Broadsheet Saga. Tale of mega corruption.

[Kaptaan]

It would be pertinent to recall that NAB was gifted to the nation by a dictator, to add to the bounty of the blasphemy laws, also gifted by another dictator, in the grand traditions of the institution that keeps on gifting, present all-rounder setup included.

• The greatest "affliction" endowed on Pakistan was the dirty, slimy, grubby politicians of ML who ruled Pakistan from 1947 to 1958, full 11 years was the Objective Resolution in 1949 which effectively gave away the future of the country to the ignorant mullah. Even you have accepted that Objectives Resolution was the lethal dose that lead to the toxic society later.
• 
  
• The greatest "failure" unleashed on Pakistan was the failure of hold elections, give the country a constitution by the dirty, slimy, grubby politicians of ML who ruled Pakistan from 1947 to 1958, full 11 years. In effect Pakistan had a dictatorship of ML politicians who plundered the country and spent more energy grabbing the assets left behind by the Sikh and Hindu refugees then doing anything for the future of the country like giving it a half decent constitution.

And if you think I am wrong in my assessment please tell me how did the ML clique that ran Pakistan from demise of Jinnah to 1958 get their mandate? Did they even hold one election? Did they even gain one consitutency in Pakistan by use of the ballot box? Nope they did not. Thus the cabal that ran Pakistan by using administrative fiat are mother of everything bad that came after.

*As a interesting asides to this the first case of army chief going against the executive was not Gen Ayub Khan but Gen Gracey when the latter reefused to act on his instructions from his political bosses with regards to Kashmir.

 

[Kaptaan]

Don't people get the government they deserve?

While that may hold some truth but it is not a absolute anymore than saying to a victim that "it is the life you deserve". There are so many variables at play. For instance Shah of Iran was imposed on Iran by American interferance with CIA arranged removal of the elected PM Dr Mossadeg. Would you have said the Iranians deserved the Shah all the while forcing his rule over the people? I can give you countless other examples in Latin America where the "people got the government they deserved" only it had hand of USA in the a*ss of the ruling regime.

 

[adenl]

Don't people get the government they deserve?

What @Kaptaan said. It depends wholly on the circumstances. The Pakistani people are passionate and kindhearted people.

 

[VCheng]

The Pakistani people are passionate and kindhearted people.

So it seems fair that they have a passionate and kind-hearted government too.

 

[adenl]

So it seems fair that they have a passionate and kind-hearted government too.

On the contrary, they have had psychopathological rulers who where far from kindhearted. But passionate some were, otherwise they would've never gotten the A-bomb which greatly reduced the threat coming from India.

 

[Kaptaan]

On the contrary, they have had psychopathological rulers who where far from kindhearted. But passionate some where, otherwise they would've never gotten the A-bomb which greatly reduced the threat coming from India.

Don't take this guy seriously. I deeply respect people who hold thoughts trhat are at variance with me. You can ask @Joe Shearer that I have have enormous respect for people who hold differant vantage points. Diversity is what gives life it's charm. But this guy never gives any reasoning. Never. Just spouts out the cliches and is at best a moaning minnie. I just replied to his post but he did not even rebutt one of the points I made.

Here is fact. The greatest gift Britain gave to Pakistan even before it became independent was the military. No Pakistan Army today and Islamabad would have had some crazy mullah ruling it and country fractured into dozen pieces along ethnic, tribal, sectarian lines. You don't have to go to far. Look at Afghanistan, look at Iraq or even Syria or Libya and you get the picture. The only thing between chaos and order is the military.

 

[Kaptaan]

The face behind Broadsheet.

 

[adenl]

But this guy never gives any reasoning. Never. Just spouts out the cliches and is at best a moaning minnie.

I got this vibe from him too, but never dealt with him before, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[VCheng]

On the contrary, they have had psychopathological rulers who where far from kindhearted. But passionate some where, otherwise they would've never gotten the A-bomb which greatly reduced the threat coming from India.

Are you referring to the military dictators as psychopathological liars, or the present setup, or all of them? Getting the A-bomb was no doubt a great achievement, but it is well past time to move on beyond that in a world where nuclear rivals defeat each other economically.

 

[adenl]

Aaaand... that's another one on my ignore list

 

[VCheng]

GDP is overrated figure for bulk of cold war (given it did not measure non USD liquidty based activity very well at all given small trade volume involved).

