Capitalism

Being an economic major I am supposed to believe in capitalism and free market economics. But I am increasingly getting skeptical about these policies. I am not turning communist or socialist, but any thing in excess is bane. So, capitalism in excess is harmful to the society. The monotonous way with which U.S. and western powers continue to advocate capitalism scares me. One thing, in last two hundred years or so Europeans have created havoc across the world, so it is hard to believe in them now. Second thing, the guiding principal of current of form capitalism; greed is good, if followed, will lead to systematic destruction of the societies across the globe and not to tell, of environment too.

If the resources of the globe are constant, that means supply is constant and demand for these resources is forced to increase continuously then the strain on the supply will cross the threshold at some point and at that point, either strongest (that is western countries) will seize those resources and rest of the world will be left in lurch or quest to fulfill the demand will lead to total destruction of environment. The logging of rainforest, disappearance of coral reefs, more and more species are joining the extinct list, (at least one specie vanishes every day) over fishing in seas and in rivers, increase in barren land due to excessive crops, tremendous strain on fresh water supply, decrease in ozone layer, decrease in Ice shield in North and South pole etc. The list is long and new things keep on adding.

Apart from these obvious environment degradation, the living standard of most of the people is decreasing rapidly (I have listed few facts in a prior blog.) and wealth is getting accumulated in few hands.

I am not completely against capitalism. The effects of communism are horrendous and we can not allow communism to take hold again. But I strongly believe that, models of capitalism should change according to countries, societies and people. The form of capitalism in US does not guarantee success in other countries. Extremities always meet at the end. Communism tried to use same economic model for all situation and forced such policies on all kind of people. U.S. and western countries are doing same thing albeit, with capitalism.

Biased History

I like history, I should have been history major but I really doubt I would have learned more in history classes than what I am learning or understanding now. Not to chide the history stream but I am rather skeptical of streams like history, political science etc, as I am very puzzled by consistent rift between the ‘liberal’ outlook of the curriculum and actual outcome it, generated through student.

Discussing history with anyone invariably ends with the sentence that interpretation of history changes according to the person. And I refuse to buy this argument. History is like a fact book. Facts can not be interpreted because that is why they are called as facts. Interpretation may be considered as a best mean to reach the end or decipher the reality when historical data is not completely collected. But when complete data is available, interpreting history is nothing short of criminal act. Sadly that is what we usually witness and, explain it with the argument that winners write the history. Of course, winners definitely write the history but fortunately they almost never succeed to wipe off the real history and it is up to the current generation to find the facts and learn it.

Such examples, where history is not only miss-represented history but also miss-understood history are numerous. I can understand the presenting history that suits the invader or ruler but conveniently misunderstanding history is a crime. I think such a behavior stems from either sheer dumbness and laziness to understanding the reality or incapability of facing the deep wounds suffered by society as a whole.

History is extremely important for any society. History actually defines who we are; it tells us what we aim at and shows the pitfalls in our quest to attain the aim. It is utterly foolish to ‘live’ in history but reaching opposite spectrum by completely denying or denigrating history is foolish too. Polluting the history or accepting the polluted history will make our quest more arduous or in worst case completely throw us off the track, forcing us to live like a headless body.

A good Chemistry Question

A good question for Organic Chemistry students –:
State the constituents of Burger King strawberry milk shake?

Answer –
A typical artificial strawberry flavor, like the kind found in a Burger King strawberry milk shake, contains the following ingredients: Amyl Acetate, Benzyl Isobutyrte, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amylketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butanone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4 methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphtyhl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, vanillin and solvent…

Michael Jackson

1) I do not know his name but I saw his case on Spike TV. This guy was already a suspect for Marijuana dealings. He was caught by cop for speed limit violation. He resisted arrest and can you guess how long he was sent to jail? Any guess……well 60 years with little or no chance of parole.

2) I saw this case again on Spike TV. This guy was a cop himself. Off duty, he was detained by cops for an extremely trivial traffic violation. Supposedly, this guy did not give indicator while changing lane. Obviously, he was furious for his detainment and refused to show his license. The cop on duty tried to arrest him and this guy resisted arrest. Verdict, lower court sentenced him for 7 years, he went further to Supreme Court, citing racist treatment. (The cop on duty was white and the state was Florida) the case is pending but in the mean time he was suspended from his police department.

3) The third story is of another black person who was a child prodigy. A pop icon of 80’s who attained the star hood in his early teens. In 1992 ( or 93?) Michael Jackson was charged first time for sexually molesting a young male child. The case was settled out of court, with molested child getting undisclosed amount as compensation. He continued to share his bed with young male children. But according to him there is no molestation, whatsoever. He had a bad childhood so he wanted these children to enjoy as much as possible. Indeed, a saintly objective. He was charged again in 2005 on 10 counts, ranging from sexual molestation to intoxicating young children. Government prosecutors provided all possible testimonies and evidenes to jurors. In spite of that Michael Jackson was acquitted on all charges. Reason, evidence wasn’t enough. Yeh ,right !

