prioritize--over which society has no influence whatsoever.  I mean, for instance, when was the last time you heard about billionaires donating big money to struggling public universities that serve the underprivileged, and how many times have you heard about billionaires donating to elite universities that serve the privileged? On the other hand, had they paid their fair share of taxes, public universities and colleges won't be in such shit streets.  The tragic irony is that after subjecting public universities to such a financial crunch, they point their fingers at those same public institutions as failures!

I digressed.  At least I got that out of my system!

Now that there is Democratic control over the people's chamber of the Congress, there is at least a little of reason, logic, science, and evidence, that is being brought into climate change discussions.

The Science Committee hosted its first climate hearing of 2019 on Wednesday, after two other House committees had already held theirs. In sharp contrast to recent past Science Committee climate hearings, there was bipartisan agreement that climate change is real, human-caused, and harmful. The hearing brought up a number of possible policies to help America reduce and prepare for global warming, and participants aired their differences regarding the best way forward.

"bipartisan agreement that climate change is real, human-caused, and harmful."  "participants aired their differences regarding the best way forward."

Elections have consequences.

The 63 million who voted for climate change denialism--after all, this is a hoax, according to their deal leader--are unhappy with Democrats, especially the young and the fearless women, going after these pressing problems, I guess.  I wish we could make them even more unhappy, and real soon.

ps: More than six hours later, I read this commentary by Joseph Stiglitz, in which he writes:

Apple, Google, Starbucks, and companies like them all claim to be socially responsible, but the first element of social responsibility should be paying your fair share of tax. If everyone avoided and evaded taxes like these companies, society could not function, much less make the public investments that led to the Internet, on which Apple and Google depend.

Amen!

Elections and consequences

Ever since Robert Mueller was assigned the task of investigating the Russian interference into the 2016 elections and the trump team's dealing with them, the President and his toadies have attacked Mueller.   Especially because the assignment included "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation." 

trump and his toadies tried everything possible to undermine the investigation.  All in plain sight.  So worried that a few--a tiny few--Republican senators were that they, along with their Democratic counterparts in a committee voted to protect the investigation.

The Senate majority leader simply refused to take the bill to the Senate floor for all the senators to vote on.

What can one do then?

All the stalling and maneuvering by Republicans remind us this: We can have all the laws in the land, yes.  But, "the law is no protection," as George Orwell wrote.  It depends on the public opinion, he argued.

Meanwhile, that kind of a question was answered in the House, where the Republicans playing similar games have lost their majority.  In a few weeks, Democrats will get to decide what will be done.  Orwell's public opinion.

While Orwell wrote that in the context of freedom of speech, the thesis that it all depends on the public opinion is valid in every way.

The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.

The law by itself does not guarantee any damn thing, especially when the executive charged with carrying out those laws couldn't care about them.

As I wrote a few days ago, participating in the resistance in order to counter this President's propaganda to corrupt the public opinion has been simply exhausting.  I am not the only tired one, of course.  There are lots of others, including Charles Blow.  He reminds us that it is ok to rest a little:

Don’t beat yourself up if you need to tune out every now and then and take a mental health break. There is no shame in it. This is a forever fight.

Forever fight!

Looks like the public opinion is that we are ready for this forever fight. Bring it on!

Take us to your leader

Finally, the big day came.  And we are now done with it. Phew!

No, I am not referring to the theatricks, er, theatrics, er, primary in Iowa.  It was groundhog day, and the rodent said it will be an early spring.  Lucky Phil--he doesn't have to deal with the great pretenders that the candidates all are.

The way I understand the world is vastly different from how any of those candidates do.  Which means that when it comes down to voting for one, it will be about how much I want to engage in a deal with myself--compromises--and vote for one of them.  I am hoping that this time, too, it will not be a protest vote at the top of the ballot.

Listening to all those entertainers, er, presidential wannabes, one might end up thinking that ISIS is not only the greatest threat to the United States but to the entire humanity.  To deal with ISIS, one wannabe wants to carpet bomb and destroy ISIS, and another is ready to kill innocent women and children too.  A third one wants us to forget the rest of the world and focus on the domestic problems.

Seriously, these are some of the best that we can offer?

Listening to any of those wannabes will result in the viewer getting one heck of a screwed up understanding of the world.

