The need to desecrate religious faith

~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, I saw my little daughter do some rituals and prayer. As it filled the hearts of others with joy, it made filled me with rage, anguish, disgust, fear and above all a sense of failure. The mere thought of my daughter having been indoctrinated at a young age into this callous cycle, was too much for me to accept without a fight.

What is wrong with a child praying? Why did that bother me, when I have seen plenty of others do crazier deeds?

As a child, I have been a victim of both organised faith and sexual abuse. I found the former more tormenting than the latter. It leaves lasting impacts and a scar to the next generation. I not only consider religious faith illogical but also immoral. To see my daughter absorb it was more than what I could take.

Indoctrinating a child at is very easy as compared to an adult. This is why most parents start making their children pray and do rituals even before the child realises the impact. It is a vicious move with a sole intention to corrupt a clear mind. The child cannot unlearn it unless it makes a conscious effort to do so. The society is filled with malice and pro-religious bias that it is extremely hard to do that. A child cannot muster a defence against the argument for religious faith. We cannot explain evolution or relativity to a 3-year-old. Religion has an easy solution there.

Indoctrinating a child with religious faith future proofs the stupid gene. By definition, it suppresses your critical faculties and makes you obey holy orders with no rationale. By pushing a child through that route, the malice lives for another generation. This is another generation of sectarian wars, fight aginst science, fundamentalism, extremism, deceit and corruption.

My fight against children being corrupted by religious faith is no different from wanting to side with the defenceless, the poor, the gullible against the evil forces of power. I don’t think I will be on the side of victory in this but I will fight till I die. This fight will be a healthy one, a fight of ideas nor ideologies, a fight for peace, a fight for unity, a fight for righteousness and a fight that doesn’t involve any arms but mere words.

Breaking down the present state of Pakistan’s Cricket Team

~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

I was 11 when Imran Khan lifted the Cricket World Cup in 1992. The sight of two of the greatest allrounders in the game competing in the finals was one to remember. It was followed by a decade of great admiration to the cricket played in the country. During those times, the biggest talking point was how the West Indies cricket has steadily fallen down. I feel the same about Cricket in Pakistan now. They will still win the odd game, trouble a few teams on their good days but structurally they are not the same.

Imran Khan is still considered to be a great leader in the sport. He was instrumental in identifying a crop of cricketers whom he coached to be greats in the sport. Apart from Mohammed Amir, there hasn’t been a cricketer since or there hasn’t been an Imran Khan since to identify the talent and nurture them. The approach used by Imran Khan has remained with Imran Khan. Since that time, it has taken two generations to the current crop of people. I consider it a failure on part of Imran to have not institutionalised this process.

Cricket is a sport but the future of the sport lies in the hands of its administrators. When Cricket in Pakistan was thriving and they were second only to an all-time great Australian team,  the administrators basked on the glory but failed miserably to create proper structures within the system which will take it few steps forward. They should have got the following signals from the team’s performance.

  1. There were quite a few glory hogs in the team. The individuals wanted to see how to make themselves great. They backed it with a lot good performances which meant these flaws were ignored.
  2. They failed to realise the transition going through in the game. Fielding and Fitness were beginning to gain more prominence than before. It was no more a question of having few good fielders but an entire team of great fielders.
  3. The selection policies continued to remain directionless. The frequent changing of captains didn’t allow anyone to settle down. The lack of focus on how to integrate a new person into the team led to a lot of insecurities.
  4. A major part of the board’s responsibility is to find ways to invest in the future of the Cricket in Pakistan. It never happened. The facilities were limited to few key centres and never spread beyond.

Another thing which happened with Pakistan was the massive influence of religion, which was started by Inzamam-ul-Haq. Pakistan cricket team always had faith but that didn’t drive cricket. Inzamam changed all that. There is a great article written by a Pakistani Journalist interviewing some officials in this regard. This was one of the reasons behind Yousuf Youhanna converting to Islam to become Mohammed Yusuf.

Lack of financial guidance to youngsters is another problem. A combination of poor selection policy and anxiety about their future has led many youngsters to make a lot of poor decisions. I can only imagine how Amir, Asif and Salman Bhatt could have contributed to the betterment of Pakistani cricket had they not been banned. Even the mature cricketers like Mohammed Yusuf at one point too the plunge with Indian Cricket League to safeguard their future.

All these points resulted in a team which lacked a fundamental understanding of the sport. The team can surprise us by winning odd matches but the underlying situation hasn’t changed.  However, I want the future generations to feel the excitement of Anwar’s flick, Inzamam’s pull, Yusuf’s cover drive, Shoaib’s pace, Waqar’s yorker or Akram’s swing. I would take one of them from Pakistan now. The sheer belligerence of the team is a big void in world cricket now.

The beautiful rocks in Putty beach

~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

A few weeks back I went to a place called Putty beach in Bouddi National Park with my family and very close friends. The beautifully coloured sandstone rocks fascinated me and I started doing some research on it. I had a whole bunch of questions.

What are these?
What is the origin?
When were they formed?
What gives it the colour?

