Monday, November 11, 2019
Dalai Lama breaks the chains of reincarnation
Tibetan spiritual leader says
Buddhist tradition of reincarnated dalai lamas should end, echoing China’s
criticism of feudal successions
RICHARD S
EHRLICH, BANGKOK
In a surprise spiritual
reversal, the Dalai Lama said his Tibetan Buddhist tradition of reincarnated
dalai lamas “should end now” because the hierarchy created “a feudal system,” a
description echoing decades of communist China’s condemnation.
The Dalai Lama’s public
statement comes amid attempts by Beijing to control who can be legally
recognized as a reincarnated lama in Tibet and what laws they must obey.
“Institutions need to be owned
by the people, not by an individual,” the self-exiled 14th Dalai Lama said in a
speech at his residence in McLeod Ganj, a small town on the outskirts of
Dharamsala, India.
“Like my own institution, the
Dalai Lama’s office, I feel it is linked to a feudal system. In 1969, in one of
my official statements, I had mentioned that it should continue…but now I feel,
not necessarily.
“It should go. I feel it
should not be concentrated in a few people only,” he told college students from
Bhutan and India on October 25.
“The tradition should end now,
as reincarnation has some connection with the feudal system.
“There have been cases of
individual lamas who use reincarnation [for personal gains] but never pay
attention to study and wisdom,” he said, according to the Times of India.
The Dalai Lama, however, did
not express doubt about the concept of reincarnation. Buddhism claims all
people are reincarnated even if they are not Buddhists.
Meanwhile, on October 28, US
Ambassador for Religious Freedom Samuel Brownback and his delegation met the
Dalai Lama in McLeod Ganj.
“The US government supports
the Dalai Lama and supports for the succession of the Dalai Lama to be done by
the Tibetan Buddhist leadership,” Brownback said, criticizing China’s
interference in the procedure.
“The role of picking a
successor to the Dalai Lama belongs to the Tibetan Buddhist system, the Dalai
Lama, and other Tibetan leaders. It does not belong to anybody else, not any
government or any entity,” Brownback said.
Beijing swiftly responded to
the US ambassador’s remarks and visit.
“We strongly urge the US side
to stop any form of contact with the Dalai clique, stop making irresponsible
remarks, stop using Tibet-related issues to interfere in China’s internal
affairs, and do more to advance China-US mutual trust and cooperation,” China’s
foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told reporters.
China eyes warily exiled
Tibetan populations, including large groups in neighboring India and Nepal,
numbering over 150,000 and 20,000 respectively.
During a visit to the Nepalese
capital Kathmandu in October, Chinese President Xi Jinping issued an ominous
warning, saying “Anyone attempting to split China in any part of the country
will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones.”
According to Indian and
Nepalese media reports, Xi sought to sign an extradition treaty that aimed to
deport all Tibetan refugees in Nepal back to China. Kathmandu, however,
declined to sign.
The current 14th Dalai Lama
fled his majestic Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet in 1959 along with 80,000
Tibetan refugees to escape invading communist Chinese troops. They secured
sanctuary in India’s Himalayas.
Since the 1950s, China has
repeatedly said Tibetan Buddhism and the institutional power of dalai lamas and
other senior clergy was one of the main reasons Tibetans lived in “feudal”
poverty, often treated as serfs by Tibetan officials, nobles and lamas.
Tibetan historians said the
centuries-old system of reincarnated dalai lamas, panchen lamas and other
clergy contributed to repression in Tibet, but Tibetans should have been
allowed to fix their homeland instead of submitting to anti-Buddhist Chinese.
“For centuries, Tibet was
ruled by feudal serfdom under theocracy,” China’s State Council Information
Office reiterated in March.
“Millions of serfs were
subjected to cruel exploitation and oppression until [China’s] democratic
reform in 1959,” it said in a report entitled Democratic Reform in Tibet, 60
Years On.
“Even as they were aware that
feudal serfdom under theocracy was coming to an end, the 14th Dalai Lama and
the reactionaries in Tibet’s upper class had no wish to conduct reform.
“Instead, they tried to
maintain the system for fear that reform would deprive them of their political
and religious privileges, together with their huge economic benefits,” the
report said, according to Beijing’s official Xinhua news agency.
Also beginning in the 1950s,
the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trained and financed Tibetan
guerrillas to conduct scattered assaults against China’s powerful People’s Liberation
Army.
The CIA secretly trained
ethnic Khampas and other Tibetans in Colorado state’s Rocky Mountains before
giving them supplies and parachuting them into Tibet.
The CIA manipulated that
small, bloody insurgency until 1972 when President Richard Nixon abruptly ended
US armed support and traveled to Beijing to improve ties with Chinese Chairman
Mao Zedong.
China’s communists destroyed
most of Tibet’s monasteries and shrines during the 1960s and 70s. Thousands of
Tibetans reportedly perished from persecution, economic disruption and other
policies.
The Dalai Lama repeatedly said
he is a Marxist and would accept autonomy for Tibet under China’s domination.
But Beijing suspects he is a “splittist” conspiring to achieve independence.
Buddhism arrived in Tibet from
India during the seventh century.
“Dalai Lama” is a Mongolian
title meaning “Ocean of Wisdom.” Followers also refer to him as, “His Holiness”
or “Wish-Fulfilling Gem.”
Dalai lamas and others senior
lamas are revered even though they have not achieved the spiritual
enlightenment and nirvana of a Buddha.
Instead they are described as
incarnations of Avalokitesvara the Bodhisattva of Compassion, who delays
achieving nirvana to altruistically help others.
The first dalai lama was born
in 1390. Tibetan Buddhists believe this same person has been reincarnated 14
times.
The current Dalai Lama was
born on July 6, 1935 shortly after the 13th died. Two years later, a delegation
of high lamas searched Tibet for the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation and conducted
traditional tests with several children born amid “prophetic signs.”
Clergymen selected an infant
named Lhamo Thondup. He picked out, from among various items, things which
belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama and performed other feats which they
interpreted as evidence of reincarnation.
Today, the 84-year-old Dalai
Lama appears jovial and spontaneous, frequently traveling abroad.
Governments Beware: People Are Rising Up All Over the World
NOV 07, 2019 OPINION | TD ORIGINALS
Lately there seem to be an
unusually large number of mass resistance movements unfolding in countries all
over the world. Here in the U.S., Puerto Rico’s recent
political turmoil upended the entire local government structure. In
Latin America, there have been upheavals over the past few weeks in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile.
In the Caribbean, Haiti is
experiencing its worst political turmoil since the 2004 ouster of President
Jean Bertrand Aristide. On the other side of the planet, Arab nations
like Iraq and Lebanon have
erupted into mass upheavals. Sudan just
a few months ago toppled dictator Omar al-Bashir and now wants his party
disbanded. And in Hong
Kong, months of mass sustained protests have brought the nation to a
standstill. What is happening?
There are common themes
running throughout this widespread global uprising. The unrest is marked by a
deep dissatisfaction with an economic order that benefits elites over others,
combined with outrage against authoritarianism and the use of force to quell
dissent. Often these are intertwined, as regimes use force to maintain the
unequal economic order and demand public subservience and obedience. Then, a
new proposed rule or law— seemingly innocuous at first—lights the spark of
protest over long-simmering issues. In the internet age, activists organize
with greater ease than before and are highly educated about their plight,
giving them a greater ability to document and share abuses far and wide.
I spoke with three people to
try to understand the common threads of protest in Chile, Lebanon and Hong
Kong, and to explore why and how people have been rising up and organizing in
the face of inequality and repression. Mia Dragnic is a sociologist from Chile
and a doctoral candidate in Latin American studies at the University of Chile.
Dragnic considers herself a “feminist militant” and, in the midst of her
current tenure as a visiting scholar at University of California at San Diego,
she explained to me in an interview that
Chilean President Sebastián Piñera “has not attempted to dialogue with social
movements nor changed any of the type of structural factors that have given
rise to the current crisis.” Chileans rose up after the announcement of a hike
in subway fares, but as is often the case, their response to the fare hike
was symptomatic of a broader economic resentment. In fact, although Chile has
been lauded for being an economic miracle, it experiences the highest level of
inequality among OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development) nations.
According to Dragnic, the
protesters “are demanding social rights because the Chilean state has
privatized those rights and converted itself into a guarantor of the rights of
the private sector.” Those “social rights,” she says, include “education,
health and housing.” Dragnic recently authored a statement titled “International
Community Against the Militarization of Chile,” which was signed by
thousands of academics, activists and others. The statement demands Piñera’s
resignation and denounces his militarized response to the protests. So far,
Piñera’s response has been to oust eight
ministers, but he has resolutely refused
to resign from his own position. Dragnic pointed out Piñera has
“handed power to a military general to handle the protests.” Many fear that
such a move is reminiscent of Chile’s violent
past, when the U.S. backed a brutal 1973 coup against the democratically
elected government of Salvador Allende and helped install the notorious
dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Across the world in
Lebanon, Prime
Minister Saad Hariri was more responsive to dissent than Chile’s
Piñera, resigning after just 13 days of sustained mass protests in cities all
over the country that included the formation of a human chain. As with the
subway fare incident in Chile, outrage among the Lebanese public was initially
triggered by the announcement of a tax on
the popular texting software WhatsApp, but it reflected a deeper economic
discontent.
I recently spoke with Jackson
Allers. In our interview,
Allers explained to me that Lebanese people are fed up with their government
because “the infrastructure has crumbled, [and] the currency, which is
artificially pegged to the U.S. dollar, is in absolute disarray right now, and
it mirrors what’s happened around the Arab world since 2012.” Allers was
referring to the Arab
Spring movements in many Middle Eastern nations that comprised a wave
of pro-democracy movements demanding democratic reforms. “The final straw was
on Oct. 17,” said Allers, “[which] was when the government imposed a tax on
WhatsApp phone calls.”
Allers pointed out Lebanon’s
crisis was centered on the failures of capitalism, calling the country “a
perfect example of a free-market state,” and “crony capitalism gone rampant.”
One of the positive hallmarks of this mass movement — unlike previous eras of
dissent in Lebanon — is the cross-sectarian nature of protesters. People from
nearly every socioeconomic, political and religious sector are joining
together. They say Hariri’s resignation is not enough and want to see an
overturning of the entire corrupt system.
Elsewhere on the globe, in
Hong Kong, which has occupied international headlines for
many months now, protesters are also sustaining their activism for the long
haul. Although the protests were initially triggered by a controversial
extradition plan with China, they are now a response to broader issues of
control, authoritarianism and — just as is the case in many other sites of
dissent — the economy. Economic inequality in Hong Kong has increased
dramatically and is now the greatest it has been in 45
years.
A brutal
police response overseen by Chief Executive Carrie Lam has only
hardened the resolve of the largely youth-led and seemingly leaderless
movement. Joy Ming King is activist born and raised in Hong Kong and an
undergraduate student at Wesleyan University. In an interview,
he explained to me that activists marked an ongoing ban on face masks in the
public realm by donning masks en masse on Halloween while defying authorities. King,
who has been participating in the ongoing protests through organizing and
direct action both outside and inside Hong Kong through his work in the Lausan Collective,
explained that the creative action was an example of “collective enjoyment
and rejuvenation, a way to sustain the movement, and that Hong Kongers are
organizing largely through the use of digital technology in online forums and
without leaders directing most of the actions. The anger that residents feel
toward the government is aimed both at the local authorities and at China,
which through its special relationship with Hong Kong has attempted to exert
greater control over the semi-autonomous city.
The commonalities of why there
are so many movements in disparate parts of the world are quite striking.
Free-market capitalism has proved time and again to be a failure. The promised
riches are distributed far too unequally, and for most they never transpire.
The only way to preserve the current social and economic order is by force. And
when people have had enough, they meet force with resistance and resilience.
These are lessons not just for ordinary people suffering economic injustices,
but for the governments that oversee them.
Columnist
Sonali Kolhatkar is a
columnist for Truthdig. She also is the founder, host and executive producer of
"Rising Up With Sonali," a television and radio show that airs on
Free Speech TV (Dish Network, DirecTV,…
How Warren’s ‘Medicare for All’ Plan Hurts the Cause
NOV 05, 2019 | TD ORIGINALS
Presidential candidates Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren agree that the American health care system causes
harm to the people it claims to help. They also believe it needs massive
change, and that a “Medicare for All” plan is the best avenue to achieve that.
Their sharpest disagreements are over how to pay for it, however, and Warren’s
funding scheme is getting major criticism from the left.
The Massachusetts senator is
adamant that her plan would not impose any taxes on the middle class. According
to Tim Higginbotham, a Democratic Socialists of America organizer writing in
Jacobin, her plan is “an impossible
premise.”
Higginbotham believes Warren’s
no-middle-class-taxes claim is dishonest: First, because any Medicare for All
plan “will require some form of taxation, direct or indirect, on the broad
‘middle class.’” Second, because her premise ignores the possibility that even
with a modest tax increase, Medicare for All will still provide overall health
care cost savings in the long run for low- and middle-income families.
Sanders told ABC News that his
plan “would raise taxes on the middle class, but [also] would substantially
reduce the cost of health care for the average American.” That is
because, he explains, “We’re doing away with all premiums, copayments,
deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. So for the overwhelming majority of the
American people, they would save, and save substantially, on their health care
bills.”
As Vox’s Ezra Klein writes,
Warren is operating under the impression “that … a middle-class
hike is politically lethal,” while Sanders “has long believed that
Americans will support European-style taxes in return for a European-style
social welfare state.”
Warren plans to tax employers,
which seems like a plus until you consider the ways employers could try to get
out of it. In Warren’s vision, a company would pay a head tax—a designated
amount in taxes per employee—regardless of the employee’s salary. The tax wouldn’t
apply to employees that classify their workers as independent contractors, or
smaller businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
Higginbotham goes deeper on
the dangers of that approach:
Instead of taxing a certain
percentage of an employee’s pay (a payroll tax), Warren’s head tax would charge
employers a flat amount no matter the employee’s salary. Seeing as any
employer-side tax ultimately comes out of workers’ potential earnings, this is
a regressive approach that would disproportionately impact low- and
middle-income workers.”
And not taxing employers who
use independent contractors also could backfire in a big way—by giving
employers an incentive to reclassify their workers away from full-time status
and the ability to get benefits in the first place.
Matt Bruenig, president of
People’s Policy Project, a progressive think tank, told Politico that
Warren’s plan is “most regressive of all the possibilities,” adding that
“[a]mong all the ways you can solve this piece of the puzzle, it’s the worst. …
Even a payroll tax that’s a flat percentage instead of a flat amount would be
more progressive, because if you make twice as much income, you pay twice as
much into the system.”
Worse than the tax issue,
according to Higginbotham, is “the lack of urgency” in Warren’s plan. “Warren
argues that her plan for comprehensive immigration reform could free up $400
billion toward Medicare for All over ten years, while cutting the dangerous
military slush fund will free up another $798 billion,” he explains,
Tying Medicare for All to
these larger fights, coupled with her use of the word “eventually” in relation
to the date by which Medicare for All would implemented, is a sign, to
Higginbotham, that Warren is not ready to fight hard for the cause, unlike
Sanders, his preferred candidate. According to Higginbotham, “[Sanders] takes
every opportunity given to him to straightforwardly explain how Medicare for
All will benefit Americans … while pointing his finger straight at those who
have financial- and power-based interests in defeating his plan.”
'Outrageous': Sanders Condemns Kentucky GOP for Threatening to Overturn Gubernatorial Election
"In a democracy, we
cannot allow politicians to just overrule election results," said the 2020
Democratic presidential candidate. "The will of voters must be
respected."
Thursday, November 07, 2019
After Kentucky's Senate
president suggested the
GOP-dominated legislature could ultimately determine the final outcome of the
state's close gubernatorial election, Sen. Bernie Sanders Wednesday night
accused Republican lawmakers of "threatening to effectively overturn the
Kentucky election."
"In a democracy, we
cannot allow politicians to just overrule election results," tweeted
Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. "The will of voters
must be respected."
Sanders speechwriter David
Sirota said in the presidential campaign's Bern Notice newsletter Wednesday
that "the fact that Kentucky's election was even close is a fantastic sign
for the 2020 election and Bernie's campaign. It shows that GOP attacks on
Bernie and his agenda are likely to backfire—even in traditionally Republican
states."
In August, Trump-backed
Republican Gov. Matt Bevin released a video condemning what he described as
Sanders' "hateful class warfare and communist ideology."
"Kentucky voters... Which
side are you on?" Bevin asked. "Do you support socialism or do you
still believe that America is the greatest nation on Earth?"
Kentucky's Democratic attorney
general Andy Beshear declared victory Tuesday night over Bevin, who officially
requested a recanvass of votes Wednesday afternoon.
"We hope that Matt Bevin
honors the results of the recanvass, which will show he received fewer votes
than Andy Beshear," Eric Hyers, Beshear's campaign manager, said in
a statement Wednesday.
According
to the New York Times election tracker, Beshear is leading
Bevin by more than 5,000 votes with all precincts reporting, and Kentucky's
Democratic secretary of state has called the race for Beshear.
But Bevin has refused to
concede the race and insisted—without a shred of evidence—that there were
"irregularities" in the vote, a claim the Trump White House
quickly parroted.
"It's too close to call.
I think they're looking at the voter irregularities in some places," White
House counselor Kellyanne Conway told Fox News Wednesday.
As the Times reported,
"Bevin's recourse after a recanvassing would be contesting the election
with the State Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans."
"There, a group of
randomly selected lawmakers (eight from the House, and three from the Senate)
would form an elections board that would hear evidence and arguments before
arriving at a recommendation that would be forwarded to the entire
Legislature," the Times noted. "Lawmakers could end up
deciding the contest."
Kentucky's Senate President
Robert Stivers, a Republican, hinted
at that possibility Tuesday night after Beshear declared victory.
"There's less than
one-half of 1 percent, as I understand, separating the governor and the
attorney general," Stivers told reporters. "We will follow the letter
of the law and what various processes determine."
Stivers pointed to Section
90 of the Kentucky Constitution, which states: "Contested
elections for Governor and Lieutenant Governor shall be determined by both
Houses of the General Assembly, according to such regulations as may be
established by law."
The Republican lawmaker's
comments sparked alarm, with observers warning the Kentucky GOP could be
preparing to steal an election that didn't go their way.
"Pay
attention," tweeted Vox's
David Roberts. "They're going to try to steal the Kentucky election right
out in the open, in front of everyone."
'Huge Win for Democracy': Nationwide Celebrations as NYC Residents Approve Ranked-Choice Voting Ballot Measure
With the new system, said one
supporter, "candidates will have to knock on the door of not just a
certain plurality, but on the diverse doors of NYC's mosaic majority."
Wednesday, November 06, 2019
Voting rights advocates
celebrated a "huge win for
democracy" Tuesday after New Yorkers approved a ballot measure that
would establish ranked-choice voting in the nation's most populous city.
With 90% reporting as of
Wednesday morning, New York City's Ballot Question 1 won approval from 73.5% of
voters.
NYC's ranked-choice voting
(RCV) measure was supported by a number of advocacy groups, politicians, and
even The New York Times editorial board, which called the
question the "most
exciting proposal" of the five measures considered by city voters
Tuesday.
In an RCV system—also known as
an instant
runoff voting system—voters rank candidates for each office in order
of preference on their ballots. If no candidate secures a majority of
first-choice votes, an elimination process is triggered and continues until one
candidate has majority support.
RCV has been growing in
popularity across the United States in recent years. It is used in
local and party election in some places around the country and statewide in
Maine.
In addition to establishing
RCV in primary and special elections for all local offices beginning in 2021,
the ballot measure will "increase
the time between a city office vacancy and the special election to fill it from
45 days (60 for mayor) to 80 days" and "change the timeline for city
council redistricting to complete it prior to city council nominating petition
signature collection."
Celebrating the ballot
measure's passage on Tuesday night, Common Cause NY executive director Susan
Lerner said that
RCV "is the simple solution that puts power back in the hands of the
people where it belongs. We look forward to working with our diverse partners
and elected officials to educate New Yorkers on how this important reform will
work in the local 2021 elections and beyond."
The RCV provision
garnered support from
New Yorkers and national advocates alike. Backers included Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)—a widely popular freshman congresswoman who represents
parts of the Bronx and Queens—2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate
and city resident Andrew
Yang, Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-N.Y.), state Attorney General Letitia James,
Democratic state Sen. Julia Salazar, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane
Williams, and actor, activist, and city resident Cynthia Nixon.
The advocacy group FairVote,
which fights for fair elections and supports RCV, declared on Twitter:
"This is huge for the #RankedChoiceVoting movement!"
Supporters of an RCV system
argue that it pushes candidates to focus on engaging voters rather than
negative campaigning. FairVote president Rob Richie told Politico,
"You've got to be, I think, a better candidate."
"You as a candidate have
a lot more reasons to have conversations and engagements with people," he
said. "The candidates that run traditional campaigns that involve using
money and not using people have not done as well."
Rod Townsend, president of the
Stonewall Democratic Club of NYC, said in
statement ahead of the vote Tuesday that "it's been too easy for
candidates to ignore marginalized communities, including LGBTQ voters, because
they didn't think they needed every vote to win. Ranked-choice voting ends that
mindset because with RCV, every vote matters."
"With ranked-choice
voting, marginalized communities will be engaged by every candidate,"
Townsend added. "Candidates will have to knock on the door of not just a
certain plurality, but on the diverse doors of NYC's mosaic majority."
Amazon's Major Money Dump in Seattle's City Council Election Seen as 'Dangerous and Ominous Development'
"It's supposed to be a
democratic process and it's not a democratic process when Amazon can contribute
that much to basically a small election."
Wednesday, November 06, 2019
An attempt by Amazon to fill
the Seattle city council with members more supportive of the company than the
current progressive slate was called a chilling development for city government
by critics of the move after Tuesday's election.
Socialist councilor Kshama
Sawant, one of the company's top targets, told The
Guardian that her race had been uphill and that the power of a massive
corporation like Amazon stacked against her campaign had been difficult to
overcome.
"We have run a historic
grassroots campaign, with working people, community members rejecting Amazon
and billionaires' attempt to buy this election, and that doesn't mean we're
going to win every battle against the billionaires," said Sawant.
"What matters is the political clarity that the billionaires are not on
our side and that this is going to be a struggle."
Seattle is still waiting for
the final results in the race—Washington has a mail-in voting system that makes
final counts unavailable for days after voting—but as of Wednesday, it looked
likely that Sawant and fellow socialist Shaun Scott were headed for defeat
against Amazon-backed candidates Egan Orion and Alex Pederson,
respectively. Neither Scott nor Sawant had conceded at press time.
Amazon dumped cash into the
race via a super PAC, according
to Bloomberg:
Amazon, the biggest employer
in Seattle, contributed $1.45 million to a business-backed political-action
committee to help elect council members Amazon views as more favorable to its
interests and those of the business community.
The group, called the Civic
Alliance for a Sound Economy, backed six new candidates for seven open council
seats. Three of them are trailing in early results. It also backed one
incumbent, who is leading her race. Two positions were not up for election this
year.
In a Medium post
from November 1, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), whose district includes much
of Seattle, said she
was unsettled by the company's involvement in the election.
"I am extremely disturbed
by the unprecedented amount of money that Amazon has dumped into Seattle City
Council elections—not just a thumb, but a fistful of cash, on the scales of
democracy," wrote Jayapal.
Justice Democrats
communications director Waleed Shahid noted the
insidious nature of that corporate influence in a city where campaign finance
is set up to avoid such spending.
"Amazon's attempt to buy
Seattle's city council even as the city has a public financing system is a
dangerous and ominous development unfolding in one of the bluest parts of the
country," Shahid tweeted.
Journalist Walker Bragman, on
Twitter, called the
results an example of a broken political system.
"What happened in Seattle
is chilling," said Bragman. "Americans will either beat the ruling
class at the ballot box or in the streets. This inequality is
unsustainable."
Seattle voter Sarah
Champernowne, a Sawant supporter, said that Amazon's involvement in the race
was anti-democratic.
"It's supposed to be a
democratic process and it's not a democratic process when Amazon can contribute
that much to basically a small election," said Champernowne.
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