MoA - "Pull My Finger" - (Afghan Edition)

January 1 2020, Moon of Alabama
Sources: To Keep Troops In Afghanistan U.S. Intel Paid Militants Bounties To Kill Them
Posted by b on January 1, 2021 at 5:42 UTC | Permalink

The link is circular, it is just an empty line. Have you anything to justify this claim? 1st January is not 1st April!

Posted by: BM | Jan 1 2021 6:57 utc | 4

In the title you also have "January 1 2020"!

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

"Sources: To Keep Troops In Afghanistan U.S. Intel Paid Militants Bounties To Kill Them"

Meh. How about this: "Intelligence sources: Donald Trump paid bounties to Taliban for targeting American troops". Or should it be "...people wearing MAGA hats paid bounties..."?

Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Jan 1 2021 8:16 utc | 6

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

Sources: To Keep Troops In Afghanistan U.S. Intel Paid Militants Bounties To Kill Them

BM, B was slightly wrong with that "headline". It should have read:

Sources: U.S. Intel And MIC Paid Bounties To Democratic And Republican Congressmen So That US Troops Will Stay In Afghanistan And Can Continue To Be Killed By Taliban Militants For Free

Reality is far more macabre and sickening than B's made-up headline.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Jan 1 2021 8:48 utc | 8

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

This article is self-referential

Posted by: Norwegian | Jan 1 2021 9:12 utc | 10

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

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

My headline: "Anti-Chinese Racist Indian Troll Exposed on M.O.A."

When denk pointed out that the jawans were miles inside Chinese territory just before the war that they started and promptly lost, the racist troll mumbled something like "some Indians did some things", and moved on to another anti-Chinese topic.

Posted by: kiwiklown | Jan 1 2021 9:37 utc | 12

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

@ kiwiklown | Jan 1 2021 9:37 utc | 12

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.

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

Another version of paying Militant assassination squads in Afghanistan. This article is by Finian Cunningham. => CIA supported by the US "regular" Army and Airforce. Probably very accurate.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56112.htm

These clandestine attacks can also be seen in Syria recently, where the "new" ISIS-2 terrorists are returning to the central desert to carry out attacks. (Bus with civilians and soldiers, 28 dead) Then going back to the Al-Tanif US protectorate to be resupplied with arms ammunition.

Posted by: Stonebird | Jan 1 2021 10:55 utc | 16

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

It's a correct claim that the US funded militants. For other reasons.

Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Jan 1 2021 11:01 utc | 18

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

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!

Wait for it, it's working it's way out...

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.

Likewise. Though, as an ardent doomsday pornographer I've enjoyed the 2020 production and am looking forward to the sequel.

If things go my way we get (in order) Alien Invasion (of the US), asteroid strike (on Tel Aviv), Supervolcano eruptions in Yellow stone, a Japanese civil war in a rerun of the Meiji Restoration with the emergence of a neo samurai caste after the mass execution of the current political class, a FULL Carrington Event followed by World War 3 conducted with steampunk weapons.The unification of North and South Korea involving the violent ejection of US forces from the Korean Peninsula...The fall of the House of Saud and aggressive corporate takeover of Aramco by the Houthi... A man can dream.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 1 2021 11:53 utc | 20

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

The stuff I like the most from "Western intelligence" is when Kim Jung Un is always presumed to be dead or in a coma everytime whenever he didn't make a public appearance one second after the last one.

Posted by: J W | Jan 1 2021 12:14 utc | 22

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

Applause is in order. B highlights the difference between Network distribution of content and the authors and providers of the content. Its the content provider that needs to be evaluated, not the network that distributed the content.

Id, sort and classify content providers and classify them by their respective types of speciality in propaganda.

It will not take much to know which propaganda specialist, knows what about which nations, which institutions, which armies, and which politicians. and such. As the embedded lie in the content surfaces it can be associated to the various content providers and that will lead to classification by organization and by named persons or groups within the organization that specialize in this misinformation game.

Informed audiences, with a priori knowledge of the content provider, will then be able to identify the embedded irregularity without much more than knowing the type of content and propaganda the content provider engages with.

Developing investigative journalism into an audience side technology (as in server side::audience side) should lead to a lot of very informative sources of wrongful intended misinformation.

I have always believed, when the sources of divide and conquer propaganda are silenced, humanity will take it upon itself to fix things.

Posted by: snake | Jan 1 2021 14:16 utc | 24

My dog made me go to Afghanistan

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

@kiwiklown | Jan 1 2021 10:58 utc | 17

1) Are you Indian? No
2) Do you hate Chinese? No
3) Are you suspicious of the CCP? Yes
4) Are you turning MOA readers against the CCP? Not much chance...

