Friday Double Bill - I, Of Ground Zero Mosque

A very good evening (or a very good whatever the hell your time zone is), to all the comatose readers of this blog (as evidenced by tepid response to previous post). In this edition of  LaS (i.e. Life and Something ), we will discuss the controversy surrounding, depending on who you ask, Ground zero mosque or Park51 community center, proposed in the hymietown. On second thoughts discussion is a very ambitious term, mostly because I don’t have much to say as opposed to, say greatbong. So let me make a brief remark. I don’t have strong opinion about the mosque one way or other, this is because I have no emotional stake in this particular situation, I am not an American much less a New Yorker, neither any of my near or dear ones met their ends on Ground Zero. It is possible people opposing the Mosque are really emotionally aggrieved, it is also possible that they are not enamored of Islam, a possibility which is further supported by the fact this opposition is not limited to the particular case but to any mosque in general. Now I can understand if Americans are wary of Islam, however my view regarding this remains as stated in earlier posts. If Islam is a problem to USA, denying legal rights of citizens is not going to solve it. Having said that what I find really puzzling, no make that mind boggling, is the insistence by supporter of Mosque that it actually is a step for tolerance and understanding. Now this may sound uncharitable, but the matter of fact is 9/11 was perpetrated in name of Islam, considering this, how in God’s name, construction of a mosque near to Ground zero is going to promote understanding! At best this is a case of tone-deafness, at worst however this may seem like pissing on grave of victims to many people who otherwise may not be intolerant to Islam. I suppose constructing a mosque is permitted by the law of the land, however to insist that mosque is a symbol of respect and harmony and to demand that other defer to this viewpoint is nothing short of sanction of the victim.

The PostDiluvian Creed

[This post is a result of  email exchange with Don Virmani]

Don raised an important query, one which has intrigued me for a long time. The query is this, despite the apparent contradiction in their world-view, why is left so enamored of Islam? Now  I don't have any definitive answer to that however to best of my understanding the alliance between left and Islam is similar to Molotov-Ribbentrop pact against a common enemy, the Kaffir.

That still doesn't make sense however, surely left realizes that as flawed as (according to them) capitalism (or in our case, Hinduism ) is, it is much more closer to left's vision than a life of abject terror under Islamic tyranny. Here we leave theory and enter the politics. These are just my speculations of course but they kind of make sense to me.

Conservative stalwart Buckley was dismissive of leftist projects, finding its goal of utopia on earth as absurc. He popularized a term for it immanentizing the eschaton. In my opinion he missed a much more pernicous instinct of left, I like to call it Post Diluvian instinct.

Much like Islam and Christianity, left is an inerrant ideology to its adherents, meaning it admits of no fault or incompleteness. This certitude combined with an excess of self regard makes the leftists highly intolerant towards any difference, especially when coming from (in their opinion) their intellectual inferior.

When this fanatic outlook collides with the reality of a social order based upon a differing ideology, the only conclusion open to leftist is that social order is immoral and corrupt, and only after the social order has been destroyed, a new man can rise free from the corrupting influence of earlier order. It is this new man who will be enlightened enough to recognize the historical inevitability, and thus initiate the social reconstruction as envisaged in the doctrine.

This is similar to what happened in legend of Noah. Left wants to bring paradise, but for that it first needs to bring a deluge.

A very HIMYM post

[In persona of Ted Mosby]

Kids,

Yeah I know you are not interested in finding out how I met your mother. In fact if I can be brutally frank after two seasons best described as lameass nobody really is, except for the suits, but they also killed Arrested Development, so there is that. Anyhow, this is not about how I met your mother, but a very brief comment on political strategy.


To be specific it's about the unpleasant situation that we find ourselves in Afghanistan. Let's start at the beginning in 2001 our country was attacked by people commonly described as fringe adherents to what is otherwise a religion of peace (and also of 72 virgins, with their hymen in mint condition, and not reconstructed by hymenoplasty). Understandably we decided to kick the bad guy’s ass, the bad guy being Taliban, less understandably we decided to spread some sweet democracy in the region.


Now this has proved to be difficult than we thought mostly because even as we were busy killing Taliban (and doing some collateral damage on the side) we were enthusiastically blowing dollars on Taliban’s BFF (i.e. Land of Pure) for a little striptease also known in strategic terms as frontline ally in terrorism. Now kids, trust me when I say Pakistan is the best striptease in town, it has got all the tricks under its sleeves to make sure that dollars keep on coming from its patrons. The matter of fact is, I could tell you all about it, but a brief comment simply won’t do any justice to it, so suffice it to understand it has been able to hold our “attention” for more than eight years. Now however we are having ache in our unmentionables, and therefore we are in a tearing hurry to withdraw. 


However the fact that we haven't been able to achieve anything we set out to in the first place is kind of embarrassing. We desperately need a face saving formula, luckily for Geo-politics provides us with exactly that.

In politics there are two ways to succeed. One to actually succeed (or as Whoopi Goldberg would describe it “succeed succeed”), the other is to redefine success to what was previously failure. This is what we are precisely going to do. Quite unexpectedly we have discovered that Taliban are not all bad, in fact there are quite a few gray areas lying between what we thought (and argued) were black and white. So there is good Taliban and when I say good I mean the faction which we expect will make totally insincere promises about negotiation and will observe a totally opportunistic ceasefire till the time we pack our bags and finish the job when public attention is towards a more pressing issue for example Miley Cyrus's thongs. 


And thus Team America will have royally screwed Afghanistan yet again.

Aphorism: Tragedy Of Iconoclast

And each becomes an Icon in his turn.

Aphorism: Fallacy Of Iconoclast.

I can not love abstract nor do I think can anyone else.

Aphorism: Wisdom

Growing up, whenever I read India Today, I started from front. Now if somehow I get hold of the magazine, I start from the back.

Aphorism: Man and Giant

We stand on the shoulders of giants, but the giants stand on the shoulder of mortals.