Workers World Party Backs State-Approved “Living Buddha”

Bill Weinberg at World War 4 Report notes a mind-numbing press release from “FIST” (“Fight Imperialism-Stand Together”), a youth-group for the US-based “Workers World Party” (sic – I suppose apostrophes must be bourgeois and reactionary):

A protest of Washington’s anti-China policies is planned for July 17 when the Dalai Lama will be speaking at Radio City Music Hall here…The twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo, Tibet’s only living female Buddha, a critic of the Dalai Lama and vice-chairwoman of Tibet’s regional government, says that “Old Tibet was dark and cruel, the serfs lived worse than horses and cattle.” (Reuters)

Bill adds:

If you look up the April 30 Reuters story (which FIST fails to either date or link to), you will find that it cites China’s official Xinhua agency—and that the twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo is a vice-chair of the Beijing-compliant Tibetan Autonomous Regional People’s Congress!…We’ve already noted some of the surreal politics of the officially atheist Chinese state’s game of divide-and-rule with Tibet’s Buddhists. It is perversely amusing to see FIST (the latest front group for the retro-Stalinist Workers World Party) drawn into the game…

I blogged previously on state-approved Buddhist figures in Tibet here.