Tricycle | Awake in the World

When the Dalai Lama set up his trip to Australia way back when, he might have known he would run into some trouble. China is tightening its vice-like grip around the world because capitalism is designed to deliver the best products at the cheapest possible cost, which means using the cheapest (i.e. slave) labor. People will argue back and forth about globalism, protectionism, the free market, etc., but meanwhile, as the world's richest democracy spends precious lives and lots of money in a certain Middle Eastern country, the world's richest dictatorship grows richer selling cheap products to the democracies of the world. (China's also wisely developing closer relations with Africa.)

So. . . Australia's leaders, as have many others, are dithering on whether or not to meet with the D.L. The Australian Senate will not receive him because he is not recognized as a head of state.

(Australia may recognize the Western Sahara, and if so would be the first Western non-African nation to do so. Of course the U.N. calls Morocco's occupation illegal and no nation officially recognizes Moroccan claims over the region.)

Ann Coulter says every schoolboy should know Australia is one of the U.S.'s three closest friends (along with Britain and Israel.) But what with the Aussies starting to recognize the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people, she may want to re-think that.

Meanwhile the E.U. wants to know why the D.L. has snubbed them. What's my point in all this? I guess it's that, if you want to know why the D.L. is floating retirement rumors, this situation in Australia, which is repeated everywhere, probably explains a lot.

- Philip Ryan, Webmaster