The following is a response to Climbing Everest Without Oxygen in the Washington Post, Health and Science section, 23rd May, 2016
With all due respect to talented Ms. Arnot, Mr. Viesturs, Sir Edmund Percival Hillary,
et cetera, even more impressive than climbing Everest without oxygen is
independently climbing her without support from the 'Tigers of the Snow' --Sherpa guides and route-developers, porters, chefs and cooking crew and additional personnel.
Sowa Rigpa, The Tibetan Art of Healing (http://ecs.com.np/culture/sowa-rigpa-the-tibetan-art-of-healing) in the current issue of ECS Nepal (online 20th May, 2016)
Obama "will leave behind an improbable legacy as the only president [Nobel Peace Prize Winner] in
American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war."
Remember, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 at the beginning of his presidency...."He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president."
In fact the Drone President is reported to have quipped to his aides "I'm really good at killing people." Joke, boast or other (who says something like that?!), thousands of humans have died from US drone strikes, including innocent men, women and children...
Is this a legacy of a Nobel Peace Prizewinner?
"Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars
And brought in matter that should feed this fire;And now 'tis far too huge to be blown outWith that same weak wind which enkindled it." King John, Act V, scene 2, line 83, W. Shakespeare
"Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out...and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel. ..And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for 'the universal brotherhood of man' --with his mouth."What Is Man? Mark Twain
"Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder."The Crisis, Thomas Paine
Photo by Alonzo Lyons at Tribhuvan International Airport
Deadbeat donor darlings,
what are you doing in the Himalayan paradise of Nepal, especially if operating without
language and culture skills?
If nothing else, please
consider the effects of your personal intervention on the personal lives of many, of a long-suffering people
and their cultural ethos.
Consider this, foreign agents like you have
been operational in Nepal for six decades. Nepal currently has over 50,000
I/NGOs…what are the results regarding poverty metrics and development indices?
Nepal is or very nearly is a failed state, and the people are suffering in many lethal
ways for want of good governance while aid typically abets dysfunction and
foments a donor mentality that stifles self-determination, free-enterprise,
creativity, and industry--all craved by people in want of personal freedoms including economic freedom.
Perhaps the trekker’s
maxim can provide better guidance: “The Himalaya might change you, please do
not change them.”
Yes, the Nepali people have much bigger and
tastier fish to fry, and instead are
caught up dealing with an entitled, self-absorbed ruling gang and legions of meddling foreign agents-- most interventionists bent on 'fixing' this faraway land have few to no culture and language skills – deadbeat donors.
Meanwhile, the downtrodden people have long faced chronic poverty and its many ills while under the thumb of apartheid, really, for centuries. The ruling gang and its enablers have all but destroyed the cultural ethos and country itself.
The dysfunctional system is as disastrous as a Marxist
nightmare. An entitled gang has
controlled the state and resources for the foreseeable past including the
police, military, judges, hospitals, schools, media, commerce, land and obviously wealth and power.
Citizens are subjugated to this entitled ruling gang and have next to nothing
including few rights for self-determination and instead are dictated to by the
state, elitists and even by an endless phalanx of unaware foreigners operating in Nepal.
Government gangsters and development schemes have
stifled human rights including the freedom of self-determination, industry, creativity and free enterprise. The people are totally subjugated to the custodians of 'development'. They have
next to nothing including few human rights and little freedom to do any enterprise on their own -- instead they face insurmountable
hurdles including prohibitive fees and bureaucratic red tape with non-transparent rules and regulations that gives leverage for graft and extracting bribes. The aid schemes that play along with the dysfunction are a
warped socialist experiment that have six decades of non-success on poverty metrics and development indices, and in sum, it is worse than any Marxist nightmare.
The entitled elite control the state and foreigners play into the
dysfunctional system by either trying to take the place of broken elements, and in doing so bolstering the buffer between reality and crony
socialism…the ruling gang thereby has no motivation or need to answer to the people... or by warping society by enabling dysfunction with outside funds going directly to the wrong places and into the wrong hands and instilling a donor mentality where little gets done without a pledge of aid funds (earthquake reconstruction is crippled by this mentality).
How about striving for human rights with the right to be free of
government and foreign meddlers and their costly, lethal interference?
NBC News published Mount Everest Guide Services Warn About Cut-Rate Competitors byKeith Wagstaff on 8th May 2016. The author mentions an East versus West conflict on Everest. Actually, more well-aimed might be to target Nepal's government gangsters. They eat over half of the Everest pie in fees and bribes and offer no real benefits to fee-payers in return (except nominal permission to climb) and no benefits to the nation itself. That might be the driving force behind any conflict at higher elevations. The massive fees collected by government gangsters do not reach the people of Nepal, especially the deserving locals in Sagarmatha National Park, the region of Solu-Khumbu where expeditions operate. The huge amounts paid by outfitters and mountaineers in government fees are essentially lost to corruption and take away from potential earnings of all workers on the mountain including Sherpa guides. Would there still be a supposed conflict between climbers and support crew without the government graft that is illegitimately taking away from hardworking outfitters, guides, porters, cooks and other staff and other local businesses and residents, too?
