‘Pagans’ blamed for blasphemy killings!

David Horsey's cartoon inverts the religious equation!

You got this one wrong

David, you are tracing blasphemy to people (like me) who worship rocks, trees, birds, animals, air, water, rivers, seas, mountains, fruits, sunrise, sunset, the waxing and waning of the moon, the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, tools and weapons, water and milk – in fact (and in short) everything. And we are the subject of your cartoon.

Pagans, we are called by ‘others’. Probably, you too. And no, we don’t have the concept of blasphemy. So, David you got this one wrong!! Completely wrong. We, (who are mostly called Pagans) don’t and didn’t do the killings over blasphemy! Because,

We don’t worship The One!

History of blasphemy

If you are looking at a ‘modern’ phenomenon, like blasphemy, it is the history of Desert Bloc that you must look at. Over the last nearly 2500 years. During this period, the cornerstones of ‘modern’ societies, from the Desert Bloc like One God, One Book, One Holy Day, One Prophet (Messiah), One Race, One People, One Country, One Authority, One Law, One Currency, One Set of Festivals, et al were popularized.

From this Oneness, we get the One Currency, One Language logic  – fallacious syllogisms, all. This quest of ‘Oneness’ is the root of most problems in the world – including blasphemy.

Birth of religions

David Horsey corrects himself. The Desert Bloc is where blasphemy, persecution, conversion, ethnic cleansing come from. (Cartoon by David Horsey; courtesy - sfgate.com). Click for larger image.

Modern religions are a construct of the West Asia-Middle East – and the birth place of the 3 major religions of the world. Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the Indic system, belief structure centres around dharma – धर्म.

In the last 1000 years, India has also become ‘religious’. Indic people have started describing themselves as ‘Hindus’ – a geographical appellation, apart from /Buddhists /Jains /Sikhs. ‘Modern’ blasphemy laws in India  are also derived from colonial roots of Desert Bloc origin.

The difference between धर्म dharma and religion? Major!

For one, religion is about worship. There are many other differences also – in method of worship (how you worship), object of worship (what you worship), frequency of worship (e.g. every Sabbath; five times a day, etc.), language of worship (what you say, in which language), etc.

Indic worship practices are infinite. Even non-worship to is acceptable – for instance, the Charvaka school of Indian philosophy was atheistic and did not prescribe worship. Structure and deviation from worship practices are a non-issue in Indian dharmic structure. धर्म Dharma has no equivalent in the ‘Desert Bloc’ vocabulary of religions. धर्म Dharma is the path of righteousness, defined by a matrix of the contextual, existential, moral, pragmatic, professional, position, etc. धर्म Dharma is more than moral and ethics.

Many more … and more on the way

The really big difference between religion and धर्म dharma is the holy books. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have one Holy Book each. No deviations. Indian धर्म dharma tradition has thousands which are more than 1000 years old – at last count. And some more on the way.

David, your two Pulitzers notwithstanding, you must do better than this. You cannot let your beliefs, prejudices, ‘received’ wisdom come in the way of ‘truth’.

Or your lack of knowledge!

Related articles

• The Final Testament of the Holy Bible is shocking. Shockingly bad, that is | Mark Vernon (guardian.co.uk)

Who the Gods favor … are tested first!

The mechanics of massacres

“Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius” (Kill them all, God will know his own) instructed the Abbot of Citeaux to his followers at the start of the Albigensian Crusade. And 200,000 people were killed over the next 200 hundred years in France alone.

Aggressive powers, who have used major massacres to secure their ends will need to be confronted, at some point, militarily. Apart from well documented and known military massacres , there are equally effective non-military annihilation – the Bengal Famine of 1943 being a prime example.

The encirclement of India, by UK, Norway and Australia in the climate change talks is an excellent example of pre-military preparation. The ability of the West to divert our attention with exaggerated evaluations of Chinese encirclement of India (a real threat nevertheless) – thus completely blindsiding India’s encirclement by the Anglo-Saxon Bloc, yet again.

De-humanizing soldiers

Vatican used this philosophy to lower inhibitions – amongst its soldiers. The British similarly lowered inhibitions in India with a mix of ‘rewards’ for butchery – and creating myths about their religious, racial and ideological superiority, to suppress ‘inferior’ peoples. A writer on religious and atheist matters, Austin Cline, goes further on how “the Christian Right even take advantage of tragedies” to further the ‘conversion’ agenda.

Heavily-armed members of the Blackwater fly over Baghdad on a mission (pic credit - dailymail.co.uk)

The numerous killings in the 1857 War were instigated by such announcements of rewards. In modern times, the use of such rewards have been modified. Churchill’s pronouncements about Arabs, Native American, Africans and Indians are well known to for me to repeat.

