Category Archives: Politics

CIA has India surpassing Europe in 15 years

Posted on by

A new CIA report titled ‘Mapping the Global Future’ projects that India will overtake major European countries by GDP within 15 years:

By 2020, China’s gross domestic product, the total value of goods and services, will be greater than that of any Western country except the United States, and India’s GDP will have overtaken or will be about to overtake European economies.

The National Intelligence Council, a division of the CIA, makes some very interesting comparisons:

… the NIC said China and India, probably along with Brazil and Indonesia, should emerge as “new major global players,” comparing their expected impact to that of a united Germany in the 19th century and the United States in the early 20th century. “In the same way that commentators refer to the 1900s as the ‘American Century,’ the 21st century may be seen as the time when Asia, led by China and India, comes into its own…”

The NIC is confident in its projections:

“Barring an abrupt reversal of the process of globalization or any major upheavals in these countries, the rise of these new powers (China and India) is a virtual certainty,” it predicted.

There will be a geopolitical realignment…

As India’s economy grows, governments in Southeast Asia — Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and other countries — may move closer to India to help build a potential geopolitical counterweight to China, it said… Dubbing China, India, and perhaps others such as Brazil and Indonesia, as ‘arriviste’ powers, the report said they “have the potential to render obsolete the old categories of East and West, North and South, aligned and nonaligned, developed and developing.”

Continue reading →

I will not allow you to make us hypocrites.

Posted on by

I think I speak for all Mutineers and rational humans when I ask for your civility here. We are ALL outraged, but we’re trying to act constructively. Hate speech is NOT constructive, nor is it welcome on this site. That doesn’t mean that we’re censoring you, telling you to take it like a bitch or turn the other cheek.

We do appreciate irreverent, funny commentary…

But RACISM and BIGOTRY are neither of those things. If you have something to say, please feel FREE to say it. If, however, it’s homophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Hindu, anti-Black, anti-Amreekan, …please start your own blog and spew venom there.

You don’t fight hate with hate; you fight it with righteous indignation, moral superiority and passionate activism.

We will delete hate speech.

This project was created for many noble reasons; the content of certain comments does not honour those beginnings at all, indeed, it makes us sound like hypocrites who don’t deserve the victories we are struggling for.

If we want respect, not only must we demand it, we must conduct ourselves with it as well.

Be the change you wish to see.

Thank you. Continue reading →

Religious Illiteracy

Posted on by

Boston University professor Stephen Prothero writes a pretty acerbic commentary today in the Los Angeles Times:

The sociologist Peter Berger once remarked that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least, then the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes. Not anymore. With a Jesus lover in the Oval Office and a faith-based party in control of both houses of Congress, the United States is undeniably a nation of believers ruled by the same.

Things are different in Europe, and not just in Sweden. The Dutch are four times less likely than Americans to believe in miracles, hell and biblical inerrancy. The euro does not trust in God. But here is the paradox: Although Americans are far more religious than Europeans, they know far less about religion.

In Europe, religious education is the rule from the elementary grades on. So Austrians, Norwegians and the Irish can tell you about the Seven Deadly Sins or the Five Pillars of Islam. But, according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels, and 12% think Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc. That paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in Scripture but that can’t be bothered to read what he has to say.

I can’t argue with any of the main points in his commentary. I’m not sure what his agenda is though. Is he being critical of religious ignorance because of its deleterious effects on society, or because he wants people to become more religious?

A few days after 9/11, a turbaned Indian American man was shot and killed in Arizona by a bigot who believed the man’s dress marked him as a Muslim. But what killed Balbir Singh Sodhi (who was not a Muslim but a Sikh) was not so much bigotry as ignorance. The moral of his story is not just that we need more tolerance. It is that Americans — of both the religious and the secular variety — need to understand religion. Resolving in 2005 to read for yourself either the Bible or the Koran (or both) might not be a bad place to start.

I’ll take that advice.

Power99 teaches Weaseling 101

Posted on by

Power99’s response to their racist broadcast controversy is a textbook example of corporate weaseling. First, they told the press that the real problem was that they got caught — that they posted the audio clip to their Web site. Then they ducked responsibility by saying the complaints are coming from non-African Americans (duh) and non-Philadelphians.

As pressure mounted, they buried a Web apology on the bottom of the second screen, well below the fold, and refused to apologize on air. And they simply changed the date of an already-planned radiothon and tried to pass it off as a DJ ‘suspension’:

On Wednesday morning, the station broadcast a radiothon for tsunami victims in place of Star and Bucwild. The radiothon was previously scheduled and was only advanced to the show’s slot, Morill said.

