The fallacy of climate activism by Adam D. Sacks

In the 20 years since we climate activists began our work in earnest,
the state of the climate has become dramatically worse, and the change
is accelerating—this despite all of our best efforts. Clearly
something is deeply wrong with this picture. What is it that we do
not yet know? What do we have to think and do differently to arrive
at urgently different outcomes?[1]

The answers lie not with science, but with culture.

Climate activists are obsessed with greenhouse-gas emissions and
concentrations. Since global climate disruption is an effect of
greenhouse gases, and a disastrous one, this is understandable. But
it is also a mistake.

Such is the fallacy of climate activism[2]: We insist that global
warming is merely a consequence of greenhouse-gas emissions. Since it
is not, we fail to tell the truth to the public.

I think that there are two serious errors in our perspectives on
greenhouse gases:

Global Warming as Symptom

The first error is our failure to understand that greenhouse gases are
not a cause but a symptom, and addressing the symptom will do little
but leave us with a devil’s sack full of many other symptoms, possibly
somewhat less rapidly lethal but lethal nonetheless.

The root cause, the source of the symptoms, is 300 years of our
relentlessly exploitative, extractive, and exponentially growing
technoculture, against the background of ten millennia of hierarchical
and colonial civilizations.[3] This should be no news flash, but the
seductive promise of endless growth has grasped all of us civilized
folk by the collective throat, led us to expand our population in
numbers beyond all reason and to commit genocide of indigenous
cultures and destruction of other life on Earth.

To be sure, global climate disruption is the No. 1 symptom. But if
planetary warming were to vanish tomorrow, we would still be left with
ample catastrophic potential to extinguish many life forms in fairly
short order: deforestation; desertification; poisoning of soil, water,
air; habitat destruction; overfishing and general decimation of
oceans; nuclear waste, depleted uranium, and nuclear weaponry—to name
just a few. (While these symptoms exist independently, many are
intensified by global warming.)

We will not change course by addressing each of these as separate
issues; we have to address root cultural cause.

Beyond Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The second error is our stubborn unwillingness to understand that the
battle against greenhouse-gas emissions, as we have currently framed
it, is over.

It is absolutely over and we have lost.

We have to say so.

There are three primary components of escalating greenhouse-gas
concentrations that are out of our control:

Thirty-Year Lag

The first is that generally speaking the effects we are seeing today,
as dire as they are, are the result of atmospheric concentrations of
carbon dioxide in the range of only 330 parts per million (ppm), not
the result of today’s concentrations of almost 390 ppm. This is
primarily a consequence of the vast inertial mass of the oceans, which
absorb temperature and carbon dioxide and create a roughly 30-year lag
between greenhouse-gas emissions and their effects. We are currently
seeing the effects of greenhouse gases emitted before 1980.

Just as the scientific community hadn’t realized how rapidly and
extensively geophysical and biological systems would respond to
increases in atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations, we currently
have only a rough idea of what that 60 ppm already emitted will mean,
even if we stopped our emissions today. But we do know, with virtual
certainty, that it will be full of unpleasant surprises.

Positive Feedback Loops

The second out-of-control component is positive (amplifying) feedback
loops. The odd thing about positive feedbacks is that they are often
ignored in assessing the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions. Our
understanding of them is limited and our ability to insert them into
an equation is rudimentary. Our inability to grasp them, however, in
no way mitigates their effects, which are as real as worldwide violent
weather.

It is now clear that several phenomena are self-sustaining, amplifying
cycles; for example, melting ice and glaciers, melting tundra and
other methane sources, and increasing ocean saturation with carbon
dioxide, which leads to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
These feedbacks will continue even if we reduce our human emissions to
zero—and all of our squiggly lightbulbs, Priuses, wind turbines,
Waxman-Markeys, and Copenhagens won’t make one bit of difference. Not
that we shouldn’t stop all greenhouse-gas emissions immediately—of
course we should—but that’s only a necessity, not nearly a sufficient
response.

We need to find the courage to say so.

Non-Linearity

The third component is non-linearity, which means that the effects of
rising temperature and atmospheric carbon concentrations may change
suddenly and unpredictably. While we may assume linearity for natural
phenomena because linearity is much easier to assess and to predict,
many changes in nature are non-linear, often abruptly so. A common
example is the behavior of water. The changes of state of water—solid,
liquid, gas—happen abruptly. It freezes suddenly at 0°C, not at 1°,
and it turns to steam at 100°, not at 99°. If we were to limit our
experience of water to the range of 1° to 99°, we would never know of
the existence of ice or steam.

This is where we stand in relationship to many aspects of the global
climate. We don’t know where the tipping points—effectively the
changes of state—are for such events as the irreversible melting of
glaciers, release of trapped methane from tundras and seabeds, carbon
saturation of the oceans. Difficult to pin down, tipping points may
be long past, or just around the corner. As leading climatologist Jim
Hansen has written, “Present knowledge does not permit accurate
specification of the dangerous level of human-made GHGs. However, it
is much lower than has commonly been assumed. If we have not already
passed the dangerous level, the energy infrastructure in place ensures
that we will pass it within several decades.”[4]

Evidence of non-linearity is strong, not only from the stunning
acceleration of climate change in just the past couple of years, but
from the wild behavior of the climate over millions of years, which
sometimes changed dramatically within periods as short as a decade.

The most expert scientific investigators have been blindsided by the
velocity and extent of recent developments, and the climate models
have likewise proved far more conservative than nature itself. Given
that scientists have underestimated impacts of even small changes in
global temperature, it is understandably difficult to elicit an
appropriate public and governmental response.

Beyond the Box

We climate activists have to tread on uncertain ground and rapidly
move beyond our current unpleasant but comfortable parts-per-million
box. Here are some things we need to say, over and over again,
everywhere, in a thousand different ways:

Bitter climate truths are fundamentally bitter cultural truths.
Endless growth is an impossibility in the physical world, always—but
always—ending in overshot and collapse. Collapse: with a bang or a
whimper, most likely both. We are already witnessing it, whether we
choose to acknowledge it or not.

Because of this civilization’s obsession with growth, its demise is
100 percent predictable. We simply cannot go on living this way. Our
version of life on earth has come to an end.

