Escape from Camp 14

Escape from Camp 14, by Blaine Hardin (Viking, 2012).

The recent news out of North Korea is that Kim Jong Un, the third dictator in the Kim dynasty that has ruled North Korea since its inception in 1948, continues to explode nuclear weapons, following that with threats to use them. The state is obsessed with nuclear war capabilities even as most North Koreans live under extreme deprivation if not outright starvation. Escape from Camp 14 is the story of Shin Dong-hyuk, the only person born in a North Korean slave labor camp to escape, doing so at the age of 23 in 2005. Shin’s life is testament to the putrid essence of that militarized, state-capitalist totalitarian society.

The Kims, beginning with the “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung who ruled North Korea from 1948 until his death in 1994, added a new abomination to Stalin’s and Mao’s massive use of slave labor, reeducation camps. Kim Il Sung decided to not only enslave his political opponents and those who showed any whiff of dissent from his absolute rule but to also sentence their families and offspring through three generations. Shin was born and grew up in a camp that had no reeducation function. He was only to be worked to an early death and wasn’t even deemed worthy of being subjected to state propaganda about the “Great Leader.”

What being alive meant for Shin was that others, including his family, were either mere competitors for food or armed guards whose job was to severely punish and usually execute anyone who broke the rules, especially the rule to turn in violators of the rules. “Snitching” is a pejorative which normally implies some previous mutual human relation, but here it was just a given condition of life from the start. The only assemblies allowed in the camp were for frequent public executions which were “teachable moments” that shaped Shin’s earliest memories.

Shin began to have a different kind of relationship with another human being when he was cared for by another prisoner after being severely tortured. Then when Shin himself was assigned to befriend a new prisoner, Park Yong Chul, in order to snitch on him, Shin made the fateful decision to not snitch. Thrilled with the description of foods available outside of camp, Shin developed a bond with Park.

Shin’s new friendship and experience of mutual trust with Park led to their decision to attempt an escape. Park didn’t survive, throwing Shin again into a situation where he could trust no one. He came to realize that even acts of kindness, like the offer of a job when he reached China, were motivated by greed, the exploitation of his labor.

The power of Shin’s story is his own assessment of his life as a struggle to become human. What is made painfully clear to anyone who dares read this book is that the struggle to become human never ends.

That is an especially important message for those leftists, caught in their own binary thinking and abstract revolutionism, who can support North Korea as an opposite to U.S. imperialism. As Hegel and then Marx kept making abundantly clear, the dialectic has nothing to do with subsuming the concrete, the lived experience. Rather, recognizing the dialectic in the movement of the lived experience can be a totally new beginning in human freedom.

—Ron Kelch

America helped end the Nazi concentration camps and slaughter of innocent Jews and others, but allowed Stalin to kill 12 million people in his forced labor camps, not including those executed never having been sent to a camp. Fast forward to America 2012, and one of the biggest U.S. trade partners also run an oppressive, murderous regime, with many enemies of the government forced into reeducation through labor camps. A reminder of the conditions which many of the Chinese laborers whose products we use are subjected to came from an unlikely place. After a box sat around collecting dust for a year, an American worker opened the Halloween kit to find a letter from a Chinese laborer hidden inside. According to this article from Oregonlive.com, it was a desperate plea for help from a political prisoner placed in a force labor camp by the Chinese government. Some excerpts from the letter include:

“If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever…

“People who work here have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays. Otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark. Nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month)…

“People who work here, suffer punishment 1-3 years averagely, but without Court Sentence (unlaw punishment). Many of them are Falun Gong practitioners, who are totally innocent people only because they have different believe to CCPG. They often suffer more punishment than others.”

The article notes that 10 yuan is the equivalent of $1.61, and that the letter also included which camp it had been sent from. Whoever the author was almost certainly took an extreme risk to himself, fellow laborers, and any free family he or she may have had. The letter said the Halloween decorations had been made in the Masanjia labor camp in Shenyang by department 2 in unit 8. Now that this letter has gotten out to the public, it is chilling to think what may happen to those in the camp and department from where it came. The women who originally found the letter posted it on facebook, unsure of how to proceed.

It may have been a better idea to refer the letter to American officials who could keep the source secret while investigating, but in an international incident like this, especially involving a powerful player like China, it is unlikely anything would come from a government investigation. Therefore the public outcry which this letter should cause may be more powerful than an official investigation. What we can at least hope for are a more aware public who go out of their way to buy non-Chinese made products. Also, since the kit was originally sold by K-Mart, they have launched their own investigation, and could very well succumb to public pressure to stop buying from that Chinese source. Although the letter has not been officially confirmed, the Human Rights Watch had the following comment:

“We’re in no position to confirm the veracity or origin of this,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “I think it is fair to say the conditions described in the letter certainly conform to what we know about conditions in re-education through labor camps.”

