S1: From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan,
S1: where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught,
S1: nurtured and honored. This is the radio free Hillsdale Hour,
S1: bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners
S1: across the country.
S2: People called hospitals and said, hey, I'm looking for organs.
S2: Can I get them in two weeks? Absolutely. Can I
S2: get Falun Gong organs? Absolutely. Those those are the ones
S2: we have. Those are the best.
S3: This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio
S3: Free Hillsdale Hour. Part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network.
S3: That was Jan Yaklich. He's the author of Killed to
S3: Order China's Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of
S3: America's Biggest Adversary. We'll talk about the evidence with Jan
S3: on today's program. Also later on, Kelli Scott Franklin from
S3: Hillsdale's English Department joins us to go in depth into
S3: another poem from Emily Dickinson. First, pleased to be joined
S3: right now by Jan Yaklich. He is the author of
S3: the book Kill to Order China's Organ Harvesting Industry and
S3: the True Nature of America's Biggest Adversary. He's also senior
S3: editor at The Epoch Times, host of American thought leaders
S3: as well. Jan, thanks so much for joining us.
S2: Scott. I'm thrilled to be here.
S3: This is a book that you could perhaps find in
S3: some sort of science fiction. You think it's not real,
S3: you think it can't be happening. And yet the data
S3: and information is is strong. This is about systemic forced
S3: organ harvesting in China. Why is this happening and how
S3: do we know it's happening?
S2: Excellent questions. Let me explain to you one example of
S2: what we discovered back in 2026. And I think that
S2: will kind of open up the the road, if you will,
S2: to answer both of your questions. Okay. So there was
S2: a Israeli transplant surgeon, actually, former head of the Israeli
S2: Transplant Association named Yaakov Levy. And he had to pay.
S2: He was a heart transplant surgeon. And he had a
S2: patient who one day had a really bad condition. And
S2: his patient told him, look, I'm tired of waiting. I
S2: might not make it. They've scheduled it for me in
S2: China in two weeks, and I'm going. And Jacob, he
S2: couldn't believe this. Right. And I'll explain to you in
S2: a moment, if it's not obvious why there's all these
S2: red flags going off in his head.
S3: Mhm.
S2: He just couldn't believe that this was possible. But the
S2: guy went and got it done and came back with
S2: his new heart. And that was one of the whistleblowers
S2: back in 2020, pardon me, 2006. That kind of I
S2: kind of say I was hit over the head by
S2: the evidence, if you will, because I had heard rumors
S2: that we knew that actually, that the Chinese Communist Party
S2: surgeons had killed people for organs before. But the idea
S2: that it was happening at a large scale in the
S2: sort of systematic, industrialized way was not something that I
S2: conceived or wanted to believe, if you will. Okay. So
S2: that that's a starting point.
S3: Can you juxtapose or contrast the way things work in
S3: an ethical society and ethical system with the way that
S3: things work in China?
S2: Absolutely. So here in the US, if you let's say
S2: I need a new heart. Someone has to have a
S2: catastrophic accident. And that accident is a very specific kind
S2: of accident. Because if the person loses all circulation, it's
S2: that catastrophic. Those organs degrade very quickly. You can't transplant
S2: from a heart from a person like that. So it
S2: has to be a very specific kind of accident. But
S2: on the flip side, you also don't want to transplant
S2: for someone who has a chance of making it right.
S2: And there's an ethics team that has to make that call.
S2: It's a tough call to make. And then on top
S2: of that, you also need to match for blood type
S2: and tissue type. And the reason for that is that
S2: our bodies reject foreign objects, including organs. So we try
S2: to approximate organs that are as close to us to
S2: maximize the likelihood that the organ will keep including, you know,
S2: of course, this is including the anti-rejection drugs and everything else.
S2: And size also matters. Size is something. That's my point here,
S2: is that it's very rare actually, to get the right
S2: heart for a person. And so this catastrophic accident happens,
S2: this donor appears, and there's this field of people that
S2: are waiting for that heart, and there's an algorithm that
S2: decides who gets the top of the line, right? Based
S2: on availability, based on how long they've been waiting there
S2: need all that kind of stuff. That's a normal system. Okay.
S2: And the Chinese system under the Communist Party is the
S2: exact reverse. And let me explain why. There's a little
S2: bit of a background. And this is something actually that
S2: I know has been discussed at Hillsdale to some extent.
S2: So I'm very happy, happy to say that in Communist China,
S2: they have this long history of creating class enemies, what
S2: they call black classes. And so the first one was,
S2: let's call them landowners, okay, the revolution happens. It's 1949.
S2: The Communist Party says, hey, we don't do private property.
S2: We're going to take that land. Okay. Except that there's
S2: all these people that have worked hard for their land
S2: or inherited it, and they have friends and they're not
S2: going to go easily, right? Obviously. So what they did
S2: was they they figured out a way. And this is
S2: every totalitarian system seems to do this very effectively. They
S2: seize the means of dissemination of information, i.e. the media
S2: and so forth. And then they use that to push
S2: mass dehumanizing propaganda into the system about the group. So
S2: for example, um, you know, for the landowners. Landowning is evil.
S2: These landowners themselves are evil. They're contemptible. You should fear them.