The use of the private militias, Blackwater and Halliburton in Iraq is a continuation of the same tradition. The use of American forces by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to drive out Saddam Hussein, is a similar ‘outsourcing’.

To all those who believe that the Desert Bloc has changed, need to look at the Abbott of Citeaux and this ‘modern’ poster. Same thought – but in different language, at a different point of time.

Asuras get all the boons and rewards

In Indic thought, it was always the asuras who received boons, rewards and special powers from the Indian trinity – only to loose it very soon, due to hubris. Ravana, Hiranyaksha were favored – and it was the Pandavas, Raghu Ramachandra who were sent into exile.

Before being showered by good fortune, those who the Gods favor, are tested and put through adversity first!

Header image at a Christian religious website. Old caption - "If you don't matter to God, you don't matter to anyone"! Interestingly ... the caption changed, after the message was highlighted!

PS – Sadly,

The road from Copenhagen | Ed Miliband | Comment is free | The Guardian

Stop this scaremongering! We got enough problems of our own to worry about yours!

We did not get an agreement on 50% reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80% reductions by developed countries. Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries. Indeed, this is one of the straws in the wind for the future: the old order of developed versus developing has been replaced by more interesting alliances. (via The road from Copenhagen | Ed Miliband | Comment is free | The Guardian).

Old bulldog … old tricks

President Bharrat Jagdeo. *Photo credit: thereddsite.files.wordpress.com

Gordon Brown, The British Prime Minister declared, “today, together with Norway and Australia, the UK is taking a further step to a Copenhagen agreement: publishing a framework for the long-term transfer of resources to meet the mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries.” (Paris Hilton note, who the PM of Britain is!)

More interesting was when Europe went ahead and committed funds and disbursed carbon credits. Small amounts – but nevertheless a significant step! So, what gives! How come Europe was disbursing – not serious money, but more than pocket money, without using IMF, World Bank, et al. No UN! How come?

Anglo-Euro efforts

The joint trojan operation (Norway, Australia and UK + EU) against China (or was it India?) was immaculately pursued. Bernarditas de Castro Muller, former lead coordinator and negotiator for the G77 and China in Copenhagen, writing in the Guardian of UK, reported,

The UK financed workshops in selected vulnerable countries and deployed climate envoys. One of its envoys told intransigent negotiators that the UK would mobilise a group of vulnerable countries to pressure the major developing countries – such as China, Brazil and India – into committing to emissions reductions, contrary to their obligations under the climate treaty.

The EU for example made sustained attempts to influence and pressure developing nations – something that only served to increase their cohesion. They bribed where they could, promising the same recycled financing and maybe more to come if countries bent to their demands. And they bullied when they could not bribe.

India’s neighbours, like Maldives, Bangladesh were co-opted – as were countries, led people of Indian extract like Caribbean island of Guyana, Mauritius. The strategy was to isolate China and pair India with the ‘vulnerble 14’ – like Maldives, Guyana, Bangldesh, etc. For instance, alongwith Mohammed Nasheed, Bharrat Jagdeo in Guyana, was faultlessly pursued. Long ignored and isolated, countries like Guyana suddenly found themselves in the spotlight.

Agreeably surprised, they wondered how Guyana “received a disproportionate amount of coverage and access given its size for its progressive and leading stance on climate change.” Time magazine nominated Guyanese president Bharrat Jagdeo, as one of Heroes of the Environment 2008. This year Time magazine included Mohammed Nasheed in its Heroes of the Environment 2009. It was also announced,

Stabroek News in Guyana has confirmed that President Bharrat Jagdeo has been nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to combat climate  change. He was nominated by Professor David Dabydeen, Director of the Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick.

US actor Harrison Ford and Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo at a news conference about forest protection on September 21, 2009 in New York. Photograph: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

The Commonhealth Heads meeting a few weeks before Copenhagen was supposed to seal this ‘alliance.’ Intriguingly, the French President Sarkozy joined the Commonwealth Summit, with Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen and UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon – and proposed a US$10 billion fund for climate change. Just imagine the French joining in a Commonwealth meet (a first, I would think).

Possibly it was the US efforts which made China and India stand together at Copenhagen.

Why the US did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol?

The political undertones of climate control talks are unravelling. The first major smoke signal was when the USA refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol – while talking about global warming and climate change at the same time. Sometimes puzzling and wholly beyond understanding! The lip service paid by the US to climate change can be best summarized by a Hindi idom हाथी के दांत, खाने के एक, दिखाने के एक. Meaning, elephants have two sets of teeth – one for actual use and another for show.