Moreover, there are no “free market” or “economic” solutions. And
since corporations must have physically impossible endless growth in
order to survive, corporate social responsibility is a myth. The only
socially responsible act that corporations can take is to dissolve.

We can’t bargain with the forces of nature, trading slightly less
harmful trinkets for a fantasied reprieve. Geophysical processes care
not one whit for our politics, our economics, our evening meals, our
theologies, our love for our children, our plaintive cries of
innocence and error.

We can either try to plan the transition, even at this late hour, or
the physical forces of the world will do it for us—indeed, they
already are. As Alfred Crosby stated in his remarkable book,
Ecological Imperialism, mother nature’s ministrations are never gentle.
[5]

Telling the Truth

If we climate activists don’t tell the truth as well as we know it—
which we have been loathe to do because we ourselves are frightened to
speak the words—the public will not respond, notwithstanding all our
protestations of urgency.

And contrary to current mainstream climate-activist opinion, contrary
to all the pointless “focus groups,” contrary to the endless
speculation on “correct framing,” the only way to tell the truth is to
tell it. All of it, no matter how terrifying it may be.[6]

It is offensive and condescending for activists to assume that people
can’t handle the truth without environmentalists finding a way to make
it more palatable. The public is concerned, we vaguely know that
something is desperately wrong, and we want to know more so we can try
to figure out what to do. The response to An Inconvenient Truth, as
tame as that film was in retrospect, should have made it clear that we
want to know the truth.

And finally, denial requires a great deal of energy, is emotionally
exhausting, fraught with conflict and confusion. Pretending we can
save our current way of life derails us and sends us in directions
that lead us astray. The sooner we embrace the truth, the sooner we
can begin the real work.

Let’s just tell it.

Stating the Problem

After we tell the truth, then what can we do? Is it hopeless?
Perhaps. But before we can have the slightest chance of meaningful
action, having told the truth, we have to face the climate reality,
fully and unflinchingly. If we base our planning on false premises—
such as the oft-stated stutter that reducing our greenhouse-gas
emissions will forestall “the worst effects of global warming”—we can
only come up with false solutions. “Solutions” that will make us feel
better as we tumble toward the end, but will make no ultimate
difference whatsoever.

Furthermore, we can and must pose the problem without necessarily
providing the “solutions.”[7] I can’t tell you how many climate
activists have scolded me, “You can’t state a problem like that
without providing some solutions.” If we accept that premise, all of
scientific inquiry as well as many other kinds of problem-solving
would come to a screeching halt. The whole point of stating a problem
is to clarify questions, confusions, and unknowns, so that the problem
statement can be mulled, chewed, and clarified to lead to some
meaningful answers, even though the answers may seem to be out of
reach.

Some of our most important thinking happens while developing the
problem statement, and the better the problem statement the richer our
responses. That’s why framing the global warming problem as
greenhouse-gas concentrations has proved to be such a dead end.

Here is the problem statement as it is beginning to unfold for me. We
are all a part of struggling to develop this thinking together:

We must leave behind 10,000 years of civilization; this may be the
hardest collective task we’ve ever faced. It has given us the
intoxicating power to create planetary changes in 200 years that under
natural cycles require hundreds of thousands or millions of years—but
none of the wisdom necessary to keep this Pandora’s Box tightly shut.
We have to discover and re-discover other ways of living on earth.

We love our cars, our electricity, our iPods, our theme parks, our
bananas, our Nikes, and our nukes, but we behave as if we understand
nothing of the land and water and air that gives us life. It is past
time to think and act differently.

If we live at all, we will have to figure out how to live locally and
sustainably. Living locally means we are able get everything we need
within walking (or animal riding) distance. We may eventually figure
out sustainable ways of moving beyond those small circles to bring
things home, but our track record isn’t good and we’d better think it
through very carefully.

Likewise, any technology has to be locally based, using local
resources and accessible tools, renewable and non-toxic. We have much
re-thinking to do, and re-learning from our hunter-gatherer forebears
who managed to survive for a couple of hundred thousand years in ways
that we with our civilized blinders we can barely imagine or
understand.[8]

Living sustainably means, in Derrick Jensen’s elegantly simple
definition, that whatever we do, we can do it indefinitely.[9] We
cannot use up anything more or faster than nature provides, we don’t
poison the air, water, or soil, and we respect the web of life of
which we are an intricate part. We are not separate from nature, or
above it, or in any way qualified to supervise it.[10] The evidence is
ample and overwhelming; all we have to do is be brave enough to look.

How do we survive in a world that will probably turn—is already
turning, for many humans and non-humans alike—into a living hell? How
do we even grow or gather food or find clean water or stay warm or
cool while assaulted by biblical floods, storms, rising seas,
droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, snow, and hail?

It is crystal clear that we cannot leave it to the technophiliacs. It
is human technology coupled with our inability to comprehend, predict,
and prevent unintended consequences that have brought us global
catastrophe, culminating in climate disruption, in the first place.
Desperate hopes notwithstanding, there are no high-tech solutions
here, only wishful thinking—the tools that got us into this mess are
incapable of getting us out.[11]

All that being said, we needn’t discard all that we’ve learned, far
from it.[12] But we must use our knowledge with great discretion, and
lock much of it away as so much nuclear weaponry and waste.

Time is running very short, but the forgiveness of this little blue
orb in a vast lonely universe will continue to astonish and nourish us—
if we only give it the chance.

Our obligation as activists, the first step, the essence, is to part
the cultural veil at long last, and to tell the truth.

—-

Endnotes:

[1] Many thanks to Richard Grossman, who posed that question fifteen
years ago with respect to corporate domination of governance and
culture when he founded the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy
(POCLAD). He understood that we must take the time to stop and
penetrate beyond the obvious if we are to think outside of the
cultural prescriptions that constrain our ability to act differently.
Many thanks as well to Ross Gelbspan, a courageous and ground-breaking
journalist, who early on investigated the forces driving the fossil
fuel machine and has been sounding the alarm for almost two decades.
See his excellent article, “Beyond the Point of No Return,” December
2007, which inspired many of the ideas in this piece.