We let our politicians tell us what should be our greatest fears. And they serve us really badly. Of course, ISIS is a group with evil intent who behave barbarically. But they do not and will not have the ability to invade the U.S. and kill Americans in their beds. This does not mean that they should not be opposed. But they should not, I would argue, dominate our debate about foreign policy.

Exactly.

There is a good reason for these wannabes (and the Oval Office occupants) to talk up ISIS and other threats--leading us into wars is pretty much the only thing they can do on their own and they seem to be forever enthusiastic about it.

Maybe that’s because these are the only kinds of threats that they can even remotely plausibly suggest they can do something about – preferably using muscular and provocative terms that make them sound like “leaders.”
Nobody is going to “kick nature’s ass,” as those of us who recently lived through Winter Storm Jonas on the East Coast will testify.

To take leadership on climate change or on helping wiping out malaria, on the other hand, is to be a wimp bowing to the international community!  We apparently want in the oval office huge cojones and nothing else!

No surprise, therefore, that alien life does not want to make contact with us! ;)

India's elections will usher in huge changes. Hopefully, for the better.

It will be the world's largest political spectacle ever when nearly 800 million eligible adults head to the polling booths in India's general elections in April and May.  The elections will be held in phases over a month because of the sheer complexity of the logistics involved, especially as the brutal summer descends on the Subcontinent.

All indications are that the country's people are ready for a change. A change from the usual way of doing business and politics, which, as they currently are, is riddled with favoritism and corruption, and with the average Indian feeling weakened both economically and politically.

The prevailing sentiment appears to be a combination of two recent successful Democratic slogans, "It's the economy, stupid" and "Yes, we can."  The "yes, we can." however, increasingly reflects a nationalistic spirit that is worried about India beginning to fall behind the world's larger economies, and particularly behind China.  India and China became politically the countries that they are now almost at the same time--India in 1947 and China in 1949.  For the first three decades, both these countries experienced slow economic growth rates and their respective populations lived seemingly comparable lives in material terms, with the Chinese having a lot less freedom than what was enjoyed by the Indians.

The economic balance started shifting in China's favor ever since Deng Xiaoping opened up the Chinese economy and openly stated that it was good to get rich.  India opened up its partially closed economy a decade later, and has found it to be quite a challenge to catch up with China's economic achievement.  India's economic growth rate has slowed down to about 4.8 percent, which is considerably less than China's 7.7 percent.  Interestingly, and ironically, the two countries even seem to be on a race for whose capital city is the smoggiest--Beijing or New Delhi!

Meanwhile, India's politics, from the federal government and Parliament down to the local levels, is increasingly corrupt, and with a bureaucracy that is as inflexible and antiquated as it ever has been.  Thus, to employ that famous phrase from the Hollywood hit "Network," it is no surprise that millions of Indians appear to be shouting in unison "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

So, who will the voters choose?  That is the six billion dollar question.  The campaign expenses are expected to exceed five billion dollars, and the government estimates the election logistics will cost slightly less than a billion dollars.

Odds are looking highly favorable for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its leader, Narendra Modi. Both the BJP and Modi have cultivated a nationalistic spirit, bordering on jingoism.  The party and Modi also have strong associations with Hindu nationalist groups.  Modi is alleged to have had a hand in the anti-Muslim riots in 2002, though subsequent government inquiries have cleared him of those charges. It is for these reasons that the US State Department has also denied Modi a visa to visit this country.  If Modi gets elected Prime Minister, I suppose we here would have an interesting and controversial political question to resolve.

It certainly appears that India will be in for yet another major transformation, which began with the first general elections that were held in the end of 1951 and early 1952.  During those elections, my father, who is now 84 years old, was a newly minted civil engineer and had started on his first post-college job in the public works department.   Like many government officials, he too was posted as a presiding officer to oversee the elections.  His assignment was in a remote village deep in the southern part of India. 

When I talked with father, he recalled the emotions in the country where the educated and the illiterate, males and females, the rich and the poor, were all equally excited about self-governance and selecting their representatives.  Father is of the older generation who are alive and who can personally relate it all to having been under the British rule, and witnessing as youngsters the struggle to free India and its peoples.  He is convinced that now the political system is broken, and is not what he imagined it would be when he oversaw the elections in that remote village 62 years ago.  But, at least he is free to criticize the system without worrying about any overlords--something that is not easy to do in China.

I wish him many more opportunities to exercise his political preferences, and wish him and his fellow citizens a corruption-free and prosperous future they deserve.

