Anti-imperialists absconding

Where art thou, O Jholawalas* and Jholawalis*

Waiting, still waiting

-for the professional anti-imperialists to condemn Russian aggression

-for jholawalas* to take to the street in support of a tiny country facing the onslaught of an expansionist, imperial power which wants to control oil resources

-for the Indian politicians to condemn 'disproportionate' use of force as they did with Israel

-for our media pundits to get outraged as they do when you mention 'Bush' or 'Iraq' (mention both and they go into an apoplectic fit).

Waiting.....

* Jholawalas and Jholawalis- see the bottom part of this post.

Where are all the anti-war jholawalas?

Where are all the anti-war activists? Is the Russian invasion of Georgia not a war worthy of their attention? Or are they selective in being 'anti-war'?

Imagine if it was America bombing a small country on some pretext - there would would be such a din of protest in many cities all over the world.

Now we have an authoritarian, imperialistic superpower which has a horrendous past of occupying, brutalizing and even decimating whole of nationalities -and not a squeak out our professional keepers of conscience.

Where are the Indian politicians- they were pretty quick to lacerate Israel over Lebanon, even going to the extent of passing a resolution in the parliament?

What about our 'anti-imperialist' comrades? Or is their 'anti-imperialism' just a charade? (They never had a problem with Soviet and Chinese imperialism)

Where are those bearded jholawalas* and jholawalis*, who when you shout 'America' begin to bark like rabid dogs?

Still waiting for shrill condemnations of Russian aggression from seasoned anti-imperialists like Chomsky, John Pilger , Robert Fisk and Arundhati Roy.

Tiger Hawk asks the same question-

Of course, the Russians have no meaningful justification under international law, far less than the imperfect case the United States and its coalition built to justify regime change in Iraq.

That caused me to wonder, where are the anti-war groups?
----------------------
So far, at least, it is safe to conclude that these organizations are not so much anti-war as they are anti-American and anti-Israeli. It is useful to clear that up. And, by the way, if they decide to organize massive anti-war rallies against Russia and belatedly reveal themselves as intellectually honest, I will be the first to say so.

(emphasis mine)

C'mon guys, where are you? There is a war on you know. Just go out and do what you do best -protest a small country from being bombed by an imperial superpower. I'll throw you another juicy bone -there is even oil involved. You must be drooling by now and I am sure we can expect massive street protests, burning of Russian flag and trashing of the Russian embassies anytime.
You won't disappoint me, won't you?

Won't you?


*The colorful Indian language translator-
jholawala -a scornful term for leftists in India, who have the reputation of dressing sloppily, often in kurtas and carrying a shabby, shapeless bag called a jhola, giving a general impression of poverty and simplicity. However, as in many things concerning the left, impressions can be misleading. Their 'simple' kurtas are often sourced from choicest of trendy(and expensive) boutiques, and the 'ethnic' look that is so sought after is achieved by burning a fair amount of moolah.

There is an interesting page about the jholawalas here.

jholawali -female of the above species, often giving the impression of being aggressive and querulous(think Vandana Shiva)

Note -I do not condone trashing of any embassy. I am merely pointing out the hypocrisy involved.

Israel -taking blows and still standing tall

Happy Birthday, Israel!

You are hated around the world. You are loathed by lefties. Arabs want to and have tried to drive you into the sea. The United Nations hates your guts and does everything it can to undermine you.Here's wishing that you shall be able to overcome perhaps the most pressing mortal danger you have ever faced and that is now looming on the horizon -crazy mullahs with a nuclear bomb. You know, the same mullahs that do this-

Public hangings in Iran

The same mullahs that the Karats and the Yechuris of this world support(but naturally, as they are admirers of the great humanist Stalin).

Just a couple of links on this occasion-

The first, on how a agenda driven world media colludes with Arabs to demonise Israel- lying, hiding facts, making up facts. The truth about the Al-Durah (or Al-Dura) which could be very different from the one ingrained into our consciousness by the MSM. There has been a lot of controversy over the role of the media in manufacturing the Al-Durah narrative, including a dramatic trial in France. I am sure you have read about in your favorite MSM outlet. If not then ask yourself why. Also do check out the revealing videos at the link.



Just an excerpt-

Why has it taken so long to publish the facts about this case?

