Sunday night while channel surfing I just happened to catch "60 Minutes," which I don't make it a regular practice to watch. The first story was sickening enough to shock and horrify! A Dutch film crew allowed a rare opportunity to film in North Korea captured an example of how censorship can become brainwashing when the right books are allowed, but given the wrong spin.

The book in question was Anne Frank's celebrated Diary. The holder of the rights, in Holland, granted North Korea the right to distribute a translation for use in schools. As far as anyone seemed to know, the translation itself was literal, it was the spin put on it which made it propaganda! These kids were taught that Anne's message of peace was beautiful and her concerns such as feeding the starving laudable, but could never be realized during the rule of the "American Hitler," George W. Bush!

They were told that Americans are bloodthirsty and crave war, which is "inevitable," and that the proper sort of society can never flourish as long as America remains in power, or even existence. This was not a "Fahrenheit 451" or "Brave New World" lull-the-masses-into-complacency picture. These kids were unhappy to the point of grimness. They spouted off what they'd been told about the North Korean dicator being so great and loving and beneficial--(shades of 1984 and Big Brother)--but that the "American Nazis" want to keep his goodly influence from helping people.

They actually filmed a teacher leaning over students between each interview and telling them exactly what to say! I had James Clavell, "The Children's Story," alarm bells going off all over the place! The message they took away from Anne Frank's diary was, if you don't want to be a LOSER like Anne, and end up cowering in hiding and dying in captivity, you have to prepare to stand up and fight the American oppressors! Their whole culture was geared to war against America. (Need I say, 1930s Japan?)

The man from Holland who granted the reprint rights remembers the Hitler era and was APPALLED at the misuse of this classic work! Anyone interested in world events and the power of ideas should be concerned about this!

Translator! It was Translator!

Hello Grasstains,
so you've found me out. I am the evil maniac behind all those nasty little translations our there. I regularly spend time watching movies with my buddy Kim, and we have many good laughs together as we smoke our cuban cigars.

But on to a more serious note:

Maybe the North Koreans have a point - consider the following:

�States like these [North Korea, Iran, and Iraq], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.�
George Bush,
January 31, 2002

��I�m a war president,� declared George W. Bush in a TV interview at the White House aired February 8 on NBC�s Meet the Press Sunday morning show. �I make decisions here in the Oval Office on foreign policy matters with war on my mind,� he continued. �And the American people need to know they got a president who sees the world the way it is.�
George Bush,
Feb 8 2004

"While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting pre-emptively against such terrorists to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our country."
George Bush,
September 20, 2002
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press

###########################################

Kind of makes you wonder, what with the war in Iraq and all, whether the North Koreans are maybe right in the end.

Cheers,
Translator

[This message has been edited by Translator (edited 03-01-2004).]

By the way - for those who haven't read the Clavell story, you are missing out. It's great.
Cheers, Translator

Translator?????????.......the North Koreans are maybe right in the end.

Not perhaps with their warlike attitude, but with their assumptions about Bush et al.
Cheers,
Translator

Translator-
I admire your courage. It'll be interesting to see how long you last around here. By the way, your last name wouldn't happen to be Moorer, would it?

Translator,

I'll begin gently, for now, (and before we need to get the topic over to Bradbury) but what exactly do you find in President Bush's statements justifies the behavior of the North Koreans?

Pete

[This message has been edited by pterran (edited 03-02-2004).]

Hello to all,
Moore is another buddy of mine; we're both regulars at Castro's on wednesday bridge nights.

I'll also respond very gently, pterran: what exactly do you mean by your enigmatic and confused response?

I'll stick around for a while; we'll see what happens. If I'm to be thrown out of this messageboard, that would be a violation of America's glorious constitution - free speech! free speech!(though, as a foreigner, I may not have those rights, and maybe I'll even get imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for these comments. If anyone wants to warn me ahead of the time when the Bushmen are coming, I'll appreciate it).

Cheers, Translator

Translator reminds me of a rotten little child who simply says disrespectful things because he knows there is no one that will give him a smack. If that is your idea of courage, God help you. But that is enough of that.

dandelion:

I have never heard anything about this. Thank you for posting it. Oh, how I would hate to be President with a monster like this to deal with. To think that Anne Frank would be taught as being a cowering loser is repulsive. And to use Hitler's name as a label to attach to a person that doesn't act or think the way you do is equally repulsive. What happens when people do this is a diminishing of the evil that the name should forever evoke. I am concerned, dandelion. And it is a frustrating concern because there isn't anything I can do about it.

Translator reminds me of those people who change the world. To some of us Mr. Bush(President Cheney) represents the greatest threat to global peace, or one more likely to change the world. In the interest of fairness perhaps a little "equal time" could be tolerated on this site. So some of us don't lean to the right, we're all inspired just the same, we're all inspired by Montag, we're all inspired by Ray Bradbury. Whenever a thread is religion or politics oriented that's when the division in the ranks occurs. If some of us continue to insist upon this being a forum to convey our religious or political beliefs, while not accepting others who do the same, that division will continue. Some of us may be "narrow-minded McCarthian hardhats", while others "fuzzy-minded leftist nutters", but we need not know all that.

Save the soap-box bit for the street corner.



[This message has been edited by grasstains (edited 03-02-2004).]

Grasstains,

A challenge to your point of view isn't necessarily a suppression of your point of view. I disagree with your point of view. Now, will you defend it?

Translator,

I'm sorry you found my post enigmatic and confusing; I've discovered a typo that I've since corrected but I'll restate my question here: What exactly do you find in Mr. Bush's statements justifies the position of the North Koreans?

Pete

pterran-
Are you drunk?

Years ago "Fahrenheit 451" was distributed in Russia with government approval as it was believed to be a statement against American McCarthyism. By the time those in charge learned the book was against ALL censorship and oppression and tried to recall it, it had gone underground. Unlike the North Koreans, the Russians did not ask printing permission or provide the author with payment.

There is no such thing as a free ride in a democracy. It is a tough business. When we stop defending it, the tide will turn so fast we will forget it ever existed.

Hmmm, The Fireman's job was to burn things after all, wasn't it?

Choose: An all expenses paid vacation for a week in A) Washington DC B)Pyongyang

Oh, by the way! Try this for a headlines, Translator & grasstain: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/07/1046826533281.html
Finis!

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 03-02-2004).]