quote:

---

A fresh protest in southwest China's Sichuan province reportedly left at least seven people dead in a dangerous escalation of the uprising by Tibetans against China's rule of the vast Himalayan region.

The violence, previously confined mainly to the Tibetan capital Lhasa, has left at least 80 people dead, according to Tibet's government-in-exile, although the official death toll in China's state-run media remained at 10.

In the protest in Sichuan, which borders Tibet, at least seven people were killed when police shot at hundreds of rioting Tibetans in the town of Ngawa, a resident and two activist groups with contacts there told AFP.

This followed two consecutive days of protest at the Labrang monastery in northwest China's Gansu province, which like Sichuan has a large ethnic Tibetan population.

Meanwhile, foreigners in Lhasa reported a massive security presence still in place, as Hong Kong television footage showed heavily armed security forces patrolling the city.

China has been regularly blacking out the domestic feed of CNN whenever it runs a story about the Tibet unrest.

On Sunday, access to YouTube in China was also denied after footage of the protests in Tibet appeared on the video posting site.

Despite official Chinese claims of calm in Lhasa, foreigners who flew out of the city reported hearing repeated gunfire on Saturday.

The worst reported violence occurred on Friday, when Tibetans rampaged through the regional capital, destroying Chinese businesses and torching police cars.

With Lhasa sealed off to foreign journalists, independent information was scarce, making it impossible to determine exactly how many people were killed.

International Olympic Committee vice-president Thomas Bach said a number of top athletes were considering boycotting the games in China over the bloody crackdown on protesters in Tibet.

The Dalai Lama said the Games should go on, but also said China needed to be "reminded to be a good host."

---

Ngawa Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Region of Sichuan Province contains 13 counties with a population of 847,468, of whom 54% are ethnic Tibetans. "Ngawa" has only 13,000 people although "Ngawa County" has 62,000, about 8,000 of them Tibetan monks. There are 37 monasteries in the area, two of the largest in the City itself. The point is, this Region has one-third as many people as Tibet's 2,616,000. Sichuan also has Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Region with a population of 897,000. And the article also mentions Gansu province, where the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Region has a population of 640,106. And that's not all. In Qinghai Province are five Tibetan Autonomous Regions with a population of 1,250,000. And in Yunnan Province we find Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Region with 353,000 people. And in other nearby regions you find two "Tibetan Autonomous Counties" with 346,000 people between them, and numerous places designated "ethnic rural township (Tibetan)."

More security forces were mobilizing across western China's mountain valleys and broad plains to deal with sympathy protests in Tibetan communities in the provinces of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai.

quote:

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At Central Nationalities University in Beijing, an elite school for ethnic minorities, about 200 students held a silent candlelight vigil, sitting down in and around an outdoor plaza Monday night.

«We're doing this for those who are suffering,» said a young Tibetan student.

Uniformed and plainclothes security kept watch but did not interfere with the vigil. Foreign journalists were prevented from taking photos and were told to leave.

In Gansu's Maqu county, which borders Sichuan, thousands of monks and ordinary Tibetans clashed with police Monday in various locations, police and a Tibet rights group said.

«We have nothing to protect ourselves and we can't fight back,» said an officer at the county police headquarters who refused to give his name or other details. He said about 10 police were injured.

A witness in Sichuan said troops moved into Ma'erkang county, next to an area where clashes between monks and police broke out Sunday with unconfirmed reports that as many as seven were killed.

---

quote:

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18 people, including Buddhist monks and students, were killed when troops opened fire yesterday.

---

In the Sichuan region hundreds of People's Liberation Army vehicles moved in overnight, after a crowd of Tibetans threw petrol bombs and set a police station and a market on fire.

At least two dozen foreign correspondents were stopped at checkpoints, detained, or otherwise had their journalistic work interefered with in recent days as they tried to cover the spreading Tibetan unrest:

quote:

---

Today I spent hours communicating by phone or e-mail with colleagues who’d been stopped from reporting in Tibetan communities in Gansu and Qinghai provinces – or were locked in a furtive cat-and-mouse game trying to evade police. (As president of the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC), I also worked on an FCCC statement of concern about these incidents of detention and harassment www.fccchina.org.)

Foreign media were still denied authorization to enter Tibet. So the scarcity of firsthand coverage of Lhasa – on top of the hamfisted police efforts to keep foreign correspondents away from other venues where violence had erupted, such as Xiahe (Labrang urban township, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Region, Gansu Province) – meant a lot of reporters found themselves writing the story of being prevented from reporting the story.

Today brought other hair-tearing frustrations, too. Internet access for many journalists became maddeningly slow or even nonexistent for large chunks of the day – apparently as a result of the Great Firewall of China on steroids.

---

It's starting to look like the fascist Chinese government has been studying the Berlin Olympics of 1936 and wants to use them as a propaganda exercise?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:
What do people think of Canada boycotting the Beijing Olympics?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:
What do people think of Canada boycotting the Beijing Olympics?

It's starting to look like the fascist Chinese government has been studying the Berlin Olympics of 1936 and wants to use them as a propaganda exercise?

Should Canada be an accomplice?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:
If we were to boycott an Olympics for putting down an Indigenous People with force we would really start to look like we were delusional.

---

I agree. But because I'm an "absolutist", I'll go further.

I think this talk of boycotting the Beijing Olympics is essentially racist and xenophobic and chauvinist.

I'm referring to those for whom sins committed far away by different-looking people seem so much more horrible than the ones committed right here, at home, by us. And by our "friends".

I would like to see whether these people called for a boycott of the Salt Lake City Olympics.

I would like to see a statement from these people saying:

Until we stop invading and murdering the people of Afghanistan, we have lost the moral authority to send our athletes anywhere.

I would like to see them call for a boycott of all sports events within Canada until such time as Canada stops persecuting and disenfranchising its Aboriginal population, stops treating women like second-class citizens, stops favouring rich over poor, pulls out of NATO, etc.

quote:

---

Two dozen reporters have been turned away from or forced to leave Tibetan areas since unrest erupted last week, including from Lhasa and Gansu province, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said.

Independent reporting in the areas that have seen protests is extremely difficult, with security forces sealing the towns off with road blocks. Journalists have been prevented from accessing areas where any incidents are said to have taken place, with reporters sometimes being detained temporarily or escorted out of those regions.

The demonstrations, which have seen attacks on government buildings and police stations, occurred in areas with large ethnic-Tibetan populations, who consider those regions part of Tibet’s ancestral heartland.

"An unprecedented wave of protests swept monasteries and towns (outside of Tibet proper)," the International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.

London-based Free Tibet Campaign spokesman Matt Whitticase said Chinese troops had been parachuted into the areas as part of a huge military build-up across parts of western China to quell the unrest.

Around 1,500 Tibetans gathered on Sunday evening in Machu county, in northwestern Gansu province, chanting pro-Dalai Lama slogans and calling for an independent Tibet, the groups said. The protests in Machu built to over a few thousand people, according to the Free Tibet Campaign.

Several other protests in Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai provinces, and in remote regions of Tibet itself have been reported.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:
Remember when we boycotted the Olympics because the Soviets invaded Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and bring freedom to the region?.

---

I remember it. I watched the games on my cousin's TV in Yorkshire England. I was a wee lad then.

quote:

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The door of dialogue still opens to the Dalai Lama, so long as he gives up the position for "Tibet Independence", so long as he recognizes Tibet and Taiwan as inalienable parts of the Chinese territory, said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao here on Tuesday.

---

And on Monday:

quote:

---

"We are ready to resume negotiations with the Dalai Lama even before the Olympic Games if he makes an appeal for peace and uses his influence to calm down the situation," Hu Shisheng, director of South Asian Studies at the state-run think-tank, China Institute of Contemporary International Relations told this reporter.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stockholm:
What do people think of Canada boycotting the Beijing Olympics?

It's starting to look like the fascist Chinese government has been studying the Berlin Olympics of 1936 and wants to use them as a propaganda exercise?

Should Canada be an accomplice?

---

Thats the question I came looking for! Thanks Stockholm.

I would like to see Canadians pressure Harper into speaking up for the Tibetans. If things continue like this, or get worse, in Tibet, I would like to see a boycott of the Olymipcs

China is claiming to be ready to enter the global world, symbolized by the Olympics.

Do we really want to empower and embolden a nation that has so little tolerance for minorities? No!! - it would be a serious blow for human rights.

Or Canada, until it leaves Afghanistan?

quote:

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Originally posted by Ghislaine:
Sounds like a great country to host the Olympics!

I am sure there is a rug large enough to sweep all of this under prior to July.

---

Why are the Olympics any better than China?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
I think its a bad idea because the essential idea of the Olympics is that it is a cultural exchange beyond the political.

---

Then why is it about athletics? If they wanted it to be a cultural exchange ... seriously ... the last people I want to represent what I think are the best elements of our culture would be an athlete. Not to disparage all athletes, but there are better representatives of our culture.

Maybe a happy medium could be achieved by signing up John Ralston Saul to run the 100 metres for Canada.

quote:

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A senior US lawmaker, Nancy Pelosi, has called for an independent investigation into China's claims that the Dalai Lama instigated the violence in Tibet. ...

"If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China and the Chinese in Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak out on human rights." ...

Ms Pelosi is one of the sharpest critics of Beijing's human rights record in the US Congress.

---

The whole spectacle should simply be put to rest.

I vote we have the next Olympics in Iraq, where I am sure the locals will find all kinds of ingenius ways to drive home my point.