[2] I would like to express deep gratitude to John A. Livingston,
pioneer environmentalist, preservationist, teacher and writer. In
1981 he wrote “The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation,” which inspired
the title of this piece. The fallacy that Livingston was referring to
is well-described in the foreword by Graeme Gibson: “The Fallacy of
Wildlife Conservation, as a statement of belief, is one of the
fiercest and most uncompromising of John Livingston’s convictions.
Had he entitled it ‘The Failure of Wildlife Conservation,’ we might
have tried again—without having to think too much about it. But he
didn’t. ... As a result of the word fallacy, we are confronted with an
insistence that we rethink everything.” From The John A. Livingston
Reader, McClelland & Stewart, 2007, pp. xiv-xv. So it is, with the
fallacy of climate activism, that we must rethink everything.

[3] Endless (exponential) growth is an impossibility in a finite
physical system (planet earth), and we have a wealth of examples of
overshoot and collapse, non-human and human, all of which are fully
predictable. Our cultural inability to grasp such an obvious reality
is a primary obstacle to progress in addressing climate change and its
root cause. Indigenous cultures tend to have much better
understandings of these things. See Herman E. Daly and Kenneth N.
Townsend, “Sustainable Growth: An Impossibility Theorem,” from Valuing
The Earth: Economics, Ecology, Ethics, MIT Press, 1993, p. 267 ff.
For a wide-ranging discussion of the demise of civilizations, see
Jared Diamond, Collapse, Viking, 2005.

[4] James Hansen et al.(2007), “Climate change and trace gases,” Phil.
Trans. Roy. Soc. A 365: 1925–1954 (2007).

[5] Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion
of Europe, 900 - 1900, Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 92. The
actual quote, referring to population, is, “Mother nature always comes
to the rescue of a society stricken with the problems of
overpopulation, and her ministrations are never gentle.”

[6] A word here about the skeptics, with whom we are also obsessed:
Forget about them. They may appear to have control of the public
discussion, but they are babbling into the abyss. Our enemy is us.
By our own unwillingness to face the profound implications of climate
change—that we have to reject civilization as currently conceived and
come up with something completely different—we are doing far more
damage to the cause of preserving life on earth than the deniers could
ever do.

[7] “One of the more peculiar traits of our society is its assumption—
its insistence—on solutions. Just as there are reasons for all
things, so there are solutions for all things. Always there are
ultimate answers; there is no problem that is not amenable to logical
reduction. This, as we have seen earlier, in spite of such
bewildering enterprises as ecology. I have no ‘solution’ to the
wildlife preservation problem [read ‘global warming problem’]. There
may not be one. But given the somewhat shaky assumption that one
exists, I sense that I can at least feel the direction.” John A.
Livingston, The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation, p. 151.

[8] Our culturally skewed and defensive view of pre-hierarchical
societies, seeing only lives that were “nasty, brutish and short”
struggling to survive in “nature, red in tooth and claw,” has
distorted earlier human experience beyond recognition. See, for
example, Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade, Harper & Rowe, 1987;
and Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, Tavistock Publications,
Ltd. (London), 1974.

[9] Jensen is one of our most passionate and incisive cultural critics
and environmental writers. His words are, “For an action to be
sustainable, you must be able to perform it indefinitely. This means
that the action must either help or at the very least not materially
harm the landbase. If an action materially harms the landbase, it
cannot be performed indefinitely ...” From Derrick Jensen and Aric
McBay, What We Leave Behind, p. 56.

[10] Although, as I indicate in footnote 12 in a brief discussion of
holistic management of grasslands, we can and must repair enough of
the damage so that the infinitely complex self-organizing systems of
nature—the systems that gave life to all living creatures—can begin
anew.

[11] For example, consider hare-brained schemes from very smart
scientists, some of whom know that the schemes are hare-brained but in
their desperation see no other way. A recent article in Rolling
Stone, “Can Dr. Evil Save The World?,” has an interesting overview of
the geo-engineering debate. The bottom line seems to be that we
currently are able to do and think anything except changing the way we
live, and risking the existence of life on earth is simply a chance we
have to take (although 100 percent odds of failure is hardly a bet one
should want to take, assuming there are any rational moments left).
See also Ross Gelbspan’s article, “Beyond the Point of No Return,”
footnote 1.

[12] Glimmers of hope lie in the remarkable restorative powers of the
earth. One such phenomenon is ancient pre-history but new to us.
That is the relationship between grazers and grasslands. Whereas
conventional grasslands management destroys soils and diversity,
nature’s way sequesters vast amounts of carbon in soils, with
photosynthesizing plants as intermediators along with fungi, micro-
organisms, insects, animals and birds—and creates productive and
healthy land that, unlike forests, can bind carbon for thousands of
years. We have the potential to remove gigatons of carbon from the
atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gas concentrations by many parts per
million with proper land management. Beyond grasslands, the planet’s
power of regeneration, despite our assaults, remains extraordinary.
See the Holistic Management International website.

Another example is the dramatic restoration of denuded rainforest in
Borneo after only six years: “Planting finishes this year [2008], but
already [Willie] Smits [the Indonesian forestry expert who led the
replanting] and his team from the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation
charity claim the forest is ‘mature’, with trees up to 35 metres high.
Cloud cover has increased by 12 per cent, rainfall by a quarter, and
temperatures have dropped 3-5°C, helping people and wildlife to
thrive, says Smits. Nine species of primate have also returned,
including the threatened orangutans. ‘If you walk there now, 116 bird
species have found a place to live, there are more than 30 types of
mammal, insects are there. The whole system is coming to life. I knew
what I was trying to do, but the force of nature has totally surprised
me. ... The place became the scene of an ecological miracle, a
fairytale come true,’ says Smits, who has written a book about the
project.”

Broad Formation Mounts Mobilization for G-20 Summit Fight Over First Amendment Rights Ensues

Pittsburgh, PA – Since learning of White House plans to hold the next G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh on September 24-25, scores of activists and organizations from multiple sectors of society have been quickly gearing up for a mobilization. They are simultaneously fighting to safeguard their right to free speech and assembly. The mobilization is expected to be the largest expression of political dissent in Pittsburgh in more than a generation.

“Anyone who has lost a job, a home, a loved one to war, or lived without adequate healthcare, water, or food has been directly affected by policies set by the G-20,” says Jessica Benner of the Thomas Merton Center Antiwar Committee, which is organizing a “Peoples’ March to the G-20,” on Friday, Sept. 25.