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

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

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

Jen | Jan 1 2021 12:37 utc | 23

What is it with the British obsession with underpants?

When I was a rather timid student and had a car, I took two other students and a Professor on a journey form London to Birmingham. We stopped on the way to vist my parents house. My mother, turning to the Professor, and asked in front of the others, "You do make sure he changes his underpants don't you?" I had a hard job living it down. (Maybe that's why I changed my nationality)

Navalny - don't forget that the person who was said to have carried the water bottle to Germany was photoghaphed by CCT buying the said water bottle from a vending machine in Germany after arrival. Obviously, the Russki FSB go around filling up machines with poisoned water bottles. So we must expect a massive "Novachoco" at German Airports any time now.

Posted by: Stonebird | Jan 1 2021 15:31 utc | 28

typo; Should have been CCTV - ("company controlled track verifiers"?)

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

Antonym@26 Why would you object to Gandhi's appeals to Hitler? Are you not, like your RSS Prime Minister Modi, a fan of Hitler and fascism? The peculiar thing about your interventions is that they assume a total ignorance of what is happening in India.
Look at Kashmir for example.
All over India people are rising up, awakened by the audacious crony and caste capitalism of Modi, a man whose record, in Gujarat, was so bad that even the USA banned him as a murderer and a racist. And you, like Modi make these laughable attempts to divert our attention to China or Pakistan.
Here is Gandhi, by the way, on his service in the British Army:
https://www.mkgandhi.org/autobio/chap101.htm

Posted by: bevin | Jan 1 2021 15:57 utc | 30

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

'b'
The best title of an article, ever. I can't stop laughing.

Brilliant start of a new year.

Says it all.

Posted by: Red Ryder | Jan 1 2021 16:22 utc | 32

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

Posted by: BM | Jan 1 2021 6:57 utc | 4
"The link is circular, it is just an empty line. Have you anything to justify this .."

Exactly! Where is your sense of humour? Bravo, B!

Posted by: groucho | Jan 1 2021 16:44 utc | 34

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

Hi,
I have been to India....

I disagree that India is the legal successor to British Claims WRT the southern border of China. Because, those claims were made when China was in chaos, orchestrated by British opium trade, coupled with European/Japanese/Russian predations.
When the PRC came to power those claims were rejected, as were British claims on Tibet.

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.

INDY

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

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

All those companies makes negligible if any revenue outside of China and they were never short of capital with or without their US listings. It was always a vanity move to list in the US (Chinese 'atlantist' and investment banks' wet dream) and in return the US investors gets a piece of the Chinese domestic market.

In short the CEO and friends got to masturbate over their global success while the US investors get dividends. It was a win-win.

Perhaps China should call the bluff, suspend the quotation before Monday and and just delist, cancel and void all the shares outstanding on the 'murica boards as at close of 31st dec 2020. Slam the gate on all the' murican stockholders.

The ownership of those shares in' murica are largely owned by US investors, pension funds, hedge funds and Chinese tax evaders anyway. It'll be little real loss to China. The companies got its money from the purchasers of the new shares when they were issued. Whatever happens in the secondary markets (stock market) doesn't take any money away from the underlying companies.

Yeah there'll be some collateral damage on entities who might have taken out loans etc against the stock or options as the stock price takes a hit subsequently on the Chinese and Hong Kong boards but its going make a sweet fuck all difference in the long run.

Best of all it was instigated by 'murica! This is a strategic overreach by uncle Sam that will hasten the demise of the apparent might and confidence of the US financial system. China cannot afford not to take advantage of this.

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

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

Tibet is not Chinese ethnically, but that's irrelevant, because that's not the definition of the Popular Republic of China. The PRC is officially a multi-ethnic nation (it's there, enshrined in its Constitution, look it up). The PRC is not Han by any definition of the term; it just happens that the Han were the major ethnicity when it was founded.

In other words, Tibet is not Chinese, but it is from the Popular Republic of China.

The wannabe Han supremacists were the Nationalists (led by Chiang Kaishek); they were the ones that promised to exterminate the Tibetans and Mongols (among other minorities) and repopulate their regions with Han Chinese. Many Westerners today superimpose the Nationalists with the Communists because, nowadays, the Kuonmintang in Taiwan is pro-reunification, but that wasn't the case at all during the Civil War.

In fact, the multi-ethnic conception of China was one of the main factors the Communists won the Civil War: for obvious reasons, the Mongols and other ethnicities sided with the Communists against the Nationalists. The key here is that there wasn't an ethnic genocide as was the case in America: the Chinese "indians" were able to defeat the "colonizers" in war, by siding with the ingredient X (the Communists, which were absent in America's case). That's why the autonomous regions exist today in the PRC (they wouldn't exist in a Kuonmintang China).

