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bleucheese
Veejay
Joined: Aug 01, 2003
Posts: 1993
Location: this side of the tracks
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 Posted:
Mar 25, 2008 - 08:39 AM |
 
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| Post subject: let the games begin (with us) |
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1310393,00.html
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/350131
prοtests Mar Olympic Torch lighting
Mar 24, 2008 12:22 PM
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece – prοtesters disrupted the Beijing Olympics flame-lighting ceremony in Ancient Olympia on Monday and a t¡betan woman covered in fake blood briefly blocked the path of the torchbearer.
prοtesters ran onto the stadium field during the ceremony, evading massive security aimed at preventing such disruptions in the wake of China's crackdown on t¡bet.
One man ran behind Liu Qi, president of the Beijing organizing committee and Beijing Communist Party Secretary, as Liu was giving a speech. The prοtester unfurled a black banner showing the Olympic rings as handcuffs.
Three prοtesters from the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders were detained.
"If the Olympic flame is sacred, human rights are even more so," the Paris-based group said in a statement. "We cannot let the Chinese government seize the Olympic flame, a symbol of peace, without denouncing the dramatic situation of human rights in the country."
China's Communist leadership has faced a public relations disaster since demonstrations against Chinese rule turned violent March 14 in the t¡betan capital of Lhasa, leading to waves of unrest in surrounding provinces. People who sympathize with the t¡betan cause have also staged rallies in other countries.
The death toll from the violence in t¡bet has varied and been impossible to confirm independently. China's reported death toll is 22, but t¡bet's exiled government says 80 t¡betans were killed. Another 19 died in subsequent violence in Gansu province, it said.
Greek officials said politics have no place at the ceremony at the 2,800-year-old birthplace of the ancient Games in southern Greece. More than 1,000 police were deployed ahead of expected prοtests by pro-t¡betan groups.
"The Greek government condemns every attempt to interfere with the ceremony for the lighting of the Olympic flame, through actions that have no relation at all with the Olympic Spirit," government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros said.
China state TV cut away from the prοtest at the ceremony and showed a prerecorded scene, preventing Chinese viewers from seeing the incident. Chinese television commentators did not mention the demonstration.
The flame for the Aug. 8-24 Games was lit using the sun's rays. From Olympia, the flame will embark on a 136,000-kilometre journey. The torch is to arrive March 31 in Beijing. It then will travel through 20 countries before returning to mainland China.
After the torch left the stadium, a t¡betan woman covered in red paint or dye lay in the road approaching the nearby village of ancient Olympia while other prοtesters chanted "Free t¡bet" and ``Shame on China."
The torchbearer came within a few metres of the prοtester, then stopped and ran in place while plainclothes police officers removed the woman. Police also dragged off a man accompanying her who was waving a t¡betan flag.
Police said the woman and the three members of Reporters Without Borders were being detained. One of the men arrested was Robert Menard, the group's general secretary.
"This is a disgrace," said Lampis Nikolaou, a Greek member of the IOC. "I am furious with these people ... who did not respect this site. Whatever their differences with China, they should express them in their own countries."
Chinese media reported that officials – who have blamed the unrest on the exiled t¡betan spiritual leader, the da1a¡ 1ama – were prepared to prevent disruptions of the torch relay when it crosses China's borders.
China's plans to take the torch through t¡bet and to the top of Mount Everest have upset t¡betan activist groups, which accuse Beijing of using the event to convey a false message of harmony in the troubled Himalayan region. Chinese Communist troops occupied t¡bet in 1951 and Beijing continues to rule the region with a heavy hand.
"The more determined the da1a¡ clique is to ruin the torch relay and the Olympic Games, the more hard and good work we need to do on the preparation and the implementation of all aspects," Yin Xunping, a Communist Party official, was quoted as saying by the t¡bet Daily newspaper.
The official Xinhua News Agency, did not give any details of what measures would be taken for the relay. A receptionist at the t¡bet sports bureau said no officials were available for comment Monday.
Mount Everest straddles the border between Nepal and t¡bet. China has already begun denying mountaineers permission to climb the t¡betan side of the mountain – a move that reflects government concerns that activists may try to disrupt its torch plans.
International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge told The Associated Press on Monday that he was engaged in "silent diplomacy" with China on t¡bet and other human rights issues.
"We are discussing on a daily basis with Chinese authorities, including discussing these issues, while strictly respecting the sovereignty of China in its affairs," he said.
But he also said there was no credible momentum for a boycott and that while he was concerned by the violence in t¡bet, the IOC could do no more than call for a peaceful resolution because it is a sports organization.
Germany rejected calls for an Olympic boycott on Monday. Some German athletes had reacted to the Chinese crackdown by supporting the calls for a boycott.
The German Olympic Sports Union said it was following the events in t¡bet with "great attention and concern" but pledged to send a team to the Games.
In Nepal, police in the capital Katmandu broke up at least two separate prοtests by t¡betan refugees and monks on Monday and arrested as many as 475 prοtesters, officials said.
Chanting "China, stop killings in t¡bet. U.N., we want justice," prοtesters were marching to U.N. headquarters in Katmandu when police stopped them about 100 metres away and snatched their banners.
Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered France as a go-between in any new talks between China and the representatives of the da1a¡ 1ama. Sarkozy called for "restraint" in t¡bet and to end the violence with dialogue.
A Liberation newspaper poll published Monday suggests most French people want Sarkozy to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics this summer to prοtest China's human rights situation, but think French athletes should compete.
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Associated Press writers Audra Ang in Beijing, Stephen Wilson in Ancient Olympia, Greece, Binaj Gurubacharya in Katmandu, Nepal, and Nesha Sarcevic in Frankfurt, Germany, contributed to this report. |
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hc
Post Roaster
Joined: Apr 04, 2007
Posts: 4545
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Mar 25, 2008 - 09:55 AM |
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Kiwi
Post Boaster
Joined: May 07, 2003
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Mar 25, 2008 - 10:37 AM |
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I don't think these t¡betan prοtesters want to restore slavery HC.
And assuming the woman covered in fake blood really is a t¡betan, are we in a good position to be questioning her sincerity? |
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p1atl10
Board Royalty
Joined: Mar 18, 2005
Posts: 6270
Location: Shanghai
Status: Offline
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Mar 25, 2008 - 10:51 AM |
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Greek officials said politics have no place at the ceremony at the 2,800-year-old birthplace of the ancient Games in southern Greece. More than 1,000 police were deployed ahead of expected prοtests by pro-t¡betan groups.
"The Greek government condemns every attempt to interfere with the ceremony for the lighting of the Olympic flame, through actions that have no relation at all with the Olympic Spirit," government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros said.
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Completely agree. No place for politcis. Full Stop.
| Quote: |
International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge told The Associated Press on Monday that he was engaged in "silent diplomacy" with China on t¡bet and other human rights issues.
"We are discussing on a daily basis with Chinese authorities, including discussing these issues, while strictly respecting the sovereignty of China in its affairs," he said.
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Do not agree.
Dear Mr Rogge,
Butt Out!
As the President of the IOC, you should above all others, be advocating the non-political philosophy of the organization and of the games.
If you want to take on a cause....Look to Sulabia.
They have lobbied the IOC for 12 years for recognition and the right to participate. |
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Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.....Dave Barry |
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hc
Post Roaster
Joined: Apr 04, 2007
Posts: 4545
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Mar 25, 2008 - 10:51 AM |
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"I don't think these t¡betan prοtesters want to restore slavery HC. "
Ah. Ok then, fine. If you say so....
I am sure that a lot of press time has been given to what make out of t¡bet after it gets "free"...
I guess they will be willing to install a democracy, american style right?
Sincerity? I'd go for naiveté. Indeed the useful idiots as per Lenin.
