Blog Censorship in Korea
Sat June 26th, 2004 10:20 MSTThe following letter from Kevin Kim of Big Hominid speaks for itself:
Fellow blogger,I am sending this message to the bloggers on my blogroll (and a few
other folks) in the hopes that some of you will print this, or at
least find it interesting enough for comment. I’m not usually the
type to distribute such messages, but I felt this was important enough
to risk disturbing you.As some of you may already know, a wing of the South Korean
government, the Ministry of Information and Culture (MIC), is
currently clamping down on a variety of blogging service providers and
other websites. The government is attempting to control access to
video of the recent Kim Sun-il beheading, ostensibly because the video
will have a destabilizing influence. (I haven’t seen the video.)
Many Western expat bloggers in Korea are in an uproar; others, myself
included, are largely unsurprised: South Korea has not come far out
of the shadow of its military dictatorship past. My own response to
this censorship is not so much anger as amusement, because the
situation represents an intellectual challenge as well as a chance to
fight for freedom of expression. Perhaps even to fight for freedom,
period.South Korea is a rapidly evolving country, but in many ways it remains
the Hermit Kingdom. Like a turtle retreating into its shell, the
people are on occasion unable to deal with the harsh realities of the
world around them. This country is, for example, in massive denial
about the atrocities perpetrated in North Korea, and, as with many
Americans, is in denial about the realities of Islamic terrorism,
whose roots extend chronologically backward far beyond the lifetime of
the Bush Administration. This cultural tendency toward denial (and
overreaction) at least partially explains the Korean government’s move
to censor so many sites.The fact that the current administration, led by President Noh
Mu-hyon, is supposedly “liberal”-leaning makes this censorship more
ironic. It also fuels propagandistic conservative arguments that
liberals are, at heart, closet totalitarians. I find this to be a
specious caricature of the liberal position (I consider myself neither
liberal nor conservative), but to the extent that Koreans are
concerned about what image they project to the world, it is legitimate
for them to worry over whether they are currently playing into
stereotype: South Korea is going to be associated with other
violators of human rights, such as China.Of the many hypocrisies associated with the decision to censor, the
central one is that no strong governmental measures were taken to
suppress the distribution of the previous beheading videos (Nick Berg
et al.). This, too, fuels the suspicion that Koreans are selfish or,
to use their own proverbial image, “a frog in a well”– radically
blinkered in perspective, collectively unable to empathize with the
sufferings of non-Koreans, but overly sensitive to their own
suffering.I am writing this letter not primarily to criticize all Koreans (I’m
ethnically half-Korean, and an American citizen), nor to express a
generalized condemnation of Korean culture. As is true anywhere else,
this culture has its merits and demerits, and overall, I’m enjoying my
time here. No, my purpose is more specific: to cause the South
Korean government as much embarrassment as possible, and perhaps to
motivate Korean citizens to engage in some much-needed introspection.To this end, I need the blogosphere’s help, and this letter needs wide
distribution (you may receive other letters from different bloggers,
so be prepared!). I hope you’ll see fit to publish this letter on
your site, and/or to distribute it to concerned parties: censorship
in a supposedly democratic society simply cannot stand. The best and
quickest way to persuade the South Korean government to back down from
its current position is to make it lose face in the eyes of the world.
This can only happen through a determined (and civilized!) campaign
to expose the government’s hypocrisy and to cause Korean citizens to
rethink their own narrow-mindedness.We can debate all we want about “root causes” with regard to Islamic
terrorism, Muslim rage, and all the rest, but for me, it’s much more
constructive to proceed empirically and with an eye to the future.
Like it or not, what we see today is that Korea is inextricably linked
with Iraq issues, and with issues of Islamic fundamentalism. Koreans,
however, may need some persuading that this is in fact the case– that
we all need to stand together as allies against a common enemy.If you are interested in giving the South Korean Ministry of
Information and Culture a piece of your mind (or if you’re a reporter
who would like to contact them for further information), please email
the MIC at:webmaster@mic.go.kr
Thank you,
Kevin Kim
bighominid@gmail.com
http://bighominid.blogspot.com
(Blogspot is currently blocked in Korea, along with other providers;
please go to Unipeak.com and type my URL into the search window to
view my blog.)PS: To send me an email, please type “hairy chasms” in the subject
line to avoid being trashed by my custom-made spam filter.PPS: Much better blogs than mine have been covering this issue,
offering news updates and heartfelt commentary. To start you off,
visit:http://marmot.blogs.com/korea/
http://jeffinkorea.blogs.com/
http://aboutjoel.com/
http://oranckay.net/blog/
http://kimcheegi.blogs.com/
http://gopkorea.blogs.com/flyingyangban
http://rathbonepress.tblog.com/
http://blog.woojay.net/Here as well, Unipeak is the way to go if you’re in Korea and unable
to view the above blogs. People in the States should, in theory, have
no problems accessing these sites, which all continue to be updated.PPPS: This email is being cc’ed to the South Korean Ministry of
Information and Culture. Please note that other bloggers are writing
about the Korean government’s creation of a task force that will
presumably fight internet terror. I and others have an idea that this
task force will serve a different purpose. If this is what South
Korea’s new “aligning with the PRC” is all about, then there’s reason
to worry for the future.
