Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Nostradamus did not see this coming….

There have been quite a few prophecies in the past and the most famous among them and widely read book remains the one written by Nostradamus. Some call him genius and yet others doubt the poetic, innuendoes as they are left for the readers interpretation.

But today I intend to put forth blatantly that I foresee that US intelligence/media( the media is nothing more than a marketing tool in US society – no more does it rely on realistic journalism) will have some lead / break through / security alert announced as early as October of 2008 and this precisely will be before the Presidential elections in November of 2008.

How am I able to say this? Very simple we value our life more than anything else in this world. True to heart that is my take too. If we look at the past 10 years the government in US has made use of this vulnerability of it masses to its best advantage. The same vulnerability is well played upon the insurance industry – but that’s a completely different debate.

After the first tenure of President Bush it would have taken an electorate completely ignorant of social, economical, political and foreign policy to re-elect him. Agreed it was a closely contented race and it was hair raising experience to watch him win the very first and the second tenure.

I am not sure how many among us remember the Osama Bin Laden’s tape that surfaced from no where on October 29th, 2004 just a week before the presidential election? Why in October not November or September. The reasoning is very simple – it plays with the psyche of the electorate and even those who want political, economic and foreign policy reform, weight their options and tend to vote for a party that is pro-war in the name of elimination of terrorism. Most of the electorate is happy knowing the government is doing something to curb terrorism. Though in plain text it means invading a sovereign county and killing innocent people. Now this was 2004 presidential election.

Take the case of mayoral elections for the city of NY – Mr. Michael Bloomberg was not given a ticket by democrats, he chooses to run on the republican ticket instead. I don’t mean to under mine the $100/- per resident of New York campaigning that Mr. Bloomberg had undertaken (he is a billionaire and he could afford it), but right before the election date the city wide terrorist alert was at its peak. We saw high levels of security, sniffer dogs and random checking at all mass transit locations. Guess what? He did become the mayor, not sure how much of it was the $$$ and how much of it was purely due to the terror that was created. The millions spent on campaign were great but the red alert was the icing on the cake that sealed the deal.

These were just few of the comparisons, there are many more where this administration had used varying levels of deception to play with its mass. Today we are in peril politically, economically, credibility wise and on foreign policy. This administration has always been elusive, side tracking, and playing with the vulnerability of its people. It is human tendency that we incline to protect ourselves first. I will not be surprised if this tactics follows again in 2008 election.

Hence I predict that more sooner than later we will be tuning in to hear a very terrifying news on terrorist / Osama? his aids or something relating to these.

Which leads me to wonder who is a terrorist after all? One how creates terror or the one who is marketed as a terrorist. If it is one who creates terror – then this administration is no less a terrorist than Osama – it has played with the emotions of its own people more than once and wants to portray an image of human rights while invading and ruining counties at whim without any evidence supporting the contrary.

So look forward to a news blast soon to arrive…..
Your thoughts are welcome.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Republicans, Palin and Pro-life Prophecy.

What a long weekend it has been! from Gustav to Palin each falling short in their respective categories of hurricane and vice presidential choice respectively.

When I first heard Ms. Palin's acceptance speech - the one she gave at Washington, PA,( not the acceptance speech at GOP convention in MN) the only though that came to me was "boy she is a narcissist". Her acceptance speech was all about herself and her kids and husband. Too much yapping and goofed up talk with not much substance.

Even before I could get over the fact that her choice was purely on the merit that, one she was a woman and two she was for pro-life, came the news that she choose to give birth to a down syndrome baby. While this in itself was hard to digest we were bombarded with the news of a pregnant teen-age Palin sibling. All this with in two days of acceptance speech in PA, this was giving the Republican Party a much needed talk across America.

So lets walk over a few of Palin's conviction in life and in general what does it tell us about the future vice presidential contender.

Ms. Palin takes pride in being pro-life, and just what on earth is pro-life? The answer varies depending on the demographic the question was given to. My stance on pro-life is - yes, we should value life, the one you have been given to live in this wonderful world. But I would not want to live in a society where unwanted pregnancy is made to go through the whole term in the name of pro-life. I believe this choice is for the woman in question to make.

Pregnancy brings its own complications and changes in a woman's life in terms of varying levels hormones, ups and downs in emotions to physical changes and trying to adjust to the fact that she is going to give life to a new being. This experience in itself should be wholesome and the one that a woman looks forward to. It is enduring to say that no man on earth can match this amazing power to give life (let me correct that statement by adding .....no man can give life unless you are an Oprah Man). So I was saying, every woman wants to go through this wonderful experience. It would be lame to say an educated, career oriented woman doesn't want to be a mother, only she wants to have a kid when she is willing - physically, mentally and more important financially and above all with whomever she wishes to have this kid with.

