The word is not "trans" — you're missing a modified noun at the end

The story of a formerly (sic) transgender (sic, we don't use just "trans" here) person stuck in legal ID document limbo — in fair part because of a ruling by Texas AG Ken Paxton that has since been extended has several caveats — and not just for the BlueAnon (and beyond among actual leftists) crowd on this issue.

First, of course, is that sex is not gender, something I've said a gazillion times.

Don't believe me? Philosopher friend Massimo Pigliucci, holder of dual PhDs, in philosophy and evolutionary biology, has taken on fellow philosophers on this issue.

Second, per, or rather, contra, Texas Monthly's first story on the plight of Razavi, this is why we don't use the bare prefix "trans" without either the "-sexual" or "-gender" at the end.

Third, the actual story of Razavi in the TM second link? Obviously, "detransitioning" is a lot more difficult, and tougher, biologically and even sociologically, on the matter of sex than gender. Related, if Razavi thinks that being transgendered would always leave him as a "second class citizen," and notes in both stories that he's 6-5 with a beard .... why did he want to and try to play a different gender role in the first place?

Shed not too many crocodile tears for the Dalai Lama

Actually, for many people, tears for his post-1959 plight would be real.

And, this is not an apologia post for defending Xi Jinping's minions hacking computers and devices of modern exiled Tibetans.

But, as Tenzin Gyatso officially has announced that his successor, the to-be 15th Dalai Lama will come from outside China, let us take note that, even if he's being truthful in denying original knowledge himself, his brothers were major assets in a CIA campaign of skullduggery against Beijing, a campaign that also involved Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang in Taiwan. Wikipedia has a page about it that, while it gets a flag for possible "original research," is still worth a read. Indeed, per the Wiki page, before the 1949 "fall" of China, the older brother of Tenzin Gyato (who was born Lhamo Thondup), Gyalo Thondup, lived in Nanking 1947-49 and boasts about eating dinner at Chiang's table.

The backstory is that, before Beijing invaded in 1950, Tibet was not part of China. And, we'll get to backstory to that in a minute. Essentially, the Dalai Lama and other lamas ruled it as a semi-feudal theocracy. Now, it was not religiously or otherwise coercive in the way the mullahs are in Iran, let alone the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the way some Christian Right folks would like to be in the USofA, but it wasn't exactly enlightened.

Before that, Lhamo Thondup was officially declared to be that 14th Dalai Lama in 1939. His birthplace was in a northeastern borderland which has both Tibetan and non-Tibetan people and was ruled at this time by a warlord whose nominal superior was Chiang.

Even today, per the map at the top of the Wiki page on Tibet, Tibetan exiles claim a vast amount of land beyond what is clearly Tibet. The orange and red areas on the map contain, by ethnicity and/or language, Han Chinese, Mongolic peoples, peoples of Southeast Asia that live in various parts of southern China, Turkic peoples in its northern areas, etc. And, vis-a-vis this piece, ethnic Han have lived in large numbers in much of that area since the Yuan Dynasty if not earlier. (In today's Tibetan Autonomous Area within China, Beijing trod more lightly in Western Tibet in the first decades, not just first years, post-1950.

Looking back in Tibet's history, the Qing Dynasty, at peak, had semi-full control over Tibet. The Ming, before that, claimed they did, but many scholars reject that. The Mongol Yuan Dynasty indeed controlled the area, but Chinese dynasties before that generally did not. At the tail end of the Qing, in response to "Great Game" meddling by both Britain and Russia, the Qing in the early 20th century for the first time staked a formal legal claim to the land, and began a process of "Sinifiction."

As for long ago history, before Genghis Khan and his descendants and the Yuan Dynasty, there was a "Tibetan Empire" about the same time as Tang Dynasty China, pictured above. As you can see, at its maximum, it controlled or had influence over all of today's Tibet, all of today's Xinjiang, and much if not all of today's Gansu, Yunnan and Sechuan areas of China. To the west, it went into Kashmir and Turkic Central Asia.

See Wiki's "History of Tibet" for more on Tibetan history in general.

The point of this part of this piece is that Tibet does not have something unique and special in its cultural DNA, no more than the Hopis of the US Southwest, or other modern Puebloans. With the Hopi, Awatovi should tell you that. (If that doesn't, Ekkehart Malotki has said that, contrary to legend — whether first propagated by Hopi or by Anglos — that the etymology of the word "Hopi" is NOT related to any Hopi word for "peace.")

Now, one could counterclaim that this was pre-Buddhist Tibet. And, I would counterclaim back to that? The murderous Islamophobia of the 969 Movement in today's Burma, as well as past history in Buddism; I've covered this in a bit of depth.

