Tao’s 2 Cents

We’re being nickeled and dimed. It’s the oldest trick in the book.

I’ve been following the Tibet protests with interest and especially now that they’re following the Olympic torch. One thing that I’ve noticed that China and it’s supporters are saying is that this about sports not politics. Essentially, they say this is not the time or place to discuss human rights.

It’s so incredibly hypocritical for China to say that the Olympics have nothing to do with politics. Does anyone really believe that China isn’t trying to show itself off as a world power with these Olympics? What they really mean to say is no one can use the Olympics for politics except them.

So I say, yes, the Olympics are sporting event AND they are a political event. To say they are merely a sporting event is simply wishful thinking. When sports teams are divided up by nation states, political entities, and then pitted against each other, how can than not be political?

I wonder how they feel about dirty boxer-briefs.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of democracy ever since the Burma protests happened. It seems to me that the push from democracy only happens when a lot of people’s lives are impacted negatively enough that they can not be ignored and unite people behind a mutual front.

The thing that sparked the Burmese protests was initially a very large increase imposed on cooking fuel by the government. The stamp tax united Americans against the British. Now clearly those were just the last straw in their respective circumstances, but it’s something to think about.

Democracy also appears to have a flaw similar to the boom and bust market cycles that caused the recessions in the past. As democracy succeeds and many of the things that were negatively impacting the people subside, people begin to lose cohesion and begin focusing on their personal lives and lose site of the civic responsibilities necessary for the continuation of the democracy. This process is facilitated with advertising that tells us to focus on ourselves by buying product x.

It reminds me of what happened to the romans. The generation of Pax Romana did not know suffering and life without democracy so they let it crumble around them. I think we’re in a similar period today as depressing as it may sound. I would like to think we could learn from the past, but that may be simply naive.

After writing my previous post about Burma I decided I really wanted to do something. The next day while I was cutting my hair(yes, I cut my own hair), I was looking at my head and thinking about the monks shaved heads. It dawned on me that shaving my heads in solidarity with the Buddhist monks would be a good way to do something. It turned out I was right, I probably had several dozen conversations about my head and Burma. I think I raised a lot of awareness.

When I got the e-mail from the U.S. Campaign for Burma people about the rally in Washington, D.C. I decided to go for it. I spent the few days before the protest thinking about what I wanted to put on my sign and I finally got the idea after seeing an illustration of the Olympic rings with a bullet hole for the last ring…

I plan on writing more about the “Free Burma” rally in D.C. earlier today, but I just saw this on CNN and couldn’t believe it. If you go to the latest news on CNN.com and click on the article entitled “Washington demonstrators rally to ‘free Burma’“, you’ll see a beautiful picture of the back of my head and the poster I made.

My jaw pretty much dropped when I saw that not only did CNN do a story on it, but that I was the lead photo. I shaved my head last week in solidarity with the monks. I guess it really only takes something moderately outrageous to get in the news.

Anyway, last time I went to a protest it was for the anti-war rally and there were maybe 40,000 people there and not a peep out of the major news outlets, and now 200 people rally about something different and there it is.

As you may well be aware, the military regime of Burma(officially called “Union of Myanmar”) is in the process of crushing a popular democratic uprising led by the country’s Buddhist monks which was initially sparked by an increase in fuel prices and subsequent attack on monks protesting the drastic price increase. The military regime is Orwellianly known as the “State Peace and Development Council”.

In 1960, U(Mr.) Nu, was democratically elected for his third, non-consecutive term, as Prime Minister in a landslide victory. Two years later the head of the military, General Ne Win, led a coup d’etat and seized power. U Nu had been elected several times previously in the few elections the country had held since 1948, when Britain released them from colonial rule. U Nu had given up power before and was continually re-elected as a popular leader. His popularity stemmed from being head of the AFPFL which led the movement for independence from England…

I arrived in downtown D.C. in front of the White House about 30 minutes late for the protest. I was a little worried that the march would have already started but the speakers had only just started. The place was packed, it was an ocean of people. If I had to guess I’d say that there were 50-60,000 people (the organizers claimed 100,000) there when the march first started. However I think only about 20,000-30,000 ended up at Congress after the march.

I managed to get within about 50 feet of the stage and got to here Cindy Sheehan, Ramsey Clark, Adam Kokesh, Etan Thomas, and Ralph Nader speak. I think the largest applause was for the Iraq veterans, but calls for impeachment and ending the corporate dominated government also got big cheers…

Tomorrow morning, September 15th, around 10 a.m. I’m heading down to meet up with thousands of anti-war protesters on the lawn in front of the White House. At around noon we’re marching to congress, supposedly in the hopes that this will influence them into some form of action.

I’m not convinced of the power of mass demonstrations, but I know that it certainly can’t be hurting. Agressive resource wars against foreign nations will never solve the problem that there simply isn’t enough cheap energy/oil in the world. We could and should be spending our money to find some other type of energy source…

It’s taken awhile to actually get situated and to the point where I’ll get to do some of the political things I’ve been itching to but unable to do over the last few years. I found a job doing web designat a place just outside of Baltimore. That’ll take most of my weekdays but most protests are on the weekend anyway…