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Why I will vote for the Democratic Slate this Election by Gaurang G. Vaishnav (Part 4 of 4)
Continued from Part 3: Trump’s Leadership Failures
Trump’s Leadership:
Pandemic: Colossal failure on handling the pandemic. He knew about its seriousness in January and did absolutely nothing for months on end. He gave false assurances to the public. He sneered at the idea of wearing mask, he forced states to open up prematurely, he held rallies without insisting on masks or social distancing, he disregarded recommendations of CDC, he belittled Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of NIAID the infectious disease expert of his own government, he threatened schools with loss of funds if they didn’t open up- the list goes on and on- Many thousands of 204,000 deaths today (and counting) could have been prevented if Trump had the leadership qualities. The blood of many dead Americans is on his hands. I had only read in history that Nero fiddled when Rome was burning. Now we have seen that happening with Trump’s behavior.
Economy: 8.4 % unemployment, double what President Obama left him with just before four years, 18 to 25 million people unemployed; hundreds of thousands small businesses are closed, never to reopen. Stock market numbers do not represent real situation on the ground. But Trump only knows stock market. He does not understand the pain of average Joe who has a family to feed and has lost job.
Health Insurance: 44 million people are without health insurance and Trump has tried everything possible to gut the Affordable Care Act because of his insane hatred of President Obama. His Justice department is fighting to eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Protests, Violence: Trump keeps blaming Democrats and Democrat run cities for all the protests and violence, but he conveniently forgets that this is all happening under his watch. He is the President; Joe Biden is not. He added fuel to the fire by gassing unarmed, silent protesters in a park near White House just so that he could have a photo-op in front of a church. He takes sides in a situation that is volatile and a national problem. He refuses to condemn the shooter in Kenosha, WI and instead speaks in his defense.
When militia armed with AR15 and other assault weapons stormed the Michigan capitol building, it should have been a matter of great concern to the top leadership of the country since It bordered on anarchy and lives of the lawmakers were under threat. Trump, instead of condemning the incident or arranging for Federal troops to guard the Capitol building, suggested that the governor of Michigan should negotiate with the militia!
Trump’s open exhortation to his rabid racist followers at the first debate– “Proud Boys Stand Back and Stand By” should concern every Hindu. Let us not pretend that this is only for Mexicans and Blacks. We are all just a shade above them. When they come shooting, they will not differentiate between a Trump supporter or Biden supporter Hindu. They will only look at our skin. These racist zealots are itching for violence and egged on by Trump himself, are a present and clear danger than anything else. According to FBI report hate crimes and White Nationalism are rising rapidly under Trump. That should be a matter of great concern to all of us. Our temples have been under attack and that would accelerate under another term of Trump (Biden has made safety of places of worship a poll promise.) Safety and security of our families will be at the mercy of White Nationalists and KKK who will feel further emboldened by Trump’s reelection.
Revoking Citizenship of naturalized citizens: This is a hanging sword. Under Trump’s orders Homeland Security Dept. is going through files of naturalized citizens. If they find something questionable, even as innocuous as a wrong spelling in a name or a birthplace, they can hound a person out of the country. There is every possibility of misuse of this dictate. Those who think Trump is a friend of NRIs should think twice.
Challenge to the Rule of Law and Constitution: Trump has made many incendiary statements and some of them are dangerous as they encourage his followers to break the law. He has asked his followers to vote twice. Once by mail and then if they do not find that their vote is registered then vote in person. This is patently illegal. Trump has sown seeds of doubt on the validity and integrity of voting by mail without any proof. He has gone on record saying that he would not accept results (if he is defeated) if the vote by mail is counted in deciding a winner. This is a recipe for a constitutional crisis. Trump’s appointee and a crony the Postmaster General Louis DE Joy has hobbled post offices by removing sorting machines, eliminating overtime, etc., ostensibly to cut costs but in reality to impede votes by mail to reach the election offices in time to be counted. This is clearly a voter suppression.
At other time, I would have perhaps said that I might vote Republican if they had someone other than Trump as their candidate. But having seen firsthand the true character of all the Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Joni Ernst, Shelly Capito, Susan Collins, John Cornyn, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Kelly Loeffler, Rand Paul, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Ric Scott, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan and David Nunes, I conclude that the whole basket of apples is rotten and needs to be flushed down the drain. While voting for senators and Congressmen, we have to remember that each one of the Republican office holders has been an enabler of Trump for all his misdeeds and assault on democracy and each one is equally guilty and deserve to be defeated.
I consider Trump not only a danger to the USA but the whole world. He has systematically weakened democratic institutions; he has treated White House as his personal fiefdom. His recent utterances that “we want to get rid of the ballots” is a giveaway of his dictatorial ambitions. If he has the second term, we may officially say goodbye to democracy.