[ 21 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

'unionist' mentions Afghanistan/Canada and Iraq/USA, and points out that athletic events there would be canceled too, if we are going to be applying equal pressure. I am not sure they are the same situation though... do Afghans WANT Canada to be stopping the Taliban from blowing up schools? And Iraq is different again... they DO want the USA out now. But neither of them is like the Chinese marching into Tibet and removing a much loved leadership, is it? [tell me how, unionist - or are you just being difficult?]

Like I said, China hosting the Olympics is their way of showing the world they are ready to participate in the modern, developed, world. I think we all agree that means respecting human rights and not being a closed society. Of course, there are many examples of the USA and Canada obliterating those ideals, but China is really a poor pretender.

I also post at a forum called China Daily, and you would be surprised how they edit our posts there. Today, the site will not even open up. Blatant police state.

Also, the LIES they tell.... like - "the Dalai Lama told them to be violent" . Come fcking ON!! Here is the Dalai Lama's website, and the page where he begs Tibetans to remain non-violent in 1998. He remains committed to that today, it is a basic principle of all Dalai Lama.

The Statement of His Holiness the Dalai Lama 1998

quote:

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The current situation in Tibet and the lack of any substantive progress in resolving the Tibetan problem is no doubt causing an increasing sense of frustration among many Tibetans. I am concerned that some might feel compelled to look for avenues other than peaceful resolutions. While I understand their predicament, I wish to firmly reiterate once again the importance of abiding by the non-violent course of our freedom struggle. The path of non-violence must remain a matter of principle in our long and difficult quest for freedom. It is my firm belief that this approach is the most beneficial and practical course in the long run. Our peaceful struggle until now has gained us the sympathy and admiration of the international community. Through our non-violent freedom struggle we are also setting an example and thus contributing to the promotion of a global political culture of non-violence and dialogue.

---

Dalai Lama website - articles, speaches, and history here.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Noah_Scape:
Like I said, China hosting the Olympics is their way of showing the world they are ready to participate in the modern, developed, world. I think we all agree that means respecting human rights and not being a closed society. Of course, there are many examples of the USA and Canada obliterating those ideals, but China is really a poor pretender.

---

quote:

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Good luck with reinstating feudalism in Tibet.

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Huh?

Sure, the USA is as worse than China where crimes against foreign nations is concerned. In fact, it is the power of USA "global hegemony" and the US dollar that gives the USA the power to do so much intervention in the world. China would, if it could afford to, also be the world's policeman. Vietnam was an example of those two nations clashing over that jurisdiction, eh?

[ 21 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

[ 21 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Noah_Scape:
Vietnam was an example of those two nations clashing over that jurisdiction, eh?

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China? Clashing with U.S. over Viet Nam? I seem to recall 50,000 U.S. soldiers dying tens of thousands of Km from home in that war. Could you remind me how many Chinese died?

quote:

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That is kinda my point - if China gets wealthy, they will also assert power over other nations. We should not assist in that process, and the Olympics are a symbol of acceptance. Do you see what I mean? [even if you don't agree].

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Well, moreover there is little analysis that includes the historical ties between China and Tibet. At one time China was ruled by the Tibetans.

China also more recently ruled Tibet as an autonomous kingdom within the "Celestial Empire", a relationship put an end to by the British invasion of 1904, so is it possible to say that one supports Tibetan self-determination, but also recognize that that the issue of Tibetan independence is not merely an issue of Chinese imperial design, but also competing "Imperial" interests?

---

You think the British invaded in 1904 as part of their plan to liberate the far east? You think that US foreign policy of direct support for factions opposed to Chinese rule is motivated by their natural humanitarian instincts?

I asked a question, you don't think it is possible to support Tibetan self-determination, and also point out that this is more than just a simple invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation, by the regional super-power?

[ 21 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
You think the British invaded in 1904 as part of their plan to liberate the far east? You think that US foreign policy of direct support for factions opposed to Chinese rule is motivated by their natural humanitarian instincts?

I asked a question, you don't think it is possible to support Tibetan self-determination, and also point out that this is more than just a simple invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation, by the regional super-power?

---

The Chinese Constitution states:

quote:

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Section VI The Organs of Self-Government of Ethnic Autonomous Areas

　　Article 112 The organs of self-government of ethnic autonomous areas are the people's congresses and people's governments of autonomous regions, autonomous prefectures and autonomous counties.

　　Article 113 In the people's congress of an autonomous region, prefecture or county, in addition to the deputies of the ethnic group exercising regional autonomy in the administrative area, the other ethnic groups inhabiting the area are also entitled to appropriate representation.

　　Among the chairman and vice chairmen of the standing committee of the people's congress of an autonomous region, prefecture or county there shall be one or more citizens of the ethnic group or ethnic groups exercising regional autonomy in the area concerned.

　　Article 114 The chairman of an autonomous region, the prefect of an autonomous prefecture or the head of an autonomous county shall be a citizen of the ethnic group exercising regional autonomy in the area concerned.

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quote:

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Article 115 The organs of self-government of autonomous regions, prefectures and counties exercise the functions and powers of local organs of state as specified in Section Ⅴ of Chapter Three of the Constitution. At the same time, they exercise the power of autonomy within the limits of their authority as prescribed by the Constitution, the Law of the People's Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy and other laws and implement the laws and policies of the state in the light of the existing local situation.

　　Article 116 The people's congresses of ethnic autonomous areas have the power to enact regulations on the exercise of autonomy and other separate regulations in the light of the political, economic and cultural characteristics of the ethnic group or ethnic groups in the areas concerned. The regulations on the exercise of autonomy and other separate regulations of autonomous regions shall be submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for approval before they go into effect. Those of autonomous prefectures and counties shall be submitted to the standing committees of the people's congresses of provinces or autonomous regions for approval before they go into effect, and they shall be reported to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for the record.

　　Article 117 The organs of self-government of the ethnic autonomous areas have the power of autonomy in administering the finances of their areas. All revenues accruing to the ethnic autonomous areas under the financial system of the state shall be managed and used by the organs of self-government of those areas on their own.

　　Article 118 The organs of self-government of the ethnic autonomous areas independently arrange for and administer local economic development under the guidance of state plans.

　　In exploiting natural resources and building enterprises in the ethnic autonomous areas, the state shall give due consideration to the interests of those areas.

　　Article 119 The organs of self-government of the ethnic autonomous areas independently administer educational, scientific, cultural, public health and physical culture affairs in their respective areas, protect and sift through the cultural heritage of the ethnic groups and work for a vigorous development of their cultures.

　　Article 120 The organs of self-government of the ethnic autonomous areas may, in accordance with the military system of the state and practical local needs and with the approval of the State Council, organize local public security forces for the maintenance of public order.

　　Article 121 In performing their functions, the organs of self-government of the ethnic autonomous areas, in accordance with the regulations on the exercise of autonomy in those areas, employ the spoken and written language or languages in common use in the locality.

　　Article 122 The state provides financial, material and technical assistance to the minority ethnic groups to accelerate their economic and cultural development.

　　The state helps the ethnic autonomous areas train large numbers of cadres at various levels and specialized personnel and skilled workers of various professions and trades from among the ethnic group or ethnic groups in those areas.

---

Once problem is that some of these areas were established after the 1951 annexation of several Tibetan regions to adjoining provinces, or even earlier, but since then Han Chinese have moved in. In Qinghai Province Tibetans are still a good majority in all but one of their autonomous areas, but in Gansu Province, Gannan prefecture was down to 51% Tibetans by 2000 and has no doubt dropped further, while Tianzhu was down to 30%.. In Sichuan Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Region was still 78% Tibetan in 2000 but Ngawa, where some of the riots have occured, was down to 54% Tibetan and Dêqên was down to 33%.

And "autonomy" has not been profitable:

quote:

---

If Tibetans would have been separate from China, Tibet would have developed by much more than what Chinese have done now. That is because we have so many resources. See the huge development of Bhutan and Nepal in last 49 years. If Tibet had remained free, by now it would have been another Singapore.

The authorities of People's Republic of China are taking all the resources of Tibet away. Nothing is being given back. More than 100 gold mines are active and exploited by Chinese authorities. Copper, aluminium and uranium is taken out of Tibet. The PRC was able to pay back a huge loan taken from the USSR due to finds of high quality uranium deposits.

China is surviving on Tibet's water, timber and what not! Nothing is coming back. Although, they have given huge statistics of cost of railways and all that, but this infrastructure is for themselves and not for Tibetans, who are absolutely marginalised.

The beggars on the streets of Lhasa are all Tibetans not Han. It reflects the fact that Tibetans have not benefited by progress.

---

It exercises many governmental functions in relation to the Tibetan exile community in India, which numbers around 100,000. It runs 61 Primary Health Care centres and six referral hospital, and administers 84 schools in India, Nepal and Bhutan, serving 30,000 children. Every exile Tibetan makes an annual contribution year of Rs. 46, plus four percent of the basic pay or two percent of the gross salary.

A pretty serious challenge to China's authority.

[ 22 March 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by unionist:

You don't want China to become wealthy and challenge the U.S. - so we should keep China poor? Yes, I see what you mean.

---

quote:

---

Like I said, China hosting the Olympics is their way of showing the world they are ready to participate in the modern, developed, world.

---

Sure, that's the optics. I think it's more important to understand that they already are deeply entrenched in the "modern, developed, world" and it's rubbing up on a kind of classist/racist bias to pretend like they aren't. Even a cursory look at international trade and currency conditions at present shows that China already plays a key role in the global economy and in the national economy of the world's second-largest producer: the U.S. If you need something closer to home, simply look at the manufacturing labels of many of the products in your home and note how many of them now originate in China.

The Olympics should not stand as an example of "shining civilisation" coming to the dark places, they are an example of large multinational corporations making a deal with China to make a whole lot of money in spite of their human rights record. The same thing that has been going on for a long time now.

