It was August 5, 2020. Times Square in New York had been rented to promote Hindutva (Hinduness). There were functions held in numerous western capitals. All of India was agog.

Except for Indias 200-million strong Muslim minority. Their mosque, the Babri Masjid, was torn down by Hindu zealots in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya. Many Hindus alleged that the mosque had been built by in turn tearing down a Hindu temple. So they wanted the temple restored.

Narendra Modi became Indias prime minister for the second time in 2019. Some months after his reelection, the Indian Supreme Court in a judgment dated November 9, 2019, stated that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was illegal. It also said that there was no evidence to suggest that a Hindu structure stood underneath the mosque.

Yet, the Court handed over the disputed land to Hindus to construct their temple, while at the same time awarding a large tract of land in Ayodhya for the construction of a new mosque. Modi hailed the verdict in his by now all-too-familiar television addresses.

I am a Hindu. A devout Hindu. Perhaps not as devout a Hindu as Mahatma Gandhi, the founding father of India. Yet Gandhi gave his life for Indias Muslims. Gandhi hails from the Indian state of Gujarat, the state of Modi. In his office, Modi has a statuette of Gandhi.

But does Modi follow Gandhis ideals? India is one of the biggest, most-diverse nations on earth. Gandhi wanted India to strictly separate church from state, and handed India to the atheist Jawaharlal Nehru to run for close to two decades. In 1984, there was a watershed election. The Hindu right, almost always marginalized until then, won only two seats in parliament.

They didnt know where to look. Their leader, LK Advani, latched onto the temple-mosque issue to gain power. It became a matter of pride for Hindus. Hindu pride.

But Hindu pride is not like white pride. Hinduism is one of the worlds oldest and one of the most peaceful religions in the world. Unlike some other religious groups, Hindus do not proselytize. Circa 1000 AD, Muslim invaders started arriving in the subcontinent and by 1200 AD they had captured almost all of India.

They ruled uninterrupted until the British arrived in the mid-eighteenth century. Nehru himself acknowledges in his Independence Day speech on the night of August 14, 1947, that the soul of India had been long suppressed. By the soul of India he meant the soul of Indias Hindus.

But Gandhi wanted every wind to sweep through the house of India. Advani stirred and shook the nation with a violent, traumatic journey across the country in 1992 to promote the temple. His partys seats grew to almost a hundred, still nowhere near enough to form a government.

But he knew he was on the right track. In 1998, Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the PM, and in 2014, Modi. Modi marginalized him and made him a part of the path-showing council, which is neither path-showing nor a council. It is defunct. Advani, the architect of Hindutva, was made defunct. Power does that.

He did not attend the foundation laying ceremony of the temple in Ayodhya. Maybe because its because of Covid, maybe because Modi did not want him to. Modi was of course the chief guest. This was not a Hindutva opportunity to be missed.

As many of Indias exult, almost all of Indias Muslims cow down in shame. Modis regime has not been kind to them. Cow vigilantism has led to numerous attacks of lynchings on Indias Muslims. The Muslim majority-state of Kashmir has been under a brutal lockdown for a year. Modi has given refuge in India to persecuted minorities in Indias neighborhood like Hindus, Sikhs and even Christians (in a sign of clear concession to the West), but not to Muslims.

Today the Indian Muslim lies almost comatose. He is at the bottom of the countrys societal and economic totem pole. No real programs are launched to help him. Many Hindus rejoice at his fate, who they consider their former tormentor.

The Babri Masjid was built circa 1520, almost five hundred years ago. Modis supporters say that with the construction of the temple, he has accomplished what no one had for five hundred years. But Indias soul is being torn apart. Gandhis ashes are being singed.

Modis supporters mock Hindus like me to be bad Hindus, just as Trumps supporters mock liberal whites to be bad whites. But what would Modi say about Gandhi? Does he pray to him only to show the world, while internally he regards him as a relic. Gandhi won India its freedom. Why not let his thoughts linger on for a while? Must we all breathe from the putrid stench of hate.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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The day a communitys pride was hurt - The Times of India Blog

In one sense, this has been a difficult period for Fox News: a star anchor fired after being accused of sexual harassment, a lawsuit depicting a misogynist workplace, a top writer exposed as a racist internet troll, advertiser boycotts and outrage after Tucker Carlson called protesters criminal mobs and questioned the patriotism of a senator who lost her legs in Iraq.

In another sense, business has never been better.

In June and July, Fox News was the highest-rated television channel in the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 p.m. Not just on cable. Not just among news networks. All of television. The average live Fox News viewership in those hours outstripped cable rivals like CNN, MSNBC and ESPN, as well as the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC, according to Nielsen.

That three-hour slot is a narrow but significant slice of TV real estate, and it is exceedingly rare for a basic-cable channel to outrank the Big Three broadcasters, which are available in more households and offer a wider variety of programming.

Even the return of live sports did little to stop the momentum: The Fox News programs hosted by Mr. Carlson and Sean Hannity drew more live viewers than competing baseball and basketball games, including a Yankees-Nationals matchup on Opening Day.

Fox Newss big summer has been boosted by a rise in audience for news programming in general, an increase driven by interest in the pandemic, civil rights protests and the presidential election. ABC, CBS, and NBC, meanwhile, have more reruns on the summer schedule; the coronavirus has suspended most TV productions; and viewers are being lured away by streaming services and on-demand Hollywood movies.

But the Fox News ratings also demonstrate the size and resilience of Americas audience for pro-Trump opinion, and the loyalty of Fox News viewers who shrug off the controversies that routinely swirl around the network.

