[The copy below was sent to me by fellow blogger Kevin Kim. Censorship is just about my No. 1 hot button, so I hope you can all take a moment to read his letter. It is complete and unedited.]

Fellow blogger,

I am sending this message to the bloggers on my blogroll (and a few
other folks) in the hopes that some of you will print this, or at
least find it interesting enough for comment. I’m not usually the
type to distribute such messages, but I felt this was important enough
to risk disturbing you.

As some of you may already know, a wing of the South Korean
government, the Ministry of Information and Culture (MIC), is
currently clamping down on a variety of blogging service providers and
other websites. The government is attempting to control access to
video of the recent Kim Sun-il beheading, ostensibly because the video
will have a destabilizing influence. (I haven’t seen the video.)

Many Western expat bloggers in Korea are in an uproar; others, myself
included, are largely unsurprised: South Korea has not come far out
of the shadow of its military dictatorship past. My own response to
this censorship is not so much anger as amusement, because the
situation represents an intellectual challenge as well as a chance to
fight for freedom of expression. Perhaps even to fight for freedom,
period.

South Korea is a rapidly evolving country, but in many ways it remains
the Hermit Kingdom. Like a turtle retreating into its shell, the
people are on occasion unable to deal with the harsh realities of the
world around them. This country is, for example, in massive denial
about the atrocities perpetrated in North Korea, and, as with many
Americans, is in denial about the realities of Islamic terrorism,
whose roots extend chronologically backward far beyond the lifetime of
the Bush Administration. This cultural tendency toward denial (and
overreaction) at least partially explains the Korean government’s move
to censor so many sites.

The fact that the current administration, led by President Noh
Mu-hyon, is supposedly “liberal”-leaning makes this censorship more
ironic. It also fuels propagandistic conservative arguments that
liberals are, at heart, closet totalitarians. I find this to be a
specious caricature of the liberal position (I consider myself neither
liberal nor conservative), but to the extent that Koreans are
concerned about what image they project to the world, it is legitimate
for them to worry over whether they are currently playing into
stereotype: South Korea is going to be associated with other
violators of human rights, such as China.

Of the many hypocrisies associated with the decision to censor, the
central one is that no strong governmental measures were taken to
suppress the distribution of the previous beheading videos (Nick Berg
et al.). This, too, fuels the suspicion that Koreans are selfish or,
to use their own proverbial image, “a frog in a well”– radically
blinkered in perspective, collectively unable to empathize with the
sufferings of non-Koreans, but overly sensitive to their own
suffering.

I am writing this letter not primarily to criticize all Koreans (I’m
ethnically half-Korean, and an American citizen), nor to express a
generalized condemnation of Korean culture. As is true anywhere else,
this culture has its merits and demerits, and overall, I’m enjoying my
time here. No, my purpose is more specific: to cause the South
Korean government as much embarrassment as possible, and perhaps to
motivate Korean citizens to engage in some much-needed introspection.

To this end, I need the blogosphere’s help, and this letter needs wide
distribution (you may receive other letters from different bloggers,
so be prepared!). I hope you’ll see fit to publish this letter on
your site, and/or to distribute it to concerned parties: censorship
in a supposedly democratic society simply cannot stand. The best and
quickest way to persuade the South Korean government to back down from
its current position is to make it lose face in the eyes of the world.
This can only happen through a determined (and civilized!) campaign
to expose the government’s hypocrisy and to cause Korean citizens to
rethink their own narrow-mindedness.

We can debate all we want about “root causes” with regard to Islamic
terrorism, Muslim rage, and all the rest, but for me, it’s much more
constructive to proceed empirically and with an eye to the future.
Like it or not, what we see today is that Korea is inextricably linked
with Iraq issues, and with issues of Islamic fundamentalism. Koreans,
however, may need some persuading that this is in fact the case– that
we all need to stand together as allies against a common enemy.

