Democracy is a revolutionary concept; the idea that every man has an equal right to shape the world and society he lives in is not a commonly accepted one.

In practice the United Kingdom recites a democratic cerimonial but has no actual democracy. Wishful thinkers will say that our democracy is limited, more pragmatic people will recognize that it is mostly a fiction of forms.

In practice our individual democratic power is only recognised in so much as we may delegate it and concentrate it in the hands of a representative.

To a certain extent, we may observe the use and abuse of the power we have surrendered in delegation and then we may choose to renew our mandate or bestow another representative with our power.

It is extremely rare for common people to be allowed to vote directly on an issue, and even in such cases (referendums) the questions will often be pre-formulated by others and the outcome may not have legislative status.

To many people the most important mass-delegation event occurs at national elections, so in practice most people participate in democracy once every four or five years.

One tick on a pre-groomed face or banner every half-decade.

This, without a hint of irony, is called the democratic process and, along with other minor voting occasions (local elections, European elections etc.), is deemed sufficient evidence of a democratic society.

The only form of democracy which is tolerated consistently is representative democracy and democratic power is for the most part recognised in the moment in which it departs its bearer and concentrates, in the form of consent, at the feet of a delegated leader. Our democratic power is acknowledged by officialdom in the very moment we surrender its control to somebody else.

Voter apathy (as it is called) is one consequence of this structure of channelled democracy; although it is seldom discussed in the mainstream media or by our cathodic (so-called) intellectuals, it is quite plausible that many do not vote because they do not perceive mass delegation in favour of an unknown media personality as being a valid use of their democratic power. Other reasons for low voter turnout are the perception that ones vote will make little difference, that all vote-gatherers will essentially enact similar policies (those with a chance of victory certainly will) or even the refusal to choose something which one does not desire.

These are all excellent reasons for not voting. Indeed one must ask whether the expression voter apathy is best suited to those who refuse to take part in our current form of castrated democracy or rather to those who accept to participate by eliciting one of (usually) two parties or media-heads with substantially identical agendas.

Take the UK as an example; we are told (by interested parties) that there are only three candidates for victory: the Conservatives, New Labour and the Liberal Democrats. This being the case, where is one to vote “no” to neo-liberism, “no” to neo-colonialism? Who does one vote for the upholding of conservative principles, who does one vote for social justice?

In the US it is said that there are only two factions of the Business Party (Democrats and Republicans), the same is true of the United Kingdom and most of the EU; in fact the Business Party is the only party, which can win an election in the western world.

Why? Well print and broadcasting businesses repeat it incessantly and so the pragmatic-vote is created and citizens scramble to adhere to the least catastrophic faction of the Business Party.

Please note that these people are not making an informed choice, nor are they choosing as such, they are instead trying to avert the rise to power of the most extreme branch of the only party.

Evidently there are many other reasons to vote a given party including nostalgia, perception of a shared ideology, trust in party members etc. but very few wholeheartedly adhere to the agenda (which most citizens ignore) of any given faction within the Business Party and these few have often helped shape the agenda (or, in some cases, drafted parts of it outright).

These people vote out of expedience although, it must be stressed, their power resides not in their votes, which would be too few to win an election, but in their ability to induce others to vote for their interests or, alternatively, to relinquish their vote.

Said individuals despise and fear democracy in equal measure.

One of the most parroted myths of our western democracy is that incompetent, lazy, selfish leaders will not see their mandate renewed and will thus be voted out of office. The notion is largely correct though what it would appear to imply is not.

There is no democratic selection of candidates; bad leaders are not replaced by better ones, they are simply replaced by another one. Once Tony Blair has been shown to be a murderous fanatic, he can then be replaced by somebody else with different, but similarly undesirable characteristics.

From the Business Party obviously.

How does this work?

Come election time, the media will give prominent coverage to the most powerful players in the political arena so historical opposition i.e. the Conservatives will enjoy much airtime as will the Liberal Democrats because both have historically done well in previous elections. New (or Not) Labour will also enjoy much airtime as the defeated force and will still be regarded as a prime contender.

