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PAATOM

The online edition of 'PAATOM' Magazine founded by MN Vijayan -

In the Context of diffusion of imperialist machinery into the Indian Communist movements PAATOM raises indignant resistance against the hell of ideology and praxis vitiated by the pseudo Marxist goons of imperium.

'PAATOM' is a resistance from the deepest of the racial sanctity of humanity nursed by the leftist political ethos. "PAATOM" is the voice of honest determination, that means to uncover the treacherous objects concealed beneath the mystery of hegemonic jargon.

We offer a laborious contribution to the truly humanist interventions that would enlarge the circumference and depth of emotional and intellectual perceptions.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Occupy Wall Street : A threat to finance capital or just a tickle?

Strike!, October, Battleship Potemkin! The vivid poetic montages of Eisenstein cinema created an intellectual universe that thrust upon us the sheer force of political movements. The vigor of emotions, kinesthetics of movement of people across the streets, the organic unity of the masses, the synthesis of ideas in public, dream vocabulary; it was the realization of a film sense that resonates in the heights of imagination. Even after nearly a century, this film sense inspires my political blood and rips of the media clutter of our times.

Occupy Wall street Movement (OWM) ! A conglomeration of people in the ivory towers of finance capital in gargantuan scale. The volume, variety and velocity of people associating at a global happening place! The world wide media coverage and the news flash showered upon their initiatives are beyond the reach for any working class organization aligned to communist or socialist movements. Yet they fail to send ripples down the memory lane. It freezes in the thin time frames of our life. When I tries to recollect the organic unity of the event, OWM reminds me of yet another flash-mob that happens in shopping malls or public spaces. 

The movement arithmetic of contemporary anarchists fail to rip off the fundamental equations and governing laws of finance capital and new forces of hegemony. OWM lacked the coherent vision required to overthrow the hegemonic forces of finance capital. They proclaimed themselves as the 'movement of squares'. Out of the polemic and rhetoric, what do they really signify? As a political activist, should I be concerned if my movement should be only inspired by Tiananmen square protests? A mass resistance to the walls of finance capital should not be allergic to the trade unions and political parties. International Socialism magazine hails OWM as 'Construction of mass experiments in cooperative living'. 

We know the deplorable extents to which the mass experiments of cooperative living corrupted the public spaces in the Anna Hazare model experiments for cooperative living. They fail even to qualify to be called as anarchist for the simple reason that they had no democratic ideology or a basic inspiration in the values of peoples democracy. 

Strike is not a carnival moment for participatory living in the market spaces. It is a call for overhaul in the ways of market capitalism. When required to communicate the strength and significance of the cause, it disrupts the passive living of the market dynamics. The obsessive embrace and hedonistic inspirations of mass experiments in OWM completely forgotten that the any movement that calls for a social change must be united by a logical goal that unites the length and breadth of the movement. 

They hail a term called direct democracy! Who would you like to be the cardinal of the direct democracy. Imperial nation states? multi national corporate syndicates? A movement rationale should know the phases and strategic critical path for transitioning from each phase. #Lenin and #Grmasci had written elaborately on the tactical directions for collective resistance against an oppressive market force and its institution.  

A collective resistance will never be frozen in time. The class struggle will not strive to amplify the market force or an institution. The first and foremost contribution of OWM to the social consciousnesses is that it amplified the significance of #WallStreet. What is wall street really? Just another trading center of market capitalism. It is just a place where all the market manipulations take place. By overthrowing wall street you are not going to eliminate the finance capital forces. They have incarcerated each ounce of our political institution. They have penetrated into the tiniest entities of governing and bureaucratic entities in government. 

Thus the basic nature of market hegemony still remains very much the same. The different form of commoditization that emerged in our times is in society and social organizations itself. It was what we call ambiguously as 'Social capital'. The #NGOs, #CSOs, the Carnival Celebration organizations (CMO) can be seen as the manifestations of this abhorrent and hedonistic conscience in the society. They act as the cheerleaders of the finance capital. They can stage manage the protests at any mammoth scale. They can get you any hit rate on social media and TRP in Global television channels. It is such a versatility and innovation that oppressors and oppressed becomes hale and happy at the end of a six month long mass resistance. All is well!

