Vice News Runs Defense for a Dude Who Asked a Child to Suck His Tongue
The Hypocrisy of Vice News: Defending the Dalai Lama's Inappropriate Actions While Claiming to Stand for Social Justice
If you didn’t realize by now that Vice News is just another propaganda arm for the American capitalist hegemony, maybe this will change your mind. Their recent defense of the Dalai Lama's inappropriate behavior towards a young boy is not only disturbing but also raises serious questions about their journalistic integrity. It's particularly concerning given the controversial history of Vice's co-founder Gavin McInnes and his association with extremist groups like the Proud Boys.
On April 10th, 2023, a video surfaced online of the Dalai Lama engaging in inappropriate behavior towards a young boy during a speech in India. In the video, the Dalai Lama asks the boy to come on stage and then proceeds to ask him to "suck his tongue." The incident caused a lot of controversy and raised concerns about the Dalai Lama's conduct towards children. Especially considering the fact that the Dalai Lama used to have thousands of child slaves before Tibet was liberated by the CPC.
The first article Vice posted to run defense for the CIA asset Dalai Lama is titled ‘Tibetans Say the Dalai Lama’s ‘Suck My Tongue’ Viral Video Is Being Misinterpreted’. The first source in this article is to a wildly biased piece from ANI News titled ‘Chinese Communist Party spreads Tibet disinformation through various forums’. ANI calls itself ‘South Asia’s Leading Multimedia News Agency’ but one quick glance through their articles shows that they are another mouthpiece for sinophobic propaganda. They published this article which refers to Tibet being ranked lowest on the Freedom Index (how exactly does one index freedom?).
That Freedom Index comes from a Washington D.C. based think tank which was started by a former first lady of the US and is funded by U.S. government grants. The Freedom Index puts Canada as the 5th freest country on Earth. You know, the country that was founded on racism and genocide and still to this day brutally subjugates the indigenous population? Nice.
The Vice article continues on with this paragraph:
“The Dalai Lama then said, “suck my tongue,” and stuck his tongue out. In Tibet, sticking out the tongue is a traditional greeting [their link] that goes back to the 9th century. The crowd burst out laughing and the Dalai Lama hugged the child again and spoke about peace.”
Yes, sticking out your tongue is a traditional Tibetan greeting. Asking a child to suck your tongue isn’t.
It’s very strange that right before this paragraph Vice said this:
“In the video, the Dalai Lama is approached by a boy…for a hug, the exiled leader hugs him and asks the child to kiss him on his cheek. After that, the Dalai Lama pointed to his lips and said, “here also.” Then he held the boy’s chin and kissed him on the lips.”
Uh, hey Vice, why are we brushing past this? I don’t care what you use to justify the tongue sucking prompt, an adult in a position of power should not be kissing young children unrelated to them on the lips. The fuck is wrong with you?
Next, the article goes into conspiracy territory. The author wonders why this video is just now being spread when it happened back in February. Gee, I don’t know, maybe because it flew under the radar for some reason? Wouldn’t that be the conspiracy theory here? Why this is only now being talked about when there was plenty of people in attendance for this event that should have been sounding alarms about it?
Vice implies it is being spread by China defenders, saying that “many of the critical posts are from China”. I’ve only seen it being shared by regular people from the west, because, you know, most people recoil in shock when they see an adult holy leader asking a child to suck his tongue. They would usually want to bring attention to that.
Tsering Kyi, a US-based Tibetan journalist, told VICE World News that the Dalai Lama has been a CCP target for the last 70 years, adding that the current incident is the result of another attempt to discredit him, combined with misinterpretations of Tibetan culture.
Tsering Kyi is just a US-based journalist, huh Vice? Why don’t you mention that she works for Voice of America, which is a state-owned propaganda arm of China’s geopolitical enemy, the United States, and funded by the U.S. Agency for Global Media just like Radio Free Asia. Read more about RFA and the USAGM here:
It’s also interesting that this reporter shares the same name as someone who self-immolated in 2012 to protest against China. Is that reporter using a pseudonym, or is Tsering Kyi a common name? Vice also curiously mentions the ‘CCP’ and their apparent targeting of the 14th Dalai Lama, yet neglect to mention that aforementioned CIA funding that the Dalai Lama personally received. Biased much?
Vice embeds a tweet from Drew Pavlou, a cringe Aussie ‘anti-totalitarian’ who seems to have made it his life’s goal to whine about China at every opportunity, going so far as to make fake bomb threats against the Chinese Embassy in London. He was hacked, guys, he promises. Those pesky Chinese hacked him and threatened to blow up their own embassy. That Time article also outlines some of the other sinophobic nonsense that Drew has been up to.
