Daily Archives: January 7, 2022

When, after 9/11, the neocons agitated for regime change in the Middle East, they believed that history was on their side: so they conjured up the existential threat ofweapons of mass destruction, just in case history had other ideas. More than a decade later, this tactic has found favour with a wholly different tribe: Americas liberal establishment.

Just like the neocons before them, they are bewitched by the prospect of war with an enemy they believe poses a threat to their way of life. The only difference is that this deadly menace doesnt live in some far-off land, but right at home. They might even live next door.

As The New York Times put it in an editorial last week, the Republic faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to achieve its ends. And there is only one way to survive this threat: to mobilise at every level. The NYT was, of course, referring to the attack on the Capitol last January: Jan. 6 is not in the past, were warned. It is every day.

It is hard to exaggerate the feverish excitement with which many progressives responded to the Capitol riot. While the spectacle of hundreds of Trump supporters smashing their way into one of the sacrosanct sites of American democracy generated widespread condemnation, for many progressives the dominant emotional register was one of apocalyptic disgust and arousal.

Here, finally, was irrefutable proof that they had beenrightall along: that Trumps hateful rhetoric would finally become a hateful reality. Here, finally, was a war that could give their livesmeaning. There were now Right-winginsurrectionists among them, and they would need to be fought. It was almost as if, on some deep level, they had wantedthe Capitol siege to happen.

By Edward Luttwak

Every group that spoils for war needs a wound or trauma to mobilise around. For the neocons and the liberal hawks who supported them, it was the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. That wound would take a lifetime to heal; but it was also massively generative, filling a spiritual void at the heart of American life at the End of History.

In the half-decade prior to 9/11 one of the biggest political stories in America centred on President Clintons marital infidelity with a 22-year-old intern. Was ablowjob really an act that existed outside of the realm of sexual relations, as Clinton had sought toclaim? And should his receiving them in the Oval Office warrant his resignation? In America, the period leading up to 9/11 was, in other words, one of monumental banality and puerility.

The instant the second plane hit the south tower of the World Trade Centre on 9/11 that period came to an abrupt end. America had entered, in Martin Amissexpression, the Age of Vanished Normalcy: idle talk about illicit blowjobs would no longer cut it. This was a time of war, aclash of civilisations. Such was the level of danger that we could no longer wait for threats to gather, but would need topre-emptivelyact to stop them from emerging.

It was all very dramatic and clarifying, asChristopher Hitchens acknowledged from the very start: I am not particularly a war lover, and on the occasions when I have seen warfare as a travelling writer, I have tended to shudder. But here was a direct, unmistakable confrontation between everything I loved and everything I hated. Hitchens, who confided that he felt exhilarated at the prospect of this confrontation, would soon go on to insist that it was a matter of moral principlefor the US to topple the Saddam Hussein regime. He was less rousing and persuasive on whether it was theprudent thing to do, but prudence was never Hitchenss metier.

The storming of the Capitol was to elite liberals what the destruction of the World Trade Center was to the neocons: a bracing vindication that they had been right all along, and a pretext for engaging in a battle that would give their lives a greater meaning and a chance to prove their virtue. What could be more exhilarating than taking on the historic forces of white supremacy now threatening to destroy the republic? And what could be more virtuous?

None of this is to deny the vast ideological differences between the neocons and modern progressives, the most salient of which is that the latter would never support an American-led occupation of a Muslim-majority country. Nor is it to make a false moral equivalence between the events of 9/11, where more than 3,000 civilians were murdered in carefully coordinated attacks, and the events of January 6, where the only person who was shot and killed was one of therioters.

Yet the parallels between these two political tribes are striking. So keen were the neocons to invade Iraq that they had to drastically inflate the threat-level of the Saddam Hussein regime. They did so by arguing that the threat was existential: that if Saddam were to remain in power, he would not only continue to amassWMDs, but would likely use them to attack America. It later transpired that this argument was based onunreliable evidence: no major stockpiles of WMD were ever foundand Saddams relationship with al Qaeda wasoverblown. But such was the war fever that had gripped the neocons that they were apt to ignore any evidence that contradicted their conviction.

Todays liberals are similarly flushed with ideological fervour, believing that they are in a cosmic struggle of Manichean proportions: they are the elect, the chosen ones, and they believe that their responsibility to purge all traces of white supremacy and hateful extremism is a grave one. Indeed, such is their keenness to root out white supremacy that they are apt to find it everywhere, even where it patentlydoesnt exist. They are equally apt to inflate its threat where it does exist, likecomparingthe storming of the Capitol on January 6 to the terror attacks of 9/11.

Note my use of inflate: no one would deny that there is a white power movement in the US, and there is much evidence to suggest thatfar-Right terrorismin America has increasedmarkedlyover the last few years. It is, however, important to maintain a sense of proportion: America is intensely divided right now, but the idea that the country is in the grip of aperpetual far-Right insurgency is catastrophicto a pathological degree.

In his 1989 article The End of History?, Francis Fukuyama declared that the great ideological battles of the 20th century were over and that Western liberal democracy had triumphed. This, he argued, was a good thing. But, concluding his essay, he lamented: The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk ones life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands.

More than two decades later, people in liberal democratic societies such as America enjoy a level of freedom, opportunity and material wealth unmatched anywhere else. And yet, as the response to the Capitol riot shows, they suffer from a deficit of meaning and spiritual fulfilment. This, as Fukuyama observed, fuels a sense of nostalgia for history and all its dramatic entanglements. Such nostalgia, henoted, will continue to fuel competition and conflict even in the post-historical world for some time to come.

