Propaganda piece will harm, not help, human rights in Korea and the world.

By Eugene E Ruyle
March 2013

Already touted in testimony before the U.S.  Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as an “excellent book” chronicling the life story of the “courageous and charismatic” Shin Dong-hyuk, “Escape from Camp 14” is an important read for anyone who wants to understand North Korea (Harden 2012).

Although favorably reviewed by the mainstream press and even leftists (Anthony 2012; Calleja 2012; DuChateau 2012; Goodreads 2013; Hong 2012; Jurek 2012; Kelch 2013; Kirkpatrick 2012b; Maslin 2012; NPR Staff 2012), “Escape” has escaped any critical review and one sees only laudatory comments.

It is naïve, however, to read “Escape” simply as one’s man’s struggle against inhuman conditions without contextualizing both the circumstances surrounding its writing (or ghostwriting) as well as the circumstances behind the camps themselves.

Shin’s True Story?

The book tells the story of how Shin was born in a North Korean labor camp, escaped from the camp and North Korea at age 23, found his way alone across China to Shanghai, where he met a South Korean journalist who took him to the South Korean Consulate. The story is amazing. It deserves to be told, as do the stories of countless others who suffer and struggle under the inhumane conditions created by U.S. imperialism, for example Kim Son-myong, a South Korean dissident. As Bruce Cumings writes:

Since it is commonplace for Americans to sympathize with those victims of authoritarianism who share their ideals and to fall silent about those who do not, it may be instructive to end with the story of Kim Son-myong emerging from a jail cell in August 1995 like Rip Van Winkle, he had been behind bars for so long that another long-term political prisoner, Kim Sok-hyon (who had gotten out earlier), had to instruct him in how to use a telephone and how to turn on the television; others gently informed him that his ninety-three-year-old mother believed he had died twenty years earlier.

Who was this man?

In the fierce conflict raging across the peninsula in October 1950, American intelligent officers captured Kim Son-myong, a southerner supporting the North, and turned him over to ROK authorities. They accused him of spying, which he denied; but he would not recant his political allegiance to P’y6ngyang. His jailers threatened him with execution and tortured him, seeking a confession; meanwhile, they executed his father and his sister in order to pressure him further. When he still would not recant, they threw Kim into solitary confinement in a tiny cell for the next forty-four years. Forbidden to speak to anyone, to meet relatives, or to read anything, beaten frequently and surviving somehow on a “prison starvation diet,” he remained incarcerated because he would not “convert” and give up his political support of North Korea. “The guards would show me food, like a soup full of meat. And then they would just give me broth for dinner. They would say, ‘if you want food you better change your beliefs.’” He entered prison at twenty-nine came out at seventy-three, still unrepentant. (Cumings 2005, pp. 392-393)

We need also to consider the stories emerging from the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up by the South Korean government in 2005 to investigate atrocities n Korean history from Japan’s rule of Korea in 1910 through the end of authoritarian rule in South Korea in 1993. According to the New York Times:

Handicapped by a budget considered too small for such a vast task, the commission’s work has been slow. Beyond that, it can neither force people to testify nor offer immunity for testimony, so few veterans have been willing to come forward. Some victims have stayed away as well, unwilling to open old wounds between neighbors caught up in the ideological struggle decades ago. Still, the commission has made progress in confirming long-suppressed stories of mass executions and in recovering the remains of victims.
South Korean troops executed tens of thousands of unarmed civilians and prisoners as they retreated in advance of the North Korean invaders during the war, according to historians. The victims were often accused of being Communist sympathizers or collaborators.
The commission’s investigators have discovered the remains of hundreds of people — including women and children — who were killed without trial. They have also identified 1,222 probable instances of mass killings during the war.
The cases include 215 episodes in which survivors say American warplanes and ground troops killed unarmed civilians. (Sang-hun 2007b)

We also need to hear the stories of those imprisoned at Guantánamo and the victims of the U.S. extraordinary rendition program, as well as those of the millions of children who starve to death every year in that part of the world kept free of the evils of Communism.

It is difficult to know how to evaluate the information in Harden’s account. New York Times reporter Nicholas D. Kristof quotes Sidney R. Jones, the executive director of Human Rights Watch/Asia in New York, as saying “we don’t have any systematic way of being able to evaluate credibly the stories we hear from defectors.” Kristof notes that other experts acknowledge that the information “has credibility problems,” but say the reports “sound right.” (Kristof 1996)

In spite of the publicity of “Escape,” Shin Dong-hyuk’s own story remains unknown. His Korean-language memoir, “Escape to the Outside World,” was published in Seoul in 2007, but attracted little attention until Shin was discovered by a Washington Post reporter, Blaine Harden, who “had been searching for more than a year for a story that could explain how North Korea used repression to keep from falling apart.” Clearly, Shin’s story met his requirements for a story that would “increase international pressure on North Korea.” He persuaded Shin to cooperate by promising a fifty-fifty split of revenues, noting that, “Our agreement, however, gave me control over the contents.” (“Escape,” pp. 7-9) By Harden’s account, then, “Escape” is not Shin’s own story, it is Blaine Harden’s. Shin’s story remains unknown except to those who can read Korean.

Harden tells how he wanted not just to tell Shin’s story, but also present “a deeper account (that) would unveil the secret machinery that enforces totalitarian rule in North Korea” and show “how some of that oppressive machinery is breaking down.” (p. 9) Harden considers himself an expert in this area:

Political implosion had become my specialty. For the Post and for the New York Times, I spent nearly three decades covering failed states in Africa, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the slow-motion rot in Burma under the generals. From the outside looking in, North Korea seemed ripe—indeed, overripe—for the kind of collapse I had witnessed elsewhere. In a part of the world where nearly everyone else was getting rich, its people were increasingly isolated, poor, and hungry.
Still, the Kim family dynasty kept the lid on. Totalitarian repression preserved their basket case state. (“Escape,” p.7)

Clearly, none of this editorializing is part of Shin’s own story. These embellishments reflect the prejudices of the “human rights” community.

The “Human Rights” Propaganda Mill

The propaganda value of Shin’s story was immediately clear to Harden’s superiors at the Washington Post. In an editorial, CEO Don Graham wrote:

High school students in America debate why President Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t bomb the rail lines to Hitler’s camps. Their children may ask, a generation from now, why the West stared at far clearer satellite images of Kim Jong Il’s camps and did nothing. (“Escape,” p.

The book has served its purpose well. As noted earlier, it was cited before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Shin is carefully coached for his public appearances, learning to assert, for example, that “Kim Jong Il was worse than Hitler” (see “Escape”, pp. 176-191). Since reportedly Shin had never even heard of Kim Jon Il, much less Hitler, while in the camps (Harden 2008; Sang-Hun 2007a), this statement comes from his “human rights” handlers, not his experience in the camps.

Another product in this genre, Aquariums of Pyongyang, was described by Bush as “one of the most influential books I read during my presidency,” and its author, Kang Choi-hwan, was invited to the White House to discuss North Korea (“Escape,” p. 169). Clearly, this propaganda campaign is reaching the highest levels of U.S. policy-making.

Harden describes the labor camps in North Korea in the most lurid terms, comparing them to the Nazi concentration camps, which did include actual extermination camps, something not true of the North Korean labor camps. Harden asserts that:

Most North Koreans are sent to the camps without any judicial process, and many die without learning the charges against them . . . Guilt by association is legal in North Korea. A wrongdoer is often imprisoned with this parents and children. Kim Il Sung laid down the law 1972: “[E]nemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations.” (p. 6)

Like Nazi concentration camps, labor camps in North Korea use confinement, hunger, and fear to create a kind of Skinner box, a closed, closely regulated chamber in which guards assert absolute control over prisoners. Yet while Auschwitz existed for only three years, Camp 14 is a fifty-year-old Skinner box, an ongoing longitudinal experiment in repression and mind control in which guards breed prisoners whom they control, isolate, and pit against one another from birth. (p. 105)

Harden provides no sources to document his statement from Kim Il Sung or his view of Korean labor camps. In fact, aside from a few sources to bolster his case, Harden appears to have done little research on Korean culture, society, or history, not even citing the widely respected CIA analysis, Helen-Louise Hunter (1999). A more responsible journalist would have consulted an expert such as Bruce Cumings, who writes on the North Korean labor camps as follows:

Officially Kim Jong Il’s gulag is made up of “educational institutions” that do not punish prisoners, but reeducate them. Common criminals who commit minor felonies and small fry with an incorrect grasp of their place in the family state who commit low-level political offenses go off to labor camps or mines for hard work and varying lengths of incarceration; murderers, repeat offenders, and big-time political criminals (particularly those who spy for the South) are incarcerated for good in some of the most godforsaken prisons in the world. Kang Chol-wan was held in the Yodok labor camp for ten years, and like most other prisoners, he went there with his family—a common practice and an odd aspect of the DPRK’s belief in the family as the core unit of society. Mutual family support is also the reason that many survive the ordeal of prison. . . .

Cumings goes on to recount the story of Kang Choi-wan who was sent to the labor camps at age 9 with his parents, as recounted in his book, The Aquariums of Pyongyang, co-authored with Pierre Rigoulot, who also contributed to the notorious Black Book of Communism. Cumings continues:

The Aquariums of Pyongyang is an interesting and believable story, precisely because it does not, on the whole, make for the ghastly tale of totalitarian repression that its original publishers in France meant it to be; instead it suggests that a decade’s incarceration with one’s immediate family was survivable and not necessarily an obstacle to entering the elite status of residence in Pyongyang and entrance to college. Meanwhile we have a long-standing, never-ending gulag full of black men in our prisons, incarcerating upward of 25 percent of all black youths. This doesn’t excuse North Korea’s police state, but perhaps it suggests that Americans should do something about the pathologies of our inner cities—say, in Houston—before pointing the finger.

