An ultraliberal organization is chiding Democratic lawmakers to be more like Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. — at least when it comes to human-rights abuses in North Korea. Ironweed Films is distributing DVDs of the documentary “Seoul Train,” about the underground railroad for North Korean refugees. Brownback gives the introduction (click here to go to video link), during which he says, “the North Korean people need us advocating for their human rights.” Ironweed also has an online petition that correctly recognizes Brownback as being “the strongest congressional advocate for human rights in North Korea,” and proclaims that “it’s time for the left to stand up for human rights.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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59 Comments
Leftist Liberals are not concerned with Human Rights. It’s no surprised with me that Brownback is the model for Human Rights fight. And I cannot think of one leftist liberal that does.
Does anybody else know that the US voted against two gay groups who were seeking a voice at the UN? Being gay is punishable by death in Iran and elsewhere. Mr. Brownback fuels the right-eous wingnut homophobia here at home. Did he express outrage over the hangings in Iran of two gay teenagers? Many of his very own constituents are gay. I bet he would send the gay N.Koreans back.uraliah
We still have Human Rights Violations in our own country, how can we inject our opinion on other Counties when, the fair housing is not really fair, the job market is not really fair, and a lot of you still think a Gay person deserved to get the hell beat out of him. You should all just let people live, and quit telling them how to live, or who to live with. We are ALL Human Beings ie (PEOPLE).
Joe W. writes, “I cannot think of one leftist liberal that does (care about human rights).”
That’s because you can’t think, Joe.
Rev. Martin Luther King ring any bells for you, Joe?
How about Amnesty International, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Human Rights Watch, or all the gay and lesbian groups trying to get equal rights for their members right here in the US?
Joe writes, “I cannot think . . .” You got that right, Joe.
PL,Awesome, babe, awesome.
uraliah,There are many things I don’t like about Brownback. His stance on human rights is NOT one of them. At least he has the guts to say and do something about it. His stance on gays would preclude me from voting for him, as would the fact that he is a Republican, but if it came down to nuts and bolts, and we got stuck with some spineless Democrat running for office, I would have to rethink my vote.I’m all for giving credit where credit is due, and I will give Brownback credit for this.
Once again, PL beats us to the punch.
Joe, “Here’s your sign”…
Amen!
Proudlib. King wasn’t a leftist liberal.
Amnesty International has crediability issues and the US government cannot take them seriously.
Southern Poverty Law Center still thinks there are KKK people still previlent, which may be true in the Democratic Party. I guess they forgot to investigate Robert Byrd.
I don’t Proudlib, I guess you are confused. You want to take credit for the people who are not leftist. It’s an insult to equat King as a leftist.
Saying liberals don’t care about human rights is like saying Green Peace doesn’t care about the environment. I’m not sure how you came to this conclusion, Joe. Care to explain?
Dr King not a liberal, thats like saying Rudolf Hess wasn’t a Nazi.Dr King was far enough to the left he had to fight off acusations that he was a communist. He cofounded the SCLC which you dismissed earlier, was against the Vietnam War and was killed while ralling striking garbage workers. Is that enough Liberal cred.
I salute Sam Brownback on this. I also salute him for his attempts to focus attention on the genocide baing darried out by the Khartoum government in Darfur.
I am reminded of the continued fight by Senator Dole to get recognition of the Turkish genocide against Armenia. I salute Dole for that as well.
Joe,There ARE still KKK groups prevelant. They go by different names now, although I can think of two right off the bat: Ian and ED. Evidently, you still got your head in the sand, or you have never experienced the south.
Just for your information, Joe, here is a link to just a few of the scum-bag groups the Southern Poverty Law Center is so, in your mind, wrong about: http://www.rickross.com/groups/hategroups.htmlI worry about you, Joe, I think you need some of MOTHERS home schooling; what you’ve learned so far is threatening your sanity.
XXX,Damn, honey, you do know how to talk to an old band beeyatch now, don’t you?
Thanks, Pancho. The right-wingers put up billboards with King’s picture with the word COMMUNIST under it.
That Joe Williams wants to claim that people like George Wallace and Ross Barnett (civil rights opposers) were not conservative and M. L. King, Hubert Humphry and Jesse Jackson (civil rights champions) is not liberal shows the degree they will out-and-out lie to further their political ends.
Very good catch uraliah. Good to have you here.
MOTHER, I lived in Beaumont, TX for three years. The Klan still marches openly, in full regalia, in full view of I-10 in vidor, a few miles east. Not too long ago, they killed a black man for integrating vidor’s public housing after he integrated the public housing in Beaumont.