It makes little or no difference whether people’s opposition was to policies which are similar or identical to those which Tories and LibDems have on the agenda; this is not a critical analysis of past policy failures or future policy implications it is the fawning to power and the industrial practice of news journalism.

The media will give prominence to dissident voices from the other two factions of the Business Party during the current government’s demise and then publish intentions of vote which reflect their coverage of the (internal) dissidence. Even before the electoral-machine is set in motion, the media has already provided the pre-conditions for another session of pragmatic-voting. This practice cements and perpetuates the status quo and is at the heart of the Media and Business Party’s self-perpetuating mandate.

It becomes thus easy to infiltrate a party with an important voter basin and completely pervert the party’s declared ideology, secure in the knowledge that the media’s industrial practices will perpetuate your popularity notwithstanding. All you need then is a couple of chronically irresponsible Eton boys and you have access to a party with a huge popular base and the guarantee of self-perpetuating media prominence.

It is the ideal trojan horse for big business.

Not surprisingly the Conservatives do not have a conservative agenda, Labour works against labourers and the Liberal Democrats are a spurious form of both their adjective and their noun.

All things considered, representative democracy though limited and tightly constrained, may not be a pointless exercise given that voters do not surrender to the perverse logic of pragmatic-voting, providing that we pay little attention to voter intentions and exit-polls.

We can participate meaningfully in a representative democracy if we endevour to inform ourselves of all parties’ actual agendas, regain the courage of our convictions and defend our right to choose and form the society we wish to live in.

Is this enough?

No it is not. Politics cannot be entirely delegated to third parties and the democratic power of the citizen cannot be relinquished through representation.

The revolutionary potential of democracy is such that it cannot limit itself to the practice of fair representation.

To be continued in future posts…

Is America a terrorist state?

Is Obama being overruled??

Watch this video!

Scott Ritter is a man with passion — for truth, justice, and young girls. In his Nov 1st article, he calls “bullshit” on McChrystal’s Afghan strategy paper and the MSM response. However, he still walks the conventional road in portraying the US mission in narco-state Afghanistan as a “failure” by mistake — rather than by design. [Ritter also implies that Obama is both "reluctant" and "independent" regarding Af/Pak -- which is the bogus MSM angle.]

Through a policy of military failure [and provocateurism], a lawless “macrostate” has been created: Pashtunistan. Let’s face it, the Durand Line was never going to last forever…

Threat maps show the Taliban are pushing the “borders” of Pashtunistan into the semi-autonomous Shia Hazarajat “Shatterbelt“. More recent maps reveal the extent of the Afghan state’s retreat, suggesting around 80% of the country is now in Taliban hands, or at least strongly disputed. US forces just withdrew from Nuristan province, (except for some soldiers still in the provincial capital). “Low-risk” areas marked above are often controlled by warlords who extort money to ensure stability.

Scott Ritter writes:

[...] McChrystal has generally been sold to the American public as a “Zen warrior,” a counterinsurgency genius who, if simply left to his own devices, will be able to radically transform the ongoing debacle that is Afghanistan into a noble victory that will rank as one of the greatest political and military triumphs of modern history.

[...] A viable nation capable of self-government, the new Afghanistan could maintain internal security so that terrorist organizations like al-Qaida will not be able to take root, flourish and once again threaten American security from the sanctuary of a lawless land. This concept certainly looks good on paper and plays well in the editorial section. And why shouldn’t it? It touches on all the romantic notions of America as liberator and defender of the oppressed. The problem is that the assumptions made in the McChrystal report are so far removed from reality as to be ludicrous.

[...] Indeed, one of the unique aspects of the Afghan conflict is the degree to which it has expanded into Pakistan, making any military solution in one theater contingent on military victory in the other. But the reality is that the more one employs military force in either Afghanistan or Pakistan, the more one strengthens the cause and resources of the Islamic insurgents in both places. Pashtunistan, once a fanciful notion built around the concept of a united Pashtun people (the population in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan are primarily drawn from Pashtun tribes), has become a de facto reality. The decision by the British in 1897 to separate the Pashtun through the artificial device of the so-called Durand Line (which today constitutes the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan) has been exposed today as a futile effort to undermine tribal links. No amount of military force can reverse this.

