The State of the Union

Joseph Palmi: Let me ask you something... we Italians, we got our families, and we got the chuch; the Irish they have the homeland, jews their tradition; even the niggas, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have?

Edward Wilson: The United States of America, and the rest of you are just visiting.

- Good Shepherd, 2006

Pfizer announced Monday that it will cut 10,000 jobs and close five plants, including three R&D sites and two factories, by the end of 2008. Pfizer reported that fourth-quarter sales were $12.6 billion, while net income surged 257 percent.

Source : CNN-Money

"Hey, hey, Uncle Sam,
we remember Vietnam.
They cheer you on when you attack,
when you come home they turn their back
Bush and Cheney talk war-talk,
but we know they’re chicken hawks.
Bring our troops back to our soil.
We say NO blood for oil.

Hey, hey Uncle Sam
We remember Vietnam
We don't want your I-raq war
Peace is what we're marchin' for
We don't want another war
Peace is what we're marchin' for"

- Vietnam Veterans, Peace March on Washington, Jan 27, 2006

CNN and NYTimes imply there is a gradual leftward shift in US politics (after the far right days of '01) . FOX says the new legislature is leftist with San Fransisco values. I listen. Its not my job to analyse news, I pay for Advanced Cable.

State of the Union

Tags from outside the speech, or as it seems to a couch news-freak, scavenger.

US is all about its foreign policy for the rest of the world, but foreign policy did not figure much in the agenda of the new Democratic Congress, the supposedly left leaning one. The much hyped tag First 100 hours wasn't such a waste - Ethics reform, An increase in the federal minimum wage for the first time in 10 years, Enactment of the 9-11 commission's recommendations, Expanded stem-cell research, Government negotiation of prices with prescription drug companies, Student loan interest rates cut in half and The elimination of billions in subsidies for big oil companies. Not bad for the first hundred hours - NYTimes calls it a qualified success. The United States has a mature democracy that comes home again and again after straying right or left. Which makes one feel, maybe the founding fathers got it right.

The tag Speaker Nancy Pelosi implies just one thing - the Bush Presidency is over. There is no point in discussing Bush anymore, he'll be a lame duck keeping that chair in the Oval office warm till that cold January morning of 2009.With the rout the Republicans faced last November in both the House and the Senate and the overwhelming public opinion disapproving of his performance, you don't need a Karl Rove to figure out that Bush's only option is to buy time and then get out.

President Hillary Clinton or so it seems (blogger relies completely on Las Vegas bookies for future prediction; more on the '08 race later) will inherit Iraq for sure. But the tag Adm William J Fallon could be a trojan. The appointment of this Navy patriarch to head the Central Command (including the hotbeds Afghanistan, Iraq and Horn of Africa) has been ridiculed, as operations and combat in the region is overwhelmingly army. But this could be part of another broad move for more involvement in the Persian Gulf (Iran - the obvious target) and Somalia (which was bombed last week). The war has to go on somewhere.

Iran -an armed intervention by the US in Iran seems unlikely, but that prediction is based completely on the mood of the nation, opinion of experts and the stand of the legislators - three things Bush really don't care about. Will Israel unilaterally make a move against Iran, which threatens its existence quite vocally. Quite possible, but in that case, conflict in the middle-east will reach a level never seen before with a total realignment of forces stretching from Beirut to Kashmir.

Israel - Palestine ; Condi Rice will not accomplish anything in the mid-east even if the Bush Administration changes its "Dont give a damn about Palestine" stand. Because Israel and Palestine have their weakest leaders in history now - Ehud Olmert (with the least popularity ratings of any Israeli leader) and Abbas who is more concerned about his life. Other than that, there will be an overall lack of support for any bold political moves in the middle-east or Iran or North Korea, with Japan and France going into elections,Tony Blair retiring and US public opinion hovering around Iraq and nothing else.

In the few minutes they have between news and opinions on the War, the media rages on immigration and Racism in the US. Paula Zahn *She's got the most genuine look and the most pretty face in Prime-time news* follows the Duke rape case and the LA gang wars hinging on the racist side of this nation. But no one crying over immigration seems to mention the fact that this country is 80% white and it will remain so. It is more like Hindu fundamentalists in India crying over the higher growth rate of the Muslim population - while being completely unaware of the actual figures. And in the US, no one crying over race seems to mention or want to change the fact that cities like Detroit and Michigan and almost all major retirement destinations in Florida are 70-80% segregated in terms of housing. Which means , if you are a white kid, chances are that you wouldn't see a black kid anywhere near your house. And this is the America of 2007.

Back to politics, the Bush presidency will die out into insignificance in the days to come, as T S Elliot put it, 'not with a bang, but with a whimper', while USA will survive, bringing glory and disrepute to the human kind with their huge complex of myths, values, recipes, slogans, figures, and rites - the height of which one will see this coming Tuesday in Miami when the Bears meets the Colts for the crowning glory. Because USA is not just a melting pot, its a Super Bowl.

Good Night and Good Luck !

