"If you don't know where you are going, any road will
get you there."
—Lewis Carroll (English, 1832-1898)
Word for the day
Chanticleer (n)
A rooster
Malice towards none
Unfortunately, in the name of comedy, most Indian standup
comedy artists seem trying hard to legitimize vernacular cuss words, even at
the expense of their families, especially mothers.
First random thought this morning
Budget 2017: More objectivity should be introduced in the tax
assessment process. To minimize litigation, assessing officers should be
strictly instructed not to go against orders of High Courts and Supreme Court.
They should violate ITAT pronouncement only under compelling circumstances.
Why Trump is a worry
Recently, a
standup comedian popular in Mumbai circuit, ridiculed the Indian media, and the
Indians who stay glued to it, saying that we unnecessarily bother about the
world affairs, even on issues which do not concern us at all. Election of Mr.
Donald Trump, being one of the even cited in support of his point.
While accepting the comical spirit of his act, and regardless of
the eccentricities of Mr. Trump, I feel it would be ominous for us to ignore
the changes that are taking place in global social, economic and political
spheres. These changes, in my view, are not ephemeral by any means. They are in
fact of far reaching consequences, and could very well result in dramatic
changes in the global order that we today, rather quickly.
Noted columnist and author, Martin Wolf, in an article published
last year (see
here), had launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump. The title of the
article "Donald Trump embodies how great republics meet their end"
summed up the narrative.
Wolf portended "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 quoted Robert
Kagan's argument to extend his assertion. Kagan, had 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”.
Going many steps further, Wolf cautioned - "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."
Serving a stark reminder, Wolf said, - "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."
I mostly endorse these views. I believe that vote for Brexit and
election of Trump are material events in the history of democracy. The
elections in Germany, France, Italy this summer may create the Watershed. A
repeat of US and UK verdicts there might create, rather precipitately, deep
fissures in the global society. Trade & commerce that has bound the
disparate ideologies together since WWII.
I shall share my thoughts on this in few days.
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