Echoes in Eternity

The news media tend to live by Jesus' maxim to worry about one's own faults before bothering with others. However, in a slight modification of Christ's words, instead they anguish over the speck in this country's "eye" while mostly ignoring the huge "planks" in foreign countries. One such plank is mentioned here regarding the tens of thousands of South Koreans who were abducted and never seen or heard from again by North Korea during the Korean War. Many wives and thousands of children lost their spouse and/or parent(s) due to the evils of Communism.

On June 25, 1962, the 12th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, Sung Kap Soon opened her diary and began to write.

"My dear husband, each night my pillow is soaked with tears of longing for you," the 38-year-old mother of three wrote. "Life goes on, but my body is torn to pieces by thoughts of you."

She noted in her diary that the country had marked the anniversary with a low-key government ceremony but little mention of the tens of thousands of South Korean civilians, including her husband, Ha Kyok Hong, who had been seized and taken away by North Korean troops.

On Monday, too, South Korea observed the war's 57th anniversary with scant comment on the fate of these largely forgotten victims of the war.

Fine, some people say, Communism was evil. However, they would point out, the most malignant forms of it are shadows of their former selves. Russia, while still struggling with democracy, is no longer ruled by a Communist party. North Korea, while still ruled by a lunatic, has begun to open up toward the outside world. Cuba is now ruled by a bunch of senior citizens who likely will all be dead within the next decade. And they would, for the most part, be correct. The dangers of Communism seem very much removed from our world today. However, as with everything (from pop cultural fads to worldviews), there is a cyclical nature that needs to be understood. Communism and all of its excesses as carried out by Stalin and Castro made it mostly a pariah among those who had lived through it or even saw its evils from afar, so that even people who would normally be quite sympathetic to the basic ideology of communism were scared off by how it had been applied. However, we now have an entire generation that only knows of communism from what they have read in history books. So, like the American clothing fashion of the 80's, socialism and communism are beginning to rise again.

A great example of this new boost in popularity is how many people in this country frequently give praise to the dictator president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Yet I've given examples before of the totalitarian communist methods that he employs. And once again, here is another article about his extreme views.

President Hugo Chavez urged soldiers on Sunday to prepare for a guerrilla-style war against the United States, saying that Washington is using psychological and economic warfare as part of an unconventional campaign aimed at derailing his government.

Dressed in olive green fatigues and a red beret, Chavez spoke inside Tiuna Fort—Venezuela's military nerve-center—before hundreds of uniformed soldiers standing alongside armored vehicles and tanks decorated with banners reading: "Fatherland, Socialism, or Death! We will triumph!"

"We must continue developing the resistance war, that's the anti- imperialist weapon. We must think and prepare for the resistance war everyday," said Chavez, who has repeatedly warned that American soldiers could invade Venezuela to seize control of the South American nation's immense oil reserves.

We better start taking this nutcase seriously. After all, who in their right mind would think that the U.S. would actually invade Venezuela? Venezuela!?!? Of course, if this narcissist continues on his path to significant military buildup and wanton destruction of his beautiful country, maybe we will end up in there.

When it comes to worldviews, they never die; they only take a break for a season or two.