China’s re-education through labor is a system of punishment that allows for detention without trial. Various reports allege followers of the banned spiritual group, Falun Gong, are sent to the reform camps – claims supported in the letter – but the facts are difficult to confirm.

Although the Falun Gong is considered by the Chinese government to be a terrorist group, it is widely accepted that they are simply political opponents to the Chinese government, and therefore imprisoned because of their opposition to the oppressive government. As individuals what we can do is check the labels on what we buy, and stop buying useless things made in China. Halloween decorations can be made at home, and many other useless Chinese made toys can be boycotted, instead of collecting dust in a closet. The U.S. should not be supporting human rights violating governments, therefore a conversation about ending trade ties with China is a legitimate exercise. Public pressure on companies to not do business with China, and public pressure on the government to stop doing business with China are two things which we can do as individuals.

But also important is ensuring that we are never in the same position as the Chinese citizens, oppressed and imprisoned by our government. The first step is admitting the U.S. has a problem–for example the indefinite detainment clause in the NDAA. The next step is retaking control over our government, decentralizing it, giving states back their power, restoring and protecting individual liberty ensured by the bill of rights, and restoring enough checks and balances as to never become powerless in the wake of dictatorial government. Reforming our own government to the standards of the Constitution will lead to a domino effect of liberty throughout the world, as the U.S. would no longer be in a position to prop up human rights abusing regimes through trade, foreign aide, and military intervention. Only through individual freedom can we hope to live in a world free of coercion, free of forced labor camps, and free to pursue happiness–whatever version of happiness to which you subscribe.

By Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars.com

In light of a newly uncovered U.S. Army document that outlines plans for prisoners, including U.S. citizens, to be re-educated in detention camps, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the fact that Barack Obama’s political mentor, Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, once called for precisely the same thing.

According to former FBI agent Larry Grathwohl, who was assigned to infiltrate the Weather Underground’s Central Committee, the organization run by Bill Ayers carried out bombings targeting the Pentagon, the State Department, as well as police stations and federal buildings, in an attempt to cause the collapse of the United States government and open the door for Cuban, North Vietnamese, Chinese and Russian troops to occupy the country.
Grathwohl stated that Ayers and his group planned to deal with Americans who would try to resist this takeover by “establishing re-education centers in the south-west”. Asked what he would do with those who still refused to convert to communism, Ayers said that they would have to be “eliminated,” as in 25 million Americans would be killed in concentration camps.

Grathwohl said the Weathermen told him the camps would be used to “re-educate people into the new way of thinking.”

This provides yet more historical context to underscore the point that using detention centers to “re-educate” prisoners into a new way of political thinking is the hallmark of a tyrannical regime.

The U.S. Army document that we highlighted yesterday targets “political activists” for “indoctrination programs” once they are incarcerated inside the prison camps. The document is a how-to manual on treatment of detainees, including “civilian internees” interned for “security reasons, for protection, or because he or she committed an offense against the detaining power.”

The document makes it clear in numerous instances that the re-education program, designed to “remove antagonistic attitudes” and enforce “understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions,” is not just limited to prisoners in foreign countries like Afghanistan and Iraq.

The rules also apply “within U.S. territory” as part of “civil support operations” in conjunction with FEMA and Homeland Security in the aftermath of “man-made disasters, accidents, terrorist attacks and incidents in the U.S. and its territories.” So long as the President passes an executive order bypassing Posse Comitatus, the manual says the indoctrination program “may be performed as domestic civil support operations.”

The fact that Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground also planned for re-education camps to be used to incarcerate American citizens is alarming given President Barack Obama’s relationship with Ayers, who helped launch Obama’s political career.

“In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn,” reported Politico’s Ben Smith.

Maria Warren, an Obama-supporting liberal who attended the Chicago meeting, also confirmed Ayers’ presence and his role in launching Obama’s political dynasty.

“When I first met Barack Obama, he was giving a standard, innocuous little talk in the living room of those two legends-in-their-own-minds, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. They were launching him–introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread,” wrote Warren.

According to retired Illinois postman Allen Hulton, Ayers’ parents also bragged about how they paid to put a “foreign student,” almost certainly Obama, through school.

