Don't Miss
- BBtv - Pesco and "Eccentric Genius," Xeni zapped, ironic t-shirts: More Maker Faire 2008.
- BBtv - Google's "Great Firewall of China": Fun with the Billboard Liberation Front and monochrom
- BBtv - Cory Doctorow: Show us your "Little Brother" HOWTO videos, and "Dumpster-Diving Philosopher."
- Untitled 1
- Boing Boing's Moderation Policy
- #boingboing IRC channel open for Happy Mutating
Recent Comments
- rhys said: "http://www.darkroastedblend ..."
- wgmleslie said: "Those corners are just waiting to destroy your elbows. I had two This End Up couches made out of ye ..."
- jgodsey said: "those are hot pants. and i am more concerned about the heels. OUCH. ..."
- stevesaguy said: "You'll love my muxtape. That is of course of you like the kind of music I like... the only way to kn ..."
- Narual said: "@2 -- That's mostly because it was spread out over several days when it was broadcast and they were ..."
- Pearl said: "Homophobia: Fear or hatred of homosexuals and homosexuality (Oxford English Dictionary) Irrational f ..."
- businesspad said: "that's a coincidence ..."
- David Carroll said: "Thanks for the link Antinous (#48). This is from <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/get ..."
- Nelson.C said: "For no particulalrly good reason, I keep seeing in my mind's eye Clooney as the officer who kept tr ..."
- Leslee said: "Very good discussion about the darker side of LSD (CIA use as a torture agent and the role of bent u ..."
the latest
- Condé Nast/Wired.com buys Ars Technica
- Rock, Paper, Shotgun, we can't stop thinking about you
- Experts outraged that Wii Fit calls children "overweight"
- The legend of Mall Ninja
- What else to expect from WWDC besides the 3G iPhone?
- Brad Litwin's ball-catching "Rotapult"
- The SlomunnyV3: post-apocalyptic cyborg lemon
- Containership power strip design models manufacturing microcosm
- Syd Mead's "Sulaco" ship from Aliens just a big gun
- Portable ice cream floats with the Fizz Cup
latest episodes
- Pesco and the "Eccentric Genius," Xeni gets zapped, ironic t-shirts: More Maker Faire 2008.
- Google and China's "Great Firewall": Fun with the Billboard Liberation Front and monochrom
- Cory Doctorow: Show us your "Little Brother" HOWTO videos, and "Dumpster-Diving Philosopher."
- Kevin Kelly: "Asia Grace," and A Thousand True Fans.
- BBtv "Hacker HOWTO": Cold Boot Encryption Attack
- Speed Racer's "photo-anime" hyperreality: John Gaeta interview, part 2.
- Combat robots, warring battleships: Xeni at Maker Faire
- Star Simpson's fuzzy logic, MacGyver, MIT lasers, and trippy glasses: Maker Faire with Phil Torrone
- Joel Johnson Wilderness Internet Experience
- Animation: Syd Garon and DJ Qbert, and Jon Burgerman's "Magic Ink"
The Chinese are scary at times with their lack of compassion for animals and people. (Not all of them of course).
But I don't trust the motives for all the propaganda against China right now. The US is warmongering. They don't like this rival superpower. I even question the political neutrality of Amnesty International, even though they do make what could be token criticisms of US treatment of Iraqis.
I hate that they've made the Olympics politcal, it shouldn't be, it's sport.
Secondly, the chinese, like every other nation before it that have had similar problems, can only be changed from within.
Not my country; not my problem.
You start making other countries' problems your own and you end up with Vietnams and Iraqs.
The Olympics has always been political. It is a marketing campaign run with dictatorial control and ruthlessness, and when it isn't selling ideology, it's selling sugar water and fast food.
And good lord, what is with the China appeasers? As an American, I have no problem with people hating America. I rather hate it myself. I hate our government for pretty much the same reasons I hate the Chinese government.
But I have to question the intelligence and self respect (or national allegiance) of anyone who whines about neutrality and considers the superpowers equivalent. Tell me, would you rather have Chinese military bases in Western Europe?
It's peace in our time all over again.
I don't want to sound like a total asshole, but the window to protest the Beijing Olympics has pretty much passed. Maybe they should have made a bigger stink when the IOC was evaluating host cities.