Turning this into a cudgel to beat those oh-so-backward Chinese neglects our complicity in the corporate crime of the multinationals, China's various crimes and ours in other places. If there is such a thing as a "global economy", then there is a "global polity", and we're part and parcel...

[ 22 March 2008: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erik Redburn:
You guys are great. I never said a word about the British, but I did say you should be careful about taking old and contradictory claims for extra-national sovereignty over OTHEr nationalities seriously. Not unless you want to start resurrecting the Romanovs claims too. I heard they had a pretty big extended family. Let me put it another way, should the Germans claim "sovereignty" over France or visa versa? Or maybe resurrect the Holy Roman Empire together? Or by your own reasoning should Quebec's claims to sovereignty be dismissed by virtue of our two hundred and fifty year old conquest, ceded by mother France and Eastern Cree and Inuit nations?

---

I know you didn't say a word about the British. I did. When you start talking about Tibet, in its real historical context, there they are. I thought we were talking about China and Tibet, in their real historical context, not some theoreticals.

[ 22 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

excerpt:

Since the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, British competitors have been asked to sign contracts including a pledge "not to comment on any politically sensitive issues".

excerpt:

quote:

---

Originally posted by KenS:
When the Olympics go on there will be many opportunities for high profile demonstrations about Tibet that the government cannot stop.

From the athletes to visitors demonstrating in public squares with fear of nothing worse than getting thrown out of China.

---

About Tibet and the Dalai Lama:

quote:

---

A bunch of murderous arsonist devoid of any sense of morality. An extremist separatist hoolum, pawn,stooges and agent of the west who will take and creat all opportunity to weaken and to destabilise China.

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I support the Dalai Lama and Tibetans, who are the best at being non-violent.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Noah_Scape:
Please note - I do not agree with that statement by the Chinese person posting at the China Daily website!!

I support the Dalai Lama and Tibetans, who are the best at being non-violent.

---

Have you been following the news? The current situation in Tibet was not triggered by peaceful protests, which have been going on for weeks with no reaction from the authorities. It was triggered by violent riots involving attacks against ethnic Chinese and arson attacks against their shops.

The Dalai Lama himself recognized this. That's why he said what he did:

quote:

---

For his part, the Dalai Lama suggested Tuesday that the violence in Tibet could have been incited by China to discredit his authority there.

"It's possible some Chinese agents are involved there," he said. "Sometimes totalitarian regimes are very clever, so it is important to investigate."

The recent protests in Tibet mark some of the strongest anti-China sentiment in the territory in almost 20 years.

[Chinese premier] Wen said protesters killed bystanders, smashed public utilities and cars, and set fire to stores. However, statements by the Chinese government are difficult to verify because of China's tight control over information and a ban on trips by foreign reporters.

---

In warning about the possibility of provocateurs (although he is admittedly only speculating), the Dalai Lama is clearly pointing at the most recent protests as being the problem and urging Tibetans not to participate in violence.

quote:

---

Originally posted by unionist:
The Chinese decided to start massacring Tibetans for the first time in almost 60 years, just in the leadup to the Olympics?

---

But I don't know exactly what's happening. A lot of it may have been spontaneous. There's the balloon story:

quote:

---

As in many long-running ethnic conflicts, simmering grievances may explode over the most trivial incident.

Only last month, a riot broke out in Tongren, Qinghai province, after a Tibetan child bought a balloon from a Chinese Muslim merchant at the market. The balloon wafted away and the child demanded another for free. The merchant refused. Within a few hours, two police cars were burned and 20 people were hospitalized. A hundred people were arrested.

"Tibet is like a bomb," said Tanzin Lama, a 25-year-old student from Qinghai province who fled in 1999 and now lives in London.

---

quote:

---

It began, oddly enough, with a balloon seller.

On Feb. 21, during a fireworks festival in the town of Tongren in Qinghai province, a Tibetan child tried to buy a balloon from a Chinese vendor. They argued over the price, and the vendor reportedly slapped the child in the face. When an older man began fighting with the balloon seller, the man was allegedly beaten and detained by a Chinese policeman, who was soon surrounded by a crowd of Tibetans.

Hundreds of police reinforcements arrived, violence erupted, stones were hurled, dozens of police and Tibetans were injured, several police vehicles were destroyed and about 200 Tibetans, including monks, were arrested, according to reports last month by Tibetan activist groups and Radio Free Asia.

The next day, several thousand Tibetans marched to the government offices to demand the release of the detainees. The Tibetans chanted "Long Live the Dalai Lama" and pro-independence slogans, until most of the detainees were released.

"Something as small as a balloon can spark it," said Matt Whitticase, a spokesman for the London-based Free Tibet group. "It shows how frayed the Tibetan feelings are. They feel that they are treated as second-class citizens."

---

quote:

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As part of this exercise, a parliament, then named the Commission of the Tibetan People’s Deputies, was instituted on September 2, 1960. The parliament gradually matured into a full-fledged legislative body, thus coming to be known as the Assembly of the Tibetan People’s Deputies. In 1990 His Holiness announced further democratization, by which the composition of the Tibetan Assembly was increased to 46 members. The Assembly was empowered to elect the Tibetan Kashag, which was made answerable to the people’s elected representatives. Similarly, the Tibetan judiciary, known as the Supreme Justice Commission, was instituted. The newly empowered Assembly of the Tibetan People’s Deputies issued the exile Tibetan constitution under the title of the Charter of the Tibetans in Exile. . .

The first directly-elected Kalon Tripa was Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, a Gandhian with lifelong commitment to education, non-violence and local self-rule. He took the oath of office on 5 September 2001. Today, the CTA functions as a veritable government, and has all the departments and attributes of a free democratic administration. It must be noted, though, that the CTA is not designed to take power in Tibet. In his manifesto for future Tibet entitled Guidelines for Future Tibet’s Polity and Basic Features of its Constitution, His Holiness the Dalai Lama stated that the present exile administration would be dissolved as soon as freedom was restored in Tibet. The Tibetans currently residing in Tibet, he said, would head the government of free Tibet, not the members of the exile administration. He said that there would be a transitional government in Tibet which would be headed by an Interim-President, elected or appointed by him. To this Interim-President His Holiness would transfer all his temporal power. The Interim-President, in his turn, would be required to hold a general election within two years and then hand over the power to the popularly elected government.

---

[ 23 March 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Noah_Scape:
Here is a quote from the China Daily website, where Chinese actually post online... they seem to have someone checking out every single post there, and many I have written were not allowed

About Tibet and the Dalai Lama:

China Daily website - page on Tibet comments

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

I know you didn't say a word about the British. I did. When you start talking about Tibet, in its real historical context, there they are. I thought we were talking about China and Tibet, in their real historical context, not some theoreticals.

---

Sez you. History passes and can't be bound to any particular time or place according to any one party's convenience. The facts on the ground remain that one is ruled by another via force and/or economic dominance, neither of which is a moral statement or testament to any particular state or identity.

[ 23 March 2008: Message edited by: Erik Redburn ]

But I don't know exactly what's happening. A lot of it may have been spontaneous. There's the balloon story:"

Interesting reading though Wilf. But I don't see why it has be completely one way or another here either. Whatever outside interest may or may not be stirring the pot now, the reactions can't all be fabricated, and I doubt there'd be such reactions in the face of state power if there weren't real grievances. Personally I couldn't blame anyone for using this opportunity to draw some attention to their situation again, or try to gain a little leverage they haven't had internationally for decades really.

[ 23 March 2008: Message edited by: Erik Redburn ]

As Tibet Erupted, China Wavered

quote:

---

In the chaotic hours after Lhasa erupted March 14, Tibetans rampaged through the city’s old quarter, waving steel scabbards and burning or looting Chinese shops. Clothes, souvenirs and other tourist trinkets were dumped outside and set afire as thick gray smoke darkened the midday sky. Tibetan fury, uncorked, boiled over.

Foreigners and Lhasa residents who witnessed the violence were stunned by what they saw, and by what they did not see: the police. Riot police officers fled after an initial skirmish and then were often nowhere to be found. Some Chinese shopkeepers begged for protection.

“The whole day I didn’t see a single police officer or soldier,” said an American woman who spent hours navigating the riot scene. “The Tibetans were just running free.” ...

Angry Tibetans attacked a branch of the Bank of China and burned it to a blackened husk. Photos and video images show Tibetans smashing Chinese shops with stones and setting them on fire. Witnesses described Tibetans attacking Chinese on bicycles and throwing rocks at taxis driven by Chinese. Later, crowds also burned shops owned by Muslims.

“This wasn’t organized, but it was very clear that they wanted the Chinese out,” said the American woman who witnessed the riots and asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals. She said Tibetan grievances exploded in anger. Crowds tied ceremonial silk scarves across the threshold of Tibetan shops to indicate they should not be damaged.

Mr. Miles, the journalist, found himself the only Western reporter on the scene. He spent the next several hours carefully walking around the old Tibetan quarter as rioters burned buildings and overturned cars. “I was looking around expecting an immediate, rapid response,” he said. “But nothing happened. I kept asking people, ‘Where are the police?’ ”

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[ 23 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

quote:

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“It's hard to pick a side in what happened,” said John Kenwood, a 19-year-old backpacker from Canada who flew into Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, yesterday after spending ten days in Lhasa.

“I agree that the Tibetans have their own culture, but I can't agree with what people did. After a while, it was not about Tibetan freedom any more.”

He said that he was walking along Beijing East Road in the Tibetan quarter in Lhasa when he saw four Chinese military trucks pull up at the intersection with an alley leading to the Ramoche temple.

