Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:57:06 -0800 (PST) From: Santosh Helekar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
As I pointed out elsewhere, the guy who started the smear against Sonal Shah this time around, Vijay Prashad, also tried to smear Mother Teresa years ago because of her links with convicted embezzlers of public funds and a genocidal dictator. Please see the following fringe website for that garbage: http://www.cpa.org.au/amrarch/40vp.html Mario observes: Santosh is right. Vijay Prashad belongs to the extreme far left wing kook fringe that dominated Indian politics in the decades after independence, destroyed its economy and were eventually relegated to the thrash heap of history by the emergence of Manmohan Singh and others who finally unleashed India's potential and initiative. Now they have found a home in American academe from which to spread their vile propaganda like termites in the foundations of freedom and democracy. Vijay Prashad's discombobulated brain is unable to reconcile capital and freedom, private accumulation and human needs, even as he lives and works in America, which has for decades provided living proof that capital is synonymous with freedom, whereas extreme socialism is synonymous with totalitarianism, and private accumulation of wealth is the greatest source of charity to address human needs, whereas there are no extreme socialists to be found wherever the poorest of the poor need assistance. Far left wingers like Prashad are concerned that Sonal Shah will nudge Barack Obama away from the far left fringe and towards the political center. Marshall wrote: Santosh would do Sonal a favour if could advise his friends in the sangh parivar .... Mario observes: Marshall, Marshall, Marshall. Get a grip, man. Don't embarrass yourself like this and diminish your credibility. Can't you stay on point? Everyone on Goanet knows Santosh is a MAHA-atheist, and thus someone who has about as many "friends" in the Sangh Parivar as you or Fr. Ivo. Marshall wrote: Just a thought. Would members of the Nazi party be considered innocent of war crimes .... Mario observes: Not a very rational thought, I must say. I have excoriated others on Goanet when they have used Nazis to make their point, almost always inappropriately. There has rarely been anyone quite as diabolical as the Nazis, before or since, including those who ended up killing far more of their own citizens in political pogroms like Stalin or Mao for example. Thus it is amost always inappropriate to use the Nazi-card. In fact it tends to demonstrate that one is getting desperate, or at least, mentally fatigued. Furthermore, your thought shows you are uninformed about the aftermath of WW-II. Here's why. You said, "Would members of the Nazi party be considered innocent of war crimes if they did not directly order any killings but remained passive while members of their party were involved?" The answer is "Yes!". This question has already been answered during the Nuremberg trials. Those members of the Nazi party who did not directly order any killings, or engage in any killings, but remained passive, were not convicted of war crimes. There were many younger Germans who were forced into service in the Nazi cause, who were only tangentially involved in their atrocities, or not involved at all, but were unable to do anything about it. The Open Letter to Sonal Shah, who has lived and worked in the US since before Marshall was born, turns logic on its head by accusing her of being complicit in the mob violence being prepetrated by the VHP and RSS etc. in India, BECAUSE SHE HAD NOT GONE OUT OF HER WAY TO CONDEMN THEM IN A FORUM SATISFACTORY TO HER CRITICS. This would be about as absurd as someone accusing these people pretending to be Obama supporters of being complicit in Saddam Hussain's mass political atrocities because, not only did they not condemn them when they were taking place, but they also opposed the regime change in Iraq. For good measure, these people did not even condemn the Taliban when they were whipping Afghan women in the streets and beheading them in the soccer stadium in Kabul for being seen with a man they were not related to. The fact is Sonal Shah has distanced herself from the Hindu-extremists and there is no evidence that she was any more involved in the mob violence than Stalin's daughter was involved in his mass killings of innocent Soviets. As a political opponent of this American administration, believe me, it is people like Sonal Shah who will prevent Barack Obama from his more economically destructive instincts to raise tax rates inordinately or implement protectionist trade policies to reward his labor union supporters that will severely damage the demand for the goods and services provided to the US market from India.