Once the story came out the way it did - that the Israelis killed him on purpose - and spread around the world, the biggest adjustment that most journalists would accept was that perhaps it was not intentional on purpose. Any effort to exculpate the Israelis was immediately greeted with cries of "blaming the victims." Enormous conceptual resistance surrounds this case - political, psychological, cognitive. The political atmosphere aside, however, the reluctance of the media to reconsider this case comes from a deep-seated aversion to self-examination and self-correction, starting with France2's refusal to release the rest of the footage shot by Talal abu Rahme that day.
------------------------
Are you claiming that the footage of al Durah was staged?

That, in the opinion of many people who know the dossier well, is the most likely conclusion. It explains almost all of the evidence, including all the inconsistencies between Talal's testimony and the evidence of the tapes. But it can't be proven, and ultimately it is up to each person to come to his or her own decision, based on the available evidence. That is why we set up this site: to permit the public to decide whether its media have served them well in this case.

Isn't this a bit too conspiracist? Are you claiming a huge conspiracy to lie about the story of this boy?

No. Staging the story only required the cooperation of the crew at work that day and the silence of any observers. The more interesting part of this story is the credulity of those on the outside who accepted Talal's narrative along with his tapes. Accusations of conspiracy frequently greet the claim that the al Durah footage was faked; this is both a reflexive response - "you know, there are so many conspiracies in this part of the world, I don't believe any…" - and a way of comparing those who argue for staging the scene with those who claim that the Mossad blew up the Twin Towers on 9-11-01. Understanding the difference between conspiracy theories, and the argument made here represents one of the most important distinctions one can make in trying to wade through the rhetorical minefield of Middle East information delivery.

Is the boy still alive?

Most believe he is dead. There are some who believe he is alive. Our position is agnostic. We only assert that the last time we see Muhamed on Talal's tape that afternoon, he is still alive. What happened to him afterwards is a question we do not feel we know enough to decide. A comparison of the picture of Muhamed al Durah from his home, and the face of the boy at the hospital who was later buried, do not match very closely. A good investigation - which should have occurred immediately after the claims were made - may well reveal the tale of his fate.

Read the whole thing.

Here's an account of the appeal’s trial of Philippe Karsenty - the French media gadfly who accused TV channel France 2 of fabricating video in the matter of the Palestinian boy Mohammed al Dura.
Here is another account and some biting analysis.



The second link is about the detestable role of the UN, more particularly the UNRWA in fanning the flames of hatred. One gets the distinct feeling that the the solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict that would bring most satisfaction to the sundry tranzis at the UN and the ideologically linked NGO's is the one proposed by Hamas -the long desired destruction of Israel.

Unique in history, UNRWA's job is to keep Palestinian refugees in suspended animation--and at low living standards--until they achieve the goal set for them by the PLO and Hamas: Israel's extinction. In the meantime, their suffering and anger is maintained as a weapon to encourage them toward violence and intransigence.

UNRWA schools become hotbeds of anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Semitic indoctrination, recruiting offices for terrorist groups. UNRWA's services are dominated by radicals who staff and subsidize radical groups while potentially intimidating anyone from voicing a different line. UNWRA facilities are used to store and transport weapons, actually serving as military bases.

In this process, UNRWA has broken all the rules that are supposed to govern humanitarian enterprises. Consequently, UNRWA is the exact opposite of other refugee relief operations. They seek to resettle refugees; UNRWA is dedicated to blocking resettlement. They help refugees to live normal lives so that they can move on with their existence; UNRWA's role is to ensure their lives remain abnormal so they are filled with anger and a thirst for revenge that inspires violence and can only be quenched by a victorious return. They try to create stable conditions for refugees; UNRWA's mission is to enable radical political activity and indoctrination by armed groups which ensures a continual state of near chaos.

Read the whole thing.

Oh, and by the way did you hear about the school headmaster at a UN school in Gaza who by night built rockets for Islamic Jihad?
Charming fellow, now enjoying his well deserved virgins courtesy of Israel.


(emphasis mine)

Sitaram Yechuriji, come take away all these loonies

E Gawd! There they go again. The American administration has kicked our Pavlovian media dogs in the balls again. For several hours now they(the allegedly 'news' channels) have been bleating about how Bush is now blaming India and China for the rise in oil prices after blaming our emiciated populace for the food crisis earlier(that was was the first kick). So we are now told that Bush has come up with this unique theory that on one else believes in: in fact Sitaram Yechury called America insane for suggesting that India and China might be, um...connected to the rise in price of of oil.

That means no rest for me. No time to ogle at generous female forms on the wilder side of the net. Now I will have to put on my SuperBlogger pyjama suit and get to work. So here goes.


Yechuriji, bring in a large van from the nearest lunatic asylum, for these people will be climbing aboard along with Bush-



Meghnad Desai, The Times of India, 1 May 2008-

The oil price rise is driven almost entirely by China's demand and the chaotic politics of Nigeria and Venezuela.

Mark Shenk at Livemint(a Hindustan Times publication), Apr 21 2008-

Traffic jams in Beijing and air conditioners in Dubai are replacing US highways and suburbs as the driver of global oil prices.

China, India, Russia and West Asia for the first time will consume more crude oil than the US, burning 20.67 million barrels a day this year, an increase of 4.4%, according to the International Energy Agency, or IEA, in Paris. US demand will contract 2% to 20.38 million barrels daily, IEA says.

Kiran Kabtta, TNN(Times of India),28 Apr, 2008-

Nevertheless, the overall demand for crude oil continues to grow, especially in large, emerging countries such as China, India and Brazil, as well as West Asian countries.

Manas Chakravarty and Mobis Philipose at Livemint, Apr 18 2008-

Although world growth may be slowing, growth in countries such as China and India continues to remain robust and it’s the demand from these countries that’s going to keep commodity prices high.

Moira Herbst, BusinessWeek, August 3, 2007-

Unlike in previous periods, the main driver in the recent price boost is not a war, a hurricane, or the machinations of OPEC, but rather robust global economic growth, say analysts. The U.S. economy has remained solid, despite jitters in the stock market. China and India are surging, while most of Europe is strong.

ExpressIndia(from the Indian Express group), January 21, 2008-

Voracious demand for oil, iron ore and other commodities to build roads, sewage systems, and office buildings - especially in the booming economies of China and India – will also help sustain the region through any US slowdown.

Rick Newman, USA Today,March 10, 2008

Although I doubt that this is as important as other factors driving up the price of oil—such as strong growth in parts of the world such as China and India.

Another important issue is that in a lot of countries, like India, China, Indonesia, and some Arab countries, the price of oil and gasoline is subsidized, to keep the domestic price low, usually to prevent social unrest. That matters because if oil prices were allowed to be set at market prices, demand would fall, and so would prices. So demand in those places is artificially high.

Jad Mouawad, The International Herald Tribune, April 28, 2008-

At the same time, oil consumption keeps expanding at a faster clip than production. Demand is forecast to increase this year by 1.2 million barrels a day, to 87.2 million barrels a day. Consumption has actually fallen a bit in theUnited States, the world's biggest consumer, as the country grapples with an economic slowdown.

But that drop is being offset by growth in other countries. World consumption is projected to rise 35 percent, to around 115 million barrels a day, in the next two decades. Most of the growth will come from China, India and oil-producing countries in the Middle East, where retail fuel prices are subsidized, encouraging wasteful consumption.

And to go back to food prices :

The United Nations, November 3 2007-

The price rises are a result of record oil prices, US farmers switching out of cereals to grow biofuel crops, extreme weather and growing demand from countries India and China, the UN said yesterday

8 Sep 2007, 0200 hrs IST,Chidanand Rajghatta,TNN-

A massive purchase of nearly 800,000 tonnes of wheat by India at record prices earlier this week has added to what agricultural experts are calling the great wheat panic of 2007. Wheat prices had already reached record levels ahead of the Indian move, thanks to falling or stagnating production in many countries — blamed on poor weather and crop diversion — and growing population.

Jean Ziegler,The United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food , April 28, 2008-

"There are four main causes that everyone is talking about: biofuels, increased demand in China and India, higher oil prices and global warming. But the real cause is that for decades there has not been proper investment for years in local agriculture in developing countries."

