Some readings about Tibet: Was Tibet a Shangri-La before 1950?

From Michael Parenti,

Tibet “was a retrograde theocracy of serfdom and poverty, where a favoured few lived high and mighty off the blood, sweat, and tears of the many. It was a long way from Shangri-La.”

“For the rich lamas and lords, the Communist intervention was a calamity. Most of them fled abroad, as did the Dalai Lama himself, who was assisted in his flight by the CIA… throughout the 1960s, the Tibetan exile community was secretly pocketing $1.7 million a year from the CIA, according to documents released by the State Department in 1998. Once this fact was publicized, the Dalai Lama's organization itself issued a statement admitting that it had received millions of dollars from the CIA during the 1960s to send armed squads of exiles into Tibet to undermine the Maoist revolution. The Dalai Lama's annual payment from the CIA was $186,000. Indian intelligence also financed both him and other Tibetan exiles. He has refused to say whether he or his brothers worked for the CIA. The agency has also declined to comment….Today, mostly through the National Endowment for Democracy and other conduits that are more respectable-sounding than the CIA, the US Congress continues to allocate an annual $2 million to Tibetans in India, with additional millions for ‘democracy activities’ within the Tibetan exile community.”

Tibet on Fire

The Olympics is just a sporting event. If the Chinese government (and everybody else) wants to make it a political one, there's nothing wrong the Tibet independence groups took advantages of it. What is wrong, though, is not admitting it. As for Dali Lama, he doesn't have to hide his political agenda from his religious teachings. After all, organized religion is politics. Don't be shy. You've proven the point that you're a good politician by getting the "Peace" prize.

No matter how one paints it, Tibet is a problem for China. After so many years pouring money into Tibet hoping to buying them out, the Chinese government should realize that it didn't work nearly as well as they had dreamed. One reason, as Chunzhu's blog pointed out, is that most of the money only went to the wealthy and connected. At the bottom, for one reason or another, the Tibet poor didn't get the extra cash from Beijing. Is this the real reason why this is happening and why they are so angry? I don't know. May be religion is that powerful and so violent.

For those news media, if you call yourself a journalist, do your homework, read a history book before stating that Tibet was a free country before 1950.

Oh, sorry, my bad, I was way over my head to expect that.

As for the rest of the world, this is a chance to learn more about Tibet and China. Not just what you're told. Ask questions when you don't understand or don't know.

An independent Tibet will be another Human Right Hell

Based on what's happened in the past a few days, it will just be another genocide. Whatever these people are craze about, it only demonstrated that they are just crazy people. To pick the lesser of the two evils, an independent Tibet won't be my choice.

To me, once civilians are targeted by the so called "peaceful" protesters, they are asking to be treated with force, which is then well justified. I don't want to speculate whether this is their plan, but similar plots sure happened in the past, so blood from others may create news worthy stories. Look at how LAPD dealt with the riot in 1994 and 2006. Let's see whether the protests in NYC would dare to burn anything not belong to themselves?

Let's read some of the excerpt from this article on the Christan Science Monitor:

"TOKYO - Some 1,500 Tibetans engaged in street fighting with several hundred armed police as unrest intensified in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, according to a group of foreign backpackers who witnessed rioting Friday in which protesters targeted Han Chinese and Muslims known as Hui."

"Rioters then went on a rampage, setting fire to several buildings. "They were civilians, not monks," said Paul."

"Ken, an ethnic Chinese raised in the West, ran to help a beaten Chinese man bleeding in the street. "When the Tibetans saw my Chinese face, they raised stones to throw at me. Then when I told them where I was from, they smiled and said 'You're OK'."

"Ken later wrote on his blog: "We also saw a monk (or at least someone dressed like one) direct an attack on a store or restaurant with a small Chinese flag flying from it."

"The European traveler said he was hiding out with a Tibetan family but eventually got kicked out when he disagreed with their sentiment that all Chinese and Muslims should be removed from Tibet. A monk who was with the family asked him to leave, to avoid confrontation"

Tonight's Show Jay Leno jokes

From last night:

It's been reported that prescription drugs including anti-depressant were found in our drinking water. Today, a City official said that citizens do not have to worry about it. How can we worry about it? We're drinking the water.

President Bush said that the country is not in a recession, for him and the board member of Halliburton. With the gas price going to 4 dollars per gallon, the guy can't afford buy the gas to drive to the job he's about to loose and can't stay for too long in the house he can't afford to live in any more. This is tri-factor recession.

Eve Carson

March doesn't seem a good month over the past two years. It was Virginia Tech in 2007 and this is UNC in 2008. Although VT back in 2007 is terrible, to see such tragic happening in Chapel Hill is just unconceivable. The once quiet Davie Circle off Franklin will never look the same to me. May be it's just hit too close to home, it's shocking to me even than VT, which was much more devastating.

The real tragic is that the same are happening across the nation, from the quiet college town such as Chapel Hill to south central. A lone gunman may create news, but it's the many "little" crime that is killing our future every day.

Is there a solution? Not really. Personally, I strongly believe that it is the poverty other than anything else that leads to high crime rate. May be a national health plan by the new President as the first step towards helping the poor? I doubt that McCain's going to do it. So, dream on.

Jack's last minute push for Hilary

Although many said that Hilary still got a chance even she won't won both Ohio and Texas, but this is one of the most crucial moment of her bid.

Jack is hilarious, but he didn't belong to the few in "A good men". Who is targeted in this ads? The 30 somethings who have actually seen the movie in theaters and think the ads is funny?



And the response:

How sorry is Ralph Nader?

First, I don't think Al Gore should blame Nader for his failure in 2000. After all, he chose not to use Bill's help and lost his own state: if he had won Tennessee, he didn't have to worry about the recount in Florida.

But I can blame Nader for get Bush elected. If he claim that he didn't see the outcome, he's either a lier or just stupid. If he claims (he did) for ideology, I don't know what that is. Look at what Bush had done over the past eight years.

I despise Ralph Nader and put him into the same category as Dick Cheney.

This Time Essay by Joel Stein is a good piece about him and the elections.

Some excerpts:

"Now Democrats hate him for getting George Bush elected. Republicans hate him for getting George Bush elected."

"It's one thing to be so out of it you don't use e-mail. It's quite another to believe the technology has been around since the Jim Crow South."

"Nader's huge problem is that you can't demand financial honesty from politicians when you can't be honest yourself. Nader just can't admit that he's at least a little responsible for Gore's loss. And that he may have gotten it at least a little wrong when he said there wasn't much difference between Bush and Gore. Bush, it turns out, isn't boring."

"It's important for people who feel they're not being heard to have the option to vote for insane, incapable candidates."

Sorry, may be it's a bit too strong in the last sentence. At lease in this campaign, none of the top three seems a bad choice. Personally, I prefer Hilary over McCain and McCain over Obama. Sadly, it looks like Hilary needs a miracle on Tuesday to come back on track, so that leaves us President McCain and another four years of Republican presidency. Let's see how long his Honorary Stevens can hang on to make sure the delicate balance in the the Supreme Court.