(If the editor likes this, it will appear as an op-ed in the Register Guard.  And, with this post, it is time for a break.  Don't start any rumors regarding my absence from the blog!!!)  

NPR beats up Jordan on gerrymandering, when the US invented it!

Robert Siegel is normally better than how he was earlier this evening when he interviewed Jordan's foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, about the elections there.  But, today, he was awful. Siegel seemed to think that he had figured out the hole in the Jordanian "elections" and asked the minister about complaints that districts have been drawn that work against the voters of Palestinian origins.

I loved it when the minister replied using the word gerrymandering--he denied that they practiced gerrymandering.  Without explicitly doing so, he seemed to remind Siegel and the audience that it is a process invented by us Americans!

Despite that response, Siegel rephrased his question all over again.  I hoped that the Jordanian minister would bluntly remind Siegel about our practices.  But, he is their chief diplomat, after all, and he chose a tactful route.

If there is one thing about US politics that worries me, it is this atrocious practice of redistricting, which works out to be anti-democratic.  The polarization doesn't worry me, though I think the illogical statements and claims by politicians reflect their incompetence and, thereby, our own incompetence in electing such lunatics to offices.  But, redistricting is a completely different story--it means that once the lunatics take over, well, we sane ones are in trouble.

Tom DeLay went about systematically redistricting Texas, to make sure that it would be completely red within a couple of elections.  His success later was also the cause of his downfall, yes.  But, he showed how to rig the process and rig it well.  Pretty soon, many other states followed suit.  The net result?

[How] did Republicans keep their House majority despite more Americans voting for the other party—something that has only happened three times in the last hundred years, according to political analyst Richard Winger? Because they drew the lines.
After Republicans swept into power in state legislatures in 2010, the GOP gerrymandered key states, redrawing House district boundaries to favor Republicans. In Pennsylvania, Democratic candidates received half of the votes in House contests, but Republicans will claim about three-quarters of the congressional seats. The same is true in North Carolina. More than half the voters in that state voted for Democratic representation, yet Republicans will fill about 70 percent of the seats. Democrats drew more votes in Michigan than Republicans, but they'll take only 5 out of the state's 14 congressional seats.

Haha, the joke is on us!  The next census isn't until 2020, only after which will the lines be redrawn again.  That means we are kind of locked into the split for a while:

If there is any testament to the amount of progress Republicans made in redistricting, it is this. GOP-controlled states drew about four times as many districts as Democrats did, and Republicans reaped significant benefits from that on Election Day. ...
And going forward, it suggests Democrats will need to have a strong wind at their backs (bigger than Tuesday’s) to take back the chamber.

If this is the story in a country that has been democratic for more than two hundred years, what was Siegel trying to prove with his question on redistricting in Jordan?  Other than to show that we don't practice what we preach?

By the way, it doesn't mean that the GOP is the only sinner; the Democrats too will do that if they had the chance--but, I doubt if they will be ever as brazen as the likes of DeLay.

Thanksgiving: thankful for the end of elections, for now?

An excerpt from one of my newspaper columns a few years ago ...

I have thought about this calendar issue many a time and wondered if the date chosen for the occasion had another strategic value as well: Perhaps an unintended idea was that late in November we can be thankful about the conclusion of elections.
 

To a large extent, the campaign calls and election pamphlets are indicators that there is still a strong pulse in the democracy.  The highly involved and dedicated volunteers, along with the paid staff, make sure that the elections and the issues are in our faces, day after day.  We are forced to recognize the issues, how much ever trivial or profound they rate in our individual political meters, and we decide on a yea or nay.  If we did not have those people, elections and democracy could morph into a political equivalent of a tree falling in the forest and nobody being there to hear it.

I am also quite thankful to the dedicated party loyalists, across the political spectrum, who work hard to get their candidate’s name on the ballot in the first place.  Thanks to such a process, it is the people who choose their candidates here in the US.  (Full disclosure: I am not registered with any political party.) 

This is a welcome contrast to the political system in India, which still continues on, where candidates at any level are handpicked by the party bosses.  My first exposure to this as a kid was when my grandmother was sick, and had to be admitted to the hospital.  We got to know the young doctor who treated her for her enlarged heart.  He was quiet, and even a tad shy to talk to people. 

