> India is a land of lawlessness and that's a reality.
It's a little more subtle : well connected people to whatever they want and get away with no consequences. People who dare to oppose these powerful people discover the true meaning of hell. It's true practically everywhere in the world including the US.
IMO for all the shit that social networks receive (for good reasons), one of the side effects is that it's a lot easier to share such gross violations of law an example of which are the above videos. In a way social networks give people power.
>People who dare to oppose these powerful people discover the true meaning of hell. It's true practically everywhere in the world including the US.
It can be true in the US, but it definitely is not the norm. This statement rings false. For all the problems the US has, yes including corruption in some places, it is almost entirely unique in its freedom of speech and its allowance for political opposition without fear of retribution as a modus operandi.
> ...it is almost entirely unique in its freedom of speech and its allowance for political opposition without fear of retribution as a modus operandi.
This is a common misconception of Americans and is blatantly untrue. America is absolutely not the only free country in the world and, in some areas, it is less free.
Take press freedom, for instance: the US currently ranks 41st:
There are plenty of other fully democratic countries in the world, where freedom of speech is accepted, encouraged, and enshrined in well-respected laws.
It's because in the US, corruption is just legal thanks to lobbying.
Plus, you are in a country where you can go to war to satisfy your friends benefit. Lie blatantly about the motives. Spend billions of dollars for it in a country in massive debt. Get caught doing so. Yet ignore international instutiions, go kill thousands of people anyway and get away with it.
You are in a country bailing the banks that ruined themself.
You are in a country where it's legal to snatch somebody without a trial. Where you can get in secret prisons and be tortured. All that justified by events that killed less people than the flu.
Where massive surveillance is allowed by politicians for security, yet they ban all attempt of transparency on their own actions.
The only difference with India is that they are better at it :
- they don't make it obvious and chocking enough so that it leads to a strong reaction
- they use all the tricks in the book to divert attention
But in the end, the US is so corrupted it could be a case study for future historians.
France is pretty much the same, mind you. We have just less guns and more smug.
Lobbying is a good thing and as Indian citizen I wish it was legal in India. It helps small groups unite and openly and transparently seek legislative changes they want. In India you bribe secretly. The party wants all funds channeled to party supremo so they changes laws to make sure Individual legislators can not pass any bills of their own against party wishes. So that wont happen in India. We will always have to pay bribes secretly.
>Plus, you are in a country where you can go to war to satisfy your friends benefit.
India does not have financial muscle to start a war but Indian government starts projects to help friends all the time.
> You are in a country bailing the banks that ruined themself.
Almost all major Indian banks are owned by state heavily mismanaged and completely inefficient. They run as jobs program and are every year bailed out using taxpayer money.
>You are in a country where it's legal to snatch somebody without a trial. Where you can get in secret prisons and be tortured. All that justified by events that killed less people than the flu.
Indian government can put you in jail for years without trial. Even for a high profile celebrity case takes on an average 10 years to conclude.
>Where massive surveillance is allowed by politicians for security, yet they ban all attempt of transparency on their own actions.
There is no privacy in India. If the cop asks you to undress you better do.
I dont see a problem with that. Will you mind if Elon Musk convinces Trump to fast track alternative energy or Google convinces proper tests of self driving cars ?
It may not take exactly the same shape in the US, but a friend of a friend employed by some billionaires was injured on the job, and when the employee made a workplace injury claim, the company sued the employee. They play other psychological techniques to keep the other employees from speaking up or leaving. [Deliberately vague]
> its allowance for political opposition without fear of retribution as a modus operandi.
Are we talking of the country of COINTELPRO, that killed civil rights activists, or obliterated unions and the US socialist party by force and shady tactics? it's like, you can say what you want, as long as it has zero consequences -- otherwise, prepare to meet some serious shit.
> well connected people to whatever
> they want and get away with no
> consequences
> It's true practically everywhere
> in the world
With the occasional glaring exception (Jimmy Savile, for example) I simply don't believe that's true in most of Western Europe.
The press, the judiciary, the police, and the civil service are strong institutions. Reading up on "Plebgate" will give you a feel for the truly pedestrian nature of power abuse in the UK, and what happens when the police go rogue.
Don't underestimate how much you don't see. Millionaires fly without even seeing border security, meanwhile every other person spends hours waiting in line. It may not be beatings in the street but there are many laws that simply don't apply when you're rich enough.
> Millionaires fly without
> even seeing border security
For clarity, you're saying that it's possible to arrive in -- for example -- the UK without being subject to immigration or border controls?
If you're merely pointing out that it's possible to receive much speedier service with money, then yes, there are a wealth of commercially available options operated by airports, private and public alike. That's hardly evidence of corruption.
Organized crime have had a _tremendous_ influence in Europe, and most countries of the world, up to the very top of governments. In wartime, or when the government is in a weak position domestically, they don't hesitate to resort to the muscle of mafias, and of course this has long term consequences: once they have helped the "state", they have a free hand to do a lot of things -- a lot.
Could you provide some contemporary examples in Scandinavian or Western Europe of where organized crime has had a blind eye turned to it as a result of using mafia-sponsored "muscle"?
I think I was incorrectly using Western Europe to mean Western Europe minus Southern Europe. I don't believe this happens in France, Germany, Holland, the U.K., etc
Your inclusion of Sarkozy surprises me. Googling for Sarkozy and mafia is bringing me a bunch of antisemitic sites and a site called info-resistance — do you have any reliable sources?
Sarkozy is prosecuted for several charges regarding the funding of his electoral campaigns (who cost far more than what the law allows), and it is now extremely likely that Gaddafi is illegally involved. Prior to that, Chirac had strong ties with Charles Pasqua, whom he appointed Interior Minister -- Pasqua was clearly linked to the Corsican mafia and he later funded the infamous SAC -- muscle from the mafia to counter the OAS. As for Mitterand, he made it possible for Berlusconi to invest in France via Mediaset and "La Cinq", among others.
So there's a long history of shady ties at the very top of the French institution, pretty often in the form of what was deemed as a "necessary evil", but corruption nonetheless. That's pretty much summarizes the spirit of the French Fifth Republic, anyway: "we go to do what we got to do, and the public wouldn't understand".
I disagree, at least for more local issues. Social media or other attention platforms only help if there's a single action that needs to happen.
Case in point: a few neighbors had a shitbird stealing milk bottles delivered to our porches. The police obviously aren't sending in the detectives for 4-5 $2 bottles a week. But we captured the guy in camera, did a social media assault that attracted the news. A city fireman saw the guy on TV, recognized him from another petty theft, and called his cop friend who found the guy.
That's what social media does for individual or small group problems.
If you have a problem with a building project or city action, social media will attract sympathetic comments and crazy people. To get action, you need to round up people and show up at events and hearings.
I've helped people out fighting powerful interests.l at a local level. They always fight back, but in modern America you don't have people showing up to rape your wife or beat you. At the end of the day, powerful people need money, and its very possible to create the perception of risk that will slow down the funding stream. That tends to solve David v. Goliath issues.
> India is a land of lawlessness and that's a reality.
It's a little more subtle : well connected people to whatever they want and get away with no consequences. People who dare to oppose these powerful people discover the true meaning of hell. It's true practically everywhere in the world including the US.
IMO for all the shit that social networks receive (for good reasons), one of the side effects is that it's a lot easier to share such gross violations of law an example of which are the above videos. In a way social networks give people power.