Eh, you have a typo in the last article. It´s already 2021. 😉

Posted by: m | Jan 1 2021 6:56 utc | 3

In the title you also have “January 1 2020”!

Posted by: BM | Jan 1 2021 6:58 utc | 5

Date corrected 🙂
Another factless headline in today’s NYT:
Microsoft Says Russian Hackers Viewed Some of Its Source Code
Microsoft said no such thing.
Nowhere in Microsoft’s blogpost on the issue is there mention of ‘Russian’, ‘Russia’ or some other attribution.

Posted by: b | Jan 1 2021 8:16 utc | 7

Posted by: Antonym | Jan 1 2021 6:13 utc | 1

CHINESE SPY NETWORK EXPOSED IN AFGHANISTAN

I’ve already exposed pajwhok news as a European-created front organisation.
Repeating the same endless propaganda every few days just makes you look like a mindless digital drone.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 1 2021 9:05 utc | 9

Scoop: Major Western mainstream media companies pay Taliban and other militants in Afghanistan to attack (and/or kidnap) their reporters, so that US and NATO troops and mercenaries will have to stay in Afghanistan to protect them.

Posted by: michaelj72 | Jan 1 2021 9:35 utc | 11

From the Afghan vice president Amrullah Saleh:
Mullah Bradar did three things in Karachi. He visited the wounded Talib terrorists at a govt hospital who are there without any visa, went to a training facility to inspire the terror cadets & thanked the government of Pakistan for generous support to the Talibs to this point.
https://twitter.com/AmrullahSaleh2/status/1342008751063183360

Posted by: Antonym | Jan 1 2021 9:46 utc | 13

Posted by: Antonym | Jan 1 2021 9:51 utc | 14

1)Is Tibet today an independent nation? No
2)Is Tibet today incorporated into India? No.
3)Is Tibet today incorporated into PR China? Yes; end of hide and seek games.

The hallmark of a propaganda drone is the abrupt transition to yet another propaganda topic once his lies have been debunked. A new straw man, normally bearing no relation to the issues at hand.
Upon being exposed, the propagandist never indicates any kind of shame or apology for propagating a lie, no matter how obvious the lie is.
He merely continues with new lies.
This is because it is the very act of lying that provides him a raison de ettre.
Neither the lie, nor the truth itself matters to him, he is consumed in the process of lying, it is how he earns his bread…

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 1 2021 10:14 utc | 15

Antonym,
1) Are you Indian? Yes
2) Do you hate Chinese? Yes
3)Are you turning MOA readers against Chinese? No
Here…. a bit of good Indian advice for you:
“All through history the ways of truth
and love have always won.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Posted by: kiwiklown | Jan 1 2021 10:58 utc | 17

Antonym | Jan 1 2021 9:51 utc | 14
At least someone is getting overtime LOL.
Arch Bungle | Jan 1 2021 10:14 utc | 15
Damn you for stopping him! I was waiting for him to pull Xinjing out of his ass like a magician then break out into a full blown bollywood dance number with Mikey!
kiwiklown | Jan 1 2021 10:58 utc | 17
Hear hear! A round of virtual drinks for all and though I’m not too hopeful, i do wish 2021 will be better for everyone.

Posted by: A.L | Jan 1 2021 11:25 utc | 19

If it wasn’t for the consequences.
You could really laugh at the inanity of those headlines.
Western intelligence.
Right let’s see some.

Posted by: Jpc | Jan 1 2021 12:01 utc | 21

J W @ 22:
I would have thought the ongoing saga of Alexei Navalny’s poisoning by FSB agents with the most deadly toxin known being smeared on his underpants in the 31-hour gap between going into intensive care in the Omsk Hospital and a German air ambulance reaching the hospital and putting a doctor by his bedside was Western intelligence at its most oxymoronic. This, coming on top of the poison in the tea in the airport cafeteria, followed by the poison in the water bottle picked up by Navalny’s followers wearing no protective masks or gloves.
Of course with Bellingcat (founded by an unemployed ladies-underwear sales representative) involved in the latest installment in the farce, the obsession with Navalny’s underpants becomes understandable. That phone conversation Navalny had with “Kudryavtsev” surely had to be staged. What is it with the British obsession with underpants?
All the more disturbing then that the real Kudryavtsev’s mother-in-law ended up an indirect victim of British intel’s stupidity, when her flat was invaded by one of Navalny’s idiot groupie followers.

Posted by: Jen | Jan 1 2021 12:37 utc | 23

My dog made me go to Afghanistan

Posted by: Nathan Mulcahy | Jan 1 2021 14:19 utc | 25

Antonym@14
Is Kurdistan independent?
Is Cyprus independent?
Is Catalunya independent?
Is Scotland independent?
Is Tamil Nadu independent?

Posted by: steven t johnson | Jan 1 2021 14:59 utc | 27

typo; Should have been CCTV – (“company controlled track verifiers”?)

Posted by: Stonebird | Jan 1 2021 15:37 utc | 29

Posted by: Auntynym | Jan 1 2021 14:33 utc | 26

I wouldn’t take advice of a fool like Mahatma Gandhi. Did you know he had been a sergeant-mayor in the British army? He wrote two peace letters to Hitler: https://www.biography.com/news/gandhi-hitler-letters-world-war-ii

So if Ghandi advised you take daily baths you wouldn’t take advice from him on that basis?
I don’t have a high opinion of Ghandi due to his racism in Apartheid South Africa, however these letters you refer to prove that he had a substantial measure of human decency and truly loved peace. Let us read, since it is clear you yourself never read these letters:

Dear friend,
Friends have been urging me to write to you for the sake of humanity. But I have resisted their request, because of the feeling that any letter from me would be an impertinence. Something tells me that I must not calculate and that I must make my appeal for whatever it may be worth.
It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to the savage state. Must you pay the price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has seliberately [sic] shunned the method of war not without considerable success? Any way I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing to you.
Her Hitler
Berlin
Germany.

