I have been neglecting my blog for quite some time now, I haven’t posted on any of the beautiful things that are going on in this beautiful world of ours so to clear the backlog, here’s a brief summary of everything that has been bothering me.
Priydarshini Mattoo, Jessica Lall and Nitish Kataria, three high profile cases that have featured prominently on our newspaper front pages for a long time. For those who don’t know, all three are murders allegedly committed by the kin of influential people. All three of the cases have dragged on in Indian courts for ever so long; the Delhi police scuttled the investigations in all three of the cases and through their (deliberate) mismanagement ended up in court with no evidence against the prime accused. Witnesses in all of the cases have (under pressure) turned hostile and all seemed lost till the media and public stepped in. A massive wave of public opinion and media pressure reopened these cases and the courts too were swift in delivering justice. The accused in the Priydarshini Mattoo case was recently awarded the death penalty and Manu Sharma, accused in the Jessica Lall case looks like he is headed towards a similar end. Delhi and the nation seem satisfied. It is a common problem in India, anyone with a little influence or money can get away with murder. It is a simple three-step process,
a. Pressure the victim or victim’s family into withdrawing the case
b. Bribe the cops, something easily accomplished.
c. Pressure witnesses to turn hostile, either by paying them off or by getting cops on your payroll to pressure them into withdrawing their statements.
All three cases followed this pattern, fortunately through public pressure and extensive media coverage all three cases appear as though they will be resolved. What bothers me about all this is that it sets a dangerous precedent, of public opinion affecting the judicial process. Though all three cases seem straightforward, it is plausible that we, the public have it all wrong and have been grossly misinformed by the media who will obviously follow the more interesting angle of a story, even at the cost of having to make it up as the go. I don’t want to comment on these cases in particular but consider another hypothetical case that is similar to these, where the accused is innocent, yet the weight of public opinion eventually leads to an unfair conviction, how do we prevent this?
You may argue that judges, particularly those of the Supreme Court are not swayed by public opinion, that their judgements are based on objective facts. However, the Jessica Lall case, a case, which had been dismissed by the courts, an accused that had been acquitted on the grounds of insufficient evidence, is being re-tried based on public pressure. The public had already passed their verdict and now sought a legal declaration in their favour. Although I have little doubt that Manu Sharma is indeed guilty, what do I base my opinions on? Primarily what I see discussed in the media, this leaves the media much room to manipulate me and millions like me.
Though I do feel a sense of pride at the awakening of the Indian public, I am uncomfortable for sometimes I see it as the masses uniting against injustice and raising their voices against the abuse of influence and against the rampant corruption in the Indian police an at other times all I see are mobs thirsting for blood, seeking their next victim.
Today, Saddam was declared guilty and sentenced to death for killing a couple of hundred Iraqis, funny something like 47,000 have died since the US lead invasion. Oh yeah and the elections are right around the corner right? Hmm...
7 comments:
It's funny...this morning when MSN popped open the first thing I see is Saddam to Be Hanged! And I couldn't help but to feel a bit sad for him. I mean all I know is what the Papers and TV tell me. I don't live in Iraq, so I don't know the truth. So my husband is reading the article on it and I ask "So what are the Iraqi people saying... are they happy?" I mean to me this could all be a fictional made up senario by the government (like the "weapons of mass destruction"...the reason we supposably attacked in the first place...) and filtered down to the people just so Bush can have revenge for his Daddy and make a lot of money on oil for his family. So I ask are the people happy? Did he do these things or is this made up by the media? However, I don't like seeing signs that say "Down with America" I mean dude it's not us....we as the people who are "America" didn't want this. It's not like Bush was like "So guys what do you think...should we strike Iraq??.....let's see a raise of American hands here". I mean it's like "Hey the President and his posse think it's a good idea that we do this so everyone stay glued to your TV's for a real fireworks display of do gooding and saving the people of Iraq from this evil monster Saddam". So they shouldn't be getting all down on us. We are all just as pissed at our government about how this shit is going down... It reminds me of when I worked at the credit card company for a couple of months and angry credit card holders would call in and all I would hear is "You people..." Hey hey I am not you people...I just work here I don't make the decisions. I answer phones and send this stuff off to other people who are suppose to take care of this shit, I am not the corporation or the man....and they are like okay well I hope you tell them that I am mad and this is wrong and they need to fix this...and I am thinking yeah like the The Man at the credit card company is really going to listen or care...and like I don't even know the man...I don't even think my Boss knew the man...
