Why would it have necessarily been worse? Maybe we all would have gotten the message 20 years sooner and built ourselves a nice small scaled down monastery totally in the control of the Western sangha instead of sitting here kavetching about what we do now.

reductio ad Hitlerem

I've known Tenzin (no la) for 30 years and he has never once said hello to me even thought I always say hello to him. He always looks down or away as if actually talking to someone is a painful experience for him.

KOOL AID ALERT: The desire to return to some idealized (mythological) past is what caused World War II (German return to an idealized Aryan race purity). Democracy is in a mess because it is an evolving idea which is seriously compromised by regressive ideas about greed driven capitalist ideology. Trying to return to some mythological past will not help in the current situation. Buddhist thought based on the Bodhisattva ideal does have a serious chance to advance the currently evolving governance process based on Democratic principles.

How can the unborn be re-born?

What is it? ;-)

It's actually a question of looking at the issue from the standpoint of that which may apparently suffer re-birth from the point of view of the actual observing subject which because of it's nature is noumenal and is not subject to time, space, birth, death, karma or re-birth. If you are interested in the illusion then by all means... but I have seen no evidence that pursuing the illusion leads to awakening. The fool who persists in his folly will go round and round trapped in the dream until the no end of endless time.

"The Buddha said to him, "Subhuti, those who would now set forth on the Bodhisattva path should thus give birth to this thought: 'However many beings there are in whatever realms of being might exist, whether they are born from an egg or born from a womb, born from the water or born from the air, whether they have form or no form, whether they have perception or no perception, in whatever conceivable realm of being one might conceive of beings, in the realm of complete nirvana I shall liberate them all. And though I thus liberate countless beings, not a single being is liberated.'

"And why not? Subhuti, a bodhisattva who creates the perception of a being cannot be called a bodhisattva.' And why not? Subhuti, no one can be called a bodhisattva who creates the perception of a self or who creates the perception of a being, a life, or a soul." -Diamond Sutra

Of course the question must be asked: How can something which is neither phenomenal nor non-phenomenal, that which is the subject of all objectification but which itself cannot be objectified, which can't be said to be born, be re-born?

The ONLY reason ANY of this makes ANY sense is if what you are doing is trying to create a FRANCHISE, not being concerned with what is best for the spread of the Dharma. KPL exists for one and only one reason and that is that BTR was forbidden to teach his tradition at KTD and the KTC's. He was forced to do it by the purists in the Karma Kagyu. I don't buy the purity garbage. At this point in the development of Vajrayana in the West, we do not need sterility, but fecundity. What will emerge here will be something tailored for the Western mind, not the eastern mind. Purity will only kill the Vajrayana here. It is a death sentence. If you disagree with me look at what has happened for the past 30 years and compare it to the other Buddhist traditions in America. Anyone who thinks the Vajrayana in America is doing well has his head stuck in the sand.

I quite agree that Buddhism and capitalism are a bad combination. The only hope I see is that a number of the people who are ready to teach are nearing social security age and maybe that is our way out of the financial dilemma at least until we can get things established here on a more workable footing.