If you are interested in giving the South Korean Ministry of
Information and Culture a piece of your mind (or if you’re a reporter
who would like to contact them for further information), please email
the MIC at:

webmaster@mic.go.kr

Thank you,

Kevin Kim
bighominid@gmail.com
http://bighominid.blogspot.com
(Blogspot is currently blocked in Korea, along with other providers;
please go to Unipeak.com and type my URL into the search window to
view my blog.)

PS: To send me an email, please type “hairy chasms” in the subject
line to avoid being trashed by my custom-made spam filter.

PPS: Much better blogs than mine have been covering this issue,
offering news updates and heartfelt commentary. To start you off,
visit:

http://marmot.blogs.com/korea/
http://jeffinkorea.blogs.com/
http://aboutjoel.com/
http://oranckay.net/blog/
http://kimcheegi.blogs.com/
http://gopkorea.blogs.com/flyingyangban
http://rathbonepress.tblog.com/
http://blog.woojay.net/

Here as well, Unipeak is the way to go if you’re in Korea and unable
to view the above blogs. People in the States should, in theory, have
no problems accessing these sites, which all continue to be updated.

PPPS: This email is being cc’ed to the South Korean Ministry of
Information and Culture. Please note that other bloggers are writing
about the Korean government’s creation of a task force that will
presumably fight internet terror. I and others have an idea that this
task force will serve a different purpose. If this is what South
Korea’s new “aligning with the PRC” is all about, then there’s reason
to worry for the future.

This is an important point I forgot to include in my rushed review last night of Fahrenheit 9/11. In the opening scenes, when a series of black Congresspeople from poor districts of Florida plead with Al Gore and the Congreee to take into account the huge numbers of blacks who were denied the right to vote in 2000, all of the onus falls on the nation’s Democtatic senators — not a single one supported the Congressmen as the nation hurried to “move on” and inaugurate a new president.

This sort of thing threads through the movie — it is not just the dirty tricks, shady relationships and outright lies of George W. Bush and his cronies, but the total willingness of the Democrats to let them get away with it. After 9/11, it became “treasonous” even to think that Bush may be heading in the wrong direction, and the Democrats were a key source of this sheepishness.

It is in the case of Iraq, however, that Moore is most unforgiving, depicting the Democrats as thoughtless (as in devoid of thoughts), frightened, semi-paralyzed followers. Heavy-handed and one-sided, but his video clips sure help supplement his contentions.

My favorite pundit in America is Eleanor Clift, and I want to include a snip of her own review of the film. She spoke to Moore before the premiere in DC.

Moore may be preaching to the choir, but he says, “The choir was asleep—demoralized, despairing … Cynicism and despair are the great friends of the rich and powerful. The more Americans they can get to check out of the system, [saying] they’re not going to vote [because politicians are] all crooks—that’s music to the ears of those in charge. This film is a different tune.”

Moore is a propagandist in the best sense of the word. He wants to defeat President Bush, and he has marshaled facts and footage to make the case. It is unnerving to watch Bush sit stony-faced for almost a full seven minutes reading “My Pet Goat” after an aide whispers in his ear that a second plane has struck the World Trade Center and that America is under attack. Bush told the 9/11 commission he wanted to project calm; he projects paralysis.

“Fahrenheit 9/11” opens at almost 900 theaters this weekend, which is nine times more screens than Moore had for his last documentary, “Bowling for Columbine.” Attempts by GOP stalwarts to intimidate theater owners into refusing the film have only generated more demand at the box office. “Fahrenheit 9/11” broke all opening-day records in New York, out distancing “Mission Impossible” and “Men in Black.” Noting that President Clinton’s memoir, “My Life,” is also setting record sales, a pleased Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic Party chairman, said, “It must be driving them nuts,” them meaning the Republicans.

The strenuous efforts of right-wing activists to curtail the showing of the movie suggest they understand the potential impact of this film. Because “Fahrenheit 9/11” is a cultural phenomenon, it just might attract the young and the politically unaffiliated, voters with the power to defeat Bush.

Wonderfully ironic, how the Republicans’ efforts to stifle the movie have now made it a must-see for young people.

Everyone’s totally saturated with stories about Fahrenheit 9/11 by this point, so I’ll be concise.