So it's kinda like that...but yeah I mean I think that people dying is very bad, but I don't think it's just the USA's fault for being there... it's mostly the terrorist groups setting off bombs and killing the other "sect" people....I mean it like a fricking civil war over there that's been brewing for a long time and the USA is just in the middle of it...or that's how it seems.
The funny part is.. most of us do agree with street justice... its fast quick and powerful... and it leaves you satisfied... but as you said "someone else" can always point a finger, its easy to follow that... rather than make anything out of it
Confusion,i dont really know about saddam, maybe he does deserve to die ut the circumstances still make me suspicious and i cant help feeling he's being scarificed now to serve as someone else's political fuel.
With regards to what you said about the 'down with america' signs, the fact is that even though a lot of people in the states may not agree with how your administration is carrying on, you are still a democracy and that very administration does reflect on the views of a majority of the citizens.
I know it is unfair to categorise all americans as trigger happy, but in the end, few outsideamerica are going to make the distinction between the bush administration and america as a whole. Besides, the administration is after all representing the nation right? They do what they do in your name after all. So if you hve a problem with what they are doing, please do the world a favour and kick the fuckers out of power.
Lucifer, that someone else always fucks up the deal don't they?
No, unfortunatly that's not how it works...
#1 Bush cheated to get into office
-first election (this has never happened before) there was a problem with the votes...in Florida....where his brother was governor....they are blaming the "old people" saying that there were "hanging chads" as in they didn't punch the ballot all the way through and they punched more than once so they had to do multiple recounts. That was the deciding state that would make or break the election and it ended up in Bush's favor (of course) The newspapers actually printed up two versions...one that said Al Gore won and one that said Bush won...it was that close.
-Second election we have this thing called popular vote and the House of Representative vote. So what that is something put in place in the beggining of time when people didn't know how to read and weren't educated, so if the "people of the USA" were too dumb to make the right choice the House of Representatives could over rule them. This is what happened the second election. People have been trying to get rid of this for some time now and I don't think this has happened for many many years...how convenient when you buy people out.
#2 It's not as easy as it seems
-So everyone I know doesn't like the way the government is being run...people don't like Bush and all the soliders want to come home. I don't even know where they get these people cheering in the background behind him.
"the fact is that even though a lot of people in the states may not agree with how your administration is carrying on, you are still a democracy and that very administration does reflect on the views of a majority of the citizens."
-a democracy is a vote..... we vote every 4 years for a new president...so that's when we get our say. It's not like I or anyone else voted on should we go to war....they are the government they make the decisions, like I said before it's not like they ask us what we want and it's a majority view, it's the view of the president and his posse.
"So if you hve a problem with what they are doing, please do the world a favour and kick the fuckers out of power."
-Like I said before in my Credit Card example...it's not like I or we the people can do anything about it...we protest, we talk to the media, but it's not until the democrats or other government people who don't like the president over rule him. Which is happening...that is why it's so important that I vote tomorrow for the Democratic party...they want him OUT of there and will clean out the Republican corrupt crap that is in there right now. Corruption does not discriminate... even in the USA.
confusion, wrt the kick the fuckers out comment, thats what i meant, that since you are going to vote today/tomorrow, you will hopefully kick the republicans out of power.
i didn't get the bit about the house of representatives bit
wrt support for bush, i dont get it either, all we hear about here is how many people are against republican rule, i had put it down to media bias in india which focuses only on anti-republican protests.
democracy is a vote, so in the end it's a majority whose chosen party gets into power so the actions of those in power will reflect the opinions of a majority of the country right? it's easier in the states where you have only two major parties to vote for, in india, thanks to our system which allows for coalition politics, often those in power do not individually represent a majority of the populations views.