These rocks are part of the Sydney Sandstone Basin, commonly referred to as the Hawkesbury Sandstone. Sydney sandstone was deposited in the Triassic Period in a fluvial delta. So, these rock formations date back to 200 – 250 million years, a time before our commonly known dinosaurs like T-Rex even existed. The mere thought of how the world would have been during that time is quite fascinating to think about. A water body which existed over 500 million years ago, created these rocks which subsequently went through so much transformation to result in what we saw there, a beautiful red-brown feast.

These rocks are forms of grains of sand which are quite amazing to look. The stone is porous and is supposed to act as a filter. It is made of very pure silica grains and a tiny amount of iron all held together by clay. The concentric bands of red and brown is a result of oxidation of the iron caused by rainfall. It cuts all the way through the rocks. So, it is not the colour of the deposit or the age which causes the bands, which was what I originally thought. I cannot fail to appreciate the impact of natural forces and time involved to create the beautiful sight.

The Sydney basin comprises of the igneous rocks from the Permian period(250 – 300 million years ago) and the different types of sedimentary rocks from the Triassic period (200 – 250 million years ago).

Here is an article which shares some context of what happened during the Triassic Period in general.

http://www.livescience.com/43295-triassic-period.html

In the course of understanding these, I found a lot of interesting literature available in public domain. I have given the links below for anyone interested.

http://www.blandfordia.org.au/wtdownloads/Topic%2010%20Geology%202011.pdf

Click to access G7_2.pdf

Click to access engineeringGeologyOfTheTriassicRocksOfTheSydneyArea.pdf

http://dbforms.ga.gov.au/pls/www/geodx.strat_units.sch_full?wher=stratno=8165
https://australianmuseum.net.au/the-sydney-basin

 

Don’t fight for Trump’s impeachment

~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

The investigation on Russia’s collusion with the US Election started out as an innocuous conspiracy theory and is now looming large over the White House, threatening to bring down yet another US president. Most sane people can’t understand what does this collusion conceal and exactly how it influenced the result of the election. It is also ironic when the US talks about other state actors influencing their elections when they have singularly meddled with many democratic processes in other countries. However, the purpose of my blog is not about the Russian investigation but the cry for impeachment which is going around the US Congress. I want progressives to realise that impeaching Trump at this stage could be counter productive.

Most of the base is still with Trump

Trump’s base is a set of disgruntled labourers, white nationalists, Republican loyalists and establishment sceptics. These people constituted over 40% of the population. They still believe Trump is better. They like Trump when he is on the offensive. They agree with Trump that the mainstream media is biased and untrustworthy. There is a percentage of this base which is not loyal to the Republican party.

If Democrats further their interest in impeaching Trump then this part of this voter base are going to go Republican. It will look like a very partisan approach deliberately intended to harm interests of Americans. Here is how you have to see it, every evil move of Trump is yet to see its full consequence. The American Health Act is as unAmerican as possible but the name says something else to people. Trump claims lesser costs and more jobs in all his moves even if there is no connection. It resonates with his support. Further, most of the voters don’t care about Trump or his Russian ties.

Further, most of the voters don’t care about Trump or his Russian ties. It doesn’t affect their way of life or their income. When Trump says it is made it and he does everything with America’s  best interest in mind, it is received better than what the media says.

Trump will cause more damage to Republican support

Leaving Trump alone and spreading a more progressive agenda will seriously dent Republican support. People will be able to see the truth behind the policies, they will continue to see an increase in income and wealth inequality. However, this has to be combined with a serious progressive movement, which looks after the welfare of the people.

You will get Pence

Vice President Mike Pence along with Senator Mitch McConnell are arguably the most down to earth and viciously corrupt people in the Government. The show a sense of satisfaction when millions die, they love their conservative values, they work for their donors and above all, they are profoundly corrupt. Here are some of the views held by Pence.

  1. Tight control to ensure poor, non-white don’t vote
  2. Remove abortion, women and LGBT rights
  3. Prevent scientific research which will enhance understanding of the universe or contradict the Bible.
  4. Deny climate change and give more power to fossil fuel industry
  5. Reduce taxes on the rich
  6. Remove minimum wage
  7. Deny equal rights to non-white races and non-Christians
  8. Prevent poor from getting educated

Corporate Democrats will come back

The corporate Democracts are just as dangerous as the Republicans. The centrists like Clintons, Obama are the main reason behind the current situation in the US. They have followed the neoliberal, pro-corporate, anti-labour policies which have resulted in a President like Trump. It is one step from a Donald Trump to a fascist dictator and the corporate democrats will pave way for that.

 

Marriage is not sacred

~ Venki ~ 1 Comment
The day our daughter Riya was born was singularly the most emotional day I have been through and I can take the liberty of saying the same for my wife. As this bundle of joy triggered feeling which I have never felt, it started a series of remarks which people felt obligated to tell me. During one of the family events in the next couple of days, my cousin remarked, “Hey, you have a daughter now. You need to start saving for her wedding.” I was completely put off by the comment. As much as this would sound innocuous for people who have accepted this social practice, to me it was horrible. I had to break this. I responded rather nonchalantly, “Why should I? I don’t know if she will marry. If she does will be let me know or invite me. Will she marry a boy or a girl? Will she have kids? Above all I don’t care because it is her life.” Thinking back, I could have answered it in far more acerbic fashion but the situation explains why this deep rooted social evil called wedding has become an issue. That said, it is not uncommon in India, my country of birth for the entire society to feel they have the right to get anyone married. It is definitely not considered intrusion if parents say “get married for me. I am getting old.”. 
Why is this the case? Why is marriage important? Why does it matter to parents and relatives?

