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FOCUS | Why Tibet Matters |
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Monday, 14 May 2012 13:19 |
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Jagger writes: "Since February, 2009, 35 Tibetans have sacrificed themselves, in an act of desperation, which emerges from the anguish of oppression. Tibetans who have self-immolated include monks, nuns, a 19-year old female student, a widowed mother of four, and a Tibetan reincarnate lama in his forties."
Tibetan exile Jamphel Yeshi set himself on fire during a protest against an upcoming visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to India. (photo: Manish Swarup)
Why Tibet Matters
By Bianca Jagger, Reader Supported News
14 May 12
 is Holiness the Dalai Lama is in London today to receive the Templeton Prize in recognition of his outstanding achievements and spiritual wisdom.
Tibet has a long-standing connection to Britain. Prior to the Chinese invasion in 1949-50, Britain was the only country to formally recognize Tibet as an independent nation. British representatives were stationed in Lhasa from 1904 to 1947 to liaise with the Tibetan government. In 1949 the newly-victorious leader of the China Communist Party Mao Zedong announced, over the radio waves, his intention to "liberate" Tibet from this "foreign imperialism."
Over the past 60 years, Tibet has been anything but "liberated" by the Chinese Communist Party.
On the 10th of May I delivered two reports to 10 Downing Street. The reports, by the Society for Threatened People and the International Campaign for Tibet, document the devastating impact of Chinese Communist Party rule in Tibet.
I appealed to Prime Minister David Cameron to support the Tibetans at this critical time in their struggle.
In recent months we have seen harrowing images and footage of Tibetans who have set fire to themselves as a form of protest. Since February, 2009, 35 Tibetans have sacrificed themselves, in an act of desperation, which emerges from the anguish of oppression. Tibetans who have self-immolated include monks, nuns, a 19-year old female student, a widowed mother of four, and a Tibetan reincarnate lama in his forties.
This is one of the most significant waves of self-immolation for the past 60 years, eclipsing the number of self-immolation protests by Vietnamese monks, those associated with the Vietnam War and the pro-democracy movement in South Korea.
The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn has observed, "To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance."
Although we do not know the last words of all the Tibetans who have poured kerosene over themselves and lit a match, we do know that most have died offering prayers for the Dalai Lama to return home, and for freedom in Tibet.
It is time for us to listen to what Tibetans inside Tibet are saying. It is time for the international community to listen to them and to act.
Over the past four years, the Chinese government has engaged in a comprehensive cover-up of the torture, disappearances and killings that have taken place across Tibet. They have engaged upon a virulent propaganda offensive against the Dalai Lama.
On the international stage, Beijing has subverted and politicized international forums where its human rights record has been challenged and refused to answer legitimate questions from governments about the use of lethal force against unarmed protestors, or the welfare of individual detainees.
Over the past 60 years, the Chinese government has instituted increasingly hard line policies that undermine Tibetan culture and religion. The Tibetan people have been denied freedom of expression. Their language has been downgraded. And their economic resources have been misappropriated by the Chinese state, with increasing numbers of Chinese migrants moving to the Tibetan plateau.
China's economic strategies are literally re-shaping the Tibetan landscape and endangering the fragile ecosystem of the world's largest and highest altitude plateau. The survival of one of the world's only remaining systems of sustainable pastoralism is under threat, as nomads are being displaced from their ancestral lands and settled into remote concrete encampments under an urbanization drive.
Why should Tibet matter? It matters because of the terrible suffering of its people, and because of the need for this ancient religion and the Tibetan cultural identity to survive. This is a culture based on the concepts of wisdom, compassion and inter-dependence. These are valuable teachings for the Tibetan people, and for the world.
The survival of Tibet is not just a moral issue. The country is situated in a strategic geopolitical position, between two nuclear giants, India and China. The future of Tibet is tied to Asian and international security.
Tibet is known as the earth's 'Third Pole', with the largest supply of fresh water in the world outside the two Poles. Most of Asia's major rivers have their sources in Tibet, meaning that development policies, damming and land degradation in Tibet can affect hundreds of millions of people elsewhere. China cannot claim that Tibet is their 'internal affair.'
