the Dalai Lama and the news

[Seeuzin]

In the past week or so alone, I have read four or five news articles (the ones I could relocate are linked below) on the Dalai Lama. I don't really follow the news, and I still caught quite a few going up on the Drudge Report and other sites. What really made me go "hmm" was that the articles presented him in an ugly way, very differently from how he is usually talked about in the West. These articles were posted in UK and US news sites, and two I had found from going to the Drudge Report:

'I'm a Marxist,' Dalai Lama tells Chinese students
http://content.usatoday.com/communit...rx-communism/1
This seems intended to get a rise out of Western readers. If that was its goal, then from the comments section a few days ago, it definitely succeeded. People (sock puppets?) bashing the Dalai Lama left and right.

Dalai Lama mistakes Australian PM for a man
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

Watch: Reporter's joke to the Dalai Lama gets lost in translation
http://content.usatoday.com/communit...-translation/1
In this video the reporter speaks to him slowly and as if he were simple-minded. The description used to say something to the effect of "This joke would have worked better if the Dalai Lama had a better understanding of pizza toppings."

I also did a Youtube search for "Dalai Lama [something]" (forget exactly what the word was, but it wasn't a terribly specific qualifier) and one of the first results to come up was a video that read like some kind of propaganda film. It claimed that "militant followers of the Dalai Lama" had smashed people's homes and threatened many with death, then interviewed a man who said: (somewhat paraphrased because I cannot find the video): "When the Chinese came to Tibet, they killed our wives and daughters. This did not hit us to the heart. But the Dalai Lama and his followers have struck us to the core of our being with what they have done."

The entire video was in English, or with an English translator in the case of the man they interviewed, marking the video as being for a certain audience. Also, they did not attempt to paint the Chinese government and military as angels (which few in the West would buy), but rather, they said something more insidious and "easily digestible" to Westerners - that while the Chinese had done terrible things, they do not miss a beat in then assuring viewers that the Dalai Lama had done things even more terrible, more heinous.

If you ask me, it is custom-tailored, very intelligent propaganda meant to mislead Western viewers.

Has anyone else noticed this? What do you think the reason is? The Chinese government did something to the US debt it held a couple weeks ago, I don't remember exactly, but it was a significant flexing of muscles. Since then I have seen these articles that aren't big deals in and of themselves but collectively make me go "hmm."

Am I the only one?

[CFTraveler]

I have noticed this, yes.
The chinese went into Tibet, replaced Tibetans with chinese and forced the religious leader out of the country, and somehow, the refugees are painted as the wrong ones. It's just the victors rewriting history, as usual.

[Seeuzin]

What really makes me go "hmm" is that these are not Chinese news sites! How do they alter the content of Western news media, as it seems IS happening, somehow. It very much troubles me.

There is a natural kindness that the Chinese people I have met have in their hearts. They will always try to be kind, and many times, when I try to speak a little Mandarin and butcher it, they don't laugh, they are eager to teach me more. Such a human-hearted people. I am glad their country is becoming more prosperous, so they will be more happy, it is about time. I just hope they are able to keep in check the cruelty of their government, which is not a kind entity, but I have doubts about this as citizens in other powerful nations have not been able to do the same for their governments, and in China they have such limited personal liberty.

[John]

Has anyone else noticed this? What do you think the reason is? The Chinese government did something to the US debt it held a couple weeks ago, I don't remember exactly, but it was a significant flexing of muscles. Since then I have seen these articles that aren't big deals in and of themselves but collectively make me go "hmm."

I have noticed that the stock market is on a downward trend. I suspect that the US debt is a factor.

China must recognize that for the debt to be repaid the US must prosper more than it is doing at this time. It may well have taken some action to move us in a more productive direction.

The culture of China itself will be slow to shift its ways due primarily to its long standing traditions. That is reason enough to resent the themes presented by someone like the Daiai Lame. I myself see things as evolving in appropriate ways. This implies a great respect for all cultures and ways of being.

John