Is Bush the Anti-Buddha?

18 May 2004, Allan Hunt Badiner, AlterNet

excerpt:

Thai Buddhist professor Sulak Sivaraksa likens Bush to Hitler and Stalin, arguing that his declaration of an 'Axis of Evil,' Hitler's 'Final Solution,' and Stalin's pogrom of peasants were actually similar attempts 'to perfect the world by destroying its [perceived] impurities.' Bush has withdrawn the U.S. from nearly all cooperative efforts for the planet like international treaties for nuclear disarmament, and initiatives like the Kyoto Accord to abate climate instability. Even if Bush does not win reelection, or otherwise get elected, the damage he has done will live on in the form of zealots in judicial robes that will set misguided legal precedents for hundreds of years. His is the zealotry and the extremism that Shakyamuni Buddha spent his life defining as the cause of suffering.

How does a student of the Dharma deal with the rising temptation to wish ill will on the perpetrators of such shocking and detestable undertakings? To the specter of four more years of Bush, what is an appropriate Buddhist response?


AlterNet: Personal Voices: Is Bush the Anti-Buddha?