Oh my, Jesus Camp

As I said previously, we got rid of cable and downloaded Netflix to our Wii.  Best decision ever by the way.  I've been soaking in all the documentaries I can, I loooooove documentaries!  Two that I've seen in the last couple days are particularly striking.  One was Inside North Korea.  This one was just absolutely frightening.  An entire nation completely brainwashed.  Lisa Ling was allowed inside this closed nation with a doctor who was in the country to do eye surgery.  North Korea has an unbelievable amount of young people (and old) with cataracts/blindness due to poor nutrition and virtually no access to decent healthcare.  They permit charity medical teams to get at least SOME medical care into the country.  They panned around one of the hospitals to show that people were hooked up to IV's being drawn out of beer bottles.  Starving babies in orphanages, famine, people just generally deteriorating and with no knowledge of a better world outside the North.  The doctor had permission to be in the country for 10 days to do over 1000 cataracts surgeries.  Many people were able to see after their surgeries.  The first thing they did was bow down to a picture of the "great leader" and damn America.  

Every one of them damned America and vowed to fight for the "great leader" against us.  Lisa Ling and party had several "handlers" that watched their every move.  They did a large segment on the DMZ.  The demilitarized zone or the 38th parallel, is HEAVILY guarded by the North and South Korean Armies.  

The side the picture is taken from is South Korea, looking into North.  If you notice the North Korean Soldiers, there are three.  Two facing each other and one facing North Korea.  As explained in the documentary, the two are facing each other to make sure neither one jumps across the 38th parallel to flee oppressive North Korea.  The man facing the North is there to make sure no one else tries to cross.  I find it interesting that they aren't necessarily guarding against people really coming into the country, just people fleeing.  

Jesus Camp.  I just don't know what to say about this one.  It centers around families from my neck of the woods.  Literally, my home area.  One family featured was from 15 minutes from my hometown.  The others featured were from the Kansas City area.  Go Missouri!  We produce the extreme right wing crazies apparently.  They also ventured out to our current home state.  Apparently Colorado Springs has the highest concentration of Evangelical Christian churches in the U.S.  I wonder if that directly correlates to the high concentration of military installations there?  Interesting.  

My advice-watch these documentaries.  Wow.  Another particularly sad one, was The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan.  I won't delve too deeply into this one, but its interesting.  Basically, once the Taliban fell in Afghanistan, an old Pakistani practice of Bacha Bazi was revived in the area.  Boys are dressed like women, taught to sing and dance and used for sex.  They kept introducing the boys, then their "owners".  How can you own another person.  The owners were not their parents either.  Maybe we should bring the Taliban back to get rid of this disgusting practice-and also poppy production.  Another rant for another day :)