It is important to be able to distinguish between the gay and African-American issues in this country and the plight of North Koreans. Certainly gay issues have a way to go here, and vestiges of racial prejudice remain as well in some quarters.
But no reasonable person can claim the KKK or other groups of similar ilk are prevalent in this country. They are now regarded as pariahs and lunatic fringe groups by the American populace. That includes Democrats and Republicans.
The situation in North Korea has no element of internal racial predjudice. It is simply, albiet terribly, a case of an incredibly brutal regime who will stop at nothing to repress it’s own people.
As for gays, in this country it is a matter of evolving social attitudes. They have not reached full acceptance yet, but any gay person will not deny that a great amount of progress has been achieved in the last 30 years.
Contrast that with the outright genocidal intentions of Islam toward gays. It is a little discussed, but lethal issue:
http://theflyoverzone.blogspot.com/2006/02/islamic-genocide-of-gays.html
Our domestic issues with race and sexual preference are not equivalent to these other issues of offically endorsed and conducted repression and murder. To equate them is inaccurate and irresponsible. Social conservatism in the Republican party is a problem:
http://theflyoverzone.blogspot.com/2006/02/when-conservatives-arent.html
That is, however, a far cry from the fundamental human rights issues around the world.
Joe W’s contention that Martin Luther King wasn’t a liberal is so outrageous I had to do some research on it.
Here’s what I found from Wikipedia–
King’s liberal positions—
Even if one accepts Joe W. incredible re-writing of history to say that civil rights was a “conservative” cause (it wasn’t, see conservatives’ vicious attacks on civil rights workers linking them to International Communism like columnistsJames J. Kilpatrick and William Buckley), King’s other positions are also clearly “leftist-liberal:”
* He supported “affirmative action” or some kind of reparations.
Quote: “Whenever this issue [compensatory treatment] is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree, but should ask for nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man enters the starting line of a race three hundred years after another man, the second would have to perform some incredible feat in order to catch up.”
Quote: “A society that has done something special AGAINST the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special FOR him, to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis.”
* He fought for a minimum wage for all workers.
* He fought for a law to prohibit racial discrimination in employment (against the vociferous objections of conservatives who claim that this takes away their “right to hire.” Jesse Helms ran a “white hands” attack ad against his more liberal opponent on this very issue only about a decade ago. The ad showed a worker with white hands reading a letter in which his job application had been rejected because they had to give the position to a minority.)
* King was one of the earliest opponents of the Vietnam War, saying that the US wanted “to occupy it as an American colony” and calling the US government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” That was so liberal that the “liberal media” like the N Y Times and the Washington Post said it sounded like something from “Radio Hanoi.”
* He believed that true equality could only come from economic equality, including WEALTH DISTRIBUTION.
Quote: “You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry…. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong… with capitalism…. There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism .”
Quote: “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
His “poor peoples’ campaign” culminated in a march on Washington, D.C. demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the United States. King’s economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America’s cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its “hostility to the poor” — appropriating “military funds with alacrity and generosity,” but providing “poverty funds with miserliness.”
Can a conservative finally admit he’s wrong on this blog–King supported and fought for
1. affirmative action2. minimum wage3. non-discrimination laws4. the end of the Vietnam War, saying the US was more violent than the NVA and VC5. distributing wealth from rich to poor.
Joe W. can either admit he was wrong, or he can say nothing and prove himself completely devoid of honor and honesty.
Joe W. wrote “I guess you are confused. You want to take credit for the people who are not leftist. It’s an insult to equat King as a leftist.”
PL.You do make me Proud, honey. Well said.
Thanks, Mom.
And from Joe W., “the rest is silence . . . “
It’s too bad this thread degenerated as it did. The issues Brownback has raised are important; for the peoples involved, for America, and for the world.
I don’t know if this makes me Left or Right or whatever I just hope the Senator can get some traction on these.
Mom,”XXX,Damn, honey, you do know how to talk to an old band beeyatch now, don’t you?”
I do indeed. I was well-trained, lol!
Does Brownback agree with the U.N. that we should observe human rights by closing GITMO and either charging the detainees, or releasing them? If so the left is already with him.
Tater,I applaud your insight. There is much work to be done against the fascist racists who dictate to others what they can do, think, and say.
Concerning N. Korea. N. Koreans are a homogenous people. There are virtually no minorities in Korea. The Northern Ks share the same ancestral culture as the Southern Ks, yet how many years have they been fighting each other? Proof that a homogenous society is not necessarily going to be a PEACEFUL society as the racist supremacists dream of.