So whenThe New York Timespublishes an editorial on how every day is Jan. 6 now, it is hard not to see this as a form of nostalgia for the kind of historical drama and contention that is clearly missing from the lives of the comfortable, Ivy-League educated, New-York based journalists who wrote it and who represent the vanguard of what Wesley Yang calls the successor ideology.Their hysteria, then, says more about themselves than the events of last year.

In hismemoir, the Vietnam War veteran Philip Caputo reflects on his motivations for enlisting in the war. Preeminent among them was the desire to prove something: my courage, my toughness, my manhood, call it whatever you like. For those Western liberals who secretly wish for animpending civil war at home, the thing they most want to prove is not their courage, and it certainly isnt their toughness or manhood, something which they would no doubt contemptuously regard as toxically heteronormative. Rather, what they desperately want to prove is their virtue even if it means engaging inirresponsible fear-mongeringand flagrant exaggeration.

Link:

The liberal fantasy of the Capitol coup - UnHerd

James, 24, Rochdale

Occupation Student

Voting record Labour in 2017; Brexit party in the European elections of 2019; Tory in the 2019 general election; Lib Dem in the most recent local elections

Amuse bouche James is adamant that nothing amusing or unusual has ever happened to him

Occupation Statutory childrens social worker

Voting record Voted Ukip once and Labour twice

Amuse bouche Is in the habit of giving gifts with her face printed on them

James I thought she was going to be one of these over-the-top liberals, where every statement is a question.

Charlotte Neither of us was what the other expected. We got on more than we thought we would.

James I had shish kebab, mango chicken and some other thing

Charlotte We basically got small plates of street food, all kinds of picky bits.

James lemon lollipops!

Charlotte James believes in small government, hes very libertarian. That comes out in a lot of different ways. He went to boarding school, a fee-paying school, so I was giving him a bit of stick. He said, No, my family arent wealthy it was a school for blind kids. My mum and dad got the local authority to pay for it. So I said, How can you say you believe in small government, then, because you would never have got that opportunity?

James I would call myself a libertarian, but Im not a full-on anarcho-capitalist. Education is different. Im talking about where the state intrudes into your life CCTV, privacy issues, Covid restrictions. The cost when it comes to people being able to maximise their economic potential and get forward in life was too high.

Charlotte I said to him, Its not just about us its about vulnerable people. And he wasnt having that. Hes a bit younger. With Covid, my life didnt change much. His education stopped, his social life stopped.

Sign up to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the magazines biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights.

James I had quite a valuable internship cancelled because of Covid lockdowns. Ironically, it was with the WHO. I felt as if the world had become single track, the only focus was on Covid.

Charlotte In lockdown, with my job, I was still in and out of peoples houses, little ones snotting and sneezing; that was scary. Early on, no one had PPE. We were told to avoid face-to-face work if possible but also: Dont wear a mask, because the kids will be scared.

James I understood that completely. Obviously some people were in a far higher-risk situation than others.

James I supported leave and Id vote leave again, but I also think Brexit hasnt been a good thing for Britain. Thats about the way the governments handled it theyve done it so badly, and its caused so many issues for the country, the labour and goods shortages. She didnt have a problem with goods shortages, because shes not a fan of massive consumerism.

Charlotte It was funny that we both voted leave. I thought I was going to meet some big remainer. With the labour shortages, wages will have to rise that was what I hoped to see. I see the EU as a capitalist institution. If somebodys more well-off, I can see the benefit. If youre on the bones of your arse, youre not going to benefit from freedom of movement.

James My ideal world would involve no borders between nations in terms of immigration. I saw the EU border system as discriminatory. There has to be a benefit to being an EU member, and one of those benefits has to be preferential treatment. Its rare I will fall out with someone over politics, because my politics are so weird.

Charlotte We agreed on statues whats the need to take them down? Nobodys saying their behaviour was OK, but these people were of their time. But then were not people with black heritage. If your ancestors had suffered in the slave trade, you might feel differently.

James Were anti-racist. There should be more explanation of context, but we shouldnt rush to take them down.

James Shes one of the closest people to my political views Ive found in a long time. We talked for so long, we went to the pub down the road.

Charlotte Were a bit nerdy were interested in stuff other people arent.

James and Charlotte ate at Bombay Brew, Rochdale

Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out more

Go here to read the rest:

Dining across the divide: I thought she was going to be an over-the-top liberal - The Guardian

Beset by a seemingly never-ending pandemic, soaring economic insecurity and inequality, widespread distrust of government, and Trumpist efforts to subvert election boards and amass power locally, the US is hurtling towards catastrophe.

Joe Bidens election victory bought time. Given Barack Obamas 2016 assessment that Donald Trump was a fascist, Hillary Clintons recent warning that Trump is an aspiring tyrant, and Bidens declaration that the 2020 election was a battle for the soul of the nation, you might have imagined that, upon achieving a congressional majority and the presidency, Democrats would have seized the opportunity to pass an emergency package of reforms to protect American democracy. Sadly, you would have been wrong.

A year on from the 6 January Capitol riots, the US seems to be further than ever from resolving its political crises. Neo-Nazi extremists are regrouping and continuing to organize. The archaic, anti-democratic filibuster stymies progress by effectively requiring a 60-vote Senate supermajority for most legislation. Rather than jettisoning the filibuster posthaste, the Democrats equivocate. As late as July 2021, Biden nonsensically defended the filibuster. It took until October for the president to cautiously support a limited exception for voting rights reforms. Only now are the Democrats inching towards rule changes that might allow them to actually get things done.

Then there was the episode with Elizabeth MacDonough, an unelected Senate parliamentarian, who torpedoed a minimum wage increase that would have materially improved millions of peoples lives, and the Democrats kowtowed to her rather than firing her. Most critically, they have failed to enact the For the People Act, a desperately needed overhaul to the creaky machinery of American politics which would enhance election security; strengthen ethics requirements for officials; and introduce voluntary public campaign financing, same-day voter registration, and automatic voter registration.