In America teenage pregnancy is among the highest in developed societies as high as 44 in every 1000 and we have 73 million kids in this country. You do the math on number of pregnancies.

It is a staggering figure by any means. US probably is the only developed country in the world where a personal choice of pro-life, pro-choice, religious choice and last but not the least sexual orientation defines majority of it's citizen's reasoning to elect a president ( atleast the last two elections proved this like no other) rather than the over all approach of a party, on how the party works towards empowering its citizens, economics, foreign policies, providing affordable health care, revive the education system or going green.

What does a party achieve by advocating for pro-life? Let’s try to analyze this. It is a well known fact that our teenagers are sexually active as early as 13 and 12. Hypothetically let’s assume a teenage kid gets pregnant. What happens next? The advocates of pro-life will want the kid to go through the full term of pregnancy and deliver the child. Now how does this affect the society and more importantly the girl? She most likely is given an opportunity to attend a school for mothers and may be the boy who is responsible for the pregnancy does the same towards moral support. I don't see this going much further than this. Even before these teenage parents get out of their teens they would be going their own ways may be the infant ends up in foster care or is left at the mercy of grand parents or at the door step of an orphanage.

On the other hand lets suppose the teenage parents choose to be together and go through the ups and downs of life together. Most likely one of them will stay at home and the other will attend college. Let’s assume the girl stays at home and boy attends college (you can reverse the scenario too, but I assumed the general practice here). With the pressures of raising a family, work and school most likely he will discontinue mid-way. But he will be discontinuing not only school but the very chance to succeed in life, because no matter what, he will leave with a staggering student loan. Now that he has not finished his schooling it’s even worse as it will take more than a life time to repay the academic loan for an education that went futile.

Now we have a family of three (assuming they did not have any kids, for analysis lets say they practiced abstinence - its quite unlikely but what the heck )mother - a school drop-out, a baby and a father who is a college drop-out. Apart from this the family has to endure - raising living expenses, doctors /hospital bills, utilities /rent etc, Oh! Not
to forget the student loan. The very thought of a situation as this, is un-comforting and very heart breaking. But the fact remains - there are many kids out there who fall into this walk of life just for the fact that they were not given a choice in the name of religion and pro-life.

All that pro-life does, when it is forced on a society is weaken the society. The politicians know this very well and they play this song of pro-life in tune with our saga of life. It is an accepted fact that we tend to pray in the time of need, when things are not working well for us. During tiring times like these we tend to seek solace in a religious institutions, church incase of America as it being a Christian state, is where the boy or the girl will end up not able to tackle life, to be one with God and almighty that listens to everyone. Guess what, the pastor is right there waiting for you to arrive and preach his way to pro-life, Christ is the only God and marriage is between man and a woman!


Does something ring a bell? The republicans in America are very strong and rich community. But the rich republicans make for hardly 5% of the population. Hence to be in power and double their oil, armaments, pharmaceutical or any other investment profits, they need a government that protects their means and the very approach they take is by limiting the cognitive powers of the society.

The only ones who loose in this race are the common man like you and me, the evangelical have achieved their goal by converting people, the filthy rich have safe guarded their personal interests in the name of religion. But we tend to forget the scores of Tom, Dick and Harry , Marry, Anna and Terry who followed the crowd to see the twilight zone that never was and were taken for a ride. We pay the price and keep praying.

While we are asked to pray our way in and out through our misery and sorrows, every day we are made to believe to work hard and have faith. But unfortunately for us God doesn’t help the ones who do not help themselves. We are made not only to believe but also to assume that one day the bounty of the happiness & wealth will trickle down. While we wait in expectation for this to happen it is the very Halliburton’s and Exxon-mobile's and Blackstone's make their wallets heavy.

It is a vicious circle where the one with rein withholds all philosophies of life in the name of religion. You are made to believe that there is hope and light at the end of the tunnel, when the very tunnel you are in becomes your daily diasporas of your life.

Wake up and realize your dreams. Religion and state should not be combined together. One should be religious in his/her actions, but religion should never be the sole guiding factor in your life.

Hence the republicans your choice of Ms. Palin translates to the plain truth that it is not your stance on religion that you should be advocating or rather marketing. It is the public good that you can do, the harmony that you can bring in society, foreign relation that you can mend - these are the issues that matter more than morality behind the stem cell and pro-life choices.