Source: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ghandi-s-prewar-letter-to-hitler
The opinion of a jewish curator of the library reads:

Gandhi hoped to prevent World War II by encouraging Hitler to seek peace. This is the first of two letters he wrote to Hitler. He wrote the second a few months after the invasion of Poland.

Your next attempt at context distortion is just as infantile: Ghandi was born in an era during which India was under complete and thorough British control. Indian culture was being completely shaped, moulded and directed by the British, Indians, as part of the British Empire were born and raised to serve their Anglo-Saxon masters. They fought their wars for them, cleaned their homes, mined their gold and grew their crops and they worshipped the White Raj for the opportunity too.
Like most, if not all of India’s heroes of the time, Ghandi was also a servant of the very empire he rejected in the end – this was no betrayal of his own kind.
So your insinuation that he was a fool for doing so is in itself the insinuation of a fool. He was a better and brighter man than you, regardless of his flaws.
The next hallmark of the career propagandist is the tendency to mis-contextualise communications and events, placing them in a context calculated to illicit shock or offense in the simple minded. A common characteristic of this mis-contextualisation is the ease with which it can be revealed as false, normally requiring mere superficial investigation to expose the distortion of information.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 1 2021 15:59 utc | 31

And in other news the march of folly forges on to sound of a brass band:
Sayeth Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge:

The New York Stock Exchange said late on Thursday it would delist three Chinese telecom giants to comply with a US executive order that restricted the public listing of companies identified as “affiliated with the Chinese military”. China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom Hong Kong will be suspended from trading between January 7 and January 11, according to the statement by the NYSE.

Three consequences I predict:
a) Loss of opportunity for US capitalists to invest and profit from Chinese telecomms excellence.
b) A further widening of the China-US trade deficit
c) Real Hong-Kongese telecomms companies now get cut out of the western capitalist system leaving them completely at the mercy of the Chinese market and state. This will speed up the integration of Hong Kong’s tech industry into the mainland – talk about friendly fire.
To date, no American president since Nixon has contributed so much to the rise of China. MCGA!

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 1 2021 16:25 utc | 33

Re: b | Jan 1 2021 8:16 utc | 7
“Another factless headline in today’s NYT:
‘Microsoft Says Russian Hackers Viewed Some of Its Source Code’
Microsoft said no such thing.”
NPR made the same false claim this morning.

Posted by: AntiSpin | Jan 1 2021 16:58 utc | 35

Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jan 1 2021 17:00 utc | 36
Of course, India cannot be the legal successor to British claims without first determining what “India” was before the British colonisation and what it was afterward (including the status of legal successorship when ‘India’ split into East Pakistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Modern India).
In the case of Tibet, I believe the issue has nothing to do with successorship, or whether Tibet should be independent or not. The question is an existential one for the Chinese: Were Tibet to be occupied by Indian (read “Anglo-American”) forces, were missile and other forces to be based in Tibet in control of the waterways originating in the Himalayas, it would put China at a massive disadvantage – potentially an existential one.
Mao realised that there could be no future China without strategic control of Tibet, so regardless of any moral questions, he took it before the Indians did.
Tibet is not Chinese. Never has been, never will be (while there are Tibetans alive) but unless China wants to see THAAD and Patriot batteries pointed at it from the Tibetan plateau and a stranglehold on all water originating from that plateau it had better hold on to Tibet and integrate it so that the distinction between Tibet and China is the same as that between England and Scotland.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 1 2021 17:14 utc | 37

Posted by: A.L. | Jan 1 2021 17:17 utc | 38
Agree completely. As mentioned, I think American capitalists (and their Chinese brethren) benefit more from the presence of these companies on the exchange than does China the collective.
Trump is running out of feet to shoot.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 1 2021 17:25 utc | 39

Tibet is not Chinese. Never has been, never will be (while there are Tibetans alive) but unless China wants to see THAAD and Patriot batteries pointed at it from the Tibetan plateau and a stranglehold on all water originating from that plateau it had better hold on to Tibet and integrate it so that the distinction between Tibet and China is the same as that between England and Scotland.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 1 2021 17:14 utc | 37
Correct. This is the elephant in the room the narrative managers don’t want you to see which is why they always resort to their bullshit human rights play book.
Same thing with Xinjing, same thing with Hong Kong.
That said, China have done the Tibetians and the Uighurs a world of good particularly in education, economy and quality of life as China crawled out of poverty. At the same time Hong Kong was afforded more freedom and opportunities that it deserved since the handover until the recent, and failed, color revolution.
It seems the west has a romantic imperial obsession to keep Tibet a feudal religious sect so tourists can go there to look at Tibetians like animals in a zoo. They want washing machines and cars more than goats and wind chimes.

Posted by: A.L. | Jan 1 2021 17:42 utc | 41

Posted by: suzan | Jan 1 2021 17:43 utc | 42

Jayati Ghosh
The RSS is a very strange organization. It’s called It is short for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Union of National Volunteers would be the literal translation. And they are rated one of the members of the RSS is the man who shot Mahatma Gandhi. It’s been banned periodically in the course of Indian history. It was banned immediately after Gandhi was assassinated, but it was periodically three to four times it’s been banned. Now, half the cabinet are RSS members, Mr. Modi himself is a member, the home minister is an RSS member. The RSS is very, very effectively controlling the government and they have an army of volunteers.