Massive news events that conservatives view through a highly partisan lens are driving the ratings, and none of the controversies really land with loyal Fox News viewers, said Nicole Hemmer, a scholar at Columbia University and a historian of American conservative media.

Lachlan Murdoch, the executive chairman of Fox Newss parent company, bragged on an earnings call last week about the networks astronomical ratings. He also said its ad revenue was up from a year ago a reminder that Fox News, for all the flak it takes from critics, politicians and the advertisers that fled Mr. Carlson, remains an unrivaled profit engine for the Murdoch empire.

Complaints that Fox News prime-time hosts downplayed the coronavirus and, in the case of Laura Ingraham, encouraged the use of hydroxychloroquine, a drug shown to be useless, and even dangerous, for Covid-19 patients made little difference.

The belief that hydroxychloroquine is something between a therapeutic and a miracle cure is wildly popular in conservative media, especially talk radio, Ms. Hemmer said. Tucker Carlsons controversies have never really hurt his ratings, though they have cost him advertisers.

Two days stood out when Fox News ratings fell significantly: the funerals of George Floyd, the Minnesota man who died after a police officer pinned him to the ground during a routine stop, and Representative John Lewis, the towering civil rights figure.

Like its rivals CNN and MSNBC, Fox News carried the memorial services live. During Mr. Floyds funeral, viewership on all three networks dipped. On both occasions, the drop in Fox Newss audience was stark, down to numbers more typically seen during overnight hours. (CNN and Mediaite previously reported on the ratings dips.)

Over all, viewers have shown a strong appetite for news on politics, public health and natural disasters.

The evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC are notching their biggest audiences in years. David Muirs World News Tonight on ABC has been a standout: In July, its episodes were the top 18 telecasts across all of broadcast and cable television, drawing more viewers than usual summertime ratings leaders like NBCs Americas Got Talent.

All three of the network newscasts, which air at 6:30 p.m., draw more viewers than Fox Newss prime-time shows, with Mr. Muir more than doubling Mr. Hannitys average in July.

Cable channels define prime-time as 8 to 11 p.m., but the Big Three broadcasters include the 7 p.m. Sunday slot in their average prime-time audience counts. That is when 60 Minutes airs on CBS another news show that is hugely popular with viewers and the broadcast networks definition of prime time allowed CBS to eke out a win against Fox News in June and July.

But Fox News was the king of 8 to 11 p.m., in part because conservative viewers have few options for right-wing political commentary. Smaller networks like Newsmax and One America News have tried to siphon off viewers but lag far behind.

MSNBC, whose liberal prime time is an ideological inverse to Fox News, has increased its audience from a year ago. But Rachel Maddow, once neck and neck with Mr. Hannity at 9 p.m., has fallen behind all three of Fox Newss prime-time stars in total viewers. Ms. Ingraham, who appears in the less desirable 10 p.m. slot, has drawn more viewers than Ms. Maddow for many months.

Fox News won praise this summer thanks to several news-making interviews with President Trump, including Chris Wallaces grilling on Fox News Sunday and an interview with Harris Faulkner in which Mr. Trump struggled to address racial grievances. Even Mr. Trumps June forum with Mr. Hannity yielded headlines when the president could not name a policy priority for a second term.

But the networks critics say the language of its prime-time hosts can be reckless. Mr. Carlson has faced a particular backlash since Mr. Floyds death in Minneapolis in late May sparked nationwide demonstrations for civil rights.

Major advertisers, including the Walt Disney Company, T-Mobile and Poshmark, boycotted his program as Mr. Carlson denounced the protesters as violent anarchists. Later, the host called Senator Tammy Duckworth, a wounded veteran, a moron and questioned her patriotism. In recent days, Mr. Carlson called former President Barack Obama a greasy politician and wondered if Mr. Floyds death had been caused by drug use rather than being pinned to the ground by a police officer.

Mr. Carlsons ratings have never been higher. And based on Mr. Murdochs telling, the boycott had little effect on Fox Newss bottom line. Mr. Carlsons show has virtually no major sponsors, but many ads were redistributed to other programs on the network. Fox News also continues to make a fortune in so-called carriage fees, the money paid by cable and satellite providers to keep the network in their lineups.

Fox News vigorously defends itself from critics who say its news coverage is biased or its commentators are extreme. When a writer for Mr. Carlson, Blake Neff, resigned in July because of racist and sexist messages he had posted in an online forum, Fox Newss chief executive, Suzanne Scott, publicly denounced his conduct as abhorrent. Mr. Carlson issued a halfhearted mea culpa, saying Mr. Neffs posts were wrong but also warning that his critics would be punished.

Mr. Murdoch was made aware of Mr. Carlsons on-air remarks before the broadcast, according to two people with knowledge of the exchange, which was reported earlier by The Daily Beast.

CBS remains neck-and-neck with Fox News in the 8 to 11 p.m. slot, and could still take the summer crown.

On Wednesday, however, CBS aired what should have been a major draw: the two-hour season premiere of the reality show Big Brother, a rare new episode amid a raft of summer reruns.

Big Brother was seen by an average of 3.7 million live viewers. Tucker Carlson Tonight lured 3.9 million and Hannity just shy of four million the most-watched telecast of the night.

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Boycotted. Criticized. But Fox News Leads the Pack in Prime Time. - The New York Times

Golden hour took over Los Angeles as Rage Against the Machine marched onto a small stage in a sanctioned protest zone across from the Staples Center, where President Clinton was about to deliver the keynote address at the 2000 Democratic National Convention. Thousands of young Angelenos packed into the area to scream along to the quartets final live performance before a seven-year hiatus. From the stage, guitarist Tom Morello could see a big screen outside the coliseum showing Hillary and Bill giving their speeches while their guests sipped champagne and dunked shrimp into ramekins of cocktail sauce. In his strident call to action, Zack de la Rocha introduced the concert from the stage: Brothers and sisters, our democracy has been hijacked!