The connection between Ayers’ advocacy for re-education camps, his relationship with Barack Obama, and an Army document which clearly states that such “indoctrination programs” can be used against Americans so long as the President passes an executive order, represents a chilling triumvirate.

The Internment and Resettlement Operations Manual is the ‘how-to’ book on how to establish an absolute and authoritarian state that Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and any other despot would love to have implemented.

This is not some contingency plan, this is what the usurpers who have taken over Amerikkka WANT. In a prison-nation-state which imprisons more people per capita and in actual numbers than any other nation – even failed dictatorships such as Russia or authoritarian ‘capitalist’ China – do not think this is some wayyyyy out there nope-we-will-never-have-to planning. This is the State’s goal: to have former Americans (now Amerikkkans) live as slaves, with one class the turnkey drones and the other without any standing at all; funny, both will continue to live the lie that Amerikkka is the freest place on earth.

We are not. America has fallen and cannot get up. Consider Daniel Chong, who was left TO DIE in a DEA jail for five days. His experience is atypical but not unexpected: we meatbags are worthless, sub-human, without standing or rights to the collaborators enforcing the criminal government’s agenda. They are lovers of debasement and slavery, not freedom and humanity – they are lovers of death and misery for their thirty pieces of silver.

Look out American women; Republicans are going to confiscate your contraceptives, cut your pay, revoke your voting rights, and put your children in re-education camps.  (Read the full column at EWRoss.com)

Here are some articles about recent FEMA news then read after these links my article.

http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-government-activating-fema-camps-across-u-s/

http://www.infowars.com/army-post-jobs-for-fema-camps-dhs-shuts-down-blog-more-infowars-nightly-news/

http://www.infowars.com/indefinite-detention-bill-passes-senate-93-7/

The following information I saw from God and as a confirmation to this info by an individual.  There will be an event in the future that causes the FEMA camps to be occupied by the citizens of the USA some of them by freewill and some by force.  The antichrist will come soon to power and will offer the mark of the beast.  The mark will cause the persons DNA to be altered and their personality will be conformed to that of the antichrist’s.  People will be similar to that of empty shells somewhat, the people will be zombie like, where they will be at one will of the antichrist.  Their soul damaged beyond repaired, and trapped in the body but have the antichrist power controlling them.  Nanotechnology is a factor in the mark and DNA at some level.

In FEMA when this comes to pass, and after people taka the mark there is a reeducation camp where people are gathered by their abilities and intellect, and have oversight individually with people’s improvement and skills, they will record their actions and behavior.   This reeducation camp is akin to a child starting school for the first time, but it’s for everyone taking the mark. Like a mass experiment upon the people.  People will be in groups once educated, the towns will have stores, eating places according to the money and educated status of the people in those particular sectors, catering to that type of status.  What you do and what you buy will be recorded and examined by scientists.  The stores will stack deceitfully in advertisement, thinking the people are dumb because of the mark and they don’t have a mind of their own.  They get what they are told and they don’t look around.

For example, as I was told The OFFICE DEPOT in a middleclass area will have inside the store organized as reeducation supply store as if for young  school children that use pencils, and paper, the pens will be not be advertised, they will treat you like a child.   Other items in the store are bought for other purposes of course. That concept in different areas of learning will be all over the place.  People will have no mind of their own and will do what is ordered by the leaders.  The highly intelligent people that took the mark will be treated better and may be groomed for scientist positions.  But of course they are slaves too doing the will of the leaders.  The goal is to have a global harmonious slave mentality and no one will have a mind of their own in the world who takes the mark.  Their will be constant surveillance monitoring each person with the mark.  The goal is to have all people to be one with the antichrist like God wants people to be one with Him.

Some further insight the following person has about the mark being a delivery system and how the antichrist’s DNA is utilized.

http://allfaith.com/prophecy/rev13.html

Start at the part of the document about The Mark Being a Delivery System.

I hope you’re forewarned, do not take the Mark of the Beast, have faith in God and seek eternal life.