S2: They're dangerous. Actually, they took that land from you. You
S2: should get it back. You know you deserve it. So
S2: we're going to help. ET cetera, et cetera. ET cetera.
S2: And that conditions what that does is when it's done
S2: en masse, you know, again and again it conditions our minds.
S2: And some people are more susceptible, some are less to this,
S2: to basically bad things being done to this group of people. Okay.
S2: Now there is kind of a way out usually, and
S2: the way out is if the landowner says, Great Communist Party,
S2: thank you for emancipating me from the land. Thank you.
S2: I thought land ownership was reasonable. Now I know I'm wrong.
S2: And anyway, if they do this, become contrite, you know,
S2: basically subjugate themselves to the will of the party. They
S2: might live otherwise. You know, a lot of a lot
S2: of people were killed. And actually there has been many,
S2: many of these class enemies, black classes that have been
S2: created by the regime over the years. Part of the
S2: reason is also to show the rest of the population
S2: what will happen if you go against the regime. It's
S2: like an education tool or something. So so this is
S2: an important piece of this puzzle because in 1999 the
S2: a group became black classed, if you will, and that
S2: was Falun Gong practitioners. And Falun Gong is a very
S2: unusual system. It's a you can think of it like
S2: a slow motion exercise system, like a Chinese yoga, but
S2: also with very deep moral principles, truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.
S2: People that did this and it took it very seriously.
S2: And it's not like a typical what you would think
S2: of as an organization. So there's a lot of teachings,
S2: but what there aren't is a lot of rules. The
S2: rules might be there's no collection of money around it.
S2: You're not allowed to enrich yourself from it. There's actually
S2: no hierarchy in it. There's no there's a the Li Hongzhi,
S2: the man who wrote the teachings, right? Like you could
S2: call him the founder or the teacher, but there's no
S2: worship or something like that. And also, there's not even
S2: a roster. You don't join a group. You're kind of
S2: living the teachings is what makes you a practitioner. People
S2: shared it by word of mouth, and by the end
S2: of the 90s, it was 100 million people were doing it,
S2: 70 to 100 million by government estimate. And so this
S2: was bigger than the Communist Party. And communist parties don't
S2: like something that's bigger than them in society that they
S2: don't have explicit control over. Right. And with Falun Gong,
S2: there really is no way to control a whole fleet
S2: of individual practitioners. And what they discovered that. So Jiang Zemin,
S2: the dictator at the time, basically blocked, classed them, pushed
S2: this mass dehumanizing propaganda through the system. But the Falun
S2: Gong kind of as the first black class that did
S2: this really at some significant scale. They refused to do
S2: the contrite thing. They refused to be re-educated or, you know,
S2: you know, really he used the term eradicated. But that
S2: didn't mean kill everybody. It meant break them, get rid
S2: of this whole thing. Right. But people wouldn't do it.
S2: They wouldn't. And sometimes you'll even see in capitals around
S2: the world, in DC and other places, you'll see people
S2: with yellow shirts that says Falun Dafa is good. It's
S2: another name for Falun Gong. Those. That was kind of
S2: the slogan that the film Gong practitioners created, really in
S2: juxtaposition to this dehumanizing propaganda that they were facing. They
S2: were like, no, Falun Dafa is good, Falun Gong is good.
S2: It's not all the things that you're saying it is. Right.
S2: So what? Why is this important? Okay, because this is
S2: what this unique situation in Chinese history sets up the
S2: killed to order forced organ harvesting industry. Because you have
S2: this mass group of people, 7000 million, they're dehumanized in
S2: the eyes of their peers. So people are being conditioned
S2: against them. And now the regime not knowing what to do,
S2: these people are not going easily. It incarcerates a million
S2: of them. We don't know how many actually, but hundreds
S2: of thousands. The State Department in 2005 said half of
S2: the people in the re-education through labor camp system in
S2: China were Falun Gong practitioners. So just like it's like
S2: massive amounts of gong practitioners in the system. And this
S2: is where some very evil person and I kind of
S2: hypothesize about who this is in the book and how
S2: this developed. Exactly. We don't know for sure. But he
S2: they started blood typing. Tissue typing and organ scanning. These
S2: people on mass incarcerated in the system and creating a database. Right.
S2: So now let's say I'm a wealthy transplant tourist. And
S2: unfortunately people have done this in some scale. I need
S2: my new heart. I'm desperate. I pay my 100 or
S2: 200 grand, which is the going rate. And now there's
S2: a database, right? And because there's so many people in
S2: the database, that perfect match for me already exists. And
S2: that person can be shipped and killed to order so
S2: that I can live. So in this situation, there's one recipient.
S2: This is how it's the exact reverse of an ethical system.
S2: But there's this whole field of so-called donors, actually innocent
S2: prisoners of conscience to be used for as this unwilling
S2: organ bank for for for profit and frankly, for the
S2: longevity of the super elites in China.
S3: Yeah. How widespread is this in China? How many transplants
S3: are we talking over the course of a year? How
S3: many people are killed over the course of a year
S3: in China?