A few months later, we were surprised to read in the newspaper that he had been selected as a party’s candidate.  He went on to win the election, and represented us at the parliament for a full term.  The doctor was chosen for a number of tactical reasons—but, even the party faithful had no idea who he was.

In fact, the “handpick” method was pretty much how many things were done in India, even at schools.  I can’t recall a single audition ever for any play, for instance, all through my schooling.  The teachers chose their favorites or the best academic achievers—anything other than an open process.  Here in the US though, while it is indeed a tragedy that we do not allocate enough resources for music or theatre, students are invited to participate and compete.  I suspect that even acts like these at school help promote an understanding of democracy—you too can enter that beauty contest.

I am far from being Polyannaish here—I recognize that there are a number of flaws in the process.  But, just as we take enormous care into producing that best thanksgiving turkey ever, it is equally up to us to pitch in to make it an even better democratic process than the one that we inherited. 

In a historical perspective, we have indeed improved the system a lot: from voting rights for women and minorities, to making voting more accessible than before.  To such an extent that here in Oregon, we even have the pleasure of voting at our kitchen tables dressed in our pajamas.

So, whether your candidate won or lost, or even if your candidate’s name never made it to the ballot, take a moment, before you head for that second helping of yams, to yell out a thank you to the democratic system that is alive and well.

Mr. Burns Endorses Romney, and Students rally that election is bullshit!

From America's Finest News Source:

Don't forget to keep an eye on the news tickers at the bottom of the screen--they are atrociously hilarious :)

No, that rally was not to protest the following Romney endorsement!

Here is why neither students nor I have been productive

I have now revved up those metaphorical engines to catch up on my work, and I will soon find out where some students are.  I mean, I have to literally find them!

I suppose we all have one good, rock-solid, reason for not working:

What a dull life it will be without the New Yorker, where this cartoon is from, of course!

Keep calm, and pretend you give a shit about the elections!

So, yet another terrorist attack* mass killing.  Instead of a movie complex, it is a gurudwara this time.

Yet, we won't talk about guns in our society.

Because, similar to how there is a pledge that Grover Norquist extracts from Republicans, the NRA has made it essentially mandatory for Republicans, and Democrats too, to pledge support for gun rights, at the expense of anything else, including our freedom to go to a movie or a gurudwara without getting shot there!

Former president George H.W. Bush put it well recently: "Who the hell is Grover Norquist?"

But then, he isn't running for any office is he!  But, at least, he said that much.  I wonder if he will dare to say anything critical about the NRA though.

As a policy person, I understand that gun-related deaths have actually decreased in the US, especially when you factor out the drug dimension.  But, what frustrates me is how much even a meaningful discussion on guns has been completely precluded.  As a society we can talk about many, many issues but not about guns.  It is easy to dismiss an inconsequential worry-wart like who me thinks that this censorship of policy discussions is not the best for democracy.  But, when the head of one of the most prestigious policy think-tanks, RAND, expresses it, well, we better take notice:

I worry that there are some topics now where the policy options is just completely off limits, so polarizing. A few examples are gun control, another one is the question of national standards when it comes to K-12 education — there a full comprehensive look at reform ought to include a careful analysis of that, but that is one of the 'third-rail' issues very difficult to do that in a way that doesn't generate a polarized reaction. Another one is concern about the growing burden of health costs on the military and veteran systems. 

 It is nuts that we can't even engage in discussions on gun control.  Damn the NRA!

The dysfunctional Congress can conveniently duck this latest act of home-grown terrorism--it is now on a summer break!  So, what did the do-nothing-Congress do to earn this recess?

[Most] folks only take time off when they get their job done—and that definitely isn’t the case for the 112th Congress.

While Midwest farmers suffer through the worst drought in decades, the House left a bipartisan farm bill passed by the Senate sitting on the table. Certainly, there’s room for improvement in that traditionally pork-filled appropriation bill. But make the improvements and pass the damn bill—the all-or-nothing tug-of-war between the perfect and the good doesn’t help people who need it now.

Even more resonant to anyone who uses the post office (which is just about everyone) is the fact that our once-proud USPS is about to default on a $5.5-billion payment. This has been a slow-motion implosion, and the Senate got its act together to pass a bipartisan bill months ago that would help avoid default. But the House had different priorities. Instead, the chamber found time to rename 60 post-office branches and attempted to repeal the health-care law for the 33rd time.

As Gail Collins writes, given the low approval ratings for Congress, perhaps they will figure out how to get into the negative numbers too!