Cynical subversion of media, honours and public opinion

The third element in the multilateral equations set was the efforts made by Bush /Obama to get India and China to ‘get on the climate change band wagon’ with the US. The Chinese ‘unilateral’ announcement of ‘voluntary’ carbon intensity cut after Obama’s trip to China a few days before Copenhagen was a signpost of this unusual ‘alliance’. India followed soon thereafter with its own ‘voluntary’ carbon intensity cuts. One of the justifications of Bush’s nuclear deal with India was climate change.

This US master-stroke of Obama+BASIC meeting, ensured that the “only breakthrough was the political coup for China and India in concluding the anodyne communiqué with the United States behind closed doors, with Brazil and South Africa allowed in the room and Europe left to languish in the cold outside.”

In hindsight, US covert resistance to climate change was actually resistance to the monopolisation by the EU on the climate change agenda and campaign. Under the garb of climate change, EU was trying to do what US did to the world, under the garb of poverty elimination, population control, Bretton Woods in the aftermath of WW2.

What were the BASIC countries resisting

Writing from a Western standpoint, John Lee, in the Guardian, of the UK, faults China for not allowing,

“Teams of international economists, scientists, inspectors and statisticians roaming China to gather information on carbon emissions and reduction initiatives … reporting to political masters in America and Europe … (on) the further problem of cheating in current and future carbon reduction schemes.” (ellipsis and linking text in brackets mine).

The Climate Change Agreement would have delivered us - hog tied and helpless!

Ed Milliband, Britain’s Energy Minister, younger brother of British foreign secretary, David Miliband, writing for the Guardian,

“We cannot again allow negotiations … to be hijacked in this way. We will need to have major reform of the UN body overseeing the negotiations and of the way the negotiations are conducted (for this) global campaign, co-ordinated by green NGOs, backed by business … we must keep this campaign going and build on it. It needs to be more of a genuinely global mobilisation, taking in all countries …this year has proved what can be done, as well as the scale of the challenge we face. (ellipsis and emphasis mine).

Indeed much has been done.

Face behind the mask

Faceless NGOs, without accountability to anyone, were able to bring global political leadership, to the very brink of an agreement. Like Milliband’s boss, Gordon Brown remarked, “the political will to secure the ambitious agreement … comprehensive and global agreement that is then converted to an internationally legally binding treaty in no more than six months.” was very much there. The same 25,000 people (25 countries x 1000 powerful people) who rule over the G8-/OECD wanted the poor to invite these 25,000 to have undue and illegitimate oversight over our ‘poor’ lives – in the name of climate change.

The message I got ... loud and clear

To deliver more than 600 crore (6 billion) of humanity to an agreement that would have allowed the likes of the Milliband Brothers (and their NGO ‘partners-in-crime’) to pry into our lives, our affairs and dictate our very existence – with our own consent. Without recourse, with no checks and balances. With large amounts of unaccounted money at their disposal. To decide how we live our lives. Under a system, that would have re-invented colonialism, in a way wholly unknown to us earlier.

Any deal was a bad deal

Last time around, India was called the deal breaker at Doha. This time around, it is China. Who gets called, what by whom, may seems unimportant! But as my grandfather reminded me many times, बद हो जाओ, लेकिन बदनाम नहीं (Beware of getting a bad reputation).

The Guardian, goes onto say, “Only China is mentioned specifically in Miliband’s article but aides tonight made it clear that he included Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba, which also tried to resist a deal being signed.” Sadly India is not included in this list of ‘deniers’ who are, as Gordon Brown puts it, “anti-science and anti-change environmental Luddites who seek to stand in the way of progress.”

Climate control noise is just drowning out all debate

How I wish India was blamed for the failure of Copenhagen!

De-construction of climate change by 2ndlook

• Climate change – How India is falling for propaganda
• Climate Change at Copenhagen – Britain mounts a Trojan operation
• Indian cows were blamed for global warming!
• US Euro Clubs hobble Third Wold
• Climate head steps down over e-mail leak
• NASSCOM wakes after 15 months
• PR Stunts – The Maldives underwater meeting
• Indian to head Amnesty
• Amartya Sen at the Aspen Institute India’s Conference in New Delhi – WSJ.com
• Climate change – ‘Time for Plan B’ says Nigel Lawson

Climate change – ‘Time for Plan B’ says Nigel Lawson

For many bureaucrats and NGOs, it is the junkets ...