Hillary

When this lady, Hillary speaks,you feel like listening.It is not like the rhetorical diatribe that Mrs.Gandhi comes out with everytime she makes a serious speech.Last week Mrs.Gandhi spoke about the office of profit debacle,her point was that many in the Ganges heartland doesnt like her and all that debate in both houses of parliament was because these MPs hate her.It seems these same MPs hated Indira and Rajiv as well,its all personal.She didnt make sense,she cant expect us to sob and cry and call her back everytime she plays this all sacrificing 'bahu' persona.Its true that we like her,but she shouldnt be exploiting our fondness for her every time elections happen in some state.

Hillary Clinton,she was giving this fourty minute long -at times rambling speech in Brown University,C-SPAN was airing it.You like her for the wide variety of things she speak about,at times she opens a whole new perspective on a topic.She's got clarity,strength and a sense of urgency.The political part of the speech was pure rhetoric and mostly around the blunders of the 'Mission Accomplished' administration.That part comes easy I suppose because everytime she said 'our President' the crowd laughed their hearts out for no understandable reason.The second part of the lecture was fresh, and nicely done too.She spoke about,

Office Decoration

When she started practicing law,there was this unique office decoration protocol.If you are a guy, you fill your office with family photos and kids stuff so that people think you are a devoted person with family values.You are from the fairer side,anything that reminds you of family is out of bounds in office,because that would be a sign of a distracted professional.Hillary according to her, camouflaged office space with family signatures.


Descriminations and prejudices of this kind are widespread even today in conservative streams like law as well as sunrise streams like information technology.I know of this Business capablity command center where women work on monitoring the health of systems but in the connected high visibility crisis management group its an unwritten rule that only men should be on the team.This often if not always has a debilitating impact on the women members of the team,they find that few floors are out of reach no matter how hard they climb.The reason cited for the above was women get married,relocate,brain drain,odd hours,pregnancy - except for the last rest is common for both sexes and as for the last I think organisations should be mature enough to understand that women get pregnant.Such an exclusion affects the team in such a way that these women employees stop competing, rather contributing,they dont give a darn if the system goes to hell 'cause they are not the system anymore.Rest is what we see around us.

Washing machine and Dryer

Hillary's mother didnt have a dryer thereby spending her entire afternoon doing the laundry.Nowadays new technology and small families create a lot of productive free time which was spend earlier on these mundane chores.Women should put it to better use,they should dare to compete.

I thought about India,we had excluded women from nation building for a very long strech of time,on top of it we excluded dalits from our thought process,we had divided the rest into four ambiguous groups and again restricted any free flow of ideas.What a waste of human capital and we continue to do that as much as we can.Now I have to contradict myself,women work from dawn to dusk and after that, in some two hundred million households in India,they raise the next generation,feed the future India with food,ideas and values - I think this could be nation building - though it never shows up on the national product,never gets recognized anywhere in developmental economics.

Many of these women are denied a say in household decision making as they dont have any measurable produce.It would be fun if they stop all their work for a week,just to measure the kind of impact it causes.

Almost half our women cant read or write,not that literacy is so important,but the world around us is changing,economics is changing,we cant be a peasant country anymore,hands to mouth existence of Indian villages will have to undergo radical changes,economic output per household will need to increase in the indian countryside as the market dynamics set in,indian villages will have to consume more if this nation needs to go any futher from here and for this incomes will need to increase and it cant be done without value adding extensively to our products.This where education becomes a basic need from now on for the Indian woman.

A clear shift from 'welfare' of women to 'well-being' of women and womens' 'agency' is needed in our policy orchestrations.Respect and regard for womens wellbeing,is enhanced a lot when she has a economic and social role outside the household.Empirical data says so,one respected feminist economist wrote.

How does one manage office and home ?

She said 'everyone of us is a pioneer' and went on to say some bad jokes.
That was one great answer.

The first genocide of 21st century

Is happening in Darfur,she said.Women and children are the worst hit.Killings,abductions,gang rapes and more evidently mutilation of body parts to leave a stigmata of a lifetime are occuring at mind numbing rates.The west needs to intervene.

The west had apologized for Rwanda,Sudan seems to be the mother of all Rwandas.I tend to believe that if Hillary was the Commander in chief of the world instead of Bush,she would have send her troops to Sudan instead of Iraq.War and abject poverty in the dark continent undermines all the glory human kind has acheived in this world.

Hotel Rwanda said 'nobody cares about afrikans,they are not human,they are not even niggers' - I agree,if one hundred thousand people get killed somewhere in godforsaken cantsaythename place in Africa,its just a number for us.If it happens in Europe,it will be World war IV.

Constant Gardener said women never went to war anywhere - we can think about this.

Hillary showed that she can make people think and still be a politician and I believe she should run for the President of the United States.Not that she should win,but that will be one hell of a campaign to watch.

Back home,dear Mrs Gandhi is fighting another election.Nobody asked her to resign,nobody asked her to contest again,we'll spend a lot of our money to bring her back into parliament where she will be doing absolutely nothing and we'll wait for her to cry and resign and leave and contest again when some Samajvadi party MP snorts.Not that we have an issue with that,the Gandhi family has sacrificed so much for us,we continue to love them and Mrs Gandhi is so adorable a person,but I really believe madam could put her time to some better use - like make some nice pizza or something like that.Maino,think about it.

Goodnight and Goodluck !