Writer on Korea, Japan & US Empire. Guitarist. Grieving father of Roxanne (1988-2024), whose fierce & compassionate spirit I will carry for the rest of my days.
"The river flows, flows to the sea.
Where ever that river goes that's where I want to be.
All she wanted was just to be free.
And that's the way it turned out to be.
Flow, river flow, let your waters wash down.
Take me from this road to some other town."💔
America's newest high speed rail line has opened in Florida. It travels at a speed of up to 120 mph (201 km/h), slightly slower than the 130mph (210km/h) operating speed of the earliest series of Japanese bullet trains that went into service 59 years ago.
Astonishing graphic from
@CNN
, identifying civilian massacres in Yemen with the bomb makers - Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. This should be standard in war reporting. Searing images.
When did the slaughter of children become an acceptable form of warfare for the United States? Did I miss something? Aren't liberal Democrats supposed to be against mass murder of innocents? How do Biden and Blinken sleep at night? And why is Biden always smiling? This is evil.🇺🇸
Every rumor, fake news, intelligence leak or eyebrow twitch about Kim Jong Un and North Korea gets star treatment in the US media. But when thousands of SOUTH KOREAN trade unionists & progressives march in Seoul against US-ROK war games, NOT ONE PEEP. This was Saturday in Seoul.
.
@CNN
is
@IDF
television. This is a disgusting. An utter disgrace to American journalism. Shame shame on all these military stenographers, especially you,
@andersoncooper
. I will never forget.
As the situation in Gaza unfolds, it's becoming clear what Hamas is trying to do: force civilians to stay in Gaza City in order to have them killed in the fighting. Their depravity knows no limits. My interview on
@cnni
with
@andersoncooper
The only global media to report on this massive display in South Korea of opposition to militarism were Iran's Press TV and China's CGTN. Not one mention in the
@nytimes
or
@washingtonpost
, which both have their Asian HQs in Seoul. As the Post says, "Democracy Dies in Darkness."
Kamala Harris is all about Empire. This is the most militaristic speech I've ever heard at a political convention & I've seen many since I listened to the GOP convention that nominated Goldwater in 1964. I'm horrified by another Trump presidency but this DNC is scary. USA? USA?🇺🇸
Yes, Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1960, the last time SAG went on strike with the Writers Guild. But it was the great James Garner, the executive vice president, who did all the work & wrote all the speeches. His recollections of Reagan's term are hilarious.
Hillary Clinton describing the mujahadeen resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as the model the US should be looking at now in Ukraine is precisely why this person should never be in a position of power.
CNN is just loving these strikes. They keep saying how "grave" and "serious" the situation is, but all of their reporters & anchors are palpably excited and full of bravado. Their guests are hawks cheering on the bombs. No analysis or skepticism whatsoever. It's sickening.
"The picture is Lula at 33 leading the 1979 Steelworkers Union Assembly. The meeting endorsed the first large scale (around 200k) workers strike in the country since 1968, after years of repression by the ruling military dictatorship."
In 1951, a Los Angeles mother had her two kids taken away from her by the state because she criticized American intervention in Korea. True story. Found in .
IN MEMORIAM: Roxanne Shorrock. To my beloved community: I've been away from social media because I lost my beautiful daughter Roxy on March 17, 2024. This has been the most difficult period of my life. Here is my tribute to her, written amidst our grief.
Just turned on the TV to hear the President of the United States denounce the great historian Howard Zinn. Wow. This makes McCarthyism look tame. Obviously another fascist speech written by the ghoul Stephen Miller. Who are his fellow Nazi travelers applauding like lemmings?
People here in South Korea are completely bewildered by the aggressive campaign by US liberals and even leftists against the very notion of peace with North Korea. And they're shocked by how these libs are in total synch with the fascist far right here, now totally discredited.
Joe Biden is one of the most honest, decent, practical, & experienced individuals with whom I have ever worked. If nominated & elected, he is capable of unifying our country & restoring America’s standing around the world.
This reminds me of the worst years of the Vietnam War, when the US government and the CIA spread lurid stories about the NLF and the North Vietnamese to win support for their carpet bombing and shelling of Vietnam’s hamlets and cities. It’s disturbing to hear it again.
I’ve been out of the country for 3 weeks and can hardly believe the dark, conspiratorial stuff I’m hearing on
@MSNBC
and
@CNN
from journalists who appear to have absolute trust in US intelligence & the foreign policy establishment. It’s 24/7 groupthink, a wasteland of conformity.
after saying over 15.000 women and children have been intentionally beheaded, bodies ripped apart, killed, CNN's Dana Bash replies: "Yeah, sure, but at least Israeli troops aren't raping them."
the sole reason for the "mass rape" hoax is to justify the ongoing genocide of Gaza
Roxanne’s final protest before she passed was a demonstration against the Genocide in Gaza at the Israeli Embassy in DC. Today is my first protest since then, against Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. Roxy is here with us, every step of the way! ❤️
@anniebodnar
And 50 million South Koreans and 25 million North Koreans can know look forward to a true peace. Why does every US critic of this agreement completely forget about KOREANS? It's their country we're talking about. We don't own it.
To summarize, North Korea got Trump to:
- Give them their desired world stage
- Avoid any discussion on human rights
- End military exercises with South Korea
- Hint at ending U.S. Forces Korea
- Attack NATO and allies as cheap
In return, “dealmaker” Trump got nothing.
FYI from an aging maritime reporter: these are "pre-positioned ships" ready at any moment to deliver military supplies. A subsidy program run by the Maritime Administration of DOT. The vessels are USG-owned, managed by private operators, and crewed by US-citizen union seafarers.
Chris Mathews HATES the left with a passion. Talks of "old socialists handing out leaflets trying to latch on to the antiwar movement" in the 1960s. WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK ORGANIZED THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT, you condescending liberal hack?
“I’m the guy that got the Japanese to expand their [military] budget,” Biden tells ABC. Wow, what an accomplishment, getting the right-wing LDP to become a US military surrogate against China. War, war, war- that’s all this hack knows. Joe’s gotta go. I’m sick of empire. 🇺🇸🇯🇵
.
@ROK_Mission
Amb Hwang: "This was
#Israel
's 8th bombing of a school sheltering civilians so far in August alone. We are all aware that civilian infrastructure should not be targeted, this is all the moreso when those schools are being used as shelters for desperate civilians who
Gaddafi was killed by a sword thrust up his ass after being shot, tortured & dragged through the streets after his capture. It was the most gruesome death imaginable. That a US Senator,
@marcorubio
, would celebrate this shows a savage level of derangement rarely seen in Congress.
Marco Rubio just posted photos of Gaddafi being lynched in an open death threat to Maduro. Libya is now a slave state thanks to US. Fuck you Marco, you’re a deranged piece of shit who should immediately resign
NYT: "Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party has had a virtual lock on the country’s politics since the end of World War II."
TS: The CIA secretly financed the LDP with millions of dollars of dark money during the Cold War, helping the party retain virtual uninterrupted rule since 1955.
Radio Free Asia was created by the CIA as an instrument for anticommunist propaganda and its director hasn’t deviated from that mission one iota. Yet it’s taken seriously by Congress and the mass media.
“The CCP has bought up all of the mandarin language media around the world, including the U.S.
These people, like my parents, don’t know they’re slowly getting brainwashed and it’s only been in the last 5-10 years.” —
@RadioFreeAsia
President Bay Fong
Anybody remember the US media giving even 1% of the coverage to South Korea's months-long "Candlelight Revolution" in 2016 to 2017 than it does to Iran's anti-government protests? The Korean demonstrations toppled a right-wing president and ended 10 years of conservative rule.
So Pelosi leaps up to applaud the young fascist usurper Guaido. What a disgusting spectacle. Sit the fuck down you imperial sycophants from both parties. Trump is a disgrace and so are you.
Something is happening in Japan. The wrong being done to Okinawa by the USA and Abe has finally hit a chord. Americans should listen and follow to support Okinawa’s right to democracy and an end to US military domination.
"Everybody let's protect Okinawa!" The ubiquitous fashion model Rola makes national headlines by encouraging the campaign to stop US Marine base construction at Henoko. Japanese celebrities almost never make political statements, and are usually punished when they do. (MP)
#Rola
@BobaCyclist
She's nuts. Her appeals to the MAGAs isn't working because they don't give a rat's ass about Korea. No idea who she's trying to reach here.
This guy is an imperialist hack. "A new kind of colonialism." What utter bullshit. The concept of "left" in America has been utterly destroyed by fools like this. FU
@thedailyshow
She hasn’t been inside North Korea since 2007 and has told about a dozen contradictory versions of her defection story. A fraud, a liar and a grubby opportunist. Zero credibility.
Please be thinking of me today. It's been 3 weeks since I lost my daughter and it feels like one long nightmare. Nothing feels normal. I miss her so much but the love and support I've received from my on-line community has been amazing and uplifting. 💔
The grandson of William Colby, the CIA director who murdered 20,000 Vietnamese in his infamous Phoenix program & after retirement was a DC consultant to big Japanese corporations. No surprise that CIA's third generation is pushing for a Japanese role in a future war with China.