The world’s political leaders, not least President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, are in a state of severe, almost clinical, denial. While acknowledging that the outcome of the United Nations climate-change conference in Copenhagen fell short of their demand for a legally binding, enforceable and verifiable global agreement on emissions reductions by developed and developing countries alike, they insist that what has been achieved is a breakthrough and a decisive step forward. (via Nigel Lawson: Time for Plan B – WSJ.com).

The real issue

IPCC report finally turned out to have many data defects also! Apart from faulty logic ...

For the first time, in all the coverage that climate change has seen (dare I say, over-coverage), here is something that was ‘honest’, ‘open’, ‘clear’ and ‘transparent’. In more informal surroundings I would have used the word brazen.

First – He, Nigel Lawson, starts of with clearly defining that the G8/OECD world wanted “a legally binding, enforceable and verifiable global agreement on emissions reductions by developed and developing countries alike”. Awesome.

The same 25,000 people (25 countries x 1000 powerful people) who rule over the G8-/OECD wanted the poor to invite these 25,000 to have undue and illegitimate oversight over our ‘poor’ lives – in the name of climate change. While the rest of the world was pussy-footing around this issue, here we find Nigel Lawson ‘outing’ the real agenda.

Good work, Nigel.

Reaching out

Second – He was honest to  admit what his real peeve was. He thinks that the “only breakthrough was the political coup for China and India in concluding the anodyne communiqué with the United States behind closed doors, with Brazil and South Africa allowed in the room and Europe left to languish in the cold outside.”

If he can feel bad about that, we can surely feel good about it. Since, this is the season for cheer and goodwill, let me confess …

I do, at least.

They don’t want us to compete

Third – He also very simply goes to the nub of the matter.

“The reason we use carbon-based energy is not the political power of the oil lobby or the coal industry. It is because it is far and away the cheapest source of energy at the present time and is likely to remain so, not forever, but for the foreseeable future.”

And dear Nigel, we cannot allow access to India-China to get that benefit? Can we!

Creating fifth columnists

Fourth – He goes onto questioning the “2006 Stern Review, quite the shoddiest pseudo-scientific and pseudo-economic document any British Government has ever produced”. And this was the same Sir Nicolas Stern, who the Indian Government wanted to /did consult. And he does quite simply capture the debate well when he says “any assessment of the impact of any future warming that may occur is inevitably highly conjectural, depending … on the uncertainties of climate science … (and) on the uncertainties of future technological development. So what we are talking about is risk”.

We can do business with such people

Fifth – He also fires a warning shot at China and India with “The risk of a 1930s-style outbreak of protectionism—if the developed world were to abjure cheap energy and faced enhanced competition from China and other rapidly industrializing countries that declined to do so—is probably greater than any risk from warming.”

Your ‘great’ poet, Sheikh-speare, put it well. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. You want a trade war, Nigel Boy? You got it!!

Just tell us where and when!

Attempts at Western hegemony have failed

He then goes onto draw

“the outlines of a credible plan B are clear. First and foremost, we must do what mankind has always done, and adapt to whatever changes in temperature may in the future arise.

This enables us to pocket the (many) benefits of any warming while reducing the costs … Addressing these problems directly is many times more cost-effective than anything discussed at Copenhagen. And adaptation does not require a global agreement, although we may well need to help the very poorest countries (not China) to adapt …

… it is not going to be easy to get our leaders to move to plan B. (as) calling a halt to the high-profile climate-change traveling circus risks causing a severe conference-deprivation trauma among the participants. If there has to be a small public investment in counseling, it would be money well spent.

Lies ... damned lies and statistics! And then there is climate change

The speed with which the Plan B has come out means that they (G8+OECD) have given up on Plan A, which is good news. Since, their strategy did not work, what Plan B means is that they will go one country after another. Tackle them individually.

The West + Japan may make one last attempt in Mexico. If unsuccessful, they may drop the entire climate change agenda.

Which is good news.

Indian to head Amnesty

In sector after sector, Indians with links to the West have proved their worth and merit. By promoting Western agenda to Indians.

Rewards, recognition and respect followed Western funding and promotion

Salil Shetty (48), Director of the Millennium Development Goals Campaign, is set to become the Secretary-General of Amnesty International. Salil Shetty will be the first Indian to head the international secular non-government organisation.

An alumnus of St Joseph’s Indian High School and St Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bangalore, Shetty was President of the College Student Union in 1979. He did his Masters in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and went on to earn a distinction in a Masters of Science in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics.

He joined the United Nations in October 2003 as Director of the Millennium Campaign … Before joining the UN, Shetty was Chief Executive of ActionAid. (via B’lorean to head Amnesty).

Citius, altius, fortius

Amartya Sen wins the Nobel prize. For research on the Great Bengal Famine.

