Here we go again with China. I don’t know how they do it. Between Taiwan, Tibet, the lack of human rights, copyrights, the proliferation of censorship and environmental devastation, it’s amazing how much they’re getting away with. We seem to be shamed into quietude, somehow because my own country so imperfect. I agree, but that’s really besides the point. Nancy Pelosi said it best when she said: “(I)f freedom loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in Tibet, we have lost our moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world.” That’s it: If our lives are worth a damn we ought to try to help these people. The monks are so brave, and the Chinese government is made up of such cowards, that the USA should help protect the monks, and stop the Chinese from taking over the world. So I asked my camaraderie of symbolic figureheads what they thought, and here’s what they said:

Paul Bunyan noted the Chinese government’s explanation of the protests: “Some ignorant monks led by a small handful of people did some illegal things that can challenge social stability.”

That’s a perfect and compact expression of the whole commie-chinese thing.

Tibet is over. The have been absorbed like Rome absorbed Sicily. The only difference between now and then is the world has developed a sense of shame about conquest for some reason, and so there are certain pretenses maintained (mainly, 1., that china didn’t take tibet, they just “always” owned it, and 2., they are doing this all for the “greater good” of tibetans, who were being oppressed by a theocracy.). Power has spoken, as far as the tibetan geography is concerned.

But there is something to do, which is to help the monks in exile. Cause they are in exile forever, like the Jews. There are a lot of them in No. Cal I think. There are also a lot of them in the twin cities for some reason.

Paul’s Brother added:

Helping them in exile. It is being done to some degree. I think money to SaveTibet helps preserve the culture too.

The biggest thing that I see being done, and that I support — and the most helpful no matter what happens to Tibet — is the strong effort being made to preserve the Tibetan heritage in exile. In particular, the core of the Tibetan Buddhist teachings is being kept alive. The Buddhists are good at seeing what is really happening and they have put a lot of energy into this, realizing that this is more important than the country in crucial ways.

The Chinese are simply exterminating the culture. Lots of intermarriage is helping to make the death a soft death. The Chinese are absolute masters at this shit. And they don’t give a shit about world opinion. Even less than we do.

My friends, who don’t agree with what the Chinese are doing, are nevertheless taking the famous new Chinese railway up into Tibet (Lhasa eventually?) and seeing Tibet. Partly, they say, to see it before it is utterly destroyed. 🙁

But this is just talk. Good question. What can be done besides just donating money. That’s all I do at this point.

And I heard from Sacagawea too:

A Tibetan teacher said to me that the virtue of the Chinese invasion is that the Tibetan Buddhist teachings were spread all over the world.

And the thing is, there are lots of monks — and nuns too! — who need support, because their traditional culture that supported them is broken. I send funds every year to a nunnery in Dharamsala that also educates the nuns far beyond what they used to before the invasion.

And we have the incredible example of HH the Dalai Lama, who does not harbor hatred toward the Chinese. It is his practice.

First Burma, now this. My heart goes out to these amazingly brave monks who are facing down the government of China. Don’t you think the US should be sending protesters? Or at least performance artists? Let them get busted and have the American people see what the Chinese gov’t does. We need to infiltrate who among the tribes of the movement is going and get some flights to china ASAP. Code Pink and Move On and partner with some right wing religious orgs too that are willing to send nuns to protest in solidarity. But I dont’ see any voices in the movement talking like this. It’s so ironic, but the only voice that says it’s our job to speak up is George W. Bush’s, which is really Michael Gerson’s. And he’s long gone. Dang. There _must_ be some show of being appalled at the games, but I wonder if we’ve got it in us.

The story in the NYTimes today was really special. It rounds out who Barack is. He emerges as something on an announted one, and his mother as a bit of a Mary figure. His whole candidacy makes even more sense. And what an angel she seems to be. I think we should say a prayer for her. The story, worth a read, is here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/14/MNCVVJJRK.DTL

I wrote my good buddy Paul Bunyan that I was concerned about the white backlash to the Wright controversy. When the general public gets wind of the worst of what Wright has said, I’m afraid it will doom Obama. Paul kind of talked me out of it. He said:

You really think it dooms him? I don’t. The African American church is an intense thing, really almost inseperable from being black in america. Or at least that’s what black friend of mine in grad school told me. This church was the way he found to connect to that, which he was not born in.