Mr Kenwood said that he saw someone throw a large stone at one of the trucks, smashing its windscreen, and then about 30-40 paramilitary police armed with riot shields and batons jumping out of another truck.

They blocked off the entrance to the alleyway, but were soon surrounded by a large crowd of Tibetans who began pelting them with stones, he said. He also said that he saw three boxes of stones but it was not clear who had provided them.

After a few minutes two or three of the younger Tibetans rushed at the Chinese police and they fled down the alleyway towards the Ramoche temple, he said. The crowd followed but soon turned back and began attacking Chinese shops and passers-by on Beijing East Road.

He said that he saw at least five Chinese people being attacked by the crowd, including a motorcyclist in his 20s who he thought was beaten to death. “They got him in the head with a large piece of sidewalk,” he said. “He was down on the ground and he was not moving.” ...

Claude Balsiger, a 25-year-old backpacker from Switzerland who arrived in Lhasa on March 8 and flew to Kathmandu yesterday gave a similar account of the violence. He described seeing the mob beating an old Chinese man on a bicycle. “They were howling like wolves,” he said. “That's the point when it went insane. They started attacking anything and anyone that looked Chinese.”

He also described seeing a Canadian tourist step in to rescue a young Chinese man being attacked by the crowd. “They were kicking him in the ribs and he was bleeding from the face,” he said. “But then a white man walked up ... helped him up from the ground. There was a crowd of Tibetans holding stones. He held the Chinese man close, waved his hand at the crowd and they let him lead the man to safety.” ...

Stephen Thompson, 41, from New Zealand, said that he arrived at the Saikang Hotel just as the riot was starting and saw the mob smash the glass front of the building. “We didn't feel in danger but some people in the group were pretty emotional and one person was injured by a rock that hit them on the head,” he said.

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Its to be expected that when the cork blows in Tibet, Tibetans are going to attack anything Chinese. This is what will happen when Tibetans are treated like second class citizens in their own country... and as they watch the historical process of deliberating ultimately turning them into a minority.

Palestininas in any numbers are kept away from Jews not armed to the teeth. But you know what Palestinian crowds would do to Israelis, and occassionaly do when someone blunders into the wrong place. [We're talking already fired up crowds here, not just any old time.]

Its also no surprise that the Western media is going to fall over itself praising Tibetan resistance. So what does that imply about an appropriate overall response to the events?

Ditto for any role that may have been played by the CIA or other foreign governments. The most they can do is be opportunists that stoke the fires. Thats true even in the unlikley event there turns out to be credible proof they got the riots started. [Anyone who has been present during riots can tell you such proof is at best dubious. There is so much going, and at least most of it being obvioulsy spontaneous, the only investagators who MIGHT be able to disentangle genesis and causality of development are the authorities... who cannot be trusted.]

Lastly. I don't find it any surprise that the original Chineses riot response was overwhelmed.

By the very late Sixties in Bay Area of California, coordinated riot police forces could reliably and fairly quickly break up and quell rioting crowds of I would say up to 10,000. It isn't rocket science, but it isn't just simple brute deployment of bashing heads either. It's fairly sophisticated in planning and execution and I'm sure takes training.

In the first day of the Tibet riots the effect of bureaucrats afraid to act cannot be discounted. It certainly wasn't a question that the Chinese do not have trained riot forces capable of dealing with Tibet crowds over 10,000. Because it has happened before, and can any time. [The fact the Chinese have a substantial layer of Tibetans loyal to them, and no doubt spies spread around also makes me skeptical of how big a secret force of provocateurs could have been laying groundwork without word getting out. In any place, word of such preparation gets around.]

At any rate. The riots look to me like what happen in US black ghettoes in the 60s and continued in localized outbursts into the 70s.

That many people appear suddenly in the streets that fast because they literally pour out of their homes and their workplaces. And when that happens, they completely swamp what police can do... and the police have no choice but to withdraw. After which all hell breaks loose.

The only way crowds like that are stopped is with huge military units and shooting to kill. That's been true at least as far back as the Russian Revolution.

[ 24 March 2008: Message edited by: KenS ]

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I'm curious, Noah_Scape, as to what you think has been happening in and around Tibet over the past week. The Chinese decided to start massacring Tibetans for the first time in almost 60 years, just in the leadup to the Olympics?

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The Chinese have been hardly innocent of their own provocation.

Some years back [during the 90s] the Dalai Lama willingly played along with the Chinese encouraging him with quiet diplomacy.

Several years back the Dalai Lama decided the Chinese were just string him along- that they were never going to deliver on any of the very modest promises of relaxing some of the controls on Tibetans.

That's when he began his active international campaigning.

China responded for the last 3-4 years by absolutely villifying the Dalai Lama internationaly, in China, and in Tibet.

China knew the Olympics were coming up then and have spared nothing in dressing up China's most visble deficiencies.

The villification of the Dalai Lama during this time has to be counted at best as willful stupidity. And it has had the predicatble spinoff of increased tension in Tibet, which includes of course individuals in the Chinese professional and master class more frequently lording it over Tibetans they deal with.

Duh.

"I don't understand why they've done this, when we've done so much for them," says Beijing office worker Zhao Qian after she watches state television footage of Tibetan rioters overturning cars and setting fire to shops in Lhasa."

Sound familiar?

I haven't seen any examples of quotes from Chinese in Tibet. But if they were expressing themselves at all freely, it would be the same attitude with the virulent edge that comes from the masters on site.

We've done so much for them. Ingrates. Animals. And on down.

I mentioned in the post above a layer of Tibetans who are relatively privileged. I's very relative. And the glass ceiling for most of them, and all of them in government and the civil service, is so low that I wouldn't be suprised if a great many of them willing to spy for the Chinese before the riots were out there participating once the crowds started building.

[ 24 March 2008: Message edited by: KenS ]

The only evidence of anything I've seen posted here is Us government funding in what we be called propaganda work.

And I fail to see how there could be any 'dotted line' between that and the fact that the riots just happened to come off right in the buildup to the Olympics.

My question to Noah_Scape was a skeptical one. The evidence is clear and widespread of rioters burning, attacking and killing ethnic Chinese. What evidence do you have that the Chinese security forces have massacred anyone? They admitted firing on protestors (they say in self-defence) in Aba (Sichuan province), wounding four.

Also, you may wish to apply the standard test. Who benefits from these events?

I wonder what Warshington would say if some Asian country were to fund and arm right-wing extremists and the notorious "MS13" street gang in the their country? I think the shadow gov would love nothing better than for nuclear weapons to come into the U.S. across the Mexican border and even detonated for the sake of a false flag operation. And the shadow feds have perpetrated false flag operations before in other countries.

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KenS, I'm a bit overwhelmed by your posts. They are sheer utter speculation, right down to the incredible accusation that average Chinese have racist attitudes to Tibetans. You even have some bizarre assertion that an Israeli wandering into the "wrong place" will be treated by "fired-up Palestinians" in some unspeakable way. And you appear to justify the vandalism, beatings, arson and murder undeniably committed by rioters in the days following March 13-14.
My question to Noah_Scape was a skeptical one. The evidence is clear and widespread of rioters burning, attacking and killing ethnic Chinese. What evidence do you have that the Chinese security forces have massacred anyone? They admitted firing on protestors (they say in self-defence) in Aba (Sichuan province), wounding four.

Also, you may wish to apply the standard test. Who benefits from these events?

Your sheer speculation is disquieting. It shows historical mythology in the making.

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I'm not speculating at all.

The racism of Chinese to Tibetans is a well established fact [it's not western / US / propaganda]. That Tibetans cannot get far in any pecking order is a fact. That they have always been resentful of this and being innundated is a fact.

That it was a backwards feudal society does not make these facts otherwise. Tibetans are not unique at all in simply rejecting out of hand the choices much of the western left poses for them: feudalism and western tutleage versus the Chinesse iron boot and total remaking beyond recognition of their land.

You can argue they won't get the choice they are looking for should they manage to escape China's clutches. But our argument here is about what motivates them.

Whatever else we disagree about and may end up that way, I'm surprised you would not expect that the Chinese would be racist to Tibetans.

What do you expect when you have a conquering force remaking a nation, who themselves come to Tibet with the pervasive Han chauvinism to all minoritities that would make westerners blush if the same things were said here.

And you are changing what I said about the comparison with Palestinians and Israelis.

My point was that there should be no surprise that once the rage is uncorked that Tibetans would attack all things Chinese. That kind of killing rage can happen ANYWHERE in the world, and the Tibetans for all the romantic image westerners have of them are not on the gentle side.

If you don't think there is a great deal of hate of all Jews and all things Jewish among a great many Palestinians, then you are living in a dream world.

It's not at all that all or most Palestinians/Tibetans hate Jews/Chinese. But some do, and when riots develop the resentments of others who participate can make the whole thing pretty ugly, and dangerous for the wrong bystanders wandering in.

I explicitly said this wouldn’t happen to an Israeli under normal circumstances. But an Israeli Jew wandering into an already inflamed crowd is in potential danger. The only reason more Jews have not been killed or seriously beaten in such circumstances is because of the post-Intifadahs intensification of apartheid and the astoundingly overwhelming Israeli military/police repression.

People can disagree with me about that. But that is empirically derived information we can discuss, not speculation.

As to how all these various facts are related- well who knows. But my argument that there is nothing surprising about the Tibetan riots or that the timing has anything decisive to do with outside interests stoking the fires- that is no more speculative to people ‘suggesting’ that the timing has dotted lines to such interests.

As to the “standard test” of “Who benefits from these events?”

I don’t subscribe to the left’s pride of place for this test. To me it’s just one among other things to look at. You know that “who benefits” does not in itself explain causality.

