11-08-2008, 09:33 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Many Faces of Sonal Shah Obama's Indian By VIJAY PRASHAD
http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad11072008.html
Barack Obama has appointed John Podesta to run his transition. During the lean years of the Bush administration, Podesta, native of Chicago, ran a shadow cabinet for the Democrats. Since 2003, the home of this government-in-exile has been the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank set-up to rival the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. The money, about $10 million per year, came from George Soros, Peter Lewis, Marion Sandler and Herb Sandler â the main liberal financiers. CAP has its set of fellows. Many of them worked in some capacity within the Clinton administration (where Podesta was Chief of Staff). There are hard-nosed people like Rudy deLeon (who went through every Defense secretariat in the Clinton years) and Jeanne Lambrew (who served as a health analyst in the National Economic Council during the waning years of the Clinton administration). But there are also the fresh faces, young people who came to Washington with glowing references from the Ivy League. Others marched over from the Hill, after serving various terms as staff members for the Democratic warhorses. They have been groomed to be part of the next Democratic administration. Their hibernation is over.
Obama has called.
The likely suspects have picked up the phone and moved to the transition headquarters. Among them is a former CAP fellow and now Google employee, Sonal Shah. Shah is well known in the South Asian American community, and is a fixture in the Washington liberal circuit. The latter know her for her Democratic credentials, most of which seem to lie somewhere between neo-liberalism and welfare liberalism. The bleeding heart pauses, but then ticks again to the tune of pragmatism. This is perfect material for the CAP, which is hardly enthusiastic about the Democratic Leadership Council's total commitment to triangulation (which means capitulation to conservatism), but it is not averse to a little political calculus itself. Shah, a product of the University of Chicago, shined her corporate shoes at Anderson Consulting (who was Enron's accountant), which probably made it easier for her to go into Clinton's Treasury Department, where she helped Robert Rubin put a U. S. stamp on the post-1997 Asian economic recovery. The corporate side was balanced with an interest in the ideology of "giving back." When Bush took office, Shah went to the Center for Global Development, and while there joined her brother Anand in forming Indicorps. Knowing full well the desire among many South Asian Americans to give back to their homeland, the Shahs created an organization to help them go and volunteer in India, to do for them what the Peacecorps did for young liberals in the 1960s. Shah left the CAP to work for Goldman Sachs, and then went to Google. Shah's story is not unlike that of most of the CAP fellows, many of whom honed their dexterity at trying to reconcile the irreconcilable, capital and freedom, private accumulation and human needs.
<b>But there is a less typical side to the Shah story. Born in Gujarat, India, Shah came to the United States as a two-year old. Her father, a chemical engineer, first worked in New York before moving to Houston, and then moving away from his education toward the stock market. The Shahs remain active in Houston's Indian community, not only in the ecumenical Gujarati Samaj (a society for people from Gujarat), but also in the far more cruel organizations of the Hindu Right, such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Overseas Friends of the BJP (the main political party of the Hindu Right) and the Ekal Vidyalaya. Shah's parents, Ramesh and Kokila, not only work as volunteers for these outfits, but they also held positions of authority in them. Their daughter was not far behind. She was an active member of the VHPA, the U. S. branch of the most virulently fascistic outfit within India. The VHP's head, Ashok Singhal, believes that his organization should "inculcate a fear psychosis among [India's] Muslim community." This was Shah's boss. Till 2001, Shah was the National Coordinator of the VHPA.</b>
In 2004, I ran into Shah at the South Asian Awareness Network conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan. At an earlier panel I questioned her links to the Hindu Right, and so asked people to be wary about her organization, Indicorps. She was furious, and we had a bitter exchange in the Green Room. But at no point did she deny her active connections to the Hindu Right. Her brother, Anand, wrote to me not long after, concerned that Indicorps, which he runs full-time from India, would be tainted by our tussle. "I was curious about Sonal's own personal relationship with the VHPA," I wrote back, "That sparked some concern for me. Of course we are free to have our multiple associations, and there is no expectation that all our affiliations necessarily influence each other. That necessity is granted, although it is my understanding that the VHPA is a very disciplined organization that demands a lot from its members â notably congruence in all the work that they do. Which is why I raised the question."