Not only did the ad-hoc concert fit neatly into Rages political animus, but it was also a microcosm for American activism writ large in the 1990s: a multiracial group of pro-revolutionary leftists vs. the white figurehead of elite neoliberalism. The two sides flexed and preened for their respective crowds, separated by a tall barbed-wire fence and a phalanx of riot police armed with rubber bullets and tear gas canisters. For concerned parents asking their teenagers exactly whom this band was raging againstKnow what enemy? Fuck who I wont do what who tells me?on this afternoon in August, the answer was right there, standing at a podium, speaking to his delegates, with silver hair and an Arkansas drawl.

Backstage, Morello gave an interview about why this ostensibly liberal band had shown up to protest the coronation of the ostensibly liberal Democratic nominee, Al Gore. Hes practically indistinguishable from a President George Bush, Morello said with unequivocal bravado. Theyre both pro-death penalty, both pro-NAFTA, both pro-big business...I dont feel represented by either one. When the band kicked into Guerilla Radio, the lead single from their third album, 1999s The Battle of Los Angeles, de la Rocha said as muchincluding a line about the Republican nominee, branding Bush as the offspring of the corrupt former head of the CIA: More for Gore or the son of a drug lord/None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord! A film crews birds-eye camera view revealed five mosh pits going off simultaneously.

On The Battle of Los Angeles, Rage made clear the aim and origin of their anger, especially for those who didnt surf to ratm.com in the 90s to learn the word praxis from an animated gif. Here they cast their gaze back through history to reel in half a millennia of theft, enslavement, and slaughter at the hands of the colonial state in the Americas. The gravity of hip-hop and the thick brow of metal met the sincere gaze of radical politics, creating an album that upended the prevailing critical idea of what good rock music should be doing. It was obvious, didactic, heavy-handed, bluntly delivered to the thick of the nation, because you dont overthrow a racist police state with weepy songs about feeling alienated by technology. What better place than here, what better time than now to empty the missile silos at the so-called New Democrats and crypto-fascist Republicans, to give the opposition contour and dimension, to even embody it themselves, to show the world what an autonomous, dignified life could possibly look like.

There was this interesting thing that was happening during the Clinton administration, de la Rocha would later tell the Los Angeles Times. People were looking inward and not outward, and not addressing what was going on. The malaise of the 90sa tone set by the self-defeatist laconism of Gen Xsettled in during eight years of relative peace and economic prosperity under Clinton. While the bull market lined the pockets of the growing professional class, Clintons legislative victories broke from traditional liberal values and ballooned inequality in America. His disastrous welfare reform gutted the core tenet of the New Deal; his administration deregulated banking, allowing the most powerful financial institutions to amass unseen amounts of capital until they were too big to fail in the crash of 2008; they passed the abhorrent 1994 crime bill, the most sweeping in American history, a steroid injection to the carceral state that put thousands of disproportionately Black men into newly constructed prisons and increased the number of federal death penalty cases from three to 60.

Most egregiously, and perhaps most important to Rage lore, was the North American Free Trade Agreement. The treaty sought to accelerate the economy by opening borders between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. In doing so, it moved profit away from workers and their communities toward business owners and shareholders, all while crippling unions and the American labor force, who could now be replaced by unconscionably cheap labor. For Mexico, free trade was seen asand has proven to beeconomically devastating: Some two million Mexican farmers have lost their land in the age of NAFTA. Indigenous workers, like those in the southernmost state of Chiapas who faced the importation of corporate American agribusiness, predicted correctly that free trade would decimate their heritage and livelihood.

And so on January 1st, 1994the day NAFTA went into effecthundreds of men, women, and children emerged from the Lacandon jungle and the canyons of Chiapas as a guerilla army and demanded autonomy from the Mexican government. Marking 500 years of genocide against indigenous peoples by colonial rule, the workers wanted control of their Mayan land and their food; they wanted democracy, peace, and justice on their own terms. They called themselves the Zapatistas (the armed faction is known as the Zapatista National Liberation Army, or EZLN) and carried a flag bearing a single red star centered against a black backgroundthe same insignia that peppers Rage iconography and stage shows. The Zapatistas bandoliers and rifles (some real, many fake) were a theatrical show of military might, but their real power lay in their philosophy, called Zapatismo, and the writings and speeches of the groups de facto leader, Subcomandante Marcos.

Quixotic, pseudonymous, and filmed wearing a balaclava smoking a pipe, Marcos spoke in winding allegory and professorial verse about the revolution of the Zapatistas. The Zapatista revolution was not for them, but for the greater world. Para todos todo, para nosotros nada, goes the most famous Zapatismo maxim, For everyone everything, for us nothing. As Alex Khasnabish, a professor and researcher of radical collectives, explained in one of Rages unauthorized biographies, Know Your Enemy, the cornerstone of Zapatismo is this: Rather than insisting that you support [the Zapatistas], they want you to struggle in your own way, in your own place, with your own commitment to dignity in a revolution that makes sense to you and the people around you. The grandiloquent ideas of the Zapatistas and Subcomandante Marcos took on the hue of surrealism and romance, a way of sounding a revolution through the tones and rhythms of language.