By, Christine Giacchino

Sources:

Christine Giacchino

http://allfaith.com/prophecy/rev13.html

http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-government-activating-fema-camps-across-u-s/

http://www.infowars.com/army-post-jobs-for-fema-camps-dhs-shuts-down-blog-more-infowars-nightly-news/

http://www.infowars.com/indefinite-detention-bill-passes-senate-93-7/

Here are some articles about recent FEMA news then read after these links my article.

http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-government-activating-fema-camps-across-u-s/

http://www.infowars.com/army-post-jobs-for-fema-camps-dhs-shuts-down-blog-more-infowars-nightly-news/

http://www.infowars.com/indefinite-detention-bill-passes-senate-93-7/

The following information I saw from God and as a confirmation to this info by an individual.  There will be an event in the future that causes the FEMA camps to be occupied by the citizens of the USA some of them by freewill and some by force.  The antichrist will come soon to power and will offer the mark of the beast.  The mark will cause the persons DNA to be altered and their personality will be conformed to that of the antichrist’s.  People will be similar to that of empty shells somewhat, the people will be zombie like, where they will be at one will of the antichrist.  Their soul damaged beyond repaired, and trapped in the body but have the antichrist power controlling them.  Nanotechnology is a factor in the mark and DNA at some level.

In FEMA when this comes to pass, and after people taka the mark there is a reeducation camp where people are gathered by their abilities and intellect, and have oversight individually with people’s improvement and skills, they will record their actions and behavior.   This reeducation camp is akin to a child starting school for the first time, but it’s for everyone taking the mark. Like a mass experiment upon the people.  People will be in groups once educated, the towns will have stores, eating places according to the money and educated status of the people in those particular sectors, catering to that type of status.  What you do and what you buy will be recorded and examined by scientists.  The stores will stack deceitfully in advertisement, thinking the people are dumb because of the mark and they don’t have a mind of their own.  They get what they are told and they don’t look around.

For example, as I was told The OFFICE DEPOT in a middleclass area will have inside the store organized as reeducation supply store as if for young  school children that use pencils, and paper, the pens will be not be advertised, they will treat you like a child.   Other items in the store are bought for other purposes of course. That concept in different areas of learning will be all over the place.  People will have no mind of their own and will do what is ordered by the leaders.  The highly intelligent people that took the mark will be treated better and may be groomed for scientist positions.  But of course they are slaves too doing the will of the leaders.  The goal is to have a global harmonious slave mentality and no one will have a mind of their own in the world who takes the mark.  Their will be constant surveillance monitoring each person with the mark.  The goal is to have all people to be one with the antichrist like God wants people to be one with Him.

Some further insight the following person has about the mark being a delivery system and how the antichrist’s DNA is utilized.

http://allfaith.com/prophecy/rev13.html

Start at the part of the document about The Mark Being a Delivery System.

I hope you’re forewarned, do not take the Mark of the Beast, have faith in God and seek eternal life.

By, Christine Giacchino

Sources:

Christine Giacchino

http://allfaith.com/prophecy/rev13.html

http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-government-activating-fema-camps-across-u-s/

http://www.infowars.com/army-post-jobs-for-fema-camps-dhs-shuts-down-blog-more-infowars-nightly-news/

http://www.infowars.com/indefinite-detention-bill-passes-senate-93-7/

Dung claims 100,000 Killed, Hurt by Abandoned Weapons since the end of the Vietnam War in April 1975.

The ABC article is quick to point out, “The United States used about 16 million tons of bombs and ammunition while allied with the former South Vietnam government.”

We also read in the article, “Bui Hong Linh, vice minister of labor, war invalids and social affairs, said explosives remain on about 16 million acres (6.6 million hectares) of land, or more than one-fifth of the country.”

What is not said, and possible unable to determine is how much of those discarded munitions are actually not U.S. munitions, but landmines and other munitions laid their by the communist North Vietnamese to kill or wound American and South Vietnamese Troops during the many years of their struggle to remain a free people? Munitions built by the communist North Vietnamese as well as those supplied them by the former Soviet Union and Communist China?

In case people forget, it was not only America using weapons in that war and I would easily imagine the vast majority of landmines planted and forgotten were planted by the communist North Vietnamese themselves.

Another point and very heart wrenching is the “100,000 killed or maimed” over the 36 year period. No doubt a claim made to garner sympathy and more funds from other countries, most notably the United States. U.S. Ambassador David Shear states that America has already supplied some $62 Million towards the effort while Vietnamese continue to drag their feet in the effort to account for all of our missing POWs and MIAs.

As heart wrenching as the claim of “100,000” is, the Communist Vietnamese government ignores their own actions immediately after we saw tanks busting down the gates of the abandoned U.S. Embassy and Presidential Palace in Saigon long ago.

Only 2 years after the fall of Saigon, Vietnamese author Le Thi Anh wrote of the bloodbath occurring inside the country after America shamefully turned our backs on the struggling South Vietnamese and abandoned them with his article, The New Vietnam.

