America – Brown Pundits

May 14, 2019May 16, 2019 by sbarrkum - 19 Comments

Islamic Extremists, Human Rights and Evangelical Christians

Abstract:

Is Sri Lanka (and similar small states) going to be the frontline between Islamic Caliphate versus Human Rights/Evangelical Christian Empire. Like Vietnam was a proxy War/battlefield between the goal of a Communist vs Capitalist World Empire.

Post WW2, Evangelical Christianity (thru the US) and “Human Rights” (thru US and Europe) have been terrorizing the Mid East for over half a decade.

What is the difference between

a) Bombing multiple countries to install “Human Rights” compliant with the Empire of the West.
b) or Bombs with the goal of establishing Sharia Law compliant Caliphate Empire.

U.S. bombs southern Baghdad, killing another six civilian

Pre WW2 Europe (2) was the foremost in promoting “Christian Values” while obviously exploiting and looting the resources of brown and yellow heathen savages.
Post WW2, Europe and the US has redefined itself as advocates of Human Rights illegally supporting war either (see the box below for examples)

- - by acting unilaterally
  - using false evidence for UN resolution
  - acting beyond UN resolutions

In order to invade Iraq, Colin Powell stood on the UN floor and assured that Iraq had WMD. Colin Powell later regretted his speech.
A spokesperson for the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) falsely defended the bombing of Libya as within UN resolution. The UN resolution was only to establish a no fly zone. The Norwegian aircraft dropped 588 bombs

To Europe, US markets the wars as protecting Human Rights or the (in)famous Right to Protect (R2P) of Samantha Power and Hillary Clinton. At home in the US sells Human Rights as Gods Wish/A Just War to the very important Evangelical home base to garner support for Iraq War and bombing of Libya.

No MSM writeup says, Christian Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama instigated a Just War. However, George W. Bush is a member of the United Methodist Church. Barack Obama is and has been a member of Evangelical Churches. Evangelical leaders post 9/11 signed an open letter to Bush approving war on Iraq satisfied the criteria of Christian “Just-war” theory. ( see here and here)

“Iraq represents that existential threat we have from global Islamic Jihadists. “We must defeat it in Iraq, Afghanistan and then act preemptively to destroy it wherever it emerges.”.

“Throughout Scripture, there is evidence that God favors war for divine reasons and sometimes uses it to accomplish his will. He has also given governments and their citizens very specific responsibilities in regards to this matter,” Charles Stanley, Televangelist, pastor First Baptist Church of Atlanta and In Touch Ministries said in a sermon broadcast internationally on his television program.,

As one can see, there is not much difference between Christian and Islamic priests advising people and countries to wage war.

Two examples of US and European Post World War 2 atrocities
1953 Iran: CIA coup overthrows the democratically elected MP Mosaddegh .

1980-1988 Iraq Iran War:

Support for Iraq
USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air Flight 655 on 3 July 1988, killing all 290
Chemical weapons supplied to Iraq by US, UK, Netherlands and German companies

It is pretty clear, the US and Europe with the blessings of the Evangelicals/Human Rights Religion has been the first instigators in the Mid-East. The Muslim response has been slow and generally localized to places of regime change and invasions. With the creation of Al-Qaeda and ISIS the war has been fought on a larger geographical terrain.

Now the war between Evangelicals/Human Rights Religion and Islamic Jihad has been taken worldwide. Suicide bomber cells now include family groups including children. Suicide bombers attack churches, tourist hotels and beaches where westerners congregate. T

Unhappily, Islamic extremism is also an opportunity for Western powers to establish a foothold. In Sri Lanka. The US wants to sign a secretive Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with clauses to exclude the American soldiers from the local jurisdiction. Liberal Human Rights types and Westernized Sri Lankans (many are Christians, like current PM Ranil Wickremasinghe) would welcome the West with open arms. This would result in Sri Lanka being a proxy battle field for Western powers and the Islamic Caliphate. Sri Lanka should find its own solution to keep Christian/Islamic wars out of its shores.

(1)Disclosure. Author is a Tamil by Heritage, Atheist, though born to an Evangelical Christian family, post graduate education and work in the US.
(2) The Catholic Church has much blood in the past. Post WW2 as far as I know, no war has been justified by the Vatican.

Other readings

Islam, Extremism & Hypocrisy, Nur Yalman (2017)
Short history of Wahabism to ISIS

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/islam-extremism-hypocrisy/

History of Wahabi violence in Sri Lanka.
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/190505/sunday-times-2/the-need-to-identify-the-enemy-within-347960.html

From Sri Lanka to Indonesia, more mothers are becoming suicide bombers
– and killing their children too
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/3008808/sri-lanka-indonesia-more-mothers-are-becoming-suicide-bombers-and?

March 29, 2019March 29, 2019 by sbarrkum - 5 Comments

Egalitarian/Equality and mobility in Society.

Something to keep in mind, an egalitarian/equal society is equally important to happiness of society.

Excerpts from Article

While the US ranks among the least equal and mobile countries in the developed world, recent work shows that it contains places that span the global mobility distribution.

Persistence in income from one generation to the next is higher in unequal societies like the UK and the US, and weakest in the relatively equal Scandinavian countries (the ‘Great Gatsby curve’)

Would would this map out similarly in South Asia, I think yes)

For example, equality and mobility are highest in the Midwest, where Scandinavian ancestry is common. The same goes for every group we study – for example, income mobility is lowest in areas where the population has Italian or British roots.

From Comments (read them too, please).
One should point also out the common observation that all that Scandinavian solidarity is built on a great deal of ethnic homogeneity. The US problem has always been getting the melting pot to melt.