Next, Vice platforms an anonymous Tibetan who defends the Dalai Lama’s pedophilic actions, with this totally real person stating that they “saw many pro-Chinese people tweeting this video last Friday. I suspected that this will be made into an issue later”. Hmm, I wonder why it’s an issue?
Vice then links an article about the Dalai Lama being one of the most influential and spiritual leaders in the world. Remember when he endorsed a sex cult (NXIVM) after getting a $1 million paycheck? He also ‘wrote’ a foreword for a book authored by NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere, who is currently serving 120 years in prison for “a pattern of racketeering activity including human trafficking, sex offenses, and fraud”. Fun times.
Now Vice talks to Timothy Grose, an ‘associate professor of China studies at the Indiana-based Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’. Grose tweets articles from Radio Free Asia, and he also co-authored an article about Islamic veiling in Xinjiang, which sources Radio Free Asia. It was featured in The China Journal, which is published on behalf of the Australian Centre on China in the World, which is funded by the Australian Commonwealth Government. Gross (get it? his name is Grose?).
Later in the article Vice directly sources Voice of America. That VOA article sources an organization called Free Tibet, which is a member of the International Tibet Network. That network is of course funded by the National Endowment for Democracy. They received $320k from the NED in 2021. Read more about the NED here:
For some reason Vice now directly calls out a tweet from a random dude with 14k followers who lives in Hong Kong, and this is supposedly evidence of CPC interference?
Some viral critical posts are coming from China. One account, run by a man called Keawe Wong, accused the Dalai Lama of owning undeclared wealth and slaves. “Before Tibet was liberated by the Chinese Communist Party, life looked like this,” the account says, showing the screengrab of the viral video, adding that before the Chinese “liberation,” Tibetan lamas were “serf owners”.
Curious use of quotes there, Vice.
They also try to frame the criticisms against the child slave loving Dalai Lama as coming from crazy MAGA people:
Another post by Sameera Khan—a U.S.-based right-wing pundit who uses the hashtag #MuslimMaga and has previously been criticized by Tibetan media for parroting Beijing’s talking points—accused the U.S. government of “[recruiting] a pedophile to weaken/destabilize China.”
It is common knowledge that the US Government recruited a pedophile to destabilize China. I don’t care if a MAGA person tweeted that. A broken clock is right twice a day.
Following up on the VOA source, Vice now sources Radio Free Asia directly. It’s about a proposed bill in US Congress that would “pressure Chinese leaders to enter into talks with the Dalai Lama to resolve issues relating to Tibet, including by directing the State Department to actively counter any disinformation from Beijing related to the history of the formerly independent country.”
Surely you could have found a less biased source for this, Vice? Or just not mention it at all? It’s just weird sinophobic posturing:
Since then, Beijing has sought to legitimize Chinese rule through sinification policies and suppression of dissent in Tibet.
“Their attempts to steal peoples’ freedoms and rewrite history continue to threaten American values and our national security interests today,” McCaul said.
Saying the quiet part out loud, huh? Do you think Tibetans want American values? 90% of them think life is better under CPC rule, and only 29% want independence (and independence doesn’t mean becoming another US satellite state).
Vice finally criticizes the Dalai Lama, at the very end of this article, by highlighting the time when ‘his holiness’ said that a possible female successor should be attractive. Yes, he’s a weirdo and a creep.
For shame, Vice. You are nothing but a US state department mouthpiece. This is becoming more and more apparent by the day, as evidenced from your recent video where you platformed sinophobic propaganda from a talking head from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a think tank funded by the Australian Department of Defense, the US government, American tech megacorporations like Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and defense contractors like Lockheed Martin. ASPI recently took down their sponsors page for some totally not suspicious reason, here’s an archive. They have a new page titled Corporate Partners which curiously omits Lockheed Martin. But that’s a story for another day.
In conclusion, Vice News' defense of the Dalai Lama's inappropriate behavior towards a child is unacceptable. By failing to hold those in positions of power accountable for their actions, Vice News is perpetuating a culture of abuse and impunity. It is time for media outlets to take responsibility for their coverage and hold those in positions of power accountable for their actions, regardless of their status or influence. Oh, and stop pushing the war-mongering US narrative against China. Thanks.
That was just the first article that Vice posted to cover for the Dalai Lama. I will break down the other one in a later post. Subscribe to get notified: