Free Tibet

It's almost a joke, isn't it. Pet cause of lefty Hollywood pretty boy cliche Richard Gere. And these pinkophiliacs who are currently attacking wheelchair-ridden grannies as they roll along with the Olympic torch -- pathetic. But you know what? Free Tibet. What the hell is Red China doing with Tibet anyway?

Well, Red China is an expansionist empire. It is the third largest country by occupied territory because it has occupied territory. East Turkmenistan, for example. They took it because they could. Same deal with Tibet. In 1950 they invaded two of its eastern provinces, and in 1959 took over the whole country. The gall, after all, of the Tibetans rising to throw off the communist yoke. Imagine that. The Red Chinese have killed some one million Tibetans. Six million to go. What's six million? Hitler did it in a walk.

We, of course, have to choose our battles. We cannot stop every oppression. Reality is what it is. Our national interest has to top the list. Justice matters. It's just that some justice matters more than others. Am I wrong? No, sadly, I'm not wrong.

I was watching the TV the other day, another of those starving babies in Africa shows. You know how dramatic speeches are made in movies, about paying any price to save even one innocent life? Lies, of course. Lies lies lies. Because it would cost you about a quarter a day to save some starving African baby, and you don't pay it. If you cared, you'd give everything you had, to save as many as you could. I feel that way sometimes. But it's only a feeling. My actions say, let them starve. Same with you. We suck.

What could possibly be more important that saving starving babies? Or on a so much vaster scale, opposing the power that shoots Buddhist nuns in the back and then parades the gunmen as heroes through the streets of Peking? Yes, Peking. Communists do tell me how to pronounce my own language. They do, however, tell Tibetans whether they can live or die. It's ever so complex, of course, what with Red China depending so much on the watershed and natural oh so exploitable resources of Tibet. Free Tibet? Not as long as Tibetan chromite is free. And all that wonderful lithium. And you can't really ever get quite enough boron, eh? The Red Chinese need their copper, the way we need our mocha latte.

But what I'm really doing is complaining about the way the world is. The sky is blue, water is wet, and life is fundamentally unfair. Sometimes we can be happy, but only by ignoring the full spectrum of human experience. Such ignorance must be a good thing, because happiness is a good thing. When Jesus said the poor are always with us, did he mean that starvation and murder are always with us? Why must that be, when where is so much wealth in the world?

We'll never all be equal. But isn't there some minimum standard? Some reasonable sacrifice, of some few pennies out of our dollars, that can go at least to the most egregious sufferings? Taxes won't do it. We know this, because taxes don't do it. Bureaucracies waste.

...

Well, it's tomorrow now. We had a power outage last night. The whole quadrant went black. Transformer blew. I tried to write by candle light, but the terrorists won that battle. Anyways, I've forgotten whatever it was that I was writing about, and I'm too busy and important to cast my eyes three inches above to refresh my magnificent mind. Ah well, your loss. I'm sure I had more to say, all of it wise. But there's nothing to be done about it. Sometimes I just get dark, and the only thing that can break the cycle is a blackout.


J