It has always stifled me that people are allowed to build some of the roads and traffic methods I have seen around LA. I have never studied it but without a doubt I could of done a lot better then most places I see.

With Tibetan exiles now considering whether to push for independence, China on Tuesday reaffirmed its hard-line stance on the future of the Himalayan region, saying that any move to separate Tibet from China was ‘doomed.’

The comments from Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang came as more than 500 Tibetan exile leaders in India held all-day closed door discussions Tuesday as part of a weeklong meeting, the first major re-evaluation of their strategy since the Dalai Lama in 1988 outlined his Nobel Peace Prize-winning ‘middle way,’ which pushes for autonomy but not outright independence for the Himalayan region.

The meeting in the northern India hill town of Dharmsala, the base of Tibet’s self-proclaimed government-in-exile, was called by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. It comes after he expressed frustration over years of fruitless talks with China and follows this spring’s uprising by Tibetans across western China that was aggressively put down by Beijing.

‘Any attempt to separate Tibet from Chinese territory will be doomed. The so-called Tibet government in exile is not recognized by any government in the world,’ Qin told a news conference Tuesday.

Similar statements in the past from China have led the exiled leaders to question their own methods.

‘The middle way approach has failed, it has not produced any results,’ said Karma Chophel, speaker of the exile Parliament. ‘In that light, the Tibetan public should come out with an opinion about what to do.’

China insists Tibet has been part of its territory for 700 years, although many Tibetans say they were effectively independent for most of that time. Chinese forces invaded shortly after the 1949 communist revolution and the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 amid an unsuccessful uprising.

Large numbers of Tibetans remain fervently Buddhist and loyal to the Dalai Lama. If the exiles choose a more confrontational approach, Tibetans living under Chinese rule would bear the brunt of any government response.

Much of the debate is expected to boil down to two main choices: whether to continue pursuing the politics of compromise or to begin a long-shot independence movement _ a move almost certain to end talks held intermittently with Beijing since 2002.

Some factions are urging more protests, angrier protests, or more pressure on Western nations, with one very small group even pushing for sabotage of China’s infrastructure.

Samdhong Rinpoche, the exile prime minister, told the meeting Monday there would be an ‘open and frank discussion.’ He said the meeting may not lead to a new approach, and that any new path needs to have ‘the clear mandate of the people.’

The Dalai Lama was not expected to attend; he said he did not want to tilt the debate.

Any deviation from current policies was almost certain to scuttle the tenuous ties with Beijing, which has long accused the Dalai Lama of fomenting an independence movement.

Analysts said a strong anti-Beijing sentiment could play into China’s hands.

‘It seems to be a possible Chinese strategy to make the radical section much stronger,’ said Robbie Barnett, an expert on Tibet at Columbia University. ‘It would mean no contacts with China and make contacts with the international community very difficult.’

That would be fine with some delegates.

‘We can’t live with China,’ said Lobsang Phelgye, 55, who came to Dharmsala from the exile community in Nepal.

The Dalai Lama’s envoys to the recent talks with Beijing said in a statement Sunday that they had presented China with a detailed plan on how Tibetans could meet their autonomy needs within the framework of China’s constitution.

The plan calls for the protection for the Tibetan language and culture, restrictions on non-Tibetans moving into Tibet and the rights of Tibetans to create an autonomous government.

But China apparently rejected the plan. Chinese officials said no progress was made in the talks two weeks ago, calling the Tibetan stance ‘a trick’ and saying it lacked sincerity.

Tibetan envoy Lodi Gyari said the Chinese failed to respond to ‘our sincere and genuine attempts.’

China has dismissed this week’s meeting as meaningless, saying the participants do not represent the views of most Tibetans.

Chophel, the parliament speaker, said more than 8,000 of 17,000 Tibetans recently surveyed in Tibet said they would follow any decision by the Dalai Lama. More than 5,000 said they wanted Tibetan independence

Dalai Lama image Courtesy of The News Journal/Suchat Pederson

The Dalai Lama, in a lecture in Philadelphia yesterday, told a group of about 2,000,

Things are not black and white. Things are relative. Things are interdependent. When we look at a situation we have to consider all the factors.

Many world disasters, including war, including the Iraq war, are due to lack of this holistic nature (looking at all the factors). Like Saddam Hussein — ending things for him. Reality is not that simple.

Of course, I have great respect for, in fact, I love President Bush, because he is very frank, very straightforward. His intentions are good, but some of his policy in spite of his sincere motivation and right goal, and some of his method becomes unrealistic because of lack of understanding about reality.

