World Freedom Day

This year, 23 JAN 2012 happens to be both Chinese New Year and World Freedom Day.  If you thought World Freedom Day was in November, then you may be as new to this celebration of freedom thing as is president Obama.

For my fellow Americans, it is easy to be unaware of the day when China and South Korea celebrate the 1954 repatriation of 14,000 Chinese prisoners of the Korean War.  22,600 Communist soldiers total refused to return to Communist People's Republic of China or to Communist North Korea and instead requested repatriation to the Republic of China or to South Korea.  14,000 of them were Chinese and they formed the "Anti-Communist League" after arriving in free Taiwan. (Note: 86 chose India over China)

People like Noam Chomsky may toss out the true but still misleading trivia that soldiers of both sides refused repatriation to the countries they were fighting for, just like he did in his famous 1960s "Firing Line" appearance that I like to call his "which way did those refugees go" moment.  During the first installment of the Korean War, 22 American Soldiers and on British soldier refused repatriation too.  Thus, to folks like Noam Chomsky who say "refugees went both ways" later in Vietnam, the 1,000-1 ratio is meaningless.  Just as the 7-1 ratio of those fleeing North Vietnam to those leaving the South is no issue.  The issue to them is that somebody went to the Communists.  A list of the 22 from WikiPedia is copied at the bottom of this post.  Not the fate of each, when they were returned to freedom.

Here is a video about the UN forces who refused repatriation, known as the Turncoats, that passes itself as a documentary. Any reasonable assessment is that it is modern Communist Chinese propaganda. One of the keys is their referring to the Chinese Red Army as volunteers, when in fact they were conscripts.  The propaganda so preposterous that the truth shines through the lies, especially in clips of the Turncoats who spoke of how things changed in China after their propaganda value ended.  I add it in the interest of fairness. Speaking of "fairness," the video notes the Courts Martial and sentencing of two Americans who returned and were convicted of Treason.  The video mentions their sentencing, but not that they did not serve a single day in jail after their trials.  See the Wiki information farther down.

See more in parts two, three, four, and five.  This series of videos will be the subject of another post and this general issue will be covered in great detail in Would You Like Borders With That Socialism?


On the other hand, people like president Obama seem to have deep seated reasons for not recognizing the free zone of China.  In September, 2009 the Communist Chinese were celebrating the 60th anniversary of Maoist Stalinism on the Ellipse,with the White House as a backdrop.


Since the 1954 POW exchange there has been the occasional American service member who defected to North Korea, not unlike college students and others who decide to get involved with terrorist causes, Communist or not.

Six American servicemen are known to have defected to North Korea after the war:

• Larry Allen Abshier (1962)

• James Joseph Dresnok (1962)

• Jerry Wayne Parrish (1963)

• Charles Robert Jenkins (1965)

• Roy Chung (1979)

• Joseph T. White (1982)

United Nations Service Members who defected during the first installment of the Korean War (via WikiPedia):

American

Adams, Clarence (Cpl.)

A soldier from Memphis, Tennessee. Adams cited racial discrimination in the United States as the reason he refused repatriation. While a prisoner, Adams took classes in Communist political theory, and afterwards lectured other prisoners in the camps. During the Vietnam War, Adams made propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi from their Chinese office, telling black American soldiers not to fight:

You are supposedly fighting for the freedom of the Vietnamese, but what kind of freedom do you have at home, sitting in the back of the bus, being barred from restaurants, stores and certain neighborhoods, and being denied the right to vote. ... Go home and fight for equality in America.

He married a Chinese woman and lived in China until the increasingly anti-Western atmosphere of the Cultural Revolution led him to return to the United States in 1966. Adams was charged with treason by the House Un-American Activities Committee, but charges were dismissed.^[2] He later started a Chinese restaurant business in Memphis. Clarence Adams died in 1999. His autobiography An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China was posthumously published in 2007 by his daughter Della Adams and Lewis H. Carlson.^[3]

Adams, Howard (Sgt.)

