The Dictator

2012 movie written by Sacha Baron Cohen.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645170/

Imagine if America was a dictatorship.

• You could let 1% of the people have all the nation's wealth.
• You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes and bailing them out when they gamble and lose.
• You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education.
• Your media would appear free but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family.
• You could wiretap phones.
• You could torture foreign prisoners.
• You could have rigged elections.
• You could lie about why you go to war.
• You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group, and no one would complain.
• You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests.

nondualism

The Vedas (1500 - 500 BC) - pre-Hindu spiritual texts.

Orthodox Hindu consider the Vedas authoritative.  Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, and non-Brahmin Hindus, or heterodox Hindus, do NOT accept the authority of the Vedas.

Vedanta - schools of Hindu philosophy which interpret the Vedas non-ritualistically, based on three works of post-Vedic literature:

• the Upanishads (600 - 100 BC), 
• the Bhagavad Gita (part of the epic Mahabharata, 500 BC), and 
• the Brahma Sutras (400 - 450 AD).

advaita = nondualism

Advaita Vedanta - the most dominant sub-school of the Vedanta.

Adi Shankara (AD 800) synthesized and rejuvenated the Advaita Vedanta teachings.  His teacher was Govinda.

There are several ways to divide the world into two or more aspects:

• yin and yang
• good and evil
• subject and object

These are all judgments that have no reality.

How many gods are there?  One.  An easy answer, but the implications are profound, and lead only to the nondualism viewpoint.

extended family

"If ten fourteen-year-olds are grouped together, they will fight with one another.  They will form a Lord of the Flies culture with its competitiveness, social anxiety and meanness.  But if ten people aged two to eighty are grouped together they will fall into a natural age hierarchy that nurtures and teaches all of them.  Because each person has a niche, competition will subside.  Each person will have something unique to contribute.  Values will deepen, and experience will grow richer.  For our own mental and societal health, we need to reconnect the age groups."

                          -  Mary Pipher, Ph.D.: Another Country


Is this true?  I think not.  It is tempting, but this idea that a multi-generational grouping will have a Utopian power structure is not demonstrated in nature.  On the one hand, yes, there are more people around for caring for children and elderly.

On the other hand, problems arise because the elderly are dependent on this family structure, and they must see the young adults stay within this structure and bring home the bacon.  Taken to excess, the children are trapped in the system.  Arranged marriages.  The son does the same work as the father.  Children leave school to work.  The caste system.

Brutally blunt:

Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things
Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger


More complex and subtle:

Rohinton Mistry: A Fine Balance

Manil Sun: Death of Vishnu

Domination techniques

I own this land.  If you want to live and work on it you must pay me a fee.

I own this street.  If you want to walk down it, you must give me your lunch money.

I am the official representative of this country.  If you want to cross this border, you must pay me for permission.

I own this song.  If you want to listen to it, you must pay me one dollar.

This temple is the dwelling place of your god.  If you want to ask him for favors, you must bring sacrifices of food and money here.

Dark-skinned devil-worshipers hate you and want to eat you.  I am protecting you from them, and you must give me your first-born male for my army.

You are such a dork.  If you don't want to be a complete outcast, you must buy these sunglasses.

Bangkok

30 January - 7 February 2013

I love this city.  So easy it's hard to believe it's in Asia.

I'm so happy with my new phone.  The tethering works great here.  And Google Maps' walking directions and bus directions get me around the city easily.

Many of the buses are air-conditioned, clean and uncrowded.  There's a conductor on the bus so the driver is undistracted.  Some of the buses were not air conditioned; they were free.

The largest shopping centers I've every seen.  Very clean and luxurious.  Saw the movie Les Miserables with Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe in one.  Down below, out on the streets, the sidewalks are clogged with vendors.

The food from the street vendors is outstanding.

I did one tourist attraction, the Grand Palace, and I think this is the first time I've been moved to tears by architecture.