India was doing better than China on that number, which is laughable if you look at the energy consumption (far higher in China) for example.

It has improved somewhat nowadays with PPP and so on....but still overrated metric as govt's all have ways to distort it.

I like to look at numbers that are not reliant on govt as far as possible (ones that need handshake vetting or well established remote sensing etc). Things like trade, investment and so on.

I have already explained multiple times why a savings rate is instrumental on this too, so I am not going to re-hash on that.

But guess how Pakistan is doing on those? 7 times worse commensurate to population? Then the "hidden economy" is trotted out always. OK. State Bank of Pakistan papers indicate something else far larger as the big issue...they just can't say it out loud you see.

Long term, India's economy is a far better bet than Pakistan's. We will see increasing international investments over the next few years, having risen 14% or so last year despite the pandemic slowdown.

 

[Kaptaan]

Long term, India's economy is a far better bet than Pakistan's. We will see increasing international investments over the next few years, having risen 14% or so last year despite the pandemci slowdown.

I think you will find Chinese economy is better than India. Looking at India/Pak from Chinese perspective is like a Ferrari looking at two snails on the highway. Meantime gestate on this -

 

[Nilgiri]

Long term, India's economy is a far better bet than Pakistan's. We will see increasing international investments over the next few years, having risen 14% or so last year despite the pandemic slowdown.

Anyway its off topic my friend.

Kaptaan is correct our (Indian) reference point should be countries/entities like China and US and EU...wr.t economy and also other matters commensurate to their success.

I also disagree with you that countries all get the leaders they deserve. I know too many good Pakistanis (and I see the good layman type in vlogs etc) for that to hold true.

I spent earlier long post somewhere to @Joe Shearer explaining that Ukrainians certainly didnt deserve Stalin and neither did Germany deserve Hitler. Lot of time bulk people do the go along to get along, and have no role in the top echelon's evil...and then they are all caught into it like dragnet having to see it all through and suffer it.

I plainly don't think Pakistan deserved any of its leaders so far....they have suffered them (much like us Indians have also suffered a good many or even all of ours).

In Pakistan's case even the "democratic" ones were arranged....so it was always picking bad option among bad options. We all know why this can't be challenged (at the scale needed)...not after what has happened so far.

 

[Kaptaan]

I guess the 'Hindu Rate of Growth' under BJP is unbeatable. This will be the first decade of the Indian century.

Okay kid. Bravo. Would it not sound better if you had projected at at 20% rather than 10%. If you want to brag, at least brag big.

 

[Sinan]

In dutch we have a term for this: 'soft healers make stinking wounds'

So, you are from Netherlands.

I visited Netherlands back in 2008, nice country, nice people.

 

[VCheng]

Anyway its off topic my friend.

Kaptaan is correct our (Indian) reference point should be countries/entities like China and US and EU...wr.t economy and also other matters commensurate to their success.

I also disagree with you that countries all get the leaders they deserve. I know too many good Pakistanis (and I see the good layman type in vlogs etc) for that to hold true.

I spent earlier long post somewhere to @Joe Shearer explaining that Ukrainians certainly didnt deserve Stalin and neither did Germany deserve Hitler. Lot of time bulk people do the go along to get along, and have no role in the top echelon's evil...and then they are all caught into it like dragnet having to see it all through and suffer it.

I plainly don't think Pakistan deserved any of its leaders so far....they have suffered them (much like us Indians have also suffered a good many or even all of ours).

In Pakistan's case even the "democratic" ones were arranged....so it was always picking bad option among bad options. We all know why this can't be challenged (at the scale needed)...not after what has happened so far.

Fair enough, let's stay on topic then.

Given that ultimately it is the people that are the source of power for any country, they are the ones ultimately responsible for how they are governed. Blaming outside forces is merely an excuse, Pakistan being a case in point. Its ruling powers decided on the best way forward to pursue its perceived national interests and for each set of pros, there was also a set of cons, right up to the present Broadsheet brouhaha. Tools for politically motivated victimization, and that too only selectively and intermittently applied, is never a way to actually correct anything.

The end results are entirely predictable and before all the world to see. The concluding implosion is only a matter of time.

 

[Nilgiri]

Fair enough, let's stay on topic then.

