Having tried and failing hopelessly with Sarah Palin and the gender card, the snake-bitten and pathetic Republican Party has decided to play the race card. The measure of their desperation can be seen firstly in the naming of an African-American as their party leader and secondly in selecting Piyush "Bobby" Jindal to give their reply to Pres. Obama's speech to Congress.
It was painful listening to Jindal. He tried to play the poor immigrant card, then the hard working ethnic card and finally the " we Americans can-do card". He contradicted himself on the Katrina fiasco, saying that the rebuilding was done by private actions, when in fact most of the spending ( in the billions) has been by the federal government. He also seem to have forgotten that it was the Bush " great job Brownie" administration that failed the people of New Orleans and responded so incompetently, whether it was the rescueing, the housing or the rebuilding. I guess he (Jindal) was overcome by the assignment, and to think that he is being touted as the saviour of the Republican Party.
Jindal may truly believe in the conservative values of the Republican party. Is this why he has changed his name to Bobby? Is this why he has changed his religion to Catholic, waituing until the death of his grandfather to do so? No,No,No. It 's all political expediency. He obviously did not think that having an exotic name..Piyush and being a Hindu would be good for his political career. Louisana, one of the poorest states, with a very low literacy and high corruption among public officials. is overwhelmingly white, catholic and conservative. That is why the Indo- American, Hindu Piyush became the American, Catholic Bobby. Talk about self-serving. Even denying his identity and his heritage
Barak Obama, on the other hand, an African- American (white, Christian American mother and a black Muslim Kenyan father) was Barry as a teenager, wandering the world from Hawaii to Indonesia to Chicago, discovered and celebrated his identity. He embraced his "exotic" name and was proud of his heritage. How re-assuring for the growing number of "mutts" that are increasingly a part of the American political, social and cultural mosaic. One offers hope and pride in self, the other limbo. The contrast is stark.
The Republican party has become a shadow of itself. Eight years of George Bush. two draining wars, an economic meltdown, the failure of free enterprise/ capitalism, the greed of Wall Street, the growing unemployment, the toxic mortgages and the corruption have created a perfect storm that has engulfeed the Republicans. They are hapless and leaderless and so they have come up with this latest racist gimmick......create this Potemkin village, this facade that they have seen the light and are so eager to show that they are not out of touch with the changing demographics/ realities of the 21st century that they are willing to let an African-American and an Indo- American lead the party. They have allowed their "house servants", to come upstairs. Some of them (Shelby), have even resorted to again questioning whether Pres. Obama is really an American. What a pathetic, morally bankrupt, intellectually challenged, craven and crass bunch.
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India has the second largest Muslim population in the world( after Indonesia), and they have been quite categorical in their condemnation and rejection of the Paki/Muslim terrorists who attacked Mumbai. Their abhorrence is clearly indicated in their refusal to allow the nine who were killed to be buried in its cemetery. Their bodies still remain in the Mumbai morgue, unclaimed and shunned. It should be noted that of the more than 170 people killed, most were Hindus, but 33 were Muslims and there were Jews and Christians killed also. The terrorists killed indiscriminately, killing for the sake of killing. After a visit by Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy, Pakistan has acknowledged for the first time, that parts of the Mumbai attack were planned in Pakistan and that 6 suspects including the "main operator"are being held pending trial. Lashkar-e-Taiba was responsible and Harper's( March 2009) has a detailed transcript of the conservations between the terrorists and their handlers eg. " are you setting the fire or not?" "not yet, I am getting the mattress ready" " we have set fires in four rooms"... "keep throwing a greanade every fifteen minutes or so" "throw one or two grenades on the Navy and police teams" and " we have three foreigners, including women from Singapore and China".. Kill them" " don't saddle yourself with the burden of hostages"... Israel has made a request through diplomatic channels to save the hostages. If the hostages are killed, it will spoil relations between India and Israel" The votes have been cast and fear and racism won over hope . You make peace with your enemies or you continue to dance the " dance of death"( see fig. 1a). Netanyahu and Lieberman preach the politics of hate and exclusion and found a receptive audience among Israelis. Together they campaign, not for the future of Israel but their own selfish ambitions. They have sown the seeds of division and destruction and the crop will be bitterness and death. They are now the captive of the settlers/religious extremists and Israel is diminished as a result, and its prospects are becoming more and more dim. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar. Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009, may well be the election that defines the Israel of the future. Will it continue to be the secular, democratic state that was the dreams of its creators and the hope of a people longing for a home or will it continue its slide into a settler, driven fundamentalist state, denying the million Israeli-Arabs even more of their rights and making them even more of a second- class citizenry. The Moldavian thug/ bouncer, Avigdor Lieberman has pushed himself and his hate-filled message to the brink of king-maker. His openly racist campaign has garnered so much support, that it is expected that he will hold the balance of power between Likud and its hawkish leader Netanyahu and Kadima and its " I am Golda" leader Tzipi Livni. June 17, 1930, the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot/Hartley Tariff Act and the Great Depression became even more of a disaster, not only for America but the world. This protectionist action raised tariffs on imports and the reaction was a world-wide trade war. History is there to teach us so we do not repeat the mistakes of history. Americans have never been keen students of history, unless it is made in Hollywood. The result has been a steady repeat of the mistakes of the past. The response to the present economic situation is no different...... circle the wagons and look inward. In this case it is the "Buy America", clause in the Obama recovery/stimuls package. |
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![]() "Ecce Homo" ("Behold the Man"), Antonio Ciseri's depiction of Pontius Pilate presenting a scourged Jesus to the people of Jerusalem. ![]() figure 1-a ![]() (Fig 2a) The Death of Innocents Author Ishwar R. Prashad recently retired from over 47 years of teaching. Archives
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