Professor Noam Chomsky’s post-9/11 bibliography was rejected as a donation from a Pentagon lawyer to the library at the Guantánamo Bay prison complex.

Carol Rosenberg at The Miami Herald reports: “U.S. military censors recently rejected a Pentagon lawyer’s donation of an Arabic-language copy of the political activist and linguistic professor’s 2007 anthology Interventions for the library, which has more than 16,000 items.”

Ms. Rosenberg reports “listed categories of restricted literature to include those espousing ‘Anti-American, Anti-Semitic, Anti-Western’ ideology, literature on ‘military topics,” and works that portray ‘excessive graphic violence’ and ’sexual dysfunctions.’ “

“This happens sometimes in totalitarian regimes,” Prof. Chomsky told Ms. Rosenberg by e-mail after learning of the decision.

“Of some incidental interest, perhaps, is the nature of the book they banned. It consists of op-eds written for The New York Times syndicate and distributed by them. The subversive rot must run very deep.”

Popular works in the library among those captive is Richard Nixon’s Victory Without War, the Harry Potter series, World Cup literature, a French cuisine cookbook and Q’uran scholars—”prescreened to make sure they contain mainstream messages”.

You can read much of Prof. Chomsky’s writings from this year here at Little Alex in Wonderland—along with many interviews and lectures—at our “Chomsky’s Lectern” section. A larger collection of his essays and interviews can be found at chomsky.info.

One of the greatest things about law school for me is all the free time I have for pleasure reading.  I was paranoid for a while that I was slacking off while people around me struggled to read mandatory assignments, but it turns out that I am doing all right.  This is the seventh week of law school and I am a few pages away from finishing my sixth eighth book.  This is what I have had a chance to read so far:

• The Wild Blue, Stephen Ambrose – so good, I read it again!
• The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Mark Noll – disappointing, so I un-recommended it
• Failed States, Noam Chomsky – my first Chomsky definitely lived up to expectations
• The European Dream, Jeremy Rifkin – excellent
• The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria – fantastic
• The Time Paradox, Phillip Zimbardo and John Boyd – I loved this paradigm-changing book
• Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut – classic Vonnegut
• Armageddon in Retrospect, Kurt Vonnegut – awesome collection of writings, quotes, speeches, and notes from  Vonnegut

Evidently a lot of other people miss out on pleasure reading time when they are in law school, and I feel bad for them.

UPDATE (10/11): I was going through my books and came across two others that I read a few weeks ago.  I knew I had some Vonnegut books in there somewhere!

California, the golden state, the land of American dreams, the place where I was born. What was once a land of milk and honey in the eyes of many is taking a hard dive into reality. I left there in 1978 after the passing of Proposition 13 made  two classes of  citizens a matter of law. It sealed me and so many others into a group of never will haves. It was big government mob rule democracy at it’s worst.

People are saying that unemployment is the worst it has been in sixty years. I beg to differ. During the Carter fiasco real unemployment in San Diego County was in reality well over twenty percent among the non government sector. I had people with advanced degrees pumping gas along side me at University City Arco.

The answer, at the time, was more socialism, and higher taxes. At least that was the solution offered up by Governor Moonbat and crew. New laws on Gun Control were being passed faster than most Californians could keep up with. New laws on vehicle emissions made it all but impossible to keep your vehicle running. At least legally.

The police concentrated on those dope smoking hippies and anyone that didn’t wear a crew cut while allowing white collar criminals the run of the state. The elites, when they were prosecuted, were given a slap on the wrist, or allowed to post bail and run across a border like Polanski did.

While at the same time a friend came home and found two thugs raping his wife. They then beat him to a pulp, until he was able to get to his 357, and put an end to their nefarious ways. The California response to that home invasion and sexual assault was to imprison him. He died there, and his wife later committed suicide. So much for the California dream, and that was many, many years gone by.

Lead by a RINO California is still in trouble up to it’s nose, and may very well be going down for the third time. I blame the people for the states demise. They keep on electing big government authoritarians. People who believe that others are too stupid for their own good. People who believe that government has the answer to every problem. People who are better than thou, and that will show you the error of your ways.