An extraordinary array of groups from peace & justice, women’s, religious, environmental, Indigenous, African-American, anarchist and student movements – from Pittsburgh and around the globe – are planning marches, rallies, civil disobedience, direct action, educational forums and “tent cities.” (See attached summary of events.)

“Our week-long tent city will represent the millions of refugees who have been displaced by war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Gaza, and for whom the G-20 turns a blind eye,” says Edith Bell, a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

As in recent summits and political conventions in the U.S., the Dept. of Homeland Security has claimed jurisdiction. The authorities are delaying or attempting to deny permits and proposing restrictions on free speech, while securing $18 million dollars for 4,000 police and weaponry as well as waging an information warfare campaign that equates protest with terrorism.

Organizers have launched a campaign to protect the public’s 1st amendment rights and have called on the Mayor and City Council to stand up to the Federal takeover of Pittsburgh. “We invite all those who believe in free speech and civil liberties to join us to fight for the right to demonstrate,” says Michelle Gaffey, a Duquesne University graduate student. “Free speech and dissent are the foundation of a democratic society.” Lawyers from the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, and National Lawyers Guild are preparing lawsuits.

“The State’s attempt to suppress dissent calls to mind why we’re protesting in the first place,” says David Meieran of the 3 Rivers Climate Convergence, which is planning an environmental justice camp and protests focusing on the coal industry as the International Coal Conference directly precedes the G-20 Summit. “The closed-door G-20 Summits make policies that benefit corporations at the expense of people, democracy, and the planet.”

Future releases will contain updates around developing stories about the G-20 summit mobilization as keynote speakers are confirmed, organizations announce plans to mobilize, etc.

For more information visit www.g20media.org.

Resist the Ninth Year of War on Afghanistan: Join Us on October 5 in DC

By Pete Perry

As the present co-convener of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, I want to invite and encourage you to join us again on the week the Afghanistan War will enter its 9th year of lost lives, lost hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and lost direction and morality. This is a war that cannot be won, yet the escalation continues. What are our troops fighting and dying for? Even President Karzai has said during his recent campaign that he wants to sit down at the negotiating table with the Taliban. It is time the war and occupation end, it is time to end indefinite detention at places like Bagram prison and begin the process of building p eace and rebuilding infrastructures.

Eight years ago on October 7, 2001, the U.S. and Britain invaded Afghanistan -- and the war on Afghanistan continues today, with President Obama, the “anti-war candidate,” increasing the number of troops. On Monday, October 5, 2009, the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR), working with Witness Against Torture, Peace Action, The War Resisters League, Atlantic Life Community, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, and Veterans for Peace, will mark the anniversary and speak out against the war with direct action risking arrest at the White House.

On October 5th, we will gather at 10 AM at McPherson Square for a permitted rally and to hear lifelong war resister and widow of Phil Berrigan, Liz McAlister. From McPherson, we will march to Pennsylvania Avenue. Around noon, the various affinity groups will visit the White House calling for withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and demand an ending of the illegal bombing in Pakistan with US drones and other forms of violence, the closing of the Bagram prison, and an ending to indefinite detention and torture. We are calling for an end to these wars and occupations, including that of Iraq, so that our resources can be used for life-sustaining actions including the funding and the rebuilding of Afghanistan’s and Iraq's infrastructure and medical assistance to Afghans and Iraqis, in addition to poverty reduction programs in the United States and world wide. We are also calling for accountability for those who have committed war crimes.

The White House action is a key component of a number of complimentary actions planned for October.

For more information: www.nogoodwar.org or http://www.iraqpledge.org
To sign up: http://vcnv.org/ncnr
For the latest death toll: http://www.icasualties.org/OEF
For other events and an ongoing campaign: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=4019

In Peace and Resistance,
Pete Perry
Co-Convener, NCNR

My response to Obama's Cairo speech

And here it is:
Nonviolence in the Middle East: Obama’s Cairo Speech

By Starhawk

On Thursday, President Obama made his speech to the Arab world in Cairo, a speech that did what he does so well, expressing contradictions and nuances in clear, simple poetic language that calls on everyone to be better than we are. My first reaction, reading it, was “This speech makes us all safer, and does a better job of it than a thousand drone attacks or military forays.” By so clearly expressing respect for Islam, and knowledge of its history and contributions, he drains extremist venom of its potency.

Obama also tackled head-on the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian problem: Israel’s continued building of and support for illegal settlements. I suspect many people are still unclear on the concept of ‘settlement’: the word creates an image of a stalwart, noble outpost in the wilderness. In reality, settlements are more like gated suburbs plunked down in the midst of Palestinian territory, villages, farms and cities that have always been in Palestinian hands and that the Oslo agreements and the Road Map define as destined for a Palestinian state.

Settlements are created on land quite simply stolen—taken from Palestinian farmers and villagers with no compensation. In order to protect the settlements, Israel maintains military control over vast reaches of the Palestinian territories, builds a separate set of roads Palestinians are banned from, that carve up an already tiny land base into miniscule islands, separated by a network of checkpoints that make daily life for ordinary Palestinians untenable. Imagine if, in the U.S., everyone who lived in a suburb of Chicago or New York or San Francisco could only get into the center of the city by passing through a military checkpoint that might or might not be open each day, where lines might regularly back up for hours, where the soldiers might detain you on a whim or a breath of suspicion for hours or summarily place you in ‘administrative detention’ for months with no trial or appeal, where your land and home might be seized at any time by an occupying power. And this is in the West Bank, where conditions are relatively good. In Gaza, the Israeli’s have simply sealed the border, refused to allow in rebuilding supplies and many of the necessities of life, and turned the place into one giant, open-air prison.

It is in this context that Obama presses for a two-state solution. The positive alternative: one, democratic state in which all people have equal rights, regardless of religion, is so unacceptable to the current Israeli regime that they are attempting to make it illegal for anyone to suggest that Israel be anything but an explicitly Jewish state. The less positive alternatives are simply genocide of one or another of the region’s peoples, a horrific outcome whether the ultimate victims are Palestinians or Israelis.