If enough of us speak up, we'll be able to protect honesty in public life.

Trumps election was devastating. I knew his administration would be disastrous. But I was skeptical of centrist hand-wringing about Trump being a wannabe Mussolini, despite reports that Trump kept a copy of Hitlers speeches by his bed and allegedly praised Hitler in 2018, as well as repeated accusations that various Trump advisers had ties to neo-Nazis. Ive studied Hannah Arendt and Erich Fromm and Theodor Adorno extensively. Ive read It Cant Happen Here and The Plot Against America. Ive watched The Man in the High Castle. Im largely immune to the rhetoric of American exceptionalism. I even analyzed political violence in Trumps speeches. Despite all this, it was hard to imagine the US succumbing to authoritarianism. The banality of evil is easy to pay lip service to; fully internalizing the idea that evil may masquerade as buffoonery is challenging.

View post:

Liberal fecklessness: The US is on a precipice and time is running out - Open Democracy

New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait was roasted on Tuesday for mocking an effort to help drivers stranded in an unprecedented traffic jam along Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia.

Thousands were stranded, or stuck in slow-moving traffic, after a winter storm dumped up to a foot of snow and toppled trees across the region Monday. I-95 was closed northbound and southbound between Exits 104 and 152 leading up to the Washington, D.C., metro area and there arereports of drivers being trapped on the icy roads for more than 24 hours, such as Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, D.

DRIVERS TRAPPED ON VIRGINIA INTERSTATE AS TEMPERATURES DROPPED DURING THE OVERNIGHT

New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait was roasted for mocking an effort to help drivers stranded in an unprecedented traffic jam along Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia. (https://twitter.com/jonathanchait)

The Reagan Battalion, a conservative group, tried to help with its verified Twitter account that has nearly 100,000 followers.

"PLEASE RETWEET," the Reagan Battalion wrote. "Stuck on the I-95 in Virginia and are in need of food, water, pampers for babies or warming supplies? Please reply with need AND MILE MARKER and well try to connect you to other drivers in your area who might be able to share some supplies with you."

NEW YORK MAGAZINE WRITER ARGUES MEDIA WORSE FOR BIDEN THAN FOR TRUMP

Chait, who claimed last year that opposingPresident Bidenwas essentially the same as supporting authoritarianism taking hold in the U.S., took the tweet as an opportunity to mock conservatives.

"The Reaganites used to believe in pulling yourself up by your bootstraps," Chait wrote to quote the Reagan Battalions attempt to help people.

(https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/status/1478397621354078222)

Chait was swiftly dragged on Twitter by users in disbelief that he would mock efforts to help people:

The Reagan Battalion eventually responded, too.

The I-95 fiasco has received national media attention, and prominent journalists have also been caught up in the mess.

In a Twitter thread,NBC News reporter Josh Ledermansaid early Tuesday morning that the "interstate is absolutely littered with disabled vehicles. Not just cars. Semis, everything. Nobody can move. People are running out of gas or abandoning vehicles."

Kristen Powers, an ABC7 reporter who also says she is stuck in the mess,tweeted this morningthat another driver told her that she "thought she was going for a 15-minute drive, so she didnt bring any food or water," but ended up being "stuck for almost 12 hours and is now running low on gas."

Fox News Greg Norman contributed to this report.

View original post here:

Liberal New York Magazine writer roasted for mocking conservative groups efforts to help stranded motorists - Fox News

The final weeks of 2021 and the accompanying surge of COVID-19 cases have led to a trend of elite liberal media figures realizing coronavirus is here to stay and life must adjust accordingly.

After nearly two years of advocating or defending various lockdowns and mandates in an effort to end the virus for good, more journalists appear to be accepting that even with effective vaccines that diminish its impact, COVID-19 is an endemic disease that can't be eradicated at any point in the near future.

CNN's Brian Stelter said on Dec. 19's "Reliable Sources" that in many media circles, there was an "acceptance" that everyone would likely be infected by the virus as the omicron variant races through the country.

"The definition of cases is changing," Stelter said. "With a highly transmissible variant, there are many, many, many cases With this inevitability about more and more and more cases, what's the better metric to be using? How should we be evaluating the fight against COVID?

WAPO'S JENNIFER RUBIN ROASTED OVER COVID ABOUT-FACE AFTER URGING AMERICANS TO STOP AGONIZING OVER CASES

"Since we're hearing about schools closing again, we collectively took action to protect the elderly in 2020. Now, shouldn't we be doing more to protect children by letting them live normal lives? Are we really going to let the kids suffer even more?"

Some conservatives who have long advocated for schools to stay open, given how far more statistically safe youngsters are from severe COVID outcomes, cried foul at Stelter for coming around to what they had been saying for more than a year. Others were grateful.

Around the same time, Stelter's colleague Chris Cillizza mourned in a lengthy Twitter thread that he had realized getting vaccinated wouldn't necessarily prevent him from getting the virus and would have to adjust accordingly.

LIBERAL MEDIA LARGELY GIVES BIDEN A PASS FOR CLAIM COVID GETS SOLVED AT STATE LEVEL AFTER SCOLDING TRUMP

"Because the reality is and has always been even if I didn't realize it that the vaccines don't, really, prevent you from getting the virus. Or, at least, they don't guarantee it won't happen," he tweeted, adding, "According to all the available data, it's doing its job (preventing serious illness and death among those infected). But it can never do what I had hoped: Ensure no one I loved will become infected. My work now is getting used to that reality. I realize I am way behind lots of other people in doing that. But, you have to start somewhere."

