Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Other Side of Tibet / Other Side of Lama

those who know me know that i have a personal relationship with Tibetan teachings and ideas and much love and respect for the amazing bodies of knowledge to be found in spiritual traditions in Tibet. I have seen the Dalai Lama in person, and heard him speak. he is a great spirit, a great man and a great leader, who has given the world much wonderful things, and have done much good for his people and people of the world.

but there is another side. a seriously disturbing and deeply problematic one. a side that is rarely talked about.

following are 2 episodes from a radio program called For The Record which deals with fascism in all its manifestations (and in the past has focused on fascist elements within Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, Zionism, etc )-- google the author -- i have no doubt that this information is reliable. (there are many other fascinating episodes if you wish to explore further)

there are surely many ways to view this material, but one thing which is for sure is i believe it is very important to consider this information, especially in these times. it is also important to point out here that it does NOT follow that i support the Chinese government or the Communist Party (actually quite the opposite).

the main questions i have after absorbing some of this is: what would it mean for Tibetans to "Free Tibet"? what would complete Tibet independence mean for the lives of its citizens? would it mean a plunge back into the dark-ages? abject poverty with no hope of anything better? a back-wards and brutal theocracy which enslaves the citizens? a country with almost zero infrastructure, very poor sanitation and health care? how to weigh the benefits and efforts to modernize and build infrastructure in Tibet by the Chinese against their oppressive rule and human rights violations? for there are certainly 2 sides to the coin, unlike mainstream western media would like us to believe.

also, what about the Lama and his regime? what position to take in light of his shady (to say the least) dealings? should i simply take what is good for myself and ignore the rest? or... or what?

do not misunderstand me:

THE MESSAGE OF THIS POST IS NOT PRO-CHINA. I DO NOT THINK CHINESE OCCUPATION SHOULD NECESSARILY CONTINUE - BUT JUST WANT TO, AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, CONSIDER ALL SIDES OF THE ISSUE.

would be very much interested to hear if anyone knows more and how you look at it.

Hell-o Dalai

This program begins a lengthy examination of the Dalai Lama’s association with a covert-action milieu, much of it fascist and associated with the Underground Reich. In addition to the Dalai Lama’s collaboration with Islamist and secular Pan-Turkist separatist elements in Xinjiang province of China, the Nobel Peace Prize winner has maintained close connections over a period of decades with SS officers, some of them war criminals.

Introducing the subject of the Nazi SS’s fascination with Tibet and its exploration of that country, the program presents an account of the 1938 SS expedition to Lhasa.


full program with real streaming

Tibet or not Tibet

at the beginning of this one dude rambles a bit, sorry about that. but it's over in like 15 minutes or maybe 20, and then he gets to the nitty gritty - a picture of Tibet far from the idealistic Shangri-La of popular imagination:

Tibet was anything but the earthly paradise the Dalai Lama and his associates claim that it was. In point of fact, Tibet was a brutal, theocratic feudal society, presided over by the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist prelates. Much of the population were serfs—actually little more than slaves. They had no rights to speak of, and were bound to the land owned by the religious leaders. Even the smallest of offenses was punished with extreme brutality—grisly torture was routine.

Addressing a cognitive consideration central to grasping the enormous gap between the public perception of the Dalai Lama and the unsavory reality of his political connections and religious practices


full program with real streaming

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

COLLAPSE by Jared Diamond

i normally dont share things that are commercially available, but this is just too important of a work, and i think it needs to be spread around as much as possible.

(trying not to sound corny or over-dramatic but don't know how else to put it: the survival of our species is on the line)

for those who don't know, it's a book about the collapse of past civilizations -- how societies choose to survive or shoot themselves in the throat. for instance the chapter on how the Vikings in Greenland all starved and froze to death after living there for 500 years is really interesting... and he says something like "before you start laughing at the vikings, should remember that they survived in Greenland longer than europeans have survived in N. America. another highlight is when societies in the Solomon Islands descended to cannibalism, a popular insult was "I pick pieces of your mother from my teeth"

i love audio books don't you just? (thanks to Chris for hooking it up)

one and two