A two-state solution cannot succeed if Israel continues to eat away at Palestinian land. It cannot succeed if the current settlements remain, with their network of exclusive roads, checkpoints and military control that make free movement impossible for Palestinians within their own territory. Netanyahu has proclaimed his intention to continue building and expanding settlements. If Obama’s speech signals a true commitment to reign him in, to use America’s enormous influence and power to constrain Israel’s destructive and ultimately self-destructive course, then we will have a slight hope of achieving some small measure of peace and justice in that region.

Obama also called on the Palestinians to renounce armed struggle and embrace nonviolence. Now, I’m a passionate believer myself in nonviolence. I share his assessment that a powerful, nonviolent movement could advance the cause of justice in a way that violence can never do. However, there is something disingenuous about the man who is ordering troops into Afghanistan and drones to bomb Pakistan telling another people ‘Violence is a dead end.’ I credit Obama with a distaste for violence and a strong preference for diplomacy, and truly, I like the guy. I think he’s a great leader in a rotten time, and a brilliant man of real integrity. But there’s no denying that, from the moment he took office, he’s had blood on his hands. For the powerful to demand that the less powerful renounce violence, without making the same demands on themselves or on their allies, is simply to say: “I reserve the weapons of death for myself and my friends.”

I would have like Obama to urge nonviolence on all of us: Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians alike. I would have liked him to at least acknowledge that
indeed, many Palestinians have chosen nonviolent means of struggle, that for years now, villages have resisted the confiscation of their land for Israel’s ‘security wall’ with peace camps, nonviolent demonstrations and civil resistance. He might have also mentioned that some courageous Israeli supporters regularly cross the line to stand with them and share the risks, along with internationals from groups like the Christian Peacemaker Teams, the International Solidarity Movement, the International Women’s Peace Service and more.

On Friday, the day after Obama called on Palestinians to practice nonviolent means of struggle, the Israeli army fired on the weekly demonstration in Ni’ilin, a West Bank village protesting the wall. Five people were shot with 22 caliber ammunition. Yousef Akil Srour, age 36, died from his wounds after being shot in the chest. Mohammed Mouslah Mousa, age 16, may be paralyzed. Three others were wounded but will survive. This is not an unusual response to the practice of nonviolence in Palestine—it is so common for Palestinians to lose their lives that it rarely even makes the news unless an international supporter is killed or wounded.

I’ve worked in that movement, I’ve trained Palestinians, Israelis and internationals in nonviolent resistance. I’ve stood in those demonstrations. There’s always a squirrely feeling in the pit of your stomach when you stand up against police and state power. But when that power is unrestrained, when you know that live bullets may thud into your body, that attendance at the protest may cost you a limb or your brain functioning, your freedom or your life, well, let’s just say the squirrels run Nascar races in your gut and your knees literally shake.

That people do take that risk is a cause for wonder and celebration of the human spirit. A few do so because they are Gandhi-like in their saintliness, but most are simply ordinary people who have come to believe that nonviolence is a more moral and a more effective means of struggle. They take that risk because they have seen small successes and slight glimmers of hope.

Obama has the power to increase that hope—hope is his trademark, after all.

The civil rights struggle in the American South succeeded because the nonviolent resistance of Freedom Riders and marchers and sit-ins caught the attention of the world and outraged a larger public opinion. Laws were changed, and the pressure of the Federal government was brought to bear.

For nonviolent resistance to succeed in Palestine, it needs the United States to exert its influence to restrain Israel’s disproportionate response to protest and its military assaults on Palestinian populations, to stop its incursions into Palestinian Territory and to end the siege of Gaza. It needs the support of global outrage that cannot be silenced by shrill cries of ‘anti-semitism’ every time Israel’s policies are challenged. Then we will also be able to silence the hoarse shouts of extremist propaganda, ground the rockets and still the hands of suicide bombers that menace Israel’s children, by bringing about a fair and just solution that can allow everyone in that region to live a life of dignity and freedom. Ultimately, justice is the true counter to violence, for only on a foundation of justice can peace be built.

Bring an End to 'Triple Evils’ by Abandoning War

Published on Sunday, April 5, 2009 by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

by Kevin Martin and Leslie Cagan

Saturday marked the tragic anniversary of the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., but also the anniversary of his “Beyond Vietnam” speech one year earlier. In that 1967 speech at the historic Riverside Church in New York City, one of the most inspiring anti-war speeches ever delivered, King decried the “triple evils” plaguing our country — “racism, extreme materialism and militarism.”

Were he alive, we believe King would urge President Obama to use his political and rhetorical skills to call on our people to cure these ills still so prevalent in our society. A first step would be ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq and, instead of sending an additional 21,000 troops, begin bringing home the troops in Afghanistan.

And20we humbly suspect that King would have been with us Saturday in Manhattan when we and other peace advocates marched to Wall Street to call for an end to war and corporate bailouts and for investing in our communities and human needs, environmental restoration and a green economy for all. Or as King so concisely phrased it, to “rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.”

Most of the people of this country, and around the world, want Obama to succeed. However, his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, as well as the ongoing occupation of Iraq, threaten to make a shambles of his domestic economic agenda, as well as his presidency, as the Vietnam War did to President Lyndon Johnson’s presidency.

Haven’t we had enough of war? We need to devote all of our energy and attention to addressing the global economic and climate crises, and to improving education, housing and health care in this country, not squandering $12 billion per month on the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just as King said in 1967 about the Vietnamese people, the people of Afghanistan (and Iraq) today must see the U.S. as “strange liberators.” Unsurprisingly, the people of Afghanistan oppose an escalation of U.S. troops. An ABC News poll at the end of 2008 found that only 18 percent of Afghans support an increase in the U.S. military presence.

As to fighting terrorism, a RAND Corp. study releas ed last year found that only 7 percent of terrorist organizations end their terrorist activities because they are defeated by the use of military force. Sending more troops is not the way to combat the dangers of terrorism.

Obama’s announcement of his Afghanistan and Pakistan policy did include some positive initiatives, including increased support for regional diplomacy and economic aid to the two countries. Those should be the cornerstones of U.S. policy aimed at helping to end the strife in a desperately impoverished country that has known little respite from war in decades. We also need an overall foreign policy based on building real security through international cooperation and human rights.