Rajeev Deshpande,TNN, 4 May 2008-

And diversion of foodgrain for bio-fuels in countries like Brazil and US has happened at a time when better incomes are driving demand in economies like India and China. All this, just as years of neglect in modernising agriculture and improving yields suddenly caught up with India making it a nation that imports food.

Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute,February 26, 2008-

Much of the blame has been put on the transfer of land and grains to the production of biofuel. But its impact has been outweighed by the sharp growth in demand from a new middle class in China and India for meat and other foods, which were previously viewed as luxuries.“The fundamental cause is high income growth,” said Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Please bring a really large van, Yechuriji, and take away all these loonies but do drive carefully -remember, the United Nations will be at the back .


(emphasis mine)

Another good reason to buy the "300" DVD-Sudhir Mishra hates the film

There are good reasons to watch "300"-

Spartacus and Ben-Hur, 300 is about bravery, freedom, honor, and country. These are universal themes. But universal themes that will offend liberals(i.e. leftists -ed) because they’re not defended in a PC fashion.
---------------------------------
It’s impossible not to compare the enemy in 300 to the current Islamofascists. The Persians are ruled by a theocracy; a king, Xerxes, who looks like a Culture Club refugee, fancies himself a god, and demands to be worshipped. The Persian ambition is to conquer those willing to convert, and butcher those who refuse. To convert some, Xerxes promises them paradise — especially a lot of hot women. Maybe not seventy-two. Certainly not virgins. But it’s all pretty familiar.
-------------------------------------------------

But story is everything. And the biggest reason 300’s successful is because its central story is exciting and well plotted.
-------------------------------------------------

I’ve no doubt critics (I don’t read them until I post my own review) are calling 300 old-fashioned, and worse. But they’re wrong. After forty years of liberal rule in Hollywood it is nihilism that’s old-fashioned. It is moral relativism that is tired. It is political correctness, the always-noble people of color, the always-evil white guy, and the metrosexual that is cliched. A film with a clear divide between good and evil is something new. A film that celebrates patriotism, heroism, sacrifice, freedom, and honor is something revolutionary. In 1955 300 would be old-fashioned. In 2007 it makes a counter-culture statement as strong as Easy Rider in its day.

(emphasis mine)
(go read the whole wonderful review of 300 by Dirty Harry)

Now there is another good reason to go buy that "300" DVD-
trendy leftist director Sudhir Mishra hates it.

Update- to be fair to Mishra, he is the writer of one the best Indian comedy films Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and I thought his Yeh Woh Manzil To Nahin was interesting. His only recent film I have seen was Chameli, which I found predictable and pretentiously yawn inducing.

Also to his credit, he defends the right of others to show 'offensive' films. If only other leftists were like that.

Indian artists in support of a murderer, part 3 -alternative Che images

Continued from part 1 and part 2 below.

Here are some alternative Che images one would like to see more of-


Communism killed 100 million but-



source


World's greatest T-shirt salesman-


source

More images below the fold

Victims of Che Guevara-


source


Somewhere in hell, the revolution goes on-

source


Fight leftist indoctrination at campus-


source



Useful idiots supporting Che(Yes, I am thinking of the artists who took part in Suneet Chopra's Che lovefest)-

source



Evolution of the Che myth-

source



I wonder how many lefties have become rich selling the Che t-shirt-


source



Don't get us wrong, we love revolution too-


source


source




No Ch(e)moking-

source




Finally, Che one can love-


source



Note- Kindly limit hate-mail to 100 words each.

Part 1 here
Part 2- Che myths here.

Indian artists in support of a murderer, part 2 -Che myths

Continued from part 1 below-

What is it about the Che iconography that is so resistant to facts? Alvaro Vargas Llosa takes apart the Che myths-

1. HE WAS AGAINST CAPITALISM. In fact, Guevara was for state capitalism. He opposed the wage labor system of 'appropriating surplus value' (in Marxist jargon) only when it came to private corporations. But he turned the appropriation of the workers 'surplus value' into a state system. One example of this is the forced labor camps he supported, starting with Guanahacabibes in 1961.

2. HE MADE CUBA INDEPENDENT. In fact, he engineered the colonization
of Cuba by a foreign power. He was instrumental in turning Cuba into a temporary beachhead of Soviet nuclear power (he sealed the deal in Yalta). As the person responsible for the 'industrialization' of Cuba he failed to end the country's dependency on sugar.