A bunch of you think that pointing to the [rather obvious] who benefits, and mixing in some facts about US funding of what you can legitimately call Tibetan propaganda work , and you’ve got a case.

and because the western press stampedes in one direction you adopt the opposite take. To the point that all the discussion is about Chinese that are killed, and looking for proof of 'massacres', and simply dismissing arguments that the Tobetans have more than enough reason to be rioting, no match required.

Given the situation of who has the power on the ground the normal skepticism would be to treat with deep sketicism the authorities arguments that their citizens and soldiers have bben the primary victims.

Barring definite evidence to the contrary, we know the usual outcome: one death on the side with the arms for at least ten deaths for the people in the streets.

I’ve got an explanation for the main causal factors that is at least as plausible. You certainly can’t dismiss it as speculation. This has been a tinderbox building up to critical for a few years now. And as pointed out above in more detail- timing and ‘who benefits’ doesn’t explain everything. How do you explain with the Olympics coming China building up provocations for the last few years?

I don’t have an explanation for it either. Its often hard to see a rational basis for many things the Chinese rulers do when it comes to the use of power. They obviously haven’t read Machiavelli.

What you can see in their relentless crusade against the Dalai Lama and refusal to grant Tibetans basic rights for autonomy that would look trivial here is consistency and the hubris of total power.

quote:

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Originally posted by Erik Redburn:
I doubt there'd be such reactions in the face of state power if there weren't real grievances. Personally I couldn't blame anyone for using this opportunity to draw some attention to their situation again, or try to gain a little leverage they haven't had internationally for decades really.

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And the same for Kashmir.

And for quite a few other places.

The UN would never choose to do this if it could, because too many countries would unravel. Especially post-colonial countries that make no sense except that the colonial power set them up as the status quo, and the social cost of unravelling them would be civil war.

Respect for the status quo, especially one that has lasted for 58 years, is pretty strong. Yet it didn't stop the liberation of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and many other places, after the Soviet Union fell apart.

Should Tibet be another exception? Not likely to happen, since China shows no sign of falling apart. Tibet's been part of China as long as Kashmir has been part of India. Odd that India props up the Tibetan government-in-exile, since the precedent could come back to bite them.

So if India thinks it's not that simple, I don't think there's any automatic answer.

India should know. It inherited a bunch of provinces set up by the British for a mixture of administrative, historic and pragmatic reasons. It has gradually re-organized many of them, a difficult process not yet completed, with further steps still being discussed 60 years later. So nothing is impossible.

[ 24 March 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

Do you think the rioters were justified in burning, assaulting and killing? (Please don't repeat that "it's not surprising" - I got that point already.)

Do you know of any evidence that the Chinese authorities have killed anyone?

Have you any examples of civilian Israeli Jews wandering into a crowd of Palestinians and getting hurt?

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If you don't think there is a great deal of hate of all Jews and all things Jewish among a great many Palestinians, then you are living in a dream world.

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I understand much better than you the criminality of a state which proclaims that it acts in the name of the "Jewish people". Then, it turns around and accuses those who oppose its crimes of "anti-Semitism"!

You say the Chinese are racist, the Tibetans are racist, and the Palestinians are racist. Worse, you seek to explain (in part) the recent events in China on that basis. Of course, you have no shred of evidence for those assertions, and in my opinion you don't understand the difference between cause and effect.

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Tibet has been part of China for longer than Canada and U.S. have existed as sovereign nations. And the Deli Lama is just another person. If he was an American or Canadian gone missing from these countries, he'd lose all rights to his own private land for having been delinquent on his property taxes. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

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Straw person.

In the first place this isn’t about Tibetan independence and Chines territorial integrity. That may be the rallying cry of protesters- most of all OUTSIDE Tibet.

But China couldhave put an end to it all long ago with FAR less than autonomy. And not a single Chines would have had to leave Tibet or their jobs.

The Dalai Lama was happy to talk with China and stay in India as long as China offered reforms they indicated they were willing to discuss.

The Dalai Lama only started actively campaigning internationally when it was clear that China's rulers were just running out the clock while despoiling the land and turning Tibetans into a minority.

Multiple straw persons. The Dalai Lama knows that if he comes back to Tibet it will not be with anything more than an essentially honorary and strictly religious title. This he has explicitly recognized. He also knows without having to say it that there would be agreed limits on what he can do in public, let alone that he would 'own' little more than a monastery.

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Do you think the rioters were justified in burning, assaulting and killing? (Please don't repeat that "it's not surprising" - I got that point already.)

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Definitely not.

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Do you know of any evidence that the Chinese authorities have killed anyone?

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The same evidence that we have of Chinese being killed: spotty eyewitness accounts from reporters and tourists.

We can assume that something like 100 have been killed, given the various figures coming out. Like Burma its hard to pin this stuff down, but a number we know.

If a 100 people are dead and its a fact there are armed Chinese soldeiers and they are shooting, do you really think that its only Chinese being killed by mobs?

How likely is that, given what we know of similar circumstances?

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Have you any examples of civilian Israeli Jews wandering into a crowd of Palestinians and getting hurt?

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No. Not the kind of thing I file away, no how to research, or would remember [as I would with say business, union politics, national and provincial politics.

But I'm confident that it has happened to Israeli Jews who would wander into an inflamed already rioting crowd.

Isn't this something you would expect? This is what happens to people under the boot. It isn't pretty when they get the upper hand for a minute. Nothing to do with being Palestinian or Tibetan or....

==========

and that is it for me in this thread at least.

[ 24 March 2008: Message edited by: KenS ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:
Respect for the status quo, especially one that has lasted for 58 years, is pretty strong. Yet it didn't stop the liberation of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and many other places, after the Soviet Union fell apart.

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The Soviets propagandized the fact that several million Europeans and Asians died at the hands of the Nazis to justify moving Soviet lines of defence Westward by a layer of countries in the last century. And western leaders agreed to it. And there were cold war politics, "great game" after that.

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Tibet's been part of China as long as Kashmir has been part of India. Odd that India props up the Tibetan government-in-exile, since the precedent could come back to bite them.

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According to Michael Parenti, the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army in the 13th century.

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His two previous lama “incarnations” were then retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai Lama. This 1st (or 3rd) Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity. The Dalai Lama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends, and acting in other ways deemed unfitting for an incarnate deity. For these transgressions he was murdered by his priests. Within 170 years, despite their recognized divine status, five Dalai Lamas were killed by their high priests or other courtiers. 6

For hundreds of years competing Tibetan Buddhist sects engaged in bitterly violent clashes and summary executions. In 1660, the 5th Dalai Lama was faced with a rebellion in Tsang province, the stronghold of the rival Kagyu sect with its high lama known as the Karmapa. The 5th Dalai Lama called for harsh retribution against the rebels, directing the Mongol army to obliterate the male and female lines, and the offspring too “like eggs smashed against rocks…. In short, annihilate any traces of them, even their names.”

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[ 24 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Noah_Scape:
Boycotting the Olympics in China would be a serious blow for their totalitarianism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by KenS:
The racism of Chinese to Tibetans is a well established fact [it's not western / US / propaganda].

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quote:

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Originally posted by KenS:
China's rulers were just running out the clock while despoiling the land and turning Tibetans into a minority.

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:

Indeed, in an ideal world perhaps the UN should be able to say "Tibetans are entitled to a referendum on independence or greater autonomy or the status quo." And determine the wording of the question, and how to select between three options, and whether 50% plus one is enough, and what turnout should be required for the referendum to be binding.

And the same for Kashmir.

And for quite a few other places.

The UN would never choose to do this if it could, because too many countries would unravel. Especially post-colonial countries that make no sense except that the colonial power set them up as the status quo, and the social cost of unravelling them would be civil war.

Respect for the status quo, especially one that has lasted for 58 years, is pretty strong. Yet it didn't stop the liberation of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and many other places, after the Soviet Union fell apart.

Should Tibet be another exception? Not likely to happen, since China shows no sign of falling apart. Tibet's been part of China as long as Kashmir has been part of India. Odd that India props up the Tibetan government-in-exile, since the precedent could come back to bite them.

So if India thinks it's not that simple, I don't think there's any automatic answer.

India should know. It inherited a bunch of provinces set up by the British for a mixture of administrative, historic and pragmatic reasons. It has gradually re-organized many of them, a difficult process not yet completed, with further steps still being discussed 60 years later. So nothing is impossible.

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I would tend to agree with this. I'd personally be quite happy to see the worlds nations broken up into smaller more natural entities based on common language or history but that would be almost impossible today. Most would be unviable in any modern economy, even disregarding the fact that almost every nation-state is a combination of many ethnos now (and some have been so for millenia) and so noone would support it for fear of their own demanding the same. I don't see why governments like China, however, couldn't show more respect for local cultures and give them more say over their own supposedly autonomous regions. The heavy handed crackdown taking place isn't justified by the protests IMV and won't do anything to alleviate their grievances. I think those are fair criticisms.

[ 29 March 2008: Message edited by: Erik Redburn ]

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Originally posted by Erik Redburn:
I don't see why governments like China, however, couldn't show more respect for local cultures and give them more say over their own supposedly autonomous regions.

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quote:

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the reconstruction of Tibet when freedom is restored there.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama stated . . that there would be a transitional government in Tibet which would be headed by an Interim-President, elected or appointed by him. To this Interim-President His Holiness would transfer all his temporal power. The Interim-President, in his turn, would be required to hold a general election within two years and then hand over the power to the popularly elected government.

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Originally posted by Erik Redburn:
I am wary, but of all political powers. I don't get the 'downloading of services' part though.

