A Response - Who's Paying for Our Patriotism?

Replying to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MuktoChinta/message/14655

Related Message:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MuktoChinta/message/14640

Alamgir
Hussain Wrote:

A strange world! Mr. Reinhardt and his ilk were predicting a windfall
of huge oil-money when Bush was going
to the War in Iraq. Well, that
was the motive we were told too often.
Now the same band of pundits
seem to have changed their tone
completely. Still they have been
acting as brilliant accountants albeit,
to their surprize, counting
a "huge cost", instead of a "giant
windfall of illegal profits". Truly
strange? Or it's the pundits' display
of outstanding brilliance?

Respond to Mr. Hussain:

World is strange, indeed! Oh yeah, and it is not flat. Thank you for
acknowledging it. Neocons and their dizygotic creatures that you and
many put their (blind) trust into for various earthly or medieval
reasons (material or immaterial), is quite astounding considering the
unfolding world events and historical precedents. Don't blame the
meticulous "punditry", blame the (intentional) stupidity of "brilliant"
neocons and prejudiced ilk and visible and invisible terrorists like
them, whose blatant hatred toward the essence of humanity and
particular segments of human populations is hugely disappointing and
disheartening.

Anybody may call themselves humanists. Hitler did it too while
cleansing the Jewish populace from his pure bred kingdom. Isabel and
Fernando thought they were doing "God's" work while imposing murderous
inquisition against the "inferiors" without comprehending the meaning
and history of humanism and humanity. Here is a note from Diarmaid
MacCulloch's brilliant book "Reformation" regarding the medieval
thoughts that seem stunningly contemporary, only the geographical
aspect is changed: "Spanish consciousness was an obsession with racial
and religious identity, based on a hatred of Jews and Muslims to the
point of seeing anciently descended Christian Spaniards as a new chosen
race". (Page 44)

In the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as in previous
eras, monarchs, aristocrats, plutocrats and their paid "scholars" found
"sanity" and "modernity" in their relentless assaults against the
powerless and minorities. The engine that had driven that "peace train"
shangri-la was their intense greed, hunger for power and geopolitical
maneuvering. They baptized them with vengeful faith.

Many Muslims did the same too in their conquering eras. Reza Aslan
provides a succinct portrayal in his "No god but God":

"....quite soon after Muhammad's death, those men who took upon
themselves the task of interpreting God's will in the Quran and
Muhammad's will in the hadith -- men who were, coincidentally, among
the most powerful and wealthy members of the Ummah -- were not nearly
as concerned with the accuracy of their reports or the objectivity of
their exegesis as they were with regaining the financial and social
dominance that the Prophet's reforms had taken from them........one
must always remember that behind every hadith lies the entrenched power
struggles and conflicting interests that one would expect in a society
in which social mobility and geographical expansion were the order of
the day". (Page 68)

Throughout history, there are plenty of examples where societies have
taken disastrous decisions that led to their eventual downfall or
complete destruction. Human beings have attained intellect through
millions of years of evolution, and they know that they can achieve
huge gain by advancing their interests even if these interests seem
harmful to others. "The perpetrators know that they will often get away
with their bad behavior, especially if there is no law against it or if
the law isn't effectively enforced. They feel safe because the
perpetrators are typically concentrated (few in number) and highly
motivated by the prospect of reaping big, certain, and immediate
profits, while the losses are spread over large numbers of
individuals". (Jared Diamond, Collapse, Page 427). And if these loses
are not incurred to the perpetrators at all, the grunts are paid by the
ordinary soldiers instead, as in the case of contemporary American
military, that Mr. Reinhardt correctly described as "moral
hazard", the impetus for concocting intricate deceptions becomes
a sacred mantra for these "businessmen".

And the "modern" hooligans in the cloak of selective democracy or
medieval piety are only imitating their historical elders.

"Giant windfall of illegal profits"? Indeed!

Regards,

Sohel