And what ‘research’ does he do?

He papers over the entire British policy in Bengal  during WWII – which resulted in the Great Bengal Famine.

The Congress in India, the UMNO in Malaysia and the Kenya African National Union, better known as KANU, have ignored and overlooked colonial genocides. It took a Catherine Elkins to partly unmask the killings during the Mau Mau uprising. The massacres of tens of lakhs of Indians in 1857 Indo-British War has been estimated by Amaresh Mishra’s book. The killings in Malaysia have remained un-investigated and  unexposed.

According to the official figures, Mau Mau killed fewer than 100 whites and about 1,800 Kikuyu loyalists while some 11,000 Kikuyu were killed in return. Both Elkins and David Anderson regard these figures with derision — Anderson points out that the mass hanging of 1,090 Mau Mau had no parallel anywhere in Malaya, Indochina or even Algeria, while Elkins suggests that the real number of deaths may have run into hundreds of thousands. (From The Sunday Times, January 9, 2005, Britain’s Gulag by Caroline Elkins; Histories of The Hanged by David Anderson, REVIEWED BY R W JOHNSON).

Rajinder Pachauri, head of the IPCC, which won the Nobel Prize, now similarly promotes the ‘interests’ and the agenda of the climate change lobby. Plausibly promoting, protecting the climate change agenda, to the exclusion of Indian interests.

Arundhati Roy’s became a ‘force’ to reckon with – after getting the a large advance (media reports change from 500,000 to, 1 million) and winning the Booker Prize. No prize, for guessing which country gives out the prize. Her promotion of the ‘liberal-progressive’ agenda – for instance, her Kashmir ideas keep the debate in India from becoming rational or useful to India.

Should we ‘desi’ Indians give these ‘glitterati’ so much respect, press coverage and importance?

The most elite of Indians

Today, Amartya Sen returns the ‘favour’ of the Nobel Prize  by promoting Western agenda and ideas. In the climate control debate, he proposes that India should even welcome international, inspection, audit, intervention and dictation.

Rajinder Pachauri defends the fraud of climate change. To cover up the climate change fraud, he indulges in mudslinging against the East Anglia hackers.

Arundhati Roy thinks that consigning another 2 crore (twenty million) Kashmiris into the Pakistani hell is OK – based on terrorist activities of some 2000 jihadis.

I am very happy for Salil Shetty, except for one thing. The question that springs to my ‘provincial‘ mind‘ (aka मोटी, देसी और मंद बुद्धि) is …

Is Salil Shetty joining this ‘elite’ club?

---

Related Articles

• Government admits torture took place in 1950s Kenya – Channel 4 News (channel4.com)
• Mau Mau veterans launch second round of legal action (guardian.co.uk)
• Britain should either acknowledge its many imperial crimes, or stop pretending to care (blogs.independent.co.uk)
• Mau Mau Uprising trial: Hearing begins into torture and sexual abuse allegations against British colonial forces (independent.co.uk)
• Britain admits 1950s torture of Kenyans (abc.net.au)
• Annual Report 2012 – Salil Shetty (oneislandtwonationsblogspotcom.typepad.com)

We can challenge India on Copenhagen goals: US – Global Warming – Environment – Home – The Times of India

We know how this place got so dirty

White House senior advisor David Axelrod told CNN that the Copenhagen Accord would allow US verification. “Now China and India have set goals. We are going to be able to review what they are doing. We are going to be able to challenge them if they do not meet those goals,” Axelrod said.

While this was probably intended to keep the enraged constituencies of US labour unions at bay, who had insisted that Barack Obama come back with a commitment from India and China for carbon cuts and their verification, these statements will only fuel a fire in countries like China and India. (via We can challenge India on Copenhagen goals: US – Global Warming – Environment – Home – The Times of India).

Like last time

This time around, based on similarly dubious research, India is being pressured to accept monitoring of climate change. Climate control and the Copenhagen meet is that fast growing octopus which is spreading out. It tentacles can be found in all kinds of places. One of its tentacles has reached India – which was any way the target. The Aspen Institute, India (AII).

Something doesn’t add up …

To ’soften’ up India, the AII organized a gab-fest. Who could be a good candidate for a gathering of such worthies? At least, Nobel Prize winners. Rajendra Pachauri? Al Gore? Any better candidates. Yes.

Amartya Sen – who ‘graced’ this gab-fest, hosted by Aspen Institute, India (AII) – an ‘associate’ of Aspen Institute, USA. Amartya Sen is tenderizing up the media, the academia, to accept Copenhagen outcome – which is primarily International ‘monitoring’ of India’s climate control and administration. Does Amartya Sen raise any of these questions? For his efforts to weaken Indian position and interests, Amartya Sen will soon qualify as a unique category of Indian passport holder – Non-Resident, Non-Indian, holding an Indian passport.