This is a critical year for China. Divisions in the Chinese Communist Party have been exposed amidst a new clamor for genuine reform. At this historic juncture the international community should be actively engaged in finding a solution to the crisis in Tibet.
In our letter to David Cameron, we urged him to lead a multilateral effort in support of Tibet. The UK government should coordinate its efforts with other like-minded countries and call on the Chinese government to review the policies towards Tibetans that are the root cause of the self-immolations, the ongoing tensions and unrest, and which are threatening the unique culture, religion, and identity of the Tibetan people. The UK government, together with the European Commission should maintain and where possible expand targeted programmatic assistance for Tibetans including support for sustainable, culturally appropriate development assistance to Tibetan communities; educational and cultural exchange programs targeted to Tibetans both in Tibet and in exile.
Amnesty has also requested that the Chinese government allow independent monitors, for instance the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, into the country.
The international community should engage in regular dialogue with Tibetan representatives, including the Dalai Lama and his representatives, and Lobsang Sangay, the new Tibetan Prime Minister in exile, to address the immediate crisis in Tibet.
I urge President Obama to take concrete steps to demonstrate his commitment to the fundamental human rights of the Tibetan people, and stand by his words of January 19th 2011, when he professed 'America's fundamental commitment to the universal rights of all people. That includes basic human rights like freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association and demonstration, and of religion - rights that are recognized in the Chinese constitution... Even as we, the United States, recognize that Tibet is part of the People's Republic of China, the United States continues to support further dialogue between the government of China and the representatives of the Dalai Lama to resolve concerns and differences, including the preservation of the religious and cultural identity of the Tibetan people.'
The religious and cultural identity of the Tibetan people is under threat in Tibet today. The Tibetans are standing up to the vast and expanding power of the Chinese state with nonviolent resistance through religious practice, song, literature, and even self-immolation. They are struggling to preserve their religion and cultural identity. As a consequence they are subjected to imprisonment, torture, deprivation and worse. Yet they persevere. Their bravery should serve as a call to action. I call upon the international community to act now on behalf of Tibet. Time is running out. The very survival of the Tibetan people hangs in the balance.
Bianca Jagger is Founder and Chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador, Member of the Executive Director's Leadership Council of Amnesty International, USA, and Member of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Obama Evoluting Fabulously |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9146"><span class="small">Will Durst, San Francisco Chronicle</span></a>
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Sunday, 13 May 2012 16:12 |
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Durst writes: "A thousand rainbows of congratulations to Barack Obama for bursting out of his own personal policy closet and fabulously proclaiming he believes 'same sex couples should be able to get married.' Sir! Welcome to the 3rd year of the 2nd decade of the 21st century, sir!"
Political satirist Will Durst. (photo: WillDurst.com)
Obama Evoluting Fabulously
By Will Durst, San Francisco Chronicle
13 May 12
 thousand rainbows of congratulations to Barack Obama for bursting out of his own personal policy closet and fabulously proclaiming he believes "same sex couples should be able to get married." Sir! Welcome to the 3rd year of the 2nd decade of the 21st century, sir! You also might want to check out some of the strides we've been making in communications.
The President went on to explain he was slow in using his powers for good because it had taken a while for those thoughts to go Darwinian. Sadly, he stopped short of endorsing transmutation and neglected to hail Hugh Jackman as the best entertainer on the face of the PLANET!
What we witnessed was no eon-eating, natural selection type evolution; this native political animal spontaneously grew flippers and walked on dry land, prodded only by a nudge from the Biden fossil. Come to think of it, maybe flippers aren't the only body parts BHO grew.
You might even call it a chrysalis, with a caterpillar emerging from its cautious cocoon to sprout wings and fly to a lonely position atop the moral high ground previously inhabited by such disparate denizens as Tammy Baldwin, Barney Frank and unaccountably, Dick Cheney. Facing extinction.
As predictable as a brush-back pitch following a grand slam, Republicans began to howl from 8 different vantages. One right-wing rag claimed he "Buckled" on the issue. Others called him the First Waffler. Might be difficult to hide Mitt Romney's eight thousand waffles behind this big one of Obama's, but they'll give it the old prep school try.
Besides, isn't a waffle when you expediently move to a more popular position to curry votes? Meaning this swing-state polarizer is the exact opposite of a waffle. More of an elffaw. Which is waffle backwards. A polf-pilf. Or a yrrek.
Rush Limbaugh jumped into the fray accusing Obama of waging a "War on Marriage." Everything's a "War" with this guy. Bet he calls breakfast a War on Pancakes. Not to mention being a tad disingenuous coming from a multi-millionaire who hired Elton John to sing at his 4th wedding.
The President's supporters worry he offended the black church-going community, one of his inviolate bases. But come on, really? Don't you suspect he could be caught naked in a dumpster with a goat and a Portuguese seamstress and still carry the black church-going community? Just the goat? Male seamstress?
Opening a conspiratorial can of mutating worms, it has been suggested someone at the Washington Post leaked the Mitt Romney high school gay pranking story and Obama knew he had to poop or get off the pot. Adding to Romney's image problems: do we really want him tackling Belgium and cutting off its hair because he didn't like the way it looked?
Michelle Obama's husband disavowed any desire to legalize gay marriage on a federal level, maintaining it should be a states rights issue. Of course, inter-racial marriage was illegal in 16 states until a Supreme Court decision in 1967 and some people still consider that an abomination. Guess who's whining about this? Same marine invertebrates.
Fine. Let all gay people move to California. We'll take em. Then just try to get your hair cut in Mississippi. Or take ballet lessons in North Carolina. Or raise money in DC. And that right there, might just be, the origin of the species.
The New York Times says Emmy-nominated comedian and writer Will Durst "is quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today." Check out the website: willdurst.com to buy his book or find out about upcoming stand-up performances. Such as every Tuesday. Until the Election. Elect to Laugh! The Marsh. San Francisco. themarsh.org. Special $10 tix. Use code "vote." Shhh.
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FOCUS | Obama and Gay Rights |
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Sunday, 13 May 2012 12:30 |
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Moore writes: "One reason the majority's opinion on this issue has changed is due, in large part, to the many of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who have taken the risk and come out of the closet."
Portrait, Michael Moore, 04/03/09. (photo: Ann-Christine Poujoulat/Getty)
Obama and Gay Rights
By Michael Moore, Open Mike Blog
13 May 12
 am deeply moved by the announcement made a short while ago that President Obama has gone back to his original position in 1996 and come out publicly in support of same-sex marriage. It may seem like a risky move, but the majority of Americans already support the equal rights of gays and lesbians to marry. Public opinion has completely flipped since 2004. It's been a faster change than anyone could have predicted. But the older generation with their anti-gay views are replaced with a younger generation who are not as rigid, hate-filled, frightened, and bigoted as many of their elders. Hate to have to put it that way, but that's the truth. It's why we were able to have an African American president, and it's why I believe, in spite of all other proof to the contrary, things WILL get better in this country.
One other point: One reason the majority's opinion on this issue has changed is due, in large part, to the many of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who have taken the risk and come out of the closet. By doing so to their friends, family, neighbors, classmates and co-workers, they have forced people to deal with them as human beings. It is much harder to hate when that gay person is your son, that lesbian is your aunt, that homosexual is the person who covers for you on the job when you've got a sick kid, and that gay couple next door have the best-kept yard on the block (I'm not saying they're better at gardening, I'm just saying, they're neighbors, like anyone else). So, the more people said they were gay, the faster that fear and hate peeled away.
To all of our gay and lesbian citizens who have had to suffer for far too long in this "land of the free," thank you (and President Obama) for making us a true home of the brave.
Addendum #1: Yes, Obama did the wrong thing not speaking out before the North Carolina vote to ban gay marriage yesterday. I don't know the guy, but let me suggest this: perhaps he was as disgusted by that vote as the rest of us were today and just couldn't remain silent any longer. For those of you who are commenting and saying that this was just a calculated political move on his part - well, what politician, the day after the public votes one way, comes out the OTHER way. This is a swing state. A slick pol, on this day after, would have either remained silent or said something to show he is "with the people." He didn't do that. He took the position opposite to the one the majority of people in North Carolina took. Look, I have a lot of criticisms of Obama. I have been profoundly disappointed by him. But when he does the right thing, he needs to hear from the majority that we support what he did. You can't stay stuck in your cynicism every single day.