3. HE STOOD FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE. In fact, he helped ruin the economy by diverting resources to industries that ended up in failure and reduced the sugar harvest, Cuba's mainstay, by half in two years. Rationing started under his stewardship of the island's economy.

4. HE STOOD UP TO MOSCOW. In fact, he obeyed Moscow until Moscow
decided to ask for something in return for its massive transfers of money to Havana. In 1965 he criticized the Kremlin because it had adopted what he termed the 'law of value'. He then turned to China on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, one of the horror stories of the twentieth century. He simply switched allegiances within the totalitarian camp.

5. HE CONNECTED WITH THE PEASANTS. In fact, he died precisely because he never connected with them. "The peasant masses don't help us at all," he wrote in his Bolivian diary before he was captured, an apt way to describe his journey through the Bolivian countryside trying to stir up a revolution that could not even enlist the help of Bolivian Communists (who were realistic enough to note that
peasants did not want revolution in 1967; they had already had one in 1952).

6. HE WAS A GUERRILLA GENIUS. With the exception of Cuba, every guerrilla effort he helped set up failed pitifully. After the triumph of the Cuban revolution, Guevara set up revolutionary armies in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Haiti, all of which were crushed. He later persuaded Jorge Ricardo Masetti to lead a fatal incursion into that country from Bolivia. Guevara's role in the Congo in 1965 was both tragic and comical. He allied himself with Pierre Mulele and Laurent Kabila, two butchers, but got entangled in so many disagreements with the latter and relations between Cuban and Congolese fighters were so strained that he had to flee. Finally, his incursion in Bolivia ended up in his death, which his followers are commemorating this Sunday.

7. HE RESPECTED HUMAN DIGNITY. In fact, he had a habit of taking other people's property. He told his followers to rob banks ('the struggling masses agree to rob banks because none of them has a penny in them') and as soon as the Batista regime collapsed he occupied a mansion and made it his own, a case of expeditious revolutionary eminent domain.

8. HIS ADVENTURES WERE A CELEBRATION OF LIFE. Instead, they were an
orgy of death. He executed many innocent people in Santa Clara, in central Cuba, where his column was based in the last stage of the armed struggle. After the triumph of the revolution, he was in charge of 'La Cabaña' prison for half a year. He ordered the execution of hundreds of prisoners, former Batista men, journalists,businessmen, and others. A few witnesses, including Javier Arzuaga, who was the chaplain of 'La Cabaña', and José Vilasuso, who was a
member of the body in charge of the summary judicial process, recently gave me their painful testimonies.

9. HE WAS A VISIONARY. His vision of Latin America was actually quite blurred. Take, for instance, his view that the guerrillas had to take to the countryside because that is where the struggling masses lived. In fact, since the 1960s, most peasants have peacefully deserted the countryside in part because of the failure of land reform, which has hindered the development of a property-based agriculture and economies of scale with absurd regulations forbidding all sorts of private arrangements.

10. HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE UNITED STATES. He predicted Cuba would
surpass the GDP per capita of the U.S. by 1980. Today, Cuba's economy can barely survive thanks to Venezuela's oil subsidy (about 100,000 barrels a day), a form of international alms that does not speak too well of the regime's dignity.

Humberto Fontova (linked in part 1) has an excellent article on how the myth of Che is maintained and propagated in popular media. Excerpts-

The History Channel Shills For Che Guevara

[Humberto Fontova is the author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the
Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him.]

The regime Che Guevara co-founded stole the savings and property of 6.4 million citizens, made refugees of 20 per cent of the population from a nation formerly deluged with immigrants and whose citizens had achieved a higher standard of living than those residing in half of Europe. Che Guevara's regime also shattered through executions, jailings, mass larceny and exile virtually every family on the island of Cuba. Many opponents of the Cuban regime qualify as the longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history, having suffered prison camps, forced labor and torture chambers for a period THREE TIMES as long in Che Guevara's Gulag as Alexander Solzhenytzin suffered in Stalin's Gulag.

----------------------------------------------------------

One signed his name "Stalin II," professed that "the solutions to the world's problems lie behind the Iron curtain," and boasted that "if the nuclear missiles had remained we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City." He also professed that the victory of socialism was well worth "millions of atomic victims."