I’ve met a few of these during the course of my work. The poster ‘Antonym’ on this site fits the profile of a Hindu nationalist of the RSS stripe. He ticks all the boxes, regardless of whether he is actually Indian or not.
These are the same idiots who will kill you for eating beef. I know because I had a physical altercation with one many years ago while discussing the preparation of a beef steak.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 1 2021 17:55 utc | 43

They want washing machines and cars more than goats and wind chimes.
Posted by: A.L. | Jan 1 2021 17:42 utc | 41
Why not having all of that. Sadly, goats cannot be mail ordered. But Amazon can send you
Color:Bronze | Size:3000 times (sic!?)
GooFoto Solar Energy Prayer Wheel with Micro Mantra, Tibetan Tibet Buddhist Spinning Prayer Wheel for Car Home, Office Interior Decoration and Meditation
Features
– Built-in 15 or 30 million miniature scriptures (Guanyin mantra), which can be seen under the microscope. (sadly, no instruction how to check)
– Buddhist prayer wheel design, every turn is a devout prayer for the best wishes of health and luck.
– Solar energy powered or battery powered, the middle prayer wheel will keep running as long as there is enough energy.
– Adopts Nano-electroplating process and zinc-alloy material, not afraid of high temperature and no fading.
– It can be widely used in car, home, office interior decoration, for meditation and yoga, also a good gift for friends.
Specifications
Material: Zinc alloy
Color: Bronze/Red/Blue/Golden/Orange
Size: 10 x 7 x 11cm/3.9″ x 2.8″ x 4.3″
Package Weight: approx. 550g/19.4ounces
Package Included
1 x Prayer Wheel

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 1 2021 18:13 utc | 45

Piotr Berman | Jan 1 2021 18:13 utc | 45
Touché

Posted by: A.L. | Jan 1 2021 19:00 utc | 47

I am not sure Tibetans need goats and wind chimes more than they need yaks and prayer wheels. 🙂
Seriously what little I have read about Tibetan culture before the 20th century doesn’t fill me with admiration. A feudal-style society dominated by a theocracy that behaves in a parasitic manner upon the poor? – no thanks!
It is true that Tibet allowed polyandry (one woman with several husbands) but this was to preserve family property and prevent its fragmentation when inheritance customs decree equal inheritance among sons when their father dies. All children borne by the woman become the children of the eldest son irrespective of the actual biological father. Tibetan-style polyandry is not comparable with polyandry in other societies where inheritance traditions are different. Such a custom benefited the Lamaist hierarchy because younger sons who might still be children when their father died could be persuaded to join monasteries (with all the potential harm inherent in such institutions for children; Lamaist Buddhist institutions are little different from orphanages run by mainstream Christian churches in that respect) and give up their rights to family property.

Posted by: Jen | Jan 1 2021 20:13 utc | 49

Antonym etc
Hindu leader Modhi paid kickbacks for useless French fighter jets.
Rafale deal exposed – Modhi exposed as French corporate puppet
China builds new design jet to go into service this year

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 1 2021 20:42 utc | 51

Ahh, the issues of Tibet, Xinjiang are always raised – even on article that has nothing to do with that.
Regarding Tibet, please listen DIRECTLY to interview with Dalai Lama: about his admiration and respect to Mao, about his agreement with Marxism, socialism, and Communism; his agreement with 17 points, and about Tibet independence, etc.
Mao, China, Tibetan Autonomy, Buddhism – DEBUNKING THE LIES (total time: 13:46)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVem5ni7C6A

Posted by: d dan | Jan 1 2021 21:15 utc | 53

Getting the impression the war has been called off:
IRGC Says Iran Has ‘No Worries’ About Any Foreign Adversary as US Carrier Group Heads Home
Iran Tells IAEA It Plans to Push Uranium Enrichment Up to 20%, the Level Achieved Before JCPOA
US Senate Leader McConnell Blocks $2K Stimulus Checks Effort for Third Day in a Row

Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 1 2021 21:24 utc | 55

@ Posted by: d dan | Jan 1 2021 21:15 utc | 53
Thank you for this. I have heard HH the DL say on several occasions that he is a socialist yet all I hear from Western lefties is that he’s working for the three letter agency that crushes blossoming sovereign states which refuse to submit to the Washington consensus, and that pre-modern Tibet was a feudal hell hole of because of its Buddhist culture.
I’ve decided that the thinking styles are so different culturally West vs East. — win-lose vs. win-win, that much passes by misunderstood and misconstrued as default position on part of westerners, even academically trained westerners.
What would the USA be like if 1/3 of the male population were dedicated to securing peace and happiness for all sentient beings?