Thus mass resistance becomes a corporate ritual for branch awareness and market positioning. They strip naked their half baked intellect in front of the altars of the market and corporate. They scream, they howl, they dance, they enact all sort of epic plays to incite a tickle of laughter or an apathetic gaze in the pathological senses of finance colonialists. 

Yes, it is very hard to digest the sumptuous meals and the folk art served in your mass media in Kerala soil. When the communist movement of Kerala in Solar protest plummets to an OWM scale of irrationality it invokes the memories of a ritual to titillate the emotive prowess of the Sun God. It becomes nothing more than a 48 hour long stage drama forgetting the root causes of solar scam and the market dynamics of energy politics behind the scene. However this is the moment of truth for a political critic to realize that market can commodity even out of the resistances against it and to make mileage and media attention out of it.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Solar fraud agitation: Mimicry of a revolution


S.Sudhish Solar fraud agitation: 

Mimicry of a revolution and the festival of cowardice


And there ends the siege demonstrated by ten thousands, the mimicry of a revolution, staged and steered to an infant death by the left democratic front in Kerala ; the CPM channel itself claimed that the  left democratic front in Kerala was just mimicking the Anna hazarre - wall street model , and the huge  show of bombastic man power,  despite its tiny food package- discipline and subdued revelry, had its final twist towards the inevitable comedy of pathos that inflicted expensive insult upon the memory of  people’s revolutions. Marx said it : the valorous heroic commitments of an age that inspired the race with ethos of self-sacrificial justice would suffer a pathetic comic exit from history with the  cry of a caricature. The people of Kerala witnessed and heard the distorted phonetic outbursts of a moaning  as Pinarayi Vijayan claimed the victory of the battle ludicrous that betrayed  his blood and spine and the brave heart of history .The exit ludicrous ,is  part of laws governing history. The communist movement in Kerala is no exception to the inevitable, a death by the  finance capital explosion

            As people from different corners of the state  gathered and joined the great ocean of demonstrations, liberating roaring leaps of anguish in thunderous voices   the performance in toto happened to be a shadow of people’s democratic revolution abandoned in the leaves of  the Indian text of Marxist battle discourse . But the episode vibrant with enormous expressions of sentimental  sound  and  fury was constructed upon two pseudo political demands:(1) resignation of Oo. Chandy, the depleted chief minister of Kerala, shored  together by the insensible bosses in  the supreme high command of the political absurd  (2) a judicial enquiry, which has been established as a perennial joke in the diary of political economy. Why the left democratic front estimated the resignation of a petty officer  of  the financial colonial rule -- an issue reduced to mean personal level--. as cause competent for a great battle and siege  of secretariat is a penetrating question for which there is no  answer from untainted sanity. Solar fraud is a disastrous issue, a malady, at the international level and it is a game of fraud played by the aggressive cerebrum of finance capitalism and its explosive marketing machinery  The tainted minister is only a pawn, a minor port that smuggles the malady into  the commerce of  human life  , the flaring symptom of which is the abuse of finance, initiated with the decentralization of economy. The resignation of the tainted minister is a minor cause disproportionate to the massive show of a struggle , as the major cause  is  privatization anarchy commencing with solar energy marketing propelled by the foreign multinational forces

 . The  government at the centre as well as governments in the Indian states are infected with the solar malady, the virus of which was transmitted into the Indian blood  with the system syringe of the infamous agreement between the Indian government and W.T.O; It was an agreement  to provide governmental attestation to the financial abuse played by foreign companies and their Indian subordinates  and the  chief minister of Kerala, whether it be Oo. Chandy or Achuthanandan who provides subsidy and attestation to the solar global commerce, is only a petty subordinate  agent and a beneficient spider of the universal finance industry of solar fraud; The summary of this  observation is that  the farce of a great battle generated at such an expansive dimension  lacked  serious political  focus as the cause projected was a silly Oo Chandy affair, resignation of a political  officer degenerate. The degenerate sites of political power exposed in the present solar light, testify to the financial obscenity inherent in  colonization and privatization of   energy and sources of energy in our country  The great show which suffered premature abortion effected distraction and diversion from the focal problem of privatization and colonization of the national energy asset, and reduced everything to Oo Chandy level as desired by masters of manipulation; 