At heart, the music of Rage Against the Machine is a direct extension of Zapatismo: paradoxical, militaristic, generous, a conduit for power, not a concentration of it. De la Rocha visited Chiapas four times between 1995 and 1996, working closely with the Zapatistas and strengthening his connection to his Mexican heritage (his Sinaloan grandfather fought in the Mexican Revolution). These trips helped shape the idea of revolutionary bridge-building, of connecting the struggle of one to the many. I think every revolutionary act is an act of love, de la Rocha told Rolling Stone in 1999. Every song that Ive written, it is because of my desire to use music as a way to empower and re-humanize people who are living in a dehumanizing setting.

On its surface, it was easy to classify Rage as music for teenagers staging a leafy suburban rebellion against their parents or doing curls in the squat rack. But by The Battle of Los Angeles, Rage had ascended to something far more personal, spiritual, and bohemian. If 1996s Evil Empire came with a leftist library starter pack, Battle came with a politics of emotion, music that was nimble and serious. In her book Hope in the Dark, the writer and activist Rebecca Solnit describes the words of Subcomandante Marcos as the language of the vast, nameless, current movement that globalization has drawn together, a movement...driven by imaginations as supple as art rather than as stiff as dogma. It is from this delicate branch of politics that Zack de la Rochas words were formed.

In 1999, however, the context in which most people engaged with The Battle of Los Angeles was not through the insurrectionary poetry of Subcomandante Marcos or a readily accessible anti-globalization platform. The album was released in the last gasp of the monoculture, dropped into the scum pond of rocks commercial nadir. Korn led the nu-metal charge on radio, while Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock were rap-rocking without cause on TRL. There were only a few American anti-war protests against Clinton bombing a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan or the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (in the press throughout the late-90s, Morello would often parry a journalists question about, say, the violence at Woodstock 99 with an indictment of Clintons warmongering, like his Tomahawk missile [that] destroyed the childrens hospital outside Belgrade). There were no wars predicated on a lie about weapons of mass destruction, no social media to disseminate revolutionary tweets to the masses, just pockets of left-wing activism fighting against the WTO in Seattle and the IMF in D.C. as Creeds Human Clay sat atop the charts.

The benefit of Rage reentering the mainstream during this odd musical and socio-political dead zone was that they sounded both nostalgic and of the moment. They had cleared the way for nu-metal and rap-rock with their first two albums, 1992s groundbreaking self-titled debut and 1996s angsty and downtrodden Evil Empire, both of which eventually went triple platinum. When they swung back in with The Battle of Los Angeles, it was like a reminder of the prophecy they foretold at the beginning of the decade. Once iconoclastic rap-rock alchemists, Rage now sounded pretty much like what was on the radio. Moreover, they sounded like the same band they always were but more lethal, more agile, able to fully disarm with a verse and a hook. What I did a lot on [Evil Empire] was, This is what I think. This is my comment, de la Rocha told Rolling Stone. Ive had to change. I want people to see reflections of themselves in the songs. His personal accountability fit squarely with the Zapatista ethos of wanting people to create a revolution in their own way, now bolstered with songs that moved quicker, had bigger hooks, and carried more weight than anything Rage had ever written.

It took nearly a year for de la Rocha to complete all the vocals on Battle, during which he gravitated to another plane of rapping. He is exacting and dynamic, the generalissimos preacher. On Calm Like a Bomb, he loops himself around the band in long ribbons of verse: I be walkin God like a dog/My narrative fearless/My word war returns to burn like Baldwin home from Paris. Then on the pre-chorus, as the band lurches into their signature mosh-rock cadence, de la Rocha hugs the turn on two wheels to deliver this slinky triplet: What ya say, what ya say, what ya say, what! When the chorus hits, it does exactly what he says: Ignite! The chameleonic ease with which de la Rocha slides between rap, funk, and rock on Calm Like a Bomb is indicative of the bands full symbiosis of all those genres on Battle; a chemical compound perfected, a longshot theory finally proved.

With Brad Wilk on the drums and Tim Commerford on the bass, Rage cut deep into the groove. The verse of Sleep Now in the Fire is the rhythm section at its best: the feel has that crab-creep shuffle with Wilk and Commerford laying down an Amen break while Morello makes his guitar sound like a British dial tone. The formula of Rages rhythm section can be largely predictablehushed intro, blues riffs, experimental sound-bed under the verse, more blues riffs, wacky guitar solo, breakdown with blues riffsbut theres just enough variety and mobility to let de la Rocha be the star. Hell blow a word out of his mouth in a huff with big pockets of air in his cheeks, or hell wrap his throat around a word like a snake, sucking the air out of it. The space he leaves between the names of Columbus ships, the trilled r on Maria, the oddly swung rhythm of a line dripping with sarcasmSo raise your fist and march around just dont take what you needsometimes there are more ideas in the rhythm of his raps than the raps themselves.

When the band was on tour with Gang Starr, DJ Premier told Spin that hed try to get a remix of a new Rage song onto rap radio, but that it might not be as easy as it was with Fred Durst. Zack is trying to penetrate the whole soul hes speaking the real, and that takes longer to sink in. One of the bands longest-running causes clbres was the fight for the freedom of Black Panther and radio journalist Mumia Abu-Jamalwho, it is widely believed, was unfairly convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981. Long as the rope is tight around Mumias neck/Let there be no rich white life we bound to respect, de la Rocha stage-whispers on Voice of the Voiceless, a short ode to Mumias struggle. While the phrase Free Mumia became something of an activist meme in the 90s, Rage never took his sham trial or his then-impending death sentence for granted (Mumias execution case was dropped in 2011 and he is now serving life without parole). In January 1999, Rage threw an infamous benefit concert in New Jersey that raised $80,000 for Mumia and sparked a media war between a right-wing cop union and the band. And in April of the same year, de la Rocha flew to Geneva, Switzerland to speak on Mumias behalf at the International Commission of Human Rights.