Although the U.S. prison system is known within the black community as “The New Jim Crow” (and properly so in my opinion), it is important to know that even in the U.S. the purpose of incarceration is not just punishment but also rehabilitation. Convicted felons are sent to prison AS punishment, not FOR punishment. Of course, there is a difference between correctional philosophy and actual practice in real prisons, in the United States as well North Korea, but it is important that this distinction be maintained.

Whatever the case in the U.S., Harden’s account of life in North Korean labor camps cannot be viewed as an honest attempt to understand North Korean society. After all, that is not its goal. Harden is quite clear that his goal is “increase international pressure on North Korea.” Unfortunately, he seems to be succeeding.

As told by Harden, Shin’s story is compelling. It is skillfully interwoven with official “human rights” views of North Korea in such a way as to close all debate. It is used as a kind of slam dunk to silence anyone who may dissent from this orthodox view. For example, when Dennis Rodman returned from a basketball exhibition in Pyongyang, he expressed his friendship for Kim Jong Un as follows:

That’s a human being. . . . He’s a great guy. He’s just a great guy . . . . It’s amazing how we do the same thing here [prison camps like those in North Korea]. . . . It’s amazing that we have Presidents over here do the same thing. . . . Guess what? . . . Guess what? . . . Guess what? Don’t hate me. Guess what? Don’t hate me. (Schlussel 2013)
(Rodman also told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week)
He wants Obama to do one thing: Call him. . . . He said, ‘If you can, Dennis – I don’t want [to] do war. I don’t want to do war.’ He said that to me. (Rea 2013)

Rodman’s simple plea for more understanding between the U.S. and North Korea was greeted by an outpouring of abuse and ridicule in the mainstream press, including an editorial in the Boston Herald urging Rodman to read “Escape” before returning to North Korea. The editorial concludes by noting: “After Rodman’s trip Shin proclaimed on Twitter that he will hate the former NBA player forever. In that he is hardly alone.” (Boston Herald 2013)

Clearly, “Escape” should not be accepted superficially at face value, but must be evaluated as a product of an extensive “human rights” community centered in Washington and extending to Seoul and indeed covering the globe. The group includes Christian churches and NGOs and is engaged in humanitarian work helping North Korean refugees cope with difficult life in the South. Taken by itself, such humanitarian work may be laudable and one wishes it extended to undocumented workers crossing international borders closer to home, but that is another issue.

However, in addition to their humanitarian work, these groups also engage in political propaganda. Melanie Kirkpatrick’s book, “Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad” (Kirkpatrick 2012a), has a fairly extensive discussion of this “human rights” network in a chapter titled “Invading North Korea. This includes a discussion of how North Korean exiles can be used in the “integration of North Korea into a united Korea” along the lines of what happened in Eastern Europe. The network includes Free North Korea Radio and other stations, which hope “to play the same role in opening North Korea as Western radio stations played in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.” These stations are funded by the U.S. State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy, which Kirkpatrick describes as “a nonprofit, bipartisan organization created by Congress in 1983” but neglects to mention its role as front for CIA funding. The network also includes the North Korea People’s Liberation Front, “a Seoul-based organization of more than one hundred former North Korean soldier who vow to overthrow the Kim family regime and unify the Korean peninsula.” (Kirkpatrick 2012a, pp. 273, 306-307)

Kirkpatrick’s description of the “human rights” campaign may be accepted as authoritative, since she herself is a former journalist/editor for the Wall Street Journal and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her husband, Jack David, was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction and Negotiations Policy during the Bush Administration.

The Free North Korea lobby thus has direct links into the U.S. military establishment, the same folks that owe so much of their wealth and power to the Korean War of 1950-53. Powerful voices within that establishment wanted to end the Korean War with nuclear weapons. General Douglas McArthur, for example stated in interviews published posthumously:

“I would have dropped between 30 and 50 atomic bombs . . . strung across the neck of Manchuria.” Then he would have introduced half a million Nationalist troops at the Yalu, and then “spread behind us—from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea-a belt of radioactive cobalt . . .  [which] has an active life of between 60 and 120 years. For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the North.” He expressed certainty that the Russians would have done nothing: “my plan was a cinch.” (Cumings 2005, p. 290-291)

And they call Kim Il Sung evil and insane! As Cumings notes, “MacArthur sounds like a warmongering lunatic in these interviews, but if so he was not alone.” Nor is such thinking absent from the U.S. foreign policy elite at the present time. The U.S has continued to conduct regular war games and to threaten North Korea with nuclear attack.

Why the Camps?

No one denies that North Koreans are suffering from extreme hardship and deprivation, and it is clear that labor camps exist, that they are not very pleasant places, and that abuses occur as they do in all prison systems. The question is, WHY do these camps exist. Harden’s implication is that they exist solely to support “the Kim family dynasty” and ”their basket case state” which can only be preserved through “totalitarian repression.” (“Escape,” pp. 7-9)

Such a view ignores the reality of the Korean War and its aftermath. No nation in history has been subjected to such threats from such a disproportionately powerful enemy for so long. The wonder is not that the North Koreans may seem crazy to outsiders, but that have been able to resist for so long.

But it is not simply the treat of nuclear attack and the threatening war games of U.S. and South Korean forces that the DPRK has to endure, but a determined program of espionage and subversion.

It needs to be stressed that the labor camps exist not simply to intimidate and repress the North Korean people as is implied by Harden and other critics in the “human rights” community. North Korea faces a very real threat, not only of nuclear attack, but also espionage. John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus, describes the situation in an article, “Spying on the North:”

It started out as a routine briefing at a conference in Florida on U.S. special operations. One of the panelists, Army Brigadier General Neil Tolley, was talking about the importance of human intelligence in North Korea. A reporter, David Axe, dutifully wrote down Tolley’s comments and published his article in late May in The Diplomat, a foreign policy publication based in Tokyo. The article, quoting Tolley, claimed that U.S. Special Forces were already gathering human intelligence in North Korea.
“U.S. Special Forces have been parachuting into North Korea to spy on Pyongyang’s extensive network of underground military facilities,” wrote Axe. “That surprising disclosure, by a top U.S. commando officer, is a reminder of America’s continuing involvement in the ‘cold war’ on the Korean peninsula — and of North Korea’s extensive preparations for the conflict to turn hot.”
According to a National Assembly report, more than 13,000 agents worked on intelligence-gathering in the North. By 1972, more than 7,000 were casualties of the program: 300 confirmed dead, 4,849 missing in action, 203 injured, 130 captured, and more than 2,000 agents assigned to a mysterious “etc” category.
The infiltration program reportedly ended in the 1980s though training continued until the 1990s.
So, yes, the notion of going to extreme lengths to collect human intelligence and conduct operations in North Korea itself is not so far-fetched. According to the Pentagon’s Operational Plan 5020, made public in 2003, U.S. commanders were to prepare for conflict with the North by conducting maneuvers around the country’s borders and “sow confusion” within the North Korean military. From the Pentagon’s perspective, it is not only useful to try to insert spies into North Korea but to have North Korea believe that spies are constantly in its midst. (Feffer 2012)

In view of this sort of espionage, North Korea’s system of control makes a lot of sense, for it does indeed hamper U.S. and South Korean efforts to gather vital information to facilitate their attack. This point was made in an article, “’Hard Target’ North Korea Poses Challenge to U.S. Spying,” John Wolcott writes:

A simple fact is at the heart of the intelligence challenge posed by North Korea, David S. Maxwell, the associate director of the Security Studies program at Georgetown University in Washington, said in an interview. “What makes it hard for us to penetrate is the same control of information that keeps the regime in power,” he said.
North Korea relies on an 11-year-old network of underground fiber-optic cables that’s harder for outsiders to tap — and easier for the authorities to monitor — than are cell phones, satellite communications or the Internet.
Recruiting spies and extracting human intelligence from North Korea is even more difficult, in part because there is no U.S. embassy in Pyongyang to provide cover for U.S. intelligence officers. (Walcott 2011)

One has to assume that the North Koreans are aware of the role that “human rights” and “pro-democracy” groups, along with other forms of espionage, played in the overthrow of socialism in East Europe and Yugoslavia and are determined not to let this happen to them.

In a perceptive analysis of “The Challenge and Promise of Reunification,” Hart-Landsberg notes that not only a majority of Koreans, but all governments concerned support reunification, but reunification means different things to different people. The South Korean government apparently favors “reunification by absorption” along lines of Germany, but this had disastrous consequences for the German working class. (Hart-Landsberg 1998, pp. 209-237)

Does Harden’s Shin Speak for North Korean Emigrants?

There reportedly some 23,000 refugees from the North in South Korea, and they continue to suffer economically and socially. Over half remain unemployed, and some have even returned to North Korea in desperation.

Apparently, prior to 1994, relatively few North Koreans emigrated to the South, less than ten a year. In 1994, the number increased to 52. The rate of increase continued in the 21st Century, reaching 2737 in 2011, but dropping to 1509 in 2012. (Wikipedia, North Korean defectors, citing the South Korean Ministry of Unification)

Not all emigrants have left North Korea for political reasons. Starving people tend to migrate in search of food, and one suspects that many emigrants are simply trying to escape the dire economic conditions caused in no small part by U.S. sanctions, the very thing that the “human rights” community wants more of.