MSNBC's Chris Hayes had a similar realization on Wednesday, saying that for those who are vaccinated and boosted, the disease was more like a seasonal flu: not good, but also not something to scramble all of American life.

"The risk went from something that we hadnt really dealt with specifically like this before in our lifetimes we hadn't quite had an illness this infectious and this possible to cause serious illness to something that does look more like the flu. The flu of course can still be dangerous but we don't orient our lives around the flu. So that's closer to the level of risk that 200 million Americans are now dealing with," he said. The "sheer exhaustion" for Americans had altered the "politics of the pandemic," he added.

Two of the most loyal Biden White House boosters in media, MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace and the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin, had similar remarks to liberal colleagues about accepting coronavirus and adjusting how it should be covered.

"You see how difficult this is for this administration. I mean, I'm a Fauci groupie," Wallace said on Monday. "I'm a thrice-vaccinated, mask adherent. I buy KN95 masks by the, you know, caseload. They're in every pocket. I wear them everywhere except when I sit down, and I am certain that this is not a variant I can outrun."

REPORTERS MOCKED FOR BOASTING ABOUT OBTAINING COVID RAPID TESTS

U.S. President Joe Biden walks on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, Dec. 27, 2021. Biden's medical adviser said a domestic travel vaccination rule should be considered as the omicron variant fuels record Covid-19 case loads in some states and holiday travel continues to be disrupted around the U.S. Photographer: Ken Cedeno/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images

"As we recognize that covid-19 is not a deadly or even severe disease for the vast majority of responsible Americans, we can stop agonizing over cases and focus on those who are hospitalized or at risk of dying," Rubin tweeted, promoting yet another one of her pro-Biden columns that often gets Twitter love from White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain.

Rubin's critics were withering, given her past rhetoric assailing those who made similar points as not taking the virus seriously enough.

The shift appears to mirror the messaging coming from the federal government and President Biden, who pledged as a candidate to "shut down" the virus, but has seen record-setting case numbers in recent weeks powered by the omicron variant of COVID-19. While milder, the highly transmissible variant is upending American life again and breaking through even among the vaccinated, although the vast majority of those who are hospitalized and dying from the virus continues to be unvaccinated.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House Chief Medical Advisor and Director of the NIAID and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, arrive to participate in the White House COVID-19 Response Team's regular call with the National Governors Association in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus, Monday, Dec. 27, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Chief White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci stated this week that child hospitalization numbers are inflated, as kids who are admitted who have the virus are counted even if the virus didn't cause their hospitalization. Biden himself said there was no "federal solution" for the virus and many issues would need to resolved around coronavirus at the state level, a seeming departure from his earlier language for Republican governors against his policies to "get out of the way." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered its recommended quarantine time for asymptomatic people with COVID-19 from 10 days to five days, in part citing what it thought people could "tolerate."

"We're getting to the point now where ... it's about severity," Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said earlier this month. "It's not about cases. It's about severity."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

That's not to say everyone in elite liberal media circles is getting on message. Far-left host Joy Reid, who has frequently advocated for hyper-caution, disparaged Republicans as a "COVID-loving death cult," and boasted she wears two masks while jogging despite being vaccinated, mourned Friday that the upcoming College Football Playoff bowl games would be "superspreaders" and recently compared the pandemic to the "apocalypse."

See the rest here:

Liberal journalists shift on coronavirus as omicron variant surges: 'We don't orient our lives around the flu' - Fox News

On the January 5th, 2022 episode of Liberal Dan Radio we continue the recap of 2021, go over the coup/insurrection/treason of the JSixers, and more.

Those topics, Hypocrite of the Week, Words of Redneck Wisdom, and more every Wednesday at 8PM Central on Liberal Dan Radio, Talk From The Left, Thats Right.

Listening live? You can also watch on YouTube! If you are listening after the live broadcast you can leave comments on the show thread at liberaldan.com, on the Liberal Dan Facebook page, and @liberaldanradio on Twitter.

Want more Liberal Dan? Check out the Liberal Dan Radio Minicast.

And remember, you can become a Liberal Dan Radio Patreon. Support the podcast or the minicast. If you dont feel like a subscription, you can always Buy Me A Cider.

Hypocrite of the Week Music: If I Had a Chicken Kevin MacLeod

Evil Plan by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100234

Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Read this article:

More 2021 Review, The Coup, and 2022 01/05 by Liberal Dan Radio | Politics Progressive - BlogTalkRadio

While recent instances of religious intolerance and bigotry may have shocked many, data on Indian attitudes and behaviours - particularly among young people - show that these attitudes are the mainstream, and not the fringe.

For some time now, Indians have held fairly conservative views about how the country should be governed in broad terms. The World Values Survey, a conglomerate of various country-level polling agencies, has surveyed sample populations around the world on their views on various social values for nearly forty years. In the latest round (20102014), the Indian sample demonstrated a lower commitment to democratic principles than most other major countries. India, along with Pakistan and Russia, featured below the global average on the importance accorded to democracy. Indian respondents had an even lower regard than Pakistani respondents for civil rights that protect peoples liberty against oppression as being an essential part of a democracy. Indian respondents expressed greater support for a strong leader and for army rule than most other countries and the global average. The share of Indians who thought that a strong leader was very good for the country was higher than in any other country even Russia (World Values Survey, 2018).