The AII-Board of Trustees reads more like Who’s Who of Indian industry – Bajaj, Birla, Godrej, Thapar et al.

The carbon credits ‘opportunity’

The rich fat-cats are already licking the chops. Estimates have been put out that the ‘carbon-credits business s worth Rs.28,000 crores.

Interestingly, note one thing very carefully. No one, but none, is talking up about cleaning up on pollution. No industry is being asked to reduce their pollutants (think of inks, dyes and chemicals), manage by-products (sulphur from petroleum refining), eliminate contamination (paper plants), decrease waste (electronics), recycle (just imagine the number of mobile phone batteries).

Dada Amartya, you got a memory lapse! How come you  don’t talk about any of this?

Polluter cleans – not pay

One of the fundamental flaws of the Kyoto Protocol was the principal of ‘polluter pays’. Based on retributive justice logic, it was something that was bound to fail. Instead it should have been based on the Indic justice principle – ameliorative and make good. The operating principle should have been ‘polluter cleans and does not pollute again.’

Camels … in the kingdom of heaven

Copenhagen is for the rich (from poor countries), by the rich (from rich countries) to the rich (from poor and rich countries) – and may the poor and common be damned. And one thing you can be absolutely, completely, definitely, positively, wholly sure of.

The poor will never, ever, at all, in any manner, benefit from climate control.

Copenhagen Talks End With Agreement, But No Binding Deal – AlterNet

Too much money ... creating too much of maya

Environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben of 350.org voiced his disapproval. (and) summarized what Obama accomplished:

He formed a league of super-polluters, and would-be super-polluters. China, the U.S., and India don’t want anyone controlling their use of coal in any meaningful way.

(via Copenhagen Talks End With Agreement, But No Binding Deal: So, How Screwed Are We? | Environment | AlterNet).

QED

On Aug 14, 2009, a Quicktake post wondered if this entire climate change and global warming had something to do with coal-fired power plants.

This is too close to my dis-comfort zone

Bill McKibben’s peeve does prove that this is indeed the case.

Now, coal is the cheapest way to generate electricity. Looking at the shortfall in electricity, and Indian consumers’ ability to pay, coal is the answer.

To low costs, add the fact that India has coal reserves that will last for the next 100 years – at least. But, coal-generated electricity, will also makes India industrially competitive.

And we don’t want that, do we? Right, Billy Boy!

Inside Indian bedrooms

60years ago, an assault was made by foreign ‘observers’ into Indian bedrooms. Foreign ‘observers’

1. Tied ‘development aid’ to India’s population control.
2. Trained Indian ‘health workers’ to control India’s human reproductive behaviour.
3. Paid for by Western Governments, soon after that, we had ‘health workers’ fanning out across the Indian country-side, conducting  vasectomies /tubectomies on India’s (especially poor) population.

Is this the science we are talking about?

It did not matter then, who the ‘observers’ were – foreign or Indian. Neither does it matter now. What matters is someone’s monitoring. And I don’t like that at all.

Even if the monitors have brown skins (my liking for brown skin notwithstanding). Even if it comes with a recommendation from Nobel prize winner, Amartya Sen. How Indian power producers generate electricity is our business.

Getting a handle on the Indian  economy is the second and related part of the agenda.

An agenda, I don’t like.

All that nice, fresh, white newsprint …

Wasted!

Just the amount of newsprint that has been devoted to climate change and global warming must have raised temperatures (going by the ‘warmers’ calculations and estimates) enough to make this debate of questionable value. To that add, the amount of gimmickry and media overdrive (through slick PR) that raises many doubts and questions.

Hush, boy! Do not even mention ‘scientific manipulation’.

Just look at the record.

The most prominent and vocal votary of Climate Change was Al Gore – who was promptly awarded the Nobel Prize. The recruitment of Maldives and the positioning of President Mohammed Nasheed was again a very slick operation. The underwater Maldives cabinet meeting had a interesting story.

Maldivian officials said the idea to hold the attention-grabbing underwater cabinet meeting came from President Mohamed Nasheed when he was asked by an activist group to support its “environmental day” action on October 24.

“The 350.org group asked if the Maldives can hold an underwater banner supporting environmental day,” an official from the president’s office said.

“The president thought for a while and then came up with the idea to have an underwater cabinet meeting.” (via Maldives cabinet rehearses underwater meeting).

Is this the problem?