Each song on Battle comes from an outgrowth of personal political conviction. Rage werent fretting from afar and hoping for change like Live Aid; de la Rocha was writing about the abject horror of immigrant sweatshop labor on Maria after Morello was arrested demonstrating against sweatshops in Santa Monica in 1997. De la Rocha wrote of the wealth inequality he saw in his hometown of L.A. (Born as Ghosts) and a final salvo about the Zapatistas struggle on War Within a Breath, the last in a series of songs about the Zapatistas stretching back to Evil Empire. Hidden in that track is a brief line that could be the albums subheadline: Its a war from the depth of time.

Perhaps most striking is Born of a Broken Man, a slow dirge cut from the cloth of Black Sabbath about de la Rochas father, the artist and muralist Beto de la Rocha. Beto was a member of the landmark Chicano painting collective Los Four; in 1974, he was one of the first Chicano artists to be exhibited at the L.A. County Museum of Art. After suffering a nervous breakdown in 1981, Beto fell into a destructive spiral of religious fanaticism. He would fast for weekends, sometimes making a young Zack fast beside him. One night, in a fit of anger and guilt, Beto destroyed over half of his paintings in front of his son. Born of a broken man, but not a broken man, Zack screams of complicated pride on the hook.

The anomaly of Born of a Broken Man, the only Rage song that ever pulled directly from de la Rochas personal life, lends emotional credence to the political screeds around itharanguenroll as Rolling Stone once derisively tagged the band. Few bands have been given more purity tests than Rage Against the Machine over the years, but the question inevitably arises with any group that stakes their identity on revolutionary thought and leftist causes: Do you buy it? You know these avowed socialists are signed to Epic, a multinational major label, right? They made millions of dollars from record sales, and Battle debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, just as Evil Empire did in 1996. Are they redistributing their wealth? When de la Rocha left the band in October of 2000, he hinted at his own discomfort, saying that the groups decision-making process had undermined our artistic and political ideal. How do you square the bands leftist ideology with the defanged arena rock of Audioslave in the ensuing years?

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for buying into Rage Against the Machine is simply their name. All these years later, it has curdled into something sophomoric, trite, somehow too specific and too vague at the same time. If it is an albatross around the bands neck, its created a tautology that has forced them to stay true to themselves: The immutable law of a Rage Against the Machine album is that it must, by nature, rage against the machine. And so inherent in their silly band name lies the uncynical, righteous, and repetitious work of activism and fighting for justice, the search for the will to continue even when it seems like the battle is lost.

Im not buying this bullshit line that says the situation in Chiapas or with Mumia or with the garment workers somehow has nothing to do with middle-class white kids at our shows, de la Rocha told Spin in 2000. All this alienation has roots; its not just TV or boredom or bad parents. This was the great ambition of The Battle of Los Angeles, and perhaps Rage itself: to draw a line between their millions of Gen X and Millennial fans and the causes they fought for, from conquistadors to Clinton, from the Intifada to the Zapatistas, from Francis Fukuyamas claim that the end of the Cold War was the end of history to the spark of the anti-globalization movement around the world. Battle revealed the extentchronologically and geographicallyto which none of us live with dignity. They showed us this is a war we cant win but its a war we dont deserve to lose.

Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated that Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing a New York police officer in 1981.

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Rage Against the Machine: The Battle of Los Angeles | Review - Pitchfork

It was a sure thing. And the rematch was a sure thing as well.

But well get back to that.

Democrats and most of the news media have already declared the 2020 Colorado Senate race over and done with.

Oh, sure, U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner has more than $10 million in the bank, and he has been lauded by Democratic Governor Jared Polis for their collaborative work on the coronavirus pandemic. He has a long litany of Colorado accomplishments such as securing permanent financing for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, getting the United States Space Command headquarters located in Colorado Springs, authorizing funding for the Arkansas Valley Conduit water improvement project that had been delayed for almost sixty years, and relocating the national headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction from Washington, D.C.

But everyone knows the general election is a mere formality even though the recent primary election exposed former Gov. John Hickenloopers ethical lapses and profound weaknesses as a candidate. This is a sure thing!

Hickenlooper defeated underfunded Andrew Romanoff not because of his dogged pursuit of the nomination he claimed he couldnt debate because he needed his sleep but because the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington, D.C. spent $7 million to drag him across the line.

Hickenlooper is owed this Senate seat! This is a sure thing!

And everyone knows that Colorado is now a deep blue state that will never again elect another Republican for statewide office. Just ask the newly arrived Democratic Socialist political activists who think Colorado politics began when they showed up.

Wasnt Colorado an impregnable Republican bastion before Democrats started winning in 2004? A little political history:

When Gov. Bill Owens the only Republican governor in the last fifty years was elected in 1998, Democrats had won six consecutive gubernatorial elections since 1974. Only two Republicans, Senators Bill Armstrong and Hank Brown, had won Senate elections between 1970 and 1994. So much for being a Republican bastion.

So when U.S. Sen. Hank Brown announced he would not seek reelection in 1996, Democrats were giddy. Winning the seat was a foregone conclusion with the formidable Republican incumbent out of the way.

Their giddiness went into overdrive when conservative Congressman Wayne Allard, a soft-spoken veterinarian from Loveland, won the Senate nomination over a respected Republican attorney general.

Meanwhile, Democrats nominated a powerful, wealthy lawyer-lobbyist straight from Denvers 17th Street power corridor, Tom Strickland, whose campaign said when they had won the primary that the general election was in the bag as well. They derided Allard as an inferior, inevitable loser to the much more polished Strickland. And early polls did show a substantial Strickland lead. It was a sure thing!