There are also economic benefits for moving to South Korea.

In 1962, the South Korean Government introduced the “Special law on the protection of defectors from the North” (according to which) . . . every defector was eligible for a generous aid package. After their arrival in the South, defectors would receive an allowance. The size of this allowance depended on the category to which the particular defector belonged (there were three such categories). The category was determined by the defector’s political and intelligence value. Apart from this allowance, defectors who delivered especially valuable intelligence or equipment were given large additional rewards. (More recently South Korea passed new regulations which) tighten defector screening processes and slash the amount of money given to each refugee from ?28,000,000 ($24,180.08) to ?10,000,000 ($8,635.743). South Korean officials say the new rules are intended to prevent ethnic Koreans living in China from entering the South, as well as stop North Koreans with criminal records from gaining entry. (Wikipedia, North Korean defectors)

Another more recent source confirms the economic benefits for emigrating from the North to South Korea:

By law, North Koreans are automatically given South Korean
citizenship.  When defectors come to South Korea they endure a month-long vetting process to check their background and make sure they are not North Korean spies.  Then they are put into the two month re-education program at Hanawon, which provides defectors with social readjustment training, medical care, and counseling.  Upon leaving, each North Korean adult receives a stipend of 36,960,000 won (about $35,000) with the expectation that part of it will be used as a down payment for an apartment. Also, every defector is assigned a career counselor. All of this is provided by the South Korean government. Yet, despite all this support, North Koreans still have an extremely challenging time assimilating into a South Korean lifestyle. (Hubbard 2012)

Harden also confirms the economic benefits available to “all those who flee the North,” including a three month indoctrination into South Korean life and ideology. They learn, for example, “that the Korean War started when North Korea launched an unprovoked surprise invasion of the South.” As Harden explains, this is “a history lesson that flabbergasts most newcomers from the North.” (“Escape,”, p. 161) I’m guessing that many historians might also be flabbergasted to see a Washington Post reporter repeat such a simplistic, one-sided view of the Korean conflict without comment. Does Harden not know any better? Or simply not care about the truth?

The picture of North Korean society that emerges from North Korean emigrants as filtered through the “human rights” propaganda mill is indeed chilling. But it would be a mistake to regard it as reflecting some kind of Hegelian essence of North Korea. Whatever their reasons for leaving, it is simply not the case that most North Koreas in the South harbor ill feelings toward their homeland. Consider the following:

As part of their series “Ask a North Korean”, NK News asked North Korean Jae-young about the good things about life in the hermit state, and the recent refugee is easily able to find something to miss. Jay-young says that her life in North Korea was “mentally rich – even if it was materially insufficient” and that affection between neighbors was “very pure and deep”.
She writes about the joyful side of life in North Korea:
On major holidays, we invited our neighbors (we used to call my mother’s friends “aunt”), shared food and stories with them. My mom was really good at making ‘Jong-Pyun rice cake’ and I can still remember my aunts exclaiming how good they tasted. During nights, we gathered together, turned music on and danced. On days when electricity went out, we used to play the accordion, sing, dance and have fun. I used to have so much fun and danced so hard that my socks had holes when I checked them in morning. My father used to be respected as a gagman (comedian).
Jay-young goes on to write about the free education and healthcare, but admits that many of the supposedly free services were not free in practice. She concludes, “Everything was suffocating and pitiful in North Korea, but it is a country that I have many positive memories from”. (Taylor 2012a)

There are even some North Koreans who, after trying life in the South, return to North Korea, perhaps as many as one hundred in 2012 alone (Taylor 2012b). Contrary to what one might think from reading the “human rights” literature, they are not punished or executed, but welcomed in the policy of Kim Jong Un. Here are some statements from a press conference for returnees in Pyongyang on Jan 24, 2013:

“I left for South Korea because I was totally deceived. The grim reality of South Korean society is something you could hardly imagine; I spent nearly all of it anxious and in tears. I could not find a job anywhere in the South because of my status as a defector.” “I longed for my children [that I left behind in the North], and yearned for the embrace of my homeland. I lied to the South Korean authority that I would bring my kids back and entered North Korea via China.” (Ko Kyung-hee)
“South Korea was a very dirty world. We had a silly idea that if we work hard we can become rich, but their world felt so Machiavellian and sinister, so full of malice and deception…we just could not live in that kind of world any more.” (Kim Kwang-ho and Kim Ok-shil) (Ryan 2013)

A degree of skepticism is of course in order, but if one is going to read propaganda, one should at least read both sides.

And so it is far from clear that the propaganda mills of the “human rights” community even speak for expatriate North Korean, much less the Korea people as a whole. Most South Koreans, as Harden complains, have little interest “in teaching the North a lesson,” but are more concerned with “preserving peace and protecting living standards.”(p. 170) Perhaps this is because most Koreans know their own history better than Harden.

Humanizing the People of North Korea

As U.S. imperialism edges closer and closer to the brink of war against the DPRK, it is important to try to understand the North Korean people themselves, and how they view the threat from the United States. A good start is the film, “State of Mind,” by a British journalist looking at the lives of two teen-age gymnasts in North Korea (Gordon 2004). Here, a schoolteacher is telling her class:

Where are the US imperialist aggressors attacking at this moment? Iraq. Looking at the state of affairs in the world at this moment, it’s clear that the US imperialists cannot rest even for a moment from invading other countries. Furthermore, our revolution is progressing in such difficult circumstances today. With the intention of getting rid of our Korean socialism, the only socialism left on this Earth, these Americans are maneuvering to isolate, squash and suffocate our country. What do they want to do to socialism in the end? They want to totally demolish it.

Or, in the words of 13-year-old Pak Hyon Sun, a young North Korean gymnast:

The U.S. is making life bad in our country, they are maneuvering to suppress the sound of happy laughter here.
At home, I was having fun playing with my mother and grandmother, then there would be a blackout or an air-raid drill. On their way down to the air-raid shelter, the mothers and grandmothers say, “this is all because of the Americans.”
Because we were always doing things like air-raid drills, I think, just as we were taught at school, we have to endlessly hate the US and fight them to the end.

Based on this and other evidence it seems quite clear that the people of North Korea understand the threat of U.S. imperialism and the risks of war far better than do the American people, including many American “leftists.” For another eye-opening view of North Korean understanding of the U.S., take a look at the North Korean film “Propaganda,” which is truly mind-boggling in its accuracy. (North Korea 2012)

As I understand Marx’s humanism, it is crucial that we understand the people of any society, including North Korea, as human beings who want to enjoy life with their families, free from foreign intervention. The people of North Korea fully understand the threat of U.S. imperialism and fully support their government and leadership in their efforts to protect North Korea from U.S. aggression. Although this point is lost among some “left” circles, the CIA understands it. As CIA analysis Helen-Louise Hunter says of the North Korean attitude toward Kim Il Sung,

What is truly remarkable about him and is so rarely true of dictators who warp a society to the degree that he warped North Korean society is that the people—most of them, anyway—appear to have revered him as a person, as a father figure, and as the “great leader” of their nation. Their cult worship of him was not simply contrived; it was apparently genuine to an amazing degree. (Hunter 1999, p. 239)

Or, as British economist Joan Robinson remarked after her visit to North Korea:

The formal system of government is on the usual pattern of the socialist world. In practice it seems to be even more than usually concentrated in one individual. The outward signs of a “cult” are very marked-photographs, street names, toddlers in the nursery singing hymns to the beloved leader. But Prime Minister Kim Il Sung seems to function as a messiah rather than a dictator. After the war he went for 15 days to live in a remote village, and emerged with a program for agriculture and a style of work for the Party which would enlist the support of the peasants. He visits every plant and every rural district for “on- the-spot consultation” to clear up their problems. He comes to a hospital to say that the life of doctors and nurses must be de- voted to the welfare of their patients, and this thought in- spires their work every day. He explains to the workers in the heavy machine plant that their products are the basis of industrialization, and pride renews their zeal. To us old cynics it sounds corny. But imagine a people hurled suddenly from a blank colonial past, without a clue, into socialism and into the twentieth century. He gives them a coherent and practicable vision of what they are to be. No deviant thought has a chance to sprout.
If professed liberals find all this abhorrent, their duty is plain: let them explain clearly to the people in the South what is happening in the North and leave them to choose which they prefer. (Robinson 1965, p. 548-549)

Even those emigrating from North Korea seem to agree that support for the government and their leaders is high. According to the New York Times:

It is striking in speaking to the defectors that for all of the horrors they portray, they do not contend that North Korea is seething with discontent. On the contrary, many suggest that ordinary North Koreans have faith in their leaders. (Kristof 1996)

In contrast to the popularity of “Escape,” the autobiographical memoir of Ri In Mo, My Life and Faith, tells a much different story, that of his early affinity for the DPRK’s ideology, his capture in 1952 and 34 years of torture and imprisonment in South Korea, and his return to his homeland in 1993. Ri’s book, which I have only now ordered from North Korea Books in Winnipeg, presents “a point of view completely unknown in the West…that of utter love and devotion and sacrifice for a country, political system, and especially leadership, that (most) of the rest of the world prefers to despise and hate.” (Morgan 2012) It is unlikely to be widely read in the U.S., or even made available.

Fortunately, the government and leadership of the DPRK is a question to be decided by the people of North Korea, not by American “leftists” or by American “human rights” imperialists.