    Resignation of a minister in this context is a non issue, for violation of political ethics and morality is the  habit and habitat of the ruling class in the post globalization era  ; The minister caught red handed , who clings on to the needle end of power to prove his pedigree of politics is a specimen of degenerate capitalist democracy stripped off its bogus values of political morality. The tainted minister claims the status none the better than that of   a pick pocket who  argues with astounding self pride  that though persons administered by his will snatched crores out of the street travelers’ pockets, it did not cause a single penny damage to the state exchequer, and hence   the skilled pick pocket  is the mettle of a  marvelous ruler eligible to hold the  office of the honorable minister!! It smells magic realism, as such rulers mad  maddened  and manufactured with the stuff of lunatic irony are often found licking  and murmuring similar dismal jokes in the literary terrain of south America

           The leaders of the left front conceded the point that  the entry of solar extortion  into the content  and frame of public economy did not cause a single penny damage  to the state exchequer .   The left was constrained  to confess the horror of its political illiteracy as they conceded  the no public exchequer damage  theory  of the tainted chief minister, or they concealed the truth of knowledge beneath their breast  that the state exchequer is put to disastrous extortion of its content in the context of the obsessive solar commerce sermonized by the state and central governments.

        Extortion of money from the public exchequer is legalized in the form of subsidy. R. Balakrishna pillai, a person anointed in a post with cabinet rank and former minister and sitting M.L.A Ganesh kumar in a statement told the people of Kerala, that they could obtain subsidy from the  government for their roof top solar installations.  The subsidy amount  enjoyed by the two persons of the affluent class alone would come up around six lakhs if we are to believe the text of promise given by Com. V.S. Achuthanandan , the chief propagandist of solar mission. Sixty percent of the cost for solar installation is jointly paid by the state and the centre from the public exchequer and in the name of the holy cow termed customer, the money   taken away from the state exchequer is  posted in the accounts  of the foreign company, and its local agents. Remember as per the W.T.O agreement the Government of India is constrained to extend maximum number of orders to  U.S. companies or their agents at the local level.  The affluent class is of course overjoyed with the amazing percentage of concession , but the customer class is only a device and the final beneficiary is the private company, mostly and fundamentally foreign.

                The Oo. Chandy government under the diabolic compulsions of its brain stained with genetic criminal impulses, contemplated an order to install solar on all police station buildings and issued a direction  to install solar on all buildings occupying  an area of 250O sq.ft. or more; Com Achuthanandan, the chief propagandist of solar, lives in all fool’s  dream world--- it is the tragic fate of this poor old man---  nursing the innocent belief  that solar would bring cheap rate energy for the BPL people. The criminals feeding intelligence to the poor old man think that  he is not sane and sensible enough to find the fact that the BPL population don’t have buildings of 2500 sq.ft owned by them and the area needed for raising solar in a dependable working condition is that of a  building with a minimum of 2500sq.ft.  The BPL category falls out of focus then, and the subsidized solar may tickle the  sensations of luxury, caressed by  an R.V.G.Menon or R.B.Pillai who belong to supra affluent class. The government of Kerala had a project designed for one lakh  solar rooftops ,the cost of which may vary from three lakhs to seven lakhs per installation and  the governments are committed to  pay around sixty percent of the total cost  of one lakh roof top miracles from the public treasury. The damage done to the state exchequer just to honour the agreements with W,T.O. . World Bank, USAID or any such dubious money lenders, is unprecedented in the history of Indian economy The World Bank, A.D.B or USAID lend you money in substantial quantum with a strict dictate that it should not be used for production oriented projects . The voluminous flow of finance is meant not for use but for abuse and the  governmental subsidy for solar which gallops up to sixty percent of the total cost rushes forth from the state exchequer to the private foreign companies and intermediaries. The return of the loans back with the interest is yet another pernicious liability that would eat out even the bottom layer of the public exchequer  The subsidy with the bondages of loan repayment and interest, programmed by the Government is a shocking instance of the abuse of finance  that would crush the very logic of an institution termed state exchequer . But the supreme breeds of political frauds tell you that not single penny damage is done to the state exchequer.