More war is still not the answer, and until fundamental changes are made in U.S. foreign policy —- an end to blank-check support for Israel, an end to U.S. occupation and military bases in Arab lands, an end to threats to Iran, an end to the chimera of the “global war on terror” (or whatever they call it now), an end to hypocrisy on nuclear proliferation, and concrete steps to address legitimate grievances in the Arab and Muslim world —- whatever we do in Afghanistan or Pakistan, short of a massive occupation that would be immoral and we can’t afford, is doomed to failure.

The president’s domestic economic agenda —- investing in resolving pressing problems on jobs, health care, education, housing and climate change —-20is put at grave risk by our exorbitant (possibly over $3 trillion) and seemingly endless wars. We can’t afford to forgo the crucial investments we need to make our communities stronger. We simply can’t afford more war.

King observed in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech that the country’s commitment to a serious program of investment in human needs in the mid-1960s was “broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war.”

Can we afford to look back in 40 years and say the same thing about Obama’s domestic program and his presidency?

King’s words still ring, chillingly, across four decades, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Please join with us in calling for peace with justice, rather than an escalation of war. Join us in recognizing and acting on King’s “fierce urgency of now” as we “rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.”

© 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Kevin Martin is executive director of Peace Action and the Peace Action Education Fund.

Leslie Cagan is national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice.

THE WORLD WILL NOT END IN 2012

THE WORLD WILL NOT END IN 2012
By Carlos Barrios

Carlos Barrios was born into a Spanish family on El Altiplano, the highlands of Guatemala. His home was in Huehuetenango, also the dwelling place of the Maya Mam tribe.

With other Maya and other indigenous tradition keepers, the Mam carry part of the old ways on Turtle Island (North America).

They are keepers of time, authorities on remarkable calendars that are ancient, elegant and relevant.Mr Barrios is a historian, an anthropologist and investigator. After studying with traditional elders for 25 years since the age of 19, he has also became a Mayan Ajq'ij, a ceremonial priest and spiritual guide, Eagle Clan.

Years ago, along with his brother, Gerardo, Carlos initiated an investigation into the different Mayan calendars. He studied with many teachers. He says his brother Gerardo interviewed nearly 600 traditional Mayan elders to widen their scope of knowledge.

"Anthropologists visit the temple sites," Mr. Barrios says, "and read the inscriptions and make up stories about the Maya, but they do not read the signs correctly. It's just their imagination. .. Other people write about prophecy in the name of the Maya. They say that the world will end in December 2012. The Mayan elders are angry with this. The world will not end. It will be transformed. The indigenous have the calendars, and know how to accurately interpret it, not others.

The Mayan Calendars comprehension of time, seasons, and cycles has proven itself to be vast and sophisticated. The Maya understand 17 different calendars, some of them charting time accurately over a span of more than ten million years. The calendar that has steadily drawn global attention since 1987 is called the Tzolk'in or Cholq'ij.

Devised ages ago and based on the cycle of the Pleiades, it is still held as sacred. With the indigenous calendars, native people have kept track of important turning points in history.

For example, the day keepers who study the calendars identified an important day in the year One Reed, Ce Acatal, as it was called by the Mexicans. That was the day when an important ancestor was prophesied to return, "coming like a butterfly. " In the western calendar, the One Reed date correlates to Easter Sunday, April 21, 1519 the day that Hernando Cortez and his fleet of 11 Spanish galleons arrived from the East at what is today called Vera Cruz, Mexico.

When the Spanish ships came toward shore, native people were waiting and watching to see how it would go.

The billowing sails of the ships did indeed remind the scouts of butterflies skimming the ocean surface. In this manner was a new era initiated, an era they had anticipated through their calendars. The Maya termed the new era the Nine Bolomtikus, or nine Hells of 52 years each.
As the nine cycles unfolded, land and freedom were taken from the native people.

Disease and disrespect dominated.

What began with the arrival of Cortez, lasted until August 16, 1987 - a date many people recall as Harmonic Convergence. Millions of people took advantage of that date to make ceremony in sacred sites, praying for a smooth transition to a new era, the World of the Fifth Sun.

From that 1987 date until now, Mr. Barrios says, we have been in a time when the right arm of the materialistic world is disappearing, slowly but inexorably. We are at the cusp of the era when peace begins, and people live in harmony with Mother Earth. We are no longer in the World of the Fourth Sun, but we are not yet in the World of the Fifth Sun. This is the time in-between, the time of transition.

As we pass through transition there is a colossal, global convergence of environmental destruction, social chaos, war, and ongoing Earth changes.

All this, Mr .Barrios says, was foreseen via the simple, spiral mathematics of the Mayan calendars. "It will change," Mr. Barrios observes.

"Everything will change." He said Mayan Day keepers view the DEC. 21,2012 date as a rebirth, the start of the World of the Fifth Sun. It will be the start of a new era resulting from and signified by the solar meridian crossing the galactic equator, and the earth aligning itself with the center of the galaxy.

At sunrise on December 21, 2012 for the first time in 26,000 years the Sun rises to conjunct the intersection of the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic. This cosmic cross is considered to be an embodiment of the Sacred Tree, The Tree of Life, a tree remembered in all the world's spiritual traditions.

Some observers say this alignment with the heart of the galaxy in 2012 will open a channel for cosmic energy to flow through the earth, cleansing it and all that dwells upon it, raising all to a higher level of vibration.

This process has already begun, Mr. Barrios suggested.

"Change is accelerating now, and it will continue to accelerate. " If the people of the earth can get to this 2012 date in good shape, without having destroyed too much of the Earth, Mr. Barrios said, we will rise to a new, higher level. But to get there we must transform enormously powerful forces that seek to block the way.

A Picture of the Road Ahead: From his understanding of the Mayan tradition and the
calendars, Mr. Barrios offered a picture of where we are at and what may lie on the road ahead: The date specified in the calendar Winter Solstice in the year 2012 does not mark the end of the world. Many outside people writing about the Mayan calendar sensationalize this date, but they do not know.

The ones who know are the indigenous elders who are entrusted with keeping the tradition.

"Humanity will continue," he contends, "but in a different way. Material structures will change. From this we will have the opportunity to be more human."We are living in the most important era of the Mayan calendars and prophecies. All the prophecies of the world, all the traditions, are converging now. There is no time for games. The spiritual ideal of this era is action. Many powerful souls have reincarnated in this era, with a lot of power. This is true on both sides, the light and the dark.

