Indy and his RSS friends will tell you that its OK to support someone who is involved in massacres, since its “cultural” not “fascist”.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7158037.stm

http://www.anti-state.com/article.php?article_id=416

Fractional reserve banking will be the death of us all. No, I’m not joking. (Bloody hell, I wish I was joking!)

If you haven’t seen the video “Money As Debt” it’s a must see. It explains precisely how screwed we are, and again, I wish I was only using “screwed” to mean “out of some money”, because I’m not. I mean screwed as in “humanity, up shit creek without a paddle.”

Fractional reserve banking is one of the biggest factors fuelling rampant resource depletion and climate chaos, and coupled with the sociopathic insanity of corporations, it is literally baking and eating our planet.

Watch and learn:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

There is a possible transition away from fractional reserve banking, but the banks will never take it in a million years. We will have to dismantle almost the entire banking system or hope it collapses if we are to stand any chance of sorting this mess out.

Your friendly Sunday morning doom-sayer,

~Dave

change doesn’t happen quickly anywhere, it takes time to make up new things, easier to reinforce what’s already there, and pre-existing social practices are always built upon. and plus you cant blame “one lot” for a very deep-grained idea about existence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7143958.stm

“If you read my post agian, you will note that I have made clear what I mean by “respect” and “worship” for the purposes of my simplified comments.”

I was joshing with my comment. I know what you meant

“I come from a glorious line, with pure […] blood running through my veins.”

In response to the following selection from my earlier post:

“respect for ancestors is a central theme in most traditions, even modern secular ones.”

If you read my post agian, you will note that I have made clear what I mean by “respect” and “worship” for the purposes of my simplified comments.

I’ll provide further examples of what I deem “respect” to illustrate:

1. Religious examples would include anything from commemorating the Passion of Christ to the Shia Islamic practice of Muharrum to the Sikh Ardas (recalling to one’s mind the deeds of those ancestors who died and suffered for us to be here today).

2. A secular equivalent of this in the UK is Remembrance Day or the recently discussed Holocaust remembrance service.

I see nothing in the above which constitutes anything along the lines of “I come from a glorious line, with pure […] blood running through my veins.”

And I see plenty in the above for people to give a “f**k” about. It is considerably different to “worshipping” one’s ancestors which would be more in line with your comment.

“er, hardly. How did the Mughal or British contact with high caste Hindus reinforce caste system at it’s lowest levels?”

I have illustrated how in my post.

The question that both of you raise is a subject of a much larger debate. It is not easy for me to clarify how the Mughal regime was responsible for the atrocious caste system as it exists in India today. There are no one line answers. And I don’t have the time to write a whole essay out here.

All I can say in defense of my contention is that majority of Indian sages in the pre-Mughal era were from non-Brahmin communities. Look at Sage Valmiki, Sage Agsatya, Dronacharya (he was a kashtriya and not a Brahmin), Karna (he was born in a poor family), even Chitanaya Mahaprabhu though he came much later. In ancient time one did not become a Brahmin by birth, one attained that title by his erudition and intellect.

Even the most revered Hindu God, Lord Shri Krishna, is supposed to be a Cowherd.

There are subtle indications in many historical texts that during the last 1000 years, the caste system took root in the country. People from the lower castes stopped moving up and those in the higher caste did not want to move down. The system became as stultified as the English system of royalty. Your blood counted your destiny. But the theory of bloodline being more important than a persons talents and erudition is if Mughal and British origin.

The practitioners of Sanatana Dharma have never believed in Bloodline. There are numerous stories of our Princes from Royal families having to prove their talent in statecraft before they are allowed to take up the throne.

Just as today we honor distinguished scholars with titles like Sir, Dr. etc, in ancient time the scholars were called Brahmin. But the Mughals changed that. They did not want any Hindu scholars, so they made the system of Brahmanism hereditary.

But since independence our socialist governments have made the caste system stronger, by their atrocious policy of “caste based reservation in jobs and educational institutions”.
The reservation policy has to go, all Indians must live in united meritocratic society.

“You guys have what are called ‘Union Territories’, including the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Which even Indians are restricted in visiting, so Guess One: SEZ – Special Exclusion Zone.”

“MNCs, well it was a bit better, Manufacturing & Networking Centres – like call centres, sort of.”

I have to say that the above is really adorable Certainly made me smile as I am trying to drudge through the day at work, which has been, btw, extremely boring and slow.

Are you sure? Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

’cause you’d all been talking about India, I’d been looking at what Sid said about Lok Sabha, and to be honest I’d never heard of it. As is my wont I toddled off to Google. And read a bit about it. What was quite interesting was that I had always thought India was a unitary state, whereas it is not. You guys have what are called ‘Union Territories’, including the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Which even Indians are restricted in visiting, so Guess One: SEZ – Special Exclusion Zone.

Wrong.

BTW that looks like an interesting destination.

Guess two. Shorter version. MNCs, well it was a bit better, Manufacturing & Networking Centres – like call centres, sort of.

Wrong.

Just to say, I thought your post @ 113 cut through an enormous amount of crap. What we had, as a humanity, was an almost snail like progress from Vedic Architecture, through European Cathedrals to the world we live in now.

It is beyond belief, it is beyond reason that folk are still stuck in a debate about ‘who was better than who a thousand years ago’, when the last hundred odd years have shown more real progress than all of previous human history. You, and I dare say I, have more knowledge about the Universe we live in than any of our ancestors. Even the famous ones. We should revel in that.

We should also see the points you make in other posts about inequities in health care, food supply and potable water, etc, as a complete fucking affront to being a human being.

Or, less controversially, I agree with you.

Sorry about the swearing.

Maybe Indian hackers are better at not being detected… Hacking does not necessarily indicate technical brilliance. You only need to look at the Inland Revenue fiasco to see how lax some organisations can be with their IT.

Also, companies such as Sun Microsystems, Intel, Oracle set up in India set-up in India because they get first rate IT people. What these companies do is a bit more than what you disparagingly call “commercial IT skills”.

Also, has anybody heard of a great global Chinese brand? Then again, what about a great global Indian brand?

Regarding India and China, in general, they put a few hundreds of million workers on the world market who offered comparable skills to what the developed world offers at much lower cost to get really rich. These workers are the elites, screw social justice and all that.

Well, I did guess, and I guessed wrong.

Thanks.

What are MNC’s and SEZ’s? I could guess, but I’d probably be wrong.

“4. There are few instances in developed countries of state collusion and murder of innocents, and then the guilty run free (but we in the developed world rank #1 for state terrorism in territories other than our own).”

Meaning developed countries do this through waging illegal and/or unjust wars (Iraq), bombing millions for really no reason (Vietnam), supporting and/or arming government with arguably engage in state terrorism, etc.

And yes, there have been massive examples of illegal and inhumane manuevers in a developed country (CIA, Guantanamo, deportations, locking up undocumented folks), but India has by far had many more people killed in “communalism” which often seems to me to be a sorts of civil war which erupts from time to time, and India has many more politicians who were involved in this and were never indicted.