Posted by: vk | Jan 1 2021 17:33 utc | 40

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: Antonym | Jan 1 2021 14:33 utc | 26

Antonym writes:

“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 [letters to hitler!!!]”

From interview a few days ago done by Paul Jay re India today:

Jayati Ghosh
...they introduced four new labor codes, which are supposedly designed to modernize the labor laws. But of course, they basically end up disempowering labor and destroying the capacity of bargaining and reducing their ability to demand minimum wages, basic working conditions, easing the possibility of extending working hours and all kinds of things.

Now, as you know, in India, ninety five percent of our workers are informal and really do not have rights to speak already. So the argument that you need to further deregulate to actually make investment more interesting is ridiculous. And it’s just one of the many ways in which this government has tried to actually impose various things which are deeply undemocratic, using the pandemic as an excuse....

[In India] Maybe 50 million [are living] ... at the Western standard of living. And then there will be another one hundred and fifty million who would have a working class style existence, a US working class kind of existence. I’m with the rest on extreme poverty and destitution of a kind that I think people in the West just can’t imagine, destitution, starvation, people are on the verge of starvation.

Paul Jay
So that’s about 800 million people starving.

Jayati Ghosh
Well, our population is now 1.3 billion. So, yeah, it could be even more than that.. . .

Mr. Modi has a whole fascist vanguard. He’s got his stormtroopers. The RSS is is an openly fascistic organization. They actually used Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography continuously. The one country in the world where Mein Kampf is never out of print is India, because the RSS over decades is it’s been a big believer in Hitler’s philosophy and approach.
And they have an army of people all over the country.

Paul Jay
What is the RSS?

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.

Paul Jay
These are these are extreme Hindu nationalists.
Jayati Ghosh
That’s right. That’s right.
Paul Jay
So what’s happening to the Muslim population of India during this period?

https://theanalysis.news/interviews/massive-actions-by-indian-workers-and-farmers-against-government-jayati-ghosh/

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

One of my largest misunderstands of 2020

трусы, полные яда.

My first understanding was "cowards full of hostility". But the correct translation is "underpants full of poison". Something one could not foresee January 1st 2020. Those who understand "peak oil", know that trends are reversed every so often. Will "peak crap" be behind us? (Filling underpants made me think about the usual content.). At least it is a good wish for the New Year

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 1 2021 17:58 utc | 44

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

Tibet has been integrated with China longer than Hawaii has been far more violently integrated into USA.

#FreeHawaii

Posted by: oglalla | Jan 1 2021 18:58 utc | 46

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

Touché

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

vk | Jan 1 2021 17:33 utc | 40

Government officials in HK were given subsidies to send their children to study in the UK, even after the handover, even now. Foreign influence is therefore systemic and total.

HK also uses traditional Chinese as its written language, along with English. With less than 8mil pop a lot of texts were Taiwanese in origin which also remained with traditional Chinese rather than the mainland's simplified version.

The result being any mention of what you described simply do not exists in the text books of Hong Kong, even now.

Instead we have captain America Avengers and Iron man for the kids. From an early age they were stockholmed into believing sun shine comes out of the west's ass, that the west saved China from an opium epidemic, they are forever benevolent and righteous.

With the rapidly evolving mainland overtaking HK in everything but stock market and real estate prices (even those were driven by the mainland now), the serfs could not process why they were being left behind even though they were taught they were better than mainlanders all their life.

When their hubris and arrogance against the mainland couldn't be reconciled with the facts on the scoreboard; absurd and juvenile logic precipitated irrational hatred manifesting in the desire to oppose everything China. Desperate to salvage their belief system they made easy prey to foreign influence.

Posted by: A.L. | Jan 1 2021 19:46 utc | 48

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

Jen | Jan 1 2021 20:13 utc | 49

Thank you. I stand corrected :D

Posted by: A.L. | Jan 1 2021 20:22 utc | 50

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

Real news:-Paul Jay interview

Democrats are caught in structural hypocrisy as they juggle the interests of Wall. St, workers, the right-wing and the progressive wing of the party. Rana Foroohar and Mark Blyth join Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 1 2021 21:08 utc | 52

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

While we are on the subject of Russian meddling

Aaron Mate pushes back:- "Stephen F. Cohen on Russia's democratization and how US meddling undermines it"

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 1 2021 21:19 utc | 54

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: uncle tungsten | Jan 1 2021 21:08 utc | 52

Paul Jay and Sharmini Peries were defenestrated from the real news network in 2019 according to various sources even though Jay was a founder of the channel, and he and and Sharmini two of the most appreciated reporters by viewers (not big donors).
Aaron Mate was “let go” from TRNN n 2018 because, probably, his incisive russiagate reporting.