Actually, CX, i don’t know that the PEOPLE of NK and SK are fighting each other; just their governments. Particularly Kim il Idiot. I have to think that if the US, China, Japan, Russia, and S Korea really worked at it a way could be found toward reunification. It is in everyone’s self-interest except Idiot Kim’s.
Perhaps he could be bought out?
BH,
Even before Kim Jeung Idiot, the Koreans have been warring with each other for hundreds of years, very similar to the Japanese homogenous society as well. But you are right that the governments even the US had a hand to play in their conflict ever since the Korean War.
CX – I think you will find that at least for the past century or so Korea has been fighting its occupiers more than each other. China and Japan have both ravaged the penensula.
Of course, as you note, there are an awful lot of blood fueds that go back centuries all over the world. However, if Germany, France and Poland can learn to get along (at least grudgingly) …
Look! I guess you guys are just thowing words in my mouth. I said Kind was no leftist liberal. Emphasis on “leftist”.
King would be considered a liberal in the classic since. But he was for freedom, not government control of everything, like leftist want to do. He was shunned by the Democrats like Kennedy who try to take him down and illegally wiretapped his conversations, and all the Southern Democrats in the South who had their hate in racial equality.
Sorry! Democrats have a bad record of civil rights all the way back to the Civil War and slavery to today.
Ok ok! I never said that Korea was never invaded! But they have been killing each other. They made the EU didn’t they? Do you agree with the sociologists assertions that the world’s nations will all form union conglomerates like the EU and become a World Nation?
Capitalism, globalism, marxism and filthy democracy are soon about to go the way of the dinosaur! Europe is about to become the greatest power the world has ever seen and Racial Nationalism will be the driving force!
White, Christian and Proud!!
Nazi pig.
“King would be considered a liberal in the classic since. But he was for freedom, not government control of everything, like leftist want to do.”
He wanted gov’t to enforce equality on people who wouldn’t voluntarily agree to it, through the force of law.
He wanted gov’t to force a minimum wage on employees.
And his ultimate goal was economic equality that required gov’t redistributing wealth.
Joe, just admitting that you were wrong, absolutely and positively wrong, would be a lot easier and less painful for you than going weasel on everybody here.
But honesty requires a little too much guts, apparently.
Pathetic.
CrusX–Ian does us an important service here actually.
He shows that the mindset of the KKK, the skin head, and White racist is still alive and well, and that the conservatives’ whining to the contrary, still needs to be fought and stamped out.
“White, anti-Christian, Proud to be a Nazi PIG!!!!
Poudlib,
Most conservatives I know talk about how things are improving in the equality of access to minorities and are not as bad as many of you on the left portray.
Has nothing to do with there still being hateful people in this world.
I don’t know of anyone who is whining to the contrary.
do you always have to try to be deceitful to make your points?
Rush Limbaugh said that Darrin McNabb got a lot of unwarrented attention because he is “black, and the media want to see a black quarterback succeed.”
That’s whining, Nathan.
It was also wrong. Media watchdogs quantified the number of times McNabb was mentioned and praised compared to other quarterbacks. He got fewer and more negative comments than the average quarterback.
Do you and Rush always have to be deceitful to make your points?
BTW, are you going to say King wasn’t a liberal too, while you’re at it?
Oh, yeah, there was also the “white hands” attack ads run by Jesse Helms already mentioned.
Let’s see, he was a conservative Republican, wasn’t he?
And who could forget George H. W. Bush’s infamous Willie Horton ad in which black murder/rapist Horton’s face morphed into Dukkais.
Donovan McNabb
Right, Ian. I don’t follow pro football that much.
I’m surprised you do. Kinda ruins your idea of white superiority, don’t it?
I gather that it is somehow racist to point out the evils of affirmative action and to show that minority criminals are aided and abetted by White leftists? The truth is racist and we can’t have any of that in America, can we?
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
Hehehe, I love it. Keep it coming, Ian. You’re totally proving my point despite Nathan’s desperate spinning . . .
I am into hockey, played in highschool and college and I like martial arts and shootin’. I stopped watching negro sports long ago.
As to superiority, all of the top ten world’s strongest men and all of the champions in the ufc are White. Of course sports is trivial and if you would like to do a comparitive analysis of the achievements of negro vs. White civilisation then I am game. lol
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
I don’t know about the sociologists predictions. I tend to go along with the thesis in Friedman’s “The World is Flat” that international trade will make massive changes in the old traditional divisions and alliances. Note the rapproachment between India and China for example.
And while were on the topic of human rights and democracy, perhaps one of you enlightened conservatives can explain this conundrum–
In the State of the Union Address, our great leader said,”At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half — in places like Syria and Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran — because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom, as well.”
Here’s my question–why didn’t Bush mention the LARGEST country without democracy, the Peoples’ Republic of China? The country that under his father had gathered tens of thousands of students in Tianamen Square demanding freedom and even carving a Statue of Liberty?
Why didn’t he say anything about China?
Hmmm . . . I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that his friends–you know, the haves and the have-mores–and even his own father are making huge fortunes by pandering to totalitarian Chinese officials.
PL,
I was think the same thing about China but that would interfere with profits for American corporations and we can’t have that! Of course, it was Clinton, with the memories of Tiananmen Square still fresh in mind, who gave China MFN trade status.
V.L.R.B!!
Ian, I’ve been meaning to wish you a very happy Black History Month, by the way. I hope someday you are dying and the only doctor available to save you is a black man who reads this blog!
We can’t even close Guantánamo Bay when the entire UN have declared it a violation of human rights and Brownback believes we need to do something about North Korea? The rest of the world must be laughing at us. Liberals know you can’t threaten foreign governments and expect them to improve their treatment of people and no one will take us seriously until we fix our own human rights violations.
Gertie,
I run up a very large Confederate flag every year to celebrate negro “history” month.lol
I would never let an affirmative action “doctor” touch me, or my wife or our five kinder, thanks.
V.L.R.B!!
Sigh…
It makes me wonder sometimes when people start comparing our “human rights violations” in Gitmo which is nothing more than a holding facility for enemy combatants during a time of war where they are given food, water, shelter, and free-time…etc…
to the pain, suffering, and death of many millions in other countries.
Gitmo = FOOD, WATER, SHELTER, GOOD TREATMENT
North Korea = STARVATION AND DEATH
How sad and desperate do you have to be to trump up what we do in Gitmo to human rights violations comparable to these other countries?
Give me a break.
Nathan, there you go with that “enemy combatant” thing again. What part of only 11% of Gitmo detainees are combatants don’t you understand?
“Gitmo = FOOD, WATER, SHELTER, GOOD TREATMENT”
It also equals possible unjustified imprisonment.
Dictatorships and third world countries throw people in prison without charges and without legal recourse. We criticized Saddam for that kind of behaviour.
You and your conservative friends need a reality check. The Bush administration has turned us into the “bad guys”.
And back to the original topic, the Left doesn’t need to follow Brownback on anything. The guy wants to be president and he’ll say or do anything to accomplish that goal. The man is a fraud.
Gitmo = FOOD, WATER, SHELTER, GOOD TREATMENT. Don’t forget torture and humiliation according to all UN reports. Unless we just dismiss the rest of the world as crazies who don’t understand our logic. Of course I don’t understand our logic. Why aren’t you conservatives begging to go visit and stay in Gitmo for a few days. Sounds like fun doesn’t it?
Ian, it saddens me that you have five children and a wife who are being led down the narrow-minded, bigoted path with you. You are teaching your children hatred.
If sam is a champion of human rights, then he must not think gay people are human. Oh wait, that really is true….
Clean up your own backyard sam. Then you can go play on the world stage. And brandon, can you say Mathhew Shephard? Paul Broussard? Gwen Arujo? Wanna tell me again how much progress we have made? Can you say James Byrd?
All ya gotta do is read this blog to notice that we are not much past the 50’s. Sam would do well to help make a little human rights progress here in the us of a. But that would drive away his base, no?
Ks,how dare you be a lesbian? Don’t you know that gays and lesbians can be “cured” of their sexual orientation? Why just look at what Focus on the Family’s Dobson is doing to help “cure” you of your sexual disposition! Don’t you know that your choosing to be homosexual is sinful!? So Ks, please tell us, why did you CHOOSE to be a lesbian?
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!
http://www.family.org/married/topics/a0025114.cfm
Uh, crux, I guess it was the cushy path in life it promised. LMAO!! ROFLMAO!!!
I just love the the “exodus” group that “cures” gays. I especially like that their founder has been busted a couple of times cruising in gay bars. LMAO just for research ya know. I guess it was “first hand” research…
Like I tell people here, you cant make me straight any more than I could make you gay! And as for me, I wouldnt even want to try to turn any conservatives.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA
well…maybe barb……