History of the marriage

Marriage is one of the earliest known civil custom. It predates written history, so no one can truly understand the origin of this civil custom. However, based on the observations of fellow primates, we can definitely infer that evolution has created a need for a social mate in most of us. I always wonder how that search for intimacy and affection result in an institution called marriage. It doesn’t make sense. The answer is, it doesn’t. Here is the history of marriages and the reason the institution has to be dismantled.
Irrespective of the civilisation I read, I find some common themes on the concept of marriage. Marriage has always been executed as a trade and not as a civil partnership. Marriage is probably one of the very few social evils that outdate organised religion. For a change religion jumped on capitalising marriages only long after. Most cultures like ancient Greek considered marriage as a festival of sex. They performed ritual called Hieros gamos, which played out a sexual act through marriage between a God and a Goddess. So, here are the common themes which connect the ancient marriages.
Economics
The fundamental to marriage has always been economical. Ancient Hebrew tradition considered a wife as a property of very high value. Chanakya Neeti, written by an Indian Philosopher Chanakya who lived in 400 BC provides justification to sell one’s wife upon need. There are plenty of other examples where wealth gets transferred to either the bride’s family or the groom’s family to seal a relationship. The holy scriptures across religions always refer to the bride as someone who gets donated to the groom. It was always a transfer of deed. Just as a proof, in Hindu culture wedding is referred as “Kanya dhanam”, meaning donating a girl. Commoditisation of girls started very early in most cultures.
Blood line
From time immemorial, humans have been interested in finding the right partner to continue to blood line. There are enough evidence of ways used by societies to stick to a pattern like winner of a competition, within the same family etc. This also resulted in the a system where the mates are valued based on their blood line.
Home Labour
Another common expectation from marriage is the wife takes care of the household chores and bears children. Even ancient civilisations which claimed to have equal right for women like Egyptian, the responsibilities were limited to the doing household chores. Men always had the right to choose, and in most instances right to have many wives to take care of him. The converse is sort of unheard of in any culture.
Strategic relationships
Children were traded at a very tender age in order to maintain strategic relationships between families. Children cannot muster a defence against this hideous act committed by the well meaning parents. Over centuries this go indoctrinated and became a social norm. There are enough historical facts where royal weddings were arranges to maintain relationships between different kingdoms. Again it was a case of trading their children for social and material gains.
So, as we understand the marriage was never setup for the bridge or groom. It was for the family and the society. At this point, the stage was perfectly set for religion to take over. There were covenants around marriage now, which get controlled. They decided who can marry whom, when can people marry, what constitutes a marriage and above all why should people marry. When you mix selfish interests of people with organised faith, you create a catastrophe. That is what marriage is as an institution. Let’s look at the evils associated with marriages now.
  1. Still the women don’t get equal rights
  2. Gay people can’t marry in most countries
  3. In India alone one girl is burnt every 90 minutes for dowry
  4. It still continues to remain a massive financial burden on people
  5. It is a source of social policing and harassment

Why is marriage as an institution a legacy?

I consider marriage as an institution a complete legacy. It has not social or moral imperative. It could sound hypocritical from a man who is actually married. However as a person who is in this institution, I feel I am best placed to say it is irrelevant in my relationship. I am sure if I abuse the relationship my wife would not put up with it and the converse is true for me as well. Here are some common myths I want to break.
“It is Sacred” : There is sanctity in marriage. It is completely made up. It is a relationship between two people who like each other. There is no need of a name. If it doesn’t work, people move their respective ways.
“You need a support” : This is definitely not true. The very nature of this statement is intended to make one feel weak and incapable of helping oneself.
“You need a child” : Again procreation is not a requirement. There are enough ways to have a child and above all one need not have a child. It is not mandatory to have a child.
“Because everyone does so” : This is where it starts to go ridiculous. People have to think and not behave like sheep.
“Your faith demands it” : If someone falls for this explanation, I don’t think any amount of rationale will help. These people have already pledged their critical faculties to understand anything.
I definitely see some positive steps taken in this regard. Firstly, governments globally have started recognising relationships without matrimony. Secondly, children born out of wedlock have just as much right to be taken care as the ones born through wedlock.
In conclusion, marriage is part of a belief system which never had any utility in the welfare of a society. People do what they want irrespective of this institution. It only forced the victims to tolerate being abused by the system. I definitely believe in the principle of love, partnership, civil relationship between two consenting adults.

Future of France under Emmanuel Macron

~ Venki ~ 1 Comment

The world is celebrating the election of Centrist Elitist Banker Emmanuel Macron as the President of France. I already see the elites licking their lips and claiming a victory for centrist policies. Here is my breakdown of the election result.

Positives

Much like the US election, the choice was between the better of the two evil. Marine Le Pen much like her father is clearly a pro-fascist, racist and a very divisive person. Having her at the helm would have created a coalition of the despicables including Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duterte. That could have been a devastating news globally.