----------------------------------------------------

Immediately upon entering Havana Che Guevara stole and moved into what
was probably the most luxurious mansion in Cuba. The rightful owner fled
the country barely ahead of a firing squad and a reporter who wrote of Che's new house in a Cuban newspaper was himself threatened with the firing squad. A year later thousands of Cubans were sent to forced-labor camps on Che's orders, based on his whim to fashion "a new man,"

----------------------------------------------------

During a 1961 speech in Cuba, Che Guevara denounced the very "spirit of
rebellion" as "reprehensible." Earlier he had cheered the Soviet
invasion of Hungary and the concurrent slaughter of thousands of
Hungarians who resisted Russian Imperialism. According to Guevara, these
freedom-fighters were all "fascists and CIA agents."

--------------------------------------

On his second to last day alive Che Guevara ordered his guerrilla charges to give no quarter, to fight to the last breath and to the last bullet. With his men doing just that, a slightly wounded Che snuck away from the firefight and surrendered with a full clip in his pistol, while whimpering to his captors: "Don't Shoot! I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!" He then groveled shamelessly, desperate to ingratiate himself. "What's your name, young man?" Che asked one of his captors.
"Why what a lovely name for a Bolivian soldier!"

"So what will they do with me?" Che asked Bolivian Captain Gary Prado. "I don't suppose you will kill me. I'm surely more valuable alive....And you Captain Prado," Che commended his captor. "You are a very special person ...I have been talking to some of your men. They think very highly of you, captain! And don't worry, this whole thing is over. We have failed." Then to further ingratiate himself, "your army has pursued us very tenaciously....now, could you please find out what they plan to
do with me?"
----------------------------------------

So far, subjective matters. Now on to more objective ones.

Despite numerous attempts, nobody has managed to locate any record of
Ernesto Guevara's medical degree. Shortly after his capture Che admitted to his captor's commander, Captain Gary Prado, that he (Che) was not a doctor but "had some knowledge of medicine."

Nonetheless The History Channel refers to Ernesto Guevara as a "newly
qualified Doctor."
------------------------

"The Black Book of Communism," written by French scholars and published in English by Harvard University Press (neither an outpost of the vast right-wing conspiracy, much less of "Miami maniacs!") estimates 14,000 firing squad executions in Cuba by the end of the 1960's. "The facts and figures are irrefutable," wrote the New York Times (no less!) about "The Black Book of Communism." A Cuban prosecutor of the time who quickly defected in horror and disgust named Jose Vilasuso estimates that Che signed 400 death warrants the first few months of his command in La Cabana. A Basque priest named Iaki de Aspiazu, who was often on hand to perform confessions and last rites, says Che personally ordered 700 executions by firing squad during the period. Cuban journalist Luis Ortega, who knew Che as early as 1954, writes in his book "Yo Soy El
Che!" that Guevara sent 1,892 men to the firing squad.

Read the whole thing.

Is the terrible state of modern/post-modern art, the utter irrationalism and lunatic-asylum quality about it -I wonder if that because it is people like Suneet Chopra who are it's thekedars *. Historically, the descent of art into irrationalism has followed the descent of intellectuals into the embrace of utopian totalitarianism.

(emphasis mine)

*The colorful Indian language translator-
thekedar - One who decides and sits over judgment(literally- someone who has been given a contract to do something)

Next- in part 3: tired of that 'iconic' image of mass-murderer staring from trendy t-shirts.Here are some Che images we would like to see more of.

See part 1 here

Indian artists in support of a murderer, part 1

• Well known Indian artists and other arty-sharties pay homage to Che Guevara.

Now why am I not surprised.


“The Victims of Che Guevera” poster, produced by the Young America’s Foundation, a collage that uses tiny photos of those killed by Cuba’s communist regime to compose the face of the Marxist icon, Che Guevara.
Larger image here.