He went on to explain,

“You cannot look in one direction. In order to see reality, (you) have to see in three or four or seven dimensions” and that this applies in the economical field, political field and international relations.”

The Philadelphia talk was sponsored by the Mongolian Kalmyk Buddhist order, which his holiness, the Dalai Lama, said was very close, teachings-wise, to Tibetan Buddhism and to the challenge of maintaining its culture, having left its homeland.

The main message the Dalai Lama presented was the idea of aiming for world peace through inner and outer disarmament. He explained that to reach a point where nations would outwardly disarm, people must first inwardly disarm, by becoming compassionate, not just with friends, but with all people, including those perceived as enemies.

About 2000 people attended the event at the Kimmel center. Upon finishing his talk, he was presented with a large birthday cake which was shared with all the attendees– a Dalai Lama cake.

Chiquita Bananas

Fresh Fruit, Bloody Wars

Here we have a company whose president was quoted as saying “it’s important that I don’t get too knowledgable about the past” upon taking control of the company in 1975. The previous president, Eli Black, had just left the company by way of leaping out the window of his 44th floor office in the Pan Am Building in New York rather than face prosecution for giving a bribe to the president of Honduras. The dude didn’t even give two weeks notice.

What’s this “past” he didn’t want to think about? Well, there’s the massacre of striking workers in Colombia in 1928, at the hands of the Colombian army and allegedly under the orders of the company. Seriously, how could they top that?

Well, bringing down the democratically elected leader of a South American country by way of a violent coup is one way.

Back in 1951 when they were still called the United Fruit Company, a president by the name of Jacabo Arbenz took office in Guatemala. Among the things that got him elected, the biggest was an ambitious plan that would distribute uncultivated land to over 100,000 peasants in Guatemala. The main obstacle to this plan was the United Fruit Company, who just happened to own the land.

According to their estimates, the land was valued at right around $525,000. When the Guatemalan government made a low ball offer of exactly that fucking amount, United Fruit responded with a completely logical counter offer of $16,000,000. When Arbenz balked, United Fruit reportedly took the term “breakdown in negotiations” to dizzying new heights by asking the CIA to intervene. And boy did they intervene. God-DAMN did they intervene!

Along with other connections in the Eisenhower administration, then CIA head Allen Dulles had previously served on United Fruit’s board of trustees. With that kind of direct access to the highest levels of the government and with McCarthyism in full swing, we imagine the telephone conversation that resulted in the CIA intervening on behalf of United Fruit went something like this:

CIA: “Hello?”

United Fruit: “BANANAS blah blah blah OUR LAND blah blah PEASANTS blah blah COMMUNISTS!”

CIA: **click**

United Fruit: “Hello? Hello?”

**Hears explosions in background, takes cover**

With the CIA on board to help with their cause, United Fruit launched a massive and highly successful propaganda campaign to paint Arbenz as a communist threat to the United States. Included in the campaign was a film that linked the taking of United Fruit’s land to the Communist Empire, awesomely titled Why The Kremlin Hates Bananas.

Some shit just writes itself. With the general public sufficiently convinced that Guatemala was a threat (good thing we don’t fall for shit like that anymore), the CIA was free to pounce and promptly launched “Operation PBSuccess.” They didn’t call it that because it failed. In short order, the US replaced the freely elected Arbenz with a right wing dictator more willing to answer to the demands of United Fruit and Guatemala’s brief flirtation with democracy and prosperity was over.

But this story does have a happy ending. The civil war that resulted from the CIA initiated coup did finally come to an end.

In 1996.
Iams Pet Food

Nutritious Dog Food, Cruelty

Boy do we Americans love us some misguided outrage. If the majority had their way, Michael Vick would have been bludgeoned to death by one of the Heartbreakers during the Super Bowl halftime show. Because, if there is one thing we don’t tolerate, it’s animal cruelty. At least not from NFL quarterbacks. Animal cruelty from major corporations though? Apparently not a problem.

People for the Ethical Treatmpent of Animals (PETA), known partly for saying batshit crazy things and for having the only public awareness campaign that people have ever masturbated to.

But, in between they sometimes actually do some good. One recent example happened in 2002 when, for nearly ten months, a PETA official went undercover at an Iams testing facility to expose harsh conditions inside the plant. What they found makes Michael Vick’s shenanigans look like some Arena League shit in comparison.

