the tibet issue

i have been following the recent issues in tibet since their occurrence with great interest. i've probably spent far too much time on it, and i think i need to make a clean break from getting too deep again, so i won't post lots of links or anything here.

my thinking on this issue has certainly evolved, but it's difficult to have a productive discourse via the internet, for several reasons. i did spend an inordinate amount of time reading comments on this post, on Nick Kristof's blog. I posted twice, #248 and #460. Sadly I didn't really get great responses to my questions of the other posters, and after my second comment I had to just leave it at that. Part of the problem is that the post was linked to by lots of pro-Chinese (and pro-Tibetan to a lesser extent) websites, which heightened the invective and seemed to make a rational discussion of the issues at hand all the more difficult.

the whole process was an illuminating experience for me, however. history, the media, the internet, all seem a little bit different in my conception of them now. but i was nonetheless disappointed, not only in the responses to my thoughts but in the difficulty in having a reasoned debate, given the medium, language barriers, and other issues.