TRNN is now bereft of authentic journalists, floundering in a swamp of liberalism or at least it was last time I checked which was months ago.

I am so pleased that Paul Jay is back stronger than ever at
https://theanalysis.news/

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/11/paul-jay-and-sharmini-peries-ousted-from-the-real-news-network-in-june-current-fundraiser-hides-that-fact-falling-viewership-and-liberal-turn-result.html

Posted by: suzan | Jan 1 2021 21:47 utc | 56

@ 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

Posted by: J W | Jan 1 2021 12:14 utc | 22

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

Posted by: Jpc | Jan 1 2021 22:28 utc | 58

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

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

Correct, there is no mention of Russia. The closest they get to naming any 'actor' is at the main Solarigate resource page, the link to which you can find at the bottom of the blog link you posted.

They attribute the attack(s) on/via Solar Winds to nation-state

I wonder if it's possible they do this out of the pure corporate-speak convention of not wanting to piss off its customers that might happen to be in the Russian Federation including governments that may use Windows? Just a guess. Kind of like how Hollywood has stopped producing any material that is critical of China...in that case, it's too big of a market to risk losing.

Posted by: _K_C_ | Jan 1 2021 22:38 utc | 60

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

thanks b! you are off into 2021 with a big bang, lolol! i agree with @ 33 red ryder! on the other hand norwegian takes life too seriously!

hey, is it possible to let this hindu nut Antonym make a special thread with all his stupidity in one place?? it would be fun to see...

Posted by: james | Jan 2 2021 0:07 utc | 62

@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

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

"My intro words 'Real news' were intended as tongue in cheek ;)"

Thanks. Got it now, finally. :~)

"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."

May it be so. My experiences with Tibetan Rinpoches are very positive.

Posted by: suzan | Jan 2 2021 0:23 utc | 64

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

It's so rich taht an Indian like Antonym keep speaking independence for Tibet while the Tibetans refugee in their border is much more impoverished, can't speak Tibetan, all the while the India government keep the heel of its boot on Kashmir's neck.

Posted by: Hangar | Jan 2 2021 1:26 utc | 66

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

Grieved #62

I appreciate the discussion on Tibet here. It remains a mystery that seems worthy of solving for us all.

I have always been stunned by the old political structure of Tibet and its King and revered class of worshipful monks. I imagine the Chinese communist party vanguard were mighty outraged at the enforced poverty and tithe system in support of the elite in a land where mere existence was hard scrabble. It says something ominous about humanity and the blind acceptance/adherence to unquestioning religious dominance.

I guess questioners risked being ostracised in a society where survival was integral to shared cropping and husbandry and so on. If you were ostracised I guess you had to beg at the monastery for shelter.

A quick look at wikipedia gives me this:- The Chinese formal annexation was after the Quing Dynasty ended in 1912 when the Provisional Government of the Republic of China replaced the Qing dynasty as the government of China, and signed a treaty with the Qing government inheriting all territories of the imperial government into the new republic, giving Tibet the status of a "protectorate" with high levels of autonomy as was the case during the Qing dynasty. Prior to this period, the British had expanded their influence from neighboring India into Tibet via the Treaty of Lhasa, even though Tibet was not formally annexed into the British Empire.... The era ended after the Nationalist government of China lost the Chinese Civil War against the Chinese Communist Party, when the People's Liberation Army entered Tibet in 1950 and the Seventeen Point Agreement was signed with the Chinese reaffirming China's sovereignty over Tibet the following year.

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. They had plenty of experience of the plundering rapine that to this day comes with the englanders. Simultaneous with their sending forces to Tibet, the Chinese were putting up with USA shenanigans in Korea, Vietnam was being returned to French colonial occupation, USA was making strange 'nice noises' in its Japan occupation. It is important to remember that Korea had been occupied by the Japanese since 1912 (afaik).

So the Chinese socialist community builders arrived in Tibet after their years of reformation activity with the liberation army and discovered the same feudal enslavement on the high plateau. No doubt fear and loathing was abundant in the Tibetan populace and especially in the elite classes.

That is all fertile ground for embellished propaganda all round and I trust we can find a path of understanding within it.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 2 2021 1:39 utc | 68

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

Grieved @62--

A Happy New Year to you!

The mystery of Tibet cannot be solved without going there and doing firsthand investigation as the entire picture's been roiled and poisoned by propaganda to the point where there are extremely few credible voices. At this link, you'll find links to a 2019 Chinese White Paper, "Democratic Reform in Tibet -- Sixty Years On," another 2019 "White paper notes significant progress in eco-environment protection in Tibet," and this 2019 article, "Rural Tibetans enjoy more access to financial services." As far as I know, they are the most recent official Chinese government publications on the region aside from the recent articles about the elimination of extreme poverty there and throughout China. Here's the first White Paper's Preamble:

"The year 2019 marks the 60th anniversary of the campaign of democratic reform in Tibet. In traditional Chinese culture, the 60th year is always memorable as it completes a cycle called the Jiazi, a concept unique to the Chinese calendar.