And, in case you suspected (as we did) that the stories were the product of PETA’s vegetable-induced imagination, they brought back a video of the facility that will ruin your day.

Most of the details, about mutilation and such, you really don’t want to hear about. Among the less nightmare-inducing tidbits were cats and dogs gone stir-crazy from constant confinement and an employee overheard talking about a live kitten that was accidentally washed down a drain. For fuck’s sake Iams! For you statistics geeks out there, one procedure performed at the Iams facility that involved (seriously, we’re not saying) resulted in 27 dogs being killed. Just one more record Michael Vick will never break.

When confronted with the findings from PETA, Iams attempted to turn the tables and blamed the undercover PETA official as the one responsible for the various atrocities, including a claim that the PETA official oversaw an incident in which several dogs were surgically debarked to keep them from crying out for attention. Because that’s exactly how PETA gets down. But a review of phone transcripts revealed the exact opposite. The PETA official actually tried to prevent the debarking. Iams officials acknowledged this to be the case also. And then probably beat their dogs out of frustration.

Coca-Cola

Refreshing Soft Drinks, Murder

Corporations don’t get much warmer and fuzzier than Coca-Cola. You think of fearsome NFL linemen tossing bright eyed kids their jerseys, playful polar bears frolicking in the snow, the world learning to sing in perfect harmony. Hell, some internet rumors even claim Coke invented Santa Claus.

The sweet bubbly deliciousness that is Coca Cola has been a beacon of happiness for generations of kids and adults alike, even those who weren’t lucky enough to have their Coke spiked with nose candy. With all of this universal joy spreading, some people may be surprised to find that Coke II isn’t the only atrocity lurking in the Big Red Machine’s closet.

If you work at one of the various Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia, South America … fucking WHY? After all, there is probably less violence to be found working for a cocaine cartel in Colombia, South America. According to some descriptions, Colombia is “a country where union work is like carrying a tombstone on your back.” If you spend too much time thinking about it, you’ll realize that saying makes no damn sense, but just trust that it means working for a union in Colombia is a death sentence.

This is especially true at the Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia. At the Carepa plant, five union leaders were murdered between 1994 - 1996 alone. In case after case, plant managers at bottlers throughout Colombia, afraid that being forced to give their workers that bump from $200 per month to $205 per month would bring their business to its knees, contracted with paramilitary groups to force unions at their plants to disband. In the most publicized case (meaning not really publicized at all, unless you count on the internet, which you shouldn’t), union executive board member Isidro Segundo Gil was shot ten times near the Carepa plant gates by paramilitary thugs purported to have been hired by the plant management.

The details of Gil’s assassination were outlined in a lawsuit filed against Coca-Cola by the International Labor Rights Fund. Of course, that the thugs were acting on the direction of plant management is just an allegation, but the fact that the thugs returned the next day demanding that workers quit the union is at least a little suspicious. There is also the issue of them having resignation forms prepared in advance by plant managers in hand when they made these demands. But still, these are just allegations. You shouldn’t assume anything. Like the old saying goes, “when you assume, you just make an ass out of u and me and evil corporations that condone the slaughtering of their own employees.”

Dole Bananas

Nutritious Fruit, Sterility-Causing Pesticides

Making their second appearance on the list, bananas are the standard bearer when it comes to corporate atrocity. Following in the heinous footsteps of Chiquita, Dole has a long track record of bringing the pain to South American countries unlucky enough to grow their shit. And unlike most other companies on this list, Dole didn’t even try to hide their hell raising ways. Kudos!

When several chemical workers became sterile, tests determined the cause to be a pesticide made at the plant where they worked called DBCP. When tests revealed it caused liver, kidney and lung damage, the Environmental Protection Agency banned its use in the United States. Proving themselves to be a paragon of classiness, Dole made note of the “in the United States” part of the ban and continued to use DBCP overseas. When Dow Chemicals informed Dole of their concerns over the safety of DBCP, Dole did what any company concerned with the well being of its fellow man would do. They advised Dow they would be in breach of their contract if they refused to provide them with DBCP for overseas use and agreed to take any liability for the resulting damage it may cause.

A brave move, agreeing to take the liability. Or at least it would be if they thought for a second that they would ever have to act on it. When Nicaraguan banana workers suffering the ill effects of DBCP exposure sought legal advice on how best to proceed with a lawsuit against Dole, they were told about the legal doctrine of forum non conveniens, a latin term meaning “fuck a third world farm worker.” Ok, it really means “inconvenient forum” and states a case can be dismissed on the grounds that it would be more appropriate to hear it in another locale, like the impossibly corrupt courts of the plaintiff’s home country, for instance.

