Cyber Slaves in Asia

When I formed a question I thought AI (Copilot) would give me, I got this:

 "Response stopped
Sent by Copilot:
I apologize, but I won’t be able to continue discussing this topic. If you have any other questions or need assistance, feel free to ask. Thank you! "

It was about slave computer scammers. The computers weren't "slaves," but the educated, unfortunate men working the scam were. Governments across a vast swathe of Asia - including Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan - have sounded the alarm reports BBC. I'd seen the story in the WSJ but with a pay wall so I wasn't able to read the whole story--thus I was looking at other sources.

 
We in the U.S. are so blinded by the slavery of the 17-19th centuries which corroded our own history, that we ignore modern day slavery that surpasses by many millions the transatlantic era. This kind of "investment" doesn't get used up--it's renewable. There's labor slavery and sex slavery, and there's child slavery in mines to pull from the earth the minerals we need to run the smart phones and equipment that enslaves minds. The WSJ story is almost too bizarre to comprehend--cyber slavery.

This is from BBC: 

""I was forced to make 15 friends every day and entice them to join online gambling and lottery websites… of these, I had to convince five people to deposit money into their gaming accounts," he said.

"The manager told me to work obediently, not to try to escape or resist or I will be taken to the torture room… Many others told me if they did not meet the target, they would be starved and beaten."
The abuse often results in lasting trauma. Two Vietnamese victims, who declined to be named, told the BBC they were beaten, electrocuted, and repeatedly sold to scam centres."

When I kept looking, there were numerous articles, some documentaries, and perhaps sourced from the same report. In this case the cybercriminals are themselves victims of the crime.

Brittney Grinner

We're always happy when an American can be released from a foreign prison. Too bad Joe left so many behind in Viet Nam in 1975 and again in Afghanistan in 2021--sort of takes the sheen off the glory he'll be strutting.

From Saigon to Kabul: Biden?s response to Vietnam echoes in his views of Afghanistan withdrawal - The Washington Post

A simple prayer: Jesus, here I am, it’s Norma

When people ask how our family is doing in this difficult time, I usually mumble something like, just pray for a miracle, that's really all we need. That said, so many people have been Jesus with skin on we're so very grateful. Cards, e-mails, meals, invitations, even visits from complete strangers. Even the really awkward conversations that quickly become a tale of woe about their own problems, are meant well.  I read a story this morning about prayer, I'd like to share (from Magnificat, Nov. 2019, Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019, pp. 248-249)

Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan (d. 2002) was a prisoner of the north Vietnamese for 13 years, and after his liberation people suggested he must have had a lot of time to pray. He told them he was often so exhausted from the confinement and silence, he couldn't say a single word, then he told this story.

"There was an older man named Jim who would go to church every day at noon for just a few minutes, and then he would leave. The sacristan was very curious about Jim's daily routine, and one day he stopped him to ask: "Why do you come here every day?" "I come to pray," Jim answered.

"That's impossible! What prayer can you say in 2 minutes?"

"I am an old, ignorant man. I pray to God in my own way."

"But what do you say?"

"I say: 'Jesus, here I am, it's Jim.' And then I leave." After some years, Jim became ill and had to go to the hospital, where he was admitted to the ward for the poor. When it seemed that Jim was dying, a priest asked, "Jim, tell us how it is that from the day you came to this ward everything changed for the better? How is it that the patients have become happier, more content, and friendlier?"

"I don't know. When I could walk around, I would try to visit everyone. I greeted them, talked a bit with them. When I couldn't get out of bed I called everyone over to me to make them laugh, to make them happy. With Jim they are always happy!"

"But why are YOU happy?"

"Well, aren't you happy when you receive a visitor?" asked Jim.

"Of course, but we have never seen anyone come to visit you."

"When I came here I asked you for 2 chairs. One was for you, Father, and one was reserved for my guest."

"But what guest?" the priest asked.

"I used to go to church to visit Jesus every day at noon. But when I couldn't do that anymore, Jesus came here."

"Jesus comes to visit you? What does he say?"

"He says: 'Jim, here I am, it's Jesus!'" Before dying, Jim smiled and gestured with his hand toward the chair next to his bed, as if inviting someone to sit down. He smiled for the last time and closed his eyes.

The Cardinal continued. When my strength failed and I could not even pray, I repeated: "Jesus, here I am, it's Francis." Joy and consolation would come to me and I experienced Jesus responding: "Francis, here I am, it's Jesus."

Christmas in ‘Nam by guest blogger Bill G.

Christmas of 66, my unit received a bunch of letters from 4th graders in Des Moines.