As Marxists, it is important to combine Marx’s humanism with Marx’s political economy as well as Lenin’s analysis of imperialism. When we do this, we will understand what is behind U.S. sanctions, war threats, and phony “human rights” propaganda. We will not let ourselves be fooled into thinking all this has anything to do with the freedom and well being of the Korean people.

Solidarity with the Toilers of East Asia

The threat of war through designed miscalculation in East Asia is real. It emanates not from Pyongyang, Seoul, Beijing, or even Tokyo. It’s roots lie on the shores of the Potomac and Hudson Rivers. It is the American people who must learn how to reign in their government for the sake of peace in Asia and through the world.

The “human rights” campaign misses its mark. (is disingenuous.) Claiming to support human rights in North Korea,, it advocates policies that can only increase the suffering of the people of Korea. If the camps exist primarily in response to threats from the United States and South Korea, increasing their pressure on North Korea can only make the situation worse. If we are concerned with the near starvation of North Koreans, we might better ask the U.S. government to stop using food as a political weapon, for this is precisely what our government has been doing. As The National Fork complains, “What should be a source of nourishment and human interconnectedness is instead a weapon used to create fear and control across national borders.” (The National Fork 2012) The dire condition of food insecurity in North Korea is not due to internal factors, for the U.S. has long used denial of food aid to destabilize the North Korean government.

As a former US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Christopher Hill, recently editorialized:

if denying food aid would result in a famine that the North Korean regime could not withstand, what could such a decision mean for eventual relations among Korean peoples living in the northern and southern parts of a unified country?
In the coming weeks, South Korea’s government will confront one of the toughest choices that any government can face: whether the short-term cost in human lives is worth the potential long-term benefits – also in terms of human lives – that a famine-induced collapse of North Korea could bring.

(Hill 2011a), see also (Read 2011).

Clearly, “human rights” advocates could help the Korean people more by advocating a more humane policy on the part of the U.S. government that by continuing their calls for “pressure” on the already beleagered North Koreans.

On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave what many believe to be his greatest speech and the one that got him killed: “Beyond Vietnam.” In this speech Dr. King noted that the United States government was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” and further observed that:

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality [applause], and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. [sustained applause] . . .
I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin [applause], we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. . . .
A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. (King 1967)

Dr. King’s sentiments continue to resonate in light of our continuing wars and continuing reliance on nuclear weapons, torture, and withholding food as crucial parts of our foreign policy. Rather than demonizing and dehumanizing the North Korean people who have suffered so much at the hands of the U.S., those concerned with the well-being of the Korean working class might well re-read the prophetic words of America’s greatest spiritual leader and reflect on their meaning for the Twenty First Century.

Eugene E Ruyle
Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies
California State University, Long Beach

For Further Study:

I understand that all the above will be lost among those who already know everything they need to know about North Korea. For people with open minds, however, I recommend a few simple sources to give a better picture of the people of Korea.

Probably the best way to humanize the people of North Korea is view two films by British journalist Daniel Gordon:

“A State of Mind.” 2004. Starring: Jong-il Kim, Hyon Sun Pak, Directed  by Daniel Gordon. (1hr 30m video available on Netflix) Two young North Korean gymnasts prepare for an unprecedented competition in this documentary that offers a rare look into the communist society and the daily lives of North Korean families. For more than eight months, film crews follow 13-year-old Pak Hyon Sun and 11-year-old Kim Song Yun and their families as the girls train for the Mass Games, a spectacular nationalist celebration involving thousands of performers. (Gordon 2004)

“Crossing the Line.” 2006. Directed by Daniel Gordon A British documentary about US Army defector James Dresnok currently living in North Korea after having defected during the 60s. Available from amazon.com. (Gordon 2006)

There are also some excellent brief views of North Korea from socialist perspectives:

Gowans, Stephen. 2006. “Understanding North Korea.” in Global Research, November 12, 2006 & What’s Left 12 November 2006. (Gowans 2006) http://www.globalresearch.ca/understanding-north-korea/3818

Hill, Monica. 2011. “Behind the US demonization of North Korea.” Freedom Socialist: Voice of Revolutionary Feminism. February 2011 (Hill 2011b) http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/?q=node/1574

Parenti, Michael. 2009. “North Korea: ‘Sanity’ at the Brink.” MR Zine (Parenti 2009) http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2009/parenti250609.html

Socialist Voice, CP Ireland  2012. “How To Think About Socialism in Korea.” Marxism-Leninism Today (Socialist Voice 2012) http://mltoday.com/subject-areas/socialism-today/how-to-think-about-socialism-in-korea-1302.html

As for “Propaganda,” the truly mind-boggling film on the United States: “According to the description, this is  “a film called “PROPAGANDA”, a documentary about capitalism, imperialism, mass manipulation of western culture for the purpose of commodification, and how it permeates every aspect of the lives of blissfully ignorant, borderline zombie masses.” ” while we can talk all we want about North Korea being a backwards nation, about what’s wrong with their society (never mind the fact that none of us actually know what the fuck their society is even like, basing our opinion off – you guessed it – what the media’s told us) the fact of the matter remains, this IS our society. ” (North Korea 2012) Read more, and watch at: http://superchief.tv/leaked-north-korean-documentary-exposes-western-propaganda-and-its-scary-how-true-it-is/

Also, for my money, the best view of the Korean people is Bruce Cumings study:

Cumings, Bruce. 2005. Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Finally, on Sunday, March 24, at our little Marxist Library in Oakland, we will be showing the film, “Memory of Forgotten War,” a 37 minute documentary on the war of U.S. aggression which devastated the Korean people while enriching the capitalists of America and Japan and establishing the U.S. military-industrial complex. This will be part of our regular “Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library” series. We look forward to a full and informative discussion of the film and the current situation in Korea. For more information on the film, go to:

http://www.mufilms.org/films/memory-of-forgotten-war/#.UT-QBaXA6Xk

For more information on our “Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library” series, go to:
http://www.csulb.edu/~eruyle/icss.html

References cited

Anthony, Andrew. 2012. “Escape From Camp 14 by Blaine Harden – review.” The Guardian/The Observer Friday 13 April 2012 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/13/escape-camp-14-korea-harden-review

Boston Herald, editorial staff. 2013. “N. Korea’s hoop dreams.” March 3, 2013 http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/editorials/2013/03/n_korea_s_hoop_dreams

Calleja, David. 2012. “Book Review: Escape From Camp 14.” Foreign Policy Journal December 11, 2012 http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/12/11/book-review-escape-from-camp-14/

Cumings, Bruce. 2005. Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

DuChateau, Christian. 2012. “‘Escape from Camp 14′ a true North Korea survival story.” Tue April 3, 2012 http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/30/living/escape-camp-14-book-story

Feffer, John. 2012. “Spying on the North.” June 6, 2012 http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_opinion/535941.html also http://www.johnfeffer.com/spying-on-the-north/

Goodreads. 2013. “Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden.” Goodreads Feb 07, 2013 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11797365-escape-from-camp-14#other_reviews

Gordon, Daniel. 2004. “A State of Mind.”

Gordon, Daniel. 2006. “Crossing the Line.”

Gowans, Stephen. 2006. “Understanding North Korea.” in Global Research, November 12, 2006 What’s Left 12 November 2006. http://www.globalresearch.ca/understanding-north-korea/3818

Harden, Blaine. 2008. “Escapee Tells of Horrors in North Korean Prison Camp.” Washington Post December 11, 2008 http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-12-11/world/36912828_1_shin-kim-tae-jin-concentration

Harden, Blaine .2012. Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West. New York: Viking.

Hart-Landsberg, Martim. 1998. Korea: Division, Reunification, & U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Hill, Christopher R. 2011. “Food for thought in North Korea: Officials in Seoul face a choice: Whether or not to use starvation as a weapon to bring down the regime to its north.” Aljazeera Last Modified: 06 Mar 2011 11:02 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201134131836876620.html

Hill, Monica. 2011. “Behind the US demonization of North Korea.” Freedom Socialist: Voice of Revolutionary Feminism February 2011 http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/?q=node/1574

Hong, Terry. 2012. “Escape from Camp 14. This true story of life in a North Korean prison camp may be the most disturbing book that you will ever read.” Christian Science Monitor April 2, 2012 http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2012/0402/Escape-from-Camp-14

Hubbard, Clare. 2012. “The Difficulty of Assimilating Defectors in South Korea.” The Peninsula, Korea Economic Institute December 20, 2012.  http://blog.keia.org/2012/12/the-difficulty-of-assimilating-defectors-in-south-korea/

Hunter, Helen-Louise. 1999. Kim Il-song’s North Korea. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Jurek, A. 2012. “Book Review: Escape From Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden.” Mar 26, 2012 http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-escape-from-camp-14/

Kelch, Ron. 2013. Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Hardin: News & Letters, March-April 2013. http://www.newsandletters.org/issues/2013/Mar-Apr/NL58no2.pdf

King, Martin Luther, Jr. 1967. “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.” http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-13.htm

Kirkpatrick, Melanie. 2012a. Escape from North Korea: the untold story of Asia’s underground railroad: New York.