Posted by: suzan | Jan 1 2021 22:24 utc | 57

suzan #56
Thanks for the pointer to RNN and the fortunate freedom that all the exiting good reporters found. RNN is a sh!t show of deceit or chicken hearted ‘liberals’.
My intro words ‘Real news’ were intended as tongue in cheek 😉
On HH Dalai Lama and d dan and yourself. That reference you make is why I have the utmost respect for his thoughts and words and activism. I trust the 17th Karmapa Lama will prove as excellent but time will tell.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 1 2021 22:37 utc | 59

Smart people around the world don’t listen to Western Media; rather, they watch Western nations’s behavior: for as is said, Behavior speaks louder than words. Meanwhile, smart people around the globe both listen to and watch what Russia and China say and do; for unlike the West, they actually have credibility–which is why the West lies about Russia and China so damned much. These same smart people also see most of Eurasia standing in solidarity and integrating like never before of their own free will, not via coercion or conquest as with the West’s methods.
Today’s Strategic Culture Editorial presents my outlook very well as I’ve written over the past December, with these two short paragraphs being key:
“The needs and means of today’s global economy make Cold War-style zero-sum mentality a relic of the past. It is untenable and unviable. It is dangerous and destructive. It is a fetter on global progress.
“Lamentably, the United States and its ruling class is the single-biggest repository of this regressive ideology. The nature of US capitalist power is predicated on imperialist hegemony. Confrontation is the currency of its ambitions. Cooperation is anathema.”
And what did Biden have to say? Essentially nothing aside from expressing his optimism–and–he had no words for the world’s smart people, nor did Trump for that matter. Their dual silence stands in stark contrast to the messages expressed by Putin and Xi, which I linked to on the open thread. It seems one of Escobar’s monikers for the Outlaw US Empire–Empire of Chaos–will rule the domestic roost at least for January as Trump has yet to concede defeat to Biden. I look at Biden’s proposed team and see very few smart people but many who are bought and thus slaves to their Parasite owners. Much like 2016, the focus again will be on 2024, but with Sanders very much removed from the game. The USA still needs its own Color Revolution, and that color must be Purple.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 1 2021 22:52 utc | 61

@53 d dan and many others
Thanks for that video. It accentuates a riddle I have been trying to solve.
I am a US Buddhist in the Tibetan lineage. My most profound teachers have been and are Tibetan, and all of them have fled from Tibet, citing the invasion of China and the occupation (with destruction and torture, etc.) by China. These are personal testaments from people who are sworn to the truth, and yet this all now seems at odds with the good fruit that seems to come from this tree.
And now this from the Dalai Lama himself, and from decades ago.
So the riddle is that the people who opened my eyes by pointing directly to the nature of reality – the most profound awakening to the truth that there can be, in my view – are also the ones who have confirmed a narrative that I no longer believe.
For me, this is entirely strange.
It appears that the Chinese beneficial dynamic that we see and discuss here daily has washed over the Tibetan people as well as the rest of China, and that Tibet as a national community is a far better place today than it was.
It also seems true that the feudal and cruel society that was Tibet was somewhat unknown to the Lama class, which must include all my teachers, who never said anything other than that the Tibetan people were by nature a happy people.
I am still putting all this together, but currently I can only suppose that the Tibet that the monastic class experienced was quite different from the Tibet experienced by the rest of the population. And I can only suppose from my own experiences that the lamas themselves are unaware of this privileged difference.
So I have a very personal path to walk to put this story together and to understand what my teachers actually experienced, and how much of the western lies they have allowed into their understanding to the world – which, I would be the first to understand.
I appreciate the discussion on Tibet here. It remains a mystery that seems worthy of solving for us all.

Posted by: Grieved | Jan 2 2021 0:22 utc | 63

Jpc #58

Oh the fun and games we are going to have when Bidens brain farts can’t be covered up any more!

I would like to see political supremos such as Biden attend White House press conferences in person and minimise the ‘spokesperson’ prattlers. What better opportunity to restore confidence in their capacity to ‘lead’. I guess this fell out of favour with Raygun as his dotage became porridge. I say the President should front up and field questions in person much more often. Why do people tolerate this crap?
I share your anticipation of the twisting of word meanings – it will give ‘pretzel’ even more renewal.
Has Biden yet appealed to his ‘old friend’ Mitch to give the $2000 parsimony pay a go?
For that matter, has Bernie appealed to his ‘old friend’ Joe to give his ‘old friend Mitch’ some encouragement in his hour of need? Yes, I know Bernie is now starving the Defense Dept of pay but they have that $23 trillion stashed away just for times like this. Besides the USAi Defence Forces could increase the opium or hashish price from Afghanistan to cover the shortfall providing Obummer agrees.
I believe Dr Hunter S Thompson got it right in The Great Shark Hunt – tie Mitch to the bumper bar of a large cadillac convertible and drag him down Pennsylvania Avenue by the feet. (my best recall)

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 2 2021 1:06 utc | 65

Tibet is not Chinese. Never has been, never will be (while there are Tibetans alive) but unless China wants to see THAAD and Patriot batteries pointed at it from the Tibetan plateau and a stranglehold on all water originating from that plateau it had better hold on to Tibet and integrate it so that the distinction between Tibet and China is the same as that between England and Scotland.
Your ignorance is showing here……
Tibet became part of China during Ghengis Khan’s time… ditto Mongolia…. That’s 800 years ago…
As for the border…. China was asked by the Brits to acceed to the line their surveyors drew… result was stone cold silence…
India’s problems stem from it’s hide bound adherence to Raj regulations imposed by the Brits… India has sufficient problems to occupy itself for generations…. further burdening itself with que stions regarding Himalyan valleys, that grow virtually nothing… while ignoring opportunities for cooperation with it’s northern neighbor will generate the opposite of the results it needs…
China has offered friendship numerous times and in numerous places….
India tried to build highways across Myammar… only to fail due to hidebound regulations it self imposed….. It tried to styme Chinese projects in Myammar including Mysionme Dam, only to leave Myammar in the lurch while Laos got the funding and projects. Now Laos has a railway from China to Cambodia and Thai land, while Myammar has pipelines and unfinished highways and dams, and hydro projects still on the drawing board.
For example, Cambodia just completed a major Hydro-electric project on the Mekong
While none of you talk about the numerous hydro projects completed in Pakistan and under construction There…
INDY

Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jan 2 2021 1:32 utc | 67

Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jan 2 2021 1:32 utc | 66

Tibet is not Chinese. Never has been, never will be (while there are Tibetans alive) but unless China wants to see THAAD and Patriot batteries pointed at it from the Tibetan plateau and a stranglehold on all water originating from that plateau it had better hold on to Tibet and integrate it so that the distinction between Tibet and China is the same as that between England and Scotland.
Your ignorance is showing here……
Tibet became part of China during Ghengis Khan’s time… ditto Mongolia…. That’s 800 years ago…

Your ignorance needs more urgent treatment than mine it seems.
Tibet was part of the *mongol* empire, more specifically part of the Yuan dynasty, a division of the Mongol empire. More specifically the Mongols were directly responsible for the administration of Tibet during the Yuan Dynasty which what we loosely call “China” was also a part of.
Following that, it was for a brief period an autonomous region under the administration of the Manchurian Empire (Qin dynasty) which what we loosely call “China” was also a part of.
My statement stands:
“Tibet is not Chinese. Never has been, never will be (while there are Tibetans alive)”
It should be clear that my reference is to ethnicity. The Tibetan people are a *distinct* cultural ethnic, political grouping. They exist under the PRC as an *unwillingly* occupied nation, not “Chinese”.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 2 2021 1:52 utc | 69

Dr. George W Oprisko #36

India would be better served by granting Kashmir independence, and concentrating on improving the financial lot of it’s farmers and small businessmen.
India would be better served by eliminating the plethora of hide bound regulations inherited from the British Raj, streamlining business regulations throughout.

Agreed entirely, but then India might have to melt down the barriers of the caste system.
To do that India would benefit mightily by a people’s revolution and the establishment of Communist People’s Party Government.
Meanwhile the ruling class of Hindu nationalists and deviants will enable horrific death rates, sabotage health services to all but themselves, smother dissent, pay poverty wages if they pay at all and beat their ridiculous nationalist drums. Successive Indian Governments and ruling parties have been an insult to humanity and a Mahatma Ghandi is sorely needed today to liberate India from its cruel leaders and private finance economy thieving class. I wish them luck and respect their many organisers striving for that change.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 2 2021 1:57 utc | 71

@ uncle t… thanks for your commentary @ 67 and 70… i share a similar viewpoint… i enjoyed visiting darmasala and mcloud gang about 22 years ago.. i have never really understood all of this, but the video @ 35 the d dan shared was like a breathe of fresh air in all that i have seen to date…

Posted by: james | Jan 2 2021 2:23 utc | 73

helps me to conclude that the indigenous people were better off without the Chinese influence, the serfdom is not the worst form of life in traditional societies.
Apparently, the Tibetans don’t have a voice in this matter. It is up to us NATO Zionists to decide for them…
The Kashmiri’s likewise cannot be trusted to determine their own future…..
Ditto, the Bahraini’s…. Got help it, should they get sovereignty…
Meanwhile…. the railway between India and SriLanka, is disused due to no maintenance of the pylons holding it above the sea…. The double bascule bridge across Pembhan Pass remains closed, having never been electrified…. When we transited the pass, nearly 50 men were employed in cranking it up sufficiently for us to pass through. See my VK page for photos of this transit.
India chooses to pick fights with Pakistan over Kashmir, territory which according to USC resolutions does not belong to it…. chooses to pick fights with China over high mountain valleys, where nothing grows…. chooses to tweak China’s nose over Tibet using the Dali Lama as pawn….
spending scarce treasure on ships, planes, tanks, and men, while it’s railways, canals, water systems, sewage systems, irrigation canals, and the like crumble into dust….
Forbidding export of overage, barren cows to other countries where they could feed the hungry, while forbidding their slaughter due to religious reasons…. tying up scarce fodder in the process….
Engaging in pointless progroms against their muslim and other minorities…. to hide their incompetence….
INDY

Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jan 2 2021 2:38 utc | 75

I just made a long post on Tibet that hit the Typepad filter – interesting that it must have been the Tibetan exile website link that did it. Anyway, it should appear if b clears it from moderation tomorrow, at around this place in the numbering, in the low 70’s I’d guess. Sorry, uncle tungsten, I’m not ignoring you. And karlof1 I would reply but I’ll wait until my mojo returns 😉

Posted by: Grieved | Jan 2 2021 2:43 utc | 77

@ Grieved and
@ Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 2 2021 1:39 utc | 67

“I am sure the Chinese Communist Party would have had no time whatsoever for enduring the meddlesome englanders in their protectorate or any where near their borders.”

This is so little mentioned.
The initial push into Tibet in the early 1950s by the PRC was on grounds of anti-imperialism, not to overturn the existing socioeconomic system and “liberate” the Tibetans from their system of feudalism. The Brits in India were threatening at the borderlands. Not much was altered in Tibet socioeconomically by the PRC until after the (CIA funded and armed) uprising against the PLA by the upper classes. Here’s Michael Parenti on the situation:
When the current 14th Dalai Lama was first installed in Lhasa, it was with an armed escort of Chinese troops and an attending Chinese minister, in accordance with centuries-old tradition. What upset the Tibetan lords and lamas in the early 1950s was that these latest Chinese were Communists (italicized in original text). It would be only a matter of time, they feared, before the Communists started imposing their collectivist egalitarian schemes upon Tibet.
The issue was joined in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts. Meanwhile in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that organization. The Dalai Lama’s second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.28
Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs. Ninety percent of them were never heard from again, according to a report from the CIA itself, meaning they were most likely captured and killed.
“Many lamas and lay members of the elite and much of the Tibetan army joined the uprising, but in the main the populace did not, assuring its failure,” writes Hugh Deane.
In their book on Tibet, Ginsburg and Mathos reach a similar conclusion: “As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both when it first began and as it progressed.” Eventually the resistance crumbled.”

