“Infantile Moment of Self-Pity”

Hunter of Daily Kos on the contemporary Republican Party:

Honestly, I would begin to regain a shred — a mere, dismal thread — of respect for the Republicans if they had an ounce of self awareness on this one, or heaven help us showed a moment of sheepishness over it, or even just f–ing recognized the duplicity and dumbassed ignorance they’re chucking out over the airwaves like beads at Mardi Gras. But no: doesn’t enter their heads. Now that they are out of power instead of in power, their clocks have been reset; they have amnesia about anything that happened in America for the last ten years or twenty. They are newborns, discovering every basic concept anew, and only when it brushes up against them.

It’s not even hypocrisy, because that implies an ounce of self awareness on their own contradictions. It’s purely an infantile moment of self-pity. Truly, the only America that exists for a conservative is the one they are living in, inside their own heads, at any particular moment of time. Everyone else, whether past, present and future, two doors down or ten states away, can go rot. What’s that you say? That the definition of “instant obedience” is not patriotism, and dissent is not treason? Well, paint me blue and call me Papa Freakin’ Smurf, but that is exactly the teaching moment we liberals have been trying to drill into your thick and addled skulls for eight long years. Congratulations on finally touching your fingers to the lifeline of the Patently Obvious: climb skyward for such further discoveries as Other People Have Different Values and Ethnic People Have Souls Too.

Yes, dissent is not treason: but if you can only realize that when you think it might happen to you, and only feel outrage over it when you feel it might happen to you, then that makes it even worse, because it indeed declares you to be just as narcissistic, just as incapable of empathy or comprehension, just as plain dumb as we all thought you were on our worst, most mean-spirited post-millennial days. That’s what prompts these growing whinefests muttering about your own patriotism, and your own right to disagree, and all the other things that you didn’t give two Limbaughian farts over just twelve damn months ago.

What a spectacle. But is anyone honestly surprised by it?

Labor Standards

Christy Hardin Smith highlights some very important ways that the transition from a Bush presidency to the Obama presidency will impact workers in America. For the first time in eight years, the Department of Labor will be run by someone who understands working issues and supports the rights of America’s workers. This should mean oversight, investigation, and enforcement of current labor laws…and hopefully an increase in worker protections in the future. From child labor violations, to worker safety violations, to illegal firings and intimidation in the face of union organizing, there’s a lot of work to be done when it comes to giving workers the executive branch they deserve.

Quote of the Day

Via the BBC, in an article about the Chinese government blocking all access to YouTube because the site has videos of Chinese troops and security forces beating peaceful Tibetan monks and protesters:

On Tuesday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that China “is not afraid of the internet”.

Right, the Chinese government is simply afraid of the information that is available on the internet.

South African Peace Conference

Yesterday I mentioned that the South African government had caved to pressure from China and blocked the Dalai Lama from attending a peace conference  there. Fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates Archbishop Desmund Tutu and FW De Klerk had announced that they would boycott the conference as a result. Organizers of the South African peace conference have now announced that they are canceling the conference because the Pretoria government’s refusal to allow the Dalai Lama to attend. The government is saying the Dalai Lama will not be granted a visa to South Africa prior to the 2010 World Cup.

The continued cowardice of the South African government is disappointing, but at least the organizers of this conference have the courage of their convictions to stand on the right side of history.

Ragya Protest Video

http://media.phayul.com/flvplayer/mediaplayer.swf

Phayul.com has posted a remarkable cell phone video of a peaceful protest in Ragya, Tibet. Students for a Free Tibet, in an email, writes:

On Saturday, March 21st more than a thousand Tibetans protested in Ragya, an Amdo town in eastern Tibet, after a young monk named Tashi Sangpo jumped into the Machu river (Yellow river). When he engaged in this desperate act, Tashi was in police custody for reportedly raising the Tibetan flag atop the monastery and distributing pro-independence leaflets on March 10th. Although Tashi remains missing, Tibetans in the area say it is unlikely he could survive given the strength of the river.

I’ve heard reports that the Ragya protests included over a thousand lay Tibetans and monks.

Stalking Story

Fox News and O’Reilly show producers followed, Jesse Waters stalked and ambushed Think Progress editor Amanda Terkel over the weekend. Why did Waters do this? Apparently Amanda and TP recently blogged about Bill O’Reilly’s objectionable comments blaming women for their own rapes.

I agree with Josh Orton: Fox News’ actions are simply unacceptable. It is mind-boggling that they thought the appropriate reaction to seeing commentary by a woman about why blaming rape victims is wrong was to spend hours stalking her far away from her home, then cornering her and harassing her.

Amanda is fine but if you support her against these Republican thugs, join the Facebook Group “We Stand with Amanda Terkel.”

China’s Fight Against Peace

Pico Iyer has a long piece on the Dalai Lama’s work for Tibet and current thinking about Sino-Tibetan relations in The New York Review of Books. It’s a sober account that deals extensively with the Dalai Lama’s recent move towards recognizing that the Chinese government are not good faith negotiating partners and that the Middle Path — pursuing autonomy over independence — has not brought him any closer to a resolution to the Tibet question. Of note, Iyer starts his essay with these hard-hitting quotes from the Dalai Lama:

“The situation inside Tibet is almost like a military occupation,” I heard the Dalai Lama tell an interviewer last November, when I spent a week traveling with him across Japan. “Everywhere. Everywhere, fear, terror. I cannot remain indifferent.” Just moments before, with equal directness and urgency, he had said, “I have to accept failure. In terms of the Chinese government becoming more lenient [in Chinese-occupied Tibet], my policy has failed. We have to accept reality.”

This isn’t exactly a revelation – this understanding from the Dalai Lama is what precipitated last year’s Special Meeting in Dharmsala –  but it certainly is powerful to see these words come from a man who has practiced such great forebearance in the pursuit of a peaceful resolution to China’s military occupation of Tibet.

Shockingly the Chinese government continues its quixotic campaign to alienate and stigmatize the Dalai Lama. Just today we learn that they have succeeded in getting South Africa’s government to deny him a visa to participate in an international peace conference. Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and FW De Klerk have announced that they will now boycott the conference as a result.

There’s a fine balance between the natural, selfish desire to protect land and resources under their control. I can at least intellectually understand the Chinese government’s desire to maintain their military occupation of Tibet at any cost. They don’t want to lose face internally and externally; the lose of control in Tibet could reasonably spell the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power throughout China. But to actively campaign against a man of peace, known worldwide for his high-minded commitment to nonviolence and dialogue despite the fact that he publicly admits that Tibet is “dying,” makes no sense to me. Their persistent efforts to smear the Dalai Lama only show the Chinese government to be unreasonable, petty children who are incapable of any criticism or critique from the global community. Such a stance surely is an obstacle to China actually being a respected superpower.

By continuing to wage a public smear campaign against the Dalai Lama, the Chinese government risks blowing their last, best opportunity to bring resolution to the Tibet question in a manner that allows them to retain any form of control over Tibet. I believe the Dalai Lama can still usher forward meaningful autonomy for Tibet. But if this has not happened during his lifetime, I do not think autonomy will remain on the table. It will be independence or continued occupation. Obviously the Chinese government thinks occupation is a tenable long-term outcome. I think they will be hard-pressed to find another historical example where, on a long time line, the military occupation and colonization of another nation goes uninterrupted in perpetuity.