Rather than taking their case to the Nicaraguan courts, which would be about as effective as taking the case to Judge Judy, the workers pressured the Nicaraguan government to find a different way to see to it that justice was served. The Nicaraguan National Assembly passed Law 364 in January 2001, to help banana workers gain compensation from companies that used DBCP. The law, which establishes a rapid procedure for workers who bring judgments before the courts, was immediately challenged by Dole along with several chemical companies. So far, despite court ordered judgments favoring Nicaraguan banana workers totaling more than $400 million, the workers have yet to see a dime.

One banana worker was quoted as saying “I ask the companies…to have a little bit of conscience with us.” We’d like to thank that worker for providing us with the funniest line of this article so far.

Nestle Quik

Delicious Chocolate Milk, Child Slaves

For any youngster that cringes at the thought of having to choke down a glass of plain milk with their dinner, Nestle Quik is a little box of magic. One tablespoon of the powdery goodness that is Nestle Quik can transform that glass of white nasty into a delectable cup of chocolately awesome. Add to this the fact that every box is emblazoned with an adorable cartoon rabbit, and what you have is a certified childhood dream maker.

At least this much is true for most kids; lazy, shiftless bastards that they are. Some kids, on the other hand, have to work for their Nestle Quik. Without going into the grizzly details that we’re sure you aren’t coming to a comedy website looking for, we’ll just say this. The majority of the world’s cocoa supply comes from Africa’s Ivory Coast. There are probably a lot of things that are illegal in the Ivory Coast, child labor, trafficking or (oh dear) slavery are not any of them. But hey, if it’s alright with the bunny, how bad can it be?

After years of flying under the atrocity radar, word of the unspeakably harsh conditions on Ivory Coast cocoa plantations finally came out in 2001. In the face of an influx of negative publicity, Nestle valiantly leapt into inaction. After issuing a few public statements claiming they had no way of knowing who did what where and when, it took a rider attached to an agricultural bill to get Nestle to even acknowledge the problem. The new legislation, passed in July, 2001, would have created a federal system to certify and label chocolate products as “slave free,” a label Nestle would qualify for if it weren’t for all the enslaved children making their shit.

Even if they did qualify, on the list of words you don’t want printed on the label of your product, “slave” comes in at a solid #3, right behind “Hitler” and “shit.” To avoid having to abide by the new legislation, Nestle agreed to a voluntary protocol to end forced labor on cocoa farms by 2005. Being that the major chocolate companies would be overseeing this new program, it wasn’t too surprising that nothing ever came of it.

When 2005 came and went with little to no change, Nestle was ready with one of the stupidest excuses imaginable. According to them, an escalating civil war in the Ivory Coast prevented them from sending anyone in to monitor the situation. Amazingly though, their team of buyers, who must consist of nothing but crack military commandos, have yet to have a problem getting in and out completely unscathed.

To add even less credibility to their claim that making delicious treats without at least some slave help wasn’t possible, several chocolate companies are now selling “Fair Trade” chocolate which is monitored to insure no slave labor is used in its production, though some sophisticated consumers say that chocolate isn’t as good, since it does not contain the unique flavor of the bitter tears of children.

We don’t want to pile on Nestle, though. If we wanted to do that, we would bring up the third-world babies that died from Nestle formula, or the company demanding millions from famine-stricken Ethiopia over a 1975 business transaction or … fuck it, we’re getting depressed.

At this point I have to say the most impressive and qualified is: Ron Paul http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

Smaller goverment is the only true capitalism will ever work. As we sink farther into quicksand by borrowing from other countries by making promises and interest and printing money with no gold to back it up we have one hope. As a nation we need to get back to the very foundation that made this country the fastest growing country in the world.

With ideas like making energy a free enterprise and taking our military out of other countries. Also he believes in the same theory that our top acononimists have near proven that by nearly removing the income tax and taking the fear out of people it will allow more room for innovation and new enterprise.

He also believes in putting business in charge of there own restrictions, you might think that business will do the wrong thing to help their bottom line buit really this will allow it to be much easier for a competitor to come in and show off there bad tactics to take a share of the business. At this point cooperations become so large they can pay off lobby interests to stay on top of having to display there dirty laundry.

Just like everything the government has tried to regulate or run the current system will fail and needs to go back to what this country was found on: The constitution and free capitalism.