                  Apart from the rooftop individual units the government promised subsidy for centralized large scale solar plants,--- disclosed the quarry owner who invested forty lakhs probably for a huge solar pipeline project. The total cost of a large pipe line solar would come up to the range of forty crores and the governments central and state together would issue sixty percent of the cost as subsidy to the private solar pipeline installations. The logic  of subsidizing private investors for the profit  of private foreign manufacturers of solar modules and tools, is alien  even to the  ethics of capitalist economy as well as to the mixed economy . The day time looting of the public exchequer is simply done to honour the agreement with the global money lenders who seek expansion of solar customer market in the tropic of cancer for the benefit of private solar companies in the U.S and the cold blooded West.

     Why millions or crores should be extorted as subsidy from the poor man’s exchequer  to the foreign companies routed  through the pleasures of the affluent class who fancy that they win an excess  of  monetary gain out of the solar extravaganza ? See  that the contract signed with the  W.T.O. and other global money lending forces  insist incentives from the Government to generate solar customer market in India for the foreign companies, particularly for  the U.S. companies in specific terms. Remember, the auspicious money lender institution W.B. has given ultimatum to the Government of India to terminate all species of subsides to the destitute classes; The government has been asked  by the World Bank to extend a helping hand to wring the necks of the starving farmer families engaged in the job of collective suicide . The same money lender institution  demands extraction of subsidy from the state exchequer just to encourage gymnastics and acrobatics of  foreign solar business in our country.  The thesis of the world bank is simple but inhuman: no subsidy from the treasury to sustain the life of dying farmer community but  volumes of subsidy in abundance to the foul solar  game performed by the fraudulent foreign solar institutions

    In Kerala , the programme for generating solar  consumer market touched urgency peak   with the proposed commissioning of Kudamkulam nuclear plant that offered  thirteen percent of its electricity production to Kerala .It would definitely sink the prospects of the solar market promised to the foreign companies. The Prime Minister alleges that the funding agencies in the U.S. provide food , drinks and  various pleasures of health and filth to the  anti Kudamkulam agitations engineered by the N.G.Os . In the U.S they have the largest empire of nuclear plants in the world but the U.S.A.I.D  or any such funding agency that unties the strings of their money baggage to save Kudamkulam from the nuclear menace ignores the monstrous growth of nuclear plants in the U.S. The same funding agencies in the U.S.  that fuel the roaring bellies at the Kudamkulam war front , provide us with loans and grants for solar and insist that the maximum number of solar orders should be given to the U.S. companies  It is a shocking irony of shame , that the Prime Minster. who laments  that the U.S. secretes funds for the Kudamkulam energy traffic block ,signs a contract   to generate an expanse of solar consumer market that provides the U.S. companies  with maximum number of solar business orders.

     The funding agencies monitored by the corporate institutions in the U.S., release finance  in great quantum ,to build resistance against hydro electric plants—from silent valley to Athirappally —and against nuclear electricity plants on various grounds; but lend finance and sanction grant for the solar energy installations claiming returns with penal interest. The global monetary forces are at their worst, treacherous to the extent of conspiring sabotage of nuclear plants.  Invoking the memory of the latest  accident in Japan and exploiting such instances of dread they demonstrate the  safety flashes in the falsified mirror of solar, accompanied with  loans and grants   of deceptive finance The die hard antagonism against   the  thermal – hydro-- nuclear electricity projects and favoritism for  the solar electricity plants, that find expression in the dubious U.S. finance expediency, exemplify the foul tactics of financial terrorism endangering the future of humanity.