S2: So the rough estimate and this is very rough because
S2: remember this is all a state secret, right? Right. But
S2: there was this massive growth of hospitals, right. The Falun
S2: Gong persecution begins. They incarcerate massive amounts of people. And
S2: suddenly the organ industry just just starts to skyrocket. They're
S2: building hundreds of hospitals. Okay, hundreds. And so in each
S2: of those hospitals is going to be doing some basic,
S2: at least a little amount of work because it's a
S2: lot of it's a lot of work to set up
S2: a transplant team. So if you assume the most sort
S2: of cautious estimates and you just say this giant transplant
S2: team is just doing one transplant today. Reality is they'll
S2: be doing more. But let's say you were just so
S2: that would you would get about 60,000 transplants per year.
S2: More realistic would be 90,000 100,000, something like that. Ethan
S2: Gutmann testified about this in Congress, I think in 2016
S2: about that, that estimate. So it's a very large number
S2: of transplants. That's not people. That's transplants. Right. So with
S2: the advent of technologies like ECMO, which is a machine
S2: that replaces heart and lungs and allows circulation, they one
S2: of the pieces of evidence we collected was that when
S2: those portable ECMO machines came online, what happened was that
S2: these transplant hospitals started buying them like hotcakes because, you know, in,
S2: in a it's a life saving device here in America, right?
S2: It allows you to, to fix heart and lungs situations,
S2: kind of bypassing them in a case of severe trauma
S2: in China. They use them as a as a profusion
S2: device to keep the body healthy so more organs can
S2: be transplanted out of a body. This is this is
S2: the scale we're talking about.
S3: John is with us here on the program. His book
S3: is called To Order. We'll continue with him in a moment. First,
S3: I want to remind you about the new Hillsdale College
S3: online course, The Odyssey. You might have heard Doctor Ben Whalen,
S3: your teacher for this course, on an earlier episode, and
S3: maybe since then have seen the new film. Well, now
S3: it's time to take the online course. hillsdale.edu/course, hillsdale.edu/course. The
S3: Odyssey contains themes about love and marriage and fatherhood and
S3: kingship and duty. Homer touches on the full experience of
S3: humanity in this great epic poem you can learn and
S3: appreciate so much more with Hillsdale new online course The Odyssey.
S3: Find it at hillsdale.edu/new course, NEWCOURSE. hillsdale.edu slash. New course
S3: for the Odyssey, we continue with Jan Jekielek. He's the
S3: author of Killed to Order China's Organ Harvesting Industry and
S3: the True Nature of America's Biggest Adversary. A somewhat uncomfortable
S3: conversation about forced organ harvesting under the Chinese regime. Jan,
S3: something I noticed when reading Jan is that we hear
S3: stories occasionally people going to foreign countries for surgeries, and
S3: sometimes the results aren't great doesn't work out well. There
S3: are infections, right? You get a chop job. That doesn't
S3: seem to be the case here at all in China,
S3: meaning this is a very efficient and very successful process
S3: that they've put together in this organ transplant, this forced
S3: organ transplant system.
S2: Well, the set of C, the set of incentives is different, right?
S2: So I've actually been just learning more about this. And
S2: you're sort of run of the mill, pretty horrible cartel
S2: transplant deal. Right. Which of course those exist as well.
S2: It's kind of like any organ into any body because,
S2: you know, you make the deal, you're desperate. Someone says
S2: a cartel can broker it. You're, you know, you obviously
S2: know that this organ is coming from illicit sources. And then,
S2: you know, if it fails, which it often does, what's
S2: your recourse? You're going to complain to the cartel that
S2: it didn't work out, right? Right. That doesn't even make sense. Right.
S2: So that's kind of how it works there. But here
S2: we have something where the Chinese do you remember there
S2: was this hot mic moment back in September of last year? Yes.
S2: XI Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong un, they're watching the
S2: parade in Tiananmen Square. And so this I'll just paraphrase
S2: what they said, right? Because it reveals, you know, why
S2: this system works so well, so to speak. So she
S2: says to Putin, hey, when we're 70, we're just babies.
S2: I'm paraphrasing here, okay? And Putin responds, you know, with
S2: continual organ transplantation, perhaps we can achieve immortality with continual
S2: organ transplantation. Perhaps we can achieve immortality, continual organ transplantation. Right.
S2: And then she responds, our targets 150 years, we hope
S2: we can reach 150 years. And that's actually 150 years
S2: is the target of their elite longevity project. It's called
S2: project 981, they claim. And you always have to take
S2: every Chinese statistic with a massive grain of salt that
S2: has a political valence. First, the reality valence is not
S2: even second. Right. But but I think directionally I'm I'm
S2: sure it is correct. They say 16 years more life
S2: for people that are part of the Elite longevity project.
S2: And yeah, so if you're a Chinese super elite, you
S2: have unlimited on demand organs available to you in perpetuity, right?
S2: Basically forever. And that's, you know, people ask me, how
S2: much money do we estimate? It's about a $9 billion
S2: annual industry right across these hospitals in China. But this
S2: this is like a whole different level of value, right?
S2: If you have no moral boundary and you're ready to
S2: have people killed for organs, um, of course, you also
S2: want it to work very well. And then, you know,
S2: you're going to get in bed with other people who
S2: share your lack of morals. Um, because they want that
S2: longevity too. There was even this, um, there's an obituary
S2: that was sent to me a few years ago. It
S2: was kind of creepy and weird, but basically in the obituary,
S2: the author writes about the person that passed who was a,
S2: I think it was a vice minister, a very high
S2: level official in the Chinese Communist Party. And he had
S2: been he was known to talk about how many organs
S2: he had had transplanted. And this actually made it into
S2: the obituary unbelievably right. Like, I just didn't even know
S2: what to make of it then, now I do.