Here’s the text of the apology:

The Star & Buc Wild Show prides itself on walking on the edge. On December 15th, we crossed it. We know the pain racial slurs cause and apologize that this comedy segment went too far.

At the same time, it’s also become clear that the abuse of call center workers is more widespread. Check out the Is Your Job Going Offshore? forums (via Times of India):

“… we’re up and running with our call campaign against the BP Motor Club. There are three of us calling on a daily basis to express our displeasure with oursourcing [sic] to the Indian phone center workers. There’s room for you!… Usually, I limit the calls to 60 seconds anyway, so I can call back and really hammer them. I’ve been doing this about 20 minutes a day. It’s great fun!”

Because that’s the rational thing to do when you’re jobless: spend your unemployment benefits on phone calls to India.

Continue reading →

Ain’t this some BULLSH…

Posted on by

How you livin’, readers? Are you fine? Or are you just okay? More importantly, has your ire gone away?

Well get ready, I’m about to stir it up again. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

WUSL-FM (Power 99) conceded yesterday that an on-air routine by morning shock jocks Star and Buc Wild was “racially inflammatory” and pulled an audio clip of it off the station Web site.
Community-affairs director Loraine Ballard Morrill, who has fielded more than 130 angry e-mails and phone calls, said the station reprimanded the employee who posted the clip on the Web…

Please understand– I’m THRILLED that mainstream media is picking up on this very important story. I’m also heartened by the fact that Power99 is…um…starting to pay attention.

They are partially correct; the employee who chose to post that clip on the Power99 site wasn’t wise to do so, and it is nice to see the station doing…something.

But something is not enough.

Power99 “conceded”? I don’t need concessions, I need responsibility. Honour. Integrity. If Loraine Ballard Morrill was the ideal Community Affairs Director, she’d sincerely own the station’s gaffe, she’d get it, she’d make amends. But nothing regarding this incident is ideal… Continue reading →

Going to plan B

Posted on by

Indians are routing around their ineffectual local governments:

Fareed Zakaria agrees in Newsweek that India really feels like a boomtown right now… Tired of waiting for the government, some desis are running parallel local services…

There’s little regulation by private tort… because the courts take 30 years to resolve cases. So you see exposed wires hanging from strip mall ceilings, parking lots using barbed wire at toddler level and outdoor barbers using straight razors. You still risk stomach upset or worse by eating food from unlicensed street vendors, which makes you want to just shake the local babus and say, ‘Come on, guys, this is just so basic. Nothing should come between me and my kachoris…’

I have new respect for government regulation of food, transportation safety and public health. If ‘there are no atheists in foxholes,’ I’d add that there are no pure libertarians in developing nations. If ‘no revolution on empty bellies,’ I’d say that libertarianism is uniquely a rich person’s vice 🙂

Because the legal system doesn’t work, it forces people to turn to the parallel legal system, gangsters. Any time you see a country with a parallel legal system, a parallel black economy, parallel power generation and parallel street sweeping, you know its government is dysfunctional.

Read the full piece.

Protecting the Homeland

Posted on by

Days after being sworn in to office, Bobby Jindal has received his congressional committee assignments. Chief amongst them will be his presence on the Homeland Security Committee, which is a newly created one. From Sunnetwork.org:

“I am thrilled by my committee assignments,” Jindal, only the second Indian American to be elected to the US House of Representatives, said after receiving his official committee assignments yesterday. “I have been given three great opportunities and in each capacity I will have the chance to hear and weigh-in on issues of great importance to this country and the people of Louisiana” (his contituency).

“In this post 9/11 world, there is nothing more important than ensuring the safety of America and Americans,” Jindal said. “We need to make sure America is a country where our children don’t have to grow up and live in fear of terrorism.”

His other assignments include the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Resources. These assignments took me by surprise considering the fact the Jindal has been known mostly for his healthcare expertise (best applied to the Health Committee). An assignment on a prominent committee probably means that the “Big Tent” party will be grooming him for high visibility.

Stand up. For all of us.

Posted on by

Richard Lewis & Thea Mitchem
Power99 WUSL-FM
440 Domino Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19128

Dear Power99/Clear Channel/lowly radio intern,

How are you? I hope you are well rested and relaxed, that way the contents of this letter will be better absorbed. How am I? Why thank you for not asking! IÂ’ll bluntly tell you; I am MAD.