I have always been proud of my time in the Naktong prerimeter up to Kunuri and back to the Imjin because it helped keep South Korea from being like North Korea.
South Korean freedoms were fought for by others than just South Koreans, and it Grieves me to see those freedoms frittered away.
Walter E. Wallis
HqHq 23rd Infantry
1950-51
Walter:
I and a lot of other people who visit here did a tour in Asia too. Vietnam. I have always felt that, of all the forgotten vets, Korean vets were almost completely ignored, everywhere.
Vietnam vets had their own problems, but you men were buried by indifference. The casualty figures were almost as high as ours, the war as dirty and miserable as ours, maybe worse in fact.
We haven’t forgotten you. Too little, too late, but thanks. All I remember is the black and white Pathe newsreels of the soldiers in the snow and mud, the neighbor kid coming home from there who used to give me chocolate cigarettes.
Koreans are free today, maybe not as much as we are, but not like the North, thanks to you and many others.
Walt, I’m with Rhod on this one. Those of you who fought in Korea deserve a huge pat on the back.
My dad was a corpsman during the Korean War with lstMarDiv. (George Company, 3/7) from January ‘51 to March ‘52, and, like the Second World War, Korea had a profound impact upon him until the day he died in ‘94.
I recall when he and his old pals threw a reunion back in 1959–it wasn’t an official affair, as such; just a group of prematurely aged young guys drinking Schlitz Beer, quietly swapping edgy survivors’ stories, and singing a rather haunting tune entitled “Arirang.” In those days, I recall someone on television (it may have been Mike Wallace) referring to Korea as the “forgotten war,” and I similarly recall dad blasting back, “forgotten war, s–t! You didn’t forget the s– of a b—- if you were there!”
I’ve still got dad’s photo album from the days when his regiment was deployed near Panmunjom, and those pictures are as grim as anything I’ve ever seen published from either WWI or WWII.
I heard a leftist historian on television the other day, explaining that the U.S. ‘lost’ the war in Korea, and to be totally honest, I had to restrain myself from smashing my fist through my high-dollar television screen. The idea that the U.S. was the ‘aggressor’ in Korea, is an idea similarly promoted by leftists and sanctioned by Bill Clinton and his servile former Defense Secretary Bill Cohen.
The idea that we ‘lost’ the Korean war is total hogwash; and the very idea that we committed untold numbers of atrocities and ‘instigated’ the war (yes, believe it or not, there are those who argue that we ‘provoked’ North Korean aggression. Sound familiar?) is equally absurd, and downright treasonous.
If North Korea in fact ‘won’ the war, as a handful of lamebrains within the ivory tower presently argue, then why is the regime a dying one? Why is it on political life support? Why is it the sole communist state still based on long-outmoded, murderous Stalinist doctrine? Best I can tell, North Koreans will never have to fear defending their borders against the encroachment of illegal aliens, and that says it all, I think.
I say we scored a major international victory against the Reds between ‘50-’53. A very bloody affair, but a significant victory, nonetheless.
And Matthew Ridgeway is, as far as I’m concerned, one of the greatest–and most egregiously underrated–fighting general officers in American military history. Apparently, he was the architect of that victory. And we owe him our everlasting thanks as well.
I’ll go to my grave holding you guys in the highest esteem, Walt. I’m sure tens of millions of Americans agree.
You’re not forgotten, Walt, and neither is your war and it’s high place in 20th-century history.
I recall the week the Berlin Wall fell; and I also recall the candid words of a German broadcaster, who said: “It’s possible that we wouldn’t be here today, tearing down this wall, if the forces of freedom hadn’t shown the resolve they did in places like Korea.”
Mind you, a German broadcaster said those words; not an American, say, like Mike Wallace or Dan Rather.
Right on, Robert:
Your knowledge of the Korean War and opinions about it have taught me a lot. It seems to be one of those events under taught in schools, and WWII always takes first place. Maybe it was overlooked when I was in school because of the incipient liberalism growing there.