Apparently I struck a chord. And there's overwhelming sentiment for more reporting like this linking weapons makers to the death and destruction they are responsible for. Most explosive response I've ever had in my 10 years on
@Twitter
.
🧵Incredible rewrite of South Korean history by the
@nytimes
that completely eliminates FIVE critical facts. 1) Korea was a Japanese COLONY. 2) Korea was DIVIDED by the US (unilaterally) in 1945 so US forces could accept Japan's surrender in the south and the USSR in the north.
New York Times repeating a bullshit, discredited lie about the Korean War. This is NOT how the "bloody war" started. It originated in the US-led repression and counterinsurgency in the South 4 years before the North made its move. 100,000+ were already dead by 1950.👇
Notice: the only time "Korea" trends on Twitter is when Kim Jong Un has a haircut or is reported dead by TMZ. A political earthquake in South Korea? Crickets. The power of propaganda is alive and well.
@CoreyRobin
This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read from you. What do you even mean? Do you just drop North Korea in to show how hip you are? Do you know anything about Korea? Or is Yellow Peril part of your imperial mentality?
Andrea Mitchell on
@NBC
: “The last time the United States shot down another country’s aircraft was in World War II. Pearl Harbor.” WTF is she talking about? 😂 😂 😂
The
@nytimes
rips off my
@newrepublic
story on US military prostitution in South Korea - "Welcome to the Monkey House" - six years later. So typical of this liberal rag, which spiked my recent piece critical of US backing for dictator Chun. My original:
South Korean “comfort women” were exploited for U.S. troops well beyond the Korean War — and the women’s own government facilitated it.
“The Americans need to know what some of their soldiers did to us,” a woman who was sold to a pimp in 1975 at 16 said.
US soldiers in South Korea and Japan can molest 4 year old children and kill people in traffic accidents and still the US government makes sure they get a lenient or no sentence because their slavishly pro-American host countries have no sovereignty. Empire in its rawest form. 🇺🇸
Japan has given in to American pressure and transferred Lt. Ridge Alkonis to US custody. He was in the middle of serving a 3 year prison sentence for negligent driving that resulted in the deaths of two Japanese people.
Rachel Maddow is very, very excited by the sanctions on Putin. This is her moment! And oh boy, Hillary Clinton is coming up! New Cold War! Yay! Ear to ear grin.
Who needs the CIA when we have Mother Jones and the original author of the Russia Hoax regurgitating every red-baiting trope in the book, including the New York Times' scurrilous and false attack on Code Pink? Read it to believe it.
"IF CASTRO AND THE REDS HAD WON THE COLD WAR THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN EXECUTIONS ON CENTRAL PARK AND I WOULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THEM." Holy shit, the guy is completely nuts. A paranoid old fool who remembers the "socialists" from the '50s - when they were crushed in America! Amazing.
I lost my precious, precocious daughter one month ago today and my world was turned upside down. Please help me remember Roxanne's wonderful spirit as the angels lay her away. Thank you to all those who have written or posted to me over the past very painful weeks.💔
I'll never forget that winter night in 1991 when George H.W. Bush launched the first missiles at Iraq live on CNN & it actually felt like the beginning of the long, long war we've been in ever since. My daughter was 2 years old. Her whole life we've been at war. New World Order.
BIDEN IS ESCALATING TENSIONS ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA TO THE HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE THE KOREAN WAR: The first B-52 to EVER land in South Korea. I can’t believe the recklessness of this militaristic president. This is a serious provocation.
Yonhap is reporting that a USAF B-52 will land at a South Korean air base later this week.
This will be the first time that a USAF B-52 has landed in South Korea.
1. It will likely land at Osan Air Base.
2. This plan was originally being debated early this year.
3. North Korea
UN Security Council vote on demanding an immediate ceasefire.
Against: United States
Abstained: United Kingdom
In Favor:
China
France
Russian Federation
Albania
Brazil
Ecuador
Gabon
Ghana
Japan
Malta
Mozambique
Switzerland
United Arab Emirates
This is beautiful: Bernie mocking this outright hack of a journalist, CBS’s Margaret Brennan, for not only repeating an imperial euphemism for killing people but using it to counter a candidate’s antiwar thesis.
"He was just doing a limited strike" says the 'Face the nation' host
“Oh…just a limited strike!"