From Corsicana, Texas.^[4] He worked in a paper factory in Jinan, China.^[4] He refused all media requests for interviews.^[5]

Belhomme, Albert Constant (Sgt.)

A native of Belgium who immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He lived in China for ten years, working in a paper factory in Jinan, before returning to Antwerp, Belgium.^[5][4]

Bell, Otho Grayson (Cpl.)

Originally from Olympia, Washington.^[4] In China was sent to a collective farm with William Cowart and Lewis Griggs (see below). Bell described himself, Cowart and Griggs as "the dummy bunch", saying they were sent to the farm because they could not learn Chinese. They returned to the United States together in July 1955, were arrested, but were released when it was found that the military no longer had jurisdiction over the defectors after they were dishonorably discharged. Bell died in 2003.^[5]

Corden, Richard (Sgt.)

A native of Chicago, Illinois. He returned to the United States on 19 January, 1958. He was reported to live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1961 and moved to Chicago in 1962.^[4] He reportedly continued to favor communism even after returning to the United States.^[5] He died in 1988.

Cowart, William (Cpl.)

Returned with Bell and Griggs. Later the three soldiers sued for their back pay. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which held that Bell, Cowart and Griggs were entitled to their back pay from the time they were captured to the time they were dishonorably discharged.^[6]

Douglas, Rufus (Sgt.)

Died in China a few months after arrival in 1954. The manner of his death is not certain but is believed to have been from natural causes.^[5]

Dunn, John Roedel (Cpl.)

From Altoona, Pennsylvania.^[4] He married a Czechoslovakian woman while in China and settled in Czechoslovakia in December 1959.^[4][5]

Fortuna, Andrew (Sgt.)

Originally from Greenup, Kentucky.^[4] He was awarded two Bronze Stars for his service in Korea before he was captured.^[5] He returned to the United States on July 3, 1957. He worked in Portsmouth, Ohio in 1958, in Detroit, Michigan from 1963-64 and Chicago in 1964. He was reported to be in Gary, Indiana as of 1964.^[4] He died in 1984.^[5]

Griggs, Lewis Wayne

Returned with Bell and Cowart in 1955. He was listed as a senior majoring in sociology at Stephen F. Austin State University, graduating in 1959.^[7][8] He died in 1984.

Hawkins, Samuel David (Pfc.)

From Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He married a Russian woman in China and returned to the United States in February 1957, shortly before his wife was permitted to come to the United States. He successfully petitioned the government to change his discharge from dishonorable to other than honorable. He raised a family, and has given interviews to the press on the condition that his location not be disclosed.^[5]

Pate, Arlie (Cpl.)

Worked in a paper mill before returning with Aaron Wilson (see below) in 1956. He died in 1999.^[5]

Rush, Scott (Sgt.)

Married in China. After living in China ten years, he and his wife moved back to the United States and settled in the Midwest.^[5]

Skinner, Lowell (Cpl. )

His mother begged him to come home over the radio at the time of the prisoner exchange, to no avail. He married in China, but left his wife behind when he came back to America in 1963. Later he would have problems with alcohol and spent six months in a psychiatric hospital. He died in 1995.^[9]

Sullivan, LaRance

Came home in 1958 and died in 2001.^[5]

Tenneson, Richard (Pfc.)

Came home in 1955. He went to Louisiana a few months later to welcome home fellow defector Aaron Wilson (see below). He settled in Utah before dying in 2001.^[5]

Veneris, James (Pvt.)

From Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. ^[4] He stayed in China and became a dedicated communist, taking the Chinese name 'Lao Wen'. He worked in a steel mill, participated in the Great Leap Forward, hung posters during the Cultural Revolution, married three times, and had children. He visited the United States in 1976 but returned to China, where he is buried.^[10]

Webb, Harold (Sgt.)