Maybe Congress will pick up the ball when it comes back to town for a couple of weeks this fall before the election. But it already has a full agenda of futile, symbolic votes plus the crucial kicking the can down the road.

Maybe it’s possible to have a negative approval rating.

The presidential candidates are not keen on making it easy to like them either.  With everything going on that needs to be addressed, what is Mitt Romney's latest gripe?

The Romney campaign released a new TV ad on Sunday in which the GOP presidential candidate calls the connection between the United States and Israel “a cherished relationship” and criticizes President Obama for not visiting the country since being elected president nearly four years ago.
The 30-second ad also criticizes Obama for “refusing to recognize” that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

It is so tempting to say "that's right, m*f*ers," as Jon Stewart might say in such a context.  We have a gazillion problems at home and around the world, and Romney wants us to ask Obama why he hasn't recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital?  WTF!

Obama's surrogate, Harry Reid, goes on an all-out offensive quoting a cannot-be-named-Bain-insider that Romney didn't pay taxes for a gazillion years.  Yes, we understand the politics behind that--keeping all the attention on Romney and his taxes during the slow news of the dog days of August.  But, come on, no other pressing matters on which the country has to engage in substantive discussions?

I understand, all the more now, how much my life would have been more pleasant if I had never been bitten by the political bug even when I was a kid.  I could then have made use of this wonderful advice from America's Finest News Source:
:

a
*Update: The FBI is apparently treating this as domestic terrorism

An Indian Tocqueville comments on democracy in America

Alexis de Tocqueville paved a grand path for any "outsider" wishing to talk about American issues.  Every once in a while, I am reminded of Tocqueville, and I even authored a newspaper column referencing him.

With the US increasingly influencing global happenings over the nearly two centuries since Tocqueville's visit, we come across plenty of commentaries about democracy in America, which makes my intellectual and personal life that much more exciting.

One of those observers of the American scene is Ramesh, who was two years my senior back in the wonderful township in India, where I had some fabulous formative experiences.  Ramesh, who blogs on business-related issues, after a rich management career, has the following observations, looking at America from his vantage point in India.

I am not an American. I don’t even live in America. Naturally, I don’t get to vote in the elections there. However, I have a lot of admiration for the country and have a passing knowledge of the issues that seem to be important to the electorate, so I wondered how I would vote, if I indeed had that right.

• I am a staunch believer in the virtues of capitalism and that free markets are the only road to prosperity. That makes me deep red.
• I am completely pro choice (on abortion – a clarification unnecessary to Americans who seem to believe that is the only choice available to mankind !). That makes me deep blue.
• I have nothing against contraceptive pills, but fail to see why somebody else (read insurance companies) should pay for it. You want to have a ball; sure go ahead, but please pay for it. Rush Limbaugh (or was it Glenn Beck) hugs me.
• I believe Americans are nuts to be running the sort of deficit they are running and doing precious little about it except bickering. That makes me a card carrying member of the Tea Party.
• Tax breaks for long term capital gains, for America, is not justified either in economics or in politics. It is purely the rich lobby that is blocking this from changing. So, that makes me a socialist.
• Spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security has gone way overboard and is simply unsustainable. This has got to be cut. I must be welcomed to Fox News.
• The US spends more on defense than the next 10 countries on the top spenders list combined. That is downright crazy. I will be given a free pass to MSNBC.
• I can never understand the fascination with guns. Does any civilised society accept people carrying machine guns around? The Second Amendment was passed in 1791, for God’s Sake when the place was lawless. Are Americans dumb enough to continue to want it in this day and age? Michael Moore makes a film on me.
• Doesn’t America realise that its legal system has gone completely overboard? Tort reform is a must and only somebody with the brain size of a pea will be against it. Nancy Pelosi borrows a gun from Paul Ryan and shoots me.
• To any human not breathing American air, it’s obvious that the health care system is completely broken and that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not ideal, but the best possible deal under the circumstances. Mitt Romney picks a handgun from his collection and obliterates me, although he hugged me in 2006.
• Corporations are not evil, you pompous Senators. They do far more good than you do – even oil companies. Without them you lot will be driving horse drawn buggies like the Amish. Harry Reid knocks me out.
• Corporations are not people, you silly old men in funny dress. Only a nitwit will allow Super PACs to be going on like this. Clarence Thomas sends me to Guantanamo.

