Thursday, May 19, 2022

बालेनको मत ठूला राजनीतिक दलकालागि खतराको घण्टी होः एमाले सांसद एवं सचिव योगश भट्टराई



We’re in the Midst of an Unprecedented Democratic Effort. Let’s Stop Messing it Up we need to start working harder to bridge societal divides. ...... According to Freedom House’s 2021 ‘Freedom in the World’ report, the world has entered the 16th year of a democratic recession, and the international balance has shifted in favor of tyranny. ....... We’ve come to take it for granted that in relatively affluent countries like the US, Australia, Germany, or Japan, democracy will always be the chosen system of government and is unlikely to come under serious threat. “I started worrying about whether that was really true, because I saw all these signs of fading democratic values,” Mounk said. “People participating less in civil society, the extremes rising, people being more open to populist leaders.” Take Trump in the US, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Modhi in India, or López Obrador in Mexico, to name a few. ........... “But it also has to do with the fact that we’re trying to do something unprecedented right now,” he added.

“We’re trying to build religiously and ethnically diverse democracies that treat their members as equals.”

.......... When democracies like Germany and the US were founded, they were to a large degree religiously and ethnically homogeneous. The US has become more diverse, but it doesn’t have a history of treating different groups of citizens equally; one group got the power and influence while other groups were excluded. ........ building diverse democracies is extremely hard, and it’s gone wrong multiple times in history. ......... “If you understand that, you can look at the changes in US society over the last decade and have optimism,” he said. “Maybe not at a political level, but in the changes you see at the heart of our society. We are actually making real progress towards building these diverse democracies, and we’ll continue to build on that in the coming decades.” .......... Patel’s focus is on building civil society: athletic leagues, religious organizations or houses of worship, and other special interest or hobby groups where we spend time outside of our families. “Civil society is the place where people from diverse identities and divergent ideologies come together to engage in common aims and cooperative relationships,” Patel said. “This is the real genius of American society—you have a critical mass of institutions and spaces that bring people together for common aims, and the nature of the activity shapes cooperative relationships.” .........

Bringing people from different groups together to deepen trust and understanding is key.

......... we must manage it in a way that inspires cooperation and friendship rather than hatred, resentment, or violence. .......... He cited India as a thriving diverse democracy, but with periodic outbursts of violence between Hindus and Muslims. ......... in villages and cities where there’s less violence, there are more civic associations that unite people; Hindus and Muslims are both members of literature clubs, athletic clubs, volunteer organizations, etc. ........... In places where violence more frequently breaks out, these associations still exist, but they keep Hindus and Muslims separate. It’s no big surprise, then, that in moments when tensions are running high, the people in the first group of cities trust each other, while in the second, they don’t feel like they know each other. .......... “The rule of human history is that identity communities build institutions for their own identity communities to serve, grow, and reproduce them,” Patel said—and, when it comes down to it, to fight other communities. ......... A brilliance of diverse democracies, he added, is that groups can start institutions that are an expression of their identity—say, a Jesuit university or a Jewish volunteer organization—but serve people from any group. Patel’s own father, an Indian Muslim, came to the US to attend the MBA program at Notre Dame—a private Catholic university—and that’s why Patel is here today........... we’d better start working harder to get away from the polarized, divisive political culture we’re stuck in now. ............ “We’re at a moment in America where liberals and conservatives don’t agree on anything,” Mounk said. “But there’s one thing they agree on, and it’s wrong and dangerous: that’s the idea that demography is destiny.” In his opinion this is far too simplistic, because the way different demographics vote can change over time. ........... Catholics and Irish Americans were key for Democrats in the 1960s, Mounk said, but today are one of the most reliable voter bases for Republicans. What made Trump competitive in the 2020 election was that he significantly increased his share of voters among every non-white demographic, from African-American to Asian-American to Hispanic. Biden ultimately won because he increased his share of white voters relative to Hillary Clinton’s share from 2016. ............. Technology has done some damage to democracy, mainly through social media algorithms that amplify the most extreme voices at the expense of moderate, rational ones. ......... We see people using tech to solve issues like homelessness, pollution, climate change, and even making existing digital technologies more ethical. ........ “Never in history has a democracy succeeded in being both diverse and equal, treating members of many different ethnic or religious groups fairly, and yet achieving that goal is now central to the democratic project in countries around the world.”



He Might Be the Most Influential Director You’ve Never Heard Of Marty Callner made the first modern special, setting the template still in use. (He was also key to hair-metal videos. But that’s another story.) ......... Callner was raised by a single parent (his father left when he was 2) in Cincinnati, a midcentury television hub. He credits a 1969 trip on synthetic psilocybin for awakening his previously dormant creativity, started working an entry-level job in live local news and immediately fell in love. He hung around the Cincinnati station at all hours, sponging up shot composition and camera angles. When a director suddenly left one afternoon for a family emergency, Callner got his chance, moving on to direct commercials and Boston Celtics games including their championship season in 1974. His success led to two offers: to work for NBC Sports, a national behemoth, or for a relatively unknown new cable channel called HBO, where he would be able to shape its look and style (and direct live coverage of Wimbledon). Callner bet on the option where he could have more sway. It wouldn’t take long for this to pay off in his big break. ......... “That changed my life,” Callner said, adding that the article led HBO to sign him up for a series of specials that made the cable channel the central home for this nascent form. He directed the first specials of Robin Williams, Steve Martin and Carlin, who became a good friend and the best man at his wedding. Did Carlin give a speech? “I’m sure he did but I don’t even remember being there,” Callner said, smiling. “It was the 1980s.” ........... By the end of the decade, Callner had become bored with specials and excited by a flashier art form in its infancy at another young cable channel, MTV. ........ His first video, Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take it,” was a slapstick production that leaned on his comic background. In it, a boy (played by his son) sends his angry dad out the window thanks to the power of his declaration, “I want to rock!” (which was Callner’s voice dubbed in). This proved to be a major hit and led to directing jobs on hundreds more videos, including 18 with Aerosmith and four with Cher. It was Callner’s idea to put Cher on a cannon on a Navy ship in the video “If I Could Turn Back Time.” Asked why, he said, “It was phallic,” which is hard to argue with. ........ The secret auteur of the genre known as hair metal was his hairdresser wife of 40 years, Aleeza Callner, who blow-dried the heads of the members of Whitesnake, Poison, Kiss, the Scorpions — not to mention Sam Kinison and Jerry Seinfeld. ........ Asked if it ever bothers him that his work is so much better known than he is, he said what mattered to him was the final product. “I didn’t become a household name,” he said, in front of a beautiful view of the water, “but I did become the highest paid television director in Hollywood, and the reason is: I made people a lot of money.”

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