Elections are just a waste of time. We should have a strong leader, a saintly and noble man who we can trust, and then he and the army can run the country in the right direction, Mahesh Shrihari, a thirty-three-year-old accountant based in Bengaluru in southern India, told me. Shriharis grandfather was a Gandhian who had spent time in jail during the struggle for Independence. His father, Ramalingam, had been a lifelong Congress supporter, until he discovered the anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare who captured middle-class Indias

imagination in 2013. Ramalingam then lost all interest in electoral politics. Shrihari, however, is a dedicated supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has only ever voted for him Ill discuss anything with you, he told me, religion, spirituality, science, feminism. I am up for a good debate. But I will not hear a word against Modi from anyone. That is the end of the conversation for me because I know the person is not worth wasting time on.

India ranks poorly on relative commitment to democratic principles on other international opinion polls. In a 2015 Pew Research Center global survey, the importance that the sample of Indians gave to freedom of expression was lower than all the surveyed countries but Indonesia; by 2019, the share of Indians who said that it was very important that people could say what they want without government censorship was the lowest in the world, lower even than Indonesia, and lower than in 2015. India joined Tunisia and Lebanon at the bottom of the list of countries that believed that it was important for the media to be able to report and people to be able to talk on the internet without censorship.

In 2019, India was below the median of countries that believed it was very important for human rights organisations to operate freely in their country without State interference, as compared to European nations, which valued this highly.

NGOs [non government organisations, or charities] are out to defame the country. They take money from foreign countries and from the Church and they instigate poor tribal people against the government, Manu Koda, a twenty-fouryear-old from Raipur in eastern Indias Chhattisgarh, told me. Koda, who now lives in Kolkata, studied in a missionary-run school that functions as a charity in Raipur, and when the country went under the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in March 2020, a local NGO arranged for dry rations for his mother and grandparents back home, he told me. But those were the only good ones, he insisted. His friends in college who were affiliated with the militant Hindu right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and a well-known Hindi nightly news anchor, had convinced him of the evil of NGOs. He was now part of a Facebook group that called itself Fans of [News Anchor]. Koda regularly saw pictures of NGO signboards posted there, with lurid tales of kidnapping and sex abuse in the captions. He did not need more evidence.

The country was also below the median in its commitment to the free operation of Opposition parties. India was at the bottom of thirty-four countries surveyed in the share of respondents who believed that a fair judiciary that treated everyone equally was important. Only four countries had a lower share of respondents who said that it was very important that honest elections were held regularly with a choice of at least two political parties.

Yet, Indians remain believers in their government. In a 2019 Pew survey, a median of 64 per cent across the nations surveyed believed that political elites were out of touch, disagreeing with the statement, Most elected officials care what people like me think. This opinion was particularly widespread in Europe where a median of 69 per cent expressed this view. Seventy-one per cent shared this opinion in the US. In contrast, just 31 per cent in India felt this way. Indians were also particularly likely to agree the State is run for the benefit of everyone. Most Indian respondents believed that voting gave people like them some say about how the government runs things. Indians in 2019 were among the most satisfied in the world with how democracy in their country was working.

But alongside this belief in the State comes a muscular majoritarian notion of what the state should regulate.

A study of four Indian statesGujarat, Haryana, Karnataka and Odishafound that two-thirds of respondents felt that the state should punish those who do not say Bharat Mata ki Jai, a nationalistic slogan that Muslims say militates against their religious beliefs, in public functions, and those who do not stand for the national anthem. As levels of education rose among respondents to the survey, so did support for restrictions on free speech; close to half the respondents with a college education or more supported restrictions on freedom of expression. Three-fourth of respondents expressed what the survey described as a majoritarian form of nationalism. Only about 6 per cent subscribed to a strongly liberal nationalism and a further 17 per cent took a weak liberal nationalist position. The highest proportion of respondents with this majoritarian nationalist position were those with a graduate or postgraduate education. These positions included the belief that the state should punish those who do not respect the cow, considered sacred by some Hindus, or eat beef. About two-thirds of respondents supported the view that the State should punish those who engage in religious conversion.

Younger people do not have much more progressive beliefs; a 2017 survey on the attitudes of young people found that six out of ten respondents supported banning movies which hurt religious sentiments, even more so among Muslim youth, 70 per cent of Hindu youth were opposed to allowing anyone to eat beef, and one-third of young people opposed inter-caste marriage.

This is not a liberal country, nor do most Indians likely see liberalism as a virtue. Under 17 per cent of respondents in a nationally representative survey described themselves as modernthis included just 16 per cent of the youngest respondents. A majority of all respondents, young or old, rural or urban, uneducated or graduates, described themselves as traditional (as per Lok Foundation/ University of Oxford - CMIE Lok Survey Pulse II).

There was once perhaps an assumption that education and urbanisation would automatically drive change towards more liberal values in India. But it no longer seems as if these transformations are inevitable. The education level or wealth of respondents had little impact on the likelihood of experiencing social bias according to a recent survey. Moreover, there was little difference between the experiences of rural and urban respondents; 28 per cent and 27 per cent of rural and urban respondents, respectively, indicated that they had faced social bias. These findings suggest that urbanisation and improved access to education may not automatically reduce social bias.

Extracted with permission from Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India by Rukmini S., published by Context, an imprint of Westland Publications, December 2021. You can buy the book here.

Excerpt from:

Liberals are really Indias fringe: What a new book on data says - The News Minute

Strawman- An Argument, claim or opponent that is invented in order to win or create an argument- defines Cambridge. It also defines Strawman alternatively assomeone, often an imaginary person, who is used to hide illegal or secret activity.

This Strawman argument refers to the creation of a fake and fraudulent image of the opposition in order to attack it. This is used by lazy debaters who have neither the truth nor tenacity (to debate) on their side. What they do is they stretch the opponent to one extreme and thereby create an evil out of something they personally hate and then attack it. American Journalist James Lileks referred to this as he wrote When your opponent sets up a strawman, set it on fire and kick the cinders around the stage.