My mother, life-long Republican and descendant of Swedish grand-parents, blamed the “socialist” bent in MN on the dumb Ole-and-Lena’s who maintained their village mind-set of caring-through-conformity post-immigration. In her opinion, worldly-wise people knew better than to just hand money out to strangers. I thought about that a little when reading Tuesday’s piece about trust in society, and cat sick’s comment that keeping business (or wealth) within networks is a way to mitigate risk.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/03/brave-old-world-immigration-inequality-and-intergenerational-mobility-in-the-us.html

March 22, 2019March 22, 2019 by AnAn - 14 Comments

All things “Brown” with the Brown Pundits – thoughts on the Carvaka Podcast

Further to Anan’s post below I thought I would share a few thoughts of my own below.

BrownCast Podcast episode 15: conversations with a Carvaka

I enjoyed doing the video cast with Kushal and Omar (Razib was unfortunately not able to join in).

I let myself “go” in this podcast since I had to get up at 4.30 in the morning to get it done so I thought I earnt a bit of a respite.

Ordinarily I’m rather reticent on the podcasts since they aren’t my guests and I also don’t want to venture too many opinions; surprisingly I’m becoming more circumspect in my old age.

At any rate it was a great discussion lots of fun and my penchant for dramatically diverging the conversation was rather welcome (Omar was very on point and it was refreshing to see that Kushal was opinionated as opposed to simply querying).

We did a fair amount of India-Pakistan but I don’t think they were the conventional perspectives. I also have to acknowledge my own biases stem from my background and life experiences.

I wrote a longer post but I decided to private blog it since I didn’t feel it was entirely relevant and I meandered (as I do).

All in I enjoyed the conversation and I found Google Hangouts a surprisingly easy interface. It’s a nice feeling to be “Live”; it was so dark that I didn’t want to switch on video but perhaps I should have and treated the audience to the dawn of a new day..

February 27, 2019February 27, 2019 by AnAn - Comments Off

I now support quotas on (South) Asian Americans at elite universities (a)

This is a follow up to:

I now support quotas on (South) Asian Americans at elite universities

Video gets especially interesting 16 minutes in. Some main take aways:

Almost half of all people in the world are Asians. Having a similar ratio of Asian students at elite US institutions is being “diverse”
Many different parts of Asia are extraordinarily diverse with many different cultures (Vietnam, India, China, Indonesia). Allowing Asians into elite American institutions enhances diversity.
Asians top every metric for admissions except personality profiles, where Asians consistently rank far lower than any other group.
Mass discrimination against Asians creates segregation at schools since non Asian kids need to receive different separate remedial classes. Many non Asian kids at elite institutions upon entry lack the math skills to take entry level classes.
Asians use to be America’s only reliable Republican voting block (for example backing George Herbert Walker Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996). The 2016 and 2018 elections are the first time Asians have overwhelmingly voted Democrat. Asians now vote more Democrat than Latinos.
Many Asians think they can change Democrats from the inside. And they have had some success. They have persuaded many Democrats to vote for Asian interests on affirmative action.
In the last 6 minutes they discuss how the massive over representation of Asians at elite educational institutions is causing a major shift to the left
- There are surveys of incoming freshman students. They reflect America and their parents. Or center right.
- Exit surveys of senior students find that they have shifted sharply to the left. They trend left to socialist to communist upon graduation.

My own observation is one that several leading academic professors have also noted. High School Asian American kids, particularly Desi ones, often have contempt for their parents, Asia, older Desis, Asian culture and Asian religions. They are often deeply ashamed and guilty about their Asian privilege and about the ways Asians practice “white supremacy”, racism, bigotry, prejudice, sectarianism, hate, oppression, exploitation towards others. There is a sense that the reason Asians are so successful around the world is because Asians steal from others. This phenomenon extends to undergraduate students but is still not common among Asian Americans over 22 years old.

How much of this phenomenon is being driven by self hatred, self loathing, guilt and a contempt for Asian and Desi cultures and religions? What if anything can be done about this?

As a partial aside, Brown Pundits podcast plans to interview some practitioner Dharmics (including Buddhist, Jain, Sikh) professors in academia. One question we can ask them is how much anti Dharmic phobia comes the indoctrination of Dharmic children in high school and undergraduate university against Dharmic faiths.

February 27, 2019 by Razib Khan - 20 Comments

I now support quotas on (South) Asian Americans at elite universities

A Harvard Law Professor Is Representing Harvey Weinstein. Students Say This Makes Them Unsafe, Demand His Resignation:

Harvard’s administration is taking students’ concerns seriously, and has agreed to conduct a review of Sullivan.

“In this situation, we would like to have a more complete understanding of the current environment at Winthrop House,” wrote Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana in an email, according to The Harvard Crimson.

One of The Crimson’s own staff members*, Danukshi Mudannayake, is spearheading the effort to remove Sullivan. She started a change.org petition that claims his representation of Weinstein as “not only upsetting, but deeply trauma-inducing.” According to Mudannayake, Sullivan has made clear that he does not “value the safety of students he lives with in Winthrop House.”

The American system is upsetting. To be frank, it’s a feature, not a bug. Presumption of innocence exists not in cases where it is easy to support the innocent, but in cases where it is hard. In the United States of America there are people who commit horrible crimes, and lawyers who defend them and lawyers who prosecute them. This is all part of the system.

It is tough on the heart. But it works. Unlike some societies, the will of the majority does not dictate the outcome (in theory).

Seeing those names was like a punch in the stomach. This is not the sort of “model minority” that I’d like to encourage.