I think it was Commentary mag that posited the idea that the Chinese fear, most of all, a nuclearized peninsula. Our military presence there more or less insures that the South, and Japan, will remain nuclear-free, which benefits China. With a significant withdrawl of our troops, both the South and Japan would have no options other than to nuclearize to counter the Northern threat.
More to the point, we would be less likely to involve ourselves there again when our interests lie elsewhere now. I’m for it. Brinkmanship always seems to be the game of the enemy.
I’ve long believed that the left’s hatred toward Richard Nixon was primarily the result of his key participation in the McCarthy hearings, and not, as is popularly believed by younger generations, his role in “Watergate.”
Aging leftists within the universities continue to belabor their point suggesting that Nixon and McCarthy were ‘witchhunters,’ and the whole Red scare of the ’50’s a Republican charade. Granted, McCarthy was a blowhard. But if Hollywood wasn’t left-leaning in the 50’s, as some continue to argue, show me a Korean War film produced during the era which will depict American and UN troops in a favorable light of any kind.
The Korean War should be vastly more heavily emphasized by the right in order that the real truth see the light of day.
Early on, a small number of American forces were pushed by vastly superior numbers of their enemies into the peninsula’s southeast toe. Confident of ultimate ‘victory’ over the south, North Korean troops acted in bestial manner, committing atrocities that will never make today’s headlines, but should.
Douglas MacArthur–described by a leading historian as “a great thundering paradox of a man, noble and ignoble, inspiring and courageous…the best of men and the worst of men…flamboyant, imperious…[carrying] the plumage of a flamingo…”–arrived at the most critical of times in Korea, in 1950, to launch one of history’s greatest, and most spectacularly successful seaborne invasions ever. The operation to free Seoul from communist takeover not only succeeded in encircling, killing, or capturing tens of thousands of Red troops, but it pushed North Korean’s ‘vaunted’ army north for some 400 miles to the Yalu River, to the remote margins of China and Manchuria.
The Chinese did in fact enter the war near Christmas 1950, and for a time they sent UN troops reeling back to Seoul, but it’s as far south as they ever came.
If Hollywood cared enough, they could produce a blockbuster of a film on the unbelievable heroism of the 30,000 soldiers and Marines who kept 300,000 of Mao’s best at bay from Hagaru-ri to Hungnam. Granted, the American move south from the Chosin Reservoir was indeed a retreat of sorts, but why is it the Chinese couldn’t effectively defeat or annihilate those forces?
You’ll never see such a film, because, for one, Korea was a victory for the Americans and the UN, and not a defeat. Look at the geopgraphy of Korea on a map. Look at the proximity of China and Russia. Look at the tremendous, seemingly insurmountable odds with which UN forces were faced. I suggest that, at least between 1950-1953, it was the USSR and China–and not the free world–who were the ‘paper tigers.’
Will Hollywood ever produce a truthful film regarding the war?
All one needs do to answer the question is this: take a look at who runs Hollywood–and who has long run Hollywood–and then ask yourself the question a second time.
Were Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon wrong on communism or leftist insurgency?
Again, Walt: Thanks a million for your efforts in Korea. I’m overwhelmingly overjoyed to live in freedom. I’ll never forget those who made it possible.
The left is gambling that, as older generations fade to history, younger generations will grow up uneducated on matters like the Korean War. In this, they may be right. But it will be their only real victory.
Steady on Robert and Mark:
I smelled a stink when I turned on the computer and I new Eurogarbage had been here. He knows he’s trash and is trying to associate himself with his superiors. Ignore him. Sprinkle some lime on the keyboard, that’s my advice.
Anyway, I was across the river this morning and nearly ran Senator Dodd over. He was loading his smoked-window Libmobile…the one with “I (heart) Teddy” sticker, preparing to run back to D.C. He looked as if he just stepped out of the shower, but maybe Teddy was visitng and they took a ride over the bridge nearby. The Connecticut River isn’t very deep at that point, and it’s a short swim to Dodd’s precious little house upstream.
Robert. I need to print your Korea post for my file. Good stuff.
Someone, an obviously uneducated miscreant, is posting while heisting the use of my name, and I ask all to simply ignore him.
He does have a point, though, on at least one matter. He tells us we should ‘watch Bush from now on,’ or something to that effect. And that’s just what we’ll do.
In fact, we’ll be watching the man for the next four years, as he works through his second term as President of the United States.
Frankly, the more the left verbalizes it’s tremendous, wholly irrational behavior, it only digs it’s political grave deeper.
Fine by me.