Kirkpatrick, Melanie. 2012b. “A Life Sentence, Then a New Life. “Escape From Camp 14″ tells the story of one man’s incarceration and personal awakening in North Korea’s highest-security prison.” The Wall Street Journal April 5, 2012 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577308034026789136.html

Kristof, Nicholas D. 1996. “Survivors Report Torture in North Korea Labor Camps.” in New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/14/world/survivors-report-torture-in-north-korea-labor-camps.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Maslin, Janet. 2012. “The Casual Horrors of Life in a North Korean Hell. ‘Escape From Camp 14,’ by Blaine Harden.” New York Times April 11, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/books/escape-from-camp-14-by-blaine-harden.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Morgan, Ann. 2012. “North Korea: keeping the faith.” A year of reading the world. 196 countries, countless stories… April 9, 2012 http://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/tag/ri-in-mo/

North Korea. 2012. “Propaganda.” http://superchief.tv/leaked-north-korean-documentary-exposes-western-propaganda-and-its-scary-how-true-it-is/

NPR Staff. 2012. “‘Escape From Camp 14′: Inside North Korea’s Gulag.” NPR Books March 29, 2012 http://www.npr.org/2012/03/29/149061951/escape-from-camp-14-inside-north-koreas-gulag

Parenti, Michael. 2009. “North Korea: “Sanity” at the Brink.” http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2009/parenti250609.html

Rea, Kari. 2013. “Dennis Rodman: Kim Jong Un Wants President Obama to ‘Call Him’.” ABC News Mar 3, 2013 http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/03/dennis-rodman-kim-jong-un-wants-president-obama-to-call-him/

Read, Daniel. 2011. “US Uses Food as a Political Weapon: From North Korea to Gaza.” Toward Freedom: a progressive perspective on world events since 1952 Friday, 22 April 2011 http://www.towardfreedom.com/asia/2369-us-uses-food-as-a-political-weapon-from-north-korea-to-gaza

Robinson, Joan. 1965. “Korean Miracle.” Monthly Review January 1965.

Ryan. 2013. “Four North Korean Defectors Return To North Korea…Hold Press Conference In Pyongyang.” Yonhap News January 29, 2013 http://www.koreabang.com/2013/stories/four-more-north-korean-defectors-return-to-north-korea.html

Sang-Hun, Choe. 2007a. “Born and raised in a North Korean gulag.” New York Times July 9, 2007

Sang-Hun, Choe. 2007b. “Unearthing War’s Horrors Years Later in South Korea.” New York Times December 3, 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/world/asia/03korea.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ei=5088&en=c7b2964878ac02df&ex=1354338000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Schlussel, Debbie. 2013. “HUH? Dennis Rodman Compares US to N. Korea Kim’s Concentration Camps – MUST WATCH VIDEO.” March 3, 2013 http://www.debbieschlussel.com/59840/huh-dennis-rodman-compares-us-to-n-korea-kims-concentration-camps-must-watch-video/

Socialist Voice, CP Ireland  2012. “How To Think About Socialism in Korea.” Socialist Voice, CP Ireland  http://mltoday.com/subject-areas/socialism-today/how-to-think-about-socialism-in-korea-1302.html

Taylor, Adam. 2012a. “The Good Side To Life In North Korea.” Business Insider Oct. 2, 2012 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-good-side-to-life-in-north-korea-2012-10#ixzz2DfGZ0j4D

Taylor, Adam. 2012b. “Some North Korean Refugees Are So Depressed By Their Life In The South That They Go Back North.” Business Insider Aug. 9, 2012 http://www.businessinsider.com/some-north-korean-refugees-are-so-depressed-by-their-life-in-the-south-that-they-go-back-north-2012-8#ixzz2HPyVBVNx

The National Fork. 2012. “U.S. Foreign Policy: Food is a weapon!” The National Fork. A blog that discusses nutrition and the politics of food. February 19, 2012 http://nationalfork.com/u-s-foreign-policy-food-is-a-weapon/

Walcott, John. 2011. “‘Hard Target’ North Korea Poses Challenge to U.S. Spying.” Bloomberg News Dec 21, 2011 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-21/-hard-target-north-korea-rebuffs-u-s-spying-effort-as-power-shift-begins.html

The Korean War of 1950-53 devastated the Korean people while it enriched the capitalists of America and Japan. The war also established the military-industrial complex as a central institution of American life.

By Karl Abrams

Presidential Candidate Roseanne Barr is coming to Venice. The former comedienne, TV star and role model for millions of working class women is the candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party. Barr and long-time activist Cindy Sheehan won over the majority of delegates at the Peace and Freedom (P&F) Party’s exciting Los Angeles convention on August 4 to become candidates for the 2012 Presidential election.

Both Barr and Sheehan spoke to the delegates (I was one of them) about progressive and socialist philosophies that they believe will help to create a better world. Overall, Barr’s political speech was especially laugh-at-loud hilarious, a crowd pleasing technique that she calls “serious comedy that just writes itself.”

The P&F Party is a democratic socialist, feminist and environmentalist political party founded in Venice in 1967 as a progressive alternative to the standard two-party policies of endless wars on both the third world and U.S. workers at home. Originally, and still, an anti-war and a free education party, its Venice Chapter headquarters was always very visible on Abbot Kinney Blvd during the 60s and 70s and always busy signing up new registrants. Presently the California P&F Party is in need of about 45,000 new members to remain on the ballot after 2014.

Barr, having also been a feminist and activist most of her life and an outspoken supporter of the Occupy Movement, is asking the American people to register in the P&F Party because the “…American people are sick and tired of the lesser of two evils garbage.” Barr, who started her career as a stand-up comic, is also an award-winning actress, a producer and a writer of several books. Having successfully starred in the sitcom Roseanne for 11 years and having won a Primetime Emmy Award, a People’s Choice Award and two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress, the 59-year old Barr now intends to turn her comedic genius towards the embarrassment of the 1 percent, the legalization of marijuana and the erasure of all homeowner and student loan debt. And that’s just for starters.

Barr and Sheehan outright reject the “tweedledum and tweetledee” politics of Republicans and Democrats. Instead, they have enthusiastically embraced the platform of the P&F Party (www.peaceandfreedom.org and www.VenicePeaceandFreedom.org), dramatized by some slogans presented on Barr’s website, www.roseanneforpresident2012.org.

For example, “We need you to make History! – Participate in your democracy!” Or, “Vote Peace and Freedom Party. America needs a real third party choice.” It is also here that Barr asks the question, “Do you want to be homeless and jobless in the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

Her website is also calling for volunteers to help with the historic task of getting the Barr-Sheehan ticket to appear on the ballot in at least 15 other states.

Another website, “Roseanne World” (www.roseanneworld.com) is a great site to understand why Barr is running for President. Here, in one of several interesting videos, Barr says, “I want the American people to have the opportunity to vote for a party which is not owned by bankers!”

And how Barr loves to tweet (Roseanne Barr@TheRealRoseanne). It is precisely here that her fearless ability to mix comedy and politics can be witnessed first hand. Her tweeted campaign slogan is, “I will fix this Shit!”  When referring to America’s two major parties, she tweets, “They suck and they’re both a bunch of criminals.” In another tweet Barr has promised to institute “European-style single-payer healthcare … and to forgive all credit card and mortgage debt.”

According to the New York Daily News, Barr has stated that, “The Democrats and Republicans have proven that they are servants — bought and paid for by the 1% — who are not doing what’s in the best interest of the American people.” At the same time, Barr points to financiers who have, “…stolen our money, our future and the American Dream…continue to enslave us with a broken monetary system.”

Barr also advocates for a variety of progressive issues as addressed on her website and in her Official Candidate Questionnaire (http://bit.ly/Aqdr0W). The legalization of marijuana, for example, is viewed to “…end all Drug Wars and stop the monopoly of the subsidized prison systems…” Barr and Sheehan both are in favor of “self-determination and the right of return” for “Palestinians who have had their land stolen from them”, and want  “…to bring U.S. troops home and create new Green jobs [that] put people back to work”. Barr says that, “Wars make the stock market go up and are fueled by profits…[while] the Military Industrial Complex…[remains] our shadow government. Let’s work together to make war obsolete.” Barr says she dreams of an American society that, “Runs best on diversity and freedom of thought interjected from many kinds of people”.

Cindy Sheehan is a tireless activist for world peace. On her website (www.cindysheehanssoapbox.com) we are reminded of the tragic loss of her son during the Iraq War and how she transformed from a liberal democrat into a democratic socialist. Sheehan, the author of six books, has traveled and spoken to people all over the world about how the “U.S. is guilty of fighting an illegal and immoral war.” She ran for Congress against House speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2008, coming in second place with 50,000 votes. At the convention, Sheehan also spoke for those who want a higher standard of living and education, in a peaceful world with “innovative solutions to homelessness and poverty.”

Can Roseanne Barr and Cindy Sheehan actually win? Third party candidates always start out with high percentages and shrink to about 1 percent by the time of the election due to mass media reports of a close race between Democrats and Republicans. A better question to ask is can a big vote for Barr-Sheehan force Obama to the left. He already has California locked up so voting for Barr would not put his win in jeopardy.

According to an early 2012 study by Public Policy Polling (www.publicpolicypolling.com) and as discussed by The American Prospect (prospect.org), Barr would get a whopping 6% of the national vote if she ran for President. California might even be higher. Even more amazingly, young voters aged 18 to 29 who would vote Barr for President is even higher at 19% of the national vote. Nonetheless, even if Barr and Sheehan lose, many millions will gain in understanding how a better world is still possible with socialism.

Because of the passing of California’s Proposition 14, the Peace and Freedom Party must almost double its registered voters to more than 100,000 in California by the end of 2014 to stay on the ballot. So, it is very important to register with the Peace and Freedom Party 30 days before the November 4 election.

Roseanne will speak at the Church in Ocean Park (2^nd and Hill St.) at 7 pm Saturday, September 22.

