Heath care reform – thanks to Scott Brown.

Sen. Scott Brown

A couple of months ago I had written a harsh critique of the Democrats’ weak-kneed approach toward the health-care overhaul. I had held Obama and the Democratic leadership responsible for letting the national discourse degenerate to such levels that the American people had developed a distaste for the project itself.

While my criticism of democrats still holds true, it is time to give due credit and hail President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid for the extraordinary and monumental legislative victory that was accomplished yesterday.

However, as I reflect upon the developments over the last few months, one name deserves special mention and that is Sen. Scott Brown. The fact that we have a half-way decent health-care legislation is largely (and ironically) due to his electoral success.

Hindu and Muslim Taliban are first cousins

In numerous earlier posts, I have been scathing in my attack against Islamic extremism. Piqued by the unabashed critique, some have counseled a gentler tone so as to not alienate “moderates”.  I have previously debunked the validity of that proposition and hence I will not being doing that here. Still others have urged me to consider that Islam is not the ONLY violent game in town and that there are others who deserve similar condemnation.

Religion is fundamentally divisive because it promotes an Us vs. Them mentality.

Although I fully agree that Islamic militancy is not the only plague of our times, the subject of those posts were specifically Islamic terrorism / militancy and hence I did not feel the need to dilute the subject matter of my post by including references to its virulent brethren. However, this time I would like to show that fascism is NOT the sole preserve of any one religion or any one community. Religious chauvinism has a common formula that is adopted and exercised by different practitioners. In doing so, they tweak the superficial elements (color: Green v/s Saffron or name: Lashkar v/s Sena) – but the basic constructs are *exactly* the same.

Toward that end I have assembled a set of pictures and I invite you to join me in exploring the similarities.

The Thackereys: Sewer Rats of Mumbai.

When Osama Bin Laden spouts his venom, he insinuates to speak for all Muslims. We (rightly) get frustrated by the fact that mainstream muslims do not do enough to repudiate him and yet claim that he is not representative of them. Well… it seems that Osama Bin Laden is not the only vicious dog in the pen. There are others like the Thackerey-trio who have made a career of operating in the sewers and expounding their gutter minds in public.

Supreme Dick with his 2 Testicles

Most of the time I have been content with treating them with a quiet disdain because I knew that the primary purpose of their fulminations is cheap publicity and I did not want to contribute to their goal of being the subject of conversation.  However, it seems that they are no longer satisfied with being in the gutters and are discovering new depths in the nether-reaches of public discourse. What makes this intolerable is their penchant for indiscriminate violence and bloodshed. Of late, they seem to be showing self-righteous outrage at Indians immigrants being harassed in Australia while conveniently overlooking the fact that they are practicing the same xenophobia themselves.

This is THE time to rise and denounce these vermin. Every thinking person – and more to the point – every thinking ‘Marathi Manoos’ needs to criticize and marginalize this filth of the sewers that claims to speak in their name. So here I am – a Mumbaikar and a Maharashtrian – unequivocally rejecting and repudiating the venom spouted by Bal Thackerey, Raj Thackerey and Uddhav Thackerey!