There is a famous quotation stating that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Today’s Los Angeles Times insidiously sanitized front page review of life in North Korea, “N. Korea, Without the Rancor” gives evil a rapid assist towards victory. The very real danger in such writing lies in the fact that “the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.” If the Times can make North Korea sound just like America, only disadvantaged and discriminated against, then of course Americans must accept their need of nuclear weapons.
And no doubt those pesky problems with electricity are President Bush’s fault.
The North Korean “gentleman” being quoted in the Times story is insulted that Condoleezza Rice referred to his country as an “outpost of tyranny.”
“North Koreans are most sensitive when they hear that kind of remark."
Perhaps in deference to his tender sensitivities, the Times article makes no mention of the North Korean gulags, prison camps in which entire families are imprisoned, sometimes for generations, for any real or imagined slight against the government. It sounds more like the world capital of tyranny than a mere outpost.
I wonder how sensitive North Korean prisoners are to seeing their children tortured and murdered in front of their eyes?
LA Times editor John Carroll needs to apologize to his readers for insulting their intelligence by publishing such blatant pro-dictatorship garbage. He should print a factual account of the horrors that face the people of North Korea every day, contrasted with the freedom and comfort we are blessed with in the U.S. While he still has a semblance of readership, Carroll had better face the fact that the people in North Korea who are “just trying to live a normal life” are not parking their SUVs at Starbucks after dropping the kids at soccer practice. Trying to live a normal life in North Korea consists of constantly striving to avoid a mistake that will send you or your loved ones to prison or execution. Now that's a fact that deserves front page reporting.
I must emphasize that I am absolutely no relation to LA Times editor John Carroll. If some genealogist goes back twelve centuries and finds a connection, I will have a new mission in life: to discredit it. I deeply regret that such an ignorant empty suit as Carroll bears my father’s first and last names.
If he were alive, how outraged my father would be to read such corrupt and dangerous trash published under his name. He hasn't enough sense or decency to realize it, but LA Times editor John Carroll should hang his head in shame.