Concerns

By electing a pro-banker and a self-admitted centrist, two-thirds of France have rejected the concerns of the remaining one-third. One among three French actually thought it is acceptable to vote for a fascist. To be very precise, I am not calling the voters fascist. Just by voting for Le Pen, we can’t call all of them fascist or racist. There are deeply rooted economic and social concerns amongst these voters on their survival and future. These concerns have to be addressed if the next election has to be any better.

Challenges ahead

Emmanuel much like Barrack Obama is an outsider with non-radical views. For most of France, he was a safe bet. However, Obama’s tenure created a political environment which led to Donald Trump. On the contrary, Obama had a party and enough members representing his party in the American congress. Emmanuel doesn’t have that comfort. The opposition parties which supported him against Le Pen are going to stand up against him now. Here are the challenges he is bound to face.

i. EURO currency is not defensible

This is a separate book in its own right but Euro is not a defensible currency. Here are the key reasons.

1. ECB doesn’t act as a central bank in spite of Mario Draghi’s best efforts. Its fundamentals are deeply flawed.

2. The Euro contract is skewed a lot towards the German economic beliefs. That principle works only if you are a developmental state focused on exports.

3. Euro takes away the one big hold that states have over individuals, a currency printing press. This leaves states at the mercy of each other.

4. The Euro countries have different socio-political-economic backgrounds. It is not possible to merge with them through a common currency. It works for banks but not for people. It virtually makes Finance Ministers powerless.

ii. Wealth redistribution

The success of the French system lies in its Social Democracy. For the last 20+ years, France has followed the rest of the world with policies favouring the creation of wealth over equality and distribution. This has created a massive income and wealth inequality in France. The basic second grader problem with wealth inequality is the longer it stays, the wider the gaps gets and wider the gap gets the harder it is to bridge. France has led itself into this problem and unless Emmanuel gets them out of it, they are in for serious trouble.

ii. Investment is all is key for development

Economics is fundamental for people to understand social behaviours. When people do not have control over their lives and feel the situation is not improving, they will start to react in ways they normally don’t. The wages have become stagnant and French are running austere budgets for the last few years. This has resulted in a massive reduction of public spending / public debt as the bankers would like to refer. Public investment results in improved employability for the next generation, it reduces anxiety among citizens, it gives people security and hope for the next generation. By reducing this under the name of the deficit cuts, France as with much of the other European nations are fostering anxiety amongst people.

iv. Too big to fail banks

This might be a known story. The french banks have become too big to fail. The last known figures indicate that the sum of the private debt (classified as banking asset) by the top 5 French banks(BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, BPCE, Crédit Mutuel) is worth more than 110% of the French GDP and growing. If the banks collapse, they are going to bring French economy. Adding Euro into the mix, it gets trickier. France cannot devalue its currency. The French government cannot print currency to clean up its debt, a comfort available for most countries.

v. No field workers for the party

Emmanuel has just started the party as a movement. Now he has to create an entire organisation and fairly quickly. Even if he identifies like-minded people to run for the parliament, he still has to create a massive team of party worker to take his message through. Without a proper field strategy, his movement will lose its impact faster than he anticipates.

vi. Lack of Parliamentary support

For enacting any of his policies Emmanual needs the support of the parliament. It would be a surprise if he gets a majority in the parliament for any of his moves. The parties which supported him against Le Pen are now going to oppose him in all aspects. He is going to see the true face of political opposition, bickkering and back stabbing. Though he was the Minister of Economy for a couple of years, it is not the same as being the President without the full support of the parliament.It feels like the recipe for a stalemate.

In summary, I am cautiously pleased with the election of Emmanuel Macron. It definitely was the better choice. It also throws a huge challenge in front of the President and his soon to be elected parliament. There are some tough decision to be made and made very qucikly.

The media’s obsession with war – a way to show patriotism

~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

I try my best to avoid mocking Donald Trump but there was a recent interview on Fox News which I was unable to ignore.  I want to use that interview to showcase the sick attitude in the media.

Most critics on this interview focused on the wrong part, which is Trump’s obsession on explaining the Chocolate cake. I found a particular point quite curious. In the 8th second of the video, Mario Bartiromo the fox news interviewer asks a question “was that planned? .. because right there you are saying a reminder who the superpower in the world is….”. She says that with what I see as a condescending smirk, an expression I am increasingly seeing amongst republicans addressing the media. If you replace Donald Trump with Barrack Obama, that question could have definitely come from Jake Tapper  or Anderson Cooper of CNN. This attitude definitely exemplifies what is wrong with the media.

Every media outlet has been supportive of Trump’s strikes in Syria. They see subservience to the moral policing of the NATO forces headed by the US, the military strikes in the middle east and the regime changes across the globe as a way to prove their patriotism and also satisfy their owners who have heavily invested in arms dealers and manufacturers.

Though the reasons to support the military might could be different, the media attitude towards this testosterone-infused governance is quite pervasive across the globe. Countries like China, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Australia, the UK, Philippines have become glowing examples of military reverence. A mere act of questioning the military action is considered immoral and seditious.

Australia needs to find its Bernie Sanders or will get Pauline Hanson as the Prime Minister soon !!!!

