Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Jul 9
Abused turn Abusers
Does the Defence Minister realise the irony implicit in his statement? The abused learn from their abusers and 'normalise' the means to abuse.
@netanyahu
#GazaHolocaust #TheHolocaust
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Jul 3
Zionism & Islamism
I welcome this, particularly as several Judaic friends could not accept my condemnation of the #GazaHolocaust. They left. Equally, several friends of the Islamic faith have also parted because of my assertion that Islam must reform some of its antediluvian tenets and evolve to be perceived as a faith of peace, not violence.
(At this rate, people who are interested in my thoughts will sink to double figures on this platform. Oh well, churning geopolitical and geosocial times call for telling it the way it is.)
#IsraelGaza #Zionism #islamism
MintPress News @MintPressNews · Jul 2
In a landmark ruling, Justice Angus Stewart of the Federal Court of Australia rejected the adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which conflates anti-Zionist or anti-Israel expression with anti-Jewish sentiment.
Justice Stewart explained: “Political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature criticism of Jews in general or based on Jewish racial or ethnic identity… The conclusion that it is not antisemitic to criticise Israel is the corollary of the conclusion that to blame Jews for the actions of Israel is antisemitic; the one flows from the other.”
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Jun 25, 2025
Orwell, Jura, Inner Hebrides
I visited his (rented) cottage, Barnhill, on the Island of Jura (Inner Hebrides) in 2016. He wrote 1984 there in the late 1940s. One small room contains some of Orwell's books, papers, and ink pens. I was struck by the presence of one book, "A Passage to India" by EM Forster (published 1924).
Joy Bhattacharjya @joybhattacharj · Jun 25
Probably the most famous person to be born in Motihari, Bihar. Big Brother, the Thought Police and Doublespeak were all terms coined by this author in classics like 1984 and Animal Farm. George Orwell's 122nd birth anniversary!
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Jun 19, 2025
GeoSocial: #Intellectual_Inequality?
Reducing the scope and quality of higher education is a formula for enabling the elite to maintain unchallenged power. Limiting people to vocational skills, unexposed to, and 'uncontaminated' by, the broader ideas fostered by higher education—such as civilisation values and advancing the common good—keeps them focused on daily survival, complacent with the status quo. Without education beyond technical tasks like the cause and the course of electric current or sewerage, curiosity, a key driver of progress among homo sapiens, is often stifled.
Intellectual inequality is as bad as economic inequality.
[#GeoSocial_Inequalities]
The Intellectualist @highbrow_nobrow · Jun 19
Trump Spox: "Electricians, plumbers -- we need more of those in our country, and less LGBTQ graduate majors from Harvard University. And that's what this administration's position is." @atrupar
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Jun 19, 2025
I should have added that my concern is not just Harvard, but the coming trend that clipping its wings presages for higher education.
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · May 23, 2025
Replying to
@readswithravi
With all due respect, I hold that consistency encourages mummification of ideas and thoughts into dogmatic stances. That, in turn, retards innovation, material or spiritual. Accordingly, inconsistency is not as much of an 'intellectual sin' as it is made out to be.
I would add that inconsistency is a challenging attribute of day-to-day existence; in contrast, the dead are consistently boring.
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · May 21, 2025
Replying to
@VerminusM
Incisive and apt sarcasm about a complex issue! Timely.
Can a population be entirely separated from its government’s evil doings? The people may not be the architects of a government’s evil, but their silence can lay the bricks. How far does collective responsibility extend?
Sigmund Freud, at least, had no doubts about the populace's guilt:
"Think of the vast amount of brutality, cruelty and lies which are able to spread over the civilised world. Do you really believe that a handful of ambitious and deluded men without conscience could have succeeded in unleashing all these evil spirits if their millions of followers did not share their guilt?"
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · May 16 2025
Just imagine how one would react if he were not the President of the United States. Why is there no widespread derision of this Caligula-like megalomaniac in the mainstream media, comedy shows, and other mass public mediums?
Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump · May 16 2025
Trump on his visit to Qatar: “I shook more hands than any human being is capable of doing. That was a long deal. And they were big people. But they were starving for love, because our country didn't give them love."
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · May 6 2025
Sharing a Morning Muse
#1
on Sigmund Freud's birthday, 6 May, 1856
1. Life is a sum total of Chance and Choice. This core equation shapes every human existence.
2. Chance has a (much) greater X value than Choice in this equation.
3. You can not control Chances: your birthplace, death, genes, or health, etc, are beyond your grip.
4. You can control Choices. Choice is what one does with a given Chance. One always has a Choice for how one deals with or 'converts' a given Chance into something, positive or negative, for your life.
