From the Times of India -
Anna Hazare declared on Saturday that the nation?s people had won a great victory as he announced he would end his fast at 10am on Sunday.
Hazare thanked people for their support on the Lokpal agitation but cautioned that only half the battle had been won.
?We have won only half the battle,? said Hazare standing before wildly cheering crowds and flanked by his key aides and Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, former Maharashtra chief minister who has been an interlocutor.
In India, we have a nation?s people aroused to change the way their society works, to end generations of corruption at every level of government and society.
But their battle is our battle. We are measured as less corrupt by international standards here in the United States. But it that really true?
We may have less overt corruption in the form of ?legal? campaign contributions and corporate ?personhood,? but is ours any less corrosive. Do we pay any less than an Indian paying a bribe to get out of traffic ticket? We just pay ours in taxes not shared by big campaign contributors? We just pay ours in huge subsidies to already prosperous corporations, who in the next election cycle will demand even more, and even more after that.
In a real way, I envy the people of India, it appears that they may well make some headway in their struggle. There is still some part of their system that can be affected by the popular will. Can we say the same?
Our system is broken and while the normal citizens (who by an 87% disapprove of Congress) know something is terribly wrong. Our beltway elites march in lock step to the demands of ridiculous self serving philosophies of government.
James Pilant
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