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One of the fundamental aspects of the Yugoslav crisis that most people are unaware of is that it was not just an ethnic struggle but and economic one. So, very simply the Yugo government was in debt to the IMF and WB. They demanded austertity measures. These measures were reflected in less national services, which made the "have" states ask why they were paying into a federated Government structure, if they were only feeding the "have not" states, and not getting anything in return.

Of course the notion that austerity means cutting back on national services is one of the mantras of Neo-liberalism. Why you ask does it make much difference if service is provided locally, and not federally, if the same amount of tax money is being collected, and being spent. Why?

[ 29 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Think about it this way, yes, Croatia no longer has to pay for welfare in the more impoverished Montenegro, aside from the fact that this may not actually be a good thing the fact is also that Croatia has less GDP than the value of many of the corporations that it depends on to maintain a viable economy. If there is a problem they can simply tell the Croatian government that they are going to pick up stakes and move elsewhere, and the Croatians are bound to cave. On the other hand large federated structures are much more capable of defending themselves because they actually have a much larger market to offer, but also because they can develope and fund their own alternatives, if they have a problem with a particular corporate entity.

This is one of the prime reasons that Neo-liberal's seek to create smaller national economic units and support downloading of services generally, and of course support breaking up larger units that already exist.

[ 29 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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His Holiness the Dalai Lama stated . . that there would be a transitional government in Tibet which would be headed by an Interim-President, elected or appointed by him. To this Interim-President His Holiness would transfer all his temporal power. The Interim-President, in his turn, would be required to hold a general election within two years and then hand over the power to the popularly elected government.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Of course the notion that austerity means cutting back on national services is one of the mantras of Neo-liberalism. Why you ask does it make much difference if service is provided locally, and not federally, if the same amount of tax money is being collected, and being spent. Why?

[ 29 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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After dissolution of the USSR, satellite states like Yugoslavia and Cuba found their economies with fewer and fewer countries to trade and barter with. Harvard economists convinced Gorbachev, Jovic and Milosovic to neoLiberalize and integrate with the western world economies. And what essentially took place after that was colonialization through takeover of the monetary systems by a private banker's club. The head of the Bosnia-herzegovina central bank was appointed by the west and was a non-citizen of the region. Powers of money creation and credit were essentially handed over to non-elected private bankers as occurred here in Canada from 1988-1993 under a phony-majority conservative government in Ottawa. Austerity is so much easier when a private banking cabal are the ones creating all the money as interesting-owing debt and credit.

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"Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile... Once a nation parts with control of its credit, it matters not who makes the nation's laws... Usury once in control will wreck any nation. -- former Canadian Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in a speech leading up to nationalising the Bank of Canada in 1938

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China bashers never give up. If it isn't Tibet they can always find an excuse. The Guardian had an article on the cultural Confucius Institutes being set up in many countries by the Chinese government suggesting they might be to promote pro-China proganda. Would they say this about their British Councils and pro-Anglosaxon thought?

Now Elizabeth May's Green Party has joined the China bashers with an official statement. Why doesn't the PQ/BQ set up a government-in-exile?

quote:

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Originally posted by Rikardo:
...

Too bad that Confucius, Lao-Tze, Mencius and Tchoung-Tze aren't part of most Western universities' World Philosophy courses.

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Would China lose anything by agreeing to that?

And why exactly is China's claim to Tibet so sacrosanct anyway?

They only STARTED claiming it as theirs in the early 20th Century(pre-Mao, for what it's worth, so holding Tibet isn't something that is necessary to defend the "values of the revolution" or anything like that). Why does China even HAVE to have the place? And why did they have to import massive numbers of ethnic Chinese and make the Tibetans a numerical and linguistic minority in their own homeland?

I've never heard a good answer for this. China went along just fine for milennia without Tibet. What does the place have that they CAN'T part with?

Somebody explain this, please.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:

Would China lose anything by agreeing to that?

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I think they might at least want assurances that peace loving monks wouldn't invite NATO or Uncle Sam to Tibet and setting up a permanent military base.

And the next thing they know, they've got another nuclear launch pad or offensive ballistic missile threat parked on their doorstep, and the whole situation feels like a cold front's moved in.

Can we imagine the cries of foul if the Chinese or someone else began making friendly with, say, Puerto Rican breakaways or slid money and weapons to Mohawks at Kanesatake as an example? I don't think Uncle Sam or our stoogeocrats in Ottawa would appreciate it at all.

Michael Parenti said:

quote:

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In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet. Here is a historical irony: the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army.

His two previous lama “incarnations” were then retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai Lama.

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[ 05 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

China could've avoided all of this if they'd let it go at extending social services to Tibet and getting rid of the more reactionary aspects of Tibetan traditions. They never had a good reason to get heavy-handed.

Unfortunately, they picked up all of the fear-based ugliness that drove Stalin's regime. And unlike the USSR, China never HAD a De-Stalinization period, a Thaw.

They should have just let a Hundred Flowers Bloom.

[ 05 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

And in any case, Mao could've prevented the 1958 uprising by actually respecting Tibet's autonomy, other than to extend modern labor laws and bring in social legislation. They'd be in a much more secure position today if they'd shown even a little finesse.

And again, so long as Tibet agreed to no foreign bases, would its independence really be a threat to China at all?

China is a right-wing capitalist state now, Fidel, beloved of international bankers. It's not anything remotely close to revolutionary. And it's not even a break on American power, being basically an American ally. Why even bother with it?

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
And why exactly is China's claim to Tibet so sacrosanct anyway?

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Good point.

How about talks between China and the U.S.? Each one puts on the table territories they have claimed within recent history, say the last 200 years. Besides Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, etc., that would nullify some ill-gotten gains of colonial war of conquest (Mexican War - California, New Mexico, parts of Arizona, Utah, Nevada) and of course the indirect effects of war through "purchase" from other colonial conquerors (the Louisiana Purchase). Oh, and Texas, almost forgot that.

Then they each relinquish those claims, shake hands, and carry on with business.

There needs to be some universal acknowledgement of the immorality on conquering territory.

This would be a useful exercise and would help find innovative solutions to the conquest problem.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:

China is a right-wing capitalist state now, Fidel, beloved of international bankers. It's not anything remotely close to revolutionary.

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That's wonderful. And so there's no need to block Chinese takeovers of Canadian oil assets or U.S. companies like 3Com. And the Russians didn't object when China's state banks financed renationalisation of Yukos and some gas fields in Siberia, vodka production etc.

(btw, Was "Deli Lama" some kind of Freudian slip?

Or does the guy some kind of Tibetan sandwich shop on the side?)

And I've said that I don't object to China changing the aspects of Tibetan culture that were unfair to the poor and the workers. That didn't justify their overall repressiveness though, and the needed changes could all have been implemented humanely.

And there was never an excuse, in any case, in importing a Han Chinese population to Tibet and making ethnic Tibetans a minority in their own land. Or in reducing the use of the Tibetan language.

You would agree, would you not that it would be a tragedy if all aspects of Tibetan culture disappeared, wouldn't you? That it would be wrong for Tibet to end up as just another bland generic Chinese area, with no culture and no mysticism or beauty. Buddhism isn't evil, after all.

And China would be just as secure with free speech and without police thugs roaming the streets as it is now. Repression doesn't do China any good.

And, yes, other repressive countries should also be changed, all the ones you name. There's never been any contradiction between saying what I've said and agreeing with ending oppression and exploitation everywhere.

You've got to let go of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" mindset, Fidel. That's the way the Mafia thinks, not true revolutionaries.

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Keynesian banking doesn't justify a police state, Fidel. Nobody in China was arrested for protesting Keynesian banking.

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No country has more NGO's and civil society groups than China does today. I do realize that the level of workers' rights is appalling, and they need strong trade unions and more labour lawyers than the mere handful operating in China today. Chinese protests number far more than any other country in the world. And Beijing knows full well that the world is watching.

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(btw, Was "Deli Lama" some kind of Freudian slip?

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It's his mother's pet name for the Dali Lama.

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And there was never an excuse, in any case, in importing a Han Chinese population to Tibet and making ethnic Tibetans a minority in their own land. Or in reducing the use of the Tibetan language.

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They have a lot of people in China, and this situation hasn't arisen a result of centuries of communist rule.

I've read about well educated Chinese coming to Canada looking for a new life. Many report admiring Canada for its wide open and mostly undeveloped landscapes. They want to live here, but some of the 650, 000 first and second generational emigres from Asia have cited a lack of opportunities in Canada as the reason why they've returned to a booming economic situation in China and India and other countries. I just don't see our colonial administrators in Ottawa offering to create living space for Tibetans or any other Asians or Middle Eastern people struggling to survive. Myself, I think Canada should open its doors wide for what will be hundreds of millions of economic refugees expected to flee the displacement and disenfranchisement that is happening as a result of globalization and deregulation policies emanating from North America.

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You've got to let go of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" mindset, Fidel. That's the way the Mafia thinks, not true revolutionaries.

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Here's the larger point:

I have never said that the Tibet issue was more important than all others.

Nor did I ever say that human rights in Cuba was more important than any other issues.

Or those in Zimbabwe, for that matter.

In all three cases, what I said was that they were AS important as the oppression of people in "bourgeois" countries, and that we need to get out of any vestige of the "We can't criticize the internal affairs of any 'socialist country' mindset". That way of thinking almost destroyed the North American left, and the left throughout Europe, in the late 1940's and 1950's.

All I've said(as distinguished from the right-wing cold warriors on Babble)is that we need a consistent universal standard on human rights, both because we always need to hold countries we support accountable when they do unacceptable things and because it hurts us to be seen as "looking the other" way when it comes to our "allies".

It's about consistency, NOT counterrevolution.
It's about upholding our own principles as leftists, principles which include building a world in which NO ONE is oppressed.

I wish people would trust me on this.

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

Why does that anger you?

I suppose I was also trying to clarify, once again, why I've taken the positions I've taken on the countries I mentioned in that post. It seems that some people STILL can't take what I've said about those situations as anything other than "giving aid and comfort to the enemy".

It's about opposing oppression everywhere. And that does NOT mean being insensitive to anybody's cultural traditions. Repression is NOT an inherent cultural tradition anywhere. It is always imposed from above and solely to protect the short-term self-interest of rulers. Repression has never actually protected "revolutionary development" anywhere. Instead, it's just drained the revolution out of the revolution.

Can we all agree that oppression should NEVER again be part of anybody's revolution?

Is that so much to ask?

The bogus ones, like Lenin, held none.

And no, my views on tactics in U.S. elections don't enter into this.

You don't have to support futile third-party presidential campaigns to prove your "left".

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
I know that the real ones, like Emma Goldman and Rosa Luxemburg, held consistent standards.

The bogus ones, like Lenin, held none.

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I know what you mean, Ken. But those were different times. The world was different then. The Soviet system was pretty boring, wasn't it? But what they didn't do was make wild promises for a lifestyle and economy based on consumption of finite resources. There's only one system I know of that was duller and greyer than Soviet communism in the 1930's, and that is essentially what western world plutocrats are trying to impose on us, gradually but surely. I do try to imagine there are no countries, no religion, and nothing to die for. There's a documentary on at eight o'clock - something about how the world will look without humans in future. It can't happen, I think to myself.

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Consistency and principles.

Why does that anger you?

I suppose I was also trying to clarify, once again, why I've taken the positions I've taken on the countries I mentioned in that post. It seems that some people STILL can't take what I've said about those situations as anything other than "giving aid and comfort to the enemy".

It's about opposing oppression everywhere. And that does NOT mean being insensitive to anybody's cultural traditions. Repression is NOT an inherent cultural tradition anywhere. It is always imposed from above and solely to protect the short-term self-interest of rulers. Repression has never actually protected "revolutionary development" anywhere. Instead, it's just drained the revolution out of the revolution.

Can we all agree that oppression should NEVER again be part of anybody's revolution?

Is that so much to ask?

A true revolutionary would say it wasn't.

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All it does require of us is that we give up the practice of automatically dismissing all criticism of certain leaders or certain countries out of hand.

It means, if states that are supposedly presenting themselves as alternatives to Western hegemony are being accused of doing loathesome or inexcuseable things, things we wouldn't tolerate in a capitalist state, that we should check it out for ourselves and see if the accusations or allegations might not actually be true. Then, if they were found to be true(and Mugabe's homophobia and practice of having thugs beat up his opponents have turned out to be true, as has the assault on the Tibetan culture and language and at least some of the things that were said about repression in Cuba did as well)then we do what we can, WHILE CLEARLY OPPOSING SUPERPOWER INTERVENTION OF ANY SORT as well, to hold those states accountable and to be in solidarity with those within those states who are sincere, honorable dissidents.

Mugabe and his land redistribution project(and the land redistribution project clearly was and is justifiable and necessary) would have been successfully implemented, in all likelihood if only he hadn't used violence to achieve it and hadn't imposed rigid censorship on all opposition voices, including opposition voices of the democratic Left.

As was the case in 1989 in the Warsaw Pact, the repression ended up destroying the alternative model.

Speaking out against repression in these cases, therefore, is MORE revolutionary and radical than saying "it's none of our business" or "it's all a bourgeois plot" or "other countries are just as bad/worse/and so's your old man".

Yes other countries are just as bad. Some are worse. The point is to denounce repression and work against it everywhere. In the end, it's about trusting the masses, since the vanguard party model clearly has shown it can't be trusted with unaccountable power.

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
As was the case in 1989 in the Warsaw Pact, the repression ended up destroying the alternative model.

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"Gladio" was just one joint operation by the CIA and European agencies and former Nazi intel officers. There were dozens more like it in other countries.

quote:

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The Agency laid plans for uprisings in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Poland and Rumania. The CIA's propaganda stations Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty assured Eastern European people of American backing for their liberations. At the same time, CIA paramilitary groups were being infiltrated into those countries' capitals to provoke anti-Communist uprisings.

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To be honest, Ken, I don't think any alternative system had a chance. Not after the Nazis lost a war of annihilation against Soviet communism. I think more than just one or two national and corporate leaders in the west fully believed that the Nazis would be victorious. And there would have been no cold war, just really low wages and a lot more people missing in Asia, Balkans, Baltics etc.

But it seems to me that, since we don't a standing global Left army, the way to do that is to make sure the systems and models we support don't give the "regime change" types stuff to work with.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
But it seems to me that, since we don't a standing global Left army, the way to do that is to make sure the systems and models we support don't give the "regime change" types stuff to work with.

Calling on those systems and models to live up to their highest values is the best way to protect their security AND their sovereignty.

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quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Translation: As long as they behave nicely we'll try not to invade them.

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It will be easier to prevent those invasions or any other "superpower intervention"(which I oppose as much as you)if these regimes don't destablize themselves by using repressive measures and embracing corruption & arrogance.

A state that keeps faith with the masses will be more stable and durable with any other. And as 1989 proved, no state that broke that faith can be kept in power in the end anyway.

And Fidel, yes, the reactionaries would always have tried to find reasons to destablize non-capitalist models, but that's all the more reason that the people who ran those models should have made an extra effort to make sure to let them have as few reasons as possible. Dealing with the contradictions and shortcomings ourselves would have made it much harder then(and would still make it much harder now)for the superpowers to destablize alternative models of any stripe.

Refusing to have the discussion or raise the issues isn't solidarity. It's denial. And it's lethally risky denial as well, as 1989 showed.

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

We can resist the oppressors by taking ownership, as the left, of the discussion about what's happening in the alternative models. That's all I'm saying.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
But what we also need to do is defend not only our principles but the evolving alternative models as they evolve by using our historical experience to help them avoid repeating past mistakes.

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You can't "help them". You're not smarter than "they" are nor more moral nor more enlightened. "They" can only help themselves. Our job is to support "their" efforts and spend all our time fighting against intervention by our aggressive interfering governments. That's how we can truly "help them".

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We can resist the oppressors by taking ownership, as the left, of the discussion about what's happening in the alternative models. That's all I'm saying.

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If that's all you're saying, then you've lost me. Take ownership of the discussion? Who, us? I don't think so. We're talking here about people in other countries. You can't take ownership of the discussion about their models. Well, you can try, but you may end up on the interfering side.

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True solidarity is honest solidarity. There's no reason to fear it.

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And I didn't mean offering help in paternalistic terms. I meant offering what we've seen and learned. This doesn't imply a superior/inferior relationship. It's "from each according to our abilities".

I understand your concern about not harming other models and states that provide alternatives to American dominance. I don't want to harm them. I want to strengthen them. The way to do that is to work, without arrogance but with an open heart and determination, to get them to be consistent with the best principles the left holds around the world, which include equality, liberty, fraternity, transparency and rule by the masses instead of an unaccountable state.

I could understand your suspicion and distrust of my views on this if I were in agreement with Stockholm on everything and wanted to force everyone in the world to settle for nothing more than the most watered-down, unradical and unegalitarian forms of right-wing social democracy possible, but that's not what I'm doing. Nor do I want to turn Tibet over to capitalists or turn Zimbabwe back into a British colony.

I suppose my position would be critical support. I oppose all foreign military intervention and attempts at destablization, while at the same time supporting an end to internal repression.

Is that such a terrible combination of objectives?

Neither Washington, Ottawa, Moscow, or Beijing.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
And Fidel, yes, the reactionaries would always have tried to find reasons to destablize non-capitalist models, but that's all the more reason that the people who ran those models should have made an extra effort to make sure to let them have as few reasons as possible.

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And what would those reasons have been? Can you give me an example?

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Refusing to have the discussion or raise the issues isn't solidarity. It's denial. And it's lethally risky denial as well, as 1989 showed.

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[edited to remove the rhetorical cold war blather and spare Ken the same]

Okay I'm for solidarity. But I still can't relate to a bunch of guys who think they have a right to sponge off the peasants and desire a return to the feudal system. I still think they should go out and get real jobs and fight for everyone's rights to a better life through trade unionism. As an NDP'er, I do leaflet drops and donate time to bake sales and such. Neither the CIA or SAS need send me mail order rifles or instruct me on fomenting social unrest, because that's sedition and general shit disturbing here in the country once referred to as "the ice box."

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
I, personally, stand by Britain granting India's independence during Clement Atlee's labour government after the war.

If China doesn't represent a brake for U.S. imperialism wrt competition for resources, then what have they been doing in Tibet? How many Tibetans are actually pledging solidarity with this religious cult and their cause?

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1)They were acquiring territory, like many other nations did. The question remains, did they have the RIGHT to acquire it?

2)As I undertstand it, Tibetans around the world have been in solidarity with the Dali Lama. I've never actually heard of any of them(and bear in mind, we could only be absolutely certain of the veracity of a Tibetan declaring support for China if that support was declared in exile)actually say they think China was right to do what it did.

India didn't want the Dalai in exile. They only gave him refuge at the west's request they do so.

