Recently in Culture Category

Neocon madness marches on. It's time for Americans and the global community to bring criminal charges against necons for promoting and conducting an illegal war.

"The goal of the neocons is a U.S.-Israeli-dominated region, patrolled by U.S. troops and divided into a large number of much smaller statelets."

"The idea is to create - and preside over - a condition of permanent instability. There is no better way to justify the permanent presence of U.S. troops and plenty of aid to U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes."

by Justin Raimondo The idea that we invaded and occupied Iraq and launched a bid to "transform" the Middle East because we wanted to install liberal, democratic societies in the region is just not believable on many levels, and certainly recent headlines about the Palestinian coup by Fatah against Hamas - and the president's endorsement of the Abbas putsch - underscore this point. One year after Hamas soundly defeated the old, corrupt Fatah movement at the polls, the former has been expelled from the government by the unilateral action of "President" Abbas and is outlawed in the West Bank - where the Fatah-Bush theory of the "unitary presidency" apparently holds sway.

"Democracy" in the Middle East marches on!

Elections in the Middle East are like those in the European Union - if the Powers-That-Be don't get the result they want, then the results are overturned and a new election is held… a process that continues until the people learn their lesson, i.e., that resistance is futile, and ratify what has already been decided.

From the occupied territories to the war-torn cities of Iraq, what was sold as an effort to export "democracy" has instead turned into an effort to import chaos, death, and universal destruction. The "liberation" of Iraq hasn't let the democratic genie out of the bottle, but it has unleashed sectarian demons that have engulfed the country in a vicious civil war. In Lebanon, our effort to aid the Sunnis as a counterbalance to the Shi'ite Hezbollah has boomeranged, with the Fatah al-Islam group rising up against the U.S.-supported government. In Afghanistan, the regime of "President" Karzai can barely claim control of the capital city of Kabul, while in Pakistan, our biggest and most important ally in the Muslim world, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is being buffeted by the tides of pro-Islamic, anti-American public opinion, and is not expected to last much longer.

By any rational measure, the results of our Middle Eastern policy of regime-change in Iraq and bullying intervention throughout the region have been an abysmal failure from beginning to end. By neoconservative Bizarro World standards, however, what we are witnessing is a smashing success.

Full story: U.S.: Nihilism and Neoconservatism (Brothers under the skin)

"Boys without fathers in the home are 300 times more likely to get into trouble with the law. Girls without a father in the home are five times more likely to become promiscuous."

By Janice Shaw Crouse

More and more people are separating marriage from childbearing and children.

In a culture where everybody talks about doing what is best for kids, more and more people are separating marriage from childbearing and childrearing. A just-released Pew survey of over 2,000 adults indicates what the Washington Post calls a "widening gap between parenthood and marriage." While parents are crazy about their kids, they no longer view them as a reason for marriage. In fact, out of the nine factors being measured by Pew as essential to success in marriage, children came in next to last. A mere 41 percent of those responding to the Pew survey said that children are important to a good marriage. In contrast, in 1990 fully 65 percent of respondents claimed that children are part of a good marriage.

In other words, marriage today is all about the adults' preferences; it is all about "me."

Full story: U.S.: Kids and Marriage No Longer Inseparable

"We should learn how to use and improve modern informational webs’ for the sake of culture and enlightenment"

Moscow, Interfax - Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his concern about the lowering cultural level of modern youth.

'According to the experts, people, and especially young ones, are losing their skills to vividly express their minds, to identify inflections and nuances. Many young people are hardly aware or even isolated of their cultural roots,' Putin said on Wednesday as he opened a meeting of the Presidential Council for Culture and Art in the Kremlin.

Full story: Russian president anxious about youth isolation from cultural roots

by Shrii Subodh Mitra Central Committee, Amra Bangali

05/25/07 - 65% population of Jharkhand is Bengali speaking. Yet Bengali is not even taught in the schools. No Bengali textbook is available. The state of Jharkhand gives no recognition to the Bengali language. For this reason, Amra Bangali took out a rally on 28 th March 2007, at Ranchi and submitted a memorandum to the Governor of Jharkhand with the following demands:

• Bengali should be the medium of all state correspondence - official as well as unofficial.



• Bengali speaking teachers must be posted to teach Bengali in schools and colleges.



• Bengali should become the medium of education.



• Textbooks should be made immediately available in Bengali language.



• Local people (Nagpuria speaking people) - including Bengali speaking - all sons of the soil should be given 100% employment in Government and non-Government jobs.