When is it better to protest, when no one cares, or when the entire world is paying attention?
Wait, AGIES, do you think this is still about the city selection? And as a done deal, people should sit down and STFU?
That isn't being an asshole, that is being meek.
"But I don't trust the motives for all the propaganda against China right now. The US is warmongering. They don't like this rival superpower."
If you don't like the tactics, don't play the game.
"Not my country; not my problem."
It's your world.
What if the Nazis wanted to host the Olympics? Should we have let them?
"Not my country, not my problem"
As much as I like the idea of having enough problems in one's own country to be too busy to care for someone elses, I'm quite glad that the Allied Forces invaded my homeland to end the war.
I don't want to say anyone should declare war on China, because I don't believe war or violence should be a politic device to solve problems - it worked once (see example above), in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq it made everything worse.
I truly believe people should be able to speak their mind, everywhere. It's a very basic right.
What Olympic values?
They've slapped a brand label on the ass of every athlete in the games... and as for the torch pass, as we all know, it was begun by the Nazis in 1936.
During the Cold War, it was a soap box to champion our various ideologys (Communism v. Capitalism.)
It is a giant ***king commercial, a propaganda piece... that we're still pretending it is imbued with meaning is the real problem here.
Elimiate team sports and have the athletes compete naked... then we'll talk about "Olympic values."
@ #8 Landowner: What if the Nazis wanted to host the Olympics? Should we have let them?
That had better be a fucking joke.
Several thoughts on the controversy:
* As antagonistic and suicidal as the present U.S. government is, I don't think even they are dumb enough to pick a fight with China while stretched to the breaking point between Afghanistan and Iraq with war drums beating for Iran. Do you recall the pre-9/11 incident when one of our spy planes crashed inside Chinese borders, and the status of the crew was uncertain? THAT would have been a reason to go to war with China, and diplomacy, for once, prevailed. Between their armies of millions soldiers with low senses of individual ego, their nuclear capability and their economy now inextricably linked to our own it would take something ENORMOUS for us to take that risk. Given that Tibet has been under the Chinese fist for, what, 50 years now and its other human rights offenses are also matters of public record, that we have coddled them as much as we have would seem to imply we're unlikely to change that anytime soon.
* Perhaps the hope of the IOC was that with the influx of people from around the world, more than Chinese authorities can monitor 24/7 (though no doubt they'll try), some ideas about democracy, organization, human rights, pluralism, whatever, will be able to slip under their radar. The Chinese have to be aware that certain "crimes" which they'd likely lock up their own people for without blinking will play very poorly on the international stage should an Olympic guest from elsewhere be caught perpetrating them. I suspect we will see a bunch of revocations of visas and deportations during the Olympics. More interesting, however, will be what the eventual fallout will be after the games when the Chinese people have a chance to process what they've been exposed to and certain memes spread; we may not know for some time in the West, but eventually something will manifest that the Chinese can't hide.
It might seem like I'm championing a laîssez-faire policy, and I am, but not because I don't care. Someday, something will need to be done about China. I don't know what that will need to be and I don't know what will signify that it's time. But I do know this is not that day, and for the moment we have bigger fish to fry. You want egg roll with that?
License Farm
That had better be a fucking joke.
Yikes! It was, It was!
Don't punch me through your computer.
"Someday, something will need to be done about China."
Yet I can't help but think that someday, something will be done about the rest of us instead.
If anyone's interested in learning about Tibet, China, and the US, the best place to start is with Michael Parenti's Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth. Parenti is scathing about China; he's not a pro-Chinese propagandist, and his research is thoroughly footnoted.
If you prefer video, there's some footage from the 1939 Nazi expedition to Tibet here and Parenti being interviewed about Tibet here.
Tibet's situation is much more complex than the two major sides pretend.
Not my country; not my problem. You start making other countries' problems your own and you end up with Vietnams and Iraqs.
And when you don't do anything, you end up with Nazi occupied France, Poland, etc. It is possible to distinguish between right and wrong. China annexed Tibet fifty years ago, is raping its resources and committing genocide against its people. There is, believe it or not, a whole range of alternatives that lie between nuking Beijing and colluding fully with China's totalitarian regime. The US and the EU should not send any dignitaries to the Olympics and should revoke all trade policies that are favorable to China. This is the biggest cultural and ideological war in human history. If we lose it, human rights will vanish for the foreseeable future.