Once you read this, understand the concept, you realise what Rahul Gandhi is doing by dragging Hinduism and Hindutva debate into the political equation. The strawman here is a Hindu who is violent, angry, almost Taliban-esque in the propensity to indulge in terror activities. If one looks at Rahul Gandhis tweets on Social Media and puts it in perspective, one realises that Rahul Gandhi is least concerned about the upcoming elections in UP, Punjab and Goa. When he claims that his fight is ideological, one needs to take him seriously. His object is to attack the Hindu faith, whether you call it Hinduism or Hindutva. This is an effort that started with Nehru, who still went around proudly calling himself Panditji as a Hindu. Two-generation later, son to a Parsi father and Catholic Christian mother, Rahul Gandhi has become a self-appointed Hindu pope, who has meticulously worked to create a strawman image of Hindu, in order to convince everyone to hate him and attack her.

Rahul Gandhis Hindu is an extremist. And why? Because Common Strawman is an extreme man. You need to create a strawman as an extreme man because Extreme positions are more difficult to defend since they leave little room to manoeuvre around. Savarkar is the representative of this Hindutva man, not the real Savarkar, but the Savarkar around whom a whole industry was created to make an extremist personality which will not be acceptable to any Hindu who, by nature, being the follower of a non-military religion, is tolerant and moderate.

In order to attack the Hindu faith, Savarkar is needed, an angry Savarkar. So an extremist strawman is created who can easily be defeated because his position, which is not exactly his position, rather the one thrust upon him, becomes indefensible on account of irrationality and inflexibility. Partition of India is still a scar on anyone nationalist at heart. So, Savarkar, the Strawman, is blamed to be the proponent of Two Nation Theory. This theory has gone on for way too long. It now appears to be the truth.

Not many know that the Two-Nation theory was propounded by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the founder of AMU and a great friend of the British, in 1878 when Savarkar was still a toddler. How this theory evolved from Sir Syed to Mohammad Iqbal to Rahmat Ali to Jinnah is a story for another day? The attack of Rahul Gandhi is beyond politics, it is about ideology. His attack is not on BJP or RSS. Nor is Savarkar his target.

His target is the Hindu faith which he for some reason hates. We do not know if it is because he is raised that way, or because as a Non-Hindu he hates that he has to enact the part every election. Even when Akhilesh Yadav makes nonsensical poll promises, it is based on a premise to win the election. When Rahul Gandhi uses the state machinery in a state his party rules to call a rally to protest against Inflation and ends up teaching people about Hinduism and Hindutva, wrongly quoting Savarkar, we know this man has no interest in winning the election. His objective is to destroy the Hindu faith.

Since he quotes Savarkar to define Hindutva as a vengeful and violent faith, which he says and I quote wants to beat Dalits and Sikhs (for some reason he pronounces Sikhs as Seekhs as in Seekh Kabab, possibly from some images of 1984 that his father created); let us examine what Savarkar wrote. First, let us settle that Savarkar was not the first person to coin the term Hindutva. The term first gained public attention when a writer from Bengal, Radha Kumud Mookerjee first published a book named Hindutva in 1892.

Savarkar wrote aboutHindutvain 1922. Savarkar was arrested at the age of Twenty Eight in 1910 and was incarcerated in the dreaded Cellular prison till 1921 when he was moved to Ratnagiri Prison. It was here that he wrote his book Essentials of Hindutva. As most of the work of Savarkar has been removed from public spaces, this book is oft-quoted and mostly misquoted to create the myth of violent Hindutva, blaming Savarkar and the Hindu faith for a fictional fanaticism.

The Rahul Gandhi cult claims that Savarkar said Hinduism and Hindutva are two different things. This is true. Savarkar did say that the two are not the same. But then this Congress Cult proceeds to claim that Hinduism and Hindutva are not connected and linked. This is where they lie. Savarkar in his book says Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva.The point which Savarkar seems to be struggling to make here is that Hinduism is an ism, like Leninism and Marxism, philosophy of faith. Hindutva, on the other hand, is the way people of this land live, it is their entire existence, their ethos. They two are different but are not alien and disconnected from one other as the detractors claim.

Savarkars Hindutva is a nationalistic ethos. It carries a cultural fervour, beyond religious or communal dogma. This is very critical and pertinent for Hindus even as an internal principle as the Hindu faith itself is not unidimensional, one-book faith. Hindutva has the scope to grow, expand and include a multi-dimensional society within its fold. Savarkar says Hinduness as a term is closer to the idea of Hindutva than Hinduism. Savarkar quotes the shloka from Vishnu Purana which defined the land between the Himalayas and the Seas as Bharat and the decedents of Bharat as one nation to come close to his definition of Hindutva.

Savarkar dwells into the history of the term Hindu quoting from Chan Bardai to Bhushan to Smarth Guru Ramdas, the revered saint and Guru of Chhatrapati Shivaji. Savarkars definition of Hindu is an all-encompassing definition of nationalism when he writes A Hindu is he who feels an attachment to the land that extends from Sindhu to Sindu (Sindhu River to the Oceans), as the land of his forefathers- as his Fatherland.Contrary to the claims of Rahul Gandhi that Savarkars Hindutva was against the Sikhs, Savarkar throughout the writing labours hard to bring home the point that Sikhs and Hindus belong to the same stalk when he writes that while the religion of the majority of Hindus can be called Sanatan Dharma, the religion of remaining Hindus will continue to be denoted by their respective names Sikh Dharma or Arya Dharma or Jain Dharma or Buddha Dharma.