S3: John, when we look at, uh, at this system, something
S3: you point out throughout the book is, uh, it's very secretive. Uh,
S3: and it's hard to know a lot about it because
S3: the victims here of the systemic forced organ harvesting, they
S3: don't survive. There is a whistleblower in the book. And
S3: there's also one person who did survive, and there's some,
S3: some stories from from him. How do we know what
S3: we know? Or at least how do we know what
S3: we think we know about this Chinese system?
S2: So there's, you know, as David Matas, who's I think,
S2: one of the heroes of the research of this whole thing,
S2: he just says, you know, our problem is not too
S2: little evidence, but too much evidence. He likes to say
S2: that it's true. We have really a great amount of
S2: evidence of a variety of sorts. I mean, in the
S2: early years, one of the problems is that the moment
S2: that you reveal some of the evidence, you reveal how
S2: you collected it, and then they would close that way
S2: of gathering the evidence, if you will. Right. So in
S2: the early years, there were hospitals that advertised online that said,
S2: here's the price list and you can get it in
S2: two weeks. If you can imagine that we actually we
S2: archived some of these, thank goodness, because as soon as
S2: we started reporting on this, they those ads disappeared. Okay.
S2: People called hospitals and said, hey, I'm looking for organs.
S2: Can I get them in two weeks? Absolutely. Can I
S2: get Falun Gong organs? Absolutely. Those those are the ones
S2: we have. Those are the best. It was Falun Gong
S2: were known to be unusually healthy, by the way. That's
S2: part of the sort of weird allure or whatever. Right.
S2: And by the way, I just there's something else I
S2: want to mention. Right. No one really did anything about
S2: this for 15 or 16 years. Right? This is in
S2: the we believe it started around 2000. The Falun Gong
S2: are persecuted in 99. It's starting. It's really grows like
S2: super quick. Up until 2005 2006. And then it plateaus
S2: for a bit and keeps growing. Okay. But in 2015
S2: and 2016, the Chinese Communist Party picks another group, adds
S2: another group. In the northwest of China, there's a group
S2: called the Uyghur Muslims. It's an ethnic minority in China.
S2: It's a strategically important area. The US official position on
S2: what the CCP is doing up there is genocide, that
S2: they're eradicating this entire group of people. And so what
S2: they did up there is they dehumanized them with similar rhetoric, again,
S2: as they always do, incarcerated a million plus. But then
S2: they went further because the whole area is run like
S2: a police state. Basically, they started blood typing and tissue
S2: typing people in their homes. Right? Basically, blood and DNA
S2: is enough to do the matching. And that's what they've
S2: done through almost the whole population up there, from what
S2: I'm told. So it's a very dark thing and it's
S2: also geographically isolated. So it's easier for that deniability aspect, right?
S2: Because again, no one wants to advertise that, that they
S2: want to advertise that you can get organs quickly to
S2: the right people. They don't want to advertise how those
S2: organs are procured.
S3: John is with us killed to order is his book
S3: China's Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America's
S3: Biggest Adversary. You point out that the system makes everyone
S3: complicit in these crimes. That includes people inside China, but
S3: also outside of China. And and in some ways, the
S3: United States being complicit. Why hasn't why haven't we done
S3: more about this? Why hasn't the rest of the world
S3: done more about this? And I was trying to sort
S3: of manipulated us, perhaps to make us complicit in their activities.
S2: So it's it's very interesting. Like, I'll share a little
S2: bit about how this complicity works, right? But let's just
S2: super briefly internally, right as an example, right. You get
S2: called in to buy one of the, you know, MSS
S2: Ministry of State security people and you're told, okay, well, comrade,
S2: I'd like to know what your wife did last night.
S2: She didn't come home on time. I was like, oh,
S2: you're creeped out. They're watching you. You kind of know
S2: they're watching you. It's kind of how the system works.
S2: But you're like, you know, you can't really say no
S2: to those people. Actually, my mother faced this sort of
S2: thing in Poland. And see, what she said was, I'm
S2: not really made out to, to say any. I'm not
S2: really made out to do this kind of thing. That's,
S2: that's you could say that because it's like directly going
S2: against these guys wasn't a good idea. This is what
S2: I've been told. Right. So anyway, so they, they, they
S2: let her go. But she lost her travel rights. She
S2: just she was revealed she wasn't like this big activist,
S2: but she was revealed as someone that was not on
S2: the regime's side. Right. But what they could do in
S2: that situation. Very often do that. If my mother had
S2: had a kid, she if she was, you know, if
S2: she was married and if we had this situation that
S2: I described, the next thing the guy would say is like, well, actually,
S2: my compatriot is over there with your daughter at her school,
S2: just making sure that she's safe. Are you sure you
S2: don't want to tell us what your wife was up
S2: to last night? Right? And at that moment, you have
S2: to make the decision. What do I do? Right. And
S2: so you probably say where your wife was because you think, well,
S2: I got to protect my daughter. They're going to do
S2: something to my daughter, right? And now first, you know,
S2: you were forced into this. You didn't ever want it
S2: to make this decision, but you are now morally compromised
S2: because you had to do something immoral. And they work
S2: at you this way in small ways to make these.
