Re: [mukto-mona] Re: Response to SC's comments

Subimal, I do not take your comments as personal attacks. I know your sincerity about your faith and belief. You are a student of Physics, as myself. Physicists are materialists. You don't just believe in something; you want to test it, before you believe it. Of course there are many Physical phenomena which is not tested yet. These phenomena can only be explained by hypothesis. Ones that can be verified should be accepted only after rigorous testing. If they fail the test, we should not hesitate to discard them.

 

There are propaganda machines on both sides, be that Socialism or Capitalism. What we heard, while we were all in Bangladesh, was nothing but one sided propaganda against Capitalism. That's all we had to form our opinion. With the advent of expanding knowledge, many things we heard before about capitalism are proved to be false. We should be ready to update ourselves constantly with the new knowledge and ideals as they become available. In my opinion, that's what I did. It will be outright foolishness to discard a system that works, and keep on believing in something that does not work.

 

Socialism, as a theory,  is great but impractical to implement because of inherent flaws in human behavior, which is not taken into account in the theory. In my opinion, that's what caused the failure of Socialism. Any system (Capitalist or Socialist) that is absolute can never work in practice. Consequently, there is no social system in the world today, that is 100% socialist or 100% capitalist. They are all admixtures of both socialist and capitalist ideals. We should judge a system by the degree of each component. System that is based on predominately capitalist ideals is proved to work for the present day modern society.

 

If we all immigrants had the right ideas, then we would not have to come abroad. We could make the land we left behind a prosperous one. I can only speak for myself. I had many misconceptions, while I was in Bangladesh, because of misinformation and mis-propaganda by the ruling class. I had imperfect view of the world in my mind.

 

Do not misunderstand me, I am not against welfare checks. That should be our last resort.  In David Dinkins's period, welfare recipient increased many-fold. People on welfare had nothing to do all day. An idle mind is a devils workshop. Crime went through the sky, because many of those recipients became drug addicts and, to comply with their addiction, they would resort to criminal activities. I do not want that kind of welfare checks. When Juliani was mayor of New York City, he introduced workfare instead of welfare. In the workfare system, everybody had to work for some hours to get the check. That gives those people a chance to learn some skills which could help them finding jobs. Many of them got out of the system and managed to live without the help of the government. This is what should be given to the poor.

 

I hope, I was able to explain myself. Thanks.

 

Jiten Roy

 

----- Original Message ----
From: "Subimal Chakrabarty @yahoo.com" <Subimal Chakrabarty @yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 12:25:46 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Re: Transcript of Obama's speech in Philadelphia

WRT: http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/mukto- mona/message/ 47463

1. I hope Dr. Jiten Roy has the broadness of mind to take my responses to his various controversial posts not as personal attacks but as a challenge to the attitudes that many meritorious students from the third world countries and settled most happily in America develop over time. They suddenly discover that all the ideological and political beliefs they held and nourished during their formative years were all wrong. There is nothing wrong with this sudden U-turn as long as the new realization is the outcome of a deliberate, rational and conscious thinking process. But it is really pathetic to see a shiny immigrant who, for example, 30 years ago chanted "down with American imperialism" suddenly finds that American imperialism does not exist at all. Without going into the debate whether American imperialism exists or not, I must repeat that this sudden "bodhodoy" (realization) is pathetic because it simply proves that all the formative years' beliefs were all shallow,
hollow, unfounded, and devoid of any content.

2. I question myself: why and how does it happen? It happens with regard to beliefs only but not with faith and the field of knowledge that an immigrant carries over to his new land of dream! If we don't want to brand this as an opportunistic behavior, we have to admit that beliefs are like that and it is O.K. to change them as and when required. I should emphasize again that I have respect for those dynamic minds whose realizations are founded on conscious deliberations and sound logic.

3. At the same time I also believe that the new realizations must not exclude every thing that he was indoctrinated with during his student life back in his country of birth. They contained germs of truth which when amalgamated with the various beliefs prevailing in his land of dream will make his new place a more livable one. Diversity enriches a country. It is a proven fact that the immigrants have culturally enriched America and most brilliant of them have contributed substantially in making America intellectually rich.

4. Dr. Jiten Roy abhors welfare check probably because he thinks that it is a socialist measure. But his statement reflects a negative attitude towards the needy people. If you fail to create sufficient employment opportunities, what should a civilized country do? Keep the unemployed and their families starving?

5. What does Dr. Jiten Roy have to say about progressive taxing system, tax credit, tax refund, etc.? Is the government discriminating against the higher income groups?
Haji Mohammad Mohsin parable (give money to a thief to buy an axe and procure fuel wood from the jungle and become self reliant by selling wood) sounds good. We heard a similar one that involves Prophet Muhammad. The morale of the parables (or maybe historical facts) is good: work and earn. Don't beg or don't steal. But what can a modern thief or beggar do if there is no jungle nearby from which he is allowed to cut trees?

6. The present world systems are very complicated. Governments have lot to do about creating jobs for the people. Blaming the "idlers" alone will not be justified. Practices of pay check of $1 million vs. $$8,000, 'bubbles', inflated pays, etc. also need reassessment and reexamination. One does not have to be a socialist or communist to do it and look into and correct the vices of capitalism. An economy cannot afford to rely entirely on 'invisible hand.' Healthy government regulations and interventions also become necessary.

--SC

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