"Tibet’s democratic reform that took place six decades ago gave a new life to Tibet and the ethnic peoples living there.

"These 60 years have changed Tibet completely. Tibet’s democratic reform is the greatest and most profound social transformation in the history of Tibet. By abolishing serfdom, a grim and backward feudal system, Tibet was able to establish a new social system that liberated the people and made them the masters of the nation and society, thus ensuring their rights in all matters.

"These 60 years have turned Tibet into a beautiful home to the people of Tibet. Tibet’s democratic reform opened up bright prospects. With the strong support of the central government and the rest of the country, the ethnic peoples of Tibet have spared no effort in forging ahead and transforming their poor and backward old land into a beautiful new home that is economically prosperous and socially advanced, with a sound ecological environment where people live in happiness and contentment."

After the Preamble, the paper reviews Tibet's history. I recall the propaganda fed to use as children about Tibet during the 1960s and the racist stereotypes employed from cartoons to full length movies. And as you know, I'm far more inclined to believe China than the Outlaw US Empire.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 2 2021 1:53 utc | 70

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

I am surprised that so far no mention was made of the book by Heinrich Harrer, Seven Years in Tibet; it is an excellent description of life in Tibet, with common people and with the "high society" there. Reading it and seeing the Chinese descriptions how much better the life is there now, 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. The pseudo-democracy of the Western and of the Eastern form is abhorrent. Reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography "Long road to freedom" also alludes to the advantages of the traditional societal order, which seems to have more democracy than the "modern" democracy. Chinese are not blue-eyed do gooders, as they want to present themselves, but they are hard nosed invaders in Tibet, looking to loot the natural resources.

Posted by: bystander04 | Jan 2 2021 2:22 utc | 72

@ 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

@ bystander04 | Jan 2 2021 2:22 utc | 71... maybe you can articulate how the british getting china hooked on opium and etc, not to mention what they were doing inside india is that much more acceptable?? it seems the usa would like to continue on in the same manner and modi the hindu nationalist is all for it too..

Posted by: james | Jan 2 2021 2:26 utc | 74

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

@67 uncle tungsten

Thanks, it's good to put some timeline on this. One can feel the determination of the Chinese in 1950 to secure their One Land after final victory and there's no doubt that Tibet understood it was itself in an age of powerlessness. It wasn't always so, but Tibet turned to peace under the spread of Buddhism for a thousand years, and the very large corruption of the monastic class left no government of value.

I took a quick look at the 17-Point Agreement of 1951, that the Dalai Lama in your video seems to be completely at peace with. Wikipedia (we have to start somewhere) says this (my emphasis):

The United States informed the Dalai Lama in 1951 that in order to receive assistance and support from the United States, he must depart from Tibet and publicly disavow "agreements concluded under duress" between the representatives of Tibet and China.[6] In 2012, Dalai Lama mentioned the Seventeen Point Agreement was signed in the spirit of one country, two systems.[7][8]

The exiles in their treatment of the Agreement are full of argument that Tibet was never a part of China (which no one disagrees with), and that thus Tibet should be independent (which is where the interests of the west align, of course).

More quick searching reveals that the Cultural Revolution was 1966-1976, and we know that things got out of hand episodically during that event, so I'm sure lots of that came to Tibet's culture of relics as well. I get the impression the diaspora from Tibet happened over many years, and over perhaps two generations - which always puzzled me. History is written by the cities, as Ramin Mazaheri showed in his essays on the Cultural Revolution in China, and those who were accustomed to write the culture were the very ones who experienced life upside down. So there's that as a nuance to put into this mix also.

I think the mistaken idea that the Dalai Lama has been a "CIA asset" flows from the fact that the exiles had to seek support from the west, and we can easily reckon the kind of support that was - even apart from the US demand above for how he must act - especially remembering the moral credibility the US held throughout the second half of the last century.

A very famous American Buddhist of undoubted kind heart has spoken of Gene Sharp's work as the way of non-violence to achieve political change, and I used to believe that whole-heartedly myself. It's a different manual that sends the snipers in of course, and not having read Sharp, I also wonder if he's been maligned to some extent - conceivably, for instance, his work is completely innocent and groundbreaking, and merely co-opted by the spooks - or it could be as others say, that he was always a Trojan horse. I don't profess to know, and others can clear this up.