            The motive of the corporate houses lending money via W.T.O. is nothing but the global monopoly of energy manufacturing, cornered to the U.S. centred corporate houses. They route finance through World Bank ,  W.T.O, A.D.B, UNEP or USAID and demand consumer orders for U.S. companies. They hold a definite strategy to invalidate hydro electric energy owned and operated  as public sector asset in the third world  nation states .  The State of India in the present structure of political economy maintain sound command over  the thermal electricity plants,  the hydro electricity plants and  the nuclear electricity plants, whereas the solar electricity business is administered by the private companies stationed in the U.S, Germany, U.K., Switzerland   , Japan, Korea and such other foreign countries; and bysigning the W.T.O. agreement India has taken an oath to  provide maximum number of orders to the U.S. beating other contestants in the global market. Enfeebling the hydro electricity plants , nuclear and thermal plants administered and commanded by the public sector   and invigorating the solar electricity trade  administered by  the foreign private enterprises ,is the programme charted out by  the U.S. corporate houses. The intention behind the overzealous foreign funding  for solar is clear. It is invalidation , paralysis and death of  the public sector  energy management. It is enforced privatization of the energy  management. It is the hegemony of foreign corporates in our energy sector.  Money in huge quantum is extorted from the public treasury for providing markets for the foreign masters . It is subjugation by loans and grants, received as  incentives to betray  the public sector command upon energy production and dispensation. It is nauseating exhibition of financial colonialism

           Com. Acuthanandan claims that solar energy is cheap when Tata Solar company the chieftain of Indian companies in the global market, admits that the solar cost is high, and they are investing  in the Swiss company for experimental projects that would invent devices for lowering the cost. Yet com. Achuthanandan is right that the solar is cheap for the affluent class, as sixty percent of the cost is met by the state and central governments as per the conditions laid down in the agreements on loan and grants. You put your neck into the debt trap  and a cry from the bursting blood vessels in the throat reveals the desperate fact: it is for this cheap consumption of the unwanted, you die a death in the debt trap-----  like the silent farmer race. It is suicide prepared for posterity also

                The periodical hike in petrol and diesel is alarming. It lowers the dignity of human life irrespective of class. The power minister  of Kerala, and the railway and transportation ministry  often preach the necessity of raising the cost of consumption. The power minister on one end raises the electricity tariff to the highest level to cover the loss incurred in power generating system. Oo Chandy and Manmohan on the other end lower the cost of solar with sixty percent subsidy for production and consumption---- and if sixty percent subsidy from the public treasury is allotted for every hydro electricity consumer bill, which would be the cheaper, is another question that Comrade Achuthanandan would find it difficult to respond

         The show of siege definitely extended great strike power, that hit the functioning of the disgusting phonetic disguise projected from the  throat of the  minister living in perpetual fear of resignation ,. He may quit perhaps in the near future  but that doesn’t make any difference. The servile non resistance to the colonial finance is the fate of present day Indian political economy;  Even the left, already committed to the financial trap of the colonial  finance would find it difficult to get back to the ideological position for a battle of resistance  against the instrument of finance deployed by the colonial forces;

     The people , the cadre of the left  and the leadership of the left  are betrayed. They are betrayed by the paid agents of the U.S.A I.D. within the left movement  who misrouted  and misdirected the objectives of the agitation to the level of the Wall Street fashion show . The great Wall Street Assembly  of anarchy was nothing but a safety valve release  for the people’s wrath.. The anguish and distress in the pressure can of people’s psyche was released and emptied through the  safety valve of the great siege  The rule and hegemony of finance capitalism was saved of an explosion of the  pressure that  would  mean a revolution; The intruders within the left were  preparing a safety outlet for the wrath of the people suspended in the hell and hegemony of finance colonialism. It was done, as the crowd went self dispersed dreaming the glorious day that would bring the news of Oo . Chandy’s resignation. The resignation is a non issue. The major issue is that of the W.T.O. agreement that subverts the public sector energy command, for a bribe of thirty dices; The major issue is the U.S. funded agitation blockade against public sector hydro electricity projects and nuclear projects. The major issue is that of   the solar finance anarchy that marks the privatization of our energy asset . The major issue is that  the preference for the solar  and the sixty percent subsidy  are not either the will of the people or the policy of the government but the  dictate of  the colonial masters of finance who hire us with the baits of grants and loans. Resignation of the Chief Minister is in no way a resolution to the issue of political economy,  narrated above, as the left democratic front  also opt for the privatization and  a wholesale deal  of Indian energy sources.