,=.......................
vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Commie gang is worried with one appointment.
http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad11072008.html
Barack Obama has appointed John Podesta to run his transition. During the lean years of the Bush administration, Podesta, native of Chicago, ran a shadow cabinet for the Democrats. Since 2003, the home of this government-in-exile has been the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank set-up to rival the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. The money, about $10 million per year, came from George Soros, Peter Lewis, Marion Sandler and Herb Sandler â the main liberal financiers. CAP has its set of fellows. Many of them worked in some capacity within the Clinton administration (where Podesta was Chief of Staff). There are hard-nosed people like Rudy deLeon (who went through every Defense secretariat in the Clinton years) and Jeanne Lambrew (who served as a health analyst in the National Economic Council during the waning years of the Clinton administration). But there are also the fresh faces, young people who came to Washington with glowing references from the Ivy League. Others marched over from the Hill, after serving various terms as staff members for the Democratic warhorses. They have been groomed to be part of the next Democratic administration. Their hibernation is over.
Obama has called.
The likely suspects have picked up the phone and moved to the transition headquarters. Among them is a former CAP fellow and now Google employee, Sonal Shah. Shah is well known in the South Asian American community, and is a fixture in the Washington liberal circuit. The latter know her for her Democratic credentials, most of which seem to lie somewhere between neo-liberalism and welfare liberalism. The bleeding heart pauses, but then ticks again to the tune of pragmatism. This is perfect material for the CAP, which is hardly enthusiastic about the Democratic Leadership Council's total commitment to triangulation (which means capitulation to conservatism), but it is not averse to a little political calculus itself. Shah, a product of the University of Chicago, shined her corporate shoes at Anderson Consulting (who was Enron's accountant), which probably made it easier for her to go into Clinton's Treasury Department, where she helped Robert Rubin put a U. S. stamp on the post-1997 Asian economic recovery. The corporate side was balanced with an interest in the ideology of "giving back." When Bush took office, Shah went to the Center for Global Development, and while there joined her brother Anand in forming Indicorps. Knowing full well the desire among many South Asian Americans to give back to their homeland, the Shahs created an organization to help them go and volunteer in India, to do for them what the Peacecorps did for young liberals in the 1960s. Shah left the CAP to work for Goldman Sachs, and then went to Google. Shah's story is not unlike that of most of the CAP fellows, many of whom honed their dexterity at trying to reconcile the irreconcilable, capital and freedom, private accumulation and human needs.
<b>But there is a less typical side to the Shah story. Born in Gujarat, India, Shah came to the United States as a two-year old. Her father, a chemical engineer, first worked in New York before moving to Houston, and then moving away from his education toward the stock market. The Shahs remain active in Houston's Indian community, not only in the ecumenical Gujarati Samaj (a society for people from Gujarat), but also in the far more cruel organizations of the Hindu Right, such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Overseas Friends of the BJP (the main political party of the Hindu Right) and the Ekal Vidyalaya. Shah's parents, Ramesh and Kokila, not only work as volunteers for these outfits, but they also held positions of authority in them. Their daughter was not far behind. She was an active member of the VHPA, the U. S. branch of the most virulently fascistic outfit within India. The VHP's head, Ashok Singhal, believes that his organization should "inculcate a fear psychosis among [India's] Muslim community." This was Shah's boss. Till 2001, Shah was the National Coordinator of the VHPA.</b>
In 2004, I ran into Shah at the South Asian Awareness Network conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan. At an earlier panel I questioned her links to the Hindu Right, and so asked people to be wary about her organization, Indicorps. She was furious, and we had a bitter exchange in the Green Room. But at no point did she deny her active connections to the Hindu Right. Her brother, Anand, wrote to me not long after, concerned that Indicorps, which he runs full-time from India, would be tainted by our tussle. "I was curious about Sonal's own personal relationship with the VHPA," I wrote back, "That sparked some concern for me. Of course we are free to have our multiple associations, and there is no expectation that all our affiliations necessarily influence each other. That necessity is granted, although it is my understanding that the VHPA is a very disciplined organization that demands a lot from its members â notably congruence in all the work that they do. Which is why I raised the question."
,=.......................
vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Commie gang is worried with one appointment.