I have lived through Indira Gandhi’s tenure and witnessed how under her Emergency Rule she destroyed democracy when everyone, including the president of Bharat, fell in line (similar to the current scenario with Republican Senators, Congressmen, and Governors) and the whole country lived in hell for 19 months. The damage she did to the media, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy was permanent and we suffer its ill effects today even 36 years after her death.
I have also very carefully studied American journalist William Shirer’s epic scholarly book The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich detailing how Hitler came to power, how he consolidated it, how everyone became subservient and how millions of Jews were massacred and how a World War was thrust on all with its horrendous consequences.
I hope all right-thinking individuals who root for Trump will give a serious thought to what I have penned here and do right by USA of whom they are sworn citizens. While we hold Bharat dear, our children and grandchildren will spend their life in USA, so for their secure future in a flourishing democracy and not under an autocracy or dictatorship, one should not vote for Donald Trump. Do not think of this as a single issue- Hindu Vs. Muslim election; it is much more than that. Let us not be on the wrong side of the history at this crucial time which will decide the future of our children and their children.
No matter how you vote, I urge you to read this epic work. It is a 1200-page book so it will take patience and perseverance to read it from beginning to end. But it will help the reader understand how a populist leader can lead them to ruination like the pied piper, how a democracy is killed by creating divisions in the society and how tyranny takes hold in a formerly free society.
It is an important read for anyone interested in the future of our society and country irrespective of one’s political preference.
(Concluded, Part 4 OF 4)
Gaurang G. Vaishnav, Tampa, FL
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Why I will vote for the Democratic Slate this Election by Gaurang G. Vaishnav (Part 3 of 4)
Continued from Part 2: Why I will not Vote for Trump
Now let me state briefly why I will not vote for Trump or any other Republican in the coming election.
I will vote for a total Democratic slate because I believe that when we elect a leader, we should not only look at his policies but also at his character. Two cannot be divorced. Just because one is promising to do good work, does not mean that we give pass to his severe character flaws.
These are my core Hindu values from which I cannot separate my actions. (1) Compassion for the less fortunate (2) Respect for women (3) Worshipping and nurturing environment (4) Dialogue with the opponent, not demonization (5) Equality of all human being (6) Full faith in Democracy (7) Integrity of character
Let me evaluate Trump on this seven-point matrix.
- (1) Compassion: Trump disdains poor people. His record as a landlord in New York is self-evident. Putting children of asylum-seeking people and illegal migrants in cages says it all. His disparaging remarks about soldiers who gave their lives at Normandy and then at the Arlington cemetery shines a light on a person who is unable to have any empathy.
- (2) Respect for Women: A person who boasts that he can grab a woman by her private part, who walks on women contestants in the nude or in process of undressing in the dressing room at a pageant, one who pays off prostitutes to keep his extramarital affairs a secret, one who has been accused of sexual attacks and rape by several women, obviously has no respect for women. For him, they are simply a thing to use and discard.
- (3) Environment: Trump does not believe that the environment needs protection or nurturing. He has refused to consider any scientific evidence. He is blind to catastrophic floods and fires engulfing USA with more severity every year. He has weakened all rules governing pollution by industries. When the whole world is going towards solar power, he is actively promoting coal mining. He believes that the USA is the boss, it has the first right on all world resources and unbridled consumption and the world may go to hell.
- (4) Dialogue: The whole Hindu philosophy is based on dialogue. The six philosophies of Darshana (Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta) came into being and exist today only because we respect differing viewpoints .The famous story of the dialogue between Adi Shankaracharya and Pundit Mandan Mishra further exemplifies importance of dialogue. Trump has insulted, ridiculed and demonized everyone not only from the Democratic Party, reporters and the world leaders but his own colleagues and people who once worked for him. He has no patience for any dialogue because he is incapable of digesting thoughts. With him it is my way or highway. He is a classic example of a delusional and deranged mind.
- (5) Equality: Trump first demonized all Latin American illegal immigrants as rapists and murderers. Then he showed his true colors after death of George Floyd at under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. Resulting nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, violence and riots which included many white Americans besides the black community gave him only a license to spew more venom against the Blacks and incite his racist base to retaliatory violence. He is mean to the core; his hatred of people of color is so intense that he did not care to pay final respects to a Civil Rights Movement giant John Robert Lewis. His characterizing of Ku Klux Klan members at the Charlottesville rampage in 2017 as “fine young men” leaves no doubt about his White Supremacist mind.