Oh by the way in all three cases the suspects (or victims, at least in first two cases) were blacks.

Michael Jackson’s lawyers played the race card well. They made jurors guilty of punishing a black person but at the same time made them reluctant to convict a white person.

- Jay Leno in Tonight Show.

( This quote does not make any sense with respect to the blog but I still quoted it, because, its funny!)

Invasion Theory

The passivity with which foreign invasions are studied makes me sick and angry. Particularly in India, where Islamic invasions since 8th century and Christian proselytizing invasions since 17th century had profound and destabilizing effect on the society. Invasions are not easy business. One king trying to win more kingdoms or one religion trying to proselytize more people is some of the childish explanation to invasions that conceals the barbaric and disastrous effect of the reality.

My point is that, irrespective of the time of invasion and invaders, the basic pattern of destruction remains relatively same. There seems to be certain common thread that runs through all mayhems. There are two basic ways of destructions; ironically in this age of categorization and choices, even destructions can be categorized.

One of kind of destruction is complete annihilation of the civilization like Spanish Inquisition or Arab Muslims wiping out Zoroastrian civilization. In both cases the invaders not only changed the language, religion, customs, myths & legends of conquered people but they virtually changed the race by marrying them or by other means. The Incas Maya’s and etc of south and Central America are museumised, and Zoroastrians are dwelling in a tiny population in India after loosing their land and heritage in 7th century.

The second type of invasion, though similar to first type of invasion on the onset, but is subtler in numerous ways to conquering the society. Good example is British rule in India. With huge land and huge population under their control, their (Britishers) standard methods of changing race (the way they did in Scotland) or native populations genocide (like in North America and Australia) were useless. So, they adopted different method. First they tried to change the language and they were successful up to certain extent. Second they changed the way Indians used to work. With constantly referring Indians as “lazy natives” etc, (Obviously, lot of other methods were used but I am just giving you an example.) they induced a sense of inferiority complex among the society. They divided the society on the basis of caste, clans and most importantly on the basis of religion. Rest of the destruction is left to native to do. The natives themselves start disliking what their heritage, their history even their skin color and they do everything that is possible to distance themselves from their own culture.

What Britishers couldn’t achieve in 100 years of rule, is now, frantically attained by Indians themselves. It is a fashion, a status symbol to talk in English. A person is considered almost an illiterate if he can’t understand English. Among the Hindus’, it is necessary to distance oneself from religion, in order to be seen as progressive. Imitation of western culture is best possible innovation. From, the way to dress to the way to soap operas and films are made, replication of western ideas is paramount in order to succeed.

In post WW-II world, the role of religion in obscuring diverse cultural identities declined considerably as globalization and capitalism is doing that role in much slicker way and with considerably less resistance. It is up to the native people again to defend themselves and save their heritage and culture. The odds are against them but the battle is worth a fighting.

Partition

India-Pakistan partition always puzzles me. There are numerous theories behind this largest ever human migration, but each and every theory seems to be wrapped in the dark mist of mystery. Even after 50 years the blame game continues and it still has potential to create substantial commotion across the borders. Thinking about this painful historical event, I stumble upon couple of questions and facts that are hard to ignore and yet never correctly answered or quoted in media or remembered by general populace.

First, I strongly believe that Jinnah was the sole architect of the partition. Gandhi strongly opposed to partition; one, because partitioning country is exactly what Britishers always wanted and second, partitioning means Gandhi’s extensive Muslim appeasement policies failed to bridge the gap between Hindus and Muslim. Though, Mr. Nehru’s role seems to be ambiguous, British politicians had stated goal of creating India, Pakistan and Princestan. Though their efforts to create Princestan failed due to Sardar Patel, Britishers were more than happy in dividing country in two parts (or three parts) and they rightly gauged that Jinnah was the right card, perhaps a card of ace.

Second, with this blame game seems to be continue for eternity, I always think of Britishers as happiest people and laughing at India and Pakistan, because no one seems to blame British crooks for partition. British government is not only responsible for this partition but also for horrendous human rights violation and thousands of deaths during and after partition. Even though in power, it seems like a purposeful effort not stop the Razakar’s in Hydrabad, Kolkata and in North West Frontier and in Lahore.

Third, Gandhi was killed by a “Hindu fanatic” because the killer thought that Gandhi was responsible for partition. Though, it is hard to believe that Gandhi was responsible for partition but at the same time Gandhi can’t cleanse himself of partition either. If he was most revered and influential person during that period and indeed, a leader of whole nation and if he is hailed as a person who single handedly brought British empire down then he should owe the responsibility of partition too. For example, Mr. Nehru was responsible for early development of India at the same time he was also responsible for China debacle. Similarly Gandhi may not be directly responsible for partition but as a leader he should owe the responsibility as he clearly failed to grasp the reality behind the partition and even though he was greatly pained by incessant killing, his pain would not bring back those lost lives.

