manufacturing consent

In his book, Manufacturing consent, Noam Chomsky tries to explain how for any functioning democracy of a free country, it is not only necessary but an invariability to have media outlets which are willing to confer with the government. Simply put, media outlets for propaganda. More often than not these are your commercial media. The reasons for his arguments are a fascinating read but not a topic of this post.
The whole premise of his argument rests on the belief, or rather the assumption that a free people are able to reason for themselves and more often than not their rationality is diametrically opposite to that of the governments. I would think this belief of his comes from his background as a linguist and cognitive psychologist of considerable prominence and the resulting immense faith in human mental capacity. Any power unless justified is inherently immoral, he says. (cont'd)

farmers suicide in maharashtra

We are worrying about north Indians coming into Maharashtra where farmers are committing suicides by the horde. For the past 2 1/2 years there hasn't gone a single day a farmer suicide hasn't been reported. That only the reported one's. These farmers would have gladly gone to north India if the situation there would have been any different. Its not. The GDP has gone up 6%. Inflation has gone up 5% indicating more demand. People are having more money than ever and spending it too. Buying gold has gone up twice inspite of 800% increase in its price. Demand for skilled labor has gone up and people are flocking to the metros to get a slice. Real estate prices have shot up 200% over the last 4 years, but still people have enough money to buy. People are getting more credit at outrageous percent and everyone is happy. And yet there has been at least one death every day for the last 2 1/2 in Maharashtra.

poetry

I have very little understanding of it. But I do appreciate it. I think it is an art form that transcends all kinds of linguistic and metaphysical boundaries. There is nothing like a poem making you skip a beat, or make you smile in the midst of something or make that solitary tear run across your face in nostalgia or inspire you with the purest of emotions. Art, as in paintings, I don't get, but poetry I do. Because its not just words or even the beautiful thought, but how it affects you and makes you feel. But I often wonder are poems supposed to be real or just romanticized thoughts wrapped over realities. Can someone really love a person as in a poem? Or does everyone have to stick to being commonplace and mundane and force oneself to be 'normal' and 'sane' as the contemporary society requires. People appreciating a beautiful poem then remind me to trapped souls wanting to come out and live that moment in the poem, feel it, smell it, but they stay back in case they wont be normal. Is even appreciating a poem then hypocracy? What is the moral standard one holds to for appreciating genuine stuff?
I don't think it hypocracy at all but the sanity is justified and is what makes the poems more beautiful and the poet more mysterious. Sanity is important too for not all poem are meant to be real poems. Maybe sanity is not the proper word. Balance? Maybe. But poems are beautiful. I wish I had gotten every poem I read. And more important I wish I get a chance to feel every poem I read.