~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

Australia has a history of picking up the global cues slowly. This has been both an advantage and disadvantage. We have never been able to be at the forefront of innovation but were never impacted by big issues either. However, I see a horrifying pattern politically, something which Australia haven’t learnt from the political turmoil in the US and Europe. Let me use an example of last week’s parliament to prove this point.

Last week, the Coalition government under Malcolm Turnbull was busy trying to pass its Tax Cuts bill in the parliament. This bill will give tax breaks to enterprises, which will be transferred to the wealthy investors. On the other hand, they debated a lot about reducing the family tax rebate. The former according to them creates jobs while the latter creates lazy people. Can you see the trickle down economic theory in action? One would expect Labour to present a valid alternative for this, but their brand of politics has become despicably bad at the Federal level.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/jobs-lost-without-taxcut-plan-turnbull/news-story/0c39ef828553734b0e94c7cf2eadb2a7

http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/workers-miss-out-due-high-business-tax-pm/news-story/bd0f07a3f88c2fd1b770e4744e38b24e

On the other hand, Pauline Hanson and her team have gone on a strike, holding the Government to ransom. She wants to address the plight of Sugar farmers. She is demanding a national code of conduct for the Industry. Her point was to stand up for the people who voted for her. For the workers in the Sugar Industry or from other industries watching this, think who will look like a saviour?

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/03/27/pauline-hanson-go-strike-over-sugar

Pauline Hanson is known for the racist rhetoric. Her firebrand anti-immigration and anti-Muslim speech has drawn a comparison with Donald Trump. However, Pauline Hanson has been running this kind of politics since 1990s and has got much more political experience than Donald Trump. My friends who have lived longer in Australia are vouching that Australians will never elect someone like Pauline Hanson. My point to them is, 8 years back no one in the US thought they will elect Donald Trump. It is no racism folks, it is economics. Distressed people will automatically move to parties which recognise their problems. The increase in senate seats for One Nation party and emergence of the Shooters, Fisher and Farmer party in Orange is all an indication of how the ground is shifting beneath our feet. The progressives have to act or risk losing the hard fought social pluralism and harmony.

How do we arrest this slide?

The conservative party is a party for the wealthy. Their philosophy is to stand up for the rich under the name of employment. They lure everyone with wealth for all and hand them over to the wealthy individuals and enterprises. I don’t see that changing as any shift from that policy will mean they will no longer be a Conservative party. I have another detailed article to break the myths propagated by these parties through magazines like Financial Review. Financial Review is made to look like the magazine for intellectuals however, it is more a propaganda machine for the liberal(a.k.a. conservative/libertarian) principles.

The alternative to that is a real progressive party. A party which stands up for the workers and collective development. I don’t see the labour party in the current form do that. It needs a movement and systemic change where they move away from centrist ideas and expose the pitfalls in the policies. They need to have policies depicting real progressive ideas and support for the population. Remember, to get elected the wealthy can give you ads but people give you votes. Australia doesn’t have Koch brothers, Walton family or Murdoch family to invest in long-term systemic deterioration of the society.

The labour party has to cleanse its leadership team and identify a fresh set of people who can lead it to the next generation. They need concrete policies which will do the below.

1. Arrest outflow of jobs

Free market capitalism works only for the wealthy. There is a continuous outflow of both skilled and unskilled labour which has to be arrested. Australian consumers are not paying a lot lesser for goods manufactured outside. Unlike the popular perception, the wealth created as a result doesn’t go to other countries but to the top 1% in Australia. This approach which was initiated by Richard Nixon helps the creditor class but is not sustainable. Every country from the US to Australia, India to China need to create jobs locally to sustain its economy.

I am not against Globalisation or distributed form of working. I like the fact that countries in a way can support each other. However, from a macroeconomic stand point, it is not sustainable unless we address it locally. One cannot shift jobs outside at the expense of the local population, without providing a viable and rewarding alternative.

2. Investment to the next rural industry

The mining boom is coming to an end. The banking on accumulated minerals or fossil fuels is not a sustainable form of development. The government now needs to look at the next big industry for the rural Australia. The investment which will take Australia to the forefront of sustainable energy, infrastructure. This means we need to look at investment in Science and Technology. This means we have to invest in building up the infrastructure for the next set of industries in making this a reality.

3. Make companies pay their fair share of taxes

Financial Times is not a newspaper it is a propaganda machine. I will break their myths later but providing tax cuts to companies will not generate jobs. Most of these companies are Australian and will not move out. They have to pay their fair share of taxes so that we address the problem of dwindling government revenue. The conservative government makes us believe that we have a debt problem and we need to cut costs. It is factually untrue.

4. Arrest inflow of Foreign investment which drives local prices higher

A moderate inflation is an indication of collective growth, however opening up markets for investment without proper regulations will lead to hyper-inflation and hyper deflation. We leave ourselves at the whim of investors. Investors love hyper-inflation as it increases their returns.

Let us take the property industry in Australia. The price has been increased dramatically by foreign investment and government doesn’t want to arrest it. It has a massive macroeconomic aspect. The creditors want the price to go up as more people will take a mortgage to finance a property. The property industry wants this inflation as it drives their bottom line up. There are two fundamental points to be noted here.