It was first after the 1956-57 uprising that the PRC began to alter the socioeconomic structures. Again, Parenti:
…after 1959, they [the Chinese] did abolish slavery and the Tibetan serfdom system of unpaid labor. They eliminated the many crushing taxes, started work projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and beggary. They established secular schools, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries. And they constructed running water and electrical systems in Lhasa.
I disagree with some points Parenti makes later in his essay, and with some language he uses to describe situations, as they falsely conflate social practice with social teachings. Parenti unwittingly ignores his own words:
“Tibetan feudalism was cloaked in Buddhism, but the two are not to be equated… old Tibet was … a retrograde repressive theocracy of extreme privilege and poverty.”
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Some scholars contest the rigid use of the term “serf” that is commonly used to describe the common people of Old Tibet, arguing there was more flexibility in Tibet’s feudal system than what Western feudalism experienced. Life was de facto, not just de jure. The story of the liberation of Tibet after 1959 relies, ironically, on this rigid Western de jure serf terminology, usually ignoring your point re the initial anti-imperialist motive for the occupation.
~~~~~~~~~~
Book excerpt:
Chapter 4: Conclusion
“He thinks I am not liberated. I say it is simply that his thinking isn’t liberated, it is still that feudal head!”Cao Ming, in Cheng Feng Po Lang
In this thesis I have critiqued the various salient aspects of the discourses of feudalism and serfdom in Chinese and western historiography as they relate to Tibet. I began by outlining the development of the discourse of feudalism from its ideal form as a decentralized form of governmental administration in the early Qing as reflected in the works of Gu Yanwu, to its status as a reformist narrative in late Qing and early Republican era China. Feudalism then underwent a paradigmatic shift in meaning as it gradually came to represent a counter-narrative that stood in opposition to the centralizing discourse of the modern nation-state in later Republican era China. With the advent of Marxism and its accompanying ideas of historical evolutionism in China, the trope of feudalism was used as a political expedient to malign and thereby dis-empower China’s pre-national past
as the dichotomous Other of universal History. In the contemporary discourse, feudalism is used by the Chinese government as a pejorative expression that essentializes Tibetans and other “minority” peoples vis-à-vis the Han majority. Moreover, despite some progressive indications of potential change, feudalism is used in contemporary China to deflate the historical foundations of those ideas and institutions deemed by the Chinese nation-state to be seditious, i.e., counter-hegemonic to state authority.
My critique of the discourse of serfdom—inseparable from feudalism in the Chinese discourse, is based on the research of Melvyn Goldstein, the most prolific (and perhaps controversial) western scholar of modern Tibetan history and anthropology. Goldstein asserts that serfdom characterized traditional Tibet, and while he does present a valid jural definition of serfdom, salient exceptions to this definition reveal that a strong counter-narrative of de facto autonomy existed in traditional Tibet. Moreover, I have suggested that Goldstein’s narrative of serfdom, which is fundamentally jural in nature, is untenable in light of recent scholarship that reveals the flexibility of traditional Tibet’s legal system, and that the theoretical underpinnings of this narrative, grounded in the classical western understanding of feudalism, collapse under the critical eye of deconstructive analysis. Finally, I have highlighted how, however uncomfortable it may be to admit, Goldstein’s scholarship has been appropriated by the Chinese government and incorporated into the contemporary discourse of feudalism in China.
Words, particularly politically-charged words, should clarify as best as possible our understandings of a subject. “Feudalism” and “serfdom” more times than not confuse and complicate, rather than refine, our understandings of the nature of Sino-Tibetan relations today. Moreover, the strength of the discourses of feudalism and serfdom as outlined in this thesis effectively hinders the growth of new, alternative historical narratives with the potential to clarify further our understandings of China and Tibet. Through the critiques presented in this thesis I have attempted to highlight the salient aspects of the dominating discourses of feudalism and serfdom in the hopes that well-informed historical paradigms that are sensitive to the unique natures of diverse social, political, and economic contexts will emerge in the near future.≤/i≥
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/ealac/barnett/pdfs/link3-coleman-ch3-4.pdf

Posted by: suzan | Jan 2 2021 3:36 utc | 79

To cross link to the original topic Afghanistan, here a link: China has built second foreign military base near key Afghan corridor — just north of PoK

Posted by: Antonym | Jan 2 2021 4:23 utc | 81

I must say it’s wonderful to read all this discussion and information on Tibet and its situation. Sorry my contribution didn’t occur, but it would jibe well with Parenti.
Whatever the people who fled Tibet were thinking – and certainly that story would be filled with multiple nuances – from a selfish point of view I acknowledge that some of the best trained of them came to the west, and this was to my incalculable profit.
The diaspora was a priceless gift to the west. As one lama said: “There are two sides to every story. One side, we lost our country. Other side, Dharma went around the world.”
I don’t know if he actually did lose his country, but he certainly thought that. Yet, with great equanimity, he saw that Tibetans went all over the west – where they otherwise probably would not have gone – and millions of westerners were introduced to the nature of their own minds as a result. Karma is unfathomable.
~~
I am glad for the ordinary Tibetan people that China has raised their station in life, to live as decent humans. I personally think of it as a great stain on the enlightened nature of that Buddhist society that the people lived in such neglect and hardship. Thanks to China, this wrong has now been righted.
