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Laura Ling Euna Lee Storyline False Narrative you Missed
Tags: class, Clinton, Euna Lee, Gore, Laura Ling, left, news, North Korea, political, prisoners, social, Torture
The Laura Ling, Euna Lee Storyline You’ve Missed from the Big Business Media
I’d like to say that I was happy to hear Laura Ling and Euna Lee were released from North Korean prison. I know that their families and loved ones were distressed in their absence and concerned about their well being. I would not rejoice in anyone’s dismay and could empathize with hardships in my life and how I would feel if similar circumstances had befallen people I care about. The human aspect of any situation is the easiest for me to grasp and I was happy to see the relief in their loved ones hugging them, as captured by the picturesque moment of Euna’s young daughter hugging her. The fact of these two ladies and their families being human and going through a hard time is the most important to me as a fellow human being.
This very point, though, also raises an anger inside of me every time I see the big business mouth piece media narrative of this event performed through news outlets. You see, these two ladies in this event are exemplars of the double standard common in US culture and the narratives presented then accepted in that culture: these ladies are well connected, from well to do families, and have a moderate level of notoriety in the US through media exposure, a TV personality family member, and access to the former President and Vice President through their jobs. In other words, the only reason they matter on the public stage in regard to being held prisoner is because of who they are in terms of wealth and notoriety, who they know, their nationality and social status in their nation, and who took them captive. This incident is being received with positive fanfare while at the same time the US holds many political prisoners indefinitely, without charge, and has a prison system full of poor people who can’t afford the defense necessary for a fair trial. What makes me angry is the out pouring of triumphant victory being displayed at these ladies’ release, while everyday in the US similar and worse injustices are supported without a second thought everyday. The stark difference between the two groups is class, privilege, and what sort of narrative their release from prison would engender.
How the News Media seek out the False Narrative
Another point, is the part of what I term “the fake left” political category and how it presents itself in this narrative. Former President Clinton has been involved in the mass murder of the people of Haiti through the CIA led coups in that country as well as the murder by starvation of tens of thousands of Iraqi people many of whom were children by the sanctions imposed on Iraq during his Presidency. Mr. Clinton is as right wing and pro-corporate as any Republican when it comes to assisting corporate welfare, knocking down the Glass-Steagall Act, busting Unions, pursuing Global Free Market Trade, and insuring Military Contractors continue to pad their wallets with tax money. Yet Mr. Clinton gets a free pass for being “cool” by many people who would consider themselves left leaning politically.
From what I know of Laura Ling and her sister’s media work they seem to be apt representatives of this hip, neo-lefty political generation. This group espouses humanitarian causes, such as services for poor people and shuns militaristic imperialism; but at the same time lives with higher than average incomes and are silent on issues of racism, class warfare, and atrocities committed by the US. The standard these fake left groupies seem to hold is that if an issue makes them out to be a humanitarian, they’ll claim it – but only as long as their higher than average standard of living isn’t threatened by it. If an issue would take them into uncomfortable social territory they adopt an arm’s length, lip service approach to that issue so they can still claim it but not actually incur any cost for doing so. In this process, members of the political fake left represent the hollow members of society who say they empathize with those abused by the powerful but in the end shy away from any real action for fear of changing a social structure that works well for them. Thus they become convenient foils of the powerful right wing big business class, these hip lefties verbally condemn the right wing establishment when and where it is safe to do so but their lack of conviction, honesty, and effective action culminates in the wealth class being reinforced not detracted from. These fake lefties come off as pathetic because they speak for things that their standard of living would not allow. Their voices may rise in moments that are convenient for them to do so, but eventually these voices fade into silence as the reality of the actual social changes necessary to implement what they talk about runs up against their desire to continue under the corporate run capitalism that provides them the creature comforts they have grown accustomed to.
This broader point plays an important role in the case of Ling and Lee’s saga of North Korea and imprisonment. The reason for this is that at this time there are so many cases of the US holding captive innocent people and torturing them being public knowledge that for these people to ignore the similarities between their case and these others is a demonstration of this lefty adherence to privilege when it counts and humanitarianism when it’s convenient. Let me elaborate.
Laura Ling Euna Lee could have mentioned other falsely imprisoned people, including in US
In the back of my mind, I kept hoping that they would take their moment of fame upon their return and remember their obligation as media professionals to connect the dots and tell the Truth. I kept imagining them saying, “This incident has taught me a greater appreciation for the plight of those being unjustly held at Guantanamo and Bagrahm Air Force base in Afghanistan, who without committing any crime, being charge with any crime, or any due process are held indefinitely and even tortured. Kim Jung Il who is routinely demonized in the US media as some sort of monster didn’t water board us and isn’t that something to say that North Korea respects the Geneva Convention and it’s prisoners more than the US does? So if Kim Jung Il is the monster the US media wants to make him out to be what does that make the US government and how it treats it’s prisoners? Is the fact that you can run out and get a Cheese Burger any time of the day or night in the US such an important thing that it over shadows the fact that the US government holds people in prison as long as they feel like it without cause based on some rumor of being a terrorist? This might not be the happy flag waving you’d want to hear after we have been taken out of an unjust foreign lock up, but these are the kind of experiences in life where you make peace with God and you stop caring about what people want you to do. These are the kinds of experiences that you say to yourself and God, ‘If I pull out of this, Lord, I’m going to rededicate my life to telling people the Truth instead of what they want to hear.’ After thinking about it for a long while, you figure out that these are the types of experiences that many in the US don’t have but don’t mind putting other people through. You realize that the US would be so much better if more people here learned the lessons these experiences teach. So having made it through I feel an obligation to teach others what I learned being locked up in a situation I couldn’t work my way out of or deserved. These two caveats, that you need to work harder to gain worthiness and that you deserve the circumstances that you are in, are so often condescendingly lectured in the US without regard to the real life of those being lectured that my hope is I find people here who are willing to learn what I have learned in this ordeal. Thank you.”