But Colorado voters are discerning, and they were terribly uncomfortable with a candidate whose campaign slogan could have been conflicts-are-us as many of Stricklands lobbying clients were at odds with his public positions. The low-key workhorse Allard ran an aggressive campaign on their professional contrasts, and he won an improbable upset victory.

Dismissing his loss as a lucky fluke by Allard, Strickland ran again in 2002 after trying to polish his resume with a brief tenure as the U.S. Attorney for Colorado. Allard didnt have a chance this time! This was a sure thing!

But U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard touted several environmental accomplishments while sharpening the contrast of the veterinarian versus the lobbyist. Allard was reelected by just about the same margin as he won in 1996.

Democrats will argue that Colorados electorate has fundamentally changed in the last decade and indeed it has. More than 800,000 people have moved to Colorado, many of them younger and instinctively liberal, especially on social issues. Unaffiliated voters have exploded to 40% of the electorate while Republicans have slipped behind Democrats.

They will argue that President Trump is like an anchor pulling Gardner into oblivion.

This is a sure thing!

But not all of those unaffiliated voters even those who vote for Biden over Trump will buy off on this sure thing Senate race. They are unaffiliated for a reason. They shy away from partisan labels, and they will give Senator Cory Gardner a fair hearing. Meanwhile, John Ethics-Laws-Are-for-Other-People Hickenlooper will continue to be unfocused and uninspiring.

The race is already tightening. A respected national polling firm, Morning Consult, shows the Hickenlooper lead has slipped to just six points, 48-42.

Cory Gardner is once again the aggressive, young, dynamic challenger, and Hickenlooper is the tired, old, self-entitled, ethically challenged incumbent.

The ghost of Tom Strickland haunts Hickenlooper.

Dick Wadhams is a Republican political consultant and a former Colorado Republican state chairman who managed campaigns for Gov. Bill Owens and U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard.

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Wadhams: The ghost of Tom Strickland haunts Hickenlooper - The Denver Post

The image of a small Midwestern college is one of quiet, peaceful campus nestled in a rural town.

Some now fear the global pandemic could silence many small schools altogether.

The coronavirus upended higher education this spring. Colleges had to lock down and refund thousands of dollars of tuition to students.

On the heels of financial struggles in higher education, the pandemic could land a death blow to smaller colleges dotting rural Missouri and Illinois. Over the past several years, economists have made dire predictions that many small colleges, possibly up to half, will go bankrupt and close in the next decade.

We get concerned about it. However, we've been fortunate that we see more folks wanting to be here, said Don Lofe, interim president at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.

Through the Civil War, world wars and plenty of economic downturns, colleges like Westminster have continued to graduate students. But over the past two years, about a dozen small colleges have closed for good. Among them is MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. After 174 years, the coronavirus pandemic was one punch on the chin too many.

School leaders argue they still hold a valuable position in the higher education landscape: a robust liberal arts education rooted in small class sizes, strong student support services and idyllic settings.

I still believe personally, and I think a lot of people do, that there is a need for traditional college education, said Dan Westhues, a board member at William Woods University, also located in Fulton.

Higher education financial experts are less rosy on the outlook.

Forbes magazine gives colleges letter grades based on their financial health. Numerous small schools in Missouri and Illinois earn poor marks. Westminster and Williams Woods get Cs. Culver-Stockton College, Hannibal-LaGrange University and Quincy University all have Ds.

These organizations are going to tell you We're going to survive, but they're not in large numbers, said Gary Stocker, a college administrator-turned-analyst.

Stocker worked at Lindenwood University and Westminster College before starting College Viability, a website aimed at tracking and presenting college financial data to worried college officials and curious parents.

And you see some really, really ugly numbers, he said.

Many of these colleges rely too much on endowment spending and alumni donations, rather than strong student bodies to pump in tuition dollars, Stocker said. They have little cash on hand and endowments too small to weather strong headwinds.

These small rural colleges are not profitable enough year in and year out to be able to have long-term viability, Stocker said.

Itll also be harder to promote the picturesque college experience if colleges have to remain locked down and there are no in-person classes or athletics another big recruitment tool for some small schools.

We feel we provide a unique experience, said Lofe, the head of Westminster. Many colleges are going to say that, but we've been able to demonstrate that with actions. For instance, athletics, the other experiences we have on campus.

COVID-19 also upended finances for colleges. Having to send students packing in March and issue refunds was a major expense. Federal aid programs enacted by Congress in the spring helped cover some of the losses.

I would just tell you this, we managed it well, Lofe said. Our college is very stabilized right now with respect to financial matters. But throughout the years, like many colleges, revenue streams have caused issues as well as the demographics that are changing, as you know, with respect to available students in the population to go to college.

Ryan Delaney

/

St. Louis Public Radio

Westminster College Board of Trustees Chair Jim Morton and Interim President Don Lofe on the campus in Fulton, Missouri, in July.

Fewer high school graduates and the growing sticker shock of a private college education will mean schools have to evolve or possibly die out.

I don't expect a mass extinction of small private colleges, but we may see several years' worth of closures in just a few weeks or months, so I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the small private colleges in the Midwest end up closing, said Robert Kelchen, a Missouri native and associate professor of higher education at Seton Hall University.

While Westminster boasts being around since the Civil War, Culver-Stockton College can brag that it survived a tornado shortly after graduation in 2003.

Douglas Palmer is the new president of Culver-Stockton in Canton, Missouri. Any big aspirations he had when he accepted the job in February, before the pandemic, may need to wait.

I would not expect that many colleges and universities in the area or even in the country are going to be doing a whole lot of hiring or investment in capital projects until we're through this crisis, he said.