But my real point is that I have always been in awe of how something as evil as the CIA could become symbiotic with authentic grass-roots popular expressions from the heart from ordinary people all across the world, and infiltrate and manipulate them for the Company's own ends of, usually, regime change. That speaks of a deft touch, and it almost seems impossible with clear-seeing Buddhists - but I wonder if the Company boys actually found the unworldly Tibetans to be one of the easier touches to turn?

[As an aside, on the purity of doctrine - the Buddhism that came to the west through the diaspora of the late 20th Century was the stream of monastic culture called Rime (ree-may) which saw the corruption and the spiritual dissolution of Tibet a century beforehand, and gathered the cream of the teachings for safety, which are what came to the west. The Buddhism in the west comes from very pure streams.

I have often wondered how the Tibetan masters who landed in the midst of the long-haired druggies of the west thought of their new students. What karma did these westerners hold, perhaps they wondered, that brought the absolute cream of a thousand years of practice in the Buddha's truth to teach these unruly children?]

Posted by: Grieved | Jan 2 2021 2:38 utc | 76

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

Tibet was more specifically part of territory controlled by the Yuan dynasty, heart of the Mongol empire. More specifically the Mongols continued administration of Tibet during the Yuan Dynasty which controlled the territory that became modern "China"
Following that, it was for a brief period an autonomous region under the administration of the Manchurian Empire (Qin dynasty) which controlled "China".

The Yuan Dynasty, formed during the dissoulution of the mongol empire controlled Tibet, Myammar, Manchuria, Mongolia, Korea, and the territory of modern China.

The Qin Dynasty 221 -206 BC resulted from a fracture of Yuan territory into warring states. Sun Tsu heralds from this period. The Qin gave their name to this territory as "China" but did not control most of it.

Consolidation came later....

To use this conflict ridden period in Chinese history to disparage Tibet as part of China is to ignore all that came later.

It is akin to claiming Oregon and Washington are not properly part of the USA, because they were held briefly by the Russians subsequently the British.

These claims are part and parcel of UK meddling in China, which The PRC put paid to, most recently over Hong Kong.

Tibet was a feudal state with the bulk of the population owning nothing, being serfs. To claim the people of tibet preferred this to what they have now, is a stretch. To further claim the right as an AngloZionist to travel to Tibet to determine who belongs where, is interesting... Could you please travel to Texas to determine whether that land belongs properly to Mexico??? I believe Mexico has a better claim to Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and California, than Tibet has a claim to be independent, ditto for Xinghiang...

Should you disagree... I can organize your induction into the Marines... they always need a few good men... who go' where they are sent... do what they are told... and don't mind dying for empire....

INDY

Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jan 2 2021 3:00 utc | 78

@ 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

@ suzan | Jan 2 2021 3:36 utc | 77
"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." ???

The British left their South Asia colonies on August 15th 1947 (Except for Burma which was delayed till January 4th 1948 due to local political assassinations). Nehru strived to be non-aligned with either side of the Cold War. Pakistan on the other hand allowed a CIA base after its PM Liaquat Ali Khan visited the US from 3 May to 26 May 1950. https://www.dawn.com/news/731670/timeline-history-of-us-pakistan-relations. Pakistan and Tibet were divided by the High Himalayas containing Indian Ladakh and Kashmir.
The Battle of Chamdo occurred from 6 through 19 October 1950. It was a military campaign by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to take the Chamdo Region from a de facto independent Tibetan state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chamdo

Posted by: Antonym | Jan 2 2021 4:18 utc | 80

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

@ Posted by: suzan | Jan 2 2021 3:36 utc | 77

Didn't understand all the fuss on Coleman's article.

Every historian knows "feudalism" is a fantasy term (and often pejorative). The term itself was never used by the people who lived in the circumscribed period, and is not appropriate in any case for the purposes of historical analysis. Indeed, it would be a surprise if the people who lived in the Middle Ages had ever invented a term for their socioeconomic system, as the concept of thinking in economic theory terms ("isms") did not exist before the capitalist era.

If you go to a class of medieval history, you'll never hear the professor say the word "feudalism" once - except when he/she alerts the students that it is an anachronistic term that should never be used.

But the key here is context: "feudalism"/"serfdom" as pejorative terms were Western inventions, not Chinese Communist ones. The Communists didn't innovate on its usage. To call them out for that is hypocrisy. I don't consider calling Tibet before the Communist annexation as "feudal" to be a falsification of History: it's rather a useful oversimplification, made for economy of words and for people who are not specialists and don't want to delve too much on the details. But that case would also apply to Western feudalism - also a gross oversimplification.

Posted by: vk | Jan 2 2021 4:24 utc | 82

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

This "Antonym" Indian guy, who is spamming this discussion thread, must be freelancing from his usual troll gig at these Indian Influence operations below.

Indian Chronicles: deep dive into a 15-year operation targeting the EU and UN to serve Indian interests
https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/indian-chronicles-deep-dive-into-a-15-year-operation-targeting-the-eu-and-un-to-serve-indian-interests

Uncovered: 265 coordinated fake local media outlets serving Indian interests
https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/uncovered-265-coordinated-fake-local-media-outlets-serving-indian-interests

Posted by: ak74 | Jan 2 2021 5:22 utc | 84

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

Whether or not england had truly departed from India in '47 and some would say that partition, england's considerable influence over the politicians who they permitted to rise pre-independence combined with the control englander corporatists retained over much of the Indian economy meant that realistically independence wasn't achieved until the 1970's & even then the englanders retained some control.

However this reasoning that is irrelevant to the discussion on england's interference in Tibet vis a vis China.
Poland wasn't an englander colony between 1918 and 1939 yet england was the primary determinant of Poland's foreign policy, especially in relation to the USSR during that time.

I would go further and say that in the early 1950's China's central committee would have been completely uninterested in getting involved in relieving Tibetans of class oppression, they had too much on their hands righting all the wrongs in Han territory, but they had no choice because the CCP were aware of the chaos and millions of needless deaths england had caused in the Soviet Union by using Poland as a base for their terrorism 1918 to 1939.

So for China's new leaders protecting innocent Tibetans and Chinese from terrorism became a priority once they realised that many of the englander 'diplomats' cranking up Tibetan nobility were the same characters (see R.H. Bruce Lockhart) who had been behind anti-Soviet terrorism when based in Poland using the so-called 'white' Russians.

Suzanis correct, if you are spending all your efforts raising millions up from nonentity to valued citizen, the last thing required is an interfering, unscrupulous gang of aristos from half a world away who are trying to sabotage your work, showing absolutely no regard for the havoc being wreaked upon those the englander aristos pretend to care about.

I appreciate that Grieved has found some reward in buddhism to me that is merely more proof that any superstition which hasn't been co-opted by a nation's ruling elite can be useful for those who need to find solace in superstition.

On the other hand when we consider buddhism as an establishment religion eg contemporary Thailand or South Korea during the Park dictatorship and even today, we see that buddhism can be easily co-opted to buttress fascism.

In the case of Tibet, the oppression was even worse IMO, as in both Thailand and Park-era South Korea a middle class was permitted, if tightly restricted. AFAIK there was no bourgeoisie in pre communist Tibet.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Jan 2 2021 6:30 utc | 86

@ 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

Fascinating OT discussion about the evolution of Tibet and associated geo-political contexts/history

A similar discussion could be had about the Amazon, parts of Africa, yada, yada.....history is written by the winners.

And now humanity is in a civilization war about how social governance is provided with the global private finance folk (the West) on one side and lets simplify by calling the other side China.

It can be characterized as the difference in relations between people and things. Our seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, thinking, contemplating, sensing, wanting, acting, loving, etc. is enmeshed with practical objects like clothes, dwellings, beds, chairs, tables, cups, plates, tools, toys, books and more.

In the West, the "market" is inserted as forced mediator in value-form relationship to things through the face of governments it controls while in China the government, supposedly with the interests of the masses ahead of the elite, mediates the value-form relationship to things.

The barbarism of the God of Mammon religion forced on all in the West is being challenged by the example of the truly secular civilization of China. I believe truly secular governance will provide for the broadest respect of our societies differences in history and culture with the context on the ongoing civilization war....and so I support the civilization that China is bringing to Tibet.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 2 2021 7:28 utc | 88

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

On Tibet and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

I just discovered this - Brilliant Moon - and it is worth considering in its entirety. Don't turn off but consider its entire story. A 0ne hour video and a blessing for the year ahead.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 2 2021 8:58 utc | 90

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

Posted by: Debsisdead | Jan 2 2021 6:30 utc | 84

Buddhism is far from being bullshit, it informs much of my thinking, but like any religion or other source of authority and cash, it attracts grifters and manipulators like flies. "Will you be my guru?" The first thing one ought to do with ones children is to teach them to recognize such swine.

One of the few legal avenues here open to a young ambitious African-American man was (and still is) to start up a church. This used to annoy me but I came to see it as a creative solution, the value of a religion depends on what you do with it.

Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 2 2021 10:08 utc | 92

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

Can't even spell my own name this morning.

Posted by: Stonebird | Jan 2 2021 10:55 utc | 94

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

Re : underpants
I can deliver underpants of varying lethality on request. Of course prices increase with age.
Our stock includes among others:

Gents underpants worn consecutively for more than 4 years by both male and female freedom fighters. Small traces of feces. Guarantied original. Pants come with airtight container.
This is a premium object.
Do not hesitate to inquire.

Posted by: Den lille abe | Jan 2 2021 12:46 utc | 96

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

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

@ 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."

Thanks for exposing this ISI sponsored site in the EU.

The quality of your propaganda training, as delivered by whatever organ of the Indian state employs you, is rather crude.

Who is "EU DisinfoLab" ? Whoever they are, they are particularly transparent. According to their LinkedIn profile:

Civic & Social Organization Brussels, Brussels Region

Who are they? According to their staff page, an all European outfit - no conceivable ISI link:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/eu-disinfolab/people/

Not a single ISI link in site ...

Even the educational background of their staff are offered as public information, let's take a peek:

Where they studied
2 Sciences Po
1 Université libre de Bruxelles
1 Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio
1 Universidad Complutense de Madrid
1 Universidad CEU San Pablo
1 Grenoble Ecole de Management
1 Université Blaise Pascal (Clermont-II) - Clermont-Ferrand
1 Université d'Orléans
1 The University of Manchester
1 Abertay University
1 Università degli Studi di Milano
1 Università di Pavia
1 Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Krakowie
1 Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) MFA Russia MGIMO
1 Pomona College

Somehow I'm NOT getting the wiff of gharam masala and naan baked in the tandoori ... in fact, there is a distinct scent of tapas in the air ...

They're a registered EU NGO, with documented meetings with the EU commission and lobbyist accreditation:

https://lobbyfacts.eu/representative/e2e55b143c0248e2ada672197f705cfc

Nope. No ISI here.

So, try again, Auntynym, it is comedy hour after all ...

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 2 2021 14:16 utc | 98

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

Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 2 2021 10:08 utc | 92

Buddhism is far from being bullshit, it informs much of my thinking, but like any religion or other source of authority and cash, it attracts grifters and manipulators like flies. "Will you be my guru?" The first thing one ought to do with ones children is to teach them to recognize such swine.

Of course, this depends on what you define as Buddhism and whether it conforms (or should conform) to the original teachings of The Buddha.

Every religion has it's fair share of bullshitters who will infiltrate it at various points and cloud any teachings with a hope of leading to enlightenment.

However, in defense of Buddhism, I find that it as a system of practice designed from the very start with the anticipation that bullshit could eventually infest it. There are inbuilt tools and defenses within Buddhist philosophy that empower practitioners to run at full bullshit detection mode:

"By oneself is evil done; by oneself is one defiled. By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself is one made pure. Purity and impurity depend on oneself; no one can purify another."

-- Dhammapadha, Chapter 12

... Or, for the layman: Only you can determine your own path to truth, not the monks, not the priests, not the government, not the experts.

The Ādittapariyāya Sutta, one of the earliest sermons attributed to The Buddha provides a basis for understanding the mind's tendency to absorb and incorporate bullshit, it provides a framework for metacognition which can be used by the Buddhist practioner to question what he is being programmed with by the external world:

"The mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is burning, mind-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

"Bhikkhus, when a noble follower who has heard (the truth) sees thus, he finds estrangement in the eye, finds estrangement in forms, finds estrangement in eye-consciousness, finds estrangement in eye-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful- nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition, in that too he finds estrangement.

"He finds estrangement in the ear... in sounds...

"He finds estrangement in the nose... in odors...

"He finds estrangement in the tongue... in flavors...

"He finds estrangement in the body... in tangibles...

"He finds estrangement in the mind, finds estrangement in ideas, finds estrangement in mind-consciousness, finds estrangement in mind-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact for its indispensable condition, in that too he finds estrangement.

"When he finds estrangement, passion fades out. With the fading of passion, he is liberated. When liberated, there is knowledge that he is liberated. He understands: 'Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived out, what can be done is done, of this there is no more beyond.'"

About a thousand years must have passed between then, enough time for quite some bullshit to accumulate and encrust the teachings of the Gotama buddha, until the arrival of Hui Neng, the 6th Chan (Zen) patriarch:

The body is a Bodhi-tree
The soul a shining mirror:
Polish it with study
Or dust will dull the image.

(attributed the 5th Patriarch)

Bodhi is not a tree;
There is no shining mirror.
Since All begins with Nothing
Where can dust collect?

(attributed to the 6th Patriarch)

The greater lesson around the teaching of Huineng is an encouragement to penetrate beyond what is taught by the established Buddhist orthodoxy and "see further".

Buddhist Philosophy, particularly in Chan and Zen schools are full of these inbuilt anti-bullshit mechanisms. Theravada schools not so much ...

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 2 2021 15:19 utc | 100

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