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Srila Prabhupada[Posted Oct 12, 2010]

Democracy in China? Democracy Is No Solution At All!



Gadadhara das

As if democracy were the answer to all of China's problems

Liu Xiaobo New York Times Oct 8, 2010 - NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Liu Xiaobo and Chinese Democracy


Congratulations to Liu Xiaobo for winning the Nobel Peace Prize – and to the Nobel committee for giving it to him. China has countless dissidents and people pushing for democracy, of course, but there’s a reason Liu rose to the top in Nobel estimations. He has combined relentless courage and persistence in pushing for democracy over 21 years with a broad vision of democracy, all tethered to moderation and willingness to work with Communist Party leaders.

... After Tiananmen, many dissidents fled the country or were silent, but Liu continued to speak out despite arrests, warnings and continuous repression. And a couple of years ago he led the Charter 08 movement, calling for democratic reforms in China. It attracted widespread support and many signatures, and it terrified the Chinese leadership because of the parallels with the Charter ‘77 movement that helped topple governments in Eastern Europe in 1989. Charter 08 is what led to Liu’s latest prison sentence.
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Liu Xiaobo

New York Times - Oct 11, 2010



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Even a billion votes...
Votes - even a great quantity - do not qualify a leader A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Again election, as if election will change their quality. Let them remain as rascal, and simply by election, in place of one rascal, another rascal will improve it. ... The population is shva-vid-varahoshtra [camels, pigs, donkeys], and they are giving vote—another big pashu [animal]. That's all. This is going on. This is democracy. The voters are pashu, and they are selecting another big pashu. This is going on. The rascals, they do not know, "If instead of a tiger, we select one lion, then what is the difference? Simply name. The tiger was president. Now the lion is the president." And both of them—animals. more

What China needs (and the rest of the world) is Enlightenment


The net is slightly buzzing on the push for Chinese Democracy with Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Nicholas D. Kristof (http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/liu-xiaobo-and-chinese-democracy/) of the New York Times sent his congratulations on his blog, along with numerous other band wagoners. But is democracy a real solution to China's problems? In fact, let's question: is democracy the solution to the worlds problems? Is democracy the solution to any problems at all?

Considered to be the pillar of democracy, the United States stands as the fifth country in the world with the most recent murders - that's 16,204 (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur-crime-murders).

How about fraud? 371,800 (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_fra-crime-frauds).

Drug offenses in the US? 1,724,800. (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_dru_off-crime-drug-offences).

How many people in the US smoke pot? According to answers.com (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_smoke_marijuana), 47 percent. That's roughly 150 million people.

And how may people voted in the 2008 election? Fifty-four percent of the population of 308 million (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_voted_in_the_2008_election).

What about our leaders? What about the political offices that are supposed to represent us? If we had 100 people in a room, would they have enough fingers and toes to count the illicit behavior these leaders bring to the table? Senator Mark Foley, Senator Larry Craig, Senator David Vitter, Governor Rod Blagojevich just to name a few out of the thousands?

But yet you do get what you voted for right? After all a good number of pot heads, drug offenders, fraudsters, pornographers, prostitutes, child rapists, pedophiles, and dead people (http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Dead_people_voting) and millions of other people with bad judgment and degraded behavior voted for Foley, Craig, Vitter, and Blago. Maybe we should ask, "What where you smoking?"

But this is all par for the course. It has already been written down. All of this corruption, degradation, perversion, depravity, viscousness, and animalistic culture. It is the age of Kali Yuga and according to the Vedic scriptures Kali Yuga is the age of quarrel and hypocrisy. This age will last 432,000 years, and the closer to the end of this cycle, it will get progressively worse. By the end, man will be eating man.

In this age of Kali Yuga, a democratic structure of government is a failure. It has been tried, tested, and proven. Is the Kali Yuga man better than his animal friends? The animal eats, the animal sleeps, the animal has sex, and the animal fights. The same four needs are found in man; eating, sleeping, sex, and fighting. The man born in Kali Yuga is born in ignorance. His only knowledge is how to fulfill these four needs of the body. For him money is God. He works hard for his money and he is just like the hog who lies in a filthy place and works hard all day long in a constant struggle for existence. In the end the hog and the man both look forward to getting a more comfortable spot for sex. Man does have one difference that the animal is not capable of. He can inquire, "Who am I? Where have I come from?" and "Where am I going?" But the common voter does not ask these questions. Then how can we have a functioning society when our leaders and our voters are no better than hogs? The hog voters have elected their hog representatives to rule over them, so who is to blame?

The Vedas are eternal bodies of knowledge and they are the blueprints for living in harmony and peace this age of Kali Yuga. For those men who inquire, "Who am I? Where have I come from?" and "Where am I going?" Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita (2.12, na tu evaham na tu jasam: "Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be." In other words, man is eternal. And again in the Bhagavad-gita (8.6) Krishna says, "Whatever state of being one remembers at the time of death, he will attain that state he will attain without fail."

The Kali Yuga man is entrapped by the illusion that he can be happy by lording it over the material world. Everyone thinks that "I am the lord of all that I survey." But this wild goose chase is futile and man finds himself drawn by the uncontrollable horses of his senses. He is bound by Nature's laws. He finds that he must be born, must get old, must become diseased, and must die. And if he does not inquire, then he will be born again and go through this cycle called samsara: birth, old age, disease, and death and again birth, disease, old age, and death.

Every human being wants happiness and peace. But democracy or any other method of government cannot bring happiness or peace. Those who gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, have been cheated, and Liu Xiaobo has been cheated. The real peace formula is stated by Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita (5.29), bhoktaram yajña-tapasam sarva-loka-maheshvaram: "The sages, knowing Me as the ultimate purpose of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attain peace from the pangs of material miseries." The Lord is the master of the material laws of Nature, and man is bound by these laws. Man cannot avoid these laws. The Lord is the predominator of everything. Unless one comes to this basic understanding, there can never be peace in the world, whether it be individually or collectively. As long as one is in contact with matter, he must work according to his necessities. But one who is in Krishna consciousness or God consciousness, he knows that he is eternal and works according to his eternal spiritual life. As he advances in Krishna Consciousness, he becomes less and less bound by these laws and he is able to control his senses which would otherwise lead him to a spiritual death - samsara, or birth, disease, old age, and death again and again and again! The fallible hogs promoting the dead end in democracy can give out Nobel Peace Prizes, but this will not save them from the four miseries of birth, disease, old age and death!



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