S2: And this is, you know, um, one word of truth
S2: is worth more than the world. I'm kind of butchering
S2: a soldier line here a little bit, but this is
S2: the reason because it just becomes, you know, just you're,
S2: you're constantly having to lie to survive. You lie more,
S2: but kind of breaking out of that is very powerful
S2: and very empowering. Right? In the system. So that's one
S2: way that people get complicit. And if you're an American
S2: working in China, you have to kind of participate that
S2: in inadvertently, you have to participate kind of in the lie,
S2: if you will, you're forced to bribe people and so forth.
S3: John, that's a great explanation about how some of the
S3: internal complicity occurs. What about the the external complicity? How
S3: does China force coerce those outside the country to acquiesce
S3: to what they're doing?
S2: It's just simply the moment that you start having a
S2: financial relationship, right? A regular financial relationship with someone on
S2: the other side. This is the I had a whole
S2: kind of class of people that were. You could think
S2: of it as the wooers of the barbarians. They viewed,
S2: you know, the name for the for the Westerners and
S2: and actually Jiang Zemin, who started the Falun Gong persecution
S2: that he that was his job. He was an expert
S2: at this. This as on his rise to the top
S2: of the Chinese Communist Party, he actually had that deep
S2: relationship with Senator Dianne Feinstein long before he wrote all
S2: the way to the top. And, um, yeah, so, so
S2: you this financial relationship is built and what what you say,
S2: if you're one of these wooers, so to speak, is
S2: you're like, well, look at this great relationship that we've created, right? We're,
S2: we're changing China. You and I are making, you know,
S2: big change in China. We're of course, doing very well
S2: financially alongside that. But then there's those hardliners, those bad
S2: guys that want things to do it the old way. Right?
S2: And so now, okay, so let me tell you, since
S2: we're friends, here's what you shouldn't do. Don't say anything
S2: bad about it. Don't talk about human rights. Um, you know,
S2: we'll have to we'll have to transfer some technology here
S2: to placate them. But we're making a difference. We're working
S2: together to change China. This is this was like the
S2: standard line. So many people, a lot of and frankly,
S2: a lot of people believed it even. Right. Because well,
S2: first of all, it's, you know, there's this famous Upton
S2: Sinclair quote where he says, you know, it's, uh, it's
S2: hard for someone to notice something if they're financially incentivized
S2: to not notice it.
S3: Jan, how far does the complicity go? How deep are
S3: we involved in this morass, so to speak?
S2: Like we've trained some of those surgeons in China, those
S2: those Chinese surgeons come to America and get trained and
S2: then go do kill to order forced organ harvesting, which is,
S2: you know, as far as we know, that by vast, vast,
S2: a vast amount, the major way it's done over there,
S2: there may be some legitimate transplantation, but it's sort of
S2: hidden amidst this system. Remember, the incentive structures are really
S2: terrible against creating a, an ethical system like I described earlier,
S2: because it's complicated, right? It's incredibly complicated to have a
S2: system like that. And you have to find the right
S2: people and match them here. You've got the matches, you've
S2: just got them incarcerated, and you don't even think of
S2: them as being particularly useful human beings at all. So
S2: it's like a bank. Organ bank, right? It's really messy.
S2: We we have partnerships with universities. We have partnerships with hospitals.
S2: We have NIH funding for some of these institutions. We
S2: provide some of the technologies, like I mentioned, ECMO and
S2: other things that actually, you know, there's a company that
S2: provided the technology to do that DNA matching up in Xinjiang.
S2: I mean, it just sort of goes on and on
S2: and on. And so let's say you're one of these
S2: people that really doesn't believe that America should be worried
S2: about anything outside of America. We have enough problems here, sir.
S2: You know, like, like, I'm, I, I personally believe that
S2: when it comes to these kinds of atrocities, you know,
S2: that you saw how it spread from the Falun Gong
S2: to the Uyghurs. I'm even seeing this really significant uptick
S2: in dehumanizing rhetoric against Christians right now in China. And,
S2: you know, my friend Bob Fu, who runs China Aid,
S2: agrees with me. That's that's a non-profit ministry that basically
S2: supports persecuted Chinese Christians. And so what does that mean?
S2: I don't know for sure, but I do know that
S2: this dehumanizing rhetoric precedes, you know, being added to the
S2: to the databases. Right?
S3: Right.
S2: So that concerns me quite a bit. And, and it's
S2: just this is with these atrocities, they always hurt. But
S2: let's say you're one of these people that says, you
S2: know what? Let's focus on America. At the very least,
S2: we shouldn't be complicit in this. You know, we can
S2: stop those all those channels by which we're kind of
S2: helping it all function and work like that. There is,
S2: you know, the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation.
S2: They've cut off the Chinese, Chinese Communist Party and all
S2: of their any basically institution in China. They will not
S2: accept any papers related to transplantation because they see this
S2: as real. So some people are starting to take a
S2: position here. There's legislation in the Senate right now that
S2: has just come out of committee. Hopefully will be voted
S2: on soon. The Falun Gong and victims of Forced Organ
S2: Harvesting Protection Act. Maybe we'll see some traction there. And
S2: that's something also that will sanction some of these people,
S2: establish in law that this is real. Get reporting on it.
