Radical Journal :: The Roots

Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, CNN, MTV are not really different from each other. They cater to the ruling ideas, they create market standards and they direct the audience desires. They are the torchbearers of conservative political-economic relations that have existed since ages in the world that perpetuates itself based on the class division it creates. On the liberal side, some enlightened scholars engaged in media research forward an argument that audience in today's world participates actively, knows what and how to choose; and therefore, of course the entire premise that their instincts are driven by market practices is false. So on the scale from liberal to libertarian, the people who differ from the right wing differ vastly, and yet would let the market remain in its place. They would advocate some or the other brand of "freedom of choice" (and corporates gleefully cater to the choices), they would claim that political freedom is all about freedom of speech (and the corporate political system would happily fulfill their fetish to scream), and they would talk about changing the world through voting one political party over another (and the modern democracies would provide them that platform for instant gratifications).


Against such a depressing backdrop of conservative strides and liberal myopia, its only necessary that the radical voices emerge. This is not a journal to claim that it is the radical voice. Indeed, it is one that aims to represent all the numerous radical voices that exist. The Radical Journal is an amalgam of, or at least an attempt at bringing together countless opinions that have expressed worthwhile resentments. In different periods of history, these voices had coinages different from now. Their affiliations were probably different as well. But since the various movements aimed at bringing radical replacements were part of the collective human experiences, its only prudent that they are viewed as such with sympathetic socio-historic understanding. 

Our life is too promising to be wasted over consuming liberal-conservative corporate media."


--Saswat Pattanayak, Editor, Radical Journal