Antinuous, when you bring up the Nazis, what are you saying? That the US should go to war with China? Or simply that it should sabotage the Olympics in order to advance, well, what?
Your assessment of "right and wrong" suggests you know very little of Tibet's history. The genocide charge is especially silly—the Dalai Lama and his supporters claim that 1.2 million were killed when Tibet's population was about 1.25 million. No one could hide the killing fields if that was true—photos would've been smuggled out.
If you have anything of substance to refute Parenti, please provide the links.
Will,
You're a troll and a time-waster. You only show up in threads related to Tibet and China to support China and trash Tibet. My comment says that there are diplomatic alternatives that lie between intervention and collusion. As usual, you pretend to misunderstand. I have no more to say to you.
Antinuous, if you think calling people names is a substitute for offering people facts, well, um, okay.
Oh, Antinuous, as for why I mostly comment on Tibet here, it's because I agree with the Boingboing folks on most issues. But on Tibet, I think they've bought into an overly-simplified history promoted by conservative capitalists in general, and by the CIA and the heirs of Tibet's feudal lords in particular.
Again, if you can refute Parenti, I would be grateful. I don't mind looking like an idiot when the facts are on my side, but I hate being wrong about the facts. Provide the evidence, and you will only have my gratitude.
Will, you can begin to look here:
http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/search.php?q=parenti&q.x=0&q.y=0
I haven't read it, but I *suspect* as it comes from the Students for a Free Tibet site, you'll be able to find some refutations and arguments.
And as that took less than three minutes with Google, I concur. Troll and Time-waster.
Oddly enough, the www.studentsforafreetibet.org website contains the same Michael Parenti essay Will linked to.
Anyway, I don't really get Will's point. The Parenti article says that pre-Chinese-invasion Tibet contained lots of religious, feudal, serfdom problems. Does Will think that Parenti is right when he says Westerners erroneously think Tibet was a wonderful, heavenly place? I certainly never thought so - so that whole section of Parenti's article is completely lost on me. It's apparently meant to explain why Western people favor Tibet independence, but certainly a lot of us DON'T think that. If you believe Parenti, then it legitimizes discounting the opinions of Western people on Tibetian independence.
Admittedly, Parenti's article isn't really pro-Chinese, either. I was disappointed that Parenti never even attempted to raise the question of people's legitimate right to self-rule. He talks about good and bad things China did for Tibet, but I couldn't help but think, "Isn't Parenti ignoring the elephant in the room by not even raising that question?" In Parenti's world, apparently, the right of China to control Tibet depends on how good or bad Tibet was pre-Chinese invasion, and how many good and bad things the Chinese did for Tibet since then. If that's the case, then first-world countries should be allowed to invade third-world countries all over the world - provided that they make the place better than it was when they arrived. (Colonialism anyone?) Any right to self-rule is completely ignored.
Doug, I have read that. It's remarkably empty of information; Students for a Free Tibet is an organization rather like the anti-Castro organizations: not a good source for information about life before a corrupt leader was ousted, and an extremely partisan source for current information.
It didn't occur to me that I should clarify my request: please provide links that you've read and believe are of substance. I've read Parenti and a great deal about Tibet. I'll happily read more.
If all you have is a link you haven't read and an insult, well, okay.
Brit, there are a lot of issues at play here. The greatest one is the intention of the Dalai Lama's supporters. I don't think they hope to restore feudalism, just as I don't think the former Batista-supporters hope to restore a brutal form of tyranny in Cuba. But I do think it's right to wonder about their agenda: do they want a better life for the average Tibetan, or do they want power in the land their parents ruled? They claim they want democracy, but it would seem to be a very limited form of democracy: the government in exile assumes the Dalai Lama would rule again. I'm an old-fashioned American; I don't think democracies should be in the business of restoring monarchs.
Your self-rule question assumes the Tibetans were self-ruled. The Dalai Lama's name is half-Mongolian because Tibet was always a part of China. Wishing the Chinese would abandon hundreds of years of history is sweet, but I don't think it's likely. The Chinese are in Tibet. I think the cries to further isolate China are wrong; if we want to help make things better, we need to engage with them, and that's exactly what the Olympics are for.
