Broadsheet Saga. Tale of mega corruption.

[Nilgiri]

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.

Oh I know, this is a deeper vein. We are the same people Joe, deep down. How wonderful yet poignant for me to read some of your messages to the Bangladeshis in PDF.

If "we" are able to survive our leaders, "they" will all survive theirs too.

More broadly it is human spirit from how we are nurtured and protected and developed by a family. This psyche is then transmitted in some fashion to local community, area and nation as we inherit it and born into.

But it doesn't eclipse or replace the underlying bonds of original ancestors that migrated to and settled all this land.

The particular regional+cultural flavour of resolve...the deeper solidarity and bonds we often sense.... I see this across the world in general, and this is why hope springs eternal for me past all the predicaments humanity faces.

I never quite felt the particular online variant of this as when django my buddy at PDF started a long convo with me (a number of times) about BR Chopra Mahabharat and how he was absolutely enthralled by it heh....and just moments later he would take part in a big fight with some other Indians on the forum.

Brother wars and strife are not new to us or our progenitors....and neither is the ethos of firmly picking your side in a downstream strife when push comes to shove and give the best you can to your righteous cause as you see it. I personally sense it is a deep shared solidarity (conscious or subconscious)....even when we clash and fight. That is why I do not begrudge those brothers on the battlefield....in whatever sense...I begrudge the larger reasons and maybe inevitable cycles of bringing brothers to the battlefield.

In recent times I see the latter mostly manifesting as a political "class" of great hubris, ego and little connection to reality down here...they are not among us....yet steer so many of us. None of us down here deserve that....but it takes an awful lot inside to desert your brothers in what you see as their continuing time of need and resolve given all you invested in them and they invested in you....and pick some much higher path. Thus I do not judge most too harshly....these are sacred bonds. Rather curse those, that sit well away from it, have no honour or guts... and exploit this for foul gain.

 

[VCheng]

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.

I'll try and remember that the next time someone trots out old "The Army comes from the people so no wonder there is corruption in it" excuse, right after the "hidden economy" claims.