S2: There's another piece of legislation in the House as well,
S2: a stop forced organ Harvesting act. That's it's a very
S2: powerful piece of legislation. So there's there is movement on this. Okay.
S2: But we still there's wild amounts of things we should do,
S2: I think.
S3: Yeah. John is with us. His book is called To Order.
S3: Throughout the book, there are reminders about the brutal nature
S3: of China and the communist regime. You say that there's
S3: no such thing as a civil society under totalitarianism. We
S3: have to remember that this forced organ harvesting is a
S3: logical outcome of a system that sustains itself through any
S3: means to serve the party's ends. Do we have a
S3: fundamental misunderstanding about the threat posed by China?
S2: So let me touch on this. I'm so glad that
S2: you picked up this piece about how they destroy all
S2: civil society. This is like a really something we really
S2: fundamentally misunderstood. So, you know, the thing that de Tocqueville
S2: noted as he was watching this emergent America and writing
S2: about it, right? The thing that captured his imagination and
S2: he was incredibly passionate about it was that Americans would
S2: see an issue and get together spontaneously to fix that thing,
S2: or work on it or build it and create institutions
S2: around that. And he thought that this is amazing, that
S2: they do this in a way that no one else does.
S2: And this is going to make them very successful. Okay.
S2: That's civil society, right? In communist and communist regimes, they have,
S2: or in Communist China, they have a department. You know,
S2: if it was in the UK, it would be a ministry, right?
S2: But a department called the United Front Work Department, whose
S2: express purpose. Right. It exists. It's one of the top
S2: most funded by the way of these of the departments
S2: to destroy or subvert civil society so they can either
S2: put the Chinese Communist Party figurehead into it and run it,
S2: in effect that way, destroying it. Right. It stops being
S2: civil society, obviously, if it's controlled by the regime, right.
S2: Or if they if it won't, then they destroy it.
S2: That's what that does. And that and this is they
S2: do that both inside China and outside these Chinese police stations.
S2: You hear about. Right? In America, that's the united front work.
S2: That's basically the way that the Chinese Communist Party does
S2: that with similar institutions in America. Right, which are ostensibly
S2: in that way controls the voice of the Chinese people. So,
S2: you know, you're thinking you're dealing with civil society organizations
S2: in Chinatown, you're actually dealing with the regime. right? So
S2: of course, not all of them have been subverted overseas.
S2: They don't have that kind of power to do that.
S2: But internally they have. So externally it's just a lot
S2: of them.
S3: Yeah.
S2: And I just I think we this is just one
S2: example of something we don't understand. Like we've only really
S2: been starting to grasp that recently.
S3: Jan Yelich is the author of Kill to Order China's
S3: Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America's Biggest Adversary.
S3: Also senior editor at The Epoch Times and host of
S3: American Thought Leaders. I enjoy when the author does some
S3: of my work for me, because in the back of
S3: Kill to Order, there's an appendix with questions and answers
S3: to those who still might be somewhat skeptical or have
S3: additional queries about what's been laid out in the book.
S3: It is hard to believe it's so extreme. It's hard
S3: to believe, as you put in the book, but the
S3: evidence is is out there. Jan, thanks so much for
S3: joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
S2: Scott, thank you so much. And kill to order.com. If
S2: you're interested in the book, that's the Amazon short link
S2: to the Amazon link to order.com. And at the end,
S2: there's actually an email. I don't know if you may
S2: have noticed that as well, but it's an email that
S2: it's only for people who have read the book. It's
S2: a very special one. I get really amazing letters from
S2: people and I try to respond to all of them.
S2: So I would encourage you, if you do read the
S2: book to to use that email.
S3: Wonderful. Kill to order.com for the direct link there. John,
S3: thanks so much.
S4: Thank you.
S3: Up next, Doctor Kelly Scott Franklin from Hillsdale's English Department
S3: joins us. We'll go inside another poem from Emily Dickinson.
S3: I'm Scott Bertram, this is the radio free Hillsdale Hour.
S3: We're back on the radio free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertram.
S3: Be sure to check out more audio from Hillsdale College
S3: on Hillsdale College Podcast Network, podcast.hillsdale.edu, or wherever you get
S3: your audio. We're joined by Doctor Kelly Scott Franklin, associate
S3: professor of English at Hillsdale College. Doctor Franklin, thanks for
S3: joining us.
S5: Thank you for having me.
S3: Continuing our brief walk through a few of Emily Dickinson's poems.
S3: And this time we will talk about Tell All the
S3: Truth but tell it slant. And we begin with a
S3: reading Doctor Franklin.
S5: All right. Tell all the truth, but tell it. Slant
S5: by Emily Dickinson. Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.
S5: Success in circuit lies too bright for our infirm delight.
S5: The truth. Superb surprise. As lightning to the children eased
S5: with explanation. Kind. The truth must dazzle gradually. Or every
S5: man be blind.
S3: Tell the truth, but tell it slant. If someone hears
S3: this for the first time, what's her central piece of advice?
S3: What does it mean to tell the truth but tell
S3: it slant?
S5: Yes, that people have. We've puzzled over this one for
S5: for many years. It's it's a clear command. It's a
S5: very assertive opening line. We are, to tell all the truth,
S5: leaving nothing out. But she wants it told slant wise.