Brit, I just checked the Students for a Free Tibet site. They don't link to Parenti's article. They claim to have a copy of the 2003 version. I don't know if it's an accurate copy. The one I linked to, on Parenti's site, was updated in 2007.
"Brit, I just checked the Students for a Free Tibet site. They don't link to Parenti's article."
Click on dougrogers' link. See the four links? Look at the third one. It says "Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth"
"They claim to have a copy of the 2003 version. I don't know if it's an accurate copy. The one I linked to, on Parenti's site, was updated in 2007."
I'm not sure what you mean by "I don't know if it's an accurate copy." Do you think that they might've created a fake copy? I quick glance over the article seems to show a lot is the same. I don't think Parenti's position has changed so significantly that the 2003 version is useless.
try the fourth link n that page
http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?id=425
Brit and Doug, check the URLs. SFT has a version of the essay here:
http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?id=424
It's dated July 7, 2003. I don't know whether it's a faithful copy or not. But in the interest of timeliness, I recommend Parenti's "updated and expanded version, January 2007" version here:
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Doug, as for "A Lie Repeated - The Far Left’s Flawed History of Tibet," the title itself reveals the bias. Schrei's argument is essentially that these historians were far leftists, so they should be ignored. He complains that their take isn't properly nuanced, and he attacks their adverbs and adjectives, but a comparison of his footnotes with Parenti's will tell you how much faith you should put in his version.
"as for "A Lie Repeated - The Far Left’s Flawed History of Tibet," the title itself reveals the bias."
And "Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth" does not?
"Schrei's argument is essentially that these historians were far leftists, so they should be ignored."
No, he says they were far leftists, that they could not be trusted to provide objective reportage, and have a bias towards proving a point, which Parenti adopts.
The idea of a bunch of Buddhists with their peaceful relgion fighting off the Chinese, who now even outnumber them in Tibet and getting independence is utterly bizarre. So should America come in there saying: we'll sort those Commies out for you!
The sensible conclusion is that Tibet stays in China and the Tibetans just face the fact they can't beat them so they may as well join them. The Tibetans are racially mixed anyway (regardless of what Nazis said they once were) so it's not like they were being genocided by being surrounded by Chinese.
How can the Tibetans seriously get independence unless China gives it to them? China would see such an act as a serious "loss of face".
As to the peaceful Buddhists, perhaps that's why there is now a more aggressive group undertaking the struggle.
Can't beat 'em so might as well join 'em.?: The argument of the bully.
What does "Race" have to do with it? Godwin's Law. You lose.
What does China's "Face" have to do with it?
Oh, I know. "Face". Invade, oppress, murder, torture exploit - just look good while you're doing it.
China, show me your face before you were born.
Doug, Parenti's research substantiates his title. Schrei's title says he thinks you can ignore "far leftists," and he seems to think that's so true that he doesn't need to footnote his assertions. I would respect him, despite his far-right bias, if he was honest enough to offer sources that could then be checked. That's what respectable researchers of any political persuasion do. That's why Parenti is far more credible.
As for your suggestion that now there's a more aggressive group, the CIA was funding a very aggressive group of Tibetan rebels in the '50s and '60s.
Just because he uses the text string "far left" in the title of the essay doesn't mean he is far right.
And your CIA comment (same old same old) has nothing to do with the present-day more aggressive response now in the context of the time frame Think posits.
Parenti offers sources with an obvious bias and no actual research, Schrei suggests that people who want to write history should actually talk to the people they're writing about.
Shrei isn't writing a history - however biased. he is writing an essay critical of Parenti. Parenti's essay should be footnote and reference enough.
"Schrei's title says he thinks you can ignore "far leftists," "
No, his title suggests that there is a untrustworthy bias, and that likely the 'facts' have been skewed towards proving a point.
"Parenti offers sources with an obvious bias and no actual research." Well, anyone who looks at Parenti's footnotes can decide whether that's true. If you want to learn about Tibet, following his sources is a fine way to begin.
I started wondering how credible Schrei is, so I googled him. He's on the Board of Directors for Students for a Free Tibet. Maybe he figures he doesn't need to document his claims because he's preaching to the choir.