High magic is at work on both sides. Things will change, but it is up to the people how difficult or easy it is for the changes to come about The economy now is a fiction. The first five-year stretch of transition from August 1987 to August 1992 was the beginning of the destruction of the material world. We have progressed ten years deeper into the transition phase by now, and many of the so-called sources of financial stability are in fact hollow. The banks are weak. This is a delicate moment for them. They could crash globally if we don't pay attention. If the banks crash ... then we will be forced to rely on the land and our skills. The monetary systems will be in chaos, and we must then rely on our direct relationship with the Earth for our food and shelter.The North and South Poles are both breaking up. The level of the water in the oceans is going to rise. But at the same time land in the ocean, especially near Cuba, is also going to rise.

A Call for Fusion: As he met with audiences in Santa Fe, Mr. Barrios told a story about the most recent Mayan New Year ceremonies in Guatemala. He said that one respected elder, who lives all year in a solitary mountain cave, journeyed to Chichicastenango to speak with the people at the ceremony. He elder delivered a simple, direct message. He called for human beings to come together in support of life and light.

Right now each person and group is going his or her own way. The elder of the mountains said there is hope if the people of the light can come together and unite in some way.

Reflecting on this, Mr. Barrios explained: "We live in a world of polarity: day and night, man and woman, positive and negative. Light and darkness need each other. They are a balance. Just now the dark side is very strong, and very clear about what they want.

They have their vision and their priorities clearly held, and also their hierarchy. They are working in many ways so that we will be unable to connect with the spiral Fifth World in 2012.

"On the light side everyone thinks they are the most important, that their own understandings, or their group's understandings, are the key. There's a diversity of cultures and opinions, so there is competition, diffusion, and no single focus. As Mr. Barrios sees it, the dark side works to block fusion through denial and materialism. It also works to destroy those who are working with the light to get the Earth to a higher level.They like the energy of the old, declining Fourth World, the materialism. They do not want it to change. They do not want fusion. They want to stay at this level, and are afraid of the next level. The dark power of the declining Fourth World cannot be destroyed or overpowered. It's too strong and clear for that, and that is the wrong strategy. The dark can only be transformed when confronted with simplicity and open-heartedness.This is what leads to fusion, a key concept for the World of the Fifth Sun."

Mr. Barrios said the emerging era of the Fifth Sun will call attention to a much-overlooked element. Whereas the four traditional elements of earth, air, fire and water have dominated various epochs in the past, there will be a fifth element to reckon with in the time of the Fifth Sun: ether.

The dictionary defines ether as the rarefied element of the Heavens. Ether is a medium. It permeates all space and transmits waves of energy in a wide range of frequencies, from cell phones to human auras.

What is "ethereal" is related to the regions beyond earth: the heavens. Ether the element of the Fifth Sun is celestial and lacking in material substance, but is no less real than wood, stone or flesh. "Within the context of ether there can be a fusion of the polarities," Mr .Barrios said.

"No more darkness or light in the people, but an uplifted fusion.

But right now the realm of darkness is not interested in this. They are organized to block it.They seek to unbalance the Earth and its environment so we will be unreadyfor the alignment in 2012. We need to work together for peace, and balance with the other side. We need to take care of the Earth that feeds and shelters us. We need to put our entire mind and heart into pursuing unity and fusion now, to confront the other side and preserve life, to be Ready for this Moment in History.

Mr. Barrios told his audiences in Santa Fe that we are at a critical moment of world history. "We are disturbed," he said. "We can't play anymore. Our planet can be renewed or ravaged. Now is the time to awaken and take action. Everyone is needed. You are not here for no reason. Everyone who is here now has an important purpose. This is a hard, but a special time. We have the opportunity for growth, but we must be ready for this moment in history."

Mr. Barrios offered a number of suggestions to help people walk in balance through the years ahead. "The prophesied changes are going to happen," he said "but our attitude and actions determine how harsh or mild they are. We need to act, to make changes, and to elect people to represent us who understand and who will take political action to respect the earth. Meditation and spiritual practice are good, but also action. It's very important to be clear about whom you are, and also about your relation to the Earth. Develop yourself according to your own tradition and the call of your heart. But remember to respect differences, and strive for unity. Eat wisely. A lot of food is corrupt in either subtle or gross ways. Pay attention to what you are taking into your body. Learn to preserve food, and to conserve energy. Learn some good breathing techniques, so you have the mastery of your breath. Be clear. Follow a tradition with great roots. It is not important what tradition, your heart will tell you, but it must have great roots. We live in a world of energy. An important task at this time is to learn to sense or see the energy of everyone and everything: people, plants, animals. This becomes increasingly important as we draw close to the World of the Fifth Sun, for it is associated with the element ether - the realm where energy lives and weaves. Go to the sacred places of the earth to pray for peace, and have respect for the Earth which gives us our food, clothing, and shelter. We need to reactivate the energy of these sacred places. That is our work.

One simple but effective prayer technique is to light a white or baby-blue colored candle. Think a moment in peace. Speak your intention to the flame and send the light of it on to the leaders who have the power to make war or peace. We Have Work to Do.

According to Mr. Barrios this is a crucially important moment for humanity, and for earth. Each person is important. If you have incarnated into this era, you have spiritual work to do balancing the planet. He said the elders have opened the doors so that other races can come to the Mayan world to receive the tradition.

The Maya have long appreciated and respected that there are other colors, other races, and other spiritual systems.

"They know," he said, "that the destiny of the Mayan world is related to the destiny of the whole world. "The greatest wisdom is in simplicity," Mr. Barrios advised before leaving Santa Fe. "Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It's not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It's encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way.

