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17 comments:
Ah...the censorship :-(
Left some points on Sandeep's space, DD. But I wish you'd seriously sit and think how the liberalist extremism is also worsening the stituation. OK, it's easy to get worked up over the bigots. But it also repels the fence sitters: many of whom are decent, honest ppl when they see venom on one side and frothing mouths on the other.
?!: show me the venom or the frothing mouths that I've displayed (especially here and here), and I'll gladly do as you suggest. And that's a promise.
Hey, what's the policy? In my humble opininon, I have come across only two policies worth sticking to -- honesty and life insurance. :D
I was appalled by the anonymous personal attacks on Dilip's recent articles, and I am glad that Dilip deleted them.
I agree with Uma. I think that blogs should be moderated so that hate speech is quickly deleted.
Dilip
here's a sample. Before you jump to it's defence, just show it to somebody out of context and listen to his/her reactions. Which is precisely what will happen to this quote.
"From where I sit, it seems to me that the greatest threat to my country is this half-baked Hindutva. "
God knows I froth at half baked Hindutva myself ( idiots whose sole aim is feed on the insecurity of the majority , yes, there is such a thing, trust me, to garner votes). But man, if you are looking to be a voice of sanity, you need to avoid injecting such stuff into an already overheated atmosphere. Call us timid, but when Ms A Roy ( more advances to her pen) gets into the act, most of the janata gets switched off. A few more unthinking lines like this and you will join the bandwagon- defeating the very energy that made you sit up in the first place. Again, look at Michael Moore. Despite his extremely well researched articles/books on Bush's perfidy, his manaical zeal pushed him to a fringe, leaving the neocons centrestage.
Dear ?!, I agree with you to a certain extent, but not fully. I do agree that there are people who feed on the general insecurity of the people to further their personal causes. I also feel that such people don't restrict themselves to a single religion. It's a well calculated business move -- choose a religion, choose a point to dwell on, and hope people are insecure enough to listen to and believe you.
What worked against Michael Moore was not the fact that he went overboard. His faults were:
i) He released the documentary a bit too early. Citizens have very short memoeries. VERY short. Do you remember Gary Condit? The seer of Kanchi? Me neither. That's because mass memory is erased at the next controversy. Newspapers want fresh meat as well... anyway, if MM had released his movie, say two months before the election, the margin might have been a lot smaller. I say might because:
ii) Politicians have a lot more tricks and power at their disposal. Why is it that the terror alerts, which were so frequent before the elections, suddenly went to sleep till the London bombings? Bush may or may not be so dumb as people perceive him to be, but he has a shrewd advisory board. They knew what needed to be done to win the election.
I don't think one should stop calling a spade a spade because there are already people doing so. If there are many more people calling the spade, masses may actually start believing it. It's all about mass communication, finally. Good and evil are writer's tools for making a livelihood.
Thank you Anurag. You explained some of what I would have said better than I could have. There is, however, a third policy you should take note of: the "take-it-easy" policy that was even the subject of a popular (Telugu?) film song some years ago...
?!: Let me be frank. From where I sit, I see this thing called Hindutva is the greatest threat to my country. Others may not see it that way, and that's fine with me. This is in the end a battle of ideas, and I make no apologies, nor want any favours, for expressing my ideas.
I do see this sentence of mine (that you have quoted) as substantially different from calling people names, or telling obvious lies, or putting people on hitlists (and more). I would be interested in hearing how and why you equate my sentence to those things.
Anurag first. Before we push the Michael Moore analogy too far :the book ( Dude Where's my country) was released in the runup to the primaries. And despite being a best seller, it did not get too far in terms of effect. The seer is a diff story, and it would be a digression to get into it. As I see it, despite MM's very valid assertions (which seemed to sell, if not get read)the vast majority did not relate to his rabid anti-Bush theories. If the same had come out in the form of a more balanced "serious" book ( the publisher's tag on the jacket says Political Humor!!) it is possible he may been listened to with greater effect.