OOoooH footnotes! He has footnotes! How truthful and accurate is your opinion when it is is based on skewed opinions anyway.
Hmmm! But I have footnotes!
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/shr0468l.jpg
Doug, more facts for you to ignore here; it's by the former director of the Free Tibet Campaign in London.
Nice cartoon!
I haven't looked at your link yet, and I do not ignore facts. There has yet been no disputation that Parenti has an agenda, subtle, but a point of view he wants you to conclude. No disputation yet that his own sources are biased. But he sure does have good footnotes.
"Last October, when the Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to the Dalai Lama, monks in Tibet watched over the Internet and celebrated by setting off fireworks and throwing barley flour. They were quickly arrested."
There's a fact.
Poor China. Losing face whenever someone criticises. Well, if you want to play the international superpower game, get used to it.
So the article basically concludes with "It's over. Stop fighting. Surrender.
Not my country; not my problem.
You start making other countries' problems your own and you end up with Vietnams and Iraqs.
I hope you're joking.
Not my country, not my problem. Not my state, not my problem. Not my town, not my problem. Not my family, not my problem. Not me, not my problem.
This 'the world can burn, I'm alright' policy is selfish and juvenile and way too prominent.
China's got some problems. My country's got some problems. Whichever can be fixed should be fixed, and I don't effing care if it's something happening in Iceland. Iraq is not a good example. We did not go to help Iraq, no matter what the media declares. Vietnam? It was handled poorly, the Tet Offensive started it all. Yet- Communism was a major threat to democracy. The USSR was taking nation by nation. Killing and destroying freedoms. Don't believe it?
Well, take a look at China, North Korea, and Cuba.
Amnesty videos make me ill. Not because they're bad, just because they're pretty blunt. The screams at the end of this were disturbing.
Nevertheless, they accomplish what they set out to do. Too bad people insist that Tibet's current situation is preferable to its earlier one, and because the earlier one was so bad nobody should make efforts to rectify the current.
It's like saying, "Okay, well, you were enslaved in Africa by your enemy tribe, but they sold you to American plantation owners and really, you're much better off."
Tenn, it might be like that if someone was saying that, but I don't think anyone is. You seem to think we have to support China or the Dalai Lama's clique. I'm with Parenti: they're both in the wrong, and we need another solution. That's why I think calling for a boycott on the Olympics is a terrible idea: China needs to be engaged, not isolated.
the Dalai Lama's "clique"
this is not the wording of an objective observer
I've definitely heard ppl on this board (astro-turfing presumably) arguing against any reform of Tibet's situation, and for China remaining in control, by using the exact argument mentioned by Tenn, above, and offering no middle way.
It is not unknown.
Also, I don't think Tenn is saying there is only one way or the other, I think she is suggesting that something needs to be done rather than nothing.
Will a mating of Verbithrax loquacius and Trollus disingenuus produce offspring?
Regarding the Dalai Lama:
Some claim he is solely motivated by personal ego and gain. I have never met him. All I know of him is from second hand accounts, readings and various media. I am however convinced that any characterizations of him as an opportunist and con man are composed of the purest form of malicious shit.
Use the slightest bit of wit here. He is famous and popular throughout the world. Has been for decades.
Just how many rich and well intentioned fools are there in the West alone? If he wished money and power, why hasn't he done what every single false prophet and religious montebank has done EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME? He could be obscenely wealthy and have whatever sexual exploitation and primate wish fufillment fantasy ever imagined.
Instead he puts up with stupid shit thrown at him by paranoid communists and other idiots and keeps slugging.
Will, you are either being lazy or dishonest. It is not possible to be that mistaken honestly.
Off topic. I just got a pop-up ad for the first time ever on BB. Anybody else have this experience?
not counting the springloaded you know what you sent me?
Did you use it before you found the accompanying lubricant?
No pop-up, but i tried to "look at this comment" the other day, and when the box popped up, all it was was a microsoft ad, with no submission boxes.. I couldn't submit the comment i was going to , and couldn't submit a 'heads up' to Teresa either..
I retried a couple of times and just ended up resigning it to be done later, and only remembered it now u bought the pop-ups up.