From Jacksonville, Florida^[4]. He married a Polish woman in China and moved to Poland in 1960, reportedly settling in Katowice.^[4][5] In 1988, he was given permission to settle in the United States.^[5] He is the subject of the Youth Defense League song Turncoat about rejection of a Korean War defector seeking a return to America.^[11]

White, William (Cpl.)

Married and got a bachelor's degree in international law while in China. He returned to the United States in 1965.^[5]

Wills, Morris (Cpl.)

From Fort Ann, New York.^[4] He played basketball for Peking University and got married in China. He came back to America in 1965 and got a job in the Asian Studies Department at Harvard University. His autobiography, Turncoat: An American's 12 Years in Communist China, was published in 1966. He died in 1999.^[5]

Wilson, Aaron (Cpl.)

Originally from Urania, Louisiana.^[4] He came home from China 06 December 1956^[4]. Wilson married an American girl and worked in his Louisianahometown's mill.^[5]

[edit]British

Condron, Andrew (Marine)

Scotsman of 41 (Independent) Royal Marine Commando, was the only Briton to decline repatriation. He returned to Britain in 1960, and faced no disciplinary action.

China vs. China

Friedmania is in the air.

Hot For Sweaty Asian

Communist Red China is in the news again, mainly because the mainstream media Stalinists love anything Big Communist.  Maybe I should lower-case that to "stalinists" since it refers to the default position of everybody on the Left, and as we all know Stalin defined the Left and the Right in 1928.

Ronald Bailey

This time Reason sent their decidedly anti-Communist Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey to the latest Red China showcase event: The U.N. Climate Change (sic) Conference in Durban, South Africa.  The self-professed fan-boy of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) was actually amazed that so many pundits buy the claptrap that if we only accede to Red Chinese demands we can save the world.  Those demands being Communist China gets to do whatever they want and all of Red China's industrial competitors get to provide welfare to "developing" (aka backward, aka Third World) countries.  Read his article, he was there and covers it better than I can.  It is a breath of fresh air after a short series by the insufferable Friedmanosis .

Tom Friedman, Red China Fanboy

During the past week the Friedmanista concubines of Red China have been touting the big strides of Red Chinese crony capitalism and warning the US that we need to watch out for them.  They have seen the future and it is Capital Communist!  Never mind that they are channeling Lincoln Steffens and Will Rogers at the same time, they have the guts to say that the US will be 'overtaken' by a country whose economy is smaller than Mexico's.

About this "economic overtaking" business for a moment.  Who cares?  As long as we have freedom and a comfortable standard of living it really does not matter who is "bigger," it matters only that we are free to make our own choices as individuals and that we have a decent comforts.  Do you know who cares?  Andy Stern and others who wish to scare us deeper into Socialism, that's who.

If you do not know who Andy Stern is, Worker's World glowingly describes him like this (links added by me):

Andy Stern, former head of the giant Service Employees union in the United States, recently visited China as part of a delegation organized by the China-United States Exchange Foundation and the Center for American Progress. Stern, knowing very well that U.S. workers are in the midst of a long-term crisis of unemployment that shows no letup, was highly impressed with the goals of China’s 12th five-year plan, which were explained to the visiting group by high-ranking Chinese officials.

Deirdre Griswold expands on the 'virtues' of central planning.  The requisite "commanding heights" phrasing always entertains me, but she sounds serious about it -

China allows capitalism to exist — it has stock markets, private ownership of some of the means of production, a growing bourgeoisie, and many social features of capitalism, like a big income gap between rich and poor. But it also has state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy, especially the major banks, as well as the industries vital to China’s infrastructure.

If you are into Red porn, read the rest.  I did it so you don't have to.