Now, let's go back in time for a while and let's pretend t¡bet was never "invaded".
Do you think a feudal unequal society, full of slaves and oppression would NOT be invaded or "liberated" by the USs of this world?
But let's talk about blood for a sec...
An interesting read for sure. It's long, but worth it.
Swans
Friendly Feudalism: The t¡bet Myth
by Michael Parenti
July 7, 2003
Throughout the ages there has prevailed a distressing symbiosis between religion and violence. The histories of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam are heavily laced with internecine vendettas, inquisitions, and wars. Again and again, religionists have claimed a divine mandate to terrorize and massacre heretics, infidels, and other sinners.
Some people have argued that Buddhism is different, that it stands in marked contrast to the chronic violence of other religions. But a glance at history reveals that Buddhist organizations throughout the centuries have not been free of the violent pursuits so characteristic of other religious groups. (1) In the twentieth century alone, from Thailand to Burma to Korea to Japan, Buddhists have clashed with each other and with nonBuddhists. In Sri Lanka, huge battles in the name of Buddhism are part of Sinhalese history. (2)
Just a few years ago in South Korea, thousands of monks of the Chogye Buddhist order---reputedly devoted to a meditative search for spiritual enlightenment---fought each other with fists, rocks, fire-bombs, and clubs, in pitched battles that went on for weeks. They were vying for control of the order, the largest in South Korea, with its annual budget of $9.2 million, its additional millions of dollars in property, and the privilege of appointing 1,700 monks to various duties. The brawls left dozens of monks injured, some seriously. (3)
But many present-day Buddhists in the United States would argue that none of this applies to the da1a¡ 1ama and the t¡bet he presided over before the Chinese crackdown in 1959. The da1a¡ 1ama's t¡bet, they believe, was a spiritually oriented kingdom, free from the egotistical lifestyles, empty materialism, pointless pursuits, and corrupting vices that beset modern industrialized society. Western news media, and a slew of travel books, novels, and Hollywood films have portrayed the t¡betan theocracy as a veritable Shangri-La and the da1a¡ 1ama as a wise saint, "the greatest living human," as actor Richard Gere gushed. (4)
The da1a¡ 1ama himself lent support to this idealized image of t¡bet with statements such as: "t¡betan civilization has a long and rich history. The pervasive influence of Buddhism and the rigors of life amid the wide open spaces of an unspoiled environment resulted in a society dedicated to peace and harmony. We enjoyed freedom and contentment." (5) In fact, t¡bet's history reads a little differently. In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand 1ama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into t¡bet to support the Grand 1ama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of da1a¡ (Ocean) 1ama, ruler of all t¡bet. Here is a historical irony: the first da1a¡ 1ama was installed by a Chinese army.
To elevate his authority beyond worldly challenge, the first da1a¡ 1ama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity. (6) The da1a¡ 1ama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends, writing erotic poetry, and acting in other ways that might seem unfitting for an incarnate deity. For this he was "disappeared" by his priests. Within 170 years, despite their recognized status as gods, five da1a¡ Lamas were murdered by their enlightened nonviolent Buddhist courtiers. (7)
Shangri-La (for Lords and Lamas)
Religions have had a close relationship not only to violence but to economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the t¡betan theocracy. Until 1959, when the da1a¡ 1ama last presided over t¡bet, most of the arable land was still organized into religious or secular manorial estates worked by serfs. Even a writer like Pradyumna Karan, sympathetic to the old order, admits that "a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches. . . . In addition, individual monks and lamas were able to accumulate great wealth through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending." ( Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries went to the higher-ranking lamas, many of them scions of aristocratic families, while most of the lower clergy were as poor as the peasant class from which they sprang. This class-determined economic inequality within the t¡betan clergy closely parallels that of the Christian clergy in medieval Europe.
Along with the upper clergy, secular leaders did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the t¡betan army, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. He also was a member of the da1a¡ 1ama's lay Cabinet. (9) Old t¡bet has been misrepresented by some of its Western admirers as "a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma." (10) In fact. it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order and catch runaway serfs. (11)
Young t¡betan boys were regularly taken from their families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they became bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common practice for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeated childhood rape not long after he was taken into the monastery at age nine. (12) The monastic estates also conscripted peasant children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.
In Old t¡bet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the "middle-class" families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. A small minority were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. (13)
In 1953, the greater part of the rural population -- some 700,000 of an estimated total population of 1,250,000 -- were serfs. Tied to the land, they were allotted only a small parcel to grow their own food. Serfs and other peasants generally went without schooling or medical care. They spent most of their time laboring for the monasteries and individual high-ranking lamas, or for a secular aristocracy that numbered not more than 200 wealthy families. In effect, they were owned by their masters who told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or 1ama. A serf might easily be separated from his family should the owner send him to work in a distant location. Serfs could be sold by their masters, or subjected to torture and death. (14)
A t¡betan lord would often take his pick of females in the serf population, if we are to believe one 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf: "All pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished." They "were just slaves without rights." (15) Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture and forcibly bring back those who tried to flee. A 24-year old runaway serf, interviewed by Anna Louise Strong, welcomed the Chinese intervention as a "liberation." During his time as a serf he claims he was not much different from a draft animal, subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold, unable to read or write, and knowing nothing at all. He tells of his attempts to flee:
The first time [the landlord's men] caught me running away, I was very small, and they only cuffed me and cursed me. The second time they beat me up. The third time I was already fifteen and they gave me fifty heavy lashes, with two men sitting on me, one on my head and one on my feet. Blood came then from my nose and mouth. The overseer said: "This is only blood from the nose; maybe you take heavier sticks and bring some blood from the brain." They beat then with heavier sticks and poured alcohol and water with caustic soda on the wounds to make more pain. I passed out for two hours. (16)
In addition to being under a lifetime bond to work the lord's land -- or the monastery's land -- without pay, the serfs were obliged to repair the lord's houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. "It was an efficient system of economic exploitation that guaranteed to the country's religious and secular elites a permanent and secure labor force to cultivate their land holdings without burdening them either with any direct day-to-day responsibility for the serf's subsistence and without the need to compete for labor in a market context." (17)
The common people labored under the twin burdens of the corvée (forced unpaid labor on behalf of the lord) and onerous tithes. They were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child, and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a new tree in their yard, for keeping domestic or barnyard animals, for owning a flower pot, or putting a bell on an animal. There were taxes for religious festivals, for singing, dancing, drumming, and bell ringing. People were taxed for being sent to prison and upon being released. Even beggars were taxed. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being placed into slavery for as long as the monastery demanded, sometimes for the rest of their lives. (1
The theocracy's religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their foolish and wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as an atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve upon being reborn. The rich and powerful of course treated their good fortune as a reward for -- and tangible evidence of -- virtue in past and present lives.
Torture and Mutilation in Shanghri-La
In the da1a¡ 1ama's t¡bet, torture and mutilation -- including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation of arms and legs -- were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, runaway serfs, and other "criminals." Journeying through t¡bet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: "When a holy 1ama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion." (19) Some Western visitors to Old t¡bet remarked on the number of amputees to be seen. Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then "left to God" in the freezing night to die. "The parallels between t¡bet and medieval Europe are striking," concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on t¡bet. (20)
Some monasteries had their own private prisons, reports Anna Louise Strong. In 1959, she visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the t¡betan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, and breaking off hands. For gouging out eyes, there was a special stone cap with two holes in it that was pressed down over the head so that the eyes bulged out through the holes and could be more readily torn out. There were instruments for slicing off kneecaps and heels, or hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disembowling. (21)
The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master's cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away. (22)
Theocratic despotism had been the rule for generations. An English visitor to t¡bet in 1895, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the t¡betan people were under the "intolerable tyranny of monks" and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the da1a¡ 1ama's rule as "an engine of oppression" and "a barrier to all human improvement." At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O'Connor, observed that "the great landowners and the priests . . . exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal," while the people are "oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft the world has ever seen." t¡betan rulers, like those of Europe during the Middle Ages, "forged innumerable weapons of servitude, invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition" among the common people. (23)
In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, "The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them, nor do laymen take part in or even attend the monastery services. The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth." (24)
Occupation and Revolt
The Chinese Communists occupied t¡bet in 1951, claiming suzerainty over that country. The 1951 treaty provided for ostensible self-government under the da1a¡ 1ama's rule but gave China military control and exclusive right to conduct foreign relations. The Chinese were also granted a direct role in internal administration "to promote social reforms." At first, they moved slowly, relying mostly on persuasion in an attempt to effect change. Among the earliest reforms they wrought was to reduce usurious interest rates, and build some hospitals and roads.
Mao Zedung and his Communist cadres did not simply want to occupy t¡bet. They desired the da1a¡ 1ama's cooperation in transforming t¡bet's feudal economy in accordance with socialist goals. Even Melvyn Goldstein, who is sympathetic to the da1a¡ 1ama and the cause of t¡betan independence, allows that "contrary to popular belief in the West," the Chinese "pursued a policy of moderation." They took care "to show respect for t¡betan culture and religion" and "allowed the old feudal and monastic systems to continue unchanged. Between 1951 and 1959, not only was no aristocratic or monastic property confiscated, but feudal lords were permitted to exercise continued judicial authority over their hereditarily bound peasants." (25) As late as 1957, Mao Zedung was trying to salvage his gradualist policy. He reduced the number of Chinese cadre and troops in t¡bet and promised the da1a¡ 1ama in writing that China would not implement land reforms in t¡bet for the next six years or even longer if conditions were not yet ripe. (26)
Nevertheless, Chinese rule over t¡bet greatly discomforted the lords and lamas. What bothered them most was not that the intruders were Chinese. They had seen Chinese come and go over the centuries and had enjoyed good relations with Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek and his reactionary Kuomintang rule in China. (27) Indeed the approval of the Kuomintang government was needed to validate the choice of the present-day da1a¡ 1ama and Panchen 1ama. When the young da1a¡ 1ama was installed in Lhasa, it was with an armed escort of Chiang Kaishek's troops and an attending Chinese minister, in accordance with centuries-old tradition. (2 What really bothered the t¡betan lords and lamas was that these latest Chinese were Communists. It would be only a matter of time, they were sure, before the Communists started imposing their egalitarian and collectivist solutions upon the highly privileged theocracy.
In 1956-57, armed t¡betan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). The uprising received extensive material support from the CIA, including arms, supplies, and military training for t¡betan commando units. It is a matter of public knowledge that the CIA set up support camps in Nepal, carried out numerous airlifts, and conducted guerrilla operations inside t¡bet. (29) Meanwhile in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA front, energetically publicized the cause of t¡betan resistance. The da1a¡ 1ama's eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, played an active role in that group.
Many of the t¡betan 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. (30) The small and thinly spread PLA garrisons in t¡bet could not have captured them all. The PLA must have received support from t¡betans who did not sympathize with the uprising. This suggests that the resistance had a rather narrow base within t¡bet. "Many lamas and lay members of the elite and much of the t¡betan army joined the uprising, but in the main the populace did not, assuring its failure," writes Hugh Deane. (31) In their book on t¡bet, Ginsburg and Mathos reach a similar conclusion: "The t¡betan insurgents never succeeded in mustering into their ranks even a large fraction of the population at hand, to say nothing of a majority. 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." (32) Eventually the resistance crumbled.
The Communists Overthrow Feudalism
Whatever wrongs and new oppressions introduced by the Chinese in t¡bet after 1959, they did abolish slavery and the serfdom system of unpaid labor. They eliminated the many crushing taxes, started work projects, and greatly reduced unemployment and beggary. They built the only hospitals that exist in the country, and established secular education, thereby breaking the educational monopoly of the monasteries. They constructed running water and electrical systems in Lhasa. They also put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a form of criminal punishment. (33)
The Chinese also expropriated the landed estates and reorganized the peasants into hundreds of communes. Heinrich Harrer wrote a bestseller about his experiences in t¡bet that was made into a popular Hollywood movie. (It was later revealed that Harrer had been a sergeant in Hitler's SS. (34)) He proudly reports that the t¡betans who resisted the Chinese and "who gallantly defended their independence . . . were predominantly nobles, semi-nobles and lamas; they were punished by being made to perform the lowliest tasks, such as laboring on roads and bridges. They were further humiliated by being made to clean up the city before the tourists arrived." They also had to live in a camp originally reserved for beggars and vagrants. (35)
By 1961, hundreds of thousands of acres formerly owned by the lords and lamas had been distributed to tenant farmers and landless peasants. In pastoral areas, herds that were once owned by nobility were turned over to collectives of poor shepherds. Improvements were made in the breeding of livestock, and new varieties of vegetables and new strains of wheat and barley were introduced, along with irrigation improvements, leading to an increase in agrarian production. (36)
Many peasants remained as religious as ever, giving alms to the clergy. But people were no longer compelled to pay tributes or make gifts to the monasteries and lords. The many monks who had been conscripted into the religious orders as children were now free to renounce the monastic life, and thousands did, especially the younger ones. The remaining clergy lived on modest government stipends, and extra income earned by officiating at prayer services, weddings, and funerals. (37)
The charges made by the da1a¡ 1ama himself about Chinese mass sterilization and forced deportation of t¡betans have remained unsupported by any evidence. Both the da1a¡ 1ama and his advisor and youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, claimed that "more than 1.2 million t¡betans are dead as a result of the Chinese occupation." (3 No matter how often stated, that figure is puzzling. The official 1953 census -- six years before the Chinese crackdown -- recorded the entire population of t¡bet at 1,274,000. Other estimates varied from one to three million. (39) Later census counts put the ethnic t¡betan population within the country at about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then whole cities and huge portions of the countryside, indeed almost all of t¡bet, would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves -- of which we have seen no evidence. The Chinese military force in t¡bet was not big enough to round up, hunt down, and exterminate that many people even if it had spent all its time doing nothing else.