The Guardian wrote a really swell piece about all this. The grammar and spelling are magnificent. Worthy of superior marks in English Composition. But, the article misses the point completely even as they do such an eloquent job of describing the situation unfolding in California.

READ THAT HERE

I started this blog a few years ago, and, as I stated in one of the earliest pieces. Government most often creates problems, or makes them worse. While Freedom, and Liberty find solutions. My thoughts have not changed.

The golden state: from golden to corpse. And what do they say–what starts in CA works its way east?…”California has a special place in the American psyche. It is the Golden State: a playground of the rich and famous with perfect weather. It symbolises a lifestyle of sunshine, swimming pools and the Hollywood dream factory. But the state that was once held up as the epitome of the boundless opportunities of America has collapsed. From its politics to its economy to its environment and way of life, California is like a patient on life support.” Of course if you lived in California you’ve already known this for a long time now. Everyone’s talking about it. Even the foreign press is taking note. You see? Just when you thought you couldn’t reach your goal–there it is, already right in front of you– done. All you have to do now is check it off on your To Do list.

It began as a “prank,” in the words of the Canadian Press this past 17 August 2009. An anonymous critic of Canadian Liberal leader sent a mass mailing, using a BBC address, to the parliamentary press gallery. In each envelope a was a colour copy of a damning piece about Michael Ignatieff, published four years ago in the New Humanist, with select passages highlighted in yellow.

Laurie Taylor’s article in the New Humanist, “No more Mr Nice Guy,” is worth reading in full, and for more than just a few bits of academic scandal concerning Ignatieff, a prominent scholar who until recently was the director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. It was especially important that Canadian journalists read it, since much of the Canadian public seems to think there is some opposition between Ignatieff the Liberal, and Stephen Harper, the current Conservative Prime Minister. Yet, when it comes to foreign policy, the two are indistinguishable (in fact the argument could be made that they are indistinguishable in most other respects too, aside from academic pedigrees). This is even more critical now, especially as very recently Ignatieff sought to defeat Harper in a vote of no confidence, with the hope of triggering an election that would, he hopes, see him elected as Canada’s next Prime Minister.

Ignatieff, alleged champion of human rights, was referred to by a senior academic quoted by Taylor as a “virus in the human rights movement.” Conor Gearty, Professor of Human Rights Law at the LSE, author of the 2005 Hamelyn Lectures, Can Human Rights Survive?, wrote about Ignatieff among others in the February 2005 edition of the Index on Censorship. Gearty, according to Taylor, showed “the process by which a number of well-meaning liberal intellectuals and human rights lawyers had handed Donald Rumsfeld ‘the intellectual tools with which to justify his government’s expansionism’.” Such people had created an intellectual “climate in which even torture could be condoned,” one of these being Michael Ignatieff. Ignatieff immediately resigned from the editorial board of the Index on Censorship, Taylor told us, but also sought to prevent the publication of Gearty’s article.

Gearty’s piece was headlined “With a little help from our friends. Torture is wrong and ineffective. So why is it making a comeback?” In it he placed Ignatieff in the “category of hand-wringing, apologetic apologists for human rights abuses.” One reason was that Ignatieff had begun to develop arguments for “humanitarian interventions” in so-called “failed states.” Ignatieff then used that logic to justify the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. In his 2004 book, The Lesser Evil, Ignatieff the liberal human rights champion argued, “defeating terror requires violence. It may also require coercion, deception, secrecy, and violation of rights.” While not openly condoning torture, critics argue that Ignatieff’s rhetorical trick can be summarized as “and yet, and yet,” an incrementalist allowance for policy decisions that necessitate harsh treatment of detainees in the defense of liberal democracy under threat from “Islamic extremism.” Ignatieff does condone harsh treatment: “forms of sleep deprivation that do not result in harm to mental or physical health, and disinformation that causes stress.” On 2 May 2004, in The New York Times Magazine, Ignatieff argued that, “Permissible duress might include forms of sleep deprivation that do not result in lasting harm to mental health or physical health, together with disinformation and disorientation (like keeping prisoners in hoods) that would produce stress.” Beyond that, however, and without condoning waterboarding and beating, for example, Ignatieff’s argument becomes trickier. In Gearty’s words:

