It is the patriarchal fixation with fathers and husbands as feudal heads of indian households where sanctities are attached to family units, that leads to normalization of corruption in a judicial system that is unsurprisingly spearheaded by the brahminical chiefs.

While the Snowden episode raises the alarm bells on privacy, Saswat Pattanayak questions whether the state clamping on freedom is anything new. Was it better in the past? If yes, for whom was it better? Is it good now, then for whom is it good?

The good liberals never cease to amaze. They want the wars abroad, but they don’t want the wars at home. They want other children to die, just not theirs. They want to be able to buy the guns themselves, just not allow the rest.

Last election, it was a black woman of tremendous strength and courage who was victimized by racist attacks in the Congress – Cynthia McKinney – who decided to quit the Democrats and contested on the Green Party ticket to pose a serious threat to Barack Obama.

The truth is Nobel Peace Prize legacies have little to do with recognizing peace among peoples and nations, and they have nothing to offer of value promoting disarmament. Ending of any war has never been an idealism associated with the Prize.

There is also a need to imagine Assange as an overweight bearded black Muslim. Would the press have covered him as kindly as now? Would people have really believed in his released cables and expressed outrage at various nations?

Assange and WikiLeaks have taken great personal risks to facilitate the process of a worldwide revolution that empowers the citizens hitherto considered ordinary, and the methods of transparency and truth-seeking, hitherto considered criminal in the eyes of the ruling structures.

Employing radical perspectives, Howard Zinn has not only left behind issues that have legacies of progressivism, but also equally powerful tools for future reinventions of the current world. “We the people” are stricken by the grief of his passage, but enriched by his enduring imaginings.

Is it because Michael Jackson was vocal, nondiplomatic and accurate in his depiction of the racial divides in the American entertainment industry which irked President Obama? Or was it because Obama has simply no faith in the American judiciary system which despite having caused enough damages to Michael during his life, despite subjecting him to inhumane police brutality, clearly declared him innocent of each and every allegations brought forth against him.

The emotions of Frederick Douglass expressed well more than a century and half ago is still so relevant that it makes a mockery of the American capitalism which is being advanced by the likes of Barack Obama.