Chinese, Korean Communities Boycott John Liu and John Choe

"Chinese, Korean Communities in NY Call for Boycott of Comptroller Candidate"

By Joshua Philipp

From The Epoch Times, August 25th, 2009

Representatives from the Chinese and Korean community condemned Council Member and city comptroller candidate John Liu, on Tuesday, calling on the Asian community to boycott his campaign.

At a forum held at the Chinese Democracy Party office in Flushing, Queens, Asian community leaders from several organizations reviewed Liu’s history as a council member. Among the points of concern were his keeping silent following the terrorist attacks on 9-11, his lack of support for constituents attacked in his district, and for the support he has shown for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

“The reason we all came to this country is that we think it’s more free and prosperous,” said Victor Chen, president of The Chinese Military Academy Alumni Association in USA, a Taiwanese organization.

Chen added that anyone who has been “taken in by the communist’s interest is only interested working for their own interests.”

The overlying theme of the forum was that Liu is a supporter of the Chinese communist regime. Liu Guohua, vice president of the Coalition of Guards for American Values, gave more background to this claim.

Last year, Falun Gong practitioners were being regularly attacked in Liu’s district. An audio recording later revealed Chinese Consulate General Peng Keyu was involved in orchestrating the attacks.

Rather than condemn the attacks or show support for the Falun Gong practitioners, Liu instead welcomed the attackers into his office for a personal meeting. Not long after, they were able to establish a booth along Main Street in Flushing, where they distribute hateful materials against Falun Gong that echoes the propaganda spread by the CCP.

At least 12 people were arrested for attacking Falun Gong practitioners—a meditation group currently being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.

Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline based on truthfulness, compassion, forbearance, including five exercises. People who practice it have been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since July 1999. Before then it had attracted between 70-100 million practitioners since its introduction to the public in 1992.

One of the victims of the attacks, Judy Chen, went to Liu’s office on June 30 2008 to ask for help. Guohua referenced that rather than help her, Liu expelled her from his office, saying “bye, bye, bye!”

Guohua added that in addition to expelling Chen—a mother of two U.S. Marines—after searching through records of Liu’s political career, it was found that Liu has never issued a proclamation in support of U.S. troops.

Conversely, Liu has supported the Chinese military. Guohua added that when the CCP launched two of its military satellites, Liu personally gave proclamations to the Chinese Consulate in support.

After searching through records of Liu’s eight years in office, it was also found that “not once did he condemn the attacks of the terrorists [on 9-11,]” said Guohua.

“Even though he is Chinese,” said Guohua to the room full of Chinese residents, “we need to be very clear he is working with the Chinese communist government, which is why we left mainland China.”

Liu’s City Council Replacement

While members of the Chinese community spoke about Liu’s connection with the CCP, members of the Korean community spoke about the pro-North Korean candidate for city council, John Choe.

Choe—who Liu is a prime supporter of—gave a speech in 2006 at the Preparing for the Rebirth of the Global Struggle for Socialism conference where he said “Korea is at the front line of the liberation struggles against imperialism,” according to the New York Post.

Choe also helped found Nodutdol (Korean for “stepping stone”), an organization which leads trips to North Korea and which is shrouded in heavy controversy in the Korean community.

President of the Pan Asian American Freedom Protection organization, Thomas Choi, recalled his memories of when North Korea attacked South Korea in 1950. “I was a little kid at the time,” said Choi. “They tortured people. You can’t even think about how bad [the communists] are.”

“Now the communists follow us to the United States of America,” said Choi.

I'm Kim Jong-il, and I Approve This Candidate

"I'm Kim Jong-il, and I Approve This Candidate - John Choe: DPRK shill, NYC Democrat"
by Ben Johnson
Excerpted from FreeRepublic.com, April 24th, 2009

"John Choe lived through 9/11 in New York City and shortly thereafter became legislative director for a city councilman – but led protests against toppling the Taliban and still boasts of volunteering for an organization whose keynote speaker proclaimed two weeks after 9/11 “many of those who died [in the Twin Towers] were already targets of the daily violence of global capitalism.” He made two pilgrimages to Stalinist North Korea and a trip to Castro’s Cuba “to create new ways of building solidarity with the struggles of workers and people of color.” He denounced “American imperialism,” the U.S. “war” against the poor, and the torture and politically motivated murders of South Korea (but not the North). George Soros rewarded his Communist zeal with a grant to create a left-wing pressure group within New York’s Korean community – a group which Choe ran in lockstep with Ramsey Clark’s radical Workers World Party and its affiliates before joining an organization that includes "representatives" from North Korea. And now, he’d like your vote."

...