One may disagree with the BLM movement. Like one of my friends, one may label Blacks as Lazy, living on government dole, obese, irresponsible as parents and with no morals- all of which is mischaracterization of a whole race and that too without looking at the historic context, but one cannot ignore that Blacks do not have a level playing field. I find it very disturbing when I sense the streak of racism in my Hindu friends; they froglet that we are only one shade above the Blacks when it comes to the skin color. If today Trump can go after the Blacks, Latinos or Muslims, tomorrow, it could be turn of Hindus too. To feel secure because we are highly educated and in the upper echelons of income brackets (as compared to other minorities) is to fool ourselves. Just ask the dead professors, scientists, entrepreneurs and successful businessmen in Mao’s China, Stalin’s Russia, Pol Pot’s Kampuchea (Cambodia), Idi Amin’s Uganda and Hitler’s Germany.
- (6) Democracy: Democracy is a very fragile concept. It endures so long as all participants value it and abide by norms meant to preserve and protect it. Moment one gets impatient especially a leader and short circuits it to achieve desired results, democracy dies. Death of a democracy is always a slow process. what was unacceptable becomes acceptable today as a stop get measure because of some exigency, decay creeps in, and one after the other pillars of democracy erode and fall. Anyone who does not take notice of acts that weaken the democracy, does not protest it and does not work to restore it, is as guilty as the person who is destroying the democracy.
Out of 195 countries in the world hardly 55 have functioning democracies. Economist Intelligence Unit, a UK based company has developed a Democracy Index which is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories, measuring pluralism, civil liberties and political culture. It indexes 166 countries (rest are countries that came into being after the Democracy Index was developed.) USA is at number 25 with a score of 7.96 out of 10 and Bharat is number 51 with a score of 6.9. Thus, in a sea of undemocratic world, it is all the more important for us to protect and preserve our democracy.
But Trump fails on all counts of democracy.
(A) Trump has made the Senate and the Congress his own pocket bureau. All senators have been rendered spineless. Anyone who raises voice against him is publicly pilloried and threatened with a Primary. When the impeachment proceedings began in the House, the Republican majority leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell shamelessly said that he will coordinate Trump’s defense with the White House. The Senate and the House ate supposed to be independent branches of the government and are meant to act as checks and balances on the government and the president. Senator Susan Collins and Mitt Romney who make a show of their independence also proved who they really are- tools in the design to make the Supreme Court completely partisan to implement the racist, anti-women, anti-minority White Supremacist agenda of the Evangelical Christians by voting for the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and supporting nomination for the Supreme Court just before the election respectively. This depraved, spineless genuflecting in front of Trump again and again by every Republican Congressman and senator has proved beyond doubt that the independence of the legislature has been killed by Trump.
(B)Trump has terrorized the bureaucracy into abject submission. He has fired Inspector Generals at will when their findings were harming him personally. He has put people with questionable past in important positions. In some cases, he has appointed a fox to guard a chicken coop. He has destroyed public trust in FBI, CDC, etc. by vilifying them to serve his own interests. No president before him has done that. Thus, Trump has decimated the Executive branch.
(C) Trump has packed judiciary with rightwing judges who do not even show pretense of being impartial. His haste to fill the position on the Supreme Court vacated by Ruth Bader Ginsburg while her body lies in rest at the supreme Court building is nauseating, especially when the same cabal of Republican senators refused to bring for discussion a nominee of President Obama when judge Anthony Scalia died full eight months before the presidential election. Trump taking cues from the Federalist society in selecting extreme rightwing judges for the Supreme Court is an affront to democracy where there are opinions severally opposed to the Federalist View. So, Trump has hit the third nail in the coffin of democracy by weakening and polarizing the highest court of the Land.
(D)Trump has discredited the media by labeling anything unfavorable to him as fake news. He views media as his enemy. He singles out reporters and urges their bosses to fire him/her. He demeans women reporters. He gives insulting nicknames to reporters. He has killed the spirit of journalism and thereby Trump has destroyed the freedom of the press.
Thus, Trump has effectively damaged the four pillars of a democracy- The Legislature, The Executive, The Judiciary and The Free Press.
- (7) Integrity of Character: After all that I have mentioned above, not much needs to be said about Trump’s lack of character. He is a person with no morality or conscience. He is a pathological liar. He is a cheat and corrupt to the core. He promotes nepotism and sycophancy. He does not think twice to betray his associate/friend if he can make a buck or save his skin. He is foulmouthed, condescending and uncouth. He exhibits all the traits of a Mafia Don. He is too selfish, and his world revolves around himself. He surrounds himself with criminals. Many of his close confidantes have ended up in prison and others are facing court trials. He himself is under investigation in a number of cases in New York. His charity was fined heavily and was ordered to shut down for malpractices. Same was the case with Trump University. The latest revelations about his financial status, his deals with Turkey, Moscow and Philippines, etc. create serious doubts about his ability to put the interests of USA above his personal interest. That is a security threat for the country, if a President is compromised because of financial pressures in his personal life. He is known to stiffing his vendors and lenders. Between 2010 and 2018, he has shortchanged his lenders to the tune of $287 million. Would you do a business with such an individual? Worse, would you put him in a position where he could decide your and country’s future? He interferes with the Justice department when his crony friend is up for sentencing. He pardons criminals like Roger stone who now parrots the idea that Trump should not accept a defeat and send in troops in the streets and declare a Marshall law. What else one needs to know that the country and the democracy can never be safe in the hands of such a person?