The Stern article in question is one the Wall Street Journal published by Stern on 1 DEC 2011, China's Superior Economic Model The free-market fundamentalist economic model is being thrown onto the trash heap of history.  Skipping to the important parts of Stern's audition as the 21st century Sino-Eisenstein:

While we debate, Team China rolls on. Our delegation witnessed China's people-oriented development in Chongqing, a city of 32 million in Western China, which is led by an aggressive and popular Communist Party leader—Bo Xilai. A skyline of cranes are building roughly 1.5 million square feet of usable floor space daily—including, our delegation was told, 700,000 units of public housing annually.

Of course, the word of the PRC government is good enough  for Stern.  One wonders why scenes like this were not mentioned.  Perhaps they were not on the tour?


Back to the Stern article:

Meanwhile, the Chinese government can boast that it has established in Western China an economic zone for cloud computing and automotive and aerospace production resulting in 12.5% annual growth and 49% growth in annual tax revenue, with wages rising more than 10% a year.

For those of us who love this country and believe America has every asset it needs to remain the No. 1 economic engine of the world, it is troubling that we have no plan—and substitute a demonization of government and worship of the free market at a historical moment that requires a rethinking of both those beliefs.

America needs to embrace a plan for growth and innovation, with a streamlined government as a partner with the private sector. Economic revolutions require institutions to change and maybe make history, because if they stick to the status quo they soon become history. Our great country, which sparked and wants to lead this global revolution, needs a forward looking, long-term economic plan.

Do not confuse the Stern's idea of streamlined government with anything a libertarian would envision.  His version of streamlined government is more like Mao, Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin.  Or perhaps what Obama would be doing if that pesky Congress and those radio talk people were not standing in his way.

These reports resemble the infrequent dispatches about Idi Amin's Ugandan  public works projects from the 1970s, on a much larger scale.  They are also reminiscent of Soviet endeavors to make "the biggest", like airplanes that were 1/4" longer than the American version.

Jonah Goldberg did a fine job of dissecting Stern's WSJ piece:
The Problem with China Envy
What liberals want to copy is the authoritarianism.

Stern sees the Chinese government’s allegedly keen ability to “plan” its way to prosperity as the new model for America. It is an argument of profound asininity. China had five-year plans before it started getting rich. Under the old five-year plans, China killed tens of millions of its own people and remained mired in poverty. What made China rich wasn’t planning, it was the decision to switch to markets (albeit corrupt ones). The planners were merely in charge of distributing the wealth that markets created.

Indeed, rapid economic growth always makes government planners look like geniuses when the reality is that the planners are more like self-proclaimed rainmakers who started dancing only after it started raining. When the rain stops, which it will, they’ll have much to answer for.

Oh, and what about labor? There’s one labor union in China, and it’s run by the government. (The Nazis had pretty much the same system.) Stern doesn’t seem to care.

Goldberg is much more generous than me with the When the rain stops, which it will, they’ll have much to answer for. phrasing.  They will not be answering to anybody, as George Will said to Charlie Rose:


Enough with the Red China envy and support.  Speaking well of anything going on mainland China today is nothing short of propping up a slavery colony.  One only needs to glance at a comparison to Taiwan to see that Communist China is a paper tiger.  The PRC and the ROC began at roughly the same moment. If you want to talk income gaps, China has 115 billionaires and at least 115 million people living on a dollar a day or less. Nearly all of those billionaires got rich gaming a corrupt political system. Remember that when you see whining like this: The most prosperous 20 percent of Taiwanese reported average disposable incomes of NT$1.79 million last year, or 6.34 times the income of the poorest 20 percent, government data showed. (apparently 2010 stats)

Piss on Mao, and Stalin too

We need to abandon the notion that consumer goods will bring Communist regimes to their knees too, as George F. Will mentions in the video with Charlie Rose.  The only thing that brings authoritarian regimes to their senses is force.  Showing the Soviets that they could not possibly compete with us militarily is what toppled them from within.  The lesson China took from that was to keep their society closed, befriend the wandering useful idiots in the west, and offer up slave labor for western commercial enterprises.