Propping up Maldives as ‘fifth’ column was done over the last more than 20 years. Based on excellent PR and media management skills, the Maldives was the trojan horse loosed on the G77+Basic grouping.

350.org is rather well armed on the PR front – with a specific agency for South Asia itself. The PR agency for the Maldives Travel and Tourism Authority McCluskey International does  seem to either bask in reflected glory – or is hinting at the authorship of this stunt. The Maldives climate change campaign seems to be headquarted in Britain also.

Been there and done that

The hallmark of the Maldives’ climate  change campaign has been it slick PR. Dramatic statements, intriguing sound bites, the Maldives’ campaign was beyond the common bureaucratic ‘creature’ – much less a Maldives’ bureaucrat. This is consistent and in line with Al Gore’s media and public relations management – which won the PR agency, the campaign of the year award. And Al Gore the Nobel Prize.

All this is much like, how from the early 1950’s to the late eighties, the Western world created hysteria regarding ‘population explosion’  in India and China. Enormous pressures were brought onto the Chinese and Indian Governments to ‘control’ their populations.

Same game, different name! Doesn’t wash. Just like last time.

Related Posts

• Climate change – How India is falling for propaganda
• Climate Change at Copenhagen – Britain mounts a Trojan operation
• Indian cows were blamed for global warming!
• US Euro Clubs hobble Third Wold
• Climate head steps down over e-mail leak
• NASSCOM wakes after 15 months
• PR Stunts – The Maldives underwater meeting

Amartya Sen at the Aspen Institute India’s Conference in New Delhi – WSJ.com

This is what we are talking about ...

India’s approach should have been to push for what it considered to be a “fairer, juster deal” on climate change that all parties can agree to — and if that means mandatory cuts, then so be it. “To say under no circumstances will we accept mandatory restraints is ridiculous,” he said. “Our position should be we will accept a just agreement, an agreement that creates a better world.” He said he was particularly disturbed at one point during the Copenhagen deliberations to see African and other developing nations side with China on the ramifications of an increase in global temperatures and to see India on the side of the U.S. and western Europe when “we have been traditionally the spokesman of the underdog.” (via Snapshots from the Aspen Institute India’s Conference in New Delhi – WSJ.com).

Inside Indian bedrooms

60years ago, an assault was made by foreign ‘observers’ into Indian bedrooms. Foreign ‘observers’

1. Tied ‘development aid’ to India’s population control.
2. Trained Indian ‘health workers’ to control India’s human reproductive behaviour.
3. Paid for by Western Governments, soon after that, we had ‘health workers’ fanning out across the Indian country-side, conducting  vasectomies /tubectomies on India’s (especially poor) population.

It did not matter then, who the ‘observers’ were – foreign or Indian. Neither does it matter now. What matters is someone’s monitoring. And I don’t like that at all. Even if it done by a Brown.

Perverted logic

Mirror, Mirror on the wall

Who is the most dubious of them all? And Carbon emissions is a very dubious subject. Sometime back, cows (read that as India) were targetted for carbon and methane emission. Will it be Indians and human beings next? Rhetorical you think?

Australia proves how this logic works. For Australians this has become a habit. They decided recently, in Australia to kill thirsty camels. Some time back, they were killing cane toads. Before that it was kangaroos. Before that it was dingos. And before that were humans.

Like last time

This time around, based on similarly dubious research, India is being pressured to accept monitoring of climate change. Climate control and the Copenhagen meet is that fast growing octopus which is spreading out. It tentacles can be found in all kinds of places. One of its tentacles has reached India – which was any way the target. The Aspen Institute, India (AII).

To ‘soften’ up India, the AII organized a gab-fest. Who could be a good candidate for a gathering of such worthies? At least, Nobel Prize winners. Rajendra Pachauri? Al Gore? Any better candidates. Yes.

Amartya Sen – who ‘graced’ this gab-fest, hosted by Aspen Institute, India (AII) – an ‘associate’ of Aspen Institute, USA. Amartya Sen is tenderizing up the media, the academia, to accept Copenhagen outcome – which is primarily International ‘monitoring’ of India’s climate control and administration. Does Amartya Sen raise any of these questions? For his efforts to weaken Indian position and interests, Amartya Sen will soon qualify as a unique category of Indian passport holder – Non-Resident, Non-Indian, holding an Indian passport.

The AII-Board of Trustees reads more like Who’s Who of Indian industry – Bajaj, Birla, Godrej, Thapar et al.

The carbon credits ‘opportunity’

The rich fat-cats are already licking the chops. Estimates have been put out that the ‘carbon-credits business s worth Rs.28,000 crores.