  1. The growth in property prices is not in line with growth in affordability. This indicates that the prices have been artificially inflated and is not sustainable.
  2. Unless you control it, the fall is going to be dramatic and more definitely traumatic. It is going to impact every piece of savings which people have from Super to pension funds.

I have definitely seen this trend in other parts of the world, especially Chennai where property prices increased beyond the affordability because of factors from outside. It is not sustainable.

I want people to go through the below link. There is a callousness in the explanation which has to be discussed.

http://dfat.gov.au/trade/topics/investment/Pages/the-benefits-of-foreign-investment.aspx

The two key reasons for foreign investment mentioned are

  1. Capital to finance new industries and enhance existing industries, boosting infrastructure, productivity, and employment opportunities in the process.
  2. The higher growth supported by foreign investment pays dividends for all Australians by increasing tax revenues to Federal and State Governments and increasing the funds available to spend on hospitals, schools, roads and other essential services.

The first one is a simple problem to fix. Use public debt to finance the projects. Public debt is an amazing way to generate jobs and give money back to the public, instead of using foreign money to give returns back to the wealthy. The second one is an abject lie. Firstly, the Government is reducing taxes on these investments, thanks to taxation policies and free trade agreements. The effect is a reduction is spending on hospitals and schools as seen in our budget.

5. Diversify the trade portfolio

Australia is banking on trade from very few countries, the US and China hold the majority of it. Leaving protectionism aside, Australia has to derisk its revenue streams.

I suggest people go through this link for further details.

http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/trade-investment/australias-trade-in-goods-and-services/Pages/australias-trade-in-goods-and-services-2015-16.aspx

Just on the export front the top two countries China and Japan account for 40% of Australian exports. That poses a massive threat to the Australian economy. There is a need to diversify and derisk this portfolio. There is a positive correlation between Australian economy and Chinese economy at the moment.

6. Increase budget for Health Care, Education and Welfare Schemes

When you give tax cuts to the wealthy, your revenue goes down. In order to balance the budget, you are then left with two options

  1. Devalue your currency
  2. Cut the spending on key government funded programmes.

The first one will affect the wealthy while the second will affect the common people. The choice is obvious. The axe always falls on Healthcare, education and other welfare schemes. They can easily be covered through budget cuts. Above all the damage is not felt immediately but in the next generation. These schemes are promises to the next generation which the government makes. It is analogous to me buying a house today by taking a loan hoping it will pay for me when I retire. The promise kept by the previous governments are the reason why the current crop of people is doing well. This has to be continued for the sake of humanity, collective growth and scientific development.

7. Take bold steps on handling extremism

Staying silent and blaming few people post the incident will not help allay the fears of people when it comes to extremism. It is an imminent threat and needs a secular, inclusive solution. Australia can definitely be at the forefront of handling this.  I have already detailed this in my previous article on the same topic.

Understand terrorism before acting

In Summary, time is quickly running out. People have to recognise the depression we are heading into. It is time for action otherwise, we will soon start blaming racism, xenophobia etc.  There is a dire need to act in this regard.

Wikileaks – love them, fear them, hate them, can’t ignore them

~ Venki ~ Leave a comment

Julian Assange is arguably the most famous and even the most impactful journalist of my generation. There have been some famous ones including people like Christopher Hitchens but none has been as popular globally as Mr.Assange. He has got politicians after his life, bureaucrats running for cover and progressive activists waiting for his next revelation. However, his behaviour recently has been clouded with mystery. There is a suspicious tie up between him and Trump campaign. It is fine for him to support anyone but he is too well respected amongst progressive circles to support a candidate like Trump. Then, Nigel Farage visited Assange and had a brain fade on why he did so. It was a pretty weird case. I want to break down my feel of why people feel differently about Julian Assange and why I feel his recent behaviours have been suspicious.

Timing of the DNC email leaks

This is arguably the first item which shook the US Primaries. While most of the progressive media were supporting Bernie Sanders, there was massive corruption in the primaries to ensure Hillary Clinton wins. It was kind of an open secret to people who were following it closely. However, there was no concrete weapon to fight. Wikileaks, on the other hand, was silently collecting these weapons. They could have released them any day. That could have ensured that the progressives rally to ensure Hillary did not get selected.

Wikileaks decided to release the documents on the day of the convention. It exposed the inherent bias of DNC and its chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I was happy that they released it but I wanted it to be released sooner. When asked Julian’s response wasn’t convincing. There seems to be a clear plan here against Bernie Sanders and ensuring that he doesn’t get elected. This is not free, fair and unbiased media. This feels like fair but controlled media.

Subsequent interviews on the US election

After the primaries and right through the General Election process, there was a youtube channel which hosted all the Julian Assange interviews. He continuously kept mentioning points on the establishments plotting against Trump. I could get hold of a couple for now. I agree to all the accusations on Hillary Clinton and the CIA. The surprising thread to the story was him denying knowing anything about Donald Trump. It feels like there is a deeper connection here. Did Assange decide Trump was the lesser of the two evils? If it is, does that account for unbiased journalism?