We live in a world shaped by history. It is hard to escape our personal history – parents, aunts, uncles – and others who want to shape us in their molde. One means of escape that has likely been practiced by many readers is to run away to Venice. Here, at the end of the continent, we can create our own history, our own personality.

Even harder to escape is social and political history. Like it or not, we are all Americans and we carry considerable baggage, even here in Venice. We live in a country that has been shaped by world-historic events including the atom bomb, Nazism, the Holocaust, the demise of the socialist bloc, terrorism and seemingly endless wars, to name a few. And it is the political history of this country that has brought us to a more and more authoritarian society. These events include the Kennedy assassination(s), Watergate, Iran Contra, and 9/11. No matter when one was born, these events continue to play a role in our everyday lives.

Neither the mass media nor academia seem to have any interest in explaining why events happen and their significance to our lives. Thus we are left with the story that Kennedy was shot by a lone gunman (Oswald), who in turn was shot by a lone gunman (Ruby); Watergate was caused by a bunch of Keystone Kops or Plumbers; Iran-Contra was dreamed up by a crazy fellow named Ollie North, and was not the subversion of democratic government; and 9/11 was done by a bunch of religious fanatics and had nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy.

Thomas Mallon, author of Watergate: A Novel (Pantheon, 2012) seemingly has no interest in delving deeper into this pivotal event in American history. Mallon’s main interest is character development, which quickly turns into character distortion. Oilman Fred LaRue, who was a highly placed actor in the Nixon administration, was a man without a title or a clear job duty. This undoubtedly made it easier for him to work on Nixon’s reelection since he had no bothersome job duties. He was a protege of Mississippi’s Senator James Eastland, an unrepentant racist. He was also the architect of the Republican “southern strategy,” which gained that party a solid block of electoral votes in the South. In Mallon’s treatment, LaRue is a really nice guy with a liberal girlfriend.

Another Watergate conspirator to get a personality makeover by Mallon is the infamous E. Howard Hunt. He was the CIA’s point man on the Bay of Pigs fiasco, a failed invasion of Cuba in 1961. He later became a personal assistant to CIA Director Allen Dulles. Shortly before his death in 2007, Hunt made a taped death-bed confession of his involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He named as co-conspirators David Phillips, Cord Meyer, Frank Sturgis, David Morales, William Harvey, as well as a French gunman, Lucien Sarti, who worked for the Mafia, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Sturgis was one of the “Plumbers” who was arrested in the Watergate burglary of the Democratic National Committee’s offices.

In Mallon’s novel, Hunt is portrayed as a family man who is very much in love with his wife Dorothy, who was also the “bag lady” who delivered hush money to those arrested in the break-in. Mallon says Hunt’s life was shattered when Dorothy was killed in a plane crash in 1972, while carrying $10,000 in cash. All of what Mallon says may be true, but Hunt and LaRue were by no means upstanding citizens. Both had no compulsion when it came to subverting democratic government to get what they wanted.

The real story behind Watergate surfaced with the publication of the best seller,Silent Coup (St. Martin’s Press, 1991). Perhaps Mallon doesn’t read non-fiction. In it, authors Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin show that Nixon was not only paranoid but that people – powerful people – were really out to get him.

As is often the case in real life, there was something even more evil and dangerous lurking in the shadows behind Nixon. For those of us in the anti-war movement, Nixon was the president we loved to hate, perhaps more than Bush. But to the military/covert action establishment there was growing alarm about Nixon’s liberal foreign policy, including his efforts to establish detente with the Soviet Union and his unprecedented trip to China and meeting with Mao Zedung. Now that China makes all our cool gadgets, it may be hard to understand just how much the far right hated China in 1972. The rabid anti-communists in the Pentagon and CIA were horrified that the President of the United States would sit in the same room with the devil incarnate. Chief of U.S. Naval Operations, Admiral Thomas Moorer, went so far as to establish a spy operation in the White House.

When the spying was uncovered by the soon to be infamous Plumbers, Nixon and his staff first considered filing treason charges against the ring. However, they later decided to hush up what was known as the Moorer-Radford Affair (Navy Yeoman Charles Radford was the spy in the White House). Even though the spying stopped, the Pentagon unease continued.

Moorer had another protege in addition to Radford. His name was Bob Woodward, who stated in 2005, “In 1970, when I was serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and assigned to Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, the chief of naval operations, I sometimes acted as a courier, taking documents to the White House.” However, Moorer said that Woodward’s role was to brief White House aide, General Alexander Haig. Woodward left the Navy, went to work as a reporter for a string of suburban Washington newspapers and quickly became one of the most famous journalists in history at the Washington Post, where he played a key role in bringing down Nixon.

None of this should excuse Nixon, who was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, including repression of domestic dissent and war crimes for his bombing of Hanoi and invasion of Cambodia. However, it should remind us that Presidents, including Barack Obama, are often manipulated and coerced by entrenched financial and government bureaucracies that are neither electable nor accountable. These bureaucracies, whether in the Pentagon, Wall Street or even in the Postal Service continue to lead us down a path of less freedom and more authoritarianism regardless of who is in the White House or Congress.

Watergate: A Novel will likely get a lot of publicity as the 40th anniversary of Watergate rolls around. Unfortunately, the book is a fantasy that uses real people’s names but alters them beyond recognition. Those who want to know the true story of Watergate should take a look at Silent Coup (silentcoup.com), which is available at Powell’s Books (powells.com) for as little as $3.50. Powell’s is a fully unionized alternative to Amazon.com. It might also be available at used book shops or thrift stores. Parts of the book are on-line at: nixonera.com/etexts/silentcoup/contents.asp. There have been new developments in recent years, as memoirs are written and files are declassified. Do a little sleuthing on the internet to uncover the facts.

By Margot Pepper

Before global warming permeated contemporary consciousness, Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney popularized protests against clear-cutting in the 1980’s.

On May 24th, 1990 in Oakland, California, a bomb exploded in Judi Bari’s car and the former union organizer suffered debilitating injuries alongside Cherney.

Who Bombed Judi Bari?, a new compelling and poetic documentary film directed by Mary Liz Thomson and produced by Cherney, explores attempts by the FBI and Oakland Police to accuse Bari of planting the bomb herself and the subsequent lawsuit against the agencies that attempted to silence both environmentalists.

The film, which plays out like a Hollywood drama, offers a surprising and uplifting resolution: in 2002, a federal jury found that 3 FBI agents and 3 Oakland officers were guilty of violating Bari and Cherney’s civil rights and ordered the law enforcement agencies to pay $4.4 million.

Yet, like the killing of J.F.K, the film reveals an unsolved mystery: who then, is the actual bomber of Judi Bari? In 2011, their legal team secured a stop order preventing the FBI from destroying evidence that could contain the bomber’s DNA and ordered it turned over to an independent lab for testing. The FBI is appealing the order.

The following interview with Cherney offers his thoughts as to the bomber’s identity, as well as insights about perseverance against impossible odds, lessons for today’s Occupy movement.

Margot Eve Pepper: Charles Hurwitz replaced Pacific Lumber’s sustainable growth policy with one of clear-cutting old growth in redwood forests under Maxxam Inc. How do you feel about Earth First!’s accomplishments with regard to Maxxam?

Darryl Cherney: We drove Maxxam’s stock down from $43 to $3. And we criminalized Charles Hurwitz, made it difficult to show his face and do anymore takeovers. We rescued some redwoods.

Pepper: Some redwoods?

Cherney: Headwaters Forest started out as a 98,000 acre plan and went down to 68,000 acres, and when the politicians were through with it, it was down to 10,000 acres with only 5,000 acres of standing trees. Often, when you’re doing a battle to save forests, you start off trying to save something big and ten years later, there’s only a little something left. So it’s always bittersweet and meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of acres of rainforests being cut elsewhere. What I try to remember, in order to keep surfing the impossible tidal wave, is that you can save something little but make a big statement and teach other people, too. It’s not just about the issue, it’s about the strategy, the spirit. We got 18,000 acres of Cahto, 10,000 acres of Headwaters, or three acres for Julia Butterfly’s tree. Even if it was only three acres, it had a big impact on human consciousness. There’s a Hawaiian spiritual principle that ‘effectiveness is the measure of truth.’ So I like to think that activists can be effective, in even a short period of time, by revealing the truth.

Pepper: Like the Occupy movement, that’s primarily educating, revealing truth. You’re also scattering seeds of this truth and you don’t really know where they’re going to fall or what’s going to grow.

Cherney: Yes and even though we don’t know where they’re going to fall, we know they’re going to fall somewhere. And part of the fun of it is seeing the surprise, seeing somebody who was three years old twenty years ago say, “I followed you guys’ campaign when I was a kid and now I’m working to save the environment myself.”

Pepper: Are you afraid Maxxam is going to go after you or sue you?

Cherney: Maxxam’s old news. This is the case I’m interested in now. Two FBI agents that we sued went on to have show business careers. Frank Doyle went on to Myth Busters and Special Agent Phil Sena went on the Discovery Channel’s FBI Files as a commentator. With help from the Fair Use Doctrine, in the movie we let the public know that Myth Busters’ expert bomb guy, Frank Doyle, has actually been found guilty of lying about the bombing of Judi and me on his police records. And that this person, who is convicted of lying in civil trial, is now a consulting bomb expert on a television show regularly, a featured guest. Now, “Who Bombed Judi Bari?” gives us the opportunity to challenge mainstream institutions, including media, and to reinvigorate an investigation of the bomber’s identity. One of the things we can do to that end, is to challenge Myth Busters to solve this myth: was it in fact Frank Doyle’s voice at the scene just prior to the bombing that said, “This is it! This is the final exam!”. Because Frank Doyle testified under oath that that was not him. We maintain that the recording sounds just like him.