Yep, silly me. What happened instead was the arm raising victory dance of “Yeah, the good people won. Roh, roh we’re number one, we’re number one.” I certainly understand the joy of being released and the happiness of the moment, at the same time the proud dance of victory without the slightest hint of the similarities between what Ling and Lee went through and those being held prisoner by the US government for no cause or due process is just a thumbing of the nose at justice. What I see are two women who look more like they stepped out of a salon with their porcelain soft skin, silky thick hair, and puckered lips than a POW situation. I know they just came out of a North Korean prison, but that’s my point – doesn’t it say something when two women who are well off enough to be regularly pampered and groomed as a standard of living looking well enough to go to a job interview after walking out of prison? That’s exactly the issue, these women don’t belong in prison according to US standards. They deserve to have former President Bill Clinton act as a personal escort with a donated jet by a multimillionaire to get them home, not like any of the “others.”
The other prisoners not mentioned in the Laura Ling Euna Lee Storyline
These others include Syed Fahad Hashmi who has been held in 23-Hour Solitary Confinement for over Two Years by the US government based on hearsay of someone who stayed in his apartment one night, Troy Anthony Davis facing the death penalty when over whelming evidence points to another person being guilty, the Uyghurs held prisoner for over 8 years with no charge and much of that time after being found to be innocent of any crime, Mohammed Jawad a child prisoner who was tortured into confessing to a crime he most likely did not commit, Binyam Mohamed who was severly beaten by US military guards in Guantánamo including having his testicles grabbed, the beatings and forced sex acts in Abu Ghraib, the over 100 suspected prisoner deaths via US Torture, and the many more never reported and on-going. Add to this the rapes, beatings, and murders arranged or allowed by US Prison System workers, the history of African American lynchings and the on-going government over throws of Latin America with death squads and mass murder campaigns conducted by the CIA and now going on in Honduras. The daily massacres of Palestinians by the mid-east division of Anglo European elites masquerading as Ancient Israelis as to acquire their land. Then add the latest killing of people held hostage in Gaza from December 2008 to January 2009 by these same people. These are just a small sample of the blood thirst cut throat activity of the US, really what the hell do these two ladies have to complain about North Korea while at the same time ignoring all this.
This is what gets me, all I heard from this incident was me, me, me oh what hellish nightmare we went through, oh us, oh we, oh our family, our country is great, oh me, me, me again and the big business narrative was just that with adorable photo ops of the young daughter, the GQ looking husbands, the red carpet of Clinton and Gore glamor, and the implication of those horrible North Koreans that just set us free and didn’t mistreat us any where near what the US does to the people it takes prisoner without charge to cheering “Christians”. I understand the hardship, but such blatant disregard for others who have suffered far worse by your own government’s operation is inexcusable. They have an obligation to stand in solidarity with others who have also been falsely imprisoned by their own country, not allow their story to be used as another “Aren’t we US people, great!” prop.
Will Laura Ling Euna Lee take a risk to be Truthful given their unique situation
So this is how it ties in with the fake left generation which Obama is a big symbol of. They can give lip service to some things that need shaping up in the US, but when the chips are down they sell out to the pro-capitalist US agenda lightning fast. They can speak out in support for all abused people being held prisoner with their unique experience to share and teach from. But at the moment it looks like this entire affair is going to be used as a me, we, us are great thing and aren’t we just the heroic victims who make the world good while the people who we oppose politically drag it down. This is the same line you get from right wingers but they say it in inconvenient times as well. The fake lefties need to seem polite as they let you drown in your miserable circumstances so they say the right things. Just like Obama telling the US torture is wrong but he won’t prosecute it and continuing on with a third Bush term with better window dressing. These kind of lefties are like people who see you walking on the side of the road in a rain storm, slow down, roll the window, and tell you how they’d love to give you a ride and help you out but can’t take the risk and ask if you understand – yeah just go away and quit wasting my time. But they got what they needed by feigning the attempt, the feeling of “hey, I cared enough to slow down and say something.” So far, these two ladies are letting their situation play out like the typical fake left scenario – let it build the capitalistic system up as the good guy because doing otherwise would be too much of a strain. I hope it is early enough in this that this article catches their eye and they can see what I’m saying here and not let their story stand as another win for the Good Guy Team US when the Truth is that the US is as evil and blood soaked a country as there is when the Truth is allowed to stand. So are they going to stand for Truth or the comfort that so easily invites the fake left to just go along and not allow real social structure change? I hope as media professionals they will seek Truth and not allow their situation to be used for propaganda.
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