 

Meeting with Nigel Farage

There is something really crazy about the secret meeting between Julian Assange and Nigel Farage. I can’t think of anything common between the two. Nigel is a poster child of horrible ideas. Julian wants to carry the mantle of the free press and progressive ideas. What is the connection? What makes it worse is Nigel cannot remember the conversation right outside Ecuador’s embassy where he met Julian.

For people who don’t know Nigel Farage, please go through his Wikipedia link here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage

Trump talks about Obama wiretapping a day before Wikileaks releases the documents

This is another surprising coincidence. Donald Trump sends tweets about Obama wiretapping him exactly a days before Wikileaks released documents on wiretapping. There was no evidence of Obama wiretapping Trump in that and I definitely want WikiLeaks to release those documents. However, there is a strange connection in terms of timing. I am not sure how it is playing out.

In conclusion, I was and still am in favour of the free press movement of Julian Assange. They have instilled fear in the hearts of the political establishments by exposing corruption. However, it is becoming increasingly unclear to me if it is still a free press. There are a lot of questions in my head on what is brooding under the surface.

 

Understand terrorism before acting

~ Venki ~ 1 Comment

Most of us in Australia woke up on 24th Mar to the news of another terror attack in London. I have lived in the city, so I do have an affinity towards the place. It is another horrifying act of violence. I feel religious terrorism is pervasive and not isolated to just Islam. Islam has become its poster child but other religions like Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism are causing enough damage through terror. They are doing it in a way that doesn’t get as much coverage and the biased media is helping their cause.

The recent attacks showcase the grave reality of the modern world. These attacks are from the citizens of the respective countries. Some of these people have recently been converted to Islam. Most of them were moderates till a few months back. Further, they haven’t used any major weapon. The world today is more vulnerable than the last century. People are using domestic knives and cars to cause more damage than a bomb might. We cannot use traditional methods to handle this new age problem.

For the sake of this blog, I want to focus on terrorism under the name of Islam. I want to provide my unbiased view on the situation to the best of my ability. I would like to do this by first breaking the back of the popular opinions and then providing a view of my own. Most of these popular opinions have some facts backing them but they are fairly unidimensional.

Common Left Wing views

Absolve Religion

All of us would have heard or seen the below quotes everytime there is a terror attack.

“Islam is a religion of peace.”
“Terrorists don’t have a religion.”
“Don’t blame the religion. It is just a few individuals.”

These statements can help moderate the reaction but they are not factual.These statements are meek attempts to address Islamaphobia and people have started looking through these.

One can remove Islam and replace it with any other religion and it is still not true. There is no religion of peace. All religions give enough levers for people to justify violence. Be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism etc.

Blame Geo-politics

There is a lot of cause-effect relationship between most global issues and foreign policies. I acknowledge and condemn the western imperialism. However, blaming Geo-Politics alone as a reason for this masks the truth totally. For example, the last few terror attacks on western nations have all been conducted by the respective citizens. They are not directly impacted by the foreign policies but for their religious views.

Common Right-wing reactions

Divisive policies against Islam

Right wingers are waiting to come up with divisive strategies to further their dirty interests. They blame it on Islam. It is peculiar considering people don’t associate terrorism to the Christian extremism in Russia and Africa, the Hindu extremism in India, Judaism in Isreal or the Buddhist extremism in Burma and Sri Lanka. Pauline Hanson said a yesterday that “Islam is a disease and we need to vaccinate”. The problem with this approach is it tells the world that we believe only one religion is like this. It alienates moderates who are needed to reform the idea. I sincerely believe all religions are part of the same disease but isolating one over the other will not help us win the war on faith. Further, divisive strategies like this are detrimental and gives opportunity to further the divide

Pauline Hanson said a yesterday that “Islam is a disease and we need to vaccinate”. The problem with this approach is it tells the world that we believe only one religion is like this. It alienates moderates who are needed to reform the idea. I sincerely believe all religions are part of the same disease but isolating one over the other will not help us win the war on faith. Further, divisive strategies like this are detrimental and it gives an opportunity to further the divide.

Invasion

Invading countries hasn’t helped till date to handle terrorism. It has resulted in creating more extremist outfits and has destroyed families of people who were supporters of our way of life. I am not a pacifist. There are instances which demand targetted military strikes to ensure a specific mission is accomplished. For example, I am all in favour of siding with PKK to fight ISIS. Further, it exposes the hypocrisy. The government is Isreal or Saudi Arabia does nothing different from some of the other terrorist states. However, no one takes any concrete action against either of the nations.

Secondly, an invasion exposes the hypocrisy of the western world. The government of Isreal or Saudi Arabia does nothing different from the terrorist nations. However, no country ever takes action on these.

My Views on the causes

One cannot attribute the expansion of terrorism to just one reason the religion. Islam has existed for more than 13 centuries now. Terrorism of some form has existed through history and there has been a need to fight them. Here are the most concrete reasons.

Here are the most concrete reasons I can think.

