India’s 2009 General Elections: the advice of the late “George Eliot” (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-1880) to India’s voting public

April 24, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

It is constantly the task of practical wisdom not to say

“This is good, and I will have it,”

but to say

“This is the less of two unavoidable evils, and I will bear it.”

——— “Address to Working-Men by Felix Holt”,

George Eliot, Blackwood’s Magazine 1868

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Posted in 15th Lok Sabha, Britain, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, George Eliot, Good and Evil, India's 2009 General Election, India's Democracy, India's Lok Sabha, India's Parliament, India's political parties, India's Politics, Literature, Political Science, Politics, Public Choice/Public Finance, Rational decisions, Reason. Leave a Comment »

Why has America’s “torture debate” yet to mention the obvious? Viz., sadism and racism.

April 24, 2009 — drsubrotoroy

“Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.”
— from “Burnt Norton” by TS Eliot

Indeed humankind cannot bear very much reality! Why else, I wonder, has the “torture” debate not yet mentioned the obvious: sadism and racism? Did the perpetrators of torture experience delight or remorse or both from their activities? Delight during, remorse afterwards? Would they have experienced less delight and more remorse if the victims had not also elicited a race-feeling, a race-consciousness?  The victims after all were all “the other”, not one’s own.

One needs to be candid and not pussy-foot around if one wants to comprehend reality.

SR

Posted in ACLU, America's impatience, America's military-industrial complex, America's torture debate, American academia, American democracy, American politics, American society, Counter-terrorism, Psychology, Racism, September 11 attacks, Torture, Tyranny, Unconscious Mind, US Federal Law & Jurisprudence, US Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Espionage, US Justice Department, US Military Doctrine, USA Rule of Law, USA, United States polity. Leave a Comment »