Friday, September 23, 2005
There is a country where millions live in grinding poverty with insufficient nutrition and authorities who torture, imprison and murder dissidents, or just those who run afoul of the powers-that-be. Their regional neighbors enforce the borders of the prison-state they live in. Oddly, one will never see a banner at a major march carried on their behalf, though their cause is surely just.
The Marmot: On legs with no feet, N.K. defector reaches Thailand [Disturbing Picture Warning]
...According to the Chosun Ilbo, a North Korean woman, identified by her family name of Park, recently arrived in Thailand with her 19-year-old son and two North Korean women and is awaiting passage to South Korea. What makes Park’s story truly amazing is that this she made the trip without feet, having lost them thanks to torture she suffered at the hands of North Korean security authorities after she was repatriated to the Workers’ Paradise during a previous defection attempt...
I hope Ted Turner sees that photo. He was in North Korea recently. He noticed that people were thin and people had bicycle, not cars, but HE didn't see any evidence of torture.
George Bernard Shaw was the Ted Turner of the 30's, apologizing for and deflecting criticism away from Stalin's planned famine in the Ukraine, 1932/33 (5 to 7 million killed), and later apologizing for and defending Stalin's show trials and purges. Walter Duranty, the Webbs, et al., reflecting the same self-blindered, benighted sentiments and disinformation.
On something of a lesser scale it was a similar coterie of clowns - elites and intellectuals - such as Albright, Thurow and Samuelson, in the 80's, who were instructing us about the supposedly powerful Soviet economy and the general viability of their social project.