It happened I think because the focus of the entire culture was on spiritual attainment, and in secular form the nation simply drifted from monarchy to whatever the modern government was. But in the spiritual world, I do attest that the Tibetans achieved a unique and diamond-bright thing within that one field of endeavor. That deserves to endure and I think it will.
~~
What then of Tibetan Buddhism? I am involved with people who visit Tibet almost every year, and although I haven’t been inspired until now to start any great conversation on this matter, I get the impression that Tibet is a fairly accessible place to go to now, and that there is no “repression” of the monastic layer of society.
I get the sense that things have “eased” but now I have to ask if they ever were repressed to begin with, or whether this was simply the fog of the seditious attack from the west on China. I don’t know, not yet – but this is my main inquiry, and I shall offer anything I find out.
I think that the Tibetan people will flourish under China’s rule, and that the highly specialized Buddhist practice in the monasteries will also flourish. I think one day we will see that the corruption of the monastic layer was starved of license by the Chinese, and that only the true monastics were able to find sustenance.
Not to make the picture too rosy, but the fact is that the Tibetan Buddhists were unable to cleanse themselves of the corruption that was killing the Dharma, and the Chinese invaded a sick and dying body. That part which was still living, in Dharmic terms, fled and sought sanctuary in the west. Gradually, perhaps, one may see a going back.

Posted by: Grieved | Jan 2 2021 5:17 utc | 83

Grieved #81
Thank you for your thoughts. I am uncertain what has transpired since the depart of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche but I am inspired from the discussion here to follow up. His time amongst us was one continuous rainbow.
The path seems to rigorously separate the political journey and spiritual journey but I sense that the transformations of the past century might meld the compassionate and material into a more productive combination. Given human modernity and its potential to alleviate poverty and provide better service to human health, I see a bright future potential for a reconciliation between the two. I understand the 17th Karmapa Lama has that responsibility.
That is not to say that the political will ever conform or distill to a singularity. There is great potential for socialism and capitalism to both attain compassionate form. The capitalist west and its neo liberal economic captivity needs to be humanised promptly. It appears to me that the socialism evident in China is trending strongly in that direction. Not so much in the west.
Thanks all for this discussion, it has inspired me to spend some time in contemplation. What a beautiful new year gift from all.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 2 2021 5:42 utc | 85

@ ak74 | Jan 2 2021 5:22 utc | 82
EU DisinfoLab is a young independent NGO focused on researching and tackling sophisticated disinformation campaigns targeting the EU, its member states, core institutions, and core values.”
Check their search function for articles:
Russia….0
US……..0
China…..0
UK……..0
Pakistan..0
India…..6
For India they complain that they are echoing human rights atrocities in Pakistan against women, Christians, Hindus, Amadhis, Shia, Baloch, Afghan etc. Fact is these thing are happening daily in Pakistan.
Thanks for exposing this ISI sponsored site in the EU.

Posted by: Antonym | Jan 2 2021 7:14 utc | 87

Much like 2016, the focus again will be on 2024, but with Sanders very much removed from the game. The USA still needs its own Color Revolution, and that color must be Purple.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 1 2021 22:52 utc | 60
If the forecast from deagel for the US come 2025 is correct, will there even be an election in 2024? If there is a revolution it will be blood red. Population 99 million GDP down 92% and not any better for the 5 eyes or western Europe. Anyone tied to China’s economic growth will survive and those who have suffered form western attacks will be free. Interesting to see Israel, if it is still Israel, more likely Palestine 4 million with a military budget smaller than Syria. Looks like my wish of a Palestine free of Zionism before I die might come true, if the die off in Canada doesn’t take me first!
https://www.deagel.com/forecast
And thank you to all those who posted re Tibet. What a treasure of information.

Posted by: Tom | Jan 2 2021 7:41 utc | 89

EXPOSED: US paid Walid Karzai (the brother of Ahmed Karzai, a.k.a. the former mayor of Kabul) to NOT attack convoys that transported supplies for the US troops in Afghanistan.

Posted by: Willy2 | Jan 2 2021 9:56 utc | 91

I have a “Tibetan” question, probably without a clear reply yet, about the first Panchen Lama. He is now 31 years old. Quote as seen from Washington. (Sorry that it is all in French).
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima. Kidnapped 25 years ago, now living “peacefully in Pekin, China dixit
«Les bouddhistes tibétains, à l’image des membres de toutes les communautés de foi, doivent pouvoir choisir, éduquer et vénérer leurs chefs religieux selon leurs traditions et sans ingérence du gouvernement», a souligné lundi Mike Pompeo, ajoutant que les Etats-Unis demeuraient «profondément inquiets de la campagne continue de la République populaire de Chine pour éliminer l’identité religieuse, linguistique et culturelle des Tibétains»
The Chinese (Communist) version.
Gyancain Norbu, est membre de l’assemblée consultative du Parlement chinois, un organe symbolique sans pouvoir réel. Vice-président de l’association bouddhiste en Chine, il déclarait en 2010 lors de son élection vouloir «défendre le leadership du Parti communiste chinois, adhérer au socialisme, sauvegarder la réunification nationale, renforcer l’unité ethnique et étendre les échanges bouddhistes sur la base du respect de la loi et de l’amour pour la nation et le bouddhisme».
Both the Chinese and the US seem to want to designated the future Dalai Lama. There are two Panchen Lamas who will be part of the naming process, so the situation is muddied to say the least. What do those who have more knowledge about Tibet think?
PS. At the same time that the Chinese Communist party kidnapped the six year old, they were also claiming the right to appoint Catholic Bishops. I don’t know where Pope Francis is with that either.
(Fascinating thread on Tibet)

Posted by: Stonebisrd | Jan 2 2021 10:53 utc | 93

re Bemildred | Jan 2 2021 10:08 utc | 92