I agree with confusion. As an American, I think it's unfair to hold Americans responsible for the actions of the Bush administration. Let me give you three good excuses for the American people:
First, we're perhaps a little too patriotic, but I think that's only human. I marched to protest the war on the day before the invasion began. At that time, the war was very unpopular here-- 68% and rapidly rising said they were "strongly opposed" to the war. Bush called a press conference and said he didn't care. The next day, the war started and the numbers reversed! about 68% said they "support" the war. This is only human, everyone wants to support their country in a time of war. The Republicans have manipulated this patriotic sentiment to wield unprecedented power.
This leads us to excuse #2: The US isn't a democracy. It never was intended to be one, and it especially isn't now! On the scale of popular democracy (where people have the power) to "representative" democracy, the US is very much a representative democracy. According to the people who wrote our constitution, the US system was designed to assuage VIOLENT political involvement by making the people FEEL involved while drastically limiting the people's power. Confusion was talking about some of these limits.
But today, the US is much less of a democracy than it ever has been in it's history. Did you know that the US has an active policy of "de-energizing" the vote?! We studied this debate in my college political science classes. The idea is that only the smartest wealthiest "best" voters will vote. As a result, only about 30% of eligible voters vote in a given election-- only half of any other world democracy. Only 60% ever vote! In the last election nearly 40% voted, so the government began new "reforms" to limit voter participation! The goal is for about 30% turn out.
But even if they do vote, Americans today have little confidence that they're vote will be counted correctly. Over 90% of votes in today's election will be counted electronically. Did you know that the most American voting machines are owned by a company owned by a group of Republican senators? The second largest VM company is owned by Republican senator Chuck Hagel, who will be running for president! A conflict of interest? Of course not they say!
And our media agrees with them. But then all of our major media outlets are owned by companies that have been awarded Iraq war contracts. Another conflict of interest? No way! But on second thought, something very odd is happening here. In my lifetime, the US has been run by Republican "conservatives." And it's no surprise, a great majority of Americans identify themselves as "conservatives." But then again, when asked about the issues, the vast majority of Americans land Far far to the left of the Democratic party. So Americans are very liberal, but the THINK they are very conservative. This is because the way the very word "liberal" has been consistently demonized in our media. And they've been lied to about the facts.
Which is excuse number 3. You can't blame the American people because they've been lied to. Bush lied and the media reported it as fact. A vast majority STILL believe that Iraq was behind 9/11 and that some of the "bombers" were Iraqi, where as the fact is that they were mostly Saudi (an American Ally.) A majority of people who watch Fox news believe we actually found the WMDs! How can we be expected to make correct decisions without accurate information?
Will I vote today? Yep, I always do. Will it change anything? The Democrats may take a slight majority in one half of one of the four branches of our government. That's the absolutely best that could happen. That's if an overwhelming percent of people who vote today vote Democrat. That's not exactly sweeping change. Our country's policies will continue unchanged, but don't say the American people are responsible!
oi vay, this is much more than i had expected considering the original post wasn't even about holding the american public responsible for thae actions of the government, anyway the issue was raised and i find myself learning more about 'democracy' than eve before.
Lucky & confusion, i cant really debate with both of you about the american political system particualrly with referenceto the issues you have raised since you would know muc more than me about the problem.
From what you have said, particularly lucky's point,
"The US isn't a democracy. It never was intended to be one, and it especially isn't now."
It seems ironic to me that 'democracy' is then used to justify your govenments interefernce in the political system of a lot of your neighbors.
Patriotism is something i cant really argue against, since we are fiercly patriotic of all of out govenments dumb fuck ups too.
However i am not completely happy by how you portray the utter helplessness of the public to uost the republicans from power, particularly after watching the results of yesterdays vote, espescially the results for the house of representatives. Now im not sure exactly how significant that is but it seems to me that there must be some people still voting democrat right?
Thanks for your interest though.
Post a Comment