000-tobecategorised

Trump’s greatest feat has been convincing ordinary Americans that he’s on their side. He is not
George Monbiot  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/29/donald-trump-greatest-feat-ordinary-americans-capitalism-republican   Men like Trump, damaged, frightened, pathologically insecure, resistant to love and therapy, can relieve their pain only by inflicting pain on others. Compassion is a foreign concept to him. There is no curiosity, no wonder, no kindness, no connection with the hearts of others, no lightness of spirit. In their place are ego, rage, resentment, impulsiveness and cruelty. Those who are not at peace with themselves destroy other people’s peace.

We need to build a world in which one can gain without another losing, a world in which kindness, decency and community prevail, where the fortunate help the less fortunate to avoid disaster

BBC FINALLY acknowledge vaccine harms... but it's three years too LATE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxRXvOo5XW8  | Bev Turner

Indian politics is going back to the pre-2014 era. What this means to Brand Modi and BJP  https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/opinion/indian-politics-is-going-back-to-the-pre-2014-era-what-this-means-to-brand-modi-and-bjp/ar-AA1t4E2y?ocid=anaheim-ntp-feeds&pc=ACTS&cvid=5f7334f6598c4dfdae71b47b8780fe82&ei=11 Opinion by D.K. Singh 

Freebees:  since every party was doing it now, the freebies could no longer be a game-changing strategy, especially for Opposition parties. He was of the view that when it came to competitive populism, ruling parties had the advantage. I couldn’t agree more. The Congress promised Rs 6,000 a month under its NYAY scheme in the 2019 poll manifesto, 12 times more than what the people got under the PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi. It didn’t work. There were, of course, other factors at play in the 2019 polls.

The conversation about freebies becoming election slogans also includes the ruling party.

Freebies, dynasts, elections
By mid-2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was talking about the dangers of ‘revdi culture’. The success of the Congress’ doles in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka assembly elections might have a role in it. By November 2023, the BJP far outmatched the Congress in revdi distribution and promises in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh even as the PM looked the other way

politics has come full circle since 2014. It’s back to the politics of the old days when it was all about caste, religion, freebies and so on. Not that these factors were not at play earlier but they used to be all subsumed in the larger image of Narendra Modi, the deliverer. He represented the big idea, the big dreams of an aspirational nation.  Even when people saw the bringing down of governments through defections, Opposition-centric corruption investigations, and communal agendas, Modi remained an idea that they voted for. He was beyond follies or reproach. He remained the BJP’s central proposition, the differentiator. Intermittent electoral setbacks in states aside, Modi, the idea, remained vibrant.