Pepper: Your film shows that one month prior to the bombing, the FBI’s Frank Doyle was conducting an FBI bomb school training. What you’re implying is, he thought the real life situation of bombing you was a ‘final exam,’ of sorts, the real thing…

Cherney: That’s what we’d like Myth Busters to explore.  We’d like Myth Busters to dedicate an episode to investigating their own guy, using voice analysis techniques. We’d like the film to reinvigorate interest in the bombing. Just like there’s interest in Who Killed JFK? Who bombed Judi Bari?

Pepper:  Not too many people succeed in suing the FBI and winning. Are you afraid of retaliation?

Cherney: I know what you’re asking. Franklin Roosevelt once said, “There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.” Fear is situational. It’s a good instinct to have. The important thing is to be wise and to prioritize. What I’m much more afraid of is what’s happening to the planet. As an Earth First!-er, what I really fear is the destruction of our planet’s ability to provide life for us and all of our animal friends. Contrary to expectation, a warrior is somebody who offers their life–not somebody who takes a life–but someone who offers their life for the greater good of the community. Earth First! is a warrior society. We’re willing to offer ourselves up for the ability of the earth to sustain us with life. That’s part of what makes Earth First!-ers unique.

Pepper: You were considering the title, “The FBI Stole My Fiddle,” like the song you and Judi sing in the film. What does it refer to?

Cherney: The FBI seized Judi Bari’s fiddle as evidence. But it wasn’t just any old fiddle. It was her childhood fiddle. This is not a small matter to a musician. Judi never got her childhood fiddle back to the day she died.  Eventually, after her death, it was released. Even without my knowledge at first. So I’m still exploring the condition of the fiddle and where it is and how we go about memorializing it. But it’s now free.  I think. I haven’t seen it. It’s like a myth. Like Loch Ness Monster or Big Foot.

Pepper: Maybe you can add a DVD extra: “Where is Judi Bari’s Fiddle?”

Cherney: I’m not going to tell you. (Laughing.)

Pepper:  Do you see any parallels between Earth First!  and the current Occupy Wall Street movement?

Cherney: The similarities between Occupy Wall Street and Earth First! are striking: bottom up leadership; vigorous debates between those who advocate property destruction and those who don’t; disruption by the authorities and the ability to catch the attention of the media.

Pepper:  What should Occupy activists be wary of?

Cherney: I think the biggest mistake Occupy activists are making is trying to cover too many issues.  I also think it is a mistake to camp out at the various city halls around the country rather than at the doors of the corporate interests. Occupy should be camped out and holding vigils at Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Chase Bank, and so on.  The tendency to camp at City Halls is that it’s government space and they are less likely to be evicted and if they are–it will take longer.  But camping there doesn’t send the original message: Occupy Wall Street.

Occupy should also be wary of violence. The people who espouse violence discredit the non-violent participants.  It’s a an oppressive act that mimics the dominant paradigm.  Many at Occupy Wall Street recognize that the police are part of the 99%.  Utah Phillips once said that a cop is a good man (or woman) doing a bad job.  To segregate the police from the 99% simply because they are defending the oppressors misses the point.  All of us defend the oppressors when we buy packaged food, live on conquered land in an industrially built house made out of old growth lumber, and go to an industrial school reading textbooks made out of virgin paper teaching what is ultimately garbage.  So the holier than thou crap has got to go out the window.  The police are part of the 99% just as the tea partiers are, just as members of the city council are.  And the 1% is not to be destroyed.  They simply need to eat a bit of humble pie. For me, the message of Occupy can be summed up in one word:  equality.

Pepper:  What words of wisdom do you have for the current Occupy movement?

Cherney: You are what we’ve been waiting for.

A lot of people in Venice know that Edward Biberman was the artist who painted the Post Office mural, The Story of Venice.

But few probably know that his older brother, Herbert, directed Salt of the Earth, a classic film about a New Mexico miners strike that ended 60 years ago. That film, shot and edited amid government harassment and vigilante violence, is now credited by the Library of Congress as being one of the greatest films ever made, and among the first – perhaps the first – feminist film. The film is told from the viewpoint of Esperanza Quintero, the wife of a striking miner.

Salt of the Earth recreates the miners’ struggle, and strike, for a new labor contract at the Empire Zinc Mine, near Hanover, in southern New Mexico in 1950-52. The film was completed two years later.

The Latino miners nearly lost the strike when the company brought in strike breakers and won an injunction against picketing. It was at this point that the wives of the strikers, who were not covered by the injunction, picked up the picket signs and marched.

Even though they were routinely jailed, the women walked the picket line for seven months and saved the strike. This was a bold move in tradition-bound, male supremacist, rural New Mexico at mid-century. It’s the way that the issues of class and racism are portrayed during the day-to-day progress of the strike by a group of very poor miners, and how they are forced to confront their own sexism, that makes this a great film.

The 1950s had much in common with today’s war on terror. Back then, the House “UnAmerican Activities” Committee, Senator Joe McCarthy and their ilk, were busy destroying the optimistic and inclusive Roosevelt era, and replacing it with an anti-communist witch hunt that terrified millions of liberal Americans. You didn’t have to be a communist to fall under suspicion and possibly lose your job or your career. You were called a “Red” if you didn’t want to rat on your friends.

In Hollywood, and in the union movement and most companies and organizations, it was easy to get rid of a rival by planting the seed that he was a communist. Today most people could care less if someone is a communist, socialist, libertarian or anarchist, but 60 years ago it was a different story. The hysteria against communists, liberals and New Dealers permeated the social fabric of the nation. In some ways it laid the basis for the current “war on terrorism,” which casts suspicion on Arabs, Iranians and followers of Islam.

And so it was that well-respected Hollywood Director, Herbert Biberman, and nine other prominent film artists, became known as the Hollywood Ten and were held in contempt of Congress for failure to confess their beliefs and affiliations or to rat on their friends.

Herbert Biberman was sentenced to six months in a federal penitentiary. Fortunately, Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 was not in force back then. It allows the indefinite incarceration of a U.S. citizen without trial. While six months in the pen would have been enough to frighten most people, but the Biberman brothers were made of stronger stuff. Herbert immediately began work on Salt of the Earth.

The film shooting encountered immediate harassment. How could a film about workers struggling for their rights, that was about fighting sexism and racism, and was being created by members of the Hollywood Ten be anything but Red propaganda? In fact, it wasn’t. The film never mentions communism, socialism or the Soviet Union. Its themes of equality and justice are subscribed to by most people today.

Nevertheless, the production had trouble attracting fearful Hollywood actors (Will Geer, who plays the sheriff, was a notable exception). Biberman was unable to view “rushes,” since the film companies refused to process the daily output. The leading lady was deported to Mexico in the midst of filming. And carloads of vigilantes invaded the set and beat up actors and film production workers.

Originally, Biberman was going to cast his wife, actress Gale Sondergaard, and a white actor in leading roles. But others, including his sister-in-law, Sonja Dahl Biberman (Edward’s wife), convinced him to cast Latinos in the leading roles. He ended up with Juan Chacon, the union’s local president and a strike leader, playing himself, and Rosaura Revueltas, a star of the cinema in Mexico, as his wife.

The editing process was as harrowing as the filming. The raw footage had to be hidden away with editing taking place at night in a variety of locations, including Topanga Canyon. As the weeks went by, Biberman and the film editors stayed one step ahead of the FBI, which desperately wanted to censor the movie by confiscating the film.

In the end, the film was censored by pressuring theater owners to refuse to show it. It enjoyed a nine week run in New York and a few days at ten other theaters around the country.

It was technology that finally beat the censorship. First VHS (yes, that’s technology), then DVDs, YouTube and finally Netflix, which will stream it to your computer, iPad or TV without requiring you to sign a loyalty oath.

Does this mean that if Salt of the Earth was made today, it would be readily available? Perhaps not. A British-Spanish film made in 2000, entitled One of the Hollywood Ten, about Herbert Biberman and the making of Salt of the Earth,starring Jeff Goldblum and Greta Scacchi, is unavailable for viewing in the United States. It’s not on DVD, it’s not anywhere on the internet. A European DVD is for sale on the web, but it is not compatible with U.S. video players. Wikipedia calls it “A curious state of affairs given the subject.”

I was fortunate enough to have known three of the people involved in the strike and/or the film. Bob Hollowwa was one of the top union organizers during the 1940s and early 50s. At the time of the strike he was the regional director of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union, which represented the strikers. Unfortunately, the national union did not want the workers to strike, believing they could not win in such repressive times. Hollowwa sided with the workers who believed they could win.

According to historians, Hollowwa did more than anyone else to convince the women to take an active and equal role in the struggle. For his efforts, he was fired from his job with the union. He was also written out of the film, either by pressure from the union, which helped fund the film, or simply because it would have made a confusing story to show the union doing something bad.

I met Hollowwa 20 years later. At the time I was pursuing a PhD in Economics, but I told him I’d rather be a union organizer. He started coming to my house at least once a week, where he attempted to teach me about strategy and tactics. It must have been a frustrating experience for him, since I kept missing the point and asking stupid questions. I felt like Carlos Castenada sitting at the feet of this shaman of worker struggles, and only half getting it.