Chinese authorities do admit to "mistakes" in the past, particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when religious persecution reached a high tide in both China and t¡bet. After the uprising in the late 1950s, thousands of t¡betans were incarcerated. During the Great Leap Forward, forced collectivization and grain farming was imposed on the peasantry, sometimes with disastrous effect. In the late 1970s, China began relaxing controls over t¡bet "and tried to undo some of the damage wrought during the previous two decades." (40) In 1980, the Chinese government initiated reforms reportedly designed to grant t¡bet a greater degree of self-rule and self-administration. t¡betans would now be allowed to cultivate private plots, sell their harvest surpluses, decide for themselves what crops to grow, and keep yaks and sheep. Communication with the outside world was again permitted, and frontier controls were eased to permit t¡betans to visit exiled relatives in India and Nepal. (41)
Elites, Émigrés, and CIA Money
For the t¡betan upper class lamas and lords, the Communist intervention was a calamity. Most of them fled abroad, as did the da1a¡ 1ama himself, who was assisted in his flight by the CIA. Some discovered to their horror that they would have to work for a living. Those feudal elites who remained in t¡bet and decided to cooperate with the new regime faced difficult adjustments. Consider the following:
In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited the Central Institute of National Minorities in Beijing which trained various ethnic minorities for the civil service or prepared them for entrance into agricultural and medical schools. Of the 900 t¡betan students attending, most were runaway serfs and slaves. But about 100 were from privileged t¡betan families, sent by their parents so that they might win favorable posts in the new administration. The class divide between these two groups of students was all too evident. As the institute's director noted:
Those from noble families at first consider that in all ways they are superior. They resent having to carry their own suitcases, make their own beds, look after their own room. This, they think, is the task of slaves; they are insulted because we expect them to do this. Some never accept it but go home; others accept it at last. The serfs at first fear the others and cannot sit at ease in the same room. In the next stage they have less fear but still feel separate and cannot mix. Only after some time and considerable discussion do they reach the stage in which they mix easily as fellow students, criticizing and helping each other. (42)
The émigrés' plight received fulsome play in the West and substantial support from U.S. agencies dedicated to making the world safe for economic inequality. Throughout the 1960s the t¡betan exile community secretly received $1.7 million a year from the CIA, according to documents released by the State Department in 1998. Once this fact was publicized, the da1a¡ 1ama's organization itself issued a statement admitting that it had received millions of dollars from the CIA during the 1960s to send armed squads of exiles into t¡bet to undermine the Maoist revolution. The da1a¡ 1ama's annual share was $186,000, making him a paid agent of the CIA. Indian intelligence also financed him and other t¡betan exiles. (43) He has refused to say whether he or his brothers worked with the CIA. The agency has also declined to comment. (44)
While presenting himself as a defender of human rights, and having won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the da1a¡ 1ama continued to associate with and be advised by aristocratic émigrés and other reactionaries during his exile. In 1995, the Raleigh, N.C. News & Observer carried a frontpage color photograph of the da1a¡ 1ama being embraced by the reactionary Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline "Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right." (45) In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the first George Bush, the da1a¡ 1ama called upon the British government to release Augusto Pinochet, the former fascist dictator of Chile and a longtime CIA client who had been apprehended while visiting England. He urged that Pinochet be allowed to return to his homeland rather than be forced to go to Spain where he was wanted by a Spanish jurist to stand trial for crimes against humanity.
Today, mostly through the National Endowment for Democracy and other conduits that are more respectable-sounding than the CIA, the US Congress continues to allocate an annual $2 million to t¡betans in India, with additional millions for "democracy activities" within the t¡betan exile community. The da1a¡ 1ama also gets money from financier George Soros, who now runs the CIA-created Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and other institutes. (46)
The Question of Culture
We are told that when the da1a¡ 1ama ruled t¡bet, the people lived in contented symbiosis with their monastic and secular lords, in a social order sustained by a deeply spiritual, nonviolent culture. The peasantry's profound connection to the existing system of sacred belief supposedly gave them a tranquil stability, inspired by humane and pacific religious teachings. One is reminded of the idealized imagery of feudal Europe presented by latter-day conservative Catholics such as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. For them, medieval Christendom was a world of contented peasants living in deep spiritual bond with their Church, under the protection of their lords. (47) The Shangri-La image of t¡bet bears no more resemblance to historic reality than does the romanticized image of medieval Europe.
It might be said that we denizens of the modern secular world cannot grasp the equations of happiness and pain, contentment and custom, that characterize more "spiritual" and "traditional" societies. This may be true, and it may explain why some of us idealize such societies. But still, a gouged eye is a gouged eye; a flogging is a flogging; and the grinding exploitation of serfs and slaves is still a brutal class injustice whatever its cultural embellishments. There is a difference between a spiritual bond and human bondage, even when both exist side by side.
To be sure, there is much about the Chinese intervention that is to be deplored. In the 1990s, the Han, the largest ethnic group comprising over 95 percent of China's vast population, began moving in substantial numbers into t¡bet and various western provinces. (4 These resettlements have had an effect on the indigenous cultures of western China and t¡bet. On the streets of Lhasa and Shigatse, signs of Chinese preeminence are readily visible. Chinese run the factories and many of the shops and vending stalls. Tall office buildings and large shopping centers have been built with funds that might have been better spent on water treatment plants and housing.
Chinese cadres in t¡bet too often adopted a supremacist attitude toward the indigenous population. Some viewed their t¡betan neighbors as backward and lazy, in need of economic development and "patriotic education." During the 1990s t¡betan government employees suspected of harboring nationalist sympathies were purged from office, and campaigns were launched to discredit the da1a¡ 1ama. Individual t¡betans reportedly were subjected to arrest, imprisonment, and forced labor for attempting to flee the country, and for carrying out separatist activities and engaging in political "subversion." Some arrestees were held in administrative detention without adequate food, water, and blankets, subjected to threats, beatings, and other mistreatment. (49)
Chinese family planning regulations that allow a three-child limit for t¡betan families have been enforced irregularly and vary by district. If a couple goes over the limit, the excess children can be denied subsidized daycare, health care, housing, and education. Meanwhile, t¡betan history, culture, and religion are slighted in schools. Teaching materials, though translated into t¡betan, focus on Chinese history and culture. (50)
Still, the new order has its supporters. A 1999 story in The Washington Post notes that the da1a¡ 1ama continues to be revered in t¡bet, but
. . . few t¡betans would welcome a return of the corrupt aristocratic clans that fled with him in 1959 and that comprise the bulk of his advisers. Many t¡betan farmers, for example, have no interest in surrendering the land they gained during China's land reform to the clans. t¡bet's former slaves say they, too, don't want their former masters to return to power.
"I've already lived that life once before," said Wangchuk, a 67-year-old former slave who was wearing his best clothes for his yearly pilgrimage to Shigatse, one of the holiest sites of t¡betan Buddhism. He said he worshipped the da1a¡ 1ama, but added, "I may not be free under Chinese communism, but I am better off than when I was a slave." (51)
To support the Chinese overthrow of the da1a¡ 1ama's feudal theocracy is not to applaud everything about Chinese rule in t¡bet. This point is seldom understood by today's Shangri-La adherents in the West.
The converse is also true. To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime. One common complaint among Buddhist proselytes in the West is that t¡bet's religious culture is being destroyed by the Chinese authorities. This does seem to be the case. But what I am questioning here is the supposedly admirable and pristinely spiritual nature of that pre-invasion culture. In short, we can advocate religious freedom and independence for t¡bet without having to embrace the mythology of a Paradise Lost.
Finally, it should be noted that the criticism posed herein is not intended as a personal attack on the da1a¡ 1ama. He appears to be a nice enough individual, who speaks often of peace, love, and nonviolence. In 1994, in an interview with Melvyn Goldstein, he went on record as having been since his youth in favor of building schools, "machines," and roads in his country. He claims that he thought the corvée and certain taxes imposed on the peasants "were extremely bad." And he disliked the way people were saddled with old debts sometimes passed down from generation to generation. (52) Furthermore, he reportedly has established "a government-in-exile" featuring a written constitution, a representative assembly, and other democratic essentials. (53)
Like many erstwhile rulers, the da1a¡ 1ama sounds much better out of power than in power. Keep in mind that it took a Chinese occupation and almost forty years of exile for him to propose democracy for t¡bet and to criticize the oppressive feudal autocracy of which he himself was the apotheosis. But his criticism of the old order comes far too late for ordinary t¡betans. Many of them want him back in their country, but it appears that relatively few want a return to the social order he represented.
In a book published in 1996, the da1a¡ 1ama proffered a remarkable statement that must have sent shudders through the exile community. It reads in part as follows:
Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. Marxism is concerned with the distribution of wealth on an equal basis and the equitable utilization of the means of production. It is also concerned with the fate of the working classes-that is the majority -- as well as with the fate of those who are underprivileged and in need, and Marxism cares about the victims of minority-imposed exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to me, and it seems fair. . . .
The failure of the regime in the Soviet Union was, for me not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist. (54)
And more recently in 2001, while visiting California, he remarked that "t¡bet, materially, is very, very backward. Spiritually it is quite rich. But spirituality can't fill our stomachs." (55) Here is a message that should be heeded by the affluent well-fed Buddhist proselytes in the West who cannot be bothered with material considerations as they romanticize feudal t¡bet.
Buddhism and the da1a¡ 1ama aside, what I have tried to challenge is the t¡bet myth, the Paradise Lost image of a social order that was little more than a despotic retrograde theocracy of serfdom and poverty, so damaging to the human spirit, where vast wealth was accumulated by a favored few who lived high and mighty off the blood, sweat, and tears of the many. For most of the t¡betan aristocrats in exile, that is the world to which they fervently desire to return. It is a long way from Shangri-La.
· · · · · ·
Michael Parenti is an internationally known author and lecturer. He is one of the nation's leading progressive political analysts. Parenti received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1962. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities, in the United States and abroad. Parenti's most recent books are To Kill a Nation (Verso); The Terrorism Trap (City Lights); and The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome (New Press). You can find more information about Michael Parenti at michaelparenti.org.
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This Week's Internal Links
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No More Posse Comitatus - Poem by Gerard Donnelly Smith
Seeing Through It All - Poem by Scott Orlovsky
Notes
1. Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, t¡bet, and the da1a¡ 1ama (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 6-16. (back)
2. Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 113. (back)
3. Kyong-Hwa Seok, "Korean monk gangs battle for temple turf," San Francisco Examiner, December 3, 1998. (back)
4. Gere quoted in "Our Little Secret," CounterPunch, 1-15 November 1997. (back)
5. da1a¡ 1ama quoted in Donald Lopez Jr., Prisoners of Shangri-La: t¡betan Buddhism and the West (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1998), 205. (back)
6. Stuart Gelder and Roma Gelder, The Timely Rain: Travels in New t¡bet (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1964), 119. (back)
7. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 123. (back)
8. Pradyumna P. Karan, The Changing Face of t¡bet: The Impact of Chinese Communist Ideology on the Landscape (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1976), 64. (back)
9. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 62 and 174. (back)
10. As skeptically noted by Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, 9. (back)
11. See the testimony of one serf who himself had been hunted down by t¡betan soldiers and returned to his master: Anna Louise Strong, t¡betan Interviews (Peking: New World Press, 1929), 29-30 90. (back)
12. Melvyn Goldstein, William Siebenschuh, and Tashì-Tsering, The Struggle for Modern t¡bet: The Autobiography of Tashì-Tsering (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1997). (back)
13. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 110. (back)
14. Strong, t¡betan Interviews, 15, 19-21, 24. (back)
15. Quoted in Strong, t¡betan Interviews, 25. (back)
16. Strong, t¡betan Interviews, 31. (back)
17. Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern t¡bet 1913-1951 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 5. (back)
18. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 175-176; and Strong, t¡betan Interviews, 25-26. (back)
19. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 113. (back)
20. A. Tom Grunfeld, The Making of Modern t¡bet rev. ed. (Armonk, N.Y. and London: 1996), 9 and 7-33 for a general discussion of feudal t¡bet; see also Felix Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), 241-249; Goldstein, A History of Modern t¡bet 1913-1951, 3-5; and Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, passim. (back)
21. Strong, t¡betan Interviews, 91-92. (back)
22. Strong, t¡betan Interviews, 92-96. (back)
23. Waddell, Landon, and O'Connor are quoted in Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 123-125. (back)
24. Quoted in Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 125. (back)
25. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 52. (back)
26. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 54. (back)
27. Heinrich Harrer, Return to t¡bet (New York: Schocken, 1985), 29. (back)
28. Strong, t¡betan Interview, 73. (back)
29. See Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA's Secret War in t¡bet (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2002); and William Leary, "Secret Mission to t¡bet," Air & Space, December 1997/January 1998. (back)
30. Leary, "Secret Mission to t¡bet." (back)
31. Hugh Deane, "The Cold War in t¡bet," CovertAction Quarterly (Winter 1987). (back)
32. George Ginsburg and Michael Mathos Communist China and t¡bet (1964), quoted in Deane, "The Cold War in t¡bet." Deane notes that author Bina Roy reached a similar conclusion. (back)
33. See Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance, 248 and passim; and Grunfeld, The Making of Modern t¡bet, passim. (back)
34. Los Angeles Times, 18 August 1997. (back)
35. Harrer, Return to t¡bet, 54. (back)
36. Karan, The Changing Face of t¡bet, 36-38, 41, 57-58; London Times, 4 July 1966. (back)
37. Gelder and Gelder, The Timely Rain, 29 and 47-48. (back)
38. Tendzin Choegyal, "The Truth about t¡bet," Imprimis (publication of Hillsdale College, Michigan), April 1999. (back)
39. Karan, The Changing Face of t¡bet, 52-53. (back)
40. Elaine Kurtenbach, Associate Press report, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 February 1998. (back)
41. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 47-48. (back)
42. Strong, t¡betan Interviews, 15-16. (back)
43. Jim Mann, "CIA Gave Aid to t¡betan Exiles in '60s, Files Show," Los Angeles Times, 15 September 1998; and New York Times, 1 October, 1998. (back)
44. Reuters report, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 January 1997. (back)
45. News & Observer, 6 September 1995, cited in Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, 3. (back)
46. Heather Cottin, "George Soros, Imperial Wizard," CovertAction Quarterly no. 74 (Fall 2002). (back)
47. The Gelders draw this comparison, The Timely Rain, 64. (back)
48. The Han have also moved into Xinjiang, a large northwest province about the size of t¡bet, populated by Uighurs; see Peter Hessler, "The Middleman," New Yorker, 14 & 21 October 2002. (back)
49. Report by the International Committee of Lawyers for t¡bet, A Generation in Peril (Berkeley Calif.: 2001), passim. (back)
50. International Committee of Lawyers for t¡bet, A Generation in Peril, 66-68, 98. (back)
51. John Pomfret, "t¡bet Caught in China's Web," Washington Post, 23 July 1999. (back)
52. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon, 51. (back)
53. Tendzin Choegyal, "The Truth about t¡bet." (back)
54. The da1a¡ 1ama in Marianne Dresser (ed.), Beyond Dogma: Dialogues and Discourses (Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 1996). (back)
55. Quoted in San Francisco Chronicle, 17 May 2001. (back)
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About the author:
Michael Parenti
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Michael Parenti
Born 1933
Occupation political scientist, historian, media critic
Nationality American
Michael Parenti (born 1933) is an American political scientist, historian, and media critic.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Background
* 2 Social and political analyses
o 2.1 Racism
o 2.2 Culture and social structure
+ 2.2.1 Role of US media
+ 2.2.2 Culture across the globe
+ 2.2.3 Role of voting fraud in US elections
o 2.3 Class and class power
+ 2.3.1 US downplay of class
o 2.4 Democracy and capitalism
o 2.5 Technology, money, and deficit spending
o 2.6 Fascism
o 2.7 Empire
o 2.8 Communism
o 2.9 Social democracy
o 2.10 Ecology
o 2.11 History and historiography
* 3 Bibliography
* 4 References in popular culture
* 5 External links
* 6 References
[edit] Background
Parenti received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University and has taught at several universities, colleges, and other institutions. He is the author of twenty books and many more articles. His works have been translated into at least eighteen languages.[1] Parenti lectures frequently throughout the United States and abroad. His book, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, A People's History of Ancient Rome,[2] was selected as a Book of the Year for 2004[3] by Online Review of Books and Current Affairs.[4] He is the father of author and The Nation magazine contributor Christian Parenti.
Parenti’s writings cover a wide range of subjects: U.S. politics, culture, ideology, political economy, imperialism, fascism, communism, democratic socialism, free-market orthodoxies, conservative judicial activism, religion, ancient history, modern history, historiography, repression in academia, news and entertainment media, technology, environmentalism, sexism, racism, homophobia, Venezuela, the wars in Iraq and Yugoslavia, ethnicity, and his own early life.[5][6][7] Perhaps his most influential book is Democracy for the Few[8], now in its eighth edition, a critical analysis of U.S. society, economy, and political institutions[9] and a college-level political science textbook published by Wadsworth Publishing.[10]
Parenti lectures across the United States, Canada and abroad.[11] In recent years he has addressed such subjects as "Empires: Past and Present," "US Interventionism: the Case of Iraq," "Race, Gender, and Class Power," "Ideology and History," "The Collapse of Communism," and "Terrorism and Globalization."[1]
Michael Parenti was raised in an Italian-American working-class family and neighborhood in New York City about which he has written.[12] For many years Parenti taught political and social science at various institutions of higher learning. Eventually he devoted himself full-time to writing, public speaking, and political activism.[13]
In Washington, D.C., in 2003, the Caucus for a New Political Science gave him a Career Achievement Award. In 2007 he received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from U.S. Representative Barbara Lee and an award from New Jersey Peace Action. For several years in the 1980s, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.
He now serves on the board of judges for Project Censored, and on the advisory boards of Independent Progressive Politics Network, and Education Without Borders; as well as the advisory editorial boards of New Political Science and Nature, Society and Thought.[14]
[edit] Social and political analyses
Parenti has covered many subjects in 45 years of teaching, writing, and speaking. The broad outlines of some of these are summarized below.
[edit] Racism
Parenti argues that western[verification needed] racism is systemic and historical in nature and should be regarded as more than just an attitudinal problem. He claims western racism has its origins in imperialism and slavery: To justify the colonial plunder of another nation or entire continent (as in the case of Africa) as well as the enslavement of conquered populations, imperialists and/or slave traffickers dehumanize their victims and define them as moral inferiors and subhuman.
Parenti maintains that racism serves several functions for ruling interests in the United States:[15]
1. It divides the working class against each other.
2. It creates a "super-exploited" group of people who are forced to work at below scale wages thereby depressing wage levels for the entire workforce.
3. It distracts the (United States) white population from its own legitimate grievances by providing an irrelevant scapegoat in the form of minority populations
[edit] Culture and social structure
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, becoming increasingly critical of the existing socio-economic system, Parenti argued that images of the United States as a pluralistic, democratic society were more ideological than accurate. He did not deny the existence of a vast plurality of social, ethnic, and regional groups in America, but he felt that this group pluralism did not translate into a democratic pluralism in political life. Only limited portions of the political process are accessed by the general populace. Power in America is not broadly distributed, according to Parenti, but is highly concentrated in a social structure dominated by corporate moneyed interests, whose influence predominates in most mainstream institutions and major policy areas.[8] Parenti maintains that the resources of power are lodged in the social structure itself, the culture, institutions, and established social roles, and that ruling elements maintain their dominant positions not only by raw economic power but by attaining “cultural hegemony,” a concept formulated earlier by Antonio Gramsci (whom Parenti cites).[16]
[edit] Role of US media
With respect to the US media Parenti has maintained that, while news coverage can be marred by problems of deadlines, space, and ordinary human error, much of the misleading coverage is the result of carefully honed ideological production. Reporters, he says, often exercise much skill to avoid the more important points of a story or news analysis so as not to offend anyone who wields substantial political and economic power, including their own bosses and corporate advertisers. Parenti concludes that their goal is to avoid fishing too deeply into troubled waters thereby maintaining an appearance of objectivity and moderation. Their careers, he suggests, depend in part upon their ability to equate centrist views with “objectivity,” and to stay within the prevailing ideological orthodoxy.[17]
Parenti’s treatment of entertainment media (movies and television) continues the argument that the media are not neutral and favor elitist interests. Exploring a wide range of films and programs, he has attempted to demonstrate that the entertainment media do more than entertain; they indoctrinate by propagating values in keeping with their corporate ownership and corporate advertisers.[18]
Parenti often attacks specific examples of the misleading coverage provided by the US media. In Blackshirts and Reds[19] he cites historian J. Arch Getty's figures to demonstrate the exaggeration elsewhere in the US media of the executions effected by Joseph Stalin in the Great Purge. Parenti critically reviews Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia[20] in "The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic"[21] and To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia [22], finding similar exaggeration of war crimes in the breakup of the second Yugoslavia. In "Friendly Feudalism: The t¡bet Myth"[23] he observes, "western news media, travel books, novels, and Hollywood films have portrayed the t¡betan theocracy as a veritable Shangri-La" then goes on to detail what he feels were its negative aspects.
[edit] Culture across the globe
Parenti maintains that, far from being neutral, culture is often ideologically driven in a highly skewed system of social power, benefiting some groups at the expense of others. “Growing portions of our culture are increasingly commodified and mass marketed.” “So we buy more and more of our culture and create less and less of it.” Rather than being accepted at face value, Parenti says that all cultures should be subjected to critical investigation to be judged by “universal human rights standards” and by the criticisms voiced by those who are victimized within the various cultures of the world. Parenti gives extensive attention to those who are regularly victimized by their own cultures, providing examples in chapters entitled “Custom Against Women,” “The Global Rape Culture,” and “Racist Myths.” [24]
[edit] Role of voting fraud in US elections
Parenti is among those who have cited a variety of studies claiming that the 2004 presidential election was fraudulent. In an essay entitled "The Stolen Election of 2004"[25] he argued that modern voting technology allowed powerful corporations to manipulate the electoral results. He concluded the article by observing, about the forthcoming US election, "Given this situation, it is not likely that the GOP will lose control of Congress come November 2006. The two-party monopoly threatens to become an even worse one-party tyranny." In an updated analysis of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, he adds a postscript explaining why---despite the massive crossover reported in the polls away from the GOP—the Democrats won only a slim victory in the Congressional 2006 elections.” [26]
[edit] Class and class power
Parenti stresses the role of class in all societies, particularly the purportedly classless US one. He extends the definition of class as a demographic trait relating to status, education, lifestyle, and income level to include the effects of social interrelationships. He observes that there can be no rich slaveholders without poor slaves, no powerful feudal lords without serfs, no corporate bosses without workers. The interrelationship is highly asymmetrical. It centers on the organized wealth of the society.[8]
Parenti also believes that there is a third factor involved in class relationships, specifically the productive resources (land, agriculture, herds, natural resources, factories, technology, etc.). The dominant group in class relationships owns or controls these economic resources. The weaker class historically has had only its labor to sell. Hence the “dominant money classes” exercise a preponderant influence over workforces, markets, major investments, consumption patterns, media, and public policies. Parenti concludes that when discussing class, class power, how it is used, for whose interests, and at whose expense must also be discussed.[27]
[edit] US downplay of class
Parenti has repeatedly criticized the tendency among many who profess to be progressive to downplay the importance of class and class power as a formative force as compared to race, gender, and culture. He allows that each of these other categories of social experience have imperatives that are distinctly their own, sometimes of a life-and-death urgency. Still they should not be seen as being mutually exclusive of, or in competition with, considerations of class power in society, he argues, and should not be used as a means of evading class analysis. [28]
[edit] Democracy and capitalism
From the late 60s well into the 80s, Parenti was one of many radicals and socialists who questioned the validity and value of what they called “bourgeois democracy,” seeing it more as a charade to mislead the people into thinking that they were free and self-governing. By the late 80s, however, he noticeably modified his position, arguing that democracy should not be thought of as merely a subterfuge or cloak created by ruling elites, although it certainly can serve that purpose. More often, Parenti claimed, whatever modicum of democracy the people attain in any society is usually the outcome of genuine struggle for a more equitable politico-economic order. Why credit the corporate class with giving people a “bourgeois democracy,” he asks, when in fact the ruling plutocrats furiously opposed most democratic advances in U.S. history, be it the extension of the franchise or the struggle for ethnic and gender equality, more direct forms of representation, more room for dissent and free speech, greater accountability of elected officials, and more equitable socio-economic domestic programs.[8]
According to Parenti, reacting to mainstream commentators who turn every systemic vice and deficiency into a virtue, left critics of the status quo, seeing no real victories or progress in the centuries of popular struggle, have felt compelled to turn every virtue into a vice. To counter this trend, he says, people should recognize that real gains have been made, that democracy refuses to die, and both at home and abroad popular forces continue the democratic struggle, even against great odds.[29]
For Parenti, democracy has two basic dimensions, the procedural and the substantive, both of which are equally important. Procedural democracy consists of the basic political forms: free speech and assembly, the right to dissent, accountability of officeholders, the right to vote in regular and honest elections, etc. Substantive democracy consists of egalitarian socio-economic outputs that advance the well-being of the populace, protect the environment, and curb the abuses and often untrammeled powers of great wealth. Parenti quotes the German sociologist Max Weber who remarked almost a century earlier that it remains to be seen whether democracy and freedom can exist under the dominion of a highly developed capitalism.[8]
Parenti concludes that “there is no one grand, secret, power elite governing this country, but numerous coteries of corporate and governmental elites that communicate and coordinate across various policy realms. Behind their special interests are the common overall interests of the moneyed class,” which is not to say that differences never arise among these elites.
[edit] Technology, money, and deficit spending
Parenti believes that people's thinking about past and present developments needs to be contextualized, that is, seen in a social context of power and ideology. He gives the examples of technology and money. Both are seen as neutral entities that are inherently neither good nor bad. This may be true hypothetically, he writes, but in reality both technology and money have been developed within specific historical contexts by powerful interests that gained great advantage from their development. Almost all technology, he argues, is devoted to advancing the interests of higher circles, maximizing profits and corporate production, or in the case of government, maximizing surveillance, communication, and military striking power. New advances in technology are not neutral things. They impact upon us and our environment in ways that can advantage some and hurt others, according to Parenti. He writes similarly about money: “Like technology, money has a feedback effect of its own, advantaging the already advantaged,” liquefying wealth, making it easier to mobilize and accumulate. And with the growth of moneyed wealth comes a greater concentration and command over technology by the moneyed class.[30]
Few phenomena in the social order can operate with neutral effect even if supposedly pursued with neutral intent, according to Parenti. The national debt is a good example. Considered merely as a “problem” of excessive government spending, the national debt in fact works well for certain interests, specifically the moneyed class, Parenti claims. By 1977 he noted how the national debt brought a transfer of income from the taxpayers to the wealthy creditors, the holders of government bonds. The greater the debt, the greater the upward transfer, as the government continues to borrow money from those they should be taxing (the big money interests). Parenti concludes it is no accident that the biggest deficit spenders have been conservative presidents like Ronald Reagan and both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. The national debt is in effect a way of privatizing public spending and defunding the federal budget, Parenti argues. The bigger the debt, the less money available for domestic programs, and the more money that goes from the pockets of ordinary taxpayers to rich creditors.[8]
[edit] Fascism
Parenti’s treatment of fascism differs from that of the many writers who stress the irrational features of fascism: its state idolatry, nationalistic atavism, and leadership cult. While not denying that these are key components in the propagation of fascism’s appeal, he invites us not to overlook the “rational politico economic functions” that fascism performed. “Much of politics is the rational manipulation of irrational symbols,” he claims. The emotive appeals of fascist ideology have served a class-control function, “distracting the populace from their legitimate grievances and directing their frustrations at various scapegoats.”
Most of the immense literature on the subject of fascism and Nazism focuses on who supported Hitler’s rise to power. Relatively little, Parenti writes, is said about whom the Nazis supported when they came to power. In both fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, he points out, wages were cut drastically, domestic programs were rolled back, huge subsidies were given to heavy industry, labor unions were broken, taxes on the very rich were greatly reduced or eliminated altogether, and workplace safety regulations were ignored or abolished. Fascism, he concludes, has a much overlooked politico- economic agenda; it involves something more than just goose stepping.[31]
[edit] Empire
U.S. foreign policy is neither confused nor bungling, according to Parenti. It is quite consistently directed toward certain goals, and is largely successful. For the most part, U.S. leaders have maintained friendly relations with those governments that have opened up their countries to Western corporate investors, and have shown hostility toward those countries that have tried to use their land, labor, natural resources, and markets for their own self-development, Parenti believes. Iraq was targeted for “having committed economic nationalism,” with a state-run economy that pretty much shut out Western investors. The same holds true for Yugoslavia, he claims. Both countries were bombed and invaded, and their public economies were shattered. Parenti believes that Yugoslavia was transformed from a viable social democracy to a cluster of little right-wing mini-republics.
Parenti's beliefs led him to become head of the United States chapter of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević,[32] in which capacity he added to the criticisms of bias in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia[33][34]
Parenti also maintains that the U.S. empire feeds off the U.S. republic. The empire’s expansion abroad entails increasing costs for the republic. Ventures that are profitable for military contractors and overseas investors have to be paid in blood and taxes by the American populace. The many third world countries that are the targets of colonial intervention pay the highest price, he writes. They suffer not from underdevelopment, but from “maldevelopment,” a result of generations of overexploitation.[35]
[edit] Communism
Many on the left continue to deliver impassioned and blanket condemnations of deceased communist countries, Parenti notes. “Those of us who refused to join in the Soviet bashing were branded by left anti-communists as ‘Soviet apologists’ and ‘Stalinists,’ even if we disliked Stalin and his autocratic system of rule and believed there were things seriously wrong with existing Soviet society.”[19]
Parenti did in fact make a number of criticisms of the Soviet Union. In 1986 he wrote: "In the USSR there exist serious problems of labor productivity, industrialization, urbanization, bureaucracy, corruption, and alcoholism. There are production and distribution bottlenecks, plan failures, consumer scarcities, criminal abuses of power, suppression of dissidents, and expressions of alienation among some of the population."[36]
More recently he wrote that the state owned economies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union suffered “fatal distortions in their development” because of the years of “embargo, invasion, devastating wars, and costly arms buildup; excessive bureaucratization and poor incentive systems; lack of administrative initiative and technological innovation; and a repressive political rule that allowed little critical expression and feedback while fostering stagnation and elitism.”[6]
Parenti argues that “despite the well-publicized deficiencies, crimes, and injustices, there were positive features about existing communist systems that were worth preserving, such as the free medical care and human services; affordable food, fuel, transportation, and housing; universal literacy; gains in women’s rights; free education to the highest level of one’s ability; a guaranteed right to a job; free cultural and sporting events, and the like.”[6] He supported Gorbachev’s campaign of perestroika and glasnost until 1990 when it became evident to him that the Gorbachev reforms were leading to the implantation of free-market capitalism and were bringing hardships to the common people.[37]
[edit] Social democracy
Parenti maintains that the structural problems of free-market transnational capitalism will only worsen the living standards of people in the United States and abroad, while deepening the environmental crises. He advocates a greater measure of public ownership in the USA. Parenti asks “can socialism work? ... Is it not just a dream in theory and a nightmare in practice? Can the government produce anything of worth?”[8] He goes on to point out that it already does citing publicly owned transportation systems, utilities, banking, education, and health services that are run efficiently by the governments of the USA and various social democracies and at far less cost than their private counterparts.
[edit] Ecology
Parenti points to the increasingly catastrophic droughts, storms, floods, and abnormally high temperatures in many parts of the world to justify a hypothesis that the widely discussed ecological crisis of global warming will not be upon us “by the end of the century” or “in the lives of our grandchildren,” but is already happening today. He builds on this in an essay, "Why the Corporate Rich Oppose Environmentalism,"[6] to argue that immediate and immense profits that come at a cost to the environment are of more concern to corporate investors than the diffuse and long-run damage done to the global ecology.
[edit] History and historiography
Much of Parenti’s work draws upon history. In his History as Mystery[38] he takes the old adage that history is written by the victors and flushes it out with examples drawn from ancient and modern times. In regard to early Christianity, for instance, he maintains that, contrary to popular notions, the “Jesus worshipers” did not gather most of their followers from the poor and downtrodden but from the more affluent strata. Some Christian leaders discouraged slaves from converting to Christianity. Slaves were prohibited from becoming church deacons or priests, he maintains. Contrary to conventional US notions, he argues that the Christians were not the keepers of learning and scholarship during the Dark Ages but played a relentless role in destroying all the advanced learning and all the libraries of antiquity that were in their reach.
In The Assassination of Julius Caesar,[2] he states that many historians, both ancient and modern, have treated popular insurgencies and the common people with fear and loathing, depicting them as mindless rootless mobs of ne’er-do-wells. He also argues that Caesar and other popular reformers of the Roman Republic before him were assassinated not because they were violating the Roman constitution but because they were advocating reforms that benefited the commoners at a cost to the aristocracy.
[edit] Bibliography
* The Anti-Communist Impulse, Random House, 1970.
* Trends and Tragedies in American Foreign Policy, Little, Brown, 1971.
* Ethnic and Political Attitudes, Arno, 1975.
* Democracy for the Few, First Edition circa 1974, Eighth Edition 2007.[8]
* Power and the Powerless, St. Martin's Press, 1978.
* Inventing Reality: the Politics of News Media. First edition 1986, Second Edition 1993.
* The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race, St. Martin's, 1989.
* Make-Believe Media: the Politics of Entertainment, St. Martin's Press, 1992.
* Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America, St. Martin's, 1993.
* Against Empire, City Lights, 1995.
* Dirty Truths, City Lights Books, 1996. Includes some autobiographical essays.
* Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1997.
* America Besieged, City Lights, 1998.
* History as Mystery, City Lights, 1999.
* To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia, Verso, 2000.
* The Terrorism Trap: September 11 and Beyond, City Lights, 2002.
* The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome, The New Press, 2003.[2]
* Superpatriotism, City Lights, 2004.
* The Culture Struggle, Seven Stories Press, 2006.
* Contrary Notions, City Lights Books, 2007.[6]
[edit] References in popular culture
* New York City based ska punk band Choking Victim use a number of samples from Michael Parenti's lectures in their album, No Gods, No Managers.
* Los Angeles based crust punk band Against Empire took their name from Michael Parenti's 1995 book of the same name.
[edit] External links
* Michael Parenti Political Archive maintained by Michael Parenti
* Talks by Michael Parenti - MP3 format.
* TUC Radio's Michael Parenti Archive - recordings available on CD and DVD.
[edit] References
1. ^ a b Biography of Michael Parenti. Michael Parenti. Retrieved on 25 December, 2007.
2. ^ a b c ,Parenti, Michael (September 2004). The Assassination of Julius Caesar, A People's History of Ancient Rome. New Press, 276. ISBN 9781565849426.
3. ^ Online Review of Books & Current Affairs, January 2005 (January 2005). Retrieved on 25 December, 2007.
4. ^ (About) Online Review of Books & Current Affairs. Retrieved on 26 December, 2007.
5. ^ Articles and Other Published Selections. Michael Parenti. Retrieved on 25 December, 2007.
6. ^ a b c d e Parenti, Michael (August 2007). Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader. City Lights Books, 403. ISBN 9780872864825.
7. ^ Books by Michael Parenti. Michael Parenti. Retrieved on 25 December, 2007.
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Parenti, Michael (February 2007). Democracy for the Few, Eight, Wadsworth Publishing Company, 322. ISBN 9780495007449.
9. ^ Lendman, Stephen (September 2007). Democracy for the Few, Review by Stephen Lendman. populistamerica.com (web site of the US Populist Party). Retrieved on 26 December, 2007.
10. ^ CENGAGE Learning. WADSWORTH CENGAGE Learning political science. Retrieved on 3 January, 2008.
11. ^ Speaking Engagements by Michael Parenti. Michael Parenti. Retrieved on 25 December, 2007.
12. ^ Parenti, Michael (August 2007). "La Famiglia: An Ethno-Class Experience", Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader. City Lights Books, 403. ISBN 9780872864825.
13. ^ Parenti, Michael (1996). "Struggles in Academe: A Personal Account", Dirty Truths. ISBN 0872863174.
14. ^ Parenti, Michael. Michael Parenti Political Archive. Retrieved on 2 January, 2008.
15. ^ Parenti, Michael (2006). The Culture Struggle. ISBN 9781583227046.
16. ^ Parenti, Michael (1978). Power and the Powerless. ISBN 0312633734.
17. ^ Parenti, Michael (1986). "The Politics of News Media", Inventing Reality. ISBN 031243474X.
18. ^ Parenti, Michael (1992). Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment. ISBN 0312056036.
19. ^ a b Parenti, Michael (1997). Blackshirts and Reds. ISBN 0872863298.
20. ^ Sell, Louis (2002). Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. Duke University Press.
21. ^ Parenti, Michael (December 2003). The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic. Retrieved on 25 December, 2007.
22. ^ Parenti, Michael (2000). To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia. Verso.
23. ^ Parenti, Michael (2007). ["http://www.michaelparenti.org/t¡bet.html" "Friendly Feudalism: The t¡bet Myth"]. Retrieved on January 10, 2008.
24. ^ Parenti, Michael (2006). The Culture Struggle. ISBN 9781583227046.
25. ^ ZNet Commentary: The Stolen Election of 2004 (July 2006). Retrieved on 25 December, 2007.
26. ^ The Stolen Presidential Elections (May 2007). Retrieved on 11 January, 2008.
27. ^ Parenti, Michael (August 2007). "The Flight From Class", Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader. City Lights Books, 403. ISBN 9780872864825.
28. ^ Parenti, Michael (1997). "9", Blackshirts & Reds. City Lights Books, 141-160. ISBN 0872863298.
29. ^ Parenti, Michael (February 2007). "preface", Democracy for the Few, Eight, Wadsworth Publishing Company, 322. ISBN 9780495007449.
30. ^ Parenti, Michael (August 2007). "Technology and Money: The Myth of Neutrality", Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader. City Lights Books, 403. ISBN 9780872864825.
31. ^ Parenti, Michael (1997). ""Rational Facism"", Blackshirts and Reds. ISBN 0872863298.
32. ^ International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević (official website). Committee members (December 2003). Retrieved on 25 December, 2007.
33. ^ Parenti, Michael (December 2003). Two letters by Michael Parenti. On the official website of the ICDSM. Retrieved on 25 December, 2007.
34. ^ International Action Center press release: Public announcement of the formation of the U.S. section of the ICDSM and a statement against the ICTY's most recent violations of international law and human rights (December 2003). Retrieved on 25 December, 2007.
35. ^ Parenti, Michael (1995). Against Empire. ISBN 0872862984.
36. ^ Parenti, Michael (1986). Inventing Reality. ISBN 031243474X.
37. ^ "Reflections on the Overthrow of Communism". Michael Parenti. Michael Parenti Archive. TUC Radio.
38. ^ "Parenti", "Michael" (September 1999). "History as Mystery". "City Light Books", 304. ISBN 9780872863576.
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Click here to read the latest retarded PM Natalie sent me. Let's make her lose face and FINALLY leave this site. |
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110111
Lurker
Joined: Mar 16, 2008
Posts: 32
Status: Offline
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| Posted:
Mar 25, 2008 - 11:04 AM |
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| Kiwi wrote: |
| And assuming the woman covered in fake blood really is a t¡betan, are we in a good position to be questioning her sincerity? |
Yes we are.
Anyone who brings bloodshed to the peaceful even, their true purpose is questionable. |
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