First some facts which for some reason are not well publicized or are completely unknown to most(media bias?)-

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was second in command, chief executioner, and chief KGB liaison for a regime that outlawed elections and private property. This regime's KGB-supervised police, employing the midnight knock and the dawn raid among other devices, rounded up and jailed more political prisoners as a percentage of population than Stalin's and executed more people (out of a population of 6.4 million) in its first three years in power than Hitler's executed (out of a population of 70 million) in it's first six.
--------------------------------------
One week into power the regime Che Guevara co-founded abolished Habeas Corpus. Guevara commanded his regime's prosecutorial goons to "always
interrogate our prisoners at night. A man's resistance is always lower
at night." He boasted that, "we execute from revolutionary conviction!"
and that "judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail." Edwin
Tetlow, Havana correspondent for London's Daily Telegraph, reported on a
mass "trial" orchestrated by Che Guevara where Tetlow noticed the death
sentences posted on a board before the trial had started.

So who loves this creep?

Famous(why?) communist art-critic, Suneet Chopra, well known artists-Arpana Caur, Krishen Khanna, Vijendra Sharma, Dharmendra Rathore, Anoop Kamath, Mohan Singh, Saba Hasan, Vijayata Bhamri, art critics Vinod Bharadwaj and Nuzhat Kazmi, writer Uma Vasudev film persons Arun Vasudev and M K Raina and a large number of intellectuals, artists, writers and leading gallery owners of the capital.


The occasion for all this roses and love was an exhibition dedicated to this lover of freedom in Delhi opened by the ambassador of that paradise of freedom, human rights, free press, free elections and prosperity known by it's shorter name -Cuba.

Suneet Chopra seemed to be in a grumbling mood-

Today imperialism has invented far worse weapons(than atom bombs) that they have tested on the civilian populations Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. In the name of regime change, the elected president of the Chilean people, Salvador Allende, was murdered in an army coup that proceeded to murder thousands after that, including the Nobel Prize winning poet, Pablo Neruda. In 1991 the USSR was dismantled, and dismembered, Grenada was invaded, Nicaragua was destabilised and Yugoslavia with its proud anti-fascist record and one of the founders of the non-aligned movement was torn to bits as was Czechoslovakia, and states that Hitler had created have once more emerged in the Balkans, not as a natural process, but with the armed might of NATO behind them. “Democracy” was being imposed on the barrel of a gun with the help of generals like Pinochet, Sucharto and the like. And it was Che who told us that such a global oppression could only be stopped with a global resistance to it, by creating “twenty Vietnams” all over the world.

Warmonger! Calling for more Vietnams. Does he love war or what. Read the whole thing. Chopra is almost cartoonish in his rage against 'imperialism', a fine caricature of a fuming communist, now fuming more than ever since the collapse of the USSR (result of an evil plot, no doubt, though the liberated countries of the eastern Europe love their freedom from the Stalinist nightmare). Communism and socialism have never produced a free and prosperous society anywhere despite a century of experimentation.Misery, poverty, oppression, totalitarianism, midnight knocks, entrenched rule by a vicious elite, slave labor, 'reeducation' camps, gulags, death of tens and tens of millions-yes; happiness and freedom-no. And this is the 'vision' that Suneet Chopra and countless other intellectuals have supported and defended. One of the consistent themes of the last hundred or so years has been the love affair of the intellectuals with totalitarianism- be it that of the Nazis, of Stalin, Mao, Khmer Rouge, Castro or any other power-seeker who mouths the right cliches against 'imperialism'.

But what about the artists who participated in the Che lovefest?
Artistic freedom is one of the first casualties of the kind of regime that Che wanted to establish all over Latin America and elsewhere and helped to bring about in Cuba(Quick-How free are the artists to criticize Fidel in his land of milk and honey?).
So what explains their participation? True conviction? Or pulling the right social levers and supporting the 'right' causes to further their careers?
Or what?

I think it is legitimate to call them 'Artists against freedom'.

To prevent this post from becoming too long, I am breaking it into parts. See the rest of the article here-
Part 2- Che Myths
Part 3- Alternative Che images one would like to see more of

(emphasis mine)

Crossposted at What the Heck is Art?

Khatami touches women, sky falls down upon him.

Is this a fake?



or is he?


Is it possible, just possible that Iran's former president Mohammad Khatami might have touched -what horror!- a woman?!!!! And that too more than one! And that too one after the another -a serial woman-toucher!