Can somebody tell me how to vote please !

I am guessing Ramesh is a closeted libertarian-Democrat, unlike me who is out in the open about it :)

2012: the year of elections. Maybe the Mayans were correct?

China watchers often remind us that the passing the leadership baton in the Communist Party involves a great deal of politics, and this year we have had quite some intense drama already, with Bo Xilai and then Chen Guangcheng.

And, of course, there are the November elections in the US, though sometimes it seems like we are always in an election and campaign mode..

The outcomes of the Chinese and American leadership struggles will have global impacts, yes.  But, these are not the only elections this year with far-reaching implications.  Consider the following list, which is by no means a comprehensive one:

• Russia: Putin continues to rig the system to his advantage.  Wonder how long he can keep behaving like the tsar of Russia.
• France: Early reports indicate that Sarkozy has been defeated by Hollande, and Europe and the rest of the world will have to watch and see how this will affect the Euro crisis, among other issues.
• Israel: Netanyahu calls for early elections, which many analysts see as a kind of referendum on his plans to attack Iran in September/October, ahead of the American elections, if he were to win.
• Egypt: One heck of a confusion in its elections, with protests growing by the day, and the prospect of an elected Islamist government worrying the US.
• And there is Greece, the epicenter of the Euro crisis.

Hmmmmmm .... wake me up in 2013, if the world is still around then :)

Photo of the day: Election in Egypt

Caption at the source:
Fadila Mohammed, 90, is carried by an Egyptian Army captain and other voters as she leaves a polling station after voting in Cairo.

Women rule in Bengal and Tamil Nadu! Communism dies!!!

Jayalalitha (left) leads her party to one ass-whooping victory over the geriatric Karunanidhi.  Not that I am a supporter of either, but the margin of victory is simply awesome.
The defeated Karunanidhi said, “The people of Tamil Nadu have given me rest.”

All the way across, Mamata Banerjee routs the Commies from power.  A 34-year rule by the same folks.   She said it was "a victory for maa, mati, manush [her party slogan that translated reads: mother, soil, people]”  I suppose all over the world we love alluring alliterations :)

Perhaps the end of "democratic" communism in India?

Somewhere down the line in a fast-changing world the communists, many believe, began losing their way. After the first wave of farm reforms had exhausted its potential, they needed fresh ideas as governments cut back on spending, and private capital was touted as the main driver of growth and jobs. Land reform had run its course in Bengal, and farm produce prices were falling. Peasants, with enough food in their bellies, now aspired to better lives.
But a largely gerontocratic and hidebound leadership - already stunned into stasis by the break-up of the Soviet Union - "lost its way coping with the pressures of a globalised market", says social scientist Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya.

Well, in my part of India, communist leaders were never exciting anyway.  In Tamil Nadu, elections were simply way too fascinating for me when I was a kid.  It was fantastic rhetoric and theatre. Even at local campaign speeches, the guys--rarely a woman leader those days--would go on for hours, and even throw in more than one challenge to the United States.  Literally, sentences such as "I am warning the US President ..."  But, boy, some of those politicians had wonderful command of the language, with quick and biting wit.  When I watch the C-Span speeches at Congress, I can't believe our politicians are as boring as the fabled Soviet leaders were!

The family lore is that as a four year old kid, I wanted to go watch MGR (Jayalalitha's boss, co-actor, lover, ...) at an election rally.  This was in Sengottai, where I spent most of my upper-kindergarten years.  With grandma saying no, apparently I sneaked out while it was raining, stood at a corner lost for a while, until somebody brought me back home.  Promptly, it was a high fever the following morning, which was then referred to as "MGR fever."

 So, to mark the occasion, here are MGR and Jayalalitha, who were both movie idols before switching over to politics, in one of my favorite songs featuring them

Cartoons of the day: GOP presidential hopefuls

Unfortunately, for those of us who enjoy watching the political theatre, one clown has already withdrawn

Which then begs the question, "one billion dollars, for what?

Elections 2010: Lose the battle, but win the war

I grew up with crazy politics and politicians in Tamil Nadu. There was very little difference between the two main parties--DMK and ADMK. Almost always, whenever one got elected into power, very few of the populist programs put into place by the "other" would be dismantled. Further, it was not uncommon to even enhance the other's programs and even claim credit for it.