Back to closer to where we are now. Tibetans eventually resisted the 1950 invasion — with help from the US. The Dalai Lama himself first appeared to encourage some degree of passive resistance against China, including limiting how many troops they would send, while signing off on a 17-point agreement that he repudiated after escaping to India in 1959. What led to that was him becoming, by the middle 1950s, a symbol of resistance whether he was personally leading it or not. Per that link, he may well have lied about signing the agreement under duress.

After he fled into exile, China stopped trying to do its version of Sinification through Tibetans and rather through direct Chinese control and action. Meanwhile, Tibetan exiles continued to resist as they could.

The Dalai Lama himself, at best, made a devil's bargain with his brothers. Could he have done better? Maybe. What led to Beijing's invasion was a decision by parts of Tibet's complex leadership — but definitely not all — to boot all Chinese. It appears to be a bid for "neutrality" after Mao and the Communists had chased Chiang and the KMT off the mainland. But, it was too late for that, it would seem. Even if the Dalai Lama himself were not directly involved, as a teen, he might have been asked for thought. Today? Could he be forthcoming about what he knew and when about the CIA a few years later? I don't totally buy his claim that he was originally ignorant of his brothers' activities.

And what brings us to today is the Dalai Lama's announcement above, in a new book, which directly confronts Beijing's claim it will chose the 15th Dalai Lama.

Today, per Wiki's article on the Kashag, a Qing-era body of Chinese governance reconstituted by the Dalai Lama after his 1959 flight, Gyatso has himself repudiated the idea of full independence for Tibet or a political role for either himself or successor Dalai Lamas. On the former, what degree of autonomy does he want, and what degree of confessional vis-a-vis his ties to the CIA, and other things, will he do to get even a mildly lighter hand by Beijing? On the second? I think you are playing a political role as is. And, playing with a self-dealt bad hand by rejecting Tibetan independence.

That all said, since this is the site for non-twosiderism, isn't the regime of "godless Communists" in Beijing hypocritical for saying it will choose the next Dalai Lama rather than declaring the office abolished? (That said, Lenin and Uncle Joe Stalin didn't abolish Russian Orthodoxy, they just made it more servile inside the country.) That said, this secularist awaits the idea of dueling Dalai Lamas and anti-Dalai Lamas, like the papacy of the late 1300s and early 1400s at the end of the Avignon period. That then said, since Qing times, formalized in 1793, the Chinese government has claimed the right to select, or denote, or whatever term we should use, the next Dalai Lama. It may not always have exercised that right, but it has claimed it. And, we already have dueling Panchen Lamas. (Per the matter at hand, that link notes the Panchen Lama has traditionally been involved with selection of the Dalai Lama.)

And, otherwise? Most the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ world inside the DC Beltway knows at least the basics of the story above. They're the ones being called out for decades of crocodile tears.

THAT then said, the likes of Max Blumenthal are wrong about Xinjiang. And, good leftists like Cory Doctorow have written much more on that, so it's not just Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ talking about the labor camps, etc., there.

Texas Progressives talks state water, more

Off the Kuff notes that the Trump "Justice" Department has dropped the redistricting lawsuit filed by the Biden Justice Department after the 2021 redistricting.

SocraticGadfly talked about the end of an era at Southwest Airlines, looking at the end of "your bags fly free" — and other items Southwest announced.

The Lege wants to ban uncertified teachers, at least from "core" subjects. It sounds good; how will they address shortages in those areas, though? (Will it crack down on charter schools, where it's more of a problem, too?)

Texas could indeed face a water problem. Do either the House or Senate bills that purport to address that target conservation? Probably not. We know that, on the Senate side, Perry pushes desalinization, which remains overhyped.

How much is Houston Mayor John Whitmire himself, a known ConservaDem, behind Helltown PD's degree of cooperation with ICE? That' missing from the Trib story.

Linda McMahon's Department of Ed is targeting Rice and UNT for their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Nationally, DOE is weaponizing anti-Zionism as antisemitism.

Greenhouse gases are drastically shrinking our upper atmosphere, causing more problems for the future for satellites. Grist reports, as republished by the Observer.

Ethics reform under the Pink Dome? Dead as a doorknob, despite the RINO hunters claims this was why McDade Phelan had to be shown the door.

Trump is bribing El Salvador (even if its president calls it "a very low fee") to accept deported Venezuelans, who might have been deported in the face of a court order. (We know the Trump Administration has violated at least one other such order, in a deportation to Lebanon.)

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project reports from a protest at a Houston Tesla dealership & says the next protest will take place when you organize it.  