I got to see it today, as promised, at its first performance here in Arizona. While the movie is unquestionably a tour de force, I also found it had its moments of silliness, tediousness and — is this a word? — farfetchedness.

Michael Moore is a master film maker, and the movie flows with its own unstoppable logic, building up the tension and taking you down and tightening the strings again. It’s bumpy at times, but the net effect is an overwhelming, emotional rollercoaster.

It starts with the 2000 election and effectively demonstrates — to my own satisfaction, at least — that this was a stolen election. He does this not by bloviating, but by showing us video clips of what happened. (Selective clips of course; everything in the movie is selective and subjective, as you’d expect.) There is no point in my describing these clips to you or arguing about them. It simply has to be seen. I don’t believe anyone can walk out of that theater without having at least some serious questions about the legitimacy of Bush’s victory.

We all know the points Moore makes — the Bush family’s cozy relationship with the Saudi royal family, its involvement with the Carlyle Group and the unbelievable profits the company reaps from war, the sudden and inexplicable shift from Afghanistan to Iraq, the obscene war profiteering of Bush’s cronies, the indiscriminate carnage of the Iraq bombings, the brutalization of prisoners and the growing belief on the part of many soldiers that they were losing limbs for a cause they didn’t understand, that they were being “sent to kill other poor people who aren’t a threat to us,” in the words of one soldier who swore he would never return to Iraq.

A technique Moore uses cleverly is the juxtaposition of images for maximum irony and theatrical effect. An officer says how it’s all about “winning hearts and minds,” and the camera cuts to soldiers terrorizing an Iraqi family for no discernible reason. The glee of the contractors is contrasted with the misery of the men in the desert. We’re shown the blanket prohibition of flying in the days after 9/11, contrasted with the sudden and secretive rush to get Bin Ladin’s relatives flown back home. Moore hits you over the head — something is just plain wrong, the movie screams at us.

Again, whether or not you can poke holes in Moore’s story isn’t the issue. As a movie, as entertainment, and as propaganda it certainly works. At the end the entire audience stood up and cheered and whistled. I’ve never seen Arizonans do that before.

I did have my issues. A section on how the Army recruits poor young men was over-long and tiresome, as was the dwelling on Osama Bin Laden’s family. I also thought that showing pre-war Iraq as a happy little playground was dumb and misleading, and I can’t believe Moore didn’t know this. But he wanted to create a dramatic juxtaposition — the smiling happy children contrasted with gigantic bomb blasts ripping the city apart.

Most poignant, by far, was an interview with the mother of a soldier in Iraq, Lila Lipscomb, glowing with pride and love of country. Then she is interviewed later, after her son, Michael Pedersen, is killed. She reads Michael’s last agonized letter, crying that Bush was a criminal who had sent them on a mission of murder. The mother’s rage and grief are so palpable, it’s hard to imagine not being moved. (I could hear people crying.)

Then there’s the usual Moore mischief, having the Bush team, along with Blair, portrayed as the cowboy family in Bonanza; Moore riding around in a Mr. Softee truck reading the Patriot Act; ambushing congressmen to ask if they’d like to enlist their children as soldiers to fight in Iraq. It’s silly, but it drives home his points. This is Moore’s specialty, and he is very, very funny.

As I said a day or two before, Moore must always be taken with “a gigantic grain of sea salt.” But all this talk of his being a liar and a demagogue– it’s just not the case. Most of his points are right there in the video clips — it’s hard to argue with them. You cannot brush them aside. It’s a take-no-prisoners approach, aggressive and relentless and savage. But it’s also backed up by a plethora of corroborating evidence.

Moore is a provocateur. And he opened my eyes with plenty of provocative footage I’d never seen before. For this alone, we should all see it. (Watch Bush reading My Pet Goat for seven minutes after being told America was under attack, and draw your own conclusions.)

It’s easy to see why the movie is so controversial. And at a time when the nation is so polartized, when swing voters are in such short supply, it could have a tangible impact on the election. (I certainly hope so.) There were plenty of young people there today, and Moore just might get more of them to vote this year.

See the movie. Then we can argue.