From the Iran Press Service-
A Handshake that Might Become A Religious Revolution Or A Political Suicide

A videotape, taken with a digital camera by Mr. Marco Orioles, a university sociology lecturer, shows the former Iranian president exchanging handshakes with Gianola and Cristina Nonnino, well-known producers of grappa, the famous Italian brandy, in the region around Udine.

from the Guardian-

Iran's reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, has suffered a blow to his political standing by being pictured apparently shaking hands with women in breach of Islamic convention.

Mr Khatami, a mid-ranking cleric, dismissed the photo as a fake and insisted he had not shaken hands with any of the women who had approached him after he made a speech.
--------------------------

Flyers condemning Mr Khatami have been circulated in the shrine city of Mashhad, while posters of him were defaced in Kashan before he spoke there.

Although Islam generally forbids handshakes between men and women who are not close family relatives, some Shia clerics say it is permitted in certain cases to avoid embarrassment. In Iran, handshakes between men and women have become more common in recent years despite the country's Islamic laws.

Faked? Judge for yourself-


(video of the controversial handshakes)

If it is not a fake then it must be a CIA operation. The imperialist Americans must have sent those devilish male-eating female agents to....to.. shake hands!

From the same Iran Press Service article-

The Iranian hardline daily “Kayhan”, run by Mr. Hoseyn Shari’atmadari, a high-ranking intelligence officer specializing in the interrogation of political and intellectual dissidents who is a senior advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, the leader of the Islamic Republic, suggested Khatami had allowed himself to fall prey of a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trap.

The article continues-

“If Mr. Khatami is assured that the video had been manipulated, he must with no hesitation take the case to the courts. This would be a good occasion case for him to make known those who are plotting to tarnish the good name and image of the former president and aims at stopping the reform process in Iran and put an end to the plot. If not, he must present his apology to all those who accuses him of having trespassed a well-known rule of Islam”, Ahmad Ra’fat, an Iranian journalist based in Rome, told Iran Press Service.

“Many of those who had voted for Mr. Khatami and supported the reforms never could imagine that simple and ordinary acts like shaking some hands in the streets of a town like Udine would undermine the future of reforms in Iran. Worse, this writer and many others could never imagine that a president who talks about the rule of law, civil society and dialogue among civilizations would fall so down to the point of not having the courage of accepting responsibility of his own acts and deeds and unashamedly revert to lying”, Mr. Ra’fat, who also covers for AKI, wrote in the Persian internet magazine “Rahbord”

Andy McCarthy sums it up-

It's the small things that tell us the most.

Iran's great "moderate" "reformer," Mohammed Khatami, shook hands with a woman in Italy while chatting genially with a group of women who were not covered from head to toe, or even wearing head-scarves.

This is a scandal in Iran.

So what is the Moderate Reformer's reaction? Did he tell his critics to stop being ridiculous?

Nope. He claims, preposterously, that the pictures and film footage of the incident are fakes ... while concurrently announcing he is withdrawing his from a 2009 presidential bid.

I'd like to be encouraged that there is a swelling democracy movement in Iran ready to revolt against the regime any time now. But what does it say about the state of things in mullah-land that the hero of what passes for liberal reform there feels he has to deny shaking hands with a woman?

And our comrades have no problem if these people get nuclear weapons.

(emphasis mine)

Are our Jholawalas(and jholawalis) up to it?

A far-left group of women
protesting against the war in
the U.S.

Zombie has the report with more pictures.
(Graphic warning! -nudity involved.)
(Aesthetic warning! -No beauty involved, only flabby bodies and sagging tits.)

Our own home grown leftists ape their western counterparts in everything-from parroting the same clichés about environment and globalisation to their adoration of 'Vagina monologues'. I wonder when shall we be seeing topless and nude protests from our jholawala* crowd. Not that I look forward to it. For obvious reasons of aesthetics.

*The colorful Indian language translator-
jholawala -a scornful term for leftists in India, who have the reputation of dressing sloppily, often in kurtas and carrying a shabby, shapeless bag called a jhola, giving a general impression of poverty and simplicity. However, as in many things concerning the left, impressions can be misleading. Their 'simple' kurtas are often sourced from choicest of trendy(and expensive) boutiques, and the 'ethnic' look that is so sought after is achieved by burning a fair amount of moolah.

jholawali -female of the above species, said to be of aggressive and querulous nature (think Vandana Shiva).