In the end, Hollowwa taught me many useful lessons which I put to use during the next 25 years of my involvement in the labor movement. But I believe the most important thing I learned was to stand up for one’s principles regardless of the consequences. He never had any doubt that he had done the right thing by siding with the workers against the union brass, and thereby getting fired and failing to be immortalized in the film.

Then there were Lorenzo and Anita Torrez. Lorenzo Torrez was a miner and one of the strikers. He’s in the film as well. His big scene is jumping up at a union meeting and making a motion. Had it not been for the film, he might have lived out his life as a miner. Instead, he was inspired by the experience of the strike and the film.

When I met him in Los Angeles in the 1970s, he had become a political activist and teacher of labor topics who frequently lectured around town. He taught from the point of view of Chicano workers who are always confronted with racism and economic repression.

Many of us who are white have a tendency to belittle the impact of racism on people of color. Torrez was able to explain to me the insidious nature of racism and how it is used to maintain this unequal social order. His wife, Anita, who has been fighting for women’s rights ever since she joined the picket line at the strike, added the explanation of sexism to the mix. It is triple oppression for women of color, she emphasized. “We are oppressed as workers, Chicanas and women.”

I’ve been thinking about Lorenzo a lot lately. He died New Year’s Day at age 84 in Tucson, Arizona, where he had founded the Salt of the Earth Labor College. He was fighting Arizona’s assault on immigrants and bilingual education to the end. He was, indeed, the Salt of the Earth.

A new DVD of Salt of the Earth may be obtained from Organa.com.

Geneva, Switzerland — Questions concerning the compliance of the United States with the international treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, came to a head recently during the Seventh Review Conference of the Convention, which is being held now in Geneva, Switzerland at the United Nations.

The most recent compliance report, listed in the BWC catalogue as BWC/CONF.VII/INF.2/Add.1, has failed to quash concerns as to the reliability of statements made by the United States as to its compliance with obligations under the BWC.

The specific concerns focus on the United States’ lack of disclosure of a law which amends the prior biological weapons statute. The original statute is entitled the Biological Weapons Statute–Title 18 Chapter 10 Section 175 of the U.S. code. The amended law, which is entitled The Expansion of the Biological Weapons Statute (Section 817 of the USA PATRIOT Act) radically changes the legal culpability incurred by agents of the US government for violating the statute, granting them immunity.

While this most recent report submitted to the BWC by the United States does mention that the original law was indeed amended by the USA PATRIOT Act, The U.S. has once again failed to disclose the revolutionary nature of this amendment, and is instead persisting in reporting the text of the older statute without coming clean about the implications or even the wording of the amended version. The critical amendment to 175 literally removes U.S. agents from liability for violating legal prohibitions for possessing and transporting biological weapons. The implications are serious and deserve careful scrutiny.

Questions have also been raised as to whether or not the U.S. ever reported this legislative landmine on the CBM (Confidence Building Measures) Form E’s. The CBM’s mandate that state parties report the status of their labs, research projects and other matters of concern to the BWC. The form E mandates the disclosure of new legislation relevant to biological weapons and is considered to be politically binding.

Section 817 was passed along with the rest of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001. What is publicly available for this time period reveals that the U.S. reported that there was nothing new to declare for both 2001 and 2002. This is revealed at the following link, on page 97 (http://bit.ly/sVwgOY).

United States Ambassador Laura Kennedy and the CBM unit of the U.S. State Department have been repeatedly contacted with questions as to whether the U.S. ever disclosed Section 817 to the other parties to the Convention. No response has been forthcoming. A United States delegate to the Seventh Review Conference, Chris Park, recently offered assurances that the requests for information about CBM Form E  had been received and were being researched. He also admitted that “there may have been an oversight.”

Here is the complete text of Section 817 of the USA PATRIOT Act, with the questionable subsection underlined: (http://bit.ly/tYv3S4).

By Jim Smith

Capitalism is doomed. The aged system has been increasingly unable to maintain people’s living standards since the 1970s. And now, everyone knows it.

Thanks to the Occupy movement, the viability of an economic system based on greed and survival of the fittest has been called into question. And found wanting.

We can thank the Occupy movement for two innovations in the art of political protest. The concept of the 99 percent versus the 1 percent has united everyone, no matter what their beef with capitalism, aka Wall Street. The other innovation from Occupy can be stated simply as, “don’t be distracted by specific issues,”  which can divide us by substituting “effects” (issues) for “causes” (capitalism).

The problem is capitalism, not high tuition, lack of medical care, foreclosures, homelessness, and the myriad other issues that confront most of us day by day. These are the effects of a system that serves the interests of a decreasing minority of the population (actually, far less than 1 percent). The time has passed for piecemeal solutions to these various issues. We must go to the heart of the problem, the system itself.

It is true that a once vibrant capitalism built the economic powerhouse known as the USA. It did this at the direction of a group of ruthless entrepreneurs, beginning in the 19th century, who ran roughshod over their workers, their competitors and the environment. Decade after decade, they accumulated more wealth, more capital and more power.

American literature is full of Horatio Alger rags-to-riches stories, and reverence for robber barons with good PR, like Andrew Carnegie, who hired slave drivers like Henry Frick to build Carnegie Steel, which J.P. Morgan later bought for $480 million in 1901 and renamed US Steel. Then there’s railroad magnate Jay Gould, who famously said: “I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half.”

The problem with revolting against these “industrialists” was that they only controlled one corporation each, albeit some very large corporations. People not directly connected with the company as workers or consumers could only express solidarity at the latest outrage committed by the owner.

The Free Venice Beachhead is the community newspaper of Venice California. http://www.freevenice.org

By Karl Abrams

High in the skies of Libya, NATO jets, equipped with uranium bullets and uranium-tipped missiles, are probably being used to assist Libyan rebels in toppling the regime of Muammar Gaddafy.

France, Great Britain and the US regularly employ concrete bunker-busting uranium weapons and have consistently blocked UN proposals to ban them. They won’t admit they’re using them, but they do acknowledge the use of jets that always seem to carry them. When used in jet machine guns, high-density uranium bullets as large as 30 mm (and 70% more dense than lead) can be shot at an astounding rate of 70 bullets per second. This often cuts an armored vehicle or tank in two.

It’s no wonder that such kinetic energy penetrators are called “Armor Piercing Incendiary.” Upon incandescent penetration, such bullets and missiles ignite ordinance stored in the armored vehicle. The resulting toxic explosion decomposes the uranium into a white oxide powder that quickly moves across the wind-swept desert terrain into cities and lungs of the Libyan people.

The dust is uranium dioxide. The uranium in it ultimately comes from uranium ore that is unusable by nuclear reactors. Such uranium is considered unusable or “depleted” because it is not radioactive enough to drive a nuclear power plant. For this reason, it is called “depleted uranium” or DU, and is primarily made up of U-238, a form of uranium that’s heavier but less radioactive than the more radioactive U-235 that is used in nuclear reactors.

But its DU name is conveniently misleading. According to the military, DU is a “mild health risk” outside of the human body. And this is what soldiers and pilots are told. What is generally ignored, however, is what happens when the dust enters the body. By drinking, eating or breathing it in, DU radiation severely damages bone marrow and cellular chromosomes by internally emitting sub-atomic “bullets” known as alpha particles. This causes lung, lymph and brain cancers as well as mutagenic effects such as unusually high rates of leukemia and fetal radiation damage that cause grotesque birth defects. Uranium contamination also permanently impairs kidney, heart and liver function.

Ever since the 1960s, the corporations that own nuclear power plants safely stored tremendous amounts of DU, on average 20 tons/yr. Surely, their CEOs must have wondered more than once if this DU could turn a profit by selling it as a high-density armor-piercing bullet or missile. After all, production cost of DU is cheap – only $2 per kilogram.

Their chance came in the 1970s when the Soviet Union developed tanks with armor that could not be penetrated by ordinary weapons. The Pentagon then developed and perfected DU weapons. The price of DU increased 10-fold, creating a multi-billion dollar industry.

Fortunate for corporate profit motives, first-world war-makers – be they French, British or American – apparently have no problem using DU weapons and spreading poisonous uranium oxide dust into the environment. After all, it does the job nicely and doesn’t hurt the soldiers or pilots who use it, provided they are a “safe” distance away from the DU dust.

While the World Health Organization is vehemently against it, NATO’s war makers are not. They know but don’t seem to care that the half-life of DU is over 4 billion years. This means that half of the DU released into Libya’s environment will, by definition, linger for that same incredible amount of time. In other words, the DU will contaminate the people of Libya forever, or 4 billion years, whichever comes first. How does NATO pretend to help the Libyan people by permanently poisoning them and their precious water supply and farmland?

DU is considered a long-term poison because it is both a heavy metal contaminant and a radioactive alpha-particle emitter. This creates a deadly “cocktail effect”. Both are deadly to combatants and civilians alike, and both should be viewed as a crime against humanity. According to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW), DU needs to be immediately and internationally outlawed along with dum-dum bullets, poison gas, and cluster bombs.

Developed by the Pentagon in the 1980s at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, it was first used in the Iraq invasions of 1991 and 2003 and probably used in the Balkans and Afghanistan. According to conservative estimates, about 1 in 8 soldiers who served in Iraq have been poisoned by DU, which manifests as Gulf War Syndrome. That’s about 100,000 soldiers who may need life-long medical care.

The UN has dramatically called for a ban on the use of such nefarious military DU weapons because it violates the Geneva Convention. Germany, Belgium, Italy and all Latin American countries refuse to use it. The French, British and US militaries still refuse to ban it. What do we tell the Libyan people when the DU dust settles?