I think it depends on how crazy this Jeremiah Wright guy is. Hmm.. site’s down…hmm…wikipedia….

I think it’s okay. I was afraid of some anti-semitism, but looks like the worst is some anti-Israelism, a little Blaming-America-for-9/11, and a lot of Blackness-centered theology. Here’s an excerpt:

“Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!” There is thumping applause; Wright has a cadence and power that make Obama sound like John Kerry. Now the reverend begins to preach. “We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!” The crowd whoops and amens as Wright builds to his climax: “And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS SHIT!”

Uncle Sam here again, responding to Paul Bunyan quoting Rolling Stone (above). My thinking has expanded on the subject, mainly due to the point of placing the Black Church in the context of American freedom of religion. It got me thinking, and I wrote this while I was traveling the highways and byways of America:

As an American, I appreciate what it means to have the black church. I have actually been a big fan of some of the rhetoric of Farrakhan, and at times even dig where he’s coming from. He takes care of his own, and believes in wholesomeness, speaks truth about his own people’s problems, and aspires to greatness (as does Wright). His last formally racist comments were 24 years ago, and if you read them, there is the interesting distinction he makes between the “true Jews” which he respects, and the “false Jews,” which he doesn’t. Similar distinctions have been made about Christians through the millenia, and in the Bible, even by Jesus when referring to a “tepid Christianity” (most famously quoted by Dostoevski), and so anyway it’s possibly not 100% straight up Jew hating. It’s probably more complicated.

The million man march was a huge moment in our history, and Farrakhan’s speech there rocked my world. I even love the way some black churches have taken aspects of Islam and connected them to black people, half-baked as it may sound to a true Muslim. It’s enough truth with enough creativity that enables it to fly.Black people have had their culture ripped from them and to have a new American-style made up culture to bolt onto such a fragmented experience does make sense. But Wright and his ilk, starting with Farakkhan, broke from the Black Muslims, and focused more on roots. And what these connections to “roots” do is nothing short of transformational. Look at Muhammad Ali. Without the Black Muslims, he never would have been who he was. He could not have been the true Champion of the World, the all time greatest, as Cassius Clay. And to anticipate what Obama is gonna do when it all hits the fan about Obama and Trinity, Ali in all his name changing self creation is at its heart as American as it gets. So Trinity kind of does this same “connection with your roots” thing, only not so much with Islam as with Africa itself. Not perfectly or perfectly true, but better. But neither is the Jewish people connecting with 2000 years ago Israel entirely true. But it’s true enough and it gives the identity the Jews need to survive. People need that historiocity. It’s crucial. So 1) it saved Obama, and 2) it’s a super American thing the way it saved him. The challenge is how not to lose a sufficiently large % of votes when people simply SEE what that Trinity website looks like. I appreciate that it’s not that different than a Huckabee or a Romney. Americans have these intense churches with intense sermons that we get a lot from. But in the case of Trinity, it has a militant tone. And black people still scare white people, though the heroes of the 20th century have begun to dismantle that. But Obama offers proof that when white people mix with black people, musically, socially sexually, through fighting or sports, or even if just mixing DNA, black people win. Obama is half and half, but he’s black. He is way more white then black, but because black is so much more powerful, he’s still “black.” America is ready for Bill Cosby, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan. I doubt we will ever be ready for anger from a black presidential candidate though. So once this story gets circulated, and people feel the anger coming off the page, it will be on Obama big time to somehow let the anger out, and reassert himself as a man of peace. But from all I’ve seen so far, I think he’ll do it.

The 3 am ad literally says: do you want somebody in the white house who already knows all the world’s leaders, as if being the president itself would not be enough. I really think Hilary has stopped to a new low with this ad. I think Barack should simply identify the types of situations that that call could represent (another terrorist attack, our nuclear submarine held hostage, etc., etc.) and in so doing both demonstrate his mastery of the complexities of foreign policy and show that he is capable of handling specific, not vague, scenarios.