It’s clear why Choe would want his vitae shielded from prying eyes. The first clue to Choe’s radical views is his self-description as “a byproduct of U.S. imperialism.” Examining the organizations his CV boasts he served yields yet more. Among them:

* The Venceremos Brigades, a joint venture of Cuban intelligence and the KGB. A secret FBI report written in 1977 found its purpose was “the recruitment of individuals who are politically oriented and who someday may obtain a position, elective or appointive, somewhere in the U.S. Government, which would provide the Cuban Government with access to political, economic and military intelligence.” (Emphasis added.) Choe fits the bill today, as he did when the Brigades quoted him in a press release pledging his “solidarity” with los Cubanos. Choe said, “I am very much interested in learning about the Cuban Revolution and the way it can both inform my activism as a community organizer in New York City and also inspire me to create new ways of building solidarity with the struggles of workers and people of color here and abroad.” (The group’s itinerary that year included a “stop at the Che Guevara Memorial site in Santa Clara” en route to Havana.)

* Korea Exposure & Education Program (KEEP), which according to an older, unsanitized version of its history, organizes trips to North Korea to “counter negative and biased portrayals of the country in mainstream U.S. media.” Choe’s own organization, Nodutdol, founded with George Soros grant money, would soon do the same. Choe still serves on KEEP’s planning team.

* Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV), a radical group which brands the NYPD “perpetrator number-one” of “physical attacks on Asian immigrants.” The keynote speaker for CAAV’s 15th anniversary, on September 28, 2001, was Angela Yvonne Davis, a former Black Panther and current university lecturer. Davis told her audience, “The attack on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon does not annul the history of U.S. militarism…And it should not camouflage the fact that the U.S. significantly helped to create the conditions that led to the violence of September 11…The attack on September 11 has been represented as an attack against global capitalism (with the U.S. flag as its symbol). But we must consider that many of those who died were already targets of the daily violence of global capitalism.” (Emphasis added.) A year later, its publication the CAAV Voice would declaim, “the war on Iraq is a racist war.” Continuing Davis’ radical fervor, CAAV’s Youth Leadership Project offers Asian youth an “intensive 8 week summer program that engages the youth in basic organizing skills training; workshops of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, colonialism, and other systems of oppression (as well as the freedom movements to fight these oppressions).” Choe was still listed as a member of CAAAV as as of February.

Most of these activities have been scrubbed from Choe’s campaign bio. Yet Choe proudly lists himself the founder of Nodutdol (which translates, roughly, “stepping stone”), a far-Left Korean organization the South Korean consulate told the New York Times is controlled by Pyongyang.

So too is another group Choe belongs to: the Korea Truth Commission. The Workers World newspaper acknowledges, “The KTC includes representatives from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (socialist north Korea).” And the WWP should know; as DiscoverTheNetworks points out, KTC is a member of the International ANSWER steering committee, and was founded by Ramsey Clark's International Action Center, which is itself a front for the Workers World Party (WWP), a tiny Marxist splinter party that lionizes Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosovic, and Saddam Hussein.

Choe’s ties to North Korea run long. He first visited the North in 2000 – on his honeymoon! Eight years later, he made a return trip. He tried to minimize the importance of the trip, telling The Queens Tribune he and his new bride “spent a few days in North Korea to learn about the society.” He has emerged sounding very much like a Democratic People’s Republic of Korea spokesman, insisting Pyongyang had the right to test “civilian” rockets. (He claimed he was unaware if the rockets North Korea kept firing over Japanese airspace were for civilian or military purposes.) Choe thundered that South Korea “restricted free speech and freedom of conscience, [and] allowed the authorities to detain, torture and sometimes kill their political opponents whether they were professors, poetry, [sic.] labor activists.” He generously offered, “If a similar system is in place in North Korea, I would also oppose it.” But thus far, his ire has been directed toward Seoul – and Washington. In 2005, Choe chaired a speech given by two South Koreans who claim they were injured in a “massacre” orchestrated by the South Korean government. One of them said their purpose was to insist the U.S. government “pay reparations to the victims.”

It was hardly Choe’s first less-than-sympathetic gesture toward the land of his emigration. On Febraruy 28, 2002 – just months after his new hometown fell victim to the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history – Choe staged a rally opposing toppling the Taliban. He told the WWP’s newspaper, Workers World, his new organization Noduldol had two goals: “to showcase the fact that many members of the Korean community in New York have been opposed to the use of military forces in Afghan,” [sic.] and to make “comparisons with the way the U.S. has acted with its allies in Korea and Palestine, dividing and occupying these two countries.” Not content to merely demean his own country on two fronts, Choe insisted: “Bush saying ‘Axis of Evil’ is not just something recent. It’s been U.S. strategy to demonize and delegitimize popular struggles around the world.” In one sentence he lambasted the United States and elevated Kim Jong-il’s gulag to a “popular struggle.” A year later, Choe would insist, “the U.S. is about to launch a war” against North Korea.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

In What Sense Is John Choe Morally Distinguishable from a Neo-Nazi?