S5: She wants it told. And as you see in the
S5: second line, right. Success in circuit lies. And I think
S5: for starters, I like to contrast like telling something directly
S5: or telling something straight with telling it in circuit that
S5: is going around the thing almost like a roundabout, right?
S5: You're going across, you're going to go straight or you're
S5: going to go through the roundabout. I, I can never
S5: figure out roundabouts.
S3: Roundabouts.
S5: But if you go around an object, you see more
S5: of it than if you face it head on. And
S5: so on the one hand, it could sound like she's saying, well,
S5: soften the truth or, um, and I do think there's
S5: something about, you know, having to deliver the truth in
S5: a way that's received. Right. But I like to think
S5: that she's imagining the telling of it slant as actually
S5: a way to, number one, to actually bridge the gap
S5: between the truth and us, but then perhaps even to
S5: show something more about the thing to, to reveal more
S5: about it. Too bright for our infirm delight. The truth.
S5: Superb surprise. We we're we're going to be kind of
S5: shocked or startled by the truth. And so you need that,
S5: you know, and in the discipline of rhetoric, they think
S5: about this, right? How do we communicate the truth? Or
S5: how do we persuade. But it has to be adapted
S5: to your audience, right? It has to be suited to
S5: who you're speaking to. So I think that's kind of
S5: the starting point for for Dickinson.
S3: It's a short poem. Um, I want to focus on
S3: this comparison to lightning that she talks about lightning, Something powerful,
S3: potentially dangerous, unpredictable. Also temporary, though lightning is gone in
S3: a flash, quite literally. So what is that image? Why
S3: that image? What do you think she's suggesting about how
S3: humans can experience truth?
S5: Yeah, I, so I think she the word for me,
S5: one of the key words there in that third line is,
S5: is infirm. The truth is too bright for our infirm delight.
S5: That is, our capacity to receive truth is limited. Mhm.
S5: Dante talks about this in Purgatorio. The pilgrim is he
S5: sees an angel, an unfallen angel for the first time,
S5: and he's completely blinded by it. So that kind of, uh,
S5: the poet's job, it seems, or the teacher's job or
S5: whoever it is that's going to take these words, it
S5: has to adapt the truth because there's something something wrong
S5: with us, right? My eyesight isn't great yet. And so
S5: truth has to. It will will blind me, as she
S5: says at the very end. And lightning is interesting because
S5: she actually uses a simile in that second stanza. And
S5: I like to think I like to think that for.
S5: For Dickinson, telling the truth slant is using metaphor that
S5: I think that's what she's getting at is. And in
S5: the second stanza, we get a metaphor as lightning. She's
S5: going to give us a simile. Uh, I know this
S5: is a hot take for all you English teachers out
S5: there and grammarians, but I, I think similarly and metaphor
S5: are the same thing. I'm just going to I'm going
S5: to take a stand right now. They're not different. You
S5: use like or as for simile, but it's the same thing.
S5: So she says she's using a metaphor as lightning to
S5: the children eased with explanation, kind. So she says, this
S5: is how. An example of how you might do it
S5: or understand it this way. And children are scared of lightning.
S5: They're terrified by it. They might not understand it, but
S5: you might give them an explanation kind. And one of
S5: my students who wrote her thesis on Emily Dickinson, she proposed,
S5: maybe this is like you tell them a story or
S5: a myth or, or you say like, oh, they're having
S5: an argument. The thunderclouds are knocking into each other, or
S5: it's God bowling or something. Like whatever your kind of
S5: analogy or metaphor is to help them understand it. And
S5: there's a kindness there. And, and metaphor, if it's going
S5: to give us success, it needs to, to, to really
S5: reveal and not obscure. It's going to, it's going to
S5: ease the truth to us because of our infirmity, because
S5: of our weakness. But it is going to deliver something
S5: of the truth. So there's, there's a statement there about
S5: what metaphor does. And poetry, which is full of metaphor,
S5: is still, I think, ridiculously going to tell us the truth.
S3: Mhm. And she says the truth must dazzle gradually, which
S3: is similar to what you're talking about here. Yeah, maybe
S3: little portions as opposed to everything at once.
S5: Absolutely. And we I mean, we've experienced this ourselves in education.
S5: You gradually learn more and more about the world. You
S5: might learn more and more about history. I think God
S5: reveals to us slowly ourselves so it doesn't shock us
S5: with our. He doesn't shock us all at once with our.
S5: All of our failures. You sort of like reveal. Okay,
S5: here's some weaknesses you have, right? There's this revelation of
S5: truth because we're weak and we need to receive it. Uh,
S5: we need to receive it gradually. And there's a marvelous, uh,
S5: just the sounds there of that poem dazzle gradually. And
S5: it's because otherwise we'll be will be blind. And on
S5: the one hand, you can say, well, that means that
S5: the truth is going to be too shocking, but it
S5: could also just mean I won't see the truth unless
S5: someone bridges that gap. I won't even be able to
S5: see it unless you can help me to see it.
S3: Talking with Doctor Kelly, Scott Franklin, associate professor of English
S3: at Hillsdale College, about Emily Dickinson's poem Tell All the Truth,
S3: but tell it slant. This is a very short, tightly
S3: structured poem. How does that economy of language perhaps reinforce
S3: her argument about the truth.