5. Making Choices requires discipline. Not necessarily a large, all-encompassing discipline, but even small disciplines will do. For example, giving up a craving for an hour in contrast to giving it up forever. Each is equally valid and shows that you can steer your life even if for an hour only.
6. It is disciplines, big or small, that confer on you, consciously or unconsciously, self-respect. The core meaning of self-respect is that you value yourself, like yourself and take pride in who you are.
7. Conversely, without self-respect, you undervalue yourself, do not like who you are and neglect your own existence.
8. The lack of self-respect is an irrefutable manifestation of deep-seated insecurity. This demands a raw, painful delve into one’s past to discover the strains and stresses that seeded the sense of diminished self-worth.
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · May 15
The timing of this re-assertion is notable. China plays long, and seemingly off-handed statements such as this can never be ignored in the quest for its long-term goals.
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · May 6, 2025
Sharing a Morning Muse #1
on Sigmund Freud's birthday, 6 May, 1856
1. Life is a sum total of Chance and Choice. This core equation shapes every
human existence.
2. Chance has a (much) greater X value than Choice in this equation.
3. You can not control Chances: your birthplace, death, genes, or health, etc, are beyond your grip.
4. You can control Choices. Choice is what one does with a given Chance.
One always has a Choice for how one deals with or 'converts' a given
Chance into something, positive or negative, for your life.
5. Making Choices requires discipline. Not necessarily a large, all-
encompassing discipline, but even small disciplines will do. For example,
giving up a craving for an hour in contrast to giving it up forever. Each is
equally valid and shows that you can steer your life even if for an hour only.
6. It is disciplines, big or small, that confer on you, consciously or
unconsciously, self-respect. The core meaning of self-respect is that you
value yourself, like yourself and take pride in who you are.
7. Conversely, without self-respect, you undervalue yourself, do not like
who you are and neglect your own existence.
8. The lack of self-respect is an irrefutable manifestation of deep-seated
insecurity. This demands a raw, painful delve into one’s past to discover the
strains and stresses that seeded the sense of diminished self-worth.
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Apr 24, 2025
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Apr 24, 2025
Replying to @MAGAVoice This will be how the "master negotiator" #DeveloperTrump will express his and America's grief on the passing of Pope. You see, he expresses his empathy in manifold ways.
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Apr 22, 2025
#FuneralofPopeFrancis: This is a layman's gratuitous but spontaneous
advice to the Vatican with all sincerity: diplomatically shun
#DeveloperTrump's attendance at the Funeral. His very presence there will
stain all that Pope Francis stood for (not least his last words about the
holocaust in Gaza). This neurodegenerative narcissist will turn it into
a MeMeMe circus for his private domestic ends. It will detract from the spirit
of what the Holy Father's passing means for most of us (even for an atheist
like myself). Trump's "We look forward to being there" is already indicative
of his likely behaviour.
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Apr 21, 2025
There can be little doubt that #DeveloperTrump is a neurodegenerative
megalomaniac.
Anders Åslund @anders_aslund Apr 21, 2025
Trump belongs to a home for the dement & mentally disturbed.
Quote Christopher Webb @cwebbonline · Apr 19
Grandpa Trump is hallucinating again. He claims:
📌Gas is $1.98
📌Grocery prices are “substantially down”
📌Eggs are easy to find and the price has
dropped 92%...
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Apr 21, 2025
This is unforgivable - as was the "professional failure" of the German army's role in the Holocaust. Murder is murder is murder.
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Apr 21, 2025
With Christians like #Developer Trump in play, extremist dregs of other faiths too can be overlooked?
Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump · Apr 20
Donald Trump dedicated his Easter message to attacking the “Radical Left Lunatics,” “the worst and most incompetent President,” “Sleepy Joe Biden,” and once again falsely claimed he won the 2020 election.
Ah yes, the true spirit of Easter: rage-posting about your political enemies.
Rakesh Ahuja @DwnlodingMyMind · Mar 28, 2025
This reminds me vividly of two 'refuseniks' being hauled away by
unidentifiable 'persons' from a December 10 (Human Rights day) protest in
Pushkin square in 1982. Reminiscent of several other similar incidents
I witnessed in Moscow, Leningrad, Irkutsk and in other 'open' cities before
1986. But that was the first, and remains painfully etched.
I presume that various countries in the South will now be spared (or can
ignore with impunity) any condescending lectures about Human Rights
etc., from the State Department.
Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump · Mar 27
I don’t have to agree with what this student wrote — that’s not the issue. You do NOT snatch someone off the street over an op-ed. That’s the kind of thing you see in China, Russia, or Iran — not in the United States.