And this is not a binding weight on the independent beliefs, it is accommodative of it. Savarkar writes thatLet the Sikhs are classed as Sikhs religiously but as Hindus racially and culturally.This kind of oneness will not appeal to those whose entire politics rest of dividing the society and the nation at large. He then turns to non-indigenous religion and acknowledges that most of the Indian Christians and Muslims come from the same parentage, and says Ye, who by race, by blood, by culture, by nationality possess almost all the essential of Hindutva and had been forcibly snatched out of our ancestral home by the hand of violence- ye only have to render wholehearted love to our common mother and recognise her not only as fatherland but even as a Holy land, and ye would be most welcome to the Hindu fold.

And a unifying figure and nationalist to a fault, Savarkar further writes-This is a choice which our countrymen and our kith and kin, the Bohras, Khojas, Memons and other Mohammedan and Christian communities are free to make- a choice again which must be a choice of love.Savarkars Hindutva is not isolationist, it is all-embracing when he writes-Let our minorities remember that if strength lies in the union, then in Hindutva lies the firmest and yet the dearest bond that can affect a real, lasting and powerful union of our people.

Now, this is a Savarkar that Rahul Gandhi and his Cult will not want you to know. Their politics started with the acceptance of the Two-Nation theory and proceeded to Hindus versus Sikhs, Hindus versus Buddhists and now Hindus versus Hindutvavadis. We must read more, understand more and know more to find real heroes and keep working towards a united nation. Those who want to break the nation in the name of identity politics must be shunned and not given an inch in national politics. They hate Hindutva because to them Hindutva represents an ancient all uniting cultural One-ness of India which transcends communal divisions. That is the reason that this Strawman must be dissected, understood and then thrown away.

Read more from the original source:

Veer Savarkar, Hinduism, Hindutva and the liberal strawman arguments - OpIndia

video,

Some restrictions are back across NSW as the state government moves to try and curb spiralling numbers of COVID-19 cases. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet announced the changes today as the state recorded 38,625 new COVID-19 cases and 11 deaths. From Saturday January 8 until January 27 singing and dancing will be banned in hospitality venues (including pubs, clubs, nightclubs, bars, and restaurants), while some elective surgeries will be postponed. Classes for singing and dancing will continue and those activities can also continue at weddings. Major events would continue except in situations considered high-risk by NSW Health. "If you have a major event planned throughout January continue as planned, there are no changes to any of those events," Mr Perrottet said. "Only in circumstances where NSW Health deems that event to be a high-risk event, then we will contact those organisers and work through the current COVID-safe plans with you." Venues are being encouraged to stop "mingling" while residents are encouraged to move gatherings outdoors where possible. Boosters will now be included as part of the mandatory vaccination requirements which are already in place for front line workers and teachers. Those who receive a positive result on a rapid antigen rest (RAT) will have to report this to Service NSW or NSW Health going forward. There will be a service available for this from mid next week. Those who receive a positive RAT result must isolate as per the rules that apply for a positive result on a PCR test. Mr Perrottet said 50 million more RAT tests were due to arrive in the state next week, with more details on distribution to come. He said modelling for hospital capacities showed that even on worst case scenario the hospital system could cope. "Today we're announcing that we will continue to suspend elective surgery for non-urgent surgeries." He said category three surgeries - those non-urgent in the next 365 days would be postponed until mid-February. "We'll be engaging with private hospital systems to help with capacity constraints over this period of time." READ MORE: The changes come into place after being signed off by the state government's COVID economic recovery committee on Friday and comes after a meeting of the committee on Thursday. The new restrictions follow NSW recording more infections in the past three days than during the entirety of the Delta outbreak. Hospitalisations were up also with another 129 patients admitted in the reporting period to Thursday 8pm, bringing the tally of COVID patients in hospital to 1738. Labor's health spokesman has welcomed a "backflip" by the Perrottet government to resurrect restrictions to battle the surge of Omicron. Member for Keira and Shadow Minister for Health, Ryan Park said on Friday reports of restrictions in venues, major events and in hospitals making a return was an "extraordinary" decision but the government needs to provide more clarification as soon as possible. The news follows other states making similar moves or moving into lockdowns this week. The Northern Territory has implemented a territory-wide lockout for the unvaccinated.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/R7sDaMurkWxVpij7Babdbr/250c85e3-57aa-46a0-a8ed-cec90185f8c7.png/r4_0_1199_675_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

WATCH

January 7 2022 - 1:30PM

Restrictions are coming back across NSW. Here is what you need to know

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/R7sDaMurkWxVpij7Babdbr/250c85e3-57aa-46a0-a8ed-cec90185f8c7.png/r4_0_1199_675_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

Changes to reporting of RAT results and singing and dancing restrictions announced.

video,

2022-01-07T13:30:00+11:00

https://players.brightcove.net/3879528182001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6290389106001

https://players.brightcove.net/3879528182001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6290389106001

Some restrictions are back across NSW as the state government moves to try and curb spiralling numbers of COVID-19 cases.

From Saturday January 8 until January 27 singing and dancing will be banned in hospitality venues (including pubs, clubs, nightclubs, bars, and restaurants), while some elective surgeries will be postponed.

Classes for singing and dancing will continue and those activities can also continue at weddings.

INSERT: NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet. Photos: File

Major events would continue except in situations considered high-risk by NSW Health.

"If you have a major event planned throughout January continue as planned, there are no changes to any of those events," Mr Perrottet said.

"Only in circumstances where NSW Health deems that event to be a high-risk event, then we will contact those organisers and work through the current COVID-safe plans with you."

Venues are being encouraged to stop "mingling" while residents are encouraged to move gatherings outdoors where possible.

Boosters will now be included as part of the mandatory vaccination requirements which are already in place for front line workers and teachers.