The Lost Years of Jesus

I'm sure the Orthodox Church thought they had that book buried a long time ago," Richard Bock told me as he handed over a copy of The Unknown Life of Christ. His interest in the lost years of Jesus began with this travel diary recorded in 1887 by Nicolas Notovitch, a Russian doctor who journeyed extensively throughout Afghanistan, India, and Tibet.
Dick Bock took the same tour in 1975 and produced a documentary film on the lost years. It includes impressive testimony by John C. Trevor, director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Project, and a nuclear physicist named Ralph Graeber. But the most convincing evidence comes from a little Buddhist monk who appears halfway through the film.
"Lord Jesus..." The old man shows one particularly shiny tooth as he speaks. His voice is high, like a tiny child.
I remember the impact of seeing a character like that on camera. I looked at his dark face, his saffron robe, and all those grimacing gods with too many heads and arms and legs. And I wondered how such a man could whisper with so much reverence the holy name of Jesus.
"... Lord Jesus was in India during what are known as the lost years of Jesus," he reports.
Lost years? I called to mind the mimeographed chronology of my Sunday-school coloring book and marginal notes in a New Testament college text. He's right, I thought. The Bible records Jesus age twelve in the temple. Then age thirty at the river Jordan. That leaves eighteen years unaccounted for.
But in India? It was hard to imagine my carpenter-of-Nazareth Jesus bathing in the Ganges, for instance.
Sitting in the lotus posture. I pictured a country where over six hundred million people are still struggling to enter the twentieth century. (They ride painted elephants, don't they?) How can this strange little man possibly know whether Jesus Christ ever set foot in India?
"Lhasa." The monk describes inhospitable territory that is traversed by a solitary road leading to a Tibetan monastery. Here, he says, there are records originally written in the Pali language-"ancient scrolls," he explains, curling his blunt fingers as if to open the rigid parchment before my eyes.
"Near Srinigar in the Happy Valley of Kashmir we find the legend of an extraordinary saint known to the Buddhists as St. Issa," says the monk. "Events in the life of Issa closely resemble that of Jesus Christ, revealing what are thought to be the lost years of our Lord."
It was a surprise to me that Jesus could have spent half his life in the Orient. It was a surprise that I had never wondered where the Master was all that time. To me he was simply "about my Father's business," as Luke wrote.
But what surprised me most was that this Buddhist acted like he knew Jesus. Not so much historically or theologically. But personally. To hear him speak of "Lord Jesus"-it felt just like Christmas when it suddenly seems appropriate to think of the Mighty God in an intimate and deeply loving sort of way.
I'll never forget Richard Bock's documentary starring the little Buddhist Christian. It changed my image of Jesus-and it began to change my image of myself.
That's what I told Mr. Bock when I went to him for research. He said that he had shared the same experience.
Isn't it true, we agreed, that our outer search for the lost years of Jesus is reflective of something going on within each one of us. When we look to find truth in ourselves, we are encouraged "by coincidence or fate or God," as Bock put it, to search for the truth of Jesus' life.
When I began to read Dick's dog-eared copy of The Unknown Life of Christ, I realized that Notovitch had followed nothing more than a childhood hunch that there was something "majestically colossal" about India. His book tells of the startling discovery of the Issa legend-very much by coincidence, no doubt by fate, and most certainly by the hand of God.
It's a great story. The aristocratic Dr. Notovitch and his coolies. "Sahib, take the gun!"
It reads like an old Geographic, rich in the delightful minutiae of bungalows and centipedes, tinned goods, portly lamas, silence and wonder.
Notovitch wandered through the picturesque passes of Bolan, over the Punjab, down into the arid rocks of Ladak, and, "as curiosity led me," beyond the celebrated Vale of Kashmir into that inviolable secrecy of the Himalayas. Land of the Eternal Snows.
During his investigation of this "marvelous country," Notovitch learned that there existed in the library at Lhasa ancient records of the life of Jesus Christ. In the course of a visit to the great convent Himis, he located a Tibetan translation of the legend and carefully noted in his carnet de voyage over two hundred verses from the curious document known as "The Life of St. Issa."
The legend recorded by Dr. Notovitch appears to be a collection of eyewitness accounts, a book of tales told by indigenous merchants arriving from Palestine where they had happened to be on business during the controversial execution of a man known as the "king of the Jews." This type of word-of-mouth news service is still popular in the fantastic bazaars of Calcutta and Bombay.
One of the narratives tells of an Israelite by the name of Issa, "blessed by God and the best of all," who was put to death by Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea. Another detailed account traces the lineage of Issa and closely parallels Matthew's scrupulous chapter-one genealogy of Jesus Christ.
Dr. Notovitch never doubted the authenticity of these chronicles, diligently recorded in the Pali tongue by the Brahmanic and Buddhistic historians of India and Nepal. He determined to publish a translation of the Issa legend in at least one of the European languages and addressed himself enthusiastically to a number of respected ecclesiastics, "begging them to revise my notes" and give him an honest opinion.
Cardinal Rotelli opposed the publication of the legend for the ostensible reason that it would be premature. Meeting in Paris, Rotelli told Notovitch that "the Church suffers already too much from the new wave of atheistical thought." In Rome, Notovitch showed the Himis manuscript to a cardinal who was au mieux with the pope. "What would be the good of publishing this?" said the prelate. "You will make yourself a crowd of enemies. If it be a question of money which interests you..."
The cardinal did not succeed in bribing Dr. Notovitch. But to this day nobody has ever heard of St. Issa. I wondered why. (I would have loved to color Jesus riding a painted elephant.)
There was, as Notovitch put it, a "picturesque situation" at the Himis gonpa the day his caravan arrived. "The doors of the convent opened wide, giving access to some twenty persons disguised as animals, birds, devils, and monsters of every kind." It was a religious mystery play. Culture shock for a Russian orthodox.
"My head was in a whirl," Notovitch confessed. "Young men, dressed as warriors, came out from the temple. They wore monstrous green masks. Making an infernal din with their tambourines and bells, they gyrated round the gods seated on the ground…." The prolonged spectacle was rewarded by an invitation from the chief lama for a drink of "tchang" in honor of the festival.
Notovitch seated himself on a bench opposite the venerable lama. "What signification have all these masks, costumes, bells, and dances-?" he asked diplomatically.
The lama outlined for Notovitch a short history of Tibetan Buddhism, ending with a keen indictment of the priest class, so-called Brahmans, who had made the holy doctrine a matter of commerce. "Our first holy prophets, to whom we give the title of Buddhas, established themselves of old in various countries of the globe," he said. "Their preachings aimed before all at the tyranny of the Brahmans..." Here Notovitch seized an opportunity to broach the subject so near at heart.

For more of this fascinating article go to:
http://www.tsl.org/Masters/jesus/jesus01.htm