Even with their central planning, massive monuments to government, public works projects that are the envy of Tom Friedman, and central planning, Red China is still a third world economy train wreck.

The Train Wreck That Is Red China

What Does Wikipedia Have Against Freedom?

Wikipedia: Propagandist for Stalinism

As anybody who has read this blog or other serious posts of mine elsewhere, I use Wikipedia.Com frequently to find sources of information.  I caution anybody about using Wikipedia pages as sources themselves.  Serious researchers know this, but many regular folks do not, so I thought I would throw that out there.

It is hard to pinpoint the source of my ire, since I've been getting ired at Wikipedia entries for years.  I'll start with a little compare and contrast.  First, the fluffy, pretty definition of the most lethal system of government and belief system ever, Communism:

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured uponcommon ownership of the means of production. This movement, in its Marxist-Leninistinterpretations, significantly influenced the history of the 20th century, which saw intense rivalry between the "socialist world" (socialist states ruled by Communist parties) and the "western world" (countries with market economies and Liberal democratic government), culminating in the Cold War between the Eastern bloc and the "Free World".

Now, see how they treat the mean, nasty, equally vile, but less lethal system of government and belief, National Socialism.  If you bothered to click through, the link redirects to Nazism, already tipping the hand of the Wikipedia crowd.  Nazism is merely a subset of National Socialism, which is yet another subset of Socialism.  On to the continuation of Stalin's propaganda against anything not Stalinist:

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism (German:Nationalsozialismus) was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany.[1][2][3][4] It is a unique variety of fascism that incorporates biological racismand antisemitism.[5]

Nazism was founded out of elements of the far-right racist völkisch German nationalistmovement and the violent anti-communist Freikorps paramilitary culture that fought against the uprisings of communist revolutionaries in post-World War I Germany.[6] The ideology was developed first by Anton Drexler and then Adolf Hitler as a means to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism.[7] Initially Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric, though such aspects were later downplayed in the 1930s to gain the support from industrial owners for the Nazis, focus was shifted to anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist themes.[8]

Plenty of truth there, mixed in with the big lie that National Socialism is nothing but Nazism.  Further in the article they mix Nazis with Fascists, as if they were alike at all.  They continue the fiction that business seized and nationalized by the German government were some sort of benefit to the business owners to get their support.  The disambiguation page is no help whatsoever.

Several years ago, someone told me that the Wikipedia difference between National Socialism and International Socialism was the "totalitarian purpose" of National Socialism.  I cannot prove that the notion was ever stated in the pages of Wikipedia, but it does fit.  Also, it is a missusage of the Mussolini usage, that totalitarian was a "we are all in this together" or "we are all stronger together" proposition identical to his Red/International Socialist buddies in the Communist ranks.

The latest annoyance is the Wikipedia entry for The World League for Freedom and Democracy:

The World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD, formerly the World Anti-Communist League, WACL) is an international anti-communist political organization founded in 1966 in Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan), under the initiative of Chiang Kai-shek. It was founded with the aim of opposing Communism around the world through "unconventional" methods. It had eight regional branches, with a presence in up to 100 countries on six continents. The honorary life chairman of the WACL was Dr. Ku Cheng-Kang, a senior leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), and the president of Taiwan's National Assembly.

The U.S. chapter of WACL, the United States Council for World Freedom (USCWF), has been one of the most active branches. USCWF was founded in 1981 by Major General John K. Singlaub. This branch has generated controversy, as it prominently supported Nicaraguan guerrillas in the Iran–Contra affair[1] and, in 1981, the USCWF was placed under watch by the Anti-Defamation League, which said that the organization had increasingly become "a point of contact for extremists, racists, and anti-Semites".[2][3] During the 1980s, the USCWF and WACL conducted a purge of these elements, and invited ADL observers to monitor its conferences;[4] by 1985, the Anti-Defamation League declared itself "satisfied that substantial progress has been made since 1981 in ridding the organization of racists and anti-Semites."[5]

Note the scare quotes around unconventional, and this gem: This branch has generated controversy, as it prominently supported Nicaraguan guerrillas in the Iran–Contra affair[1]  Those guerrillas played a lot nicer than any Communists that they were fighting.  The rest of the article is nothing but an accusation that all groups mentioned on the page are neo-Nazi groups, fitting right in line with Stalin's Third Period Declaration of 1928 and its evolution, i.e., that anything not Stalinist is Right-Wing Nazism.  Pretty rough treatment for a group of people who fled Mao instead of 'seeing the Marxist light.'

