We are so Blind

If you’re only going to watch or listen to one podcast this year it should be this one.

It’s probably the most powerful life story I’ve ever heard. Yeonmi Park has seen and experienced so much more of the world than most of us can ever imagine. Hers is an emotional and gripping journey that goes far beyond escaping from North Korea.

Audio only version here

I’m not ashamed to say the ending brought tears to my eyes.

21 Replies to “We are so Blind”

  1. Sigh. Should I watch it? Peterson has a way of making anything he says sound boring as hell. Can I take him for 2 hours and 11 minutes?

    I doubt I could make it through 11 minutes.

    Fortunately her story is on several different sites.

    1. She does most of the talking, and it’s over before you know it. Give it a try. Warning! It might bring tears to your eyes.

      1. You’re right, well worth the listen. I had no idea N. Koreans were kept in such ignorance.

    2. I download these long ones and listen to them while driving or at night if I can’t sleep.

  2. I found it moving and quite disturbing that she made it all the way through the -horrors- that she had experienced in a matter-of-fact way, for over an hour. Peterson was on his back foot several times, but she didn’t turn a hair. The thing that made her cry was George Orwell’s Animal Farm. That was the thing that really got her.

    The thing that made Peterson cry was her describing the utter stupidity of her time at Columbia. Four years wasted. That really p1ssed him off.

  3. Read “The Aquariums of Pyongyang” and “Nothing to Envy”.

    The ongoing tragedy of North Korea is due to China and everyone’s dependence on that particular sh–hole.

    An acquaintance told me that he taught ESL to a North Korean defector (North Koreans aren’t taught English, a skill that would improve their professional chances). He was asked what his favourite food was. The defector replied that he liked beef as it was a food that he had never eaten before.

  4. I think your missing the point, we have government parties pushing a socialist agenda, and many people that think it would be eternal bliss, but she has described what it is really like, you have NO freedom, no food. Canadians need to open there eyes and listen to these defectors and work to keep our freedom, that seem to be slipping away.

    1. we have government parties pushing a socialist agenda, and many people that think it would be eternal bliss

      It’s not just political parties that are doing that. As I’ve frequently mentioned on SDA, I sat through Sunday sermons where the same message was preached from the pulpit. The clerics believed it and most of the congregation nodded in agreement. (Yup, wealth re-distribution and abolishing nuclear weapons will bring paradise, won’t it. How has it worked out so far?)

      I think I was the only one who was skeptical but I knew better than to challenge it, being vastly outnumbered.

    2. Communism IS slavery.

      The same mindless fools who want reparations for slavery from hundreds of years ago are blindly advocating for actual slavery today.

      That is a good question to ask the socialists: What is the difference between slavery and communism?

  5. She is talking about things she grew up with happening all over the world. North Korea may be the most extreme version but there are ominous parallels everywhere.

  6. Only people who are willfully ignorant of history, have no idea.

    So you admit, that you have been willfully ignorant and blind. That you never heard about the Holodomor, the killing fields, the Moscow show trials, the great leap forward before today? Never heard about Mao’s struggle sessions? Neve done a single moment of research on any subject until today?

    It used to be insulting that people just assumed I was as ignorant as they themselves. Now I just expect it. It is why I have long since given up on the idea that people will ever “wake up”. It happened one time, in Chile. A guy named Pinochet. He is still villainized to this day for it. Like the crusades, everything Pinochet did was a rational response to what was going on, and the tactics his enemies were using.

    There comes a point where you realize that there are certain people, certain behaviours, that are incompatible with having a civilization (a functioning society). At that point you either work towards the continuation of civil society, or you tolerate the collapse.

    1. Kevin…I don’t think it’s will full ignorance as opposed to our education system. I was born in 1945 so when I went to school grade and high school; we were taught history, World History. I was very fortunate to have teachers in high school who served in the 2nd. WW. They made the history of that era come alive with true anecdotes of what it was like. Fascism and Communism were discussed and compared to what we were living in in the 60’s….we had it pretty good. Today every one seems to not care or are brain washed into believing that History only started last week so nothing to worry about. Unfortunately in this day and age if you tell a younger person a truism of past history the will challenge you because that is not what they have been told in school. BTW College was a complete and total waste of my time and money. Steve O

  7. We have our own Dear Leader who aspires to “inspire” us for life and state propaganda organs that carry him around in a sedan chair.

  8. Not just Dear Leader, we’ve got a whole media class competing for the Walter Duranty journalism award.

  9. I started watching at 7am and finished at 8pm. Work, family, and life intervened, but I kept coming back when opportunities arose. I remember asking my father (a farmer -as I am) when I was a youth, why we sacrificed our young people in the two world wars, the Korean war, Vietnam, and contemporaneous conflicts; how do we reconcile the cost of all those young lives cut short? He said “You have to understand the evil inherent in socialism, communism and fascism. I’ve spent my life fighting weeds in my crops, bad weather, parasitic vines and insects on our trees, microscopic pathogens, and government assholes. When you quit fighting, they win. Life as we know it returns to chaos, poverty, and misery. Live your life accordingly.” This is a powerful interview that every young Canadian should watch. They’re not going to see it in school.

    1. “When you quit fighting, they win. ”

      Indeed. And only a small percentage of the electorate fights. 98 percent does nothing.

  10. When I brought the world into my home some decades ago via this new communications tool invented in Cern I started to consume vast amounts of the world’s “thought” in the library it accessed.

    I have read and heard the thoughts of many, many insightful, intelligent, wise people that have graced the pages via links of places like SDA. We quote them often. This young lady at 27, walks among the best.

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