Nope, he’s a German.
Rhod, our ‘mystery poster’ did in fact say that he is ‘retired and living in Monte Carlo,’ though, reading between the lines, I came to the conclusion that he’s just a failed, frustrated kid without a job, a decent girlfriend, and he’s living out of a cardboard suitcase and the trunk of a ‘72 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
Strange it is, on the other hand, to imagine someone with the wherewithal to retire early to Monte Carlo, and with enough free time on his hands to spend on the computer offending people.
I ask any of you: Is that what you’d be doing during the weekend if you were living on the Riviera?
Personally, if I were single and living in such a gem of a place, I’d be cruising the boardwalk like Cary Grant, prowling for the next Sophia Loren, Gina Lollabrigida, or Grace Kelly. (But then, maybe this guy’s not of the same ‘persuasion’ as the rest of us?)
Which brings to mind: Whatever became of Dr. Renee Richards, anyway?
Albert “A Is For Aneurism” Gore is probably okay with Blog Censorship in Korea. In Gore’s latest ruby-eyed convulsion, he levitated himself in hydrophobic fury over weblogs which present opinions that disagree with his. Honestly, he did.
Albert’s description of us is “digital Brown Shirts”. We are part of the Bush Administration’s “rapid response” team, undermining a free press. This is serious business. Gore is nuts. Good old rubber-room, no-belt, nothing-sharp nuts. Thank you Supreme Court.
Me again. Put up with me one more time.
John says he’s German. Now THAT explains a lot! We can dispense with the stereotypes here and get right to the truth. No, let’s stay with the stereotypes, BECAUSE THEY ARE THE TRUTH!
I’m not sure if John’s jesting about the guy’s nationality, or not, though just this morning, I harbored a fleeting thought that he was German, and for that, I was a bit disappointed.
There was a way in which the man capitalized certain nouns in both the nominative and genitive cases,’ and doing so is somewhat of a hallmark with at least a handful of European tongues, particularly the German.
But then, what would I know?
~auf Wiederschau, Bruder und Schwestern!
The IP address if from a German company.
Rhod, Gore really stuck his foot in his mouth, once more, in referring to us as “digital Brownshirts.” The sad, and often unheralded fact, is, the Brownshirts were established to interdict increasingly bloody, communist-inspired insurgencies in major German cities in the incredibly volatile, immediate post-WWI period.
Sound familiar?
Literary sources referencing communist behavior in 1920’s Germany, and the subsequent rise of National Socialism, are too numerous to mention here, though they’re out there by the thousands, on most any library bookshelf. I’d suggest that anyone seeking to understand the left in contemporary America, read the story of ill-fated Weimar Germany. The parallels are chilling.
I forgot to mention that according to my advanced software (and remember guys, I was a hacker in 1969 - seriously - I almost got thrown out of school), the german guy is wearing women’s clothes when he is accessing my blog. I can’t tell when he is away from his keyboard. There is some indication of a blond wig, but at this distance, even my good stuff has trouble telling for sure.
Let this Vietnam Vet add his chorus to the appreciation for those from the forgotten war. I’ve been all over Korea (except the North) including Inchon, and you guys had a heck of a job to do!
Just in case you’ve been living under a rock or in a cave or were banished to the wasteland, I’d like to point out to you that Republicans and Mormons are stupid fucks. You might have thought that COBOL or Pet Rocks were stupid, but they’re just peanuts to these people. It’s a wonder that they manage to put on their KKK outfits or ride their bicycles.
Both of these groups of miserable excuses for humans are well-known for endless attempts at shoving their own brand of morality down the throats of everyone else, even if that means choking off their oxygen supply. “It’s for your own good,” they say, as they hold your head under water whilst stabbing you in the ass with a curling iron. I submit that these groups of misfits be judged under the morality of consistency and non-contradiction.
Contradiction is not acceptable by nature, science, or mathematics. The fundamental principles of all that is real maintain their order by maintaining consistency. Anything that contradicts itself is out-of-order with the universe, and is therefore immoral under a logical system. Since I don’t believe it is the position of others to dictate subjective morality, it is natural that a judgment based on objective morality is the only acceptable one.
As a recent example of Mormon and Republican stupidity, consider the comments made by Mormon and Republican stupid fucks subsequent to the passage of California Proposition 22, an unconstitutional ballot initiative proposed by the Republican father of a gay son, which denies gays basic privileges that straight, married couples take for granted!