To the extent that this nonsense continues today is amazing.  It goes well beyond the "Chinamen" and Korean hate expressed by Socialist leaders of today, like Al Sharpton. (Actually, I have been digging around for this hard to find audio for months and just found it on The Blaze, so giving it a parking space here)

Socialist Al Sharpton

Taiwan vs. That Other China

Less Socialism Equals More Freedom and More Prosperity

A Mao Fan-boy

If you read and believe folks like Thomas L. Friedman, you would think that everybody in China now makes $40,000 per year and that their embrace of "Capitalism" done right brought them there.  Well, Friedman and his cronies are right, but not in the way that they think.  You must give them a little leeway.  They live in a world where Mao is a hero, "The Great Leap Forward" is viewed as a stroke of brilliance gone awry, "The Cultural Revolution" is a great awakening, and Chiang Kai-shek was the fly in the ointment who prevented a 'superior' International Socialist Utopia from emerging in Asia.

For many Chinese and other normal folk, the real government of China is in Taipei, Taiwan. Some hope that any day now the Maoist writers in the West will realize that true freedoms and commerce exist in Taiwan and the wise thing to do is spread that wiseness to the mainland.  Some of us are not holding our breath.  After all, the per capita GDP of Taiwan was $37,209 in 2010, with 1% inflation and less than 1.2% of the population below the poverty line.

A Maoist

Now, the China that Friedman and his lemmings think that they are talking about has some not so shining stats: GDP (PPP) $8,289, 4.1% unemployment and almost 3% below the poverty line.  The last two statistics are questionable.

The People's 'Republic' of China just began allowing private property in 2007 and the state still owns all land.  Proponents of the PRC's recent growth cite the adoption of "capitalism" in the same way that they throw other words around: without meaning or substance.  Sure, China has invited in corporations from the rest of the world and supplied slaves to work in the new factories as China becomes the biggest crony capitalist regime since Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.

Granted, Red China set some incredible records in the 20th century.  During Mao's "Great Leap Forward" Red China produced more unusable steel than all of the other nations of the world combined.  In the process, they destroyed forests (in the manner that American tree farms are falsely accused of) and starved tens of millions of people to death.

A Nationalist

In the mean time, that other China, Taiwan, endured a state of Martial Law, necessary to repel the Red Chinese military incursions that lasted well into the 1960s.  When the state of emergency eased, so did Martial Law, which was replaced by a democracy in the 1980s, that endures to this day.  Something key throughout the evolution of the Republic of China (Taiwan) was something known as the Taiwan Miracle.  This "miracle" was commerce, ownership of private property and a gold standard currency.  Taiwan 'suffered' the same "fate" as Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong.

A phrase I have heard a few times in the past from Socialists is "You are not more free, you just have more stuff."  In a tragic way, this backwards comment describes the current Red China perfectly.  It is a dictatorial regime without the simplest of freedoms, but the slaves have a bountiful choice in consumer goods.  George F. Will expressed some needed concern about this state of affairs on the Charlie Rose Show in 2008.  That a prosperous, market allocating, semi capitalistic economy and an unchanged oppressive regime is quite dangerous.

For some reason, to the likes of Friedman and others, Taiwan is invisible to them at best and the 'reason' for Red China's problems at worst.  It is as if Taiwan is the Israel of the Pacific for all of the failed Socialists to blame their problems.