@BernieSanders
quipped, "Oh, I’m sorry, I just didn't know that it's okay to simply attack another country with bombs. That’s a limited strike? That’s an act of warfare,”
This is one of the most ridiculous arguments I’ve ever heard about Korea. Good grief,
@maddow
! Read a book! Learn some history! Better yet, invite someone on who can explain to you in a very simple way why direct talks between the US & North Korea is the only way to resolve this.
Incredibly, this article never once mentions "NATO," "intervention," or "Gadaffi." The
@washingtonpost
doing its darnedest to erase history. "How government neglect, misguided policies doomed Libya to deadly floods."
Because it’s a sovereign nation and does not have follow the dictates of Americans who think it’s a colony. If it wants to make peace with North Korea on its own terms, that’s up to its president and its people, who support Moon in huge numbers.
Can someone tell me why it is
#SouthKorea
is pursuing a detente with
#NorthKorea
when little to no progress has been on denuclearization or most other things since the
#TrumpKimSummit
?
"Retard." Now that's real journalism,
@lhfang
. You betrayed yourself long ago. You came to me literally begging for advice on how to follow the money in national security & ended up stealing from me & many other principled journalists. You are an opportunist and a pathetic shill.
Dear friends, I lost my dad this week. He was 94 & had been in hospice in California for a week. He was a World War II vet who learned Japanese in Naval Language Schools. Worked postwar for religious NGOs in Japan & Korea & organized against the Vietnam War. My inspiration!
Funny that the Intercept article doesn't identify any of the "pseudo-leftists" who are supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Instead, it seems aimed at leftists who question US policy on NATO and believe NATO's unrelenting expansion contributed to the war. "Tankies"? 😂
President Eisenhower: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."
President-elect Biden: "I'm appointing the second Secretary of Defense in a row from Raytheon."
New profile, with a remembrance to my beloved daughter Roxanne, whose fierce spirit I will carry in my heart to the end of my days. 💔
"Tears of Rage, Tears of Grief...and Life is Brief." B.Dylan. 💔
For the Post to say
@YeonmiParkNK
's stories "don't add up" is to gaslight the vicious lies and twisted falsifications of this Queen of Mendacity and the vast NED-financed industry behind her. Americans will believe absolutely anything about North Korea.
"For the first time in history." Let that sink in, all you skeptics and so-called experts who continue to ridicule and downplay the Korea peace process going on right before your eyes.
For the first time in history, North and South Korean soldiers "peacefully" crossed the MDL (yellow sign) today to verify the removal of 22 guard posts
Caught this US military chopper flying brazenly low over Kichijoji this afternoon. No Japanese aircraft can do this. How can Japan call itself a sovereign nation in this circumstance? The answer I always get: it can’t.
24 years ago,
@nickkristof
, as the NYT Bureau Chief in Tokyo, you refused to report on documents I obtained showing US complicity in the Korean military's murderous crackdown in Gwangju. Why? The US Embassy told you not to. You've always been a coward when it comes to US crime.
31 years ago tonight I was at Tiananmen and watched Chinese troops open fire on peaceful protesters. The West responded with revulsion, except for one man: Donald Trump, who praised the crackdown. My column on his longtime interest in military solutions:
Joshua was inside Club Q when the gunman entered. He ran and hid. Heard the gunman being “beat up.” Tells
@BeedieonTV
“This was our only safe space in The Springs. Where are we gonna go?”
#LGBTQ
#ClubQ
The DPRK made a good showing in the women’s vault today until getting knocked out of a medal by a second US gymnast. 🇰🇵
Biles won gold, deservedly. Worth noting that the US team only hugged the Brazilians. Apparently 🇺🇸🇦🇺can’t be friendly to Asian communists. No Cold War, eh?
BREAKING: The South Korean government of Moon Jae-in has formally requested that the US turn over documents on the 1980 Gwangju Uprising and its suppression by the ROK military with support from Carter administration. Proud I started the process in 1996.
Our national security depends on both supporting Israel to combat terrorism, and alleviating the suffering of civilians in Gaza.
That's why I requested a security package from Congress that allows us to honor both humanitarian and defense aid.
Durable peace depends on it.
Just for the record, the South Korean reporters I’ve traveled to Singapore with are also shocked by the awful US media coverage of the summit and their obsessive hatred of North Korea and almost total ignorance of South Korea. Korean coverage is far, far superior.
Alarm! DC police are trying to arrest
@medeabenjamin
for allegations of assault at the Venezuelan Embassy over the summer and she is broadcasting it live on Facebook. Huge number of police at her house. This is outrageous.