             The  demonstration of  the siege  happens to be a festival of cowardice, as Com. Prakash Karat would never gather that much courage to utter a single word even against the W.T.O agreement or the rush of colonial finance that subjugates our economy toward absolute sterility and servility. It would burn the vocal cord of any such leader who opens his mind in the right direction of the issue. 

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Energy and Information : The Diabolic discourses of High Technology Capitalism :

Technology has become the carrier of the mass communication networks of capitalism. This is nothing new as way back in 1970s, Raymond Williams had predicted the impact of television in the global arena. The surge of technology has been exponential since then. We have reached a stage where technology has become a deterministic voice in all most all the political and economical discourses of the day, ranging from the national election verdicts to the decisions in the defense sector and the usage of nuclear energy for the nation state. 

Energy and media has become the two powerful discourses for this trade craft targeting the emerging economies all around the world. When media gets fragmented into the discourses around data - money equality and information economy hype the story evolves into another mystification. In this post, our focus is on the Indian state of Kerala where the promises of Solar energy of Salvation became an abhorrent criminal drama.

In the previous article, #PAATOM has narrated the state of political, economical and criminal affairs in Kerala inspired by the bribal stories from all political parties and business magnets and all sort of criminal elements in Kerala. Normally December has been celebrated as the month of the Sun 'god'. Thanks to these efforts, media across Kerala could generate enough TRP around the Solar scam.

What next? what is fundamentally wrong in the Solar scheme of energy? For any form of energy to become viable and a consistent source of energy, it should have a stable network design for generation, transmission, transformation and consumption. In the case of Solar energy the possibility of transforming the strength of this energy source is very very limited as it is an instant form of energy. In the case of hydroelectric or thermal or nuclear forms of energy there are vivid possibilities of transformation and amplification of energy. The potential for conversion, storage and versatility are more important when considering an energy source as a candidate for a nation state.


No matter your level of technological sophistication and efficiency of energy conversion, it is impossible to derive more solar energy from a unit of land than that which falls upon it from space — which is a lot globally, but spread incredibly thinly, like hot butter scraped over too much bread. There is nothing you can ever do to overcome the problem of diffuse solar energy — vast areas will always be required to harness it in significant volumes.
The Solar Fraud, Howard C. Hayden )
Here we see that life and its struggle for survival has become a feast or ritualistic game for many pundits of Global market . The think tanks of this capitalism believe that using surrogates they can keep the cycles of capitalism for eternity. Surrogate capitalism: it is not a jargon, but a realization that capital has become a flat entity that can conceal its interests from the reasoning capabilities of the social self and the societal imperatives. Thus by concealing its identity from the people indulging in the market transactions, capital grows itself by leaps and bounds. Criminals, technocrats, media magnets, sports stars, instant celebrities all become the surrogates of this brutal treachery. Earlier in 1990s we saw how developmental economics, welfare state, agricultural productivity and poverty alleviation became the seductive discourses for subverting the national and sovereign interests of nation states. Exposures from #PAATOM on these plots are in the previous posts in this blog.

In the current decade we are witnessing how Energy has become the dominant discourse for imposing an imperial and neo-colonial plot on the Economic epic center of a state. A nuclear energy deal could decide the fate of a political party in Indian soil. Now #Solar scam is looming large over the head of many a political veterans of Kerala state. Yet the architects of this scheme remain behind the scene largely, safely and calmly gazing at the horizon of the solar winters !

As well elaborated in the previous article, this scandal is not only about the bribes that reached the wallets of a few. On the contrary, how this hyperbolic scandal could sail easily through the energy audits of the government. The whole story evolves around a multinational collaboration involving many intellectual faces as well. Their Swiss connections, their pan European expeditions, intellectual pursuits, all for the energy feast and the multi-billion dollar purchases. These energy advocates have been lecturing for renewable energy for quite some time. It had captured the imagination of many youngsters who started start-ups around this hype. The fate of their adventures will be decided in the coming days. Our investigations should go beyond the executioners of this energy scam to unravel the real energy advocates of this scandalous scheme.