Vir Sanghvi parades his prejudices

In a column about prejudices of all and sundry, the heavyweight(pun intended) of Indian media Vir Sanghvi does not shy away from parading his own-

"The real reason why we are so horrified by Terry Jones’ prejudice and venom is because we believe that somehow, Americans will be different. It is all right for some mad mullah on the West Bank to bless suicide bombers, we say, but how can an American pastor go on television and exhibit such prejudice and ignorance?


In doing so, we vastly over-estimate American sensibilities. It is tempting to see America through the refined prism of the East Coast establishment or savvy Hollywood film-makers. But far away from these global advertisements for American culture lies the heartland, a dark underbelly of foolishness and insularity.


Indians are always shocked to discover that nearly 75 per cent of Americans do not have passports. It is not as though they cannot afford to travel abroad. They simply don’t want to because they have no interest in the world beyond their borders. They regard it as mysterious and uncivilised."

So your prejudices against the decent folk of the American heartland are alright, Mr.Sanghvi?


As if on cue, Janet Daley had an article in The Telegraph the same day that had something to say about people like Sanghvi-

One publicity-crazed loony threatens to commit an irresponsibly offensive act, to the virtually universal disgust of his own countrymen and the populations of America’s allies, and that’s it: the annihilation of any chance of bridge-building or conciliation between Muslim countries and the Western nations.

That this absurdity became the immediately accepted received wisdom suggests that the world (and not just the Muslim parts of it) must be very eager indeed to find a plausible excuse for casting America as a cartoon country whose heartland is dominated by bigoted know-nothings.

Sanghvi had earlier distinguished himself by running the Hindustan Times as a New York Times' clone -with all the biases included.There's a shared ideology, a very broad consensus shared across the world by the ruling and media elites.That is why Sanghvi and his ilk(e.g. Barkha Dutt) are comfortable with "the refined prism of the East Coast establishment or savvy Hollywood film-makers" but not with the ignorant "rednecks", the pilloried conservatives or the dreaded neocons. That is why newsrooms across the globe(and certainly at the Hindustan Times) drooled over an Obama victory and sicced their attack dogs on Sarah Palin.


Note -
I left the following comment at Sanghvi's post. It has not yet been published(after approx.24hrs)-

Janet Daley, by coincidence, has an article today that seems to fit you well, Mr.Sanghvi. She speaks of people who-
"must be very eager indeed to find a plausible excuse for casting America as a cartoon country whose heartland is dominated by bigoted know-nothings."

That would be you, sir. Do read it all-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/janetdaley/7996761/The-Terry-Jones-saga-shows-the-strength-of-anti-Americanism.html

Supreme Court fails to comprehend socialism

Over at the Ayn Rand - India blog, Shanu takes Indian Supreme court justices to task for being ignorant about the meaning of socialism-

The Supreme Court dismissed as withdrawn a writ petition challenging the insertion of the word “Socialism” in Indian Constitution. According to the constitution, every Indian political party should swear allegiance to Socialism. The court said that it will consider the petition when the situation comes. Earlier the application of Swatantra party was rejected because it failed to do so.

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


The chief justice said this while rejecting a petition in the past: "Why do you take socialism in a narrow sense defined by the Communists? In a broader sense, socialism means welfare measures for the citizens. It is a facet of democracy. It hasn't got any definite meaning. It gets different meaning in different times." This is worse than nonsense. Words are not to be used loosely, without assigning any proper meaning. In the words of Ayn Rand, “Every word of man’s language, with the exception of proper names, denotes a concept, an abstraction that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a specific kind.” The word Socialism means a politico-economic system (If it can be called so) in which all property is centralized in the hands of the state. If words are used without assigning proper meaning, it will assume meanings some scoundrels want it to assume. People(Even non-Marxists) look at it benignly only because they haven’t given it much thought or think that Socialists won’t venture to go that far. They foolishly believe that it is a system which favors welfare of the common man.

To make it mandatory that every political party should swear allegiance to socialism is to prevent people from choosing the political system people want. It is an assault on individual liberty and Capitalism. This would mean that anyone who wishes to fight the brutality of socialist policies would be prevented from doing so at the outset. It proves that even the pretense to “democracy” is a sham. It shouldn’t escape our attention that the 42nd amendment was passed during the emergency period. So, the intentions behind it should be evident for everyone to see. People should see the word for what it is and act upon their knowledge if we are to move towards a society which respects individual liberty.

(emphasis mine)
Do catch it all.


Ignorance in high places is not a bug but a feature.Clueless elites with life and death power over the rest of us are a standard for the modern welfare state system that is now ubiquitous.There is no escape -the idiots rule everywhere (even in America -or especially in America at present).