• All sign boards, all announcements and circulars should be in Bengali language.



• Bengali regiments should be created in the Armed forces of India.

Editor's note: A well-knit society is built upon merger of socioeconomics interests and cooperation. The effort to establish a parallel society based on outmoded social codes by Muslims or anyone else in Europe is therefore antisocial and should be opposed. Any defects in European laws or social mores can be dealt with in the public forum. As we have stated on this website previously, Europe does not need another dogma-based religion.

By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE, UPI Editor at Large WASHINGTON, (UPI) - Islamic activists in Europe have taken a leaf out of the old Communist guidebook for the "long march through the institutions." In Antwerp, for example, the City Council has been infiltrated by Islamist fundamentalists - Belgian citizens, of course - who keep pushing the envelope with impunity. From the British city of Leeds to Livorno in Italy and from Luxembourg to Ljubljana in Slovenia, multiculturalism is pretty much a bust. Quicksand is the only common ground between Western values and militant Muslim fundamentalism. But some Islamist extremists have found willing partners among leftist radicals who never got over the end of the Cold War -- and jump at any opportunity to rumble against whatever government is in power. In Germany, the weekly Der Spiegel documented case after case of Muslims, and local German benefactors or sympathizers, busy paving the way for a Muslim "parallel" society. A Moroccan-born, 26-year-old German who had been subjected to her husband's "corporal punishment" and was denied grounds for divorce triggered a nationwide cry of outrage. Full story: Commentary : Multicultural boondoggle

By Prabhat Kha "They stood up together to protect the honor of the sound that issued from the lips of a new-born babe churning the very core of his existence, the utterance that sanctified for him his first lesson of humanity" (~ Hasan Hafizur Rahaman ~)

There are certain days which remain ever memorable and sacred to certain communities. This applies to the 21st February. On this very day the people of East Bengal attained martyrdom by fomenting a revolution to save Bengali language as the official language of their country.

By Garda Ghista

Milton J. Bennett has said that the key to the kind of communication needed by a pluralistic society is the development of intercultural sensitivity¹. He talks about "ethnorelative ethics," and brings up the point that many people equate being interculturally sensitive with being morally relative, or giving up one's individual ethical principles². In this connection Bennett brings up the Perry Scheme of Cognitive and Ethical Development, in which Perry has outlined a process through which people develop a worldview (weltanschauung) based on their life experiences. His model moves from a simple dualistic model (either-or thinking) to a "multiplicity" model, which implies that there is an infinite possibility of potential worldviews, again based on life experiences. From the "multiplicity" concept Perry moves on to "contextual relativism," which refers to judging actions according to their appropriate context (time, place and person)³.

Illustration: Muhammad az-Zuwawi at Tarhuni, 1936, Lybia

The dowry system is yet another glaring example of social injustice. In my book Human Society, I have already mentioned that the dowry system has two major causes: the first is economic, and the second is the numerical disparity between women and men. With the decreasing economic dependence of women on men, the inequity of the dowry system will cease to exist. But to expedite this process, it is essential to propagate high ideals among young men and women. Our sons and daughters are not commodities like rice, pulse, salt, oil or cattle that they can be haggled over in the market-place.

~ Shrii P.R. Sarkar , Human Society Part 1, 1959 ~

National News Service, Kolkata - 7th August 2006: A casteless, dowryless and priestless revolutionary marriage took place at Dishari (Marriage Hall) in Salt Lake City of Kolkata on 4th August 2006 with a Sanyasini in saffron robes conducting the ceremony. Two Bengali speaking persons - a boy and a girl -of different castes were united in matrimony under the auspices of Ananda Marga founded by Marga Guru Shrii Shrii Anandamurtjii. The married couple were Sri Kaushik Maity and Srimati Manidipa Hazra.

By Shrii P.R. Sarkar

According to Prout, human society is one and indivisible. Human society is just like a garland, which is made of different types of flowers, linked by one common thread. The complete beauty of the garland is dependent upon the proper manifestation of each flower. Similarly, to maintain unity and solidarity in society, each strata of society must be equally strengthened.

Any human being or non-human being who wants to break this solidarity must be opposed, and you will have to fight against such elements. For example, although the five Pandavas and the one hundred Kaoravas were enemies, Yudhisthiira, the eldest of the Pandava brothers said:

"Vayam paicabhikam shatam" "One hundred and five will fight against a common enemy." So when you have to fight anti-social and anti-human forces in Asia, Europe, the world or the entire universe you must fight as a single, unified entity.