He first must focus on maintaining an enrollment of 1,100 students and paying the people who educate them. I think it's been harder here, and I think it will continue to be hard.

Recruiting traditional students to rural pockets of the Midwest, even with appealing tuition discounts and scholarships, is getting harder, said Westhues, the William Woods board member. And so we certainly have seen that over the years, but I think that's actually kind of a decent thing because what it's forced us to do is be creative, and it's forced us to evolve.

William Woods is investing in online programs and degree completion for older adults. Westminster is focused on expanding recruitment and supporting students. It also wants to find a new niche, such as cybersecurity, that "will be a strong selling point."

But going after nontraditional students will have to balance with the core product.

"The liberal arts education gives you the ability to think, think just not analytically, but creatively. And those are words but they're really, I believe in those very strongly," Lofe said. "And I believe this type of education, this type of institution provides that."

Stocker and other industry watchers advocate for mergers of small colleges to reduce costs. Health care provides an example. What were once dozens of small hospitals run by religious orders around the region are now operated by a single hospital system.

Still, the worst-case scenarios many predicted for colleges and universities this fall so far dont appear likely. Some estimates this spring suggested fall enrollments would be down by up to 20%, with students perhaps choosing to stay closer to home or take a gap year.

But as of now Westminster, William Woods and most other small colleges say students are planning to return when campuses reopen this fall, even if it won't be for a typical semester.

Follow Ryan on Twitter: @rpatrickdelaney

Read more:

Small Midwestern Colleges Have Been Through It All. Can They Make It Through The Pandemic? - KRCU

news, latest-news, donald trump, civil war, us presidential election, 2020

The United States Civil War of the 1860s was one of the bloodiest imaginable. Deaths were vastly greater than many external conflicts in which the USA has been involved. Whereas Vietnam cost 50,000 American lives, over 600,000 Americans died in the American Civil War. That was out of a population of around 31 million, compared to 205 million at the time of Vietnam. Some estimates say that if the Civil War was fought today and a similar proportion died, the death toll would be over 6 million. Of course, there were many reasons for the high death toll. Battlefield injuries were horrific due to the weaponry and tactics, and medical aid was rudimentary to say the least - it was almost a century before bacterial infection could be controlled. Many of the deaths occurred in prisoner-of-war camps, hellholes like Andersonville. But contributing to the toll too was the culture behind the war. When countries turn inward against themselves, the results can be truly horrific. Just look at the Taliban's killing of fellow Afghans over several decades, the Syrian Civil War, or Islamic sect fighting in Iraq. In the US, the battle between the anti-slavery north and the pro-slavery south knew almost no bounds, and had predecessors as far as violence goes. Even before the war there were bloody skirmishes between pro- and anti-slavery people. During the "Bleeding Kansas" years, anti-slavery forces, including the so-called Jayhawkers, launched attacks against pro-slavery civilians. Looting, burning and killing was under way even before the war officially began. The US was formed out of a belief in "manifest destiny", a God-given right to occupy the land, and that right was enforced by the firearm. First Nations people bore much of the brunt of those gun battles, but so did fellow Americans as the power of arms, enshrined in the constitution, meant that weaponry was resorted to alarmingly readily. The popularity of the "Western" genre of films and TV underlines how that gun violence was normalised in US culture. Maybe today's police culture emanates from the same roots. This right to bear arms has led to a situation today where each year nearly 40,000 Americans die of gunshot wounds, and 100,000 are injured. That 40,000 is two-thirds the size of Australia's losses in World War I. The shocking horror of mass shootings - Columbine, Sandy Hook and all the rest - has done nothing to stop this. The power of the National Rifle Association to quell any attempt to restrict gun ownership means that the present climate seems to show no sign of improving - rather the opposite. The US leads the world in civilian gun ownership on a per capita basis, with over 125 firearms (small arms) per 100 people. So, we find the US heading to a presidential election in a few months. Donald Trump's ascendancy to the highest office in the land was forged by forcing divisions in US society. Trump demonised anyone "liberal", meaning the Democrats, much of the media, virtually anyone remotely centrist, let alone anyone near the left. His following has been that vast segment of American society that felt itself disempowered by the so-called elites (never mind Trump being a New York billionaire who inherited a large portion of his wealth). As the world changed, they had lost jobs, lost self-worth, lost a sense of pride. Trump's chant of "Make America Great Again" was music to their ears - regardless of veracity or cost. Trump's populism has widened divisions in American society. His dog-whistling has promoted anger, giving air to rightist, racist and well-armed groups. Rather than promoting harmony, Trump has banked on pitting Americans against one another. The militias - like the famed Minutemen - that formed a significant role in the War of Independence loom large in the mindset and pantheon of his followers. Militias can be found widely today, armed with a firepower not dreamed of back in the 1770s when George Washington crossed the Delaware. READ MORE: Despite Trump and Republican small government sentiments, Trump has had no hesitation in using federal forces to try to quell Black Lives Matter protests and other outbreaks of unrest. His overriding of state governments would have drawn howls of outrage if undertaken by a Democrat leader. Today the US population is bitterly divided, dangerously armed, and sooled-on by a Commander in Chief who has trashed the once-noble office of President. Trump's bullying, aggressive defensiveness, capricious changes of personnel and policy, and mind-numbingly simplistic tweets are in stark contrast to his predecessor. Barack Obama's grace, gentility, caution, intellectual depth and empathy are a world away. That Trump has hinted he might not accept the result of the coming election (already alleging postal votes as potentially fraudulent, without a shred of evidence) has set an incredibly dangerous tone. Then there is his latest threat, to delay the election; even fellow Republicans have baulked at this, in the land of the free. He is determined to hold onto power, regardless of cost. We can only hope that somehow sense will prevail, that Trump will be seen even by his followers for the danger that he is, that the powder keg that is the armed population of the US will not be lit. The COVID-19 pandemic has done its worst in countries led by rightist leaders - the US, Brazil, Great Britain. Given the US death toll of over 150,000, and the enormous economic impact of the virus, perhaps it is COVID-19 that might finally turn his followers against him and avert a far bigger catastrophe. One that might well put the first US Civil War in the shade. As the Australian son of an American mother, I certainly hope so.

