"If suffering brings
wisdom, I would wish to be less wise."
— W. B. Yeats (Irish,
1865-1939)
Word for the day
Parapraxis (n)
A slip of the tongue or pen,
forgetfulness, misplacement of objects, or other error thought to reveal
unconscious wishes or attitudes.
Malice towards none
Will US finally have a woman
president?
First random thought this morning
Inarguably there are serious gaps in government statistics. A large
number of CSO data seems inconsistent, and incongruent with what we see on the
ground. For example, manufacturing growth does not tally with IIP numbers,
persistent decline in exports and lower railway freight tariff.
Besides, the current government has been changing the goal posts
in some cases, e.g., change in the matrix for assessing economic growth.
Some may find it to be a cause for skepticism; or even cynicism. I
do not care, as I know for sure that the inconsistencies and incongruence in
data has been a very consistent feature of government statistics, since ever.
Frankenstein monster
Martin Wolf, in a recent article
published in the Financial Times, launched a scathing attack on the leading
Republican candidate, Donald Trump. The title of the article "Donald Trump
embodies how great republics meet their end" sums up the narrative.
Wolf writes "Mr. Trump is a promoter of paranoid fantasies, a
xenophobe and an ignoramus. His business consists of the erection of ugly
monuments to his own vanity."
Wolf quotes Robert
Kagan's argument to extend his assertion. Kagan, argued in a powerful
column in The Washington Post, "Mr Trump is also the GOP’s Frankenstein
monster. He is the monstrous result of the party’s wild obstructionism,
its demonisation of political institutions, its flirtation with bigotry
and its racially tinged derangement syndrome over President Barack
Obama. We are supposed to believe that Trump’s legion of ‘angry’ people are
angry about wage stagnation. No, they are angry about all the things
Republicans have told them to be angry about these past seven-and-a-half
years”.
Wolf, goes a step further - "This is not about the last
seven-and-a-half years. These attitudes were to be seen in the 1990s, with the
impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Indeed, they go back all the way to the
party’s opportunistic response to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Alas,
they have become worse, not better, with time."
Wolf serves a reminder - "During the first century BC, the
wealth of empire destabilised the Roman republic. In the end, Augustus, heir of
the popular party, terminated the republic and installed himself as emperor. He
did so by preserving all the forms of the republic, while he dispensed with
their meaning."
Not that it matters to anyone, but I am in full agreement with
Martin Wolf on this. While I am no fan of Ms. Clinton either, I believe Trump
could be a disaster to the future of democracy itself. In fact in my view,
Chinese and other communists would be praying for Trump's victory in November
election. Because, that could potentially revive the dying legacy of Marx and
revive a worker & farmer movement worldwide.
Conjecturing about the future of democracy apart, what made me
read the article twice, was the stark similarity between GoPs of USA and India,
the two largest democracies in the world.
If Donald Trump is the monstrous Frankenstein for
the Republican Party of USA, our own Mr. Rahul Gandhi could very well be the
Bhasmasur (Hindu mythological equivalent of Frankenstein) for the
Congress Party.
Wolf further warns even if Trump fails to win GoP nomination,
"An American Caesarism has now become flesh. It seems a worryingly
real danger today. It could return again in future.
This warning in my view may be true for India also.
No comments:
Post a Comment