DD : I am not asking you to dilute the strength of your convictions.What I am asking for is moderation in their expression, unless the goal is more to get off your chest than create a groundswell of opinion against bigotry. Let us see it as opening a closed door. You may knock and hope it opens. When it doesnt, you try to take a step back and launch a mighty kick at it to break the latch. When you let your skills at writing blend with force of ideas, you can create such an effect. When you let your frustration at what you see as the uncomprehending and passive attitude of the populace take over, it is akin to stabbing the door with a knife. Spectacular, maybe, but not really effective. As Anurag says, it IS about mass communication and emphasis is on mass. You wish to display the strength of convictions in taking on the bigots: do you have it you to stop playing to the chatterati gallery and actually get into the hard work of moving people? As for the comment that your line isn't equivalent to generating hitlists: obviously it isnt. One is venom meant to kill and the other froth generated by righteous anger. If you think the means of combating those who scream hate through rabid articles is being vociferously loud, its your call. I would think a attempting to build a chorus a better and more effective reply though.
>>That's because mass memory is erased at the next controversy
Keeping a controversy alive is good for business. Why else would resurrect an issue where his clock was pretty much at Sandeepweb couple months ago. Or he chicken to complete the discussion there?
Or maybe he's currying favors from the nemisis of those Shiv Sena goons - who coincidentally happen to business partners of J B D'Souza.
I don't know. Nor does any of anyone in the Dilip head-nodders and back-scratchers club who are advocating banishing those not glibly accepting the "conventional wisdom" around here.
But it's a question worth asking and it keeps proping up in various forums. Dilip's free to NOT answer it if he thinks it'a too personal. He's free to delete the posts.
His turf his rules .. go for it Dilip.
- k
I thought I would take this space to write more about myself. I am quite pathetic, honestly. You see, I write horrible things about Dilip, but I do not have the guts to leave a name. I do it all anonymously. I am a mook.
All I do is criticize Dilip. The sensible thing would be to stop reading his webpage. But I sit here, religiously reading every article he writes. What does that say about me?
Yet another k? :-(
Guess I've offended Dilip that he's to hide behind my nick now :-(
Maybe I'll hide behind the kiddie pictures like the da man Dilipji.
- k
K., Let me tell you this. What the author puts in his blog or deletes is his freedom of expression. Not censorship. You've sarcastically said that it is his space. It really his space, respect that.
All I have seen till now from you is very vindictive personal attacks on the author and his family. All this just because you don't agree with his view. What you are trying to do is censorship by coercion. Why don't you put your views in your own blog and lets talk about it.
This is Dhanoosh again - the AID-INDIA volunteer from Atlanta. I see that my posts were removed, instead of my questions to Dilip being answered.
Those questions again were:
Our faculty advisor, Associate Professor Govindaraj (whom the AID Press Release wrongly inflated as "Professor" which he will never be) got kicked in his Dilip by the Administration for using a meeting with the Maharashtra CM to push an AID-generated Petition about slum-dwellers' rights. We all spent many hours campaigning and getting signatures for this Petition.
We are all VERY ANGRY at the Mumbai BigShots who are behind the Slum Demolition
Now I find that J.B. D'SOUZA is one of the BigShots who APPROVED the brutal slum demolition.
And DILIP D'SOUZA writes articles supporting his daddy's business ventures like these.
Question 1: WHY didn't you stop your Daddy, Dilip? Didn't care about the slum-dwellers?
Question 2: How can you sleep, Dilip (at night, or during the day because you don't do any work) knowing your guilt in this?
Question 3: Why did you censor my questions, Dilip?
Reminds me of the whiny rich brats who would run home to Momma with their cricket bats when they were given out by the umpire.
This is Dhanoosh again - the AID-INDIA volunteer from Atlanta. I see that my posts were removed, instead of my questions to Dilip being answered. I also see that I had forgotten my final question.
Question 4: Like k, I have no life and a small penis. Why?
Question 5: In fact, I think I am k. Am I? Don't ask me that, because I won't lie about it.
Please let us maintain decorum in this forum. MAny of us may not agree with everything Dilip writes. I myself have disagreed on many points. But launching personal attacks is going too far. let us argue out issues in a healthy debate.
Nikhil, try to figure out as to why the posts on the size of penis stay on this board while anything to with his papa's criminal-neta-babu nexus disappear.
In the same vein (pardon the pun)..
Dhanoosh:
Be happy with the size of your penis.. for what we know, Vibha's been putting up with far far less ;-)
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