How did I miss Ted Barlow’s brilliant InstaPuppy parody of 10 days ago? This is great — and check the comments. There’s one by a certain Jon H. that approaches genius.

Take a look at this beautiful article on how a small village in northern Yunnan province is slowly being touched by the modern age. Stacks of firewood next to a satellite dish, a TV set not far from the braying donkey, electricity for the very first time (if only for 8 hours a day)….

It’s a remarkable story of how things are getting better in China not only for the city dwellers but also, at least to some extent, for the poor peasants in remote and distant villages, where household incomes average as low as $300 a year.

Hot off the press, sublimely mangled sentences from a leading Chinese English-language newspaper:

Though there witnessed not a long history of MBA education in China, yet the glory that enveloped MBA has gone discolored within few years. With only a MBA laurel, one cannot obtain a high post or get in high salary any longer. When the training and enrolling advertisements of MBA posted like scabies on the street wire poles and in alleyways of China, criticism and query on the MBA education came along tempestuously.

Tempestuously? Has anyone used that word in the past 100 years? “Posted like scabies?” I don’t even want to go there.

With big red apples stuffed in their mouths. World O’Crap does it again, with this belly-laugh-inducing roast of the two most vile pundits out there. The Hannity quotes had me literally laughing out loud.

Pass the gravy.

Go see the very latest poll numbers over at TPM. Six points ahead in Ohio! The numbers are certainly going to go up and down over the next four months, but there is no denying that the Republicans are stuck in the hole they dug themselves. (It’s called Iraq.)

This is a smart blog, better written and better thought-out than most. I had fun browsing through it today, and I even learned a few things. Check it out.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is a hit. From Fox News to the LA Times, the critics are nearly unanimous in their praise of Moore’s unashamed and undisguised piece of propagandistic entertainment.

After blistering the box office in its inaugural New York launch, Michael Moore’s anti-Bush documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” opens nationally on Friday with most reviewers giving it high marks as brilliantly provocative but unflinchingly partisan.

While saying Moore’s latest work can fairly be classified as propaganda critics generally praised the film as an artfully rendered critique of President Bush, his war on terror and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

“Unabashedly partisan, wearing its determination to bring about political change on its sleeve, ‘Fahrenheit’ can be nit-picked and second-guessed, but it can’t be ignored,” wrote Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times

“It is propaganda, no doubt about it, but propaganda is most effective when it has elements of truth, and too much here is taken from the record not to have a devastating effect on viewers,” Turan added. “Anyone who is the least bit open to Moore’s theses will come away impressed.”

In a similar vein, New York Times critic A.O. Scott calls Moore “a credit to the republic” and writes of the movie: “It is worth seeing, debating and thinking about, regardless of your political allegiances.”

One of the more surprisingly glowing reviews came from Fox News.com columnist Roger Friedman, who called the film “a tribute to patriotism” and “a really brilliant piece of work…that members of all political parties should see without fail.”

While the movie review Web site Rottentomatoes.com ranked critics’ opinions as running about 80 percent in Moore’s favor, the film was not warmly received by everyone.

Commenting on “Fahrenheit 9/11” after its premiere in May at the Cannes film festival, where it won top honors, the Wall Street Journal dismissed the film as “bad” propaganda.

And under the headline: “Moore Is Less,” the New York Post’s Lou Lumenick calls the film “a heavy-handed polemic” that “isn’t half as incendiary or persuasive as its maker would have you believe.” He adds: “Moore is still basically preaching to the converted and is unlikely to win over all that many hearts and minds.”

But even some of Moore’s harshest critics acknowledge he scores points with footage of a seemingly dazed Bush remaining seated in a classroom of Florida schoolchildren for almost seven minutes after being informed that a second plane has crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

And more than a few reviews have noted that the film’s release shrewdly coincides with a presidential race focusing on the very issues explored in the documentary.

No one ever said Moore wasn’t shrewd. Also self-serving, sneaky, childish, at times hypocritical and obnoxious. Hmmm, sounds like just about every other artist. I’ll try to write my own review tomorrow.