Politics here in the US is becoming, unfortunately, as clownish as the Indian politics. The Tamil Nadu electorate voting out one party in favor of another wasn't any decisive swing because of love for the other either. It was merely to throw one set of bums out with another set of bums, and repeat.

Which is why I like this analysis by William Saletan on why the Democrats and Pelosi did not lose the battle of 2010:

Politicians have tried and failed for decades to enact universal health care. This time, they succeeded. In 2008, Democrats won the presidency and both houses of Congress, and by the thinnest of margins, they rammed a bill through. They weren't going to get another opportunity for a very long time. It cost them their majority, and it was worth it.

And that's not counting financial regulation, economic stimulus, college lending reform, and all the other bills that became law under Pelosi. So spare me the tears and gloating about her so-called failure. If John Boehner is speaker of the House for the next 20 years, he'll be lucky to match her achievements.

I would think that this is the kind of ramming through that Bush had in mind when he talked about spending his political capital on reforming Social Security. Imagine if he and the GOP had carried that through! The same way they had rammed the wars through ...

There is a probability that the economy wouldn't improve a whole lot before the 2012 elections. And we will still have "non combat" troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? American voters will become like those in Tamil Nadu and replace their reps. If the GOP has learnt the lessons, then they too will try to tam through their favorite programs. Crazy, eh?

This is actually better politics in a way: the parties clearly stating what they are for and implementing it. I much prefer a principled government (not the irresponsible populism though) than one in which everybody hails bipartisanship.

So, does President Obama get "it" ...? :)

America's Finest News Source reports that it is yet another consecutive election where the American public got exactly what it deserves:

Dismayed by the fact that over the past 24 months they have not experienced the immediate short-term personal gain they had hoped for, Americans went to the polls Tuesday and, for the 112th consecutive time, elected the candidates they deserve. "It's my duty," Reading, PA resident Bethany Albertson said as she cast her ballot and joined the staggering majority of citizens who, like every single previous generation of voters, will reap exactly what they have sown. "I haven't seen much difference in my paycheck, and we need a voice for change in our government." Exit polls indicated most voters will be content with what they've got coming to them as long as they see sharp reductions in taxes, health care costs, home foreclosures, economic regulation, unemployment, and the national debt by the time the 112th Congress is halfway through its first legislative session.

Even better is The Daily Show's analysis of the punditry's, er, analysis:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Mourning After
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Campaign for 2012 elections begin

Meanwhile ... in Iraq and Afghanistan

It is insane that the two wars were pretty much not discussed at all through the four billion dollar campaigns for the 2010 elections.  Is it because the two parties are pretty much in agreement over continuing the wars?  The Tweedledum/Tweedledee similarity?  Awful.

Afghanistan's Karzai openly admits that Iran gives him bags of cash, and that the US also gives him.  Oh, yeah, nothing to worry about--we are sure he spends it wisely and responsibly, and does not encourage corruption of any sort.
If you believed that, then, hey, you are PT Barnum's fave!

Over at Iraq, no government even eight months after the elections. 
Yes, since March 7th. 

The real winner, as Juan Cole points out, is Iran.  The same country that gives bags of cash to Afghanistan.  WTF, eh!

What is the latest news from Iraq, you ask?  Not encouraging by any means:

Militants unleashed a wave of deadly attacks in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 113 people in Shiite neighborhoods in an apparent bid to provoke a new sectarian war in the country.

Seventeen car bombs and other blasts shook the city at sunset in one of the bloodiest days this year. The coordinated attacks, which bore the earmark of the Sunni Arab militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq, came just 48 hours after 58 people were killed after armed men seized a Baghdad church.

"The new Qaeda has started its work again in Iraq," a senior Iraqi security commander warned, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The situation is very bad."

What does President Bush think about his decision to go after those weapons of mass destruction that he said existed, and that otherwise we would see mushroom clouds from nuclear weapons?

In the autobiography, Mr Bush defends his decision to invade Iraq, according to advanced copies of the book.
He argues that both America and the Iraqis are better off without former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, whom he calls a "homicidal dictator".
But Mr Bush admits that he was shocked when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.
"No one was more shocked and angry than I was when we didn't find the weapons," he writes. "I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do."

Crap!
And his successor said that he only cares about going forward, and not looking back.  Quite a way forward it has been at the midterms, eh!

I dare you: watch this without cracking up :)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Hispanic and Gay Voters Should Stay at Home
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive