No White House Greeting for the Dalai Lama

[joeycola]

I personally think this is wrong!


http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/10/01/no_white_house_greeting_for_th.html

No White House Greeting for the Dalai Lama


By Michelle Boorstein
When the Dalai Lama visits Washington next week, it will be the first time since 1991 that he hasn't been greeted by the sitting American president. Needless to say, his advocates are trying to put a positive face on this.

The Tibetan Buddhist leader, who has been in the country since Sept. 23, will be in D.C. from Monday through Saturday, visiting with members of Congress, giving a large "teaching" at American University (the subject: the power of the human mind) and meeting with Chinese people who have spoken out in defense of democracy in Tibet.

But he won't be meeting President Obama, who opted to wait until after a U.S.-China summit next month. The highest level American official he'll see this trip is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which is a stark contrast to his visit two years ago, when he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal - Congress' highest civilian honor - and met with President Bush at the Capitol, thrilling thousands of Buddhists and non-Buddhists who celebrated on the lawn outside.

[styersc]

1. Cying out loud.

When will we elect a president with principles?

[babylonsister]

2. Chill out and check this thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8661639

Obama to Meet With Dalai Lama After President's China Visit

President Barack Obama will hold off meeting with the Dalai Lama until after his first visit to China in November, a White House official said.

Obama decided not to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader during the Dalai Lama's trip to Washington in October, said White House adviser Valerie Jarrett. The two will meet in the U.S. capital "after the president's trip to China," she said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
...
Jarrett said in a statement she emphasized Obama's commitment to supporting the Tibetan people and securing their human and civil rights. She also said Obama commended the Dalai Lama for looking for a solution based on autonomy within China.

The Dalai Lama expressed the hope the Tibetans may see progress in the resolution of their differences with China during Obama's presidency, according to the statement.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSg.pjlsQSQk

[styersc]

3. Sure thing.

"...Comittment to supporting the Tibetan people and securing their human and civil rights". As committed as he is to the public option, closing Guantanamo, equal rights for gay and lesbian citizens, ending war........

Good fucking luck Tibetans.

[Baltoman991]

4. GITMO is

closing. The war in Iraq, if you'd listen for yourself and not the media spin, is winding down as more troops are leaving. Because he doesn't support same sex marriage doesn't mean he's not for gay rights.

You can deem him a failure, a liar, or a promise breaker all you want. The fact is the man, in the things you mentioned above, has been steady in what he's said all along.

Because it all didn't happen day one to appease you is bullshit. It took 8 years to create this cluster fuck. It's going to take more than 9 months to fix it all.

[FrenchieCat]

9. Perhaps you need the good luck instead.....

you seem impaired in some way.

Must suck to wake up mad no matter what.

[joeycola]

10. well said.

[Peacetrain]

11. When you are working with a different culture.. you cannot automatically apply American

cultural ways of doing things.. Wake up and smell the coffee.. That was the bush way and look what a mess we are trying to dig ourselves out of.

[GCP]

34. Don't forget DADT

That was going to be abolished as soon as he got in the WH. That can't be blamed on only being in power for 9 months.

[rucky]

6. That's probably a prudent act of diplomacy.

And I hope Tibet is discussed in his visit to China - then the President can have a more productive discussion with the Dalai Lama, and maybe even get somewhere with the issue.

[uponit7771]

8. Yeap, some wll do anything to put Obama in a bad light...nothing from our M$M should be taken as fac

[BlooInBloo]

16. I figured there was a fuller story - thanks!

[Honeycombe8]

18. I hate to hear that the W.H. is relegating the Dalai Lama to secondary leader to China.

Instead of a significant leader in his own right, which he is.

Another disappointment.

[ShortnFiery]

26. Well put.

:thumbsup:

[lunatica]

5. By giving China precedence Obama is practicing wise diplomacy

It allows China to save face. When did we forget how important that is? By doing it this way China would be more open to freeing Tibet. Because by not playing this diplomatic give and take it basically leaves China with no choice because it'll look like we're trying to force the issue.

Diplomacy 101 in International Relations. Belligerence and demands tend to make for poor relations.

[MarjorieG]

7. Agree, especially with the power of China.

[Orsino]

23. Yeah. Unsatisfying, but defensible...

...and perhaps wise.

[AuntPatsy]

25. agree didn't lil bush's 8 yrs of ignorant leadership teach us anything

how soon some forget

[zulchzulu]

12. Obama to meet the Dalai Lama in China, which will have more political import

So he won't be at the Dalai Lama's beck and call when what some consider the Dalai Lama's unequivocal support of the Kalachakra-Tantra to be not only sexist when wielding patriarchal power, but hell-bent on starting religious war with non-Buddhists.

Jus' sayin'...

[Ikonoklast]

13. Ho-hum. Just another reason to bash Obama from you.

Tell the entire story, first. Obama will meet with the Dalai Lama.

Bet you cheered when 'ol Bushy met with him, right?

[grantcart]

14. As a Buddhist I applaud this.

The Dalai Lama holds two positions: is the 14th Dalai Lama, (1)a spiritual leader revered among the people of Tibet.<2> He is the head of the government-in-exile based in Dharamshala, India

If he renounces his position as head of government then world leaders can meet with him any time.

As head of government he must follow government to government protocols.

To object to the President's action is uninformed pedantic nonsense.

[Jackeens]

15. I don't like the Dalai Lama. I don't want the White House to greet him. There, I've said it.

****running for cover****

Has there ever been a political figure more ridiculous than the Dalai Lama? This is the "humble monk" who forswears worldly goods in favour of living a simple life dressed in maroon robes. Yet in 1992 he guest-edited French Vogue, the bible of the decadent high-fashion classes, which is packed with pictures of the half-starved daughters of the aristocracy modelling skirts and shirts that most of us could never afford.

He claims to be the current incarnation of the Tulkus line of Buddhist masters, who are "exempt from the wheel of death and rebirth". Yet he's best known for hanging out with clueless western celebs like Richard Gere and Sharon Stone (who is still most famous for showing her vagina on the big screen). Stone once introduced the Dalai Lama at a glittering fundraising ball as "Mr Please, Please, Please Let Me Back Into China!"

The Dalai Lama says he wants Tibetan autonomy and political independence. Yet he allows himself to be used as a tool by western powers keen to humiliate China. Between the late 1950s and 1974, he is alleged to have received around $15,000 a month, or $180,000 a year, from the CIA. He has also been, according to the same reporter, "remarkably nepotistic", promoting his brothers and their wives to positions of extraordinary power in his fiefdom-in-exile in Dharamsala, northern India.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/29/downwiththedalailama

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/5170


BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS | The Dalai Lama has come out in support of the thermonuclear tests recently conducted by the Indian state, and has done so in the very language of the chauvinist parties who now control that state's affairs. The "developed" countries, he says, must realize that India is a major contender and should not concern themselves with its internal affairs. This is a perfectly realpolitik statement, so crass and banal and opportunist that it would not deserve any comment if it came from another source.

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/07/13news.html


What we don't hear about Tibet

While the world moralises over China's occupation, feudalism and abuse in Tibetan culture has been conveniently forgotten


Sexual abuse in monasteries and oppressive feudalism in traditional Tibetan society has been factored out of the argument against China's occupation, oversimplifying it.

Han Chinese guards deliberately obstruct the pilgrim route through Lhasa to the holy Jokhang temple by sipping tea at strategically placed tables in the middle of the road. In front of the Potala, the Dalai Lama's former seat of power, an imposing guarded concrete square glorifies China's occupation.

Tibet seems like as a celestial paradise held in chains, but the west's tendency to romanticise the country's Buddhist culture has distorted our view. Popular belief is that under the Dalai Lama, Tibetans lived contentedly in a spiritual non-violent culture, uncorrupted by lust or greed: but in reality society was far more brutal than that vision.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/tibet-china-feudalism

[Better Believe It]

20. Good! I agree. No visit with the "God King" of Tibet

[Manifestor_of_Light]

24. Hitchens also demolished Mother Theresa.

As well he should. She never used any of her millions to help human suffering with medical care.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

27. I greatly respect you and your opinions Jackeens and FWIW

I am definitely not unsympathetic to your points about the Dalai Lama (and don't think Obama did anything wrong here) That having been said, Christopher Hitchens is not the world's most reliable source. After spending most of eight years cheerleading for the * Administration and the Iraq War, not to mention his personal vendetta/crusade against Mike Moore, I've learned to take what he writes with a grain of salt

[Jackeens]

30. Hi RFKHumphreyObama

So sorry, I only spotted your post tonight.

Just to say, I absolutely agree with you about Christopher Hitchens. I've found myself on the same side as him occasionally, eg on 'issues' like the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa - I almost wept with relief and joy when I saw his documentary on her years ago, I truly believed she was the cruellest of women, so I admired him hugely for having the guts to take on the myth.

And next to his hateful right-wing brother Peter he seemed like an angel, but more often than not he actually repulses me. I know a certain dose of cynicism is healthy, but that guy drowns in it.

And some of his stances - like, as you mentioned, Iraq - just beggar belief. I know Michael and Moore and George Galloway, for example, have their faults, but when it's been them against Hitchens I never had a problem deciding which side I was on - not his!

So, definitely, you're right, and because of his bizarre record he's probably one to avoid quoting to back up an argument!

Thanks RFKHumphreyObama.

[Cha]

17. And, I personally don't give a

crap how many "wrong" articles you post on DU.

[dionysus]

19. that poutrage is a week or two old.

[Hippo_Tron]

21. Other than take a picture what else did Bush do about Tibetian sovereignty?

Bush took a picture with the Dalai Lama to appease idiot right wingers who still think we're fighting the cold war and that we need to symbolically stand strong with Taiwan and Tibet in order to prevent them from being taken over from those commies in China. And while Bush makes a symbolic gesture to these people, he has no problem asking China to finance his adventures in the Middle East.

Obama knows that the diplomatic puzzle with China is a complex one and if he's not taking a picture with the Dalai Lama there's a reason for it.

[Cha]

22. I know..PO is out there trying to make a difference

with all of these worldly clashes and all some people can do is look at the surface and whine how "wrong" or "disappointed" they are.

They either don't get it or they're trying to jack up poutrage count.

[SpartanDem]

28. Obama was said he meet him later this year

so why are so many panties in a twist about this?

[MasonJar]

29. Absurd. Now we are afraid that China might not like our president

entertaining the Dalai Lsma. That is real courage/NOT. It's obviously change even from Bush, but not the kind we can believe in.

[ZombieHorde]

31. Why should Pres. Obama meet with the Dali Lama? nt

[ZombieHorde]

32. My computer said. "Hey Z, I am not going to send this unless I can send it twide."

I said, "Oh, all right, send it twice you big baby."

"Don't call me a baby you puss sucking bastard!"

"Chill out computer, I was just being silly."

"I will cut your wife and gut your sack if you talk to me that way again!"

"OK, OK, chill."

[SemiCharmedQuark]

33. I think your computer needs a cold compress and something warm to drink.

[jeanpalmer]

35. Will the Dalai Lama buy our treasury securities? nt