Ugly, Ugly, Ugly
Apr. 13th, 2023 08:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo Now if it had been the Pope....
But the Dalai Lama! Lordy Lordy! Such a nice old man, given to saying such nice old things...
Almost as shocking as the abusive act was the apology that wasn't an apology. It was the sort of statement celebrity lawyers put out on behalf of their clients, which tries to shift the blame from the perceived to the perceivers. "My client is sorry you were offended but don't you think you should ask yourself why you took offence at what was just playful harmless fun?"
I was on a site where a guy talks about the body language of the rich and famous. The screen was split; on one side was the talking head, on the other the tongue thing was playing on a loop. I had to look away. I'm not innocent, I'm not squeamish, but there are some things I don't want to look at more than once.
What do we really know about the Dalai Lama? Surprisingly little it turns out. I searched the internet and had difficulty finding anyone who had a bad word to say about him. People who have met him find him charming and unaffected. Some speak of an aura of holiness...
There have been verbal slip-ups, but nothing that can't be explained as playful, harmless fun that has been misinterpreted.
But the holy man is also a politician. That gets glossed over. And not just the head of a government in exile but also a CIA asset- a front man in the West's ideological war with China. They fund him, they promote him. He's in the pockets of the people behind the scenes- just like any congressperson you care to name- and this goes a long way towards explaining the relentlessly favourable coverage he gets, the absence of any spadework on his private life. The Company owns the Lama, the CIA owns the media (I know that's an oversimplification) so of course his halo is going to be burnished.
He is based in northern India- where he occupies a monastery/fortress/palace guarded by the Indian army. The fiction is that- being a monk- he owns nothing- but that's like saying the Pope owns nothing when he lives in Vatican City surrounded by Renaissance masterpieces. The Dalai Lama has his entourage, he has his meals served up regularly and those who have looked into it estimate his worth at around $150,000,000.
The abuse took place in his private temple....
The image I have in my head is of a stage set collapsing. Whoops, stand clear, there goes another great plywood flat...
But the Dalai Lama! Lordy Lordy! Such a nice old man, given to saying such nice old things...
Almost as shocking as the abusive act was the apology that wasn't an apology. It was the sort of statement celebrity lawyers put out on behalf of their clients, which tries to shift the blame from the perceived to the perceivers. "My client is sorry you were offended but don't you think you should ask yourself why you took offence at what was just playful harmless fun?"
I was on a site where a guy talks about the body language of the rich and famous. The screen was split; on one side was the talking head, on the other the tongue thing was playing on a loop. I had to look away. I'm not innocent, I'm not squeamish, but there are some things I don't want to look at more than once.
What do we really know about the Dalai Lama? Surprisingly little it turns out. I searched the internet and had difficulty finding anyone who had a bad word to say about him. People who have met him find him charming and unaffected. Some speak of an aura of holiness...
There have been verbal slip-ups, but nothing that can't be explained as playful, harmless fun that has been misinterpreted.
But the holy man is also a politician. That gets glossed over. And not just the head of a government in exile but also a CIA asset- a front man in the West's ideological war with China. They fund him, they promote him. He's in the pockets of the people behind the scenes- just like any congressperson you care to name- and this goes a long way towards explaining the relentlessly favourable coverage he gets, the absence of any spadework on his private life. The Company owns the Lama, the CIA owns the media (I know that's an oversimplification) so of course his halo is going to be burnished.
He is based in northern India- where he occupies a monastery/fortress/palace guarded by the Indian army. The fiction is that- being a monk- he owns nothing- but that's like saying the Pope owns nothing when he lives in Vatican City surrounded by Renaissance masterpieces. The Dalai Lama has his entourage, he has his meals served up regularly and those who have looked into it estimate his worth at around $150,000,000.
The abuse took place in his private temple....
The image I have in my head is of a stage set collapsing. Whoops, stand clear, there goes another great plywood flat...