Restrictions are coming back across NSW. Here is what you need to know

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/R7sDaMurkWxVpij7Babdbr/250c85e3-57aa-46a0-a8ed-cec90185f8c7.png/r4_0_1199_675_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

Changes to reporting of RAT results and singing and dancing restrictions announced.

video,

2022-01-07T13:30:00+11:00

https://players.brightcove.net/3879528182001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6290379370001

https://players.brightcove.net/3879528182001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6290379370001

Those who receive a positive result on a rapid antigen rest (RAT) will have to report this to Service NSW or NSW Health going forward. There will be a service available for this from mid next week.

Those who receive a positive RAT result must isolate as per the rules that apply for a positive result on a PCR test.

Mr Perrottet said 50 million more RAT tests were due to arrive in the state next week, with more details on distribution to come.

He said modelling for hospital capacities showed that even on worst case scenario the hospital system could cope.

"Today we're announcing that we will continue to suspend elective surgery for non-urgent surgeries."

He said category three surgeries - those non-urgent in the next 365 days would be postponed until mid-February.

"We'll be engaging with private hospital systems to help with capacity constraints over this period of time."

The changes come into place after being signed off by the state government's COVID economic recovery committee on Friday and comes after a meeting of the committee on Thursday.

The new restrictions follow NSW recording more infections in the past three days than during the entirety of the Delta outbreak.

Hospitalisations were up also with another 129 patients admitted in the reporting period to Thursday 8pm, bringing the tally of COVID patients in hospital to 1738.

Labor's health spokesman has welcomed a "backflip" by the Perrottet government to resurrect restrictions to battle the surge of Omicron.

Member for Keira and Shadow Minister for Health, Ryan Park said on Friday reports of restrictions in venues, major events and in hospitals making a return was an "extraordinary" decision but the government needs to provide more clarification as soon as possible.

See the original post:

Here are what COVID-19 restrictions are back in NSW - Daily Liberal

news, world

Japan has decided to declare quasi-emergency measures in three regions in order to stem a COVID-19 surge that some officials have linked to US military bases in the country. It would mark the first such measures since September, when Japan lifted emergency controls that had prevailed over the country for most of last year. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a meeting on Friday that Japan would approve the measures, which will allow steps such as shortening the operating hours of restaurants and bars, in order to rein in surging case numbers. The infectious Omicron variant has been found in about 80 per cent of Japanese prefectures. New infections exceeded 4000 nationwide on Wednesday, compared with an average of about 200 per day last month. "There are cases where there is no history of overseas travel and the route of infection is unknown, while the Delta strain also continues to spread," Health Minister Shigeyuki Goto told reporters. "We must be prepared for the rapid spread of infection in the future," he added. The new measures, affecting the southern prefecture of Okinawa and the western prefectures of Hiroshima and Yamaguchi, will last from January 9 until the end of the month. All three regions host bases for the US military, which on Thursday announced stricter infection controls at Japan's urging after on-base outbreaks appeared to have spilled into surrounding communities. Governors of the prefectures had requested the quasi-emergency steps after seeing a surge in cases, driven by the Omicron variant. The southern island chain of Okinawa, host to 70 per cent of US military facilities in Japan, has been the hardest hit so far, in what appears to be the nation's sixth wave of the pandemic. The prefecture is reporting 1414 new cases on Friday, a fresh record and up from 981 on Thursday. "This number will likely stay high and steadily increase," said Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki, who has harshly criticised infection controls at US bases there. Infections have also been on the rise in Japan's major metropolitan areas. Tokyo reported 641 new cases on Thursday, the most since September 18. Tokyo will strengthen countermeasures by directing restaurants to limit diners to groups of four, down from eight, the Kyodo news agency reported. Australian Associated Press

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/3f219bba-45bb-4134-952b-dbec000dd068.jpg/r0_74_800_526_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

Japan has decided to declare quasi-emergency measures in three regions in order to stem a COVID-19 surge that some officials have linked to US military bases in the country.

It would mark the first such measures since September, when Japan lifted emergency controls that had prevailed over the country for most of last year.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a meeting on Friday that Japan would approve the measures, which will allow steps such as shortening the operating hours of restaurants and bars, in order to rein in surging case numbers.

The infectious Omicron variant has been found in about 80 per cent of Japanese prefectures. New infections exceeded 4000 nationwide on Wednesday, compared with an average of about 200 per day last month.

"There are cases where there is no history of overseas travel and the route of infection is unknown, while the Delta strain also continues to spread," Health Minister Shigeyuki Goto told reporters.

"We must be prepared for the rapid spread of infection in the future," he added.

The new measures, affecting the southern prefecture of Okinawa and the western prefectures of Hiroshima and Yamaguchi, will last from January 9 until the end of the month.

All three regions host bases for the US military, which on Thursday announced stricter infection controls at Japan's urging after on-base outbreaks appeared to have spilled into surrounding communities.

Governors of the prefectures had requested the quasi-emergency steps after seeing a surge in cases, driven by the Omicron variant.

The southern island chain of Okinawa, host to 70 per cent of US military facilities in Japan, has been the hardest hit so far, in what appears to be the nation's sixth wave of the pandemic.

The prefecture is reporting 1414 new cases on Friday, a fresh record and up from 981 on Thursday.

"This number will likely stay high and steadily increase," said Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki, who has harshly criticised infection controls at US bases there.

Infections have also been on the rise in Japan's major metropolitan areas. Tokyo reported 641 new cases on Thursday, the most since September 18.

Tokyo will strengthen countermeasures by directing restaurants to limit diners to groups of four, down from eight, the Kyodo news agency reported.

Australian Associated Press

Read more:

Japan imposes COVID curbs in three regions - Daily Liberal