"In What Sense Is John Choe Morally Distinguishable from a Neo-Nazi?"
By Joshua Stanton
Excerpted From: One Free Korea, August 7th, 2009

John Choe, personifying the appellation “useful idiot” as pictured here, won’t shift U.S. foreign policy if he’s elected to represent a district in Queens in the New York City Council. Technically, Choe is correct when he evades questions about his sympathies with North Korea’s regime and demurs,

“I’m not running for secretary of state—I’m running to represent the 20th district in the City Council,” Choe said.

That is true in the same sense that David Duke ran for governor of Louisiana, not Chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. When Duke ran, he accused his opponents of unfairly raising his previous leadership of Ku Klu Klan and Neo-Nazi organizations, which he claimed were a part of his past (though Duke continued to operate an organization called the National Association for the Advancement of White People).

I make this comparison because John Choe, who has the endorsement of the Queens Democratic Party, is the co-founder of a group called Nodutdol, which, in rhetoric indistinguishable from North Korea’s, says:

The danger of war is real - during both the Clinton and Bush administrations, U.S. pre-emptive strikes were threatened over the issue of North Korea’s potentially having nuclear weapons. Currently, the U.S. has been reconfiguring its presence in South Korea, increasing the size and capabilities of bases like Camp Humphreys in Pyongtaek, south of Seoul, while the U.S., South Korea, and Japan have stepped up joint military exercises to “maintain regional stability”. The most recent just ended this March, as 26,000 U.S. forces joined the R.O.K. forces in an enormous war game, “Key Resolve/ Foal Eagle”, exercises aimed at North Korea, who condemned the actions as provocative. Then, North Korea launched a satellite in early April, which the U.S., South Korea and Japan denounced as provocative. [Nodutdol]

Choe has not repudiated Nodutdol, and Nodutdol has not repudiated Choe, whom it describes as a “former member.” Since at least 2003, when Choe was still associated with Nodutdol, Nodutdol has sponsored political pilgrimages to North Korea:

The mission of DEEP is to bring activists and socially concerned Korean Americans to the northern part of our homeland, in the only such program in this country. Because of the biased and negative portrayal of north Korea by the US government and mainstream media, most of us [even Koreans who are already committed to social justice], are poorly informed about the DPRK. This program helps to demystify the DPRK, and build person to person understanding. To organize in this collective, socialist society. Each year, DEEP organizes a fundraising drive to support the people of north Korea and uses the proceeds to bring medical supplies, books, and other materials to the DPRK. [Nodutdol]

To read the rest of this article, click here.

Article Links John Liu, John Choe and Margaret Chin to Chinese Communist Party

Excerpted from "Communist Ties Become Issue in NYC Politics"
From: The New American, August 6, 2009
by William F. Jasper

In his vita provided for the Reynolds Foundation, John Choe gives a few more details about his Marxist-Leninist pedigree, proudly noting his volunteering with the Venceremos Brigade (VB), one of the oldest and most notorious of communist fronts. (He does not say whether he went with the Brigadistas to help chop sugar cane in Fidel Castro's workers' paradise, one of the VB's favorite romantic pastimes.) He also notes that he was named by George Soros' Open Society Institute as one of their NYC community fellows. In fact, John Choe has been a radical "community activist" for the past 20 years — his entire adult life — with the last eight years consumed as chief of staff for City Councilman John Liu.

Liu, as noted in yesterday's column, is attempting to move up the political food chain, seeking the Democratic spot in the September primary for city comptroller. He is now also coming under fire for his slavish support for the communist powers-that-be in Beijing — and their agents here in the United States. In response to the above-mentioned story on Choe by David Seifman in the New York Post, a writer going by the name "Laoxiong" posted a series of entries providing details of John Liu's purported activities in the PRC and the United States favoring the Beijing party line. The alarming "Laoxiong" reports can be read here (scroll down below the Seifman column).