“The trick …is to take the ‘human’ out of ‘human rights’. This is done by stressing the unprecedented nature of the threat that is currently posed by Islamic terrorism, by insisting that it is ‘a kind of violence that not only kills but would destroy our human rights culture as well if it had a chance’. In these extraordinary circumstances, ‘who can blame even the human rights advocate for taking his or her eye off each individual’s puny plight, for allowing just a little brutality, a beating-up perhaps, or a touch of sensory deprivation?’. But once intellectuals do open this door then scores of Rumsfeldians pour past shouting ‘me too’ and (to the intellectual’s plaintive cries of protest) ‘what do you know about national security – go back to your class work and the New York Review of Books’.”

In Ignatieff’s words “necessity may require us to take actions in defence of democracy which will stray from democracy’s own foundational commitments to dignity.” Gearty argues that this provides an escape clause for those who torture:

“If Abu Ghraib was wrong then that wrongness consisted not in stepping across the line into evil behaviour but rather allowing a ‘necessary evil’ (as framed by the squeamish intellectuals) to stray into ‘unnecessary evil’ (as practised by the not-so-squeamish Rumsfeldians).”

The problem with introducing notions of good and evil, as explained by Gearty, is that it ultimately defeats the very idea of human rights. Why should evil people get the same rights as good people? As Gearty says, “The wonder is not that we good guys abuse their human rights, but that we continue to use such language in relation to them at all, recognise that they have any residual human rights worth noticing.”

Ignatieff, incensed that his “reputation” would be damaged, made the rounds seeking to prohibit the publication of Gearty’s piece. He failed even to sway close friends. This is where Taylor’s piece begins to focus on the political ambitions of Ignatieff:

To some, this concern about ‘reputation’ is best explained by a bizarre development in Ignatieff’s career path: his apparent new interest in pursuing political office in his home country of Canada. When this rumour first began to circulate there was widespread scepticism. But this was soon swept aside by the proliferation of ‘informed’ newspaper articles on Ignatieff’s new ambitions. “If the political supporters of Michael Ignatieff have their way,” wrote the Boston Globe on 19 July this year, “the human rights scholar and journalist may soon abandon his post as director of Harvard’s Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy and enter the political fray.” Neither would Ignatieff confine himself to running for parliament at the next Canadian election. “Power brokers have recruited Toronto-born Ignatieff to return to Canada  with the intention of grooming him to succeed Prime Minister Paul Martin.” This theory has been reinforced by the recent announcement that Ignatieff is leaving Harvard to take up a year-long post at the University of Toronto. The Toronto Star on 26 August, suggested this is a prelude to a bid for leadership of the Liberal Party. Many Canadian pundits have been hailing Ignatieff, with his looks, charm and intelligence, as a liberal gift from heaven: another Pierre Trudeau.

Judith Vidal-Hall, editor of the Index on Censorship, told The Times Higher Education that the magazine had refused to offer him any apology or retraction, but had repeated its request that he take up a right to reply. “It is entirely my personal view that what he wanted from us was an unqualified apology, which would give him a clean bill of health for political life in Canada,” she said. Hence the value of the so-called “prank” in making sure that the dirt got notice.

Otherwise, the prank should have served to underline what we know of Ignatieff since he returned to Canada, which is that as a liberal he is no less of an interventionist than what others call the “neo-conservatives.”

Unlike other opponents of the Conservatives, even within his own party, Ignatieff has  been a vocal supporter for the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, while continuing his endorsement of the “responsibility to protect,” the newest mantra to be worked into the now fashionable counterinsurgency doctrine marketed to the media by the Pentagon. In voting to extend the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, Ignatieff rose in parliament to say, “I express unequivocal support for the troops in Afghanistan, for the mission, and also for the renewal of the mission.” Not only that, he introduced an argument to shift Canada away from its long avowed interest in “peace keeping”: Ignatieff argued that Canada must shift from a “peace-keeping paradigm” to one that “combines military, reconstruction and humanitarian efforts together.” Ignatieff shook hands with Harper afterward, having helped Harper to win the vote in parliament. During a subsequent event, Ignatieff stated, “the thing that Canadians have to understand about Afghanistan is that we are well past the era of Pearsonian peacekeeping.”