Show me where I said buddism is bullshit. I do believe that it is fine for you to subscribe to whatever superstition best suits you, particularly in amerika where honest scepticism, aka skepticism is regarded as being unpatriotic, somehow ‘lower class’,
It is no concern of mine whatever tosh a person chooses to lap up as long as they refrain from attempting to inflict it upon me, but I do have a concern when some self appointed ‘leader’ co-opts a superstition to blind the masses just to use their philosophical naivety so he/she can exploit them.
Examples of this exploitation can be found in any religion or belief marketed in amerika and I cannot avoid observing that mainstream rejection of these nonsenses is irrelevant to their alleged ‘effectiveness’ because a particular belief’s’ ‘credulity is actually determined by that superstition’s particular aptitude for being co-opted by the ruling class. e.g. in england buddhism is regarded as being an ignorant take on SE Asia and its subculture.
If you do wanna believe that tossage, go right ahead, but still at least consider how it comes to be that such a peace and love message has been co-opted by thai & vietnamese military & dictatorship elites as an excuse for genocide on the other ethnicities who are no less enamoured of peaceful existence, but are who ate still being wiped out by greedy buddhist opportunists.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Jan 2 2021 11:33 utc | 95

suzan @79: “…rigid Western de jure serf terminology…”, re: feudalism.
There was no rule of law in Tibet other than what the monasteries dictated except for some fairly loose rules from the Chinese legal system that were lightly enforced. Trying to separate de jure from de facto makes little sense. The monasteries were the landlords, courts, and political system all rolled into one. The whims of the lamas were the law, so long as they didn’t contradict the laws from the Chinese state.
Marxists don’t assert that feudalism was inherently bad or immoral or anything like that. The morality of any period in history adjusts itself such that the economic system that provide progress and development is by definition good. Believe it or not, feudalism was a progressive force within its historical context and was considered an uncontested morel good. It is just from applying our contemporary morality to history that feudalism is seen as bad, but our contemporary morality arises from societies with dramatically improved production processes. Over time as productive processes advance the political superstructure and ownership relations of society loses their moral justifications and become anachronistic, or “morally bad”.
The point here is that one might be able to find aspects of Tibet’s feudal structure that were positive within the context of a society with a radically undeveloped economy and extreme poverty. Those aspects cannot be positive in a modern society. It should be kept in mind that feudalism was a system for organizing economic activity, not a political system. Is it better for a religious caste to be the landlords than it is for ownership to be held by a political caste? Arguments can be made for that I suppose but at the end of the day it is irrelevant because such an organization of the economy cannot progress development in the modern era of technological and industrial production, thus it unavoidably becomes a moral “bad”.

Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 2 2021 13:54 utc | 97

Grieved @83

“I don’t know if he actually did lose his country”

He absolutely did lose his country. The land property in Tibet belonged to the monasteries, and thus by some extension the monks in those monasteries. It is unavoidable for landlords to lose their supremacy when feudal land ownership is abolished. How can it be otherwise?

“What then of Tibetan Buddhism?”

Thanks to the ChiComs, regular everyday Tibetans are now allowed to study it. Isn’t that wonderful? That was not possible when Tibet was dominated by the monasteries.
Be mindful that viewing Tibetan Buddhism strictly philosophically by a well-fed westerner will provide a very different perspective on it than what is available to some half-starved and diseased illiterate grunt working the land for a monastery he will never see the inside of. Religious and philosophical precepts always get filtered and reinterpreted through the lens of one’s own culture. This is true not just for Buddhism but also Christianity, Islam, and indeed any religion. Buddhism just happens to not be too philosophically incompatible with post-Enlightenment thinking.
With that said, the monasteries in Tibet are now subsidized by the state since they can no longer subsist by expropriating what the peasants produce. In fact there are no longer even any peasants in Tibet to produce for the monasteries, so they would cease to exist without state support and tourism. It is true that the monasteries relying upon the state, being forced to be open to tourists, and instruction in Buddhism being something that people can buy now rather than an exclusive and esoteric privilege is changing the character of the monasteries, but that change is not all for the worst. Tibetan Buddhism is now no longer rooted in the brutal subjugation of a hopeless and future-less peasantry. The Communists have cut that cancer away and freed Buddhism to be something far more than it was, even if that wasn’t precisely their intention at the time. The fact that the Communists support keeping the Buddhist monasteries functional despite those monasteries’ historic economic foundations being gone demonstrates the value that contemporary Chinese society sees in Tibetan Buddhism itself.
The average Tibetan is more ambivalent to the fate of the monasteries than most westerners might expect. As such the monasteries, despite state support, are experiencing harder times and lower status than in the olden days. But when a population moves out of poverty and starts to find time for pursuits beyond survival, some will always dig into their own history for the best bits and attempt an idealized reconstruction of it… yurts with satellite TV and air conditioning for Mongolians, for instance. As wealth increases in Tibet then enthusiasts will remake at least some of the monasteries into what they should have been all along. It is possible that this process has already started though I cannot say as I’ve not been there in many years, but for sure within a decade or two it will be well underway. That would not be possible ever if Tibet retained its feudal economic structure.

Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 2 2021 15:09 utc | 99