S5: That's a good question. And Dickinson, some of her poems
S5: are really tight, really. And she would even write like
S5: on scraps of paper sometimes. So we'll have like the
S5: corner of an envelope flap. And so it fits into
S5: the angle. Or you were a doodler. Yeah. She would
S5: use any scrap of paper she had sometimes. So she.
S3: I read a John Adams the same, the same thing.
S3: Paper was so expensive in Adams time that when they
S3: went through all his artifacts, they found scraps and corners,
S3: and he'd write the tiniest print to fit what he
S3: was trying to say in that little piece of paper.
S5: Amazing. Much to the chagrin of of historians and biographers. Right? Yeah.
S5: So Dickinson's used to working, you know, in those even
S5: physically cramped spaces of a little corner of an envelope.
S5: But I think maybe saying too much about it would
S5: kind of blunt the vision of the poem we have.
S5: We have this opening statement that she unpacks for us.
S5: And then the second stanza begins with a metaphor, really
S5: the one metaphor of the poem. And. And then she
S5: leaves it to us. But yeah, it she doesn't spend. She's,
S5: she's so concise. She doesn't spend a lot of time
S5: unpacking that. The truth. She leaves it. Maybe there's something
S5: mysterious still left over in the poem.
S3: It sounds the poem sounds almost like a proverb or
S3: a set of instructions. Is that typical for for Dickinson's work?
S5: It's one of her modes. Yeah. She doesn't. It's not
S5: every poem, but I. I really have noticed that she'll begin.
S5: She has, you know, a poem that she'll have a
S5: poem that just begins with that aphorism or that kind
S5: of received wisdom. And sometimes the poem unpacks it and
S5: says like, okay, here's what this means, or here's how
S5: this would work out in a life. Other times, she
S5: obliterates it. One of my favorite poems is, um, she.
S5: The opening line is they say that time assuages, you know,
S5: it's like everybody says, well, you know, time heals all ills, right?
S5: They say that time Assuages time never did assuage like
S5: she just immediately contradicts it. So Dickinson will take those
S5: received wisdoms, sometimes explode them, sometimes unpack them. This is
S5: one of the unpacking ones. She she wants to give
S5: us a kind of injunction for how to speak, write, teach,
S5: and then gives us an example. Uh, in in what follows.
S3: This poem can feel especially relevant today. There's a lot
S3: of talk about honesty and truth, bluntness, and there's that
S3: phrase that seeps into place. Oh, it's my truth. How
S3: might Dickinson speak to some of these modern debates?
S5: Yeah, the opening line tell all the truth. I think
S5: Dickinson is well aware of of the subjective experience of reality.
S5: And she validates that like when we experience reality, it's
S5: in some ways it's a is a truly unique experience,
S5: but I think there's no doubt in Dickinsons mind that
S5: there is the truth. And she just. And she, along
S5: with Emerson and some of these other 19th century writers, Melville.
S5: They're aware that the truth might be cosmic. It might
S5: be God. And so what I like to think about
S5: is I like to think about that moment in Exodus
S5: chapter 33 when God says to Moses, I'm going to
S5: Moses says, show me your glory. And God says, well,
S5: I'm going to go hide in behind this rock, and
S5: then I'm going to pass by. And when I've passed by,
S5: then you can look at my back and whatever that means,
S5: looking at the back of God. Well, when Moses has
S5: these encounters with God, he comes down. He comes out
S5: like glowing, right? So, you know, it's like in Indiana
S5: Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, you're going
S5: to open up the ark and then your face is
S5: going to get melted off you. I think Dickinson's aware,
S5: like Emerson, like Melville, that the truth capital T is real,
S5: but it's like the Old Testament writers, you know, thinking
S5: about the tabernacle and the Holy of Holies. God and
S5: the truth are overwhelming. Yeah. Eternal cosmic. And so I
S5: think she's thinking about that. But then knowing that even
S5: as weak and frail human beings, we're still called to
S5: have some kind of access to that. But it needs
S5: to be mediated. It needs to be kind of bridged.
S5: I like to think about the myth of Zeus and Semele.
S5: Zeus took a mortal woman as his lover, and then
S5: someone who was jealous said, well, you should ask him
S5: to reveal himself in all his glory. And then, of course,
S5: she's incinerated. Right. And that that model, I think, is,
S5: is the kind of a way to understand what Dickinson's
S5: thinking about the truth, capital t God, the nature of
S5: things might be too much for us. Has to be
S5: has to be bridged to us, has to be mediated
S5: in some way or will be overwhelmed by it will
S5: be blind.
S3: Doctor Kelly Scott Franklin, associate professor of English at Hillsdale College.
S3: As we talk about the Emily Dickinson poem, Tell all
S3: the truth but tell it slant. Doctor Franklin, thanks for
S3: joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
S5: Thanks for having me.
S3: That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free
S3: Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Janice. His book is called
S3: to order and Kelly Scott Franklin from Hillsdale English Department. Remember,
S3: you can hear new episodes every week on this station.
S3: You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews,
S3: or listen any time to the podcast. Find it@podcasts.hillsdale.edu or
S3: wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertram,
S3: and this has been the radio free Hillsdale Hour.