Just 4 years after the war’s end, CBS News broadcast a report, Re-education camps…or death camps? telling us how so many South Vietnamese who sided with Americans we sent off to “re-education camps” and how hundreds of thousands were ejected from the country on rickety boats, to become known as the “Boat People”, untold thousands perishing at sea as boats broke apart or never found their way back to land.

Reports of the continuing atrocities of the indigenous people of the Central Highlands of Vietnam, the Montagnards still flow out through the efforts of Montagnard-Foundation.org.

In an undated article we read, “At least 165,000 people perished in Vietnam’s re-education camps after the fall of Saigon in 1975, according to published research in the United States and Europe. The Hanoi government declines comment,” followed by a lengthy “partial list” of those known to have perished.

An even more staggering claim of “through all this close to 3,800,000 Vietnamese lost their lives from political violence, or near one out of every ten men, women, and children. Of these, about 1,250,000, or near a third of those killed, were murdered” is made by R.J. Rummel at, Statistics Of
Vietnamese Democide Estimates, Calculations, And Sources.

Site after site documents the atrocities and revenge sought by the Communists after their victory in Vietnam go ignored by the Vietnamese Government, the United Nations and our own media today as they as they continue to play on our emotions, most likely to instill feelings of guilt in American citizens over our past allied efforts to help those who did not want to be subjected to brutality of communism.

The United Nations, more aptly labeled the “Useless Nations” by many, makes no effort to hold the Communist Government of Vietnam accountable for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of deaths of Vietnamese citizens who wished to remain free. Many who only worked alongside of us in a non-military capacity.

The anti-war left sarcastically labels such articles as seen at the top of this post as “War: The gift that keeps on giving” ignores their own complicity in dragging out our wars by their efforts emboldening enemy forces and eventually leading to victories for those enemies, causing many bloodbaths for innocent civilians in those countries.

By many accounts, North Vietnam was considering a negotiated surrender after they were decimated in their ill-fated Tet of ’68 Offensive, but fought on seeing how they had the sympathy of American Liberals who were marching on our streets in support of the Communist North. As history records, their tactic succeeded, to the detriment of the South Vietnamese people.

My effort is not to marginalize the claim of “100,000, 42,132 people killed and 62,163 others wounded” over the past 36 years, but to shine a little light and out it in perspective as Premier Dung seems to have forgotten the millions of Vietnamese claimed to have simply vanished in the immediate aftermath of the war.

Dung also seems to have forgotten that many of the very munitions lost and forgotten were placed there by his own forces all those years ago.

We in America will no doubt continue to help in the effort to clear munitions left over from the war, but I also feel a lot of that effort belongs on Vietnam itself as well as the Chinese and Russians who supplied many of those munitions to the Communist North Vietnamese as well as sent their own Military Personnel to Vietnam during the war.

Above all, we in America should never feel guilty that we tried to help a people struggling to remain free. If anything, we should feel guilt that we allowed our government to abandon freedom seeking people.

Chinese born, American artist, Victor Wang grew up playing in the sunflower fields of northern China. But as he got older, he experienced these beautiful fields from a very different vantage point, because he was sent to work at a Chinese “reeducation” labor camp, shortly after graduating from high school. There his childhood sunflower fields, became the setting of daily grueling labor from sunrise to sunset. These powerful mixed feelings of both joy and sadness, are displayed in his incredible work. Victor emigrated to America, after attending the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, in China, and then went on to the Washington University, and Fontbonne University in St. Louis Mo. He is now a Professor in the Department of Fine Arts, at Fontbonne University.

More after the jump:

Hattip to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.  As someone who received an undergraduate degree in the teaching of social studies, I am never very surprised when a school administration decides to engage in an act of public stupidity, however, this incident is in a class all by itself.

A second grade student at the Maxham Elementary School in Taunton, People’s Republic of Massachusetts, was sent home from school after drawing a picture of Jesus on the cross.  The student made the drawing in response to a class assignment that the students draw something that reminded them of Christmas.  Apparently the student’s dullard teacher decided that the drawing of the cross was too violent.  The school administration, in a move which hearkens back to the old Soviet Union placing dissidents in psych wards, decreed that not only would the child be sent home, but that he would have to undergo a psych evaluation.

The story has a happy ending for the boy.  He is being allowed to transfer to another school.  I do pity the students who remain in an institution at best run by fools, at worst by those who harbor a hatred or fear of the Cross.  In future, if the administration is going to ban images of Christ on the Cross, they perhaps might be on the look out for some of these:

Update:  The school administration responds here.