Addendum #2: I agree there are many older people who aren't bigots and who are more open-minded than their peers. But the polls are very clear on the age issue: According to ABC News tonight, 61% of those under 40 are in favor of legalizing gay marriage. But for those over 65, the majority are opposed and believe it should be illegal, with only 40% in favor of same-sex marriage. That is a HUGE generational gap - and a testimony to the older boomers who raised these "kids" to grow up to be loving, accepting human beings.
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The Koch-Stone XL Pipeline |
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Sunday, 13 May 2012 10:13 |
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McKibben writes: "The irony of the Koch Brothers involvement should be lost on no one. The only argument for building the pipeline (which will export its oil off the continent and do nothing at all about gas prices) is that it will provide several thousand good-paying construction jobs."
Environmental activist Bill McKibben. (photo: BillMcKibben.com)
The Koch-Stone XL Pipeline
By Bill McKibben, Reader Supported News
13 May 12
 wo pieces of crucial evidence emerged in the tar sands fight yesterday. One, happily, got all kinds of notice - Jim Hansen's op-ed in the New York Times was the "most emailed" item of the day, which is appropriate since he explained new calculations showing that those Canadian deposits contain "twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history." If we burn them on top of all the coal and oil and gas we're already using, "concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era," the government's leading climate scientist explained, which you think would be enough to end the debate - even in our weird political culture, there aren't many leaders clamoring to return us to the Pliocene.
But the debate continues - in fact, House leaders are busily trying to fasten automatic approval of the Keystone Pipeline, the biggest straw into the pipelines yet, onto a must-pass transportation bill. So the other crucial analysis that emerged yesterday is probably just as important. It demonstrates the real power behind the drive for tar sands oil: the Koch Brothers. They'd long insisted that they didn't have a stake in the Keystone Pipeline, and in the most narrow lawyerly sense that may be true. But the expose from from journalist David Sassoon pierced the secrecy of the Koch brother's private holdings to show that "at the top of the list are the Koch family's long and deep investments in Canada's heavy oil industry, which have been central to the company's initial growth and subsequent diversification since 1959." Their companies are among the largest importers of tar sands crude to the U.S., and the largest holders of mineral leases across Alberta - they're up to their necks in the tarry stuff.
And to protect that investment, they've done what they always do: buy influence. According to an article last year in the Los Angeles Times, Koch Industries and its employees were the largest oil and gas industry donors to the new members of the House subcommittee on energy and power, including new chair Fred Upton of Michigan, contributing $279,500 to 22 of 31 Republicans, and $32,000 to five Democrats. Little wonder, then, that Upton - long considered an environmental moderate in the GOP - soon became the leader of the fight to build the Keystone Pipeline, even now pushing to shut down environmental reviews and provide a permit.
The irony of the Koch Brothers involvement should be lost on no one. The only argument for building the pipeline (which will export its oil off the continent and do nothing at all about gas prices) is that it will provide several thousand good-paying construction jobs. That's nothing to sneeze at. But in so doing it will prop up the people doing most to undermine the union movement in this country. Construction workers that depend on, say, the Davis-Bacon Act and its support for prevailing wages on public projects have their most powerful enemy in the Kochs, who have helped create the anti-union campaigns in Wisconsin, Indiana, and so many other places.
Despite the power of the Kochs, this battle is still very much alive. First Nations people rallied in Toronto yesterday - environmentalists and trade unionists have joined with indigenous people across Canada in an inspired fight against other proposed pipelines that would carry tar sands crude to China. So far they're winning - the projects have drawn more public comment and opposition than any infrastructure plans in Canadian history. It's entirely possible that we'll be able to keep most of the tar sands oil in the ground.
It's also entirely possible that oil money will carry this fight as it has so many others - at the moment in Washington, only a handful of senators, led by Barbara Boxer, stand in the path of congressional approval. But at least, as of yesterday, we know exactly the stakes and exactly the players.
Bill McKibben is scholar in residence at Middlebury College, and the author of "The End of Nature, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities" and the "Durable Future and Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet." He is also the founder of 350.org, the global climate campaign that has been actively involved in the fight against natural gas fracking.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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