Your Local Epidemiologist answers some questions about the MMR vaccine. 

The Austin Chronicle reported from a SxSW panel on modern cars and the amount of our personal data they hold.  

Law Dork worries about SCOTUS taking up a case involving state bans on conversion therapy.

The Houston Press looks at the ethos behind "pay what you can" theater tickets.

There's at least EIGHT sides on Russia-Ukraine, along with a deeper dive on Zelensky

About 10 days ago, I posted here about John Mearsheimer hitting a foul ball on this issue.

Then, after Bagger Vance as Trump's flunky sandbagging Zelensky, I expanded that on Substack to at least seven sides, along with an extensive rewrite.

But, I missed an eighth side, and missed some things about the original seven that I put into comments to the piece. So, we'll further rectify that back here.

1. Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ in the professional governmental and academic world, shading into neocons; almost all Democrats, and Never Trumper Republicans, fall here. So do the NAFO Nazis (sic) on Shitter and elsewhere.

2. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, et al, who probably still represents a plurality of Ukrainians vis a vis the shakedown, without a lot of concrete guarantees, being offered for peace. This of course does not excuse him not wanting a peace deal that would include letting go of the Donbas, without a Trumpian shakedown. (And, just because Boris Johnson allegedly sabotaged things in 2022 doesn’t mean that Zelensky would have gone along then, either. That said, he didn't actually sabotage them. We'll get there.)

3. Trump and his sheeple. (On Substack, I thought that would cut more than "MAGAts".)

4. John Mearsheimer-types who, while not Trumpian sheeple, have as their ultimate desire on this issue the desire of owning the neocons to the point that they can't condemn Trump. (A LOT of people on his Friday afternoon YouTube said, too bad he and Bagger Vance won't talk to Bibi that way. Mearsheimer wishes that were so, and the Trumpian sheeple do not. Link coming up below; his Feb. 27 Substack post, of discussion with Andrew Napolitano, pre-Trump/Zelensky clusterfuck, spills the beans enough.

That said, on March 7, he said he wants "Ukraine to get the best deal possible," about a minute into that short video. OTOH, he then quickly spoiled it again by saying that "Donald Trump wants peace. He wants to improve relations with the Russians and he wants to help create a security architecture in Europe so everybody can prosper and we don't have any more war."

No, he wants to create his own, transactionalist and grifting version of the American imperium. It's what he wants in Gaza, but Ukraine is too big for his direct control, unlike his dreams for Gaza.

Mondoweiss gets it totally right here, in talking about Trump and direct negotiations with Hamas, which have some in Israel worried.

Donald Trump is very difficult to predict. His mercurial, transactional, and self-centered approach to policy is often ill-defined and is subject to change on a whim as he fancies himself more king than president.

Well put. If only Mearsheimer would put that on an equal footing with his desire to own the neocons.

Trump may not be a warmonger, in part because he's like the bully afraid of getting punched in the face. But, peacemonger?

The difference between Ukraine and Gaza is there's nothing to exploit in Gaza, other than Israeli tourists looking for beachfront sand in Trump's eyes.

4A. Simplicius, if he's not in Group 6. Per his piece after the dust-up, I was open to putting him there. Sadly, but not surprisingly, he, unlike the Dissident and people like me, ignores that Trump wants to establish an American imperium, just like the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™. It's a different one, and a nakedly transactional one, but it's still an American imperium. 

That said, with this piece March 13 and this one March 11 about Trump's fake cease-fire plan, he has redeemed himself to a fair degree. But not totally. He still gets one skeptical eyeball from me.

5. Norman Finkelstein and types like him who think Putin’s invasion was “justified.”

6. Putin blank-checkers of various sorts. These are often Communists of some sort who, delusionally, think Putin is one. A subset is non-Communist anti-imperialists of the left, non-skeptical version, who can't condemn Russian and American imperialism both. 

7. Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté types. Grifters. They may have some sincerity of being in Group 6 as well, but still.

These two, 5 and 6, are in some degree triangulations on 4, but still separate.

8. People who read the likes of Ivan Katchanovski, and are well informed about Tsarist Russia, USSR and post-breakup history of Russia and Ukraine, but don’t fall into any of the above groups.

OK, now the hot takes.

The first group can shut the fuck up until admitting they’re Cold War 2.0 warmongers, with NATO expansion, etc. There's nothing further to be said to my typical audience.

The second group? Zelensky can semi-shut up, but still with fucks, until he can get non-US members of NATO, and the EU, to propose peace talks that accept some version of accepting reality on the ground. I covered this is much more detail in my "Zelensky as Churchill" piece.

