No, Takuan, y hvn't bn wtchng lng ngh, bcs y'v bn wtchng nly n sd, nd lyng thrgh yr tth t th rst f s. 'd tk y mr srsly f y wr ctlly n Tbt rght nw, rprtng wht y s wth yr wn ys, bt y'r nt... y'r rprtng th prpgnd fd t y by th Stdnts fr Fr Tbt, nd shvng t dwn th thrts f nyn wh drs t qstn thrty n th sd y'v chsn s th rght sd..

Meanwhile, here's Antinous wth mr f th frtby htng nd ctclls tht th tw f y nvtbly rsrt t whn y dn't ctlly hv rl cntr-rgmnt.

As for lowering the body count, I'm all for it...bt pntng fngrs t th PRC nd blmng thm fr LL th vlnc tkng plc n Tbt s nt gng t d tht. Y cn prtnd tht t wll f y lk, bt tht's jst y bng dshnst gn. Mny f th rprts cmng t f Tbt sy tht th prtstrs wr vlnt frst, nd tht th plc ntlly nly sd mc n thm vn thgh thy tnmbrd th prtstrs by gd mrgn. This includes, by the way, the very reports right here on BoingBoing that started this conversation.

No matter who the rightful rulers of Tibet actually are, and no matter what atrocities and human rights violations have been committed by Tibet's rulers (both the PRC and the Buddhist monks), the fact is that the PRC is at this moment in charge of Tibet. The violence going on right now is a matter of protestors being quelled by their country's de facto legitimate government, no matter what the country's history says about that government's actual legitimacy. I guarantee you that if a thousand people showed up in Washington, DC and started throwing rocks and setting fire to police cars, there would be civilian deaths before it was over... and it doesn't matter if the protestors showed up to protest the illegal war in Iraq, or if they showed up to demand that the government round up all the black folks in America and ship them back to Africa. Governments quell protests all over the world, and when protests turn violent, governments respond with violence. The use of violence by either side is regrettable and, to me, reprehensible... but the use of violence even when it is lethal does not grant one side or the other any claim to being right.

f y wnt t wrk n lwrng th bdy cnt s y clm, thn y shld stp fnnng th flms nd strt wrkng twrds gttng th PRC nd th Tbtn gvrnmnt-n-xl tlkng t ch thr. f y hd ny cl t ll s t hw Chns ppl thnk (thy dn't thnk lk s, trst m), y'd knw tht pntng yr fngr t thm nd strdntly nsstng tht Y r rght nd tht thr s n cntrvrsy s nly gng t hrt, nt hlp, yr cs. Frnkly, thgh, jdgng frm ll th ns y'v md n t lst thr dffrnt thrds fr thr dffrnt rtcls hr t BngBng, sspct y my b scrtly dlghtd t th pprtnty t pff yrslf p nd dnnc th PRC, n mttr hw mny crpss pl p r whs crpss thy r.

I didn't say that nobody is right. I said that determining who is right is much more difficult that it seems. Most of us have swallowed the propaganda of the Tibetan government-in-exile whole, and that's as bad as swallowing the propaganda of the PRC whole. W nd t qstn thrty n bth sds f th ss, nd rfrn frm prpgndzng vn whn w thnk w'r n th rght sd. nythng lss s thr prfnd gllblty, r flt-t dshnsty.

Takuan:

The Allies in World War II killed approximately 11,000,000 people.

Do you deny this fact?

People get killed in conflicts, and the number killed by one side versus the number killed by the other side is irrelevant in determining which side is right (if, indeed, either side can be said to be 'right'). Even if there were ZERO casualties on one side and a billion on the other, you can't point to that as an indication of who is wrong and who is right, or even an indication that there is a wrong and right to find in the conflict.

Addendum:

Then again, very, very few Americans who have spent their entire lives in the States have a single clue as to what the nature or extent of America's civil rights problems actually are.