Ignatieff’s Liberal Party biography emphasizes his “humanitarian interventionist” principles now recoded as the “responsibility to protect”: “In 2001, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy appointed Michael as one of Canada’s representatives on the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, a groundbreaking effort to help shape future United Nations actions in response to humanitarian crises.”

Writing about Ignatieff’s Lesser Evil, Ronald Steel summarizes Ignatieff’s views as follows:

Michael Ignatieff tells us how to do terrible things for a righteous cause and come away feeling good about it. In this case the terrible things are pre-emptive war (that is, aggression), targeted assassinations, ”coercive interrogations” (torture lite) and indefinite imprisonment of suspects without trial or counsel. That is the ”lesser evil.” The righteous cause is the preservation — bruised but mostly intact — of our democratic system from those who might threaten it. The failure to do so is the ”greater evil.”

Sober minded observers have long known that liberal democracy has never cringed from engaging in vast violence against opposition, both at home and especially abroad. Ignatieff’s arguments simply offer more ideological decoration, so that some can comfort themselves in thinking that “we may do some nasty things” but being in the ultimate defense of our democracy means that we can never be “as evil as the other.” Razing Fallujah and bombing civilians with white phosophorous may be nasty, “inevitable,” but at least we are not bad as those who performed the three video recorded beheadings we know about. This is meant to justify the nonsensical, yet seemingly popular idea, that there can be a good murder, usually accompanied by bulgy veined throats shouting “there is no moral equivalence!” Of course not, not when your moral superiority is revealed to be complete chimera. So now we have “evil torture” versus “democratic torture.”

In “Exporting democracy, revising torture: the complex missions of Michael Ignatieff,” Mariano Aguirre wrote that Ignatieff has argued that “democracy” must be imposed from outside, and that it is the duty of the United States to promote democracy worldwide, and our duty to assist it. As such,

Michael Ignatieff has been useful to the US government as it has tried to promote democracy in the middle east. He brings to this unofficial job a special, double-edged approach: he provides conservative arguments to the liberal audience and liberal alibis to the conservatives.

The likely next Canadian prime minister is not only one whose arguments should disabuse the ignorance of those who think there is some meaningful difference between “liberals” and “neo-cons,” but one who makes no bones about being viscerally pro-American: “leave relativism, complexity and realism to other countries … America is the last country with a mission, a mandate, a dream, as old as its founders.” As we argued on this blog in recent weeks, thanks to interlocutors such as Max Ajl and Jeremy Hammond, the real dividing line in North American foreign policy is not the one imagined by the media, that of liberal vs. conservative, but of imperialist vs. anti-imperialist, and as we know almost all sides of the political spectrum line up on both sides.

For more on Michael Ignatieff’s positions, see:

• R2P: Responsibility to Protect
• The New Imperialism: Max Boot, Niall Ferguson, Michael Ignatieff

See also the video post for this article.

To not clutter up the main post, Torture for Democracy (1), the relevant supporting videos are placed here.

“Among the most elementary of moral truisms is the principle of universality: we must apply to ourselves the same standards we do to others, if not more stringent ones.”  – Noam Chomsky

Shaheryar Ali

Cross posted at: Bazm-e-Rinda’n

Tariq Ali is one of the icons of progressive movement. He was one of the leaders of the 1968 revolution which gave birth to the “New Left”. Few Pakistanis have influenced global thought as did Tariq Ali. A Marxist with a very strong anti imperialist base Ali is part of the global of Anti globalization movement.

I have strong ideological differences with Ali on Left strategy .  But what he is saying is very important especially his understanding of Pakistani state and its dependent elites. University of California at Berkeley recorded a series “Conversations with History” featuring influential intellectuals.

One of them was Tariq Ali and whatever he says is very important.