The third group? Trump himself, Bagger Vance (Trump’s Dan Quayle, it appears more and more, see below), and Trump’s sheeple can definitely STFU, just as much as the Nat-Sec Nutsacks.™.

The fourth? Mearsheimer and any others in his orbit or line of thought? They can shut up for now, without fucks, until they, per the Dissident, accept that Trump is proposing his own form of American imperium. The more Mearsheimer cuts Trump blank checks by not calling him out, the further downward he goes in my estimation. (Trump’s sheeple already know this and are applauding.) To put it as bluntly as hell for the Mearsheimer types? Trump’s proposal is about as trustworthy as his plan to “own Gaza” and rebuild it as “Tel Aviv South Beach.” The only difference here is that in this case, Trump is trying to rope the American government in as backstop. Mearsheimer can also STFU until he talks to some leftists of the world, not just the Napolitanos and the RT-paid talking heads like Glenn Diesen, even if Diesen reportedly opposed Putin's invasion. Has a, say, Counterpunch Radio asked to talk to you, John, and you said no?

Simplicius? Not in comments because he only lets subscribers comment, but in quote/restacks, I first politely, then moderately less politely, called him out. If he gets worse, he gets a STFU up too, and I suspect that, by not getting better, he'll get worse.

The fifth? Without mentioning Finkelstein by name, nearly two years ago, I wrote a piece rejecting the idea of “justified” war in Ukraine. (Per Walter Kaufman, and rejecting the idea of “justified” vs “unjustified” on many serious moral issues, I also reject the idea of it being “unjustified”; trying to call it either one, for any of groups 1-6, is bad framing.) On the likes of Finkelstein, another reason I don't use "justified" or "unjustified" about the Russia-Ukraine war is that risks falling into another version of twosider framing.

The sixth? I've not directly run into anybody, by full posts, on Substack. But, they're all over the place on Shitter. 

The seventh? No, I don’t know if Max is getting paid in any way by Russia (or China); if he is, which is certainly possible and even plausible, it’s being laundered through sufficient third, fourth and fifth parties to disguise its origins. In addition, per Ken Silverstein, I just remember who Max’s dad is to think about the likelihood of his grifting. Also per Ken, I just think about Assad’s minders leading Aaron Maté around the nose several years ago. To the degree people like this are right, I don’t have to cite them as support. And won’t.

Let's not forget that, besides his long-ago RT work, RT was found to be laundering money to multiple conservative pundits last year. (That said, has there ever been a similar investigation related to Chinese $$, because I know Max is wrong on things like Xinjiang and plenty of good leftists have the goods on that? Folks, Max is full of shit on Xinjiang, on Danny Ortega in Nicaragua and more. And, I don't believe it's for entirely idealistic reasons. That said, beyond Max, many other alleged left-liberals and leftists, including Green Party thought leaders, are full of shit on Xinjiang; it's another argument in favor of the reality of horseshoe theory.)

The eighth? Maybe I’ll have further triangulation in the future, but that’s enough for now.

This week in vouchers in the Texas Lege

The Observer looks at the voucher industry of middleman companies that are behind the Lege's claim in defense of vouchers that "parents never directly touch this money," not a direct quote, but a summary of repeated statements by state Sen. Brandon Creighton. It notes that vulture capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz are behind this. It also looks at a growing conservative parent backlash — a backlash that most the wingnuts in the Lege, especially on the Senate side, will conveniently ignore. 

“This is a vendor bill,” said Hollie Plemons, an education activist and GOP precinct chair in Tarrant County, in her testimony before the Senate education committee in January. Plemmons called it a “subsidy” for businesses and criticized Creighton, saying, “You are going to be taking our tax dollars … for each one of these [CEAO] businesses.”

Amy Fennell, a former city council member of Willow Park in North Texas and a Republican, told the Observer: “It’s an industry that would not exist without a government subsidy.”

There we are.

The Observer also reports on the massive public hearing last week on the House-side's voucher bill. It too drew anti-voucher conservative critics:

“I’m coming to you as a Texas retired teacher and as a conservative from Harris County. I’m a Republican precinct lead, and I wanted to remind you to please represent your Texas constituents. … My input for you today is to kill this bill,” Mary Ann Jackson said. Mary Lowe, who testified as a member of the conservative public education group Families Engaged, said the debate around vouchers was “ripping the party apart.” She added, “This bill has an open-ended check for the taxpayer.”

Will they have any effect on the House side? Perhaps at the margins when House and Senate bills head to conference. 

Related? The Texas Signal notes some bad polling for school vouchers.