  1. Islam is the latest religion to join the bandwagon of global extremism. They follow Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism to use force to spread their views. Islam is fairly new and it’s ideologies haven’t transformed yet. I look at it like like early earth. It needs time to think and calm down. The extremist views of Islam are no different from other religions, just that it hasn’t settled down yet.
  2. Economic anxieties and inequalities in wealth distribution results in the rise of fundamental behaviours. You need not go beyond rural parts of the developed nations to see an evidence of this. When people outside the USA think of the country, they only think of the east coast or California. Do people know the state of rural Mississippi? The economic issues in the state have resulted in people becoming more conservative and hold strong religious views. It has only helped the place go backwards. Most countries which act as a source of terrorism are ridden with these issues.
  3. There is a lot of anguish and disgust as people see the evidence of destruction caused by the continuous invasion of the Islamic nations. There have been atrocities committed in the past, however, it has taken years if not centuries for information to spread. Now, it is a matter of minutes. The damage caused by the wars have been captured and played repeatedly into the minds of the vulnerable. There hasn’t been a positive story to showcase the effects of the western world. This has impacted the image of the western world. The distressed people now have a way to vent their frustrations through these terror organisations.
  4. Insensitive, stupid and callous moves from the right wing parties of other religions add to the cause. When an anxious group is given weapons and more reason to be worried, they go back to the roots of survival. Comments made by people like Donald Trump, Pauline Hanson are massive triggers to the extreme group. Isolation has never created peace.
  5. Status of Women in any society determines the sustainability of any development. If you look at these nations, women are subjugated. There is no freedom of movement, speech or expression for these women. The education level amongst women is low and even when they are educated it is controlled and limited to only religious education. Every religion has empowered men and given them powers to enslave women. This has to change and in this aspect, slow change is not acceptable.
  6. The left wing and the liberal Muslim media have shied away from exposing these. They have spent most of the time defending the rights of the rest and less on the atrocities committed by the terror organisations. Television channels like Al-Jazzerra for example, haven’t done enough to expose and drive change in the Muslim world. The same media bias is true with the terrorism caused by the other religious groups.
  7. The rise of Saudi Arabia has a direct correlation with the rise of Islamic Terrorism. The Wahabi movement, an extreme form of Sunni Islam was started by   Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. This was adopted by Saudi King Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud in the early 1900s after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. He used that to further the power of his autocracy. This was contained till Saudi discovered oil. Post that discovery, the western world through all its trade deals kept pumping money into Saudi Arabia in return for oil. As Saudi grew richer so did their Wahabi philosophy. They used the money from oil to spread their dangerous philosophies which not only impacts the non-Muslims but also other sects of Muslims.

How to we handle this?

Stop bombing countries under the name of liberation

The NATO forces are currently intervening the seven sovereign countries. Most of these countries are not democratic but not all cultures are ready for democracy. If you want to liberate any group, empower them to fight the battle without actually being involved in the war.

The NATO forces combined have some of the most powerful weapons the world has seen. These cause immense damage to the civilian population and that builds more resentment to the allied forces.

The world hasn’t built a war strategy to handle Gorilla warfare. There is a reason why Che Guevara believes it to be the most evolved form of warfare. You cannot defeat it without resulting in massive collateral damage. The war in Afghanistan has lasted for 15 years but it hasn’t still successfully eliminated Taliban.

Get more moderate Muslims into the mainstream

London has a Muslim mayor now. The result is the fellow members of the community listen to him and he is seen as an example of what Muslims can become in the society. The western society needs more such people in the field of politics, public discourse and media.

Build positive stories of investment in the Muslim world

The media needs stories of west building schools and hospitals in the Muslim world. They need better infrastructure, education, jobs for both men and women. As such stories spread it will solve both the refugee crisis and above all eliminate the source of terrorism, which is videos depicting western damage. In doing all this, it is important to ensure the benefit goes to the local population.

Formulate policies for empowerment of Muslim women and education of children

It is extremely important to have local policies where Muslim children receive education and the women are empowered. The more independent the women are, the better they will be able to drive their society. These policies are intergenerational plans and the impact will be slow but steady.

Reduce dependency on Saudi

The source of the Wahabi terrorism is Saudi Arabia. They are also the reason why the western world in Anti-Iran. The funding for this comes from oil and the world needs to move away from dependency on Saudi Arabia. This will cut off the key artery for the terror funding and will organically reduce the impact.

Take UN actions against both Saudi Arabia and Isreal

It is a lot easier to acknowledge the state terrorism in  Saudi Arabia than it is Isreal. The history of persecution of Jews makes everyone feel guilty. However, I look at antisemitism and questioning policies of Isreali government as two different entities. The governments of the world have to acknowledge the impact of the Isreali occupation of the Westbank and take necessary actions to pressurise them. It should also stop providing intelligence support to both the countries. Isreal has created as much damage to the rest of the secular world through its policies as Saudi Arabia has.

Encourage and support the debates within the Muslim world

The best way for the Muslim world to learn and understand is when people come out and have healthy debates in the public space. We need to encourage their leaders to come out and discuss. This will expose both sides of their world and make people reflect on the shortcomings.

Showcase the positive impact of the Muslim community

One key item which gets ignored by the media is the positive impact caused by the Muslim community. This includes people who have dedicated their lives to public works, arts, science and social development. This inverses the present state and will go a long way in eliminating Islamaphobia.

In conclusion, faith is evil in general but the society cannot progress if we start blaming one religion over the other. I am in favour of eradication of all religions in general. Only education and empowerment of women will accelerate the extinction of this stone age belief system.