Earlier this week, your prized morning “talent” Star thought it would be funny to call an Indian Customer Service agent for the sole purpose of threatening her with assault while verbally abusing her. His justification for this outrageous lack of decency was her race; she was foreign, “a rat-eater”, potentially involved with outsourcing, and that made her okay to target.

Wrong.

This was inappropriate, disrespectful, violent and below you. It was below all of us. That didnÂ’t stop you from publicizing a clip of StarÂ’s verbal assault on your stationÂ’s website before hastily retracting it a few days ago.

Since you took the mp3 off of your site, you must be at least slightly aware that you were in trouble. Please allow me to dispel any confusion regarding this matter: you ARE in trouble. You are in trouble with me and every other good American.

Our soldiers are dying to protect our freedom and our values. Those values donÂ’t include hate.

You can make amends.

You can take responsibility, and own your error in judgment.

You can reach out to the South Asian community and apologize for this unconscionable incident.

You can apologize to the woman that Star and his amoral crew harassed so wantonly.

You can discipline the DJ, as well as the staffers who perpetrated this revolting act.

You can clean up your own mess by airing PSAs that speak out against the ignorance and hate that YOUR programming may potentially incite.

I will conclude by stating that if you do not respond to this letter or its requests appropriately, you should consider yourself on notice: your unprincipled behavior will have social, public and fiscal ramifications and I swear to you, they will hurt. Stop the violence. Change starts with you.

With hope that you will do the right thing,

listen: all you people who were or are moved by this bullshit situation, who think, “yeah…i should do something”, right before you succumb to inertia and to-do lists and daily life…

that was for you.

you didn’t even have to write a letter. i did it for you. now do something for me. do it for “steena” who suffered through Star’s hatred for no reason. do it for your dad, because someone heckled him like that thirty-five years ago, when he came here to get rich for you. do it for your mom, who was afraid to wear indian things in new jersey, in 1987, for fear of attack from “dot-busters”. do it for them all, i implore you.

however.

if you don’t feel a familiar sadness whilst reading the paragraph i just wrote, if you are one of the lucky ones and you walk on streets paved with gold, and you live somewhere where it never rains, and you have always been accepted, respected and treated kindly…then may you always be so blessed. may one of us live in nirvana, where it is safe. may one of us not suffer the humiliation, the pain, the isolation that hatred brings. may one of us be so lucky.

so if you get some time in your golden, respect-laden nirvana, do it for those of us who aren’t as fortunate as you.

do it for all of us.

in other words, do it for you.

This time it’s personal

Posted on by

Turbanhead and Anna post about a Philly radio DJ who abused an Indian call center worker on air (listen to the audio clip, courtesy of Edward Champion):

STAR (morning DJ on Power 99): I was surprised when I got somebody on the line in East India… [on phone] This call has been outsourced to India?
TINA: That’s right.
STAR: Well, ma’am, what the eff would you know about an American white girl’s — uh, uh — hair? And quick beads.
TINA: Just to inform you, ma’am, we’re a national chain services company. And we’re just taking calls on the opposite…
STAR: Listen, bitch! Don’t get slick with the mouth! Don’t you get slick with me, bitch!
TINA: Now if you continue to speak this language, I will disconnect the call.
STAR: Listen to me, you dirty rat eater. I’ll come out there and choke the eff out of you. (laughter) You’re a filthy rat eater. I’m calling about my American six-year-old white girl [Star is black]. How dare you outsource my call? Get off the line, bitch! (laughter, applause)

Yeah… hilarious. It’s several cuts below Beavis and Butthead. Shock jocks have spewed racist bullshit on air for years, getting away with it when the minority group they cuss out is small or disorganized. This is nothing new.

But, this time it’s personal: on my trip to India a couple of weeks ago, I just learned that my niece and my sister-in-law, two beautiful, intelligent women in their mid-20s, are working in call centers in Gurgaon. One remarked drily that she handles metro Manhattan, ‘so if you’re a Citibank customer, gimme a ring.’ The thought of some racist asshole insulting my sweetheart of a niece makes me want to beat the shit out of him.

Even worse, the hit show is getting picked up by a New York station on Jan. 17, 2005 at a cost of $17M. Like stand-up comedy 50 years ago, it’s racial abuse for profit.

Here’s what the DJ said a couple of years ago when Jennifer Lopez casually used the N-word:

“Why is she using a word that’s derogatory to blacks?… If you’re a so-called role model, don’t spit in the face of African-Americans.”

Hypocrite.

Continue reading →