They are manipulated by "agents, publicists, marketing departments, promoters, script writers, television and movie producers, advertisers, video technicians, photographers, bodyguards, wardrobe consultants, fitness trainers, pollsters, public announcers, and television news personalities who create the vast stage for illusion," Hedges continues. "They are the puppet masters. ... The techniques of theater have leeched into politics, religion, education, literature, news, commerce, warfare, and crime."

Elite universities are in the business of producing "hordes of competent systems managers" not critical thinkers. Those statements are generally accurate. But one would expect some fierce academic blowback from this notion: "The elite universities disdain honest intellectual inquiry, which is by its nature distrustful of authority, fiercely independent, and often subversive." And Hedges suggests that these high-end schools "refuse to question a self-justifying system" in which "organization, technology, self-advancement, and information systems are the only things that matter."

Hedges not only blames the elite universities for the mortgage-fueled financial crisis but is sure their alumni on Wall Street and in Washington have no capacity to really fix the economic system. "Indeed, they'll make it worse," he predicts, exchanging his reportorial register for the absolutist. "They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of how to replace a failed system with a new one."

India a Poor Copy of USA
has Passed into ‘Nautanki Yug’ from ‘Kaliyug’

India with almost two million Indians in USA as role models is fast becoming a caricature of USA. In fact India has passed from Kali Yug into Nautanki (an old operatic drama form with rural roots) Yug. The media and other platforms are occupied by film actors, sportsmen and politicians, with an increasing number with criminal records, since, once elected they cannot be tried. They easily exchange missions and roles. Retiring actors and cricketers easily enter politics which has become but almost a 'tamasha' (theatre of charade). All avenues for intelligent and serious Indians have been blocked by an almost totally corrupt dynastic political system, resembling the pre British degenerate Mughal era. There is no research or original thinking or ideas worth the name. The masses suffer silently as they have done throughout history, prey to exploitation by selfish rulers.

India remains the only large collection of heterogeneous and squabbling people without a revolution to bind or forge it into a modern nation like France, Russia, Turkey, China and even Iran. The concept of nationhood is a European construct and evolution achieved after centuries of bloody warfare for rights and obligations. Kings were guillotined, Czars killed; Caliphs, Shahinshahs and Chieftains, forced to flee.

India is thus not yet a nation in a modern sense with little equality before law or rule of law in practice as it becomes manifest everyday. Equality before law and the rule of law is beyond comprehension of a Brahmin-Hindu ordained and implemented caste ridden unequal society and mental makeup. But the concept and ideology of nation is vital for survival in modern era. One cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Indian media and chatterati and disputati are now obsessed with the case of abetment of suicide by a hapless young girl Ruchika Girotra by a powerful police chief of Haryana, with almost all sectors of the so-called society and polity being complicit; schools, police and civil administration, judiciary and politicians across the spectrum, only exposes the deep cancer like malaise. It is only the tip of a huge iceberg.

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy right with the author.
E-mail kgsingh@yahoo.com