Hey you queers..
auf Wiederschau?? Bruder und Schwester
what does that mean…
at least I can comunicate in English, Frecnch and Spanish…like most Europeans can speek at least 2 languages…
not only one..like you
well some of you can only speek half words ..
like mother……
muhahahahahahahahahahahah
Obviously, we’re dealing with Brobdingnagian intellect, here. Am I right, “mystery poster”?
Frankly, my friend, while I don’t think you’re truly multi-lingual, I do believe you speak with a forked-tongue, like the serpent that you truly are.
‘Nuff said, Kamarade?
Semper Fi,’ all–Truly, I don’t know whether to pity the guy, or put a muzzle to his poor, pathetic neck.
Oh, look Greta, here comes Ernst, the still useless irrelevant, wiener stuffing piece of Eurogarbage. He speaks three languages, and he’s learning Turkish so he can kiss the asses of his guest workers. Ernst or Hans, or Gunter, we know you envy America. You’re through Adolf, through. Keep screaming, keep whining, keep pretending you are worth a pigs ass, but that just describes your menu. You’re also a coward, but that describes the rest of you too, unless it involves the helpless and the aged. Any American is superior to you, undermensch. Anyone.
John Moore noted that the source of this garbage is a German company, probably one of them which profited from Zyklon-B or some other wonderful product from Germany. Not all of them are represented by this turd, but all too many. We need to repeat that “he”, with his gay-bashing is typical of his kind. “He” with his moronic arrogance, jealousy and self-advertisement is typical of his kind.
“He”, having apparently live in the United States, found a culture and people immensely superior to himself, looked in the mirror, saw a creature poorly educated, poorly groomed, poorly fed and poorly equipped, and immediately hated Americans for it. This is a German thing.
This inferiority complex, which runs throughout German history, accounts for much of the ugliness of the old Germany, and practically all of the self-hating screwballs like this one. Being so deeply inferior in every way that matters, they become culture vandals, random thugs and bullies, haters of goodness, thieves and braggers. Punks. Abusers of the weak and helpless. Nazis.
Being a poorly-educated, poorly groomed, poorly equipped lowlife, he has nothing original to say, and will copy this post and any others he can quote. Why? Germans like him are great imitators, having no modern identity except the one created for them by Hitler, will grab at whatever they can to puff themselves up among their betters, and play the strongman. That is this person’s game, his reason for existence. His father and his father’s father were the same. Low, ignorant, without hope and ambition to be better.
This person is a germ in the long line of modern infections that have flowed from Germany. He proves that nothing has changed there, that thuggery and cowardice are national habits. Envy, cheapness, vulgarity, cowardice, striking from behind. It’s all on display.
Germany, with its unemployment, statism and low and miserable ambitions, will remain what it is. A second rate imitation of France, which is a tenth rate imitation of America.
To the John Moore Impersonator above…
You know, you win the propeller-beany award today for the most obscure, nitwitted, laughably stupid, knuckle-dragging, nazified, lefty, drooling, I-hate-my-parents-and-mirrors, I-lost-my-retainer babbling of the year. Put away your inflatable Kerry and read the mail. Kerry needs a speechwriter!
Fritz:
You can’t spell, you can’t think, you are gutless because you won’t leave a name, and you still envy America. All you can do is describe yourself as a Euroloser in three languages. You will always be the low and definitive example of a babbling imitator snarling at his betters. Bye bye Eurodork. Clean those chamberpots, will you?
Fritz:
Actually, this time I actually got a laugh out of you. Before it was just a little pity for a Eurocretin who is in serious mental trouble. Your last post is HILARIOUS!! You are the biggest asshole on the continent. Really. Thanks for the morning chuckle, you jackass. What a jerk!
Fritz:
Your real name is Karl, but what the hell. I’m still laughing. I thought earlier that you were an adult with some credibility. All the wrong ideas, but still some credibility. I see now that with your obsession with your high school performance, that this is you:
You wear embroidered dirndl one day, pink liederhosen the next.
You have a green Tyrolean propeller beanie with a white ostrich plume in it.
You are so obese that after each meal of Eurofood, you need to loosen the buckles on your SHOES!
Your youth circumstances were so pathetic you were sent to America to be straightened out.
Is that just close, or right on. What a jackass.
Muhhhaahahahahahahahahhahahahahaa. (burp. That Eurofood again)
Rhod:
I am an MD. The long, plaintive cry you mock is a cry of pain and discomfort. It derives from a condition called Teutonic Wedgie, inherited from the mother. It is caused by poor hygiene, gluteal hypertrophy, tight hiking shorts and morbid obesity. It is no laughing matter, and I wish Karl would seek medical attention.
Dr. Bush By Landslide
The spammers are trying to advertise a site owned by painter1984@hotmail.com
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