That's fucked up. You should probably flag your current comment so that she can pass it on to tech.
do you have ANY IDEA how long it takes to regrow an eye?
..I tried to warn you before Antinous..
punch the monkey baby, punch the monkey!
I've had flames appear on BoingBoing. Not troll flames, but literal ones accompanied with ads.
Will, people do say that. I don't think the original theocracy was good. I don't think this is good. I think boycotting China would help rather than harm- what has 'engaging' them done? Making the bully be nicer by giving him a friend only works on the micro scale, and then not well.
Suggestions? I might be more amenable to your position if I was certain more of what it was, rather than only knowing that you like Parenti and think both iterations of the government are bad.
after Tibet,Burma?
Tenn!
Fake Babies: Invisible Tsunami!
me: flagged
something else I will point out to those that need it:
You are raped and imprisoned. Most of the world knows nothing of you.
You are just one.
Who will care about you?
Who will care about you?
Takuan,
Myanmar nee Burma is doing just fine on its own. Fine being relative.
does Beijing think so? Perhaps the backward Burmese need saving from themselves?
a moment, I Engaged in Commerce today, ablutions peforce. Do entertain Antinous before he bursts.
Have you been following the military's refusal to allow aid after the tsunami?
Did so. My apologies. I forgot.
Tenn, I think we start by promoting the truth, something that the Dalai Lama's faction has trouble doing, as Patrick French was the most recent to point out. (See my link @40.) I think the world needs to engage China on issues of honesty and free speech—unfortunately, the US would look rather hypocritical there, given things like the Tuskegee experiments, the lies about Pat Tillman's death-- Well, the list is long. But we have to build the future on a foundation of honesty and open communication in the US, China, Tibet, and everywhere. It's better to go to China this summer and share knowledge than to shut down the Olympics and rattle sabers.
@Will Shetterly - 'Dalai Lama faction' is a politically loaded term created by the Chinese government. A more accurate term is 'the millions of ethnic Tibetans', as this more descriptive phrase explicitly references the fact that Tibetans are a distinct ethnicity, united in their desire for a degree of autonomy (not necessarily independence) and the right to pursue their sixteen hundred year old religion.
I'd love to hear any convincing argument for why it's better to go to China this summer..Right now all I'm hearing are excuses from those unwilling to speak out. Sports boycotts have been very influential before, most notably in the case of South Africa, in demonstrating the worlds condemnation of torture and the mistreatment of ethnic majorities.
Gareth, historically, isolation leads to war. I would be reluctant to argue that sports boycotts were a major factor in ending apartheid, and I would also hesitate to equate the two countries. South Africa had different laws for different races. If you know of China having more restrictive laws for Tibetans than for Hans, tell me where I can read about them.
Speaking of a single group of Tibetans seems simplistic. Anna Louise Strong wrote, "The boundaries of Tibet have changed greatly through the centuries. Tibet, as the Chinese use the term, is Tibet as it stood in 1911, at the fall of the Chinese empire, and as shown on most maps of this century, whether published in London or Shanghai. This Tibet includes territory where the Dalai Lama directly ruled, and the territory of Houtsang, where the Panchen Erdeni ruled." See here.
And the twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo, who was given her position before the communists freed Tibet's serfs, has said, "The sins of the Dalai Lama and his followers seriously violate the basic teachings and precepts of Buddhism and seriously damage traditional Tibetan Buddhism's normal order and good reputation." See here. Whether a living Buddha who stayed behind is more or less trustworthy than one who fled, I can't say. But I can say that Tibetan Buddhists are not a single group--there's clearly a Dalai Lama faction.
More complete quote
""The sins of the Dalai Lama and his followers seriously violate the basic teachings and precepts of Buddhism and seriously damage traditional Tibetan Buddhism's normal order and good reputation," the Samding Dorje Phagmo was quoted as saying -- though she did not detail what his transgressions were."
Without specifics, this "sins of the Dalai Lama" is Party cant.
Doug, unspecified is only unspecified. The fact remains that she is a Tibetan Buddhist, a "living Buddha," the head of an important monastery who was given her position before the Chinese came. She knows what she's talking about. Whether she was asked to specify or not, I don't know. The context of her quote seems awfully clear to me; spelling out the details may've just seemed redundant.
There are many abbots of many important monasteries, and other heads of other streams of Tibetan Buddhism who also have opinions.
Samding Dorle Phagmo is also a highly placed regional government official. She is spouting the party line. without specifics, it's just a song.
Doug, the flip side of your argument is that the Dalai Lama's people continue to serve the CIA's interests. The real question isn't who serves the US or China. It's who serves the truth.
The Dalai Lama's side has a problem there: Things like CIA funding and Heinrich Harrer's SS past were successfully hidden until the 1990s. Unsubstantiated impossibilities like the claim that a million or more Tibetans were massacred are still being repeated.
Truth matters.
"the flip side of your argument is that the Dalai Lama's people continue to serve the CIA's interests."
You really are an idiot aren't you?
The CIA funded covert activities all over the world against Communism. Harrier? Godwin's law. You lose.
If Truth really mattered to you, you would stop with quoting suspect sources and examine the problem with your own body.
Yes, it's true; I am an idiot. I continue discussions far past the point of hopelessness. On the other hand, I am the idiot with the facts on his side.
In the 1950s, the CIA overthrew democracies in Guatemala and Iran; they installed tyrants in both countries. If you want to research this, google "mossadegh" and "guatemala 1954." In Tibet, the CIA supported a brutal theocracy.
Also, Godwin's law does not say you can't mention Nazis when you're talking about Nazis. Heinrich Harrer was a Nazi. Again, googling will help you.
Well, I am done with this thread now. Cheers!
True. Troll and Timewaster.
Head. Wall. Bashing.
You folks seem to have fun playing wack-a-troll.
Hey Will, you lost me when you refuted Antinous's claim of you being a being a troll by trying to make it seem like it is completely normal to only comment on one topic. Join the general discussion, my friend. There are too many astroturfers on this site for me to believe single-issue posters, and not enough time in the day to fact check every link you post. Earn some respect before you try to force your opinions down our collective throats.
Is Will a troll, no. (nb I know him; not to the point that he gets my kneejerk support, but he's not a mere pile of pixels to me) He's passionaate, and he's got some things which push his buttons, and some which don't.
That's human. I don't reply to threads which don't in some way touch on matters I care about. No reason anyone else should be held to a different standard; just to "prove" they aren't trolls.
Having just read this thread, from front to back he got a lot of abuse from the moment he arrived, and lots of it was piddly little shit; e.g. "ooh, he has footnotes".
Well, given a choice, I'll take the footnotes, because I can then go and see what the argument was based on.
I didn't see anyone actually refuting his claims, merely handwaving them with e.g.(specious) invocations of Godwin, ignoring the question of the numbers, saying the CIA involvment wasn't important, etc.
If one wants to "whack trolls" it takes actual facts, argument by assertion doesn't do it.
My problem with the Olympics this year has nothing to do with Tibet, per se (and to what level shall we allow self-determism? Were the Minutemen in Montana cruelly repressed; denied the right of self-determination? We, as a nation, have been very careful in what case we support it, and in which we don't. Vietnam, Chile, Cuba, Iran, we didn't like the things those people were choosing for themselves, so we interfered; badly. Some of the evil fruit of that is still being harvested, but I digress, and poorly. I am not against beig involved, I just think the involvement has to be thought out).
No, I am annoyed at the rationalisation for choosing China, when compared to the result.
It was said the Chinese would have to clean up their act; get more with the program, because they wouldn't want to, "lose face". Well they've actually flipped it. They are being no less (and perhaps more) oppressive and saying, "hey, you can't be mean to us. You can't criticise us. You can't let people who don't like us use the Olympics to say why". Rather you have to make the torch travel in secret, and restrict protest.
And all the countries (save Australia) where the torch has gone, seem to have rolled over for this.
The athletes are saying, "Well, it's all about the sport, so we can't have any opinions about other things".
That bothers me. The rest of the world is being made to be less engaged, in the interest of showing China that we don't hate them.
So the argument for sending the games to Beijing... not so much. I mean, look at us, arguing about how nasty, or not, Tibet is, instead of looking at other things (like organ harvesting) which don't need to be filtered through the merits (or not) of changing the gov't in Tibet.