Interestingly, note one thing very carefully. No one, but none, is talking up about cleaning up on pollution. No industry is being asked to reduce their pollutants (think of inks, dyes and chemicals), manage by-products (sulphur from petroleum refining), eliminate contamination (paper plants), decrease waste (electronics), recycle (just imagine the number of mobile phone batteries).

Dada Amartya, you got a memory lapse! How come you  don’t talk about any of this?

Polluter cleans – not pay

One of the fundamental flaws of the Kyoto Protocol was the principal of ‘polluter pays’. Based on retributive justice logic, it was something that was bound to fail. Instead it should have been based on the Indic justice principle – ameliorative and make good. The operating principle should have been ‘polluter cleans and does not pollute again.’

Camels … in the kingdom of heaven

Copenhagen is for the rich (from poor countries), by the rich (from rich countries) to the rich (from poor and rich countries) – and may the poor and common be damned. And one thing you can be absolutely, completely, definitely, positively, wholly sure of.

The poor will never, ever, at all, in any manner, benefit from climate control.

India, China, Brazil walk out – Copenhagen dead

In a development that took almost all observers by surprise, India, China, and Brazil walked out the plenary session of the climate summit at Copenhagen, making it certain that the summit will end in abject failure. (via domain-b.com : Copenhagen dead as India, China, Brazil walk out).

Pollutor cleans – not pay

One of the fundamental flaws of the Kyoto Protocol was the principal of ‘polluter pays’. Based the retributive justice logic, it was something that was bound to fail. Instead it should have been based on the Indic justice principle – ameliorative and make good. The operating principle should have been ‘polluter cleans and does not pollute again.’

If the ‘Developed World’ (I have no idea what that term means), made its wealth by pollution, waste and environmental degradation, do the world’s poor want that tainted money? Instead, the ‘Developed World’ should have been asked to clean up and mechanisms put in place to ensure that these ‘offenders’ do not repeat.

For, by, to the rich

Instead, Copenhagen has become a carnival where 20,000 delegates are fighting over the spoils of environmental degradation, pollution and climate hazard. The Indian Government has, of course, lost touch with Indian ideals – and are trying out their hand at Hammurabic justice.

The poor or the ‘common’ man, in whose name Copenhagen Climate Change meet is underway will not see any benefits. Copenhagen is for the rich (from poor countries), by the rich (from rich countries) to the rich (from poor and rich countries) – and may the poor and common be damned.

LatAm Bloc and GCC initiatives to end dollar monopoly

nine Latin American nations said Saturday they plan to use a new currency dubbed the ”sucre” for trade among themselves starting in January.

No sucres will be printed or coined, but the virtual currency will be used to manage debts between governments while reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar and on Washington in general. (via Leftist LatAm Bloc to Begin Using Its Own Currency).

Closely behind

Quick on the heels, was the initiative by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The Wall Street Journal reported,

A Gulf monetary council will be tasked with deciding on the peg of a proposed single currency among Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait and timeline to launch the currency …  The launch of the currency will be preceded by coordination of monetary and fiscal policies and the creation of a regional Central Bank, Kuwait’s foreign minister said … The United Arab Emirates, the second-largest Arab economy, pulled out from the project in May, citing dissatisfaction over the choice to base the regional central bank in Saudi Arabia … The U.A.E. is the second Gulf state to abandon the monetary union plan after Oman’s exit three years ago. Kuwaiti officials have said they will work toward convincing the United Arab Emirates and Oman to rejoin the project. The monetary union project, which has been in the works since 2001, has been dogged by delays and debates over technical issues such as the currency peg.

A proposed name for the GCC currency, Khaleeji, was shot down.

Half success

To start with, full and complete success should neither be expected, planned or projected. The aim should be for a ‘half-success’ – just like ‘half life’ in physics, for radioactive substances. Just like half-life can continue, technically, to nearly infinity, so also, currency systems will need to innovate and modify continuously.

What will be a half-success, for the ‘Sucre’ /GCC Currency, is if these :-

1. Last for five years.
2. Are used on at least 50% of intra-Latam /GCC transactions.
3. Currencies are regularly traded – even if, initial volumes are low.
4. Other trading blocs, banks, currency exchanges start offering futures  and options contracts, trades and settlements.
5. Initiatives ‘inspire’ other blocs to start work on another similar currency.

They got da jaundice

2ndlook had proposed a global virtual currency which would work on trading platform, based on weighted exchange value of all member currencies. The ‘sucre’ and the ‘Khaleeji’ is good first step in that direction – even if it fails. Western press has seen it with a jaundiced view.

Anything surprising with that?