Partition can not be blamed on a single person nor can it be pin pointed on single incident. That event was waiting to happen and host of things can be cited as reasons. The recent ruckus over Mr. Advani’s comments on Jinnah, forces us to ask; is it still worth to create controversies about Partition? The answer is yes. I believe it is actually imperative for us to further explore the issue as partition was not only large forced human migration in human history but it irrevocably altered the geography, history and future of Indian subcontinent. Partition is not a history and it will be criminal to forget it by saying let bygones be bygones. The implications of partition are visible even after 60 years. We ought to explore issue of partition further till we find out the truth.

Some coool facts

1) The personal assets of Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Warren Buffet exceed the combined GDP of world’s 41 poorest nations.

2) Each of the 400 richest Americans saw their wealth increase by an average of $940 millions each year over the period of 1998-99, while the net wealth of the bottom 40% diminished by 80 percent between 1983 to 95.

3) Off the US’s total assets, 1% of Americans own 95% and 80% of the households take home a proportionately smaller amount of the national wealth than they did 20 years ago.

4) “Between” 1960 to 1993 the gap in per capita income between the developing and developed world tripled, from $5,700 to $15,400.

5) In 1900 the per capita income of America was nine times more than Ethiopia, today it is 45 times.

6) In 1960 the income gap between the top 20% of the people living in the richest countries and the bottom 20% of the poor worldwide was 30-1, in 1990 it was 60-1 and in 1995 it was 75-1

7) In 1993 the poorest 10% of the world’s people had only 1.6% of the wealth of the richest 10 % of the people, the poorest 57% of the worlds’ people had about the same income as the richest 1% and richest 10% of the US population, which is 25 million people had combined income than poorest 43% of the world’s people or about 2 billion people

Freakonomics

It will be amazing, if it is true. I do not have any data to support my argument; still I will put forth my idea. My idea stems from the book I am reading and the name of the book is Freakonomics. According to the author, the Roe vs. Wade case had a very drastic impact on the sudden drop in the crime rate in mid-90. That seems either too naive to liberals or offensive to conservatives. The argument is that the children born to single or poor or teenager mother have more probability of having un-happy life. These children are more prone to crime and uneducated life. Now, as these children were not born, the whole new generation of underprivileged children did not come to existence. As the generation born in mid-70’s entered late teens in 90’s, the crime rate fell as this generation was born to more educated, responsible and well to do parents.

The debate here is not whether abortion should be legalized or not, but it is a factual academic research.

I am trying to apply same logic to the effect of aggressive affirmative or reservation policies that were enforced in 1990’s in India. These affirmative policies irrevocably altered the landscape of Indian politics. The society stand divided as the genie of affirmative action became tool for politicians to create vote banks. I am completely anti-affirmative policies. I do believe that the backward communities need a help to come with rest of the society but when the quota system crosses the 50% or 60% limit then it defeats the very purpose of its inaction and becomes crutches.

But, there is silver lining to this policy. Intelligent people, who couldn’t get admissions in good colleges, only because they are upper caste, started working harder. The admission benchmark went up and best started coming out of the students. Plus, students started in different states where there is either less stringent affirmative policy or there are more colleges. Most importantly students started migrating to US for higher education. The boom in Indian economy, that made middle class to afford higher education abroad came hand in hand with computer boom in US, that created insatiable appetite for computer educated and English speaking engineers. Result; sudden spurt in Indian software industry.

There are host of other reasons for growth in software industry, like complete non-interference of Indian government. But this negatively positive impact of affirmative action should not be overlooked. May be the number of people by their caste will be good statistics to prove or disapprove this theory.

B.S.

What is this fuss about Quran discretion? It is ridiculous. Duh! Those people are freaking terrorists, murderers and they are not in Guantanamo beach for holidays. How come one should treat those animals humanly? I mean, these people are not even animals they are beyond that; they are savages like saitans’. They do not think twice about killing innocent people but when in jail, they expect to be treated according to Geneva Convention and need their human rights to be protected, simply outrageous. And the funny part is that these terrorists and their brethren in host of the Islamic countries get agitated over the supposed discretion of their holy book. Excuse me, but when Sunnis bomb the Shia mosques then Quran get burnt too. (One minor point, bunch of people usually get killed in such attacks too!) But, that is not a sin, such a disrespect of Quran is understandable because it is done by Muslims.

All this politically correct crap makes me sick. It does not solve any problem but actually complicates already complicated situation. But I do not any see discontinuation of such bullshit in foreseeable future. It ain’t going to stop in no way!