How could I who claim to be a proud Hindu vote for a person who scores a big Zero on all the values that I hold dear and talk about to others, unless I am a total hypocrite? . (To be continued to part 4 OF 4)
Gaurang G. Vaishnav, Tampa, FL
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Gujarat, Bharat’s Guangdong
Here is a good article about Gujarat’s progress. Of course, just as it is customary to touch steps of a temple before entering it, for all the media it has become customary to harp on 2002 riots (result of burning of 59 Hindus by Muslim mobs in a train at Godhra) whenever writing about Gujarat or Narendra Modi.- Moderator
A north-western state offers a glimpse of a possible industrial future for India
SO MANY things work properly in Gujarat that it hardly feels like India. In a factory packed with kit from Germany and China, slabs of rubber and bags of carbon black are turned into tyres. After being X-rayed for imperfections, they will be distributed across India or sent for export within three days. Sandeep Bhatia, a manager for CEAT, the firm that owns the project, says it took only 24 months to complete, including the normally fraught process of buying land. There is constant electricity, gas and abundant water. The state government, he says, kept red tape to a minimum, did not ask for bribes, and does not interfere much now.
The tyre plant is not the only sign of prosperity in Gujarat. A nearby village may have fodder strewn all over its alleys and mice scuttling across shampoo sachets in the local store, but it also has satellite dishes poking up from the roofs and power metres on the wall of every house. Most of the men, the villagers say, work for small industrial firms for a wage about 50% higher than they would get in the fields. The road to Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s main city, is privately operated and boasts four lanes. It passes through a countryside that is visibly industrialising.
With a long coastline and too little rain for decent farming, Gujarat has always been famous for its traders. When it was hived off from Bombay to form a separate state in 1960, “the question was how Gujarat would survive,” says Narendra Modi, who has been chief minister since 2001. These days Gujarat accounts for 5% of India’s population but 16% of its industrial output and 22% of its exports. Its growth has outpaced India’s (see chart) and it wins accolades from business people. A recent comparison of Indian states by McKinsey, a consultancy, waxed lyrical about Gujarat. It might yet play the role of industrial locomotive for the country, as Guangdong province did for China in the 1990s. There is lots of excited talk about exporters switching from China to India. Sanjay Lalbhai, the chairman of Arvind, a textiles maker and clothing retailer based in Ahmedabad, says such a move is “imminent” in his industry.
Chinese-style, big-ticket projects are part of Gujarat’s formula, including refineries and ports, but so are networks of smaller firms and foreign companies which have now achieved critical mass in industries such as cars and pharmaceuticals. The state government uses the usual tricks to try to jump-start growth, including special economic zones. But more important, it has provided the bog-standard things that businesses pray for across India but often do not get—less onerous labour laws, passable roads, reliable electricity and effective bureaucracy.
Against the charge that some people have been left behind, Gujarat can point to reasonable growth in agriculture, helped by irrigation schemes. But the state has a black spot, which dates back to 2002 and an outbreak of sectarian violence. As many as 2,000 people (the official toll is lower) were killed in a month of riots, most of them Muslims. Some say Mr Modi and the state government were complicit in the violence or could at least have done more to stop it.
Compare the population and GDP of Indian states to those of entire countries using our interactive mapMight prosperity help heal the wounds? In Juhapura, a district on the outskirts of Ahmedabad dominated by the Muslim minority, a young mason grows angry when asked if he feels lucky to make 250-300 rupees a day ($6-7), saying he only gets work for 15 days a month. Others are more content. A bearded man down the road says his party-decoration business is booming. Behind the till of a shop selling top-ups for mobile phones and stationery for the nearby school, a man in a skull cap says life has undoubtedly improved, although his 82-year-old father, sitting in a deckchair, complains that everything went to the dogs when the British left.
Gujarat could be a vision of India’s future, in which manufacturing flourishes, soaking up rural labour. Its economy is expected to grow by double digits, even as India’s rate slows to 7-8% this year. The state may also be a springboard for Mr Modi, who may contest the national leadership of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, perhaps after state elections due in 2012. Mr Modi is enigmatic on this subject. He has yet to shed his polarising image, but he has at least built up an enviable record on the economy.
http://www.economist.com/node/18929279?story_id=18929279&fsrc=rss
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