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/tPntrWhUbGLyDWYCTv46rt/1ebf9624-e443-4aad-9e30-68543f44fb7d.jpg/r2_427_4685_3073_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

OPINION

August 5 2020 - 12:00AM

The United States Civil War of the 1860s was one of the bloodiest imaginable. Deaths were vastly greater than many external conflicts in which the USA has been involved.

Whereas Vietnam cost 50,000 American lives, over 600,000 Americans died in the American Civil War. That was out of a population of around 31 million, compared to 205 million at the time of Vietnam. Some estimates say that if the Civil War was fought today and a similar proportion died, the death toll would be over 6 million.

Of course, there were many reasons for the high death toll. Battlefield injuries were horrific due to the weaponry and tactics, and medical aid was rudimentary to say the least - it was almost a century before bacterial infection could be controlled. Many of the deaths occurred in prisoner-of-war camps, hellholes like Andersonville.

But contributing to the toll too was the culture behind the war. When countries turn inward against themselves, the results can be truly horrific. Just look at the Taliban's killing of fellow Afghans over several decades, the Syrian Civil War, or Islamic sect fighting in Iraq.

In the US, the battle between the anti-slavery north and the pro-slavery south knew almost no bounds, and had predecessors as far as violence goes. Even before the war there were bloody skirmishes between pro- and anti-slavery people. During the "Bleeding Kansas" years, anti-slavery forces, including the so-called Jayhawkers, launched attacks against pro-slavery civilians. Looting, burning and killing was under way even before the war officially began.

The US was formed out of a belief in "manifest destiny", a God-given right to occupy the land, and that right was enforced by the firearm. First Nations people bore much of the brunt of those gun battles, but so did fellow Americans as the power of arms, enshrined in the constitution, meant that weaponry was resorted to alarmingly readily. The popularity of the "Western" genre of films and TV underlines how that gun violence was normalised in US culture. Maybe today's police culture emanates from the same roots.

US President Donald Trump points to the media during a rally he held to mark 100 days in office. Picture: Shutterstock

This right to bear arms has led to a situation today where each year nearly 40,000 Americans die of gunshot wounds, and 100,000 are injured. That 40,000 is two-thirds the size of Australia's losses in World War I. The shocking horror of mass shootings - Columbine, Sandy Hook and all the rest - has done nothing to stop this. The power of the National Rifle Association to quell any attempt to restrict gun ownership means that the present climate seems to show no sign of improving - rather the opposite.

The US leads the world in civilian gun ownership on a per capita basis, with over 125 firearms (small arms) per 100 people.

So, we find the US heading to a presidential election in a few months. Donald Trump's ascendancy to the highest office in the land was forged by forcing divisions in US society. Trump demonised anyone "liberal", meaning the Democrats, much of the media, virtually anyone remotely centrist, let alone anyone near the left. His following has been that vast segment of American society that felt itself disempowered by the so-called elites (never mind Trump being a New York billionaire who inherited a large portion of his wealth). As the world changed, they had lost jobs, lost self-worth, lost a sense of pride. Trump's chant of "Make America Great Again" was music to their ears - regardless of veracity or cost.

Trump's populism has widened divisions in American society. His dog-whistling has promoted anger, giving air to rightist, racist and well-armed groups. Rather than promoting harmony, Trump has banked on pitting Americans against one another. The militias - like the famed Minutemen - that formed a significant role in the War of Independence loom large in the mindset and pantheon of his followers. Militias can be found widely today, armed with a firepower not dreamed of back in the 1770s when George Washington crossed the Delaware.

Despite Trump and Republican small government sentiments, Trump has had no hesitation in using federal forces to try to quell Black Lives Matter protests and other outbreaks of unrest. His overriding of state governments would have drawn howls of outrage if undertaken by a Democrat leader.

Today the US population is bitterly divided, dangerously armed, and sooled-on by a Commander in Chief who has trashed the once-noble office of President. Trump's bullying, aggressive defensiveness, capricious changes of personnel and policy, and mind-numbingly simplistic tweets are in stark contrast to his predecessor. Barack Obama's grace, gentility, caution, intellectual depth and empathy are a world away.

That Trump has hinted he might not accept the result of the coming election (already alleging postal votes as potentially fraudulent, without a shred of evidence) has set an incredibly dangerous tone. Then there is his latest threat, to delay the election; even fellow Republicans have baulked at this, in the land of the free. He is determined to hold onto power, regardless of cost.

We can only hope that somehow sense will prevail, that Trump will be seen even by his followers for the danger that he is, that the powder keg that is the armed population of the US will not be lit. The COVID-19 pandemic has done its worst in countries led by rightist leaders - the US, Brazil, Great Britain. Given the US death toll of over 150,000, and the enormous economic impact of the virus, perhaps it is COVID-19 that might finally turn his followers against him and avert a far bigger catastrophe. One that might well put the first US Civil War in the shade.

As the Australian son of an American mother, I certainly hope so.

Excerpt from:

Trump's America is a powderkeg waiting to be lit - The Canberra Times