And on the issue of land grabs, neither the U.S. or Britain care one iota about Tibetan Buddhists, the pawns at the centre of the independence movement. Ngo Dinh Diem was once a brutalizer of Buddhists, but that didn't stop the CIA from trying to prop him up in Viet Nam. Diem was just a pawn in the great game, too. And that's what this is, just a continuation of cold war manouvering.

eta: If I thought that nuclear proliferation was a thing of the 1950's past, then a borderless world sounds real good as far as I'm concerned. But we've seen nukes pop in places like Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, India, and still floating around the seven seas on U.S. battleships and submarines. Neither the U.S. nor Britain is talking about a borderless world since the Nuremberg code for respecting sovereign borders has been violated several times since. Expansion of NATO bases and offensive ballistic missile systems into the former USSR since dissolution of the evil empire isn't working towards a peaceful, borderless world, imo. More nukes and over 700 military bases around the world have no legitimate purpose, imo. The U.S. and Pentagon capitalists don't have to continue surrounding Russia and China and Asia in general militarily in order to, at some point down the road, exert control over global natural resources. We can trade freely for what we need. I just think talk of eliminating borders and creating what is, essentially a right-wing Libertarian view of the world - decentralized, somewhat weaker and smaller republics is a bit premature - especially since the NATO bombing of Yugloslavia and shock and awe in this decade. It's like putting a cat among the pigeons, and the old cat is an established birder.

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
The problem is see, that smaller economic units are not capable of efficiently funding public works projects, and also that they are far more vulnerable to corporate manipulation.

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I had just said as much myself when half conceding this point, before you decided to get this last condescending dig in. That of course can be true in some cases, as too many "small is beautiful" fans can't seem to grasp, but in other cases, mmm, not so much. See present day China for example, and the way its large and already developed trading partners are held captive by its pool of cheap and voiceless labour. But of course that too is exactly what the globalizers are looking for.

Technically, I think a state the size of Tibet with the natural resources they still possess could get by trading with others too (trick being not letting any one group monopolise your markets) and neighbouring states like China could survive without them as vassals, as they have for most their history, but everyone but perhaps the Dalai Lama now knows that China will not cede them independence again. Not perhaps until all these ugly old super states fall.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:

Tibet needed a radical social transformation. What China did, as near as I can tell, wasn't actually about that. It was about territorial ambition.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
It doesn't require buying into Orwellian political constructs(nothing I've ever posted here does that)and it certainly doesn't require you to stop pointing out contradictions.

All it does require of us is that we give up the practice of automatically dismissing all criticism of certain leaders or certain countries out of hand.

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Whose doing that? It is about having enough self respect not to get on every feel good band wagon that comes along, and looking at who is saying what and to who, and more importantly why they are doing it what they are doing.

Tibet? That is easy. I could call City TV right now, and tell them I am having a protest all by myself at young and bloor, and they would give me a 2 minute spot on the news.

Its a game fo chess while the house is a mess
and watching a football game while there is rioting in the streets.

Wake up Ken.

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

This is like we are talking about Turkey in the 19th century, and if by the by I happen to point out that British intervention in Bulgaria and Crimea is not just about relieving the "sick man of Europe" of his neuraligia, but also getting to be executor of the will, and then being told that such an observation makes me the Czar's lover.

Jeff Goldblum said about the aliens setting up shop over major cities in the bs Hollywood movie, "Independence Day": once they are strategically located around the globe, "It's check mate."

Nobody wants totalitarian world government. Capitalist theorists not so long ago were saying that free markets work due to dynamism of international markets, and that global investors need to be able to be optimistic about markets there while divesting of stagnant markets in other countries and vice versa. This doesn't seem to fit with the PNAC-Lib-Dem cabal or NATO friends' ideas for militarization of space - hundreds of cold war era military bases still in place - and expansion of NATO into strategic locations in and around Central Asia, the Koreas, and China. The cold war is supposed to be over. So what in hell is going on?

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

1) I've worked on a lot of social justice issues, most of them weren't all that "safe". This isn't about my hangups over not being pure. What it is about is getting out of the habit of dismissing ever y situation like this as a "superpower plot" of some some sort. Yes the superpowers do plot. No, what is happening in Tibet(or Zimbabwe for that matter)can't simply be dismissed as superpower meddling. It's happening because of the bad, and easily avoidable, choices made by those states.
One of the most important thing any state or any model that rightly and justly resists superpower aggression can do is try, to the utmost of its ability, to avoid giving the superpowers propaganda gold. Human rights restrictions(almost all of which were ever actually justified) and repression of dissent, contrary to what some people still persist in believing, never actually make any state more secure. In the end, they cause a rot that leads the whole thing into decay.
This is what the Left has learned.

The Left has clearly learned(IMHO) that the secretive, conspiratorial vanguardist model has failed.

The Left has learned(Again, IMHO) that militarizing a revolutionary state ends up destroying all the revolutionary aspects of that state, without doing anything to make the state any more secure.

And the Left has learned (once more IMHO) that refusing to speak out against repression in "left" states has been a disastrous choice, and that it has driven away millions of people who would naturally have been the left's supporters and allies.

Keeping a state that calls itself "revolutionary" or "socialist" or even "independent nationalist" in power should never be an end in itself. Because doing that never helps a decayed "revolution" stop decaying.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
The Left has learned(Again, IMHO) that militarizing a revolutionary state ends up destroying all the revolutionary aspects of that state, without doing anything to make the state any more secure.

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I don't believe that militarizing the Soviet Union was done with an ulterior motive for fearmongering and creating a military-industrial corporate welfare complex, or iow's, upside-down socialism for rich people. There were 4 to 8 million dead and wounded Russians after WWI, and anywhere from 30 to 40 million dead and wounded Soviets after WWII. Unlike Pentagon capitalists, the Russians really did feel more secure with a larger army and pushing the line of defence westward by the same layer of countries which they liberated from the Nazis and probably would have liberated the rest of Europe by themselves by all indications of what transpired at Leningrad and Stalingrad immediately before a real second front was invested in by western democracies.

Cold war's over, Ken. NATO's still there in Europe, and now I don't believe they are there to protect Europeans from a cold war threat that doesn't exist anymore. So why should we want to take on the exact same stance as CIA-Brits in a centuries-old territory of China on the other side of the planet? Who funds his campaign for independence? Who elected the Dalai Lama? Why isn't the west calling for another white Briton to be appointed head administrator of Tibet like they did in Hong Kong up until a few years before the handover to China?

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

2)The fact that a certain position happens, in public, to be taken up by the CIA and the Brits doesn't automatically mean that a position which may sound like that(and I don't think my position on these matters is the same as the CIA and the Brits, neither of whom gave a damn about Tibet for decades before this) is part of their plot.

In the Eighties, the Reagan Administration finally started opposing apartheid. I don't think you responded to that by saying "oh damn, the whole thing's a trick. We have to back th Afrikaners now."

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
In the Eighties, the Reagan Administration finally started opposing apartheid. I don't think you responded to that by saying "oh damn, the whole thing's a trick. We have to back th Afrikaners now."

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And now, the fact that the superpowers(who hadn't really given a damn about Tibet until recently, as they hadn't given a damn about any of the other victims of the pointless repression China inflicts)are now giving half-hearted lip service to the cause of the Tibetan people doesn't reduce that cause to being nothing but a superpower plot.

I think Mahatma Gandhi deserved a Nobel peace prize more than the Lama ever did. But he never did receive one. I'm just not that high on the Dalai Lama I suppose.

Now, if the CIA were to fund infiltrators into China's trade union movement and stir up some shit that way, and they have been known to do such things, I might support them. I think what we need is a global trade union movement and lots more protests(and there are lots now apparently) in China. Solidarity with Chinese workers is what's needed, imo. That kind of solidarity would benefit everyone everywhere according to JK Galbraith before he passed on. We need a labour agreement global in scope, a global NAFTA but for workers. Three or four U.S. presidents credited trade unionism for gains made toward American middle class prosperity from the 1930's to 1970's. That's the prize for us guys.

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Cueball

1) I've worked on a lot of social justice issues, most of them weren't all that "safe". This isn't about my hangups over not being pure. What it is about is getting out of the habit of dismissing ever y situation like this as a "superpower plot" of some some sort. Yes the superpowers do plot. No, what is happening in Tibet(or Zimbabwe for that matter)can't simply be dismissed as superpower meddling. It's happening because of the bad, and easily avoidable, choices made by those states.

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I never said the situation in Tibet or in Zimbabwe did not have roots in local conflicts? Where did I say that? Noting that local conflicts are exploited, dramatized and encouraged to support the agendas of competing world powers is not denying their existance. It is merely reflecting on OUR relationship to them.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
132 posts...is it just me or is it not weird that this thread hasn't been locked for length yet?

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Regardless -- Lets talk about Uighurs, why is it that our Prime Minister, whose general position you are supporting on this thread, had a lot to say about Uighur activists being arrested for their activities, and even had the guts to make an issue of out it the last time he met with Chinese officials in Asia. Meanwhile, I don't seem to recall him making any issue, at all, out of what is clearly a fraudulent arrest of a Canadian subject in Afghanistan, and his summary confinement in a US military prison for the last 6 years.

But if supporting moral turpitude and hypocrisy by OUR own politicians to make you a non-communist, I guess its what you have to do.

Why would want to preassure Canadian politicians in taking strong stands on things we participate in and can directly impact, when you can whine in chorus with them about things happening far away, and mostly beyond our control?

Where do I sign the loyalty oath?

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

And I've never even thought of you as being a "c word person", Cueball. That's Jeff's hangup, not mine. And you were putting thoughts in my head that weren't there at the same time that you said I was putting words in your mouth. Btw, what I was talking about in the post you responded to wasn't any one person, so please, don't take it as a personal attack. OK?

I'm anti-Stalinist, I'm not anti-Marxist or even anticommunist in the small-c communist sense (the ideal I still respect and admire, btw).

And I'm glad that you accept that there are some local origins of these situations.

The superpowers shouldn't meddle. On that I agree.