Most of his talks about PPP shouldn’t be taken seriously because he had personal issues with Benazir Bhutto.He was one of the persons who thought of the idea of a non stalinist popular Socialist Party with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He contributed in writing the fundamental documents of PPP which are one of the most radical documents. His later differences with ZAB though were ideological but were also personal. He worked with Benazir Bhutto during Anti-Zia resistance but he never accepted the fact that people of Pakistan loved Bhuttos more than a pure Marxist intellectual . This attitude is hallmark of most Pakistani Marxists  and the result is their failure to either build a strong Marxist party in Pakistan or to intervene meaningfully in the PPP [with which they all have a twisted love-hate relationship]. Due to this reason most of them lack objectivity when they speak  about PPP even though their ideological stand is correct.

Take the following talk by Ali. He is criticizing Benazir Bhutto and the “family politics”. But in his personal grudge he falsifies facts. He says that Benazir Bhutto writes in her will [on which he tactfully casts doubt as well] that “My son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari” will head the party” than we hear the usual rant . He is just a kid studying some where bla bla and the party being a family fiefdom . Party shouldnt be a family fiefdom but lets get the Facts right.

Benazir Bhutto never left PPP to Bilawal Bhutto. Its absolutely rubbish and a total lie spread by the right and naive lefti friends like Tariq Ali who never bother to read that “will” which they curse all the time

Benazir Bhutto clearly wrote in the will that if she was no more than party consider Mr Asif Ali Zardari as a leader for the “interim period”. She clearly mentioned why she is suggesting his name. She mentioned because in a period of crisis  party needs a unifying figures to prevent split  [dangerous consequence Pakistan Na Khappey etc]. She made it clearly that its a “temporary arrangement” till the party’s Central Executive Committee decides who will be leader of the Party. It must be clear that for this decision she absolutely left No directive to party. She didnt left a will for her son to be leader. She never said that leader must be from her family.

When the will was read at the CC , it was the CC which decided that Asif Ali Zardari will be a “co chairman” and Bilawal Bhutto be the Chairman. The decision was unanimous. Benazir ’s Will just gave Zardari the leadership for 2/3 days. It was the party which decided in his favor after a lengthy discussion. Moreover  the millions of people who were surrounding Nodero were not ready to accept anyone else apart from Sanam Bhutto or Bilawal. The mood was such that most of the leaders of PPP were hiding  from the crowd who wanted to kill them for failing to save Benazir. If anyone of you was there he/she will know what i am talking about. If you watched Geo than forget it.

Now regarding Bilawal being a kid and studying somewhere Tariq Ali conveniently forgets he is in Oxford just like Benazir Bhutto and Tariq Ali. Tariq Ali himself was a student in Oxford when was leading the European youth revolution of 1968/69. He is forgetting his own “Street Fighting Years”. Before condemning fiefdoms , Mr Ali must remember he also “inherited” his  Marxism . He is son of veteran communist activists of CPI Mr Mazhar Ali [Nawabzada] and Tahira Mazher Ali [One who reportedly showed Mr Jinnah the pamphlet of Communist Party of India in favor of Pakistan as a young girl riding a bicycle] . Ali family was also aristocrats and it was this background which put him in Oxford just like Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and where he became president of Oxford Union [just like Benazir Bhutto]. Ali knows very well that most kids his age in Pakistan who were part of 68/69 ended up in Lahore Fort and lost their lives or ruined it. Only family wealth put Ali in Oxford and put him in  contact with European Left whose blued eyed boy he became.

Comrade when you were resisting the empire in westminister with Hollywood celebrities Bhutto’s were being murdered along with the working class workers of the party . Thats what made them leaders . So that you can write novels about them and make films on them and earn millions and than falsify facts.

Food for thought: If PPP is such a family fiefdom why it was not inherited by Murtaza Bhutto and what forces the people of Larkana not to vote for Ginwa Bhutto?? by all laws of society its the male who is heir of father. Benazir didnt inherited she won it. By her struggle by her jails by her contact. Same is with Bilawl, he will only be the leader if he earns it like her mother or will end up like Mumtaz Bhutto and Ginwa Bhutto.!!