More unrest in Tibet

For those of you who are interested in the Tibetan Nationalist movement and it’s goings on, here’s an interesting AP article for you (full version here):

BEIJING – Hundreds of Tibetans attacked a police station and government officials in northwestern China despite heightened security, prompting the arrests Sunday of nearly 100 monks, state media reported.

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The violence is the latest known incidence of unrest following a bomb explosion Monday in an unoccupied police station in predominantly Tibetan Ganzi prefecture in Sichuan province.

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A former resident of the area who now lives in Dharmsala, India, said the protesters were angry because they believed the man, a 28-year-old monk named Tashi Sangpo, jumped in the river to commit suicide after fleeing.

“When Tashi was being interrogated by the officials, he asked their permission to go to the toilet. He then went out and jumped into the Yellow River,” the source said on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals against his family still living in China. “The dead body is yet to be found.”

So here’s the chain of events as I understand it:

1) Tibetan nationalists plant a BOMB in a police station.

2) Chinese authorities take a nationalist into custody for questioning.

3) The suspect is allowed to use the bathroom and apparently runs off when no one is looking, jumps in the river, and (allegedly) commits suicide.

4) Protesters violently attack a police station in response to the alleged suicide.

So here’s my thoughts. First of all, this guy’s daring escape plan was pretty elaborate: ask to use the bathroom and instead run away. Obviously the notoriously brutal Chinese police were coming down pretty hard on him if he had to resort to such a daring plan as that, right? Yeah. Sure. Oh, by the way, that was sarcasm.

Second, they never recovered a body from the river so as far as any of us know he could still be alive and hiding somewhere. If I’d escaped from jail I probably wouldn’t let anyone find me. Granted, if he did commit suicide, his body is probably at the bottom of the river so it wouldn’t be a surprise that no one would find it. But still, who knows if there is any truth to the claim of his suicide?

Now, finally, the main point. We’re talking about people here who would PLANT A BOMB in a police station, and attack another. Last time I checked, blowing shit up is called terrorism. All the “Peace & Love” people with “Free Tibet” bumper stickers should probably know that they are supporting terrorists who are far from peaceful.

Let me state my position clearly. I am all in favor of national minorities demonstrating for their rights and the preservation of their culture. But there is a section of Tibetans who are very radical. They are pro-theocracy, racist nationalists who will resort to terrorism to ethnically cleanse their homeland of ethnic Chinese. I don’t hate Tibetans and I don’t want to repress or destroy their culture. I also realize that the Chinese police are not some ideally benevolent hug-fest people who can do no wrong. But the people behind the “Free Tibet” movement are not proponents of some progressive cause that we should support; their ideology and tactics are quite similar to that of the American Ku Klux Klan and it makes me sick to see people cheerleading for them.

Don’t blame China for global warming

Sure, there are a lot of people out there who deny the existence of global climate change or that humans have any responsibility for it, or control over it. But then there is another section of people; they are a little brighter than the outright denialists but want the proverbial shit to roll downhill. With the People’s Republic of China poised to surpass the United States in total carbon emissions there are a lot of people who want to play down the role of the United States in this environmental catastrophe and put the blame on China. But they’re idiots, and I’ll tell you why.

Looking at 2004 data, the per capita carbon dioxide emission for the United States was 5.61 tons/year. In the PRC it was 1.05. In other words, it would take more than 5 Chinese to have the same “carbon footprint” as one American. China is the most populous country in the world. I would think it logical to cut them some slack since it takes a lot of energy to power 1.3 billion people. They literally have a billion more people in China than we do in the United States. One in every 5 people on Earth lives in China.

It’s only logical that China should have the world’s largest output of CO2. What’s bad is that with less than 1/4 their population we manage to surpass them. Even when they do pass us in that category it shouldn’t let us off the hook…even being in the same ballpark as them is bad.

The whole problem with the issue of climate change is that the media and government seems to be entirely caught up in a game of finger pointing. Is it a natural cycle, or is it caused by man? Or is it some fraction man-made and some part natural? And if it is man-made, who is at fault?

None of this really matters. We know that global climate change is real (and by “we” I mean people who aren’t ideologically blinded ultralibertarians), and if left unchecked it will have serious consequences. That is the truth regardless of whose fault it is. Sometimes when we’re faced with serious problems, like the extinction of our species (just one example off the top of my head), we should probably start coming up with some solutions first and then determine guilt later.

OK, Hillary, I guess you’re off the hook.

Obama just stooped to your level. Disregard my rant from a couple days ago.

Hillary Clinton: I want to like you but you’re making it difficult.

Let there be no question about who I would vote for in an election between John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Although I am personally pulling for Obama, and I’m not especially head over heels in love with either Democratic candidate, there’s pretty much nothing that could convince me to vote old Johnnie over Hillary. The difference is like night and day. The mere act of sweeping the ultra-right out of office could put the real American left on the cusp of a serious breakthrough, not to mention the number of genuinely progressive policies that could be in law today had it not been for one single thing: the Bush veto (which McCain is sure to emulate).

That being said, every time Ms. Clinton opens her mouth, it seems like I like her less and less. That trend held true today when Clinton suggested that Bush should boycott the opening of the Olympics in Beijing because of China’s reluctance to put pressure on Sudan to end the Darfur crisis.

So here’s a brain buster for Ms. Clinton: If, in the near future, a U.S. city were to host the Olympics, would you suggest other countries boycott our opening in protest of our direct military aid to countries like Colombia? Israel? Any number of unsavory governments we directly aid and prop up, or have propped up in the past? How about all the help your husband Bill gave to Al Qaeda financed and influenced nationalists of the KLA during his little military adventure in Yugoslavia? If anyone has blood on its hands, it’s our country, but I don’t remember your old man boycotting the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

I’m not saying two wrongs make a right. But I imagine if we were hosting the Olympics, Clinton might change her tune, and suddenly the spirit of the games would go back to being international brotherhood and athletic competition instead of politics in her view.

I guess using the games as political spotlight only works when it wins you cheap buzz from the bleeding-hearts that are already so worked up about their beloved nationalist movement in Tibet. If you want to pander to a bunch of middle-aged hippies who, instead of maturing politically and channeling the rebellion of their youth into a political education and ideology, merely try to hang on to their childhood by jumping all over whatever cause-of-the-week fits most nicely on a bumper sticker, go for it Ms. Clinton. I’m just glad your opponent in the nomination race seems more genuinely interested in real politics than “playing the game”.

Tibetan Nationalism is no Progressive Cause.

I guess I’m kind of an odd duck. I have some weird beliefs, and seeing what’s happened in Yugoslavia over the past decade (wait, two decades? I’m getting old!), and now in Tibet, I kind of feel like I’m the only one of my kind left.

I have this belief that not every nationality needs its own independent state. I have this weird idea that white people can work and live in the same country as African-Americans, Latin Americans, American Indians, people of Middle-Eastern descent, whatever. I think this is a progressive idea.

There are people out there who disagree with me. There are people who think we should make America a special country just for white people, send all the blacks back to Africa, drive all the “wetbacks” back to Mexico, send the “towelheads” back to Iraq, and whatever else. These misguided people harass minorities, vandalize their property, and try to intimidate them with the intent of driving them out of their self-designated “white” communities. This is reactionary and just wrong to me.

That’s why I get frustrated when I see so many so-called “progressives” championing the cause of Tibetan nationalists in their war against the People’s Republic of China. Because to me, every “liberal” with a “Free Tibet” bumper sticker might as well have a big Confederate flag stamped on the back of their CRV.

We all know what’s been happening in Tibet recently, but I’ll sum it up for the sake of watching myself type. Tibetan nationalists have taken to the streets rioting, trashing their communities and attempting to intimidate ethnic Chinese. They want their own nation-state for Tibetans, and so they want to carve their enclave out of China so they can have their own little Tibet for Tibetans.

I can kind of see how people would get behind this. In the United States we don’t really understand the concept of the nation-state. We say “our nation”, “our country”, etc. as though they are synonymous when they’re not. There is no American nation, except maybe American Indians and Alaska Natives. But we call the modern USA the “great mixing pot”, so it’s hard for us to wrap our heads around what real nationalism is. Nationalism is the idea that each nation (a group of people with a shared history, customs, religion, language, etc.) needs its own independent state in which it is dominant. That idea is totally foreign to us, so it’s hard for us to spot nationalism and understand it for what it truly is. Instead a lot of us make the mistake of putting many nationalist movements — like the Tibetan one — on par with various other independence movements, including our own revolution

But there are some key differences. When we fought to secure our independence from the British Empire, we were fighting to replace monarchy with a democratic republic. We were fighting against taxation without representation. We fought against absentee rulers across the Atlantic. What is Tibet fighting for? The replacement of socialism with a feudalistic theocracy, for one….hardly progressive! They can’t say they are under-represented because they are an autonomous region, which makes them different than, and has distinct advantages over, other provinces of China. Finally, there is no ocean separating Tibet from the rest of China. Alaska has a better geographical claim for secession from the US than Tibet does from China, but I’m no AIP sympathizer.

The Tibetan independence movement is not fueled by progressive causes. It is driven by the notion that two nations with different religions, histories, customs, etc. cannot co-exist within the framework of a single state. I look at my own country and have to call bullshit on that one. Again, we have had our rough spots, but if you buy into the idea that coexistence isn’t possible and preferable to decisiveness, I would like to tear a page out of Joe McCarthy’s book and accuse you of being downright un-American.

So why are we all so up-in-arms against China? Let me ask you this: if Neo-Nazis started beating up minorities, trashing their property, and trying to drive them out of “white” American, would you blame the government from using force against them? I wouldn’t. In my opinion, we handle trash like that far too lightly. If our government spent my tax dollars handling white nationalists the way they handled anti-globalization protesters I would gladly buy George W. Bush a Moose Drool. Which is why I don’t blame the Chinese for cracking down on radical nationalists in their own country. Could their tactics be a bit excessive? Maybe. Maybe not; they have yet to fully contain the situation, and you can’t believe everything you see on TV about the “crackdown”. But either way, you could argue that our own government was a little excessive at, I don’t know, Kent State?

In any event, I feel that someone needs to speak up and stand out against the constant drone of anti-Chinese, pro-nationalist propaganda that is constantly blaring from the TV speakers. I am for unity, not nationalism.