Given that ultimately it is the people that are the source of power for any country, they are the ones ultimately responsible for how they are governed. Blaming outside forces is merely an excuse, Pakistan being a case in point. Its ruling powers decided on the best way forward to pursue its perceived national interests and for each set of pros, there was also a set of cons, right up to the present Broadsheet brouhaha. Tools for politically motivated victimization, and that too only selectively and intermittently applied, is never a way to actually correct anything.

The end results are entirely predictable and before all the world to see. The concluding implosion is only a matter of time.

To some level I agree, but each society's elitists finds the specific frog slow boil zone....where things are pretty gross but not enough to really get people to rise up and cause a revolution (if that's the final thing we are implying here w.r.t people being the ultimate source of political power).

I don't blame the people at large for that. The majority are eking out a meagre living (in the soft-boil environment, long ignorant, desensitized to it or pragmatically resigned to it), they have no time to educate themselves (at the scales needed) on the true nature of the power structures both imposed from the top, yet ultimately sourced from the bottom.

Then going past that (hypothetically) to put everything aside, invest the significant emotional energy to organise and wield effective physical raw-quantitative power and be prepared to shed their lives (leaving behind what precious stuff they built in a family and dwelling with faith reposed in ultimate justice far larger than anything) in some intense moment against vastly more organised qualititative power....staking it all for no certain result and permanence.

It is not easy....thus I simply cannot hold the masses to be fully or even mostly responsible or deserving of the leaders they get....as the latter are amply far more able to learn from the events and reasons behind the episodes in history where they did get overturned by some manner of peasant storming....compared to how the peasantry can learn from this....that too finding time to figure out how to adapt that for this day and age too.

I am not giving them a complete excuse on it, they can definitely do mass protest movements more regularly and such for sure....but then again that often causes just a cursory change on some issue among the elitists rather than a genuine deep change. The latter is very rare in history....and I really don't want to imagine what it would look like for most nation-states today given the level and sophistication of the weaponry the elitists all have compared to vastly un-armed public. The likely blowback (on them) with even conventional weapons is immense, and what would the non-conventional paradigm involve? Crucial year of 1991, world lucked out those were secured far from the army-rebels that staged a coup (a counter coup as they saw it) in Moscow.

So what chance does a mass-peasantry currently (especially in today's modern/dystopian world) have against the proletariat (who are mostly a coin flip on such a thing, definitely more reluctant than before) and then bourgeoisie and then creme-elitists these days....given the last two are well set in what narratives offer the most Soma for the slow-boil stability?

Hence this is all why I feel especially in this day and age, I feel the highest sensitivity to some change in power deployment (with intent or by accident) comes from the elitists enlightening/changing on various aspects and competing among themselves mostly for whatever reason.

I don't like this state of affairs one bit, in fact I despise it (much like I despise the average realized output of human nature, especially the impulsive kind)...but I feel it's the reality...and I give a big pass (with automatic good faith) to the people on the ground (just like me) wherever they are....that for the large part they are trying the best they can with what they have and the priorities they are submerged in and engaged in for the bulk of their time and energy.

Anyway, since Joe has been tagged a couple times already, I will let him maybe give his thoughts on it before I might unpack more of this.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Don't take this guy seriously. I deeply respect people who hold thoughts trhat are at variance with me. You can ask @Joe Shearer that I have have enormous respect for people who hold differant vantage points. Diversity is what gives life it's charm. But this guy never gives any reasoning. Never. Just spouts out the cliches and is at best a moaning minnie. I just replied to his post but he did not even rebutt one of the points I made.

Here is fact. The greatest gift Britain gave to Pakistan even before it became independent was the military. No Pakistan Army today and Islamabad would have had some crazy mullah ruling it and country fractured into dozen pieces along ethnic, tribal, sectarian lines. You don't have to go to far. Look at Afghanistan, look at Iraq or even Syria or Libya and you get the picture. The only thing between chaos and order is the military.

LOL.

For those who know you, no explanation of your intellectual outlook is necessary. You will always dominate, through intellect and generosity of your engagement with any interlocutor, any group that you choose to join.

NB: This does not amount to an unquestioning acceptance of all your views. Suddenly saw the gulf yawning beneath my feet.

Your point about the Pakistan Army is a bitter-sweet reality. It is true that it held the country together, in very difficult circumstances. It is also true that sometimes these circumstances were authored by the organisation itself. On balance, one has to acknowledge its cementing force.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Anyway its off topic my friend.

Kaptaan is correct our (Indian) reference point should be countries/entities like China and US and EU...wr.t economy and also other matters commensurate to their success.

I also disagree with you that countries all get the leaders they deserve. I know too many good Pakistanis (and I see the good layman type in vlogs etc) for that to hold true.

I spent earlier long post somewhere to @Joe Shearer explaining that Ukrainians certainly didnt deserve Stalin and neither did Germany deserve Hitler. Lot of time bulk people do the go along to get along, and have no role in the top echelon's evil...and then they are all caught into it like dragnet having to see it all through and suffer it.

I plainly don't think Pakistan deserved any of its leaders so far....they have suffered them (much like us Indians have also suffered a good many or even all of ours).

In Pakistan's case even the "democratic" ones were arranged....so it was always picking bad option among bad options. We all know why this can't be challenged (at the scale needed)...not after what has happened so far.

It is astonishing that Pakistan has survived its leadership so far. That might lead to a trapped feeling, and a reluctant surrender to @Kaptaan 's thesis, that there is an underlying centripetal force that has held what we now recognise in state form as Pakistan, and that this force has existed for millennia. This is not the place to dispute the thesis, but it is fair to acknowledge that in the absence of a meaningful leadership - individuals are not considered, @Nilgiri, even as I agree with you that some of these individuals are peerless in their way - there must be some factor keeping the country together; even more, keeping it a viable option at all times, and for the entire 73 years so far.

What this is, or these are, belongs IMHO to a separate discussion.

 

[Joe Shearer]

To some level I agree, but each society's elitists finds the specific frog slow boil zone....where things are pretty gross but not enough to really get people to rise up and cause a revolution (if that's the final thing we are implying here w.r.t people being the ultimate source of political power).

I don't blame the people at large for that. The majority are eking out a meagre living (in the soft-boil environment, long ignorant, desensitized to it or pragmatically resigned to it), they have no time to educate themselves (at the scales needed) on the true nature of the power structures both imposed from the top, yet ultimately sourced from the bottom.

Then going past that (hypothetically) to put everything aside, invest the significant emotional energy to organise and wield effective physical raw-quantitative power and be prepared to shed their lives (leaving behind what precious stuff they built in a family and dwelling with faith reposed in ultimate justice far larger than anything) in some intense moment against vastly more organised qualititative power....staking it all for no certain result and permanence.

It is not easy....thus I simply cannot hold the masses to be fully or even mostly responsible or deserving of the leaders they get....as the latter are amply far more able to learn from the events and reasons behind the episodes in history where they did get overturned by some manner of peasant storming....compared to how the peasantry can learn from this....that too finding time to figure out how to adapt that for this day and age too.

I am not giving them a complete excuse on it, they can definitely do mass protest movements more regularly and such for sure....but then again that often causes just a cursory change on some issue among the elitists rather than a genuine deep change. The latter is very rare in history....and I really don't want to imagine what it would look like for most nation-states today given the level and sophistication of the weaponry the elitists all have compared to vastly un-armed public. The likely blowback (on them) with even conventional weapons is immense, and what would the non-conventional paradigm involve? Crucial year of 1991, world lucked out those were secured far from the army-rebels that staged a coup (a counter coup as they saw it) in Moscow.

So what chance does a mass-peasantry currently (especially in today's modern/dystopian world) have against the proletariat (who are mostly a coin flip on such a thing, definitely more reluctant than before) and then bourgeoisie and then creme-elitists these days....given the last two are well set in what narratives offer the most Soma for the slow-boil stability?

Hence this is all why I feel especially in this day and age, I feel the highest sensitivity to some change in power deployment (with intent or by accident) comes from the elitists enlightening/changing on various aspects and competing among themselves mostly for whatever reason.

I don't like this state of affairs one bit, in fact I despise it (much like I despise the average realized output of human nature, especially the impulsive kind)...but I feel it's the reality...and I give a big pass (with automatic good faith) to the people on the ground (just like me) wherever they are....that for the large part they are trying the best they can with what they have and the priorities they are submerged in and engaged in for the bulk of their time and energy.

Anyway, since Joe has been tagged a couple times already, I will let him maybe give his thoughts on it before I might unpack more of this.

Yes, it is only fair that I put my thoughts together and put them in front of you, but I have to plead a continued malaise, a sickness of mind and soul that simply refuses to let me function effectively. I need a day or two more.