At the time, the public wasn't getting a lot of anti war media but it was building.

The 1st sergeant handed out 2 letters at random and told us ...”Reply and be thoughtful.”

My two kids had the same last name, Green, so I assumed they were related, somehow (they weren't).
The letter from the little girl was as one would expect ...thanking me for fighting for my country, wish you could be home, etc.

The boy wrote the same type of letter...but added the following:
“I wish that I could take your place so you could be home ...”
With a P.S. ... “Can you send me a machine gun?”

Any way...I sent the young girl, Denise, a dress ... And the boy, a  silk jacket that had a tiger embroidered on the back.

Some weeks later, I am told to report to the commanding officer ...

Turns out the teacher spoke to the Des Moines paper and there was a front page article about the letter project and my letters back to the kids.

Those were the days.

Note:  Bill and I have never met, except in an e-mail group.  He posted this story and I asked permission to share since so many of us remember the VietNam years.  He served as a helicopter gunner  in the Mekong Delta from 1966-68 when he was 19.

What happened to the little girl in the picture?

 

http://pjsaunders.blogspot.com/2013/08/do-you-know-what-happened-to-girl-in.html

Ho Chi Minh, the Communist

Ho Chi Minh slaughtered millions. Mostly Vietnamese. And it continued after the Americans left. Instead of trying to rewrite history, maybe Obama should have told President Truong Tan Sang the truth? I'm not even going to give him credit for a gaffe. I think he believes his own nonsense. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/26/uh-ho-obama-says-vietnamese-dictator-inspired-by-founding-fathers/

CBS apology to our military and Vietnam Vets

CBS' apology was pretty poor in my opinion--"to those who were offended" for denigrating Vietnam veterans in Amazing Race. They never apologized for what they did or the thought, planning and evil behind it. The competitors had to sit through a musical number celebrating Communism in order to get a clue they needed to continue, and CBS planners put a checkpoint at a Communist memorial park built around the wreckage of a downed B-52. I think the MSM is beyond repair.

Here's how an apology works. I'm sorry I did xyz, I was wrong. Forgive me. NOT: I'm sorry your feelings are hurt.  And forgiveness does not mean reconciliation.  The one to whom you apologized is under no obligation to be your friend, especially not if it’s as limp as “I’m sorry you were offended.”

Obama's marxism a bit dated

It's no wonder I recognized it from my college courses--he's apparently stuck back in the 1960s and 1970s with Bill Ayers and friends, while Europe and Asia struggle to release themselves from his type of chains. Here's a summary about marxism in Asia at the Irish Left Review.

From Marx to the Market
Not so long ago, there seemed to be a very different light shining from the East. It’s barely thirty years since the final defeat of the South Vietnamese regime set the seal on the most humiliating defeat the USA has suffered since appointing itself as the world’s policeman after 1945. The victory of the Vietnamese Communists was one by-product of a curious fact: the Communist International, founded by the Bolsheviks with the primary goal of spreading revolution in Western Europe, had its greatest impact in East Asia. Nobody would have found that more surprising than the Bolsheviks themselves.

Communist parties were able to take power under their own steam in China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The Korean Communists had the benefit of support from the Red Army but still had a strong domestic base when they took over the north of their country. There were also long-running Communist insurgencies in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, while Indonesia was once home to the largest non-ruling Communist party in the world.

A quick glance at the regional scene will tell you that the challenge once posed by Asian Communism to the capitalist order has been almost entirely eclipsed. The Indonesia CP was smashed by Suharto’s bloody coup in the 1960s, while the Communist guerrillas in Thailand and Malaysia have long since been defeated. The Filipino CPP/NPA survives, but is a much diminished force. The turnaround is most striking, though, in the states where Communist parties or their descendents are still in power.

China’s great leap forward has grounded itself on the embrace of private enterprise (although not, it should be said, the dogma of the Washington Consensus). . . and much more."

The author neglects to mention the millions of deaths of our South Vietnamese allies caused by the shameful exit of the U.S. at the end of the war; or the millions and millions of Chinese who met their early deaths on the road to restoring the economy of China before it scambled on their bodies to capitalism. Oh well.

Sexy Criminals

I didn't remember what Bernadine Dohrn looked like, but one of my coffee shop friends who eats a cinnamon roll every day and is a decade younger than me told me she was "hot," 'cause he remembered. He grew up in working class Philly and says that in the 60s when he was in a rock band and would pick a girl up for a date, she would either start taking her clothes off in the car, or start rolling a joint. So I guess he had an eye for "hot." Today she's just another old lady with a past, but does look good in the preview below. Here's a review of The Weather Underground, and I suppose you can get it at your public library, since they really go for that sort of thing. Barack, btw, wasn't 8 years old in 1995 when he sought out Ayers as a mentor for his career in Chicago politics. This review is from NYT which really digs the fun stuff of terrorism and calls it smart and solid, now that 9/11 has faded a bit from memory.

''THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND,'' directed by Sam Green and Bill Siegel (unrated, 92 minutes). This documentary tells the story of the Weathermen, a splinter group from Students for a Democratic Society. This terrifically smart and solid piece of filmmaking lets the former members of the Weathermen, now on the downside of their 50's, speak into the camera and reveal a bit of their personal histories as well as what the peace movement meant to them. The documentary is also packed with some of the most powerful images of violence of the period, like a bound Vietnamese being shot in the head at point-blank range and the bloody bed of the Black Panther Fred Hampton after he was killed. Voluble and charismatic, the film's stars -- the members of the group determined to overthrow what they considered to be a criminal United States government that waged the Vietnam War and targeted groups like the Black Panthers -- spent a lot of time in the media spotlight. Young, white and articulate, figures like Bernadette Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, Brian Flanagan and Naomi Jaffe were clearly very sexy criminals. That exuberance and incentive has been captured by the directors. Mr. Green and Mr. Siegel have made a film of passions, and they establish a context that shows what a turbulent period the late 1960's were, slyly contrasting the peace-and-love vibe with events of the time. The film doesn't let its subjects off the hook, despite apparent sympathies toward their politics (Mitchell). The preview.

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Green architecture

Because my husband's newsletters come to my e-mail, and we still get 3 or 4 architecture magazines, I see a lot of articles about green architecture. I read so much green, I'm getting moldy! Now there's a watch list of endangered buildings and cultural sites, and global warming has been added to the list of problems. This year New Orleans made the list because of global warming and Iraq's cultural sites made the list because of political conflicts (nothing political about this list, right?)

New Orleans is a mess because of the political graft and corruption at the parish, local and state level. From the governor to the mayor to the levee boards. It is and was run by Democrats who managed to create a helpless, poverty mired population through a victim creating welfare state. They must like it this way or Ray Nagin wouldn't have been reelected.

The people of Iraq have been liberated from a terrible dictator, whom unfortunately we helped along the way to total power. He's gone now, and let's see what they can do. It won't be our type of democracy, and there are days when I ask who would want what goes on in our halls of Congress?

Which do architects value more? Preserved cultural sites or mass graves of religious and political conflict? Don't answer, I think I know the answer. We got out of Korea with a truce 50+ years ago, and our military are still there and the people of North Korea have been starved because of our "peacemakers." We fled Vietnam in disgrace, and millions died. Now there are Americans who want to continue this inglorious tradition. Baffles me, but I suppose there are Americans who want to be sure that no country ever asks for our help.

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The fallout of Vietnam--dragons and tigers

As misguided but sincere Christians return home from the pitiful march on Washington on the 4th anniversary of the war, some trying to recapture their youth and energy of the 60s and 70s, it's instructive to note this article in the Jan-Feb 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs. I am not familiar with the author, Lee Kuan Yew who was Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959-1990, and I would have preferred some attention to the 3 million people we abandoned to be slaughtered by the Communists, but he does have a less parochial view than American peaceknickers who think everything is about us. He presents an Asian viewpoint as to what the benefits of that war were.

"I am not among those who say that it was wrong to have gone into Iraq to remove Saddam and who now advocate that the United States cut its losses and pull out. This will not solve the problem. If the United States leaves Iraq prematurely, jihadists everywhere will be emboldened to take the battle to Washington and its friends and allies. Having defeated the Russians in Afghanistan and the United States in Iraq, they will believe that they can change the world. Even worse, if civil war breaks out in Iraq, the conflict will destablilize the whole Middle East, as it will draw in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey." p. 3

"Conventional wisdom in the 1970s saw the war in Vietnam as an unmitigated disaster. But that has been proved wrong. The war had collateral benefits, buying the time and creating the conditions that enabled noncommunist East Asia to follow Japan's path and develop into the four dragons (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) and, later, the four tigers (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillippines, and Thailand). Time brought about the split between Moscow and Beijing and then a split between Beijing and Hanoi. The influence of the four dragons and the four tigers, in turn, changed both communist China and communist Vietnam into open, free-market economies and made their societies freer." p. 7

He also predicts the next president (I'm assuming a Democrat) will be facing a long-term fight against Islamist militants, a battle which is only in its early rounds. And I predict lots of career building activity for our leftist protestors as the older ones go into nursing homes and make way for the younger.

Iraq War