Cupcake Faerie:

No, desiring less propaganda from both sides and reserving judgment in the absence of reliable information is certainly not giving implicit support for the PRC. We can't even be sure what their tactics are, when one news source reports that they were initially only using mace while people like Takuan and the Students for a Free Tibet were insisting otherwise. Some are saying 100 killed, some are saying 300 killed, and some are saying nobody has been killed or seriously hurt. I don't possess any magical ability to discern the truth from all this, and neither do you... nd prtndng tht y d s jst chrry-pckng nfrmtn tht vldts yr njstfd nd nqlfd flngs n th mttr. t's rrtnl.

Th vry d tht nt tkng stnc s gvng mplct spprt fr n sd r th thr s xctly th sm grbg rhtrc tht Grg Bsh ws pshng whn h sd "f y'r nt wth s, y'r gnst s." rfs t ply tht gm, jst s dd wth Bsh's rtnl fr th wr n rq, nd rsrv th rght t frm my pnns bsd n vrfbl fct nd nt hrsy, prpgnd, prty lns, nd dgm.

Do you think it would be fair of me to turn around and ask you how you can support the Dalai Lama when he is known to condemn homosexuals? I don't think that would be fair... but it would certainly be an easy tactic to use against you, and the fact that the Dalai Lama is vehemently anti-gay is easily verifiable, unlike the facts of the violence going on in Tibet right now.

D y thnk t wld b fr f m t trn rnd nd sk y hw y cn spprt th Dl Lm whn h s knwn t cndmn hmsxls? dn't thnk tht wld b fr... bt t wld crtnly b n sy tctc t s gnst y, nd th fct tht th Dl Lm s vhmntly nt-gy s sly vrfbl, nlk th fcts f th vlnc gng n n Tbt rght nw.

Th rst f yr pst, whch y strt wth "Th smpl mttr s..." dscrbs nythng bt smpl mttr. Th nly pssbl wy y cld s ths s smpl mttr s f y hv nqstnngly swllwd th prty ln f n sd r th thr. sk Chns mddl schl stdnt, nd h r sh wll ls tll y tht t's smpl mttr f Tbt bng prt f Chn, tht t's smpl mttr f Tbt bng prt f Chn n th Qng Dynsty nd rlr, nd tht t's smpl mttr f th Bddhst mnks wh rn thngs prr t 1959 bng pprssv slv wnrs wh rglrly trtrd, klld, nd cnsrd thr chttl whl kpng thm t dgrdng lvl f pvrty nd sng thm s frm nmls. Bth y nd tht Chns mddl schl stdnt wll b rctng wht y'v lrnd, nd bth f y wll b prtly rght nd prtly wrng. ftr ll, syng tht Tbt ws prt f Chn n 1958 bcs f th sttn tht prvld 2,000 yrs rlr s lk syng tht mdrn Grmny s prt f tly bcs th Rmns cnqrd t. Th pnt s tht nthr f y wll b syng nythng fr whch thr s nt rtnl nd vn hnst rgmnt, nd fltly prclmng tht yr sd f cntrvrsy s th rght n ds nthng t brng th cntrvrsy t n nd.

I've lived in China, and I am acutely aware (unlike most Americans) that there actually are two sides to this whole thing, and that it isn't at all clear what the truth is. All I know for sure is that neither side is telling it, and that the Dalai Lama and his friends are not quite the peace-loving enlightened bringers of harmony and high-mindedness that they have managed so well to portray themselves as in our country. I also know, from all the wildly conflicting reports we're getting about the current unrest, that the situation in Tibet is not necessarily what we think it is.

As for a ban on the Olympics, I'd be happy to participate in that, since I know first-hand what kind of civil rights violations actually do take place in China. I also know, however, that very, very few Americans who have never spent a significant amount of time in China have a single clue as to what the nature or extent of China's civil rights problems actually are.

Mr bllyng, nsntn, nd ls frm Tkn nd ntns. I never took a stance against the Tibetans, smply clld fr lss bs nd mr vrfbl trth. Kd clld fr lss bs, mr vrfbl trth, nd lss vlnc n bth sds. You two sure did reply very QUICKLY, didn't you? Why are you so vehement in your campaign to quash any calls against bias, and why is it such an urgent matter for you that you BOTH respond within two minutes? Ths jst rnfrcs my sspcns tht y r thr th sm prsn, r wrkng tgthr fr sm nrdntly ntrstd nd bsd tsd gncy lk th Stdnts fr Fr Tbt.

Insinuating that I am some kind of troll is not an answer, bt t s xctly wht hv cm t xpct frm y. L t prmt yr gnd, blly whn nyn dsgrs wth y, cry 'trll!' whn nyn pnts t yr drty tctcs.

Once again, someone very reasonably states that there are two sides to the conflict; that we are not being given reliable information from either side; that violence is contemptible no matter who is perpetrating it... and Takuan and Antinous jump all over him for not blindly accepting the party line espoused by the Students for a Free Tibet.

Takuan even goes so far as to make this utterly absurd statement:

"Any adult raised in a democracy who reads news knows what is really happening now in Tibet."

First of all, show me a democracy. America isn't one, and the news in America is very, very far from being reliable. This facile assertion that we can trust our news media to give us honest, reliable information is outrageous all by itself, but even more so when contrasted with Takuan's other statements... it's obviously just a convenient rhetorical ploy he is using to again try to bully someone into not dissenting with his extremely biased point of view. And again, Antinous leaps to Takuan's side, almost as though Antinous is nothing more than Takuan's sock puppet.

Tell the truth, guys... are you one person, or two? Are you working for Students for a Free Tibet? If not, who are you working for? You've established a very clear and strong pattern of attacking anyone who insists on an unbiased view, and of pushing your own bias down their throats. You've also made many demonstrably untrue statements, such as explicitly claiming that people were being murdered and blood was being shed in the early stages of the demonstration, before things turned uglier and only mace was being used against the protestors.

Whoever you are and whoever it is that gives you your marching orders, you're definitely propagandists. I'm sure you'll continue to get plenty of mileage out of being so staunchly on the side of the conflict that is overwhelmingly more popular with American activists, but that doesn't make you right or righteous. You're propagandists, as surely as the Communist Party in the People's Republic of China are propagandists, and being on one side or the other doesn't make either of you better than the others. You stink, your bias stinks, your lies stink, and your hearty approval of violence on one side while you denounce violence on the other side stinks most of all.

Takuan, how dare you continue to accuse people of being insincere or having an agenda that supports the brutality of the Chinese just because they question the religious elite of Tibet and wonder what ordinary Tibetans think. You have made many statements that clearly show that YOU have an agenda and a strong bias, like this one:

"The other side plays fast and loose with facts, Tibet does not."

Oh, sure... 'Tibet' -- by which I assume you mean the monks, since there is no Tibetan government other than the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile -- is made up of entirely honest, unbiased people with absolutely no agenda and no shred of dishonesty in them. I guess they're some kind of perfect being, or perhaps ethical robots.

t's vry, vry clr tht y r srsly ntllctlly dshnst, nd tht y ccs thrs f bng xctly wht y r. Gt fckd, nd stp cldng nd mddyng sss wth yr prpgnd. Dgm nd bllsht r dgm nd bllsht vn f thy r ntndd t b n th srvc f gd nd nt vl.

The main point that I get out of all the replies to my comments can be distilled into the following exchange:

==============================
ME: Both sides are biased. Neither you, nor I, nor Xeni Jardin has enough reliable information to form a strong opinion. I'm not taking sides until I have more and better information from a less biased source.

THEM: If you're not with us, you're against us!!! I bet you're a Chinese agent or a troll!!!1!!
==============================

Well, good luck with that then. I'm done, and disgusted.

In general, political activism in America has suffered a serious loss of power and credibility since the 1960s, not only because there are fewer activists now, but because activists are all too often willing to blindly accept whatever rhetoric, dogma, or propaganda best validates their own pre-conceived knee-jerk opinions and gut instincts (which are frequently dead wrong). It's no wonder that activism is no longer taken seriously by anyone who might be in a position to listen and bring about some real change. It's too easy to dismiss the opinions of people who can so easily be led into stridently protesting things like the use of that terrible solvent, dihydrogen oxide. In order for activism to recapture any meaning or effectiveness, activists need to learn to think more critically, accept that the scientific method works, realize that the maintenance of huge conspiracies is incompatible with human nature and our woeful inability to keep a secret, and remember to question authority even when the authority in question is one that validates what we want to believe is true.

Takuan:

I find it absurd and repulsive that I am being accused of having an agenda and taking sides when what I am in fact doing is pointing out that both sides have an agenda and that neither should be trusted.

Nelson C.:

I don't have an opinion as to whether or not Tibet is properly part of China, and I wasn't "smuggling in" any ideas by comparing Buddhist monks with Confederate Colonels.

I said (and meant) from the very beginning that I don't side with either the Buddhist monks or the Chinese government, because I think they both have their own slant on things and I'm certain the truth lies somewhere in between. You, on the other hand, seem to think that one side is right and one wrong, and that you know which is which. Your arrogance is as offensive as the way you shove words into my mouth.

Antinous:

You talk as though the rule of the monks is ancient history. 1959 is not the Stone Age, the Dalai Lama is the same age as my father, and a great many of the ruling class survived the coming of the Chinese.

As for your final statement: "Freeing Tibet doesn't mean going back to feudalism." We're not talking about "freeing Tibet" here unless you accept without question whatever rhetoric the monks hand you... again, this isn't a protest by ordinary people the article is talking about, it's a protest by monks.

I know that if I was a member of Tibet's displaced ruling class, I'd want as many friends as I could get on the international scene, and I'd be canny enough to recognize that the powerful and very vocal Americans respond remarkably well to phrases like "human rights".

I think one would have to spend several years in Tibet to understand the real situation there and form an opinion worth squat. I haven't. Xeni Jardin hasn't. Very few Westerners have.

Takuan:

Protest in Tibet under the old system that the Buddhist monks ran could also get you tortured and killed... and the article isn't about ordinary poor people in Tibet protesting Chinese rule, it's about Buddhist monks protesting Chinese rule. Again, it's the equivalent of a bunch of Confederate Colonels protesting Yankee rule in the deep South.

You say that from what you've heard, "ordinary Tibetans that do not belong to old wealthy families still want their independence and their culture." That's no doubt true, but it has little to nothing to do with Buddhist monks protesting the Chinese presence in Tibet, since it was those same Buddhist monks who used to use them as slave labor, torture and kill them at will, and keep them impoverished.

I lived in China for six years, and I can tell you first-hand that ordinary Han Chinese see their government as a liberator of the oppressed poor in Tibet. I make no statement regarding the accuracy of that opinion, but it is further evidence that any automatic assumption about conditions in Tibet based solely on what the former slave owners say is gullible foolishness. It also tells me that righteous indignation at the Chinese man in the street over what happens in Tibet is misplaced and unfair.

When I read an article like this one, or see a FREE TIBET bumper sticker on a car in America, I shake my head and sigh. Not because I side with the Chinese; I don't. I also don't side with the monks. Never having been to Tibet, I have just enough information to know that there are two sides to the story, and that the Chinese version is as legitimately valid as that of the monks. Tibet was a slave state before China upset their apple cart, after all... and it was the monks and the monasteries who were the massahs and the plantations of that slave state.

Someone should go to Tibet and ask the less wealthy people who live there who are NOT either Han Chinese or former overlord Buddhist monks what they think of the situation. I haven't heard much at all from those people, but what little I have heard indicated that they definitely didn't want the old slave state back even if they did want the Chinese out.

Asking a Tibetan monk about the Chinese presence in Tibet is like asking a Confederate Colonel about the Yankee presence in the deep South, and those of us here in America who swallow their responses whole without questioning them are too blind and irresponsible to have a relevant opinion.

COAXIAL:

Oh gee, he's flip-flopped again. I sure do trust a man who changes his position constantly.

It looks great, although I have to agree with LOUDIAMONDPHILLIPS that it looks rather Soviet.

Why PROGRESS, though? Obama isn't going to repeal the Patriot Act, or close Guantanamo, or stop us from acting like swaggering cops all over the world. Someone please shake the artist awake and point him to some sites where he can look at the voting records of candidates and see where they get their money.

Why does BB so often show us a pic of something and then tell us how beautiful it is? You're showing us the picture, and beauty is subjective. Don't you think we can decide for ourselves what's beautiful and what isn't? LOOK AT THIS PICTURE, IT'S VERY BEAUTIFUL just makes me feel like I'm being led by the nose or smacked across the back of the head with a big hammy fist. Of course, this goes triple when you're trying to sell me an ugly hoodie for $120 or something, instead of just showing me an old map that looks like a cock and balls with pimples all over it.

t mks prfct sns t m. Th rpst s mrc, th nn s rq, nd th dg s Hllry Clntn. Wht thy dn't shw y n th vd s tht th rpst gs rght n rpng th nn n spt f hvng hd hs brn tn.

Ths f y wh r plnnng n vtng fr Hllry Clntn bcs sh's wmn: Y'r sxsts. Ths f y wh r vtng fr bm bcs h's blck: Y'r rcsts.

Hllry wn't b ndng th wr n rq nd dsn't vn prtnd tht sh wll; bm sys h wll bt hs vtng rcrd shws n ntrstwrthy flp-flppr wh sys wht h thnks vtrs wnt t hr t th mmnt. Nthr f thm r gng t nd th phny wr n Trrr, nthr f thm r gng t gt rd f th Ptrt ct, nd nthr f thm r gng t cls Gntnm, rstr hbs crps, r gv p ny f th dsgstng nd frghtnng xctv prvlgs tht Bsh hs gthrd t th Prsdncy, ths rmvng th chcks nd blncs blt nt r gvrnmnt.

It's 'Kush', not 'Cush'... as in the Hindu Kush, an Afghani mountain range where the strain originated.

Also, as long as I have my magic pedant hat on, I have to say that I have no idea how 'cheeba' came to mean marijuana, although people do use it that way these days. It's a poor spelling of the Spanish word 'chiva' (the sounds for 'b' and 'v' are closer together in Spanish than they are in English), which translates as 'kid'. As recently as twenty years ago, asking for a bag of chiva on the streets of Los Angeles would get you heroin, not marijuana.

Trs Nlsn Hydn / Mdrtr wrt:

>'m hrby dclrng mrtrm n bsrvtns
>tht $120 s lt f mny. t sn't nrly s
>mch s t sd t b, nd y gys r gttng
>rpttv. S sm f y cn't ffrd t? Ntd.
>W ll hv stff w cn't ffrd, bt n n
>frcs s t g n nd n bt t.

pprntly, thgh, smn s prfctly wllng t frc s t sht th fck p bt t.

Yy cnsrshp.

Yes, it's hideously overpriced (especially if you live in Australia)... bbt nlk th Bng Bng hd, t lst t sn't hdsly vrprcd ND btt-gly. You can't go wrong with a Coop girl on your chest.

"East Block"?

Try "Eastern Bloc" instead.

Green tea cake is fairly common in China, and it is TEH BOMB. I've found mixes for it at Trader Joe's, but it isn't nearly as good as what you get in China.

I've got to weigh in on the side of those who scoff at the view that Dylan is/was a great poet (which is certainly not to say that his music isn't enjoyable as hell at times... I especially like his earlier stuff, and NASHVILLE SKYLINE has a permanent place on my master playlist). The huge irony here is that Dylan himself has made numerous comments over the years to the effect that he wholeheartedly agrees with us regarding the non-greatness of his poetry, and has also frequently lamented (sometimes in song) his status as some kind of unapproachable cultural icon rather than simply an entertainer.

Enjoyable and memorable songs? Sure!
Great poetry? Ha! Bah!