Both John Liu and John Choe have worked closely with Margaret Chin, a longtime spokesman for the Communist Workers Party (CWP), a militant Maoist sect and one of the most violent revolutionary groups in the country. Armed CWP cadres have engaged in street fighting with police and have acted as enforcement thugs for the PRC, breaking up peaceful pro-Taiwan rallies and beating up Chinese-Americans (and others) who protest Beijing policies and visits to the United States by PRC leaders. Chin is a candidate for New York City's 1st Council District.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

John Choe: "Lobbyist for Communist N. Korea & China Worming Way into Big Apple Politics

"Lobbyist for Communist N. Korea & China Worming Way into Big Apple Politics"

by William F. Jasper

From: New American, August 5, 2009

With North Korea defiantly slinging missiles in our direction, now might not seem the most propitious time for a politico tied to this member of the "axis of evil" to make a run for elective political office in the United States. Nevertheless, John Choe, one of the most outspoken boosters of communist dictator Kim Jong Il's brutal regime, is running for New York City Council's 20th District seat, representing Flushing, Queens.

Choe, who is campaigning to become the city's first Korean-American council member, is widely reported to be leading in the crowded six-way, September 15 Democratic primary for this ethnically diverse district. According to CityHallNews.com, the district is "roughly 10 percent Korean-American, 20 percent Chinese-American, 15 percent Hispanic and 37 percent Caucasian."

Although Choe was late to enter the running, he was boosted into the lead by several factors: 1) the endorsement of his former boss, John Liu, who has stepped down from the 20th District Council seat to run for city comptroller; 2) the endorsement of U.S. Representative Joseph Crowley, who serves as the Queens County Democratic Party chairman; 3) the endorsement of several unions, including the powerful and militant Service Employees International Union (SIEU) Local 1199, which controls the jobs of (and collects dues from, and feeds political propaganda to) 350,000 workers in the homecare, hospital, and nursing-home industries; 4) the endorsement of the Stonewall Democrats, which bills itself as "the National Voice of LGBT [Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Transgendered] Democrats"; 5) favorable media coverage; and; 6) tireless campaign workers from the communist Workers World Party (WWP) and other communist groups that support China and North Korea.

However, anti-communist Koreans and Chinese in the district (of which there are many) are making their voices heard, in spite of efforts by much of the media to ignore or play down Choe's close ties to North Korea and Communist China. The weblog "John Choe: A Dangerous Man" has posted many stories and links from the Workers World newspaper and other sources, including audio recordings of anti-U.S., pro-North Korea speeches by Choe at WWP-sponsored events (which have since been removed from the WWP website, apparently to protect Choe). A report on John Choe's speech to the communist faithful at a WWP conference on May 13-14, 2006 in New York City, as reported by Workers World, can be seen here. The name of the conference was revealing in and of itself: "Preparing for the Rebirth of the Global Struggle for Socialism."

In his speech, Choe used classic communist rhetoric, calling on the assembled radical activists to "bring the war against [U.S.] imperialism to the belly of the beast," and affectionately referred to fellow activist Yoomi Jeong as "our comrade," who was then down in Washington, D.C. organizing protests led by a coalition of communist groups. "I urge all of you to join us in this very important struggle," said Choe. "Myself as an immigrant and a byproduct of U.S. imperialism I hope you can help me bring down imperialism," he continued. An internal search on the Workers World site yields more articles featuring John Choe, which can be accessed here — at least until the comrades take these links down. The New York Post belatedly reported on Choe's radical views and association with the WWP in an August 2 story by David Seifman.

Since most Americans are not familiar with the Workers World Party, it is important to note that this is one of the most hard-core of the many communist parties in the United States. A split-off of the Trotskite Socialist Workers Party, the WWP is unique among communist organizations in that it did not take sides with either Beijing or Moscow during the so-called Sino-Soviet split, but supported all communist regimes and maintained relations with them. The WWP cadres have provided much of the activist leadership for A.N.S.W.E.R. and the International Action Center (IAC), two of the leading Marxist-Leninist groups in the forefront of the "anti-war" movement. Now even many on the far Left acknowledge that A.N.S.W.E.R. and IAC are mere fronts for the WWP, and have distanced themselves from those groups. While vociferously denouncing "imperialism" and "oppression" by the United States and other Western countries, the WWP has supported, and continues to support, the most tyrannical police-states in the world. The most obvious case in point is North Korea, which Freedom House regularly lists in its annual survey of human rights among "The Worst of the Worst" dictatorships.

According to Freedom House, North Korea (DPRK, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) typifies the worst of despotism, where "state control over daily life is pervasive and wide-ranging, independent organizations and political opposition are banned or suppressed, and fear of retribution for independent thought and action is part of daily life." Of course, that doesn't begin to describe the true horror of living under the iron fist of Pyongyang. For personal, first-hand accounts of the unbelievably inhuman conditions and torture inflicted on the hundreds of thousands of hapless victims of Jong Kim Il's brutal gulags, see here, here, and here.