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In India What We Are Seeing Is the Symptoms of Fascism: Noam Chomsky

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81–90 of 157 posts

Re: In India What We Are Seeing Is the Symptoms of Fascism: Noam Chomsky

#81
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did he really support the Chavez regime? That’s something I’d like to know.

He isn't some foreign affairs expert. He made the decision to support Chavez based on the information he (and we) had access to at that time, much of which painted Chavez favorably. We, of course, came to know later that the house was rotting on the inside. But that's just hindsight

What makes you think he has better information this time?

Re: In India What We Are Seeing Is the Symptoms of Fascism: Noam Chomsky

#82
post #48

I certainly don't support fascism but at least Hitler had some interest in science. Things are worse in India. We spent 0.8% of the GDP on Science and Technology. At the same time, a part of that (taxpayer money) is spent on Homeopathy, Ayurveda, and Cow Urine/Dung Research. Our policy-makers absolutely have no idea what evidence in science means. Here is an entertaining collection of statements by Indian ministers,…

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Re: In India What We Are Seeing Is the Symptoms of Fascism: Noam Chomsky

#83

I really struggle to understand the Indian right wing perspective. There is absolutely no practical way to achieve their goal of a theocratic nation with the country still being intact. As much as they might want to fantasize about it, you can't wish away 200M minorities. Nor can you economically progress if 200M minorities are ghettoized.

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Please stop using HN for political, ideological, and/or national flamewar. You've been doing it repeatedly, and we ban that sort of account. It's not what this site is for, as you'll see if you read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: In India What We Are Seeing Is the Symptoms of Fascism: Noam Chomsky

#84
post #69

I actively read r/india and there hasn't been a single day for the past two months now that horrendous reports of Police rioting, looting, and killing civilians (predominantly Muslims) come up but is never reported by the main-stream media. There have been numerous cases where the ruling political party has mobilised its pro-violence groups with a free-reign to do as they please. Never has a public personality been i…

> No one is safe from the propaganda machine, not even the educated, not even the ones in an industry as left-leaning and liberal as ours How do you know that you are not a victim of the propaganda machine ? How did you keep yourself safe ?

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Re: In India What We Are Seeing Is the Symptoms of Fascism: Noam Chomsky

#85
post #5

> NC: One thing that’s happened is the press has been pretty much muzzled. They are very uncritical. This is a big issue with mass media in India that many don’t realize or want to realize. Between — a) most of the mainstream media houses (except a few) not asking tough questions (but supporting the government for everything), b) the Supreme Court ignoring important cases and not hearing them for years and c) the amo…

> fake news spread through WhatsApp

aka people communicating as they have for thousands of years. People love making up stories and spreading them. We need to stop blaming software for human nature.

Re: In India What We Are Seeing Is the Symptoms of Fascism: Noam Chomsky

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indian media uncritically promotes government propaganda. I visited my parents back home, and the news channels are unrelenting in their defense of the govt

That is unfair. Republic and India tv appears to be pro government where as NDTV and other appears to be anti-BJP channels.

This is not nearly accurate. NDTV "and others"(not sure of any other mainstream channels) have also hsitorically been hard on the UPA governments even if you consider them pro-Congress. The current breed of mainstream channels (Zee, Republic, India) who hold most of the eyeballs in India are not just pro-government they blatantly lie to protect the government's incompetence. Added to the fact teh BJP is a top advertiser on TV media creates a dangerous incestuous relationship the scale of which we've not ever seen before.

Re: In India What We Are Seeing Is the Symptoms of Fascism: Noam Chomsky

#88
post #5

> NC: One thing that’s happened is the press has been pretty much muzzled. They are very uncritical. This is a big issue with mass media in India that many don’t realize or want to realize. Between — a) most of the mainstream media houses (except a few) not asking tough questions (but supporting the government for everything), b) the Supreme Court ignoring important cases and not hearing them for years and c) the amo…

You can substitute India for America and your points stand. I think there's lots of blame to go on companies like Cambridge analytica. That tech is literally a weapon of mass destruction.

I think there's lots of blame to go on companies like Cambridge analytica.

CA literally didn’t do anything that FB itself didn’t do, and was praised for doing in the previous election cycle. They just did it for the “wrong” side.

Re: In India What We Are Seeing Is the Symptoms of Fascism: Noam Chomsky

#89
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did he really support the Chavez regime? That’s something I’d like to know.

He isn't some foreign affairs expert. He made the decision to support Chavez based on the information he (and we) had access to at that time, much of which painted Chavez favorably. We, of course, came to know later that the house was rotting on the inside. But that's just hindsight

To be fair, it's generally much easier to find someone who understands what one particular form of injustice looks like than it is to find someone who knows what actual justice looks like.

Re: In India What We Are Seeing Is the Symptoms of Fascism: Noam Chomsky

#90
post #68
post #2

Excellent New Yorker piece about this (I submitted it to HN when it came out but it didn't get any traction): https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/09/blood-and-soil... Fascism is gaining in many parts of the world today. But the 'other' this time aren't Jews, they're Muslims.

>Fascism is gaining in many parts of the world today. But the 'other' this time aren't Jews, they're Muslims. This calls to mind the recent debates over Bill 21 in Quebec, that banned religious symbols for many government employees. It was clear that it was motivated by anti-Islamic sentiment, but it was disguised as a move toward "secularism".

Are you sure? The motivation for this could be interpreted as pro-Islamic too, in the sense that old religious symbols (in this case Christian) are removed from public places as the proportion of muslims in the population grows. This is happening in Nordic countries and my feeling is that we are paradoxically moving away from secularism at this point.
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