"North Korea - The Craziest Countryin the World"

[Invincible Summer]

http://www.pixlmonster.com/hanguk/kimjong/

I know the DPRK is a touchy subject here... but I can't help but really be puzzled at some of these claims. No vehicles for the public? Public executions?

Maybe this thread could be a discussion of the facts and misconceptions about the DPRK

[Crusade]

Wow. If all that is true...wow. That's insane.

[bricolage]

I wish I was the single largest buyer of Hennessy...

[Dimentio]

There are actually three parties in North Korea, which all of course are controlled by the same military-bureaucratic establishment. There also is a large christian minority in the country and according to missionaries who have been to DPRK, the christians are not particularily discriminated.

[Muzk]

Look at the sources, look at them...

Then again, it wouldn't surprise me, really.

[bcbm]

all of those sound completely believable.



:rolleyes:

[AK]

It hurts from all the laughing :laugh:

[Kléber]

It's incorrect that the Korean War was merely Stalin's decision, it was advocated by quite a few people, the North Korean ruling clique included.

This chart also ignores the fact that South Korea was a brutal military dictatorship until democratization in the late 1980's following massive investment by the Reagan government, and the ROK continues to be a corrupt oppressive undemocratic US puppet regime.

And living standards were just as good if not higher in North Korea until the 1970's when corruption and military spending began to eclipse social welfare.. people were actually fleeing from the South to the North in the hopes of a better life (although many entire families who did this were later purged for no good reason due to the xenophobic policies of the DPRK). And the Sino-Soviet feud which became fully fledged with the Shanghai Communiqué also added to the DPRK's isolation from that point onward.

Unfortunately however most of this stuff is true (aside from the personal stuff about Kim, I don't know about that). Whatever political power the proletariat once enjoyed vicariously through Kim Il-sung, if any, is long gone. North Korea is a military dictatorship, moving away even from its heterodox brand of national socialist ideology with market reforms under the aegis of its Chinese allies. The new rich profiting from these reforms probably also enjoy access to the vehicles and fuel traditionally reserved for the bureaucratic caste.

[Wanted Man]

Kim breeds giant rabbits, he injects himself with virgin blood, and he has all short people deported to uninhabited islands.

This information is clearly from a reliable source, and we should have a serious discussion about it.

[Dimentio]

Kim breeds giant rabbits, he injects himself with virgin blood, and he has all short people deported to uninhabited islands.

This information is clearly from a reliable source, and we should have a serious discussion about it.

I googled Kim Jong-Il + Giant rabbits, and all that showed up was some article about a Polish philantropist who refused to continue to export rabbits to North Korea as he suspected that the elite ate them.

[Saorsa]

What WM said.

[(A)(_|]

The stuff about Kim Jong-Il is absolutely hilarious. I'd known about his miraculous conception on a mountain under 2 rainbows however that he was the creator of earth and that he controlled the weather. I mean even if the people of NK suddenly decided to go out onto the streets, he'll just deploy his military. Are there even living people beyond the military? the guy's just created an internally unconquerable empire.

To the people who were born there, I say from the bottom of my heart, fate is fucking ill.

[red cat]

The DPRK did plan to breed giant rabbits once. This was a good idea given rabbits' ability to multiply very fast and requiring cheap fodder. The new breed was developed by a German farmer. However, ALL the breeding pairs soon ended up on platters in dear Kim's birthday banquet.

[Wanted Man]

I think I've found the source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/kim-jong-il-the-tyrant-with-a-passion-for-wine-women-and-the-bomb-421016.html

"There are stories." I take back my scepticism and apologise.

[Revy]

the military spending part is so wrong. they used GDP and so the US was 4% spent on the military. any person is going to read that and think it's talking about the budget spending. so misleading.

[gorillafuck]

The thing about Kim Jong-Il sending short people to uninhabited islands is by far the funniest claim on there, followed by injecting himself with virgin blood.

[IrishWorker]

The biggest pile of capitalist propaganda shite I ever read in my life.

[IrishWorker]

Posters who post stupid articles promoting the capitalist world out look should be banned.

[fatboy]

DPRK started with socialist intentions. But in the 70's they put in the Juche system, a bastardization of socialism. And in the early 90's removed all references to communism. I support their right to defend against imperialism but their government is much to focused on the military than on the welfare of it's citizens.

[Delenda Carthago]

North Korea is not a Stalinist totalitarian regime.They have nothing to do even with Marxism,as the Party over there has wrote that Marx,Egels and Lenin where good for their times,but they are outaded today.

[Demogorgon]

There is some truth to that. In the first half of it anyway. The second half descends into farce though. Somehow I doubt he injects himself with the blood of virgins for instance. DO you really think an apparently pretty intelligent and knowledgeable man with access to good doctors is going to do that? He may be a monster but he isn't Elizabeth Bathory.

As for some of the other stuff, again it is a mixture of truth, conjecture and fairly wild claims. There have definitely been public executions, though whether they are the norm is less certain. I have never heard any suggestion they are carried out in stadiums or in front of crowds of more than a few dozen though.

Also, the GDP they list for North Korea is fairly accurate but the South Korean one is grossly inflated. It is much richer than North Korea to be sure, but it isn't world leader by any means either.

[el_chavista]

The Pentagon's propaganda can't say that a country-adversary is militarily weak. So they stress the "great military power" of the "enemy". I remember the news about Sadan Hussein's army informing that it was the second biggest army in the world.

[The Vegan Marxist]

According to the article that Wanted Man gave a link to, Kim loves daffiy duck & horror movies. Fuck, sold! Whenever I go to NK, I"m going to watch a horror movie with dear old Kim! :thumbup1:

[rednordman]

Im not defending North Korea here, BUT how does the producer know all this? Do they live in NK or something? Infact, have they even ever been to NK?

[Rusty Shackleford]

at least their education sounds just about the SAME as american education. also, i like to think that americans are afraid to admit they have a great leader. the stock market.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Come on people, does anyone here even think about believing this bullshit?

[Invincible Summer]

Well the stuff on Kim Jong-Il is obviously ridiculous, but I was more interested in the other claims.

Also, underlying all this is a cliche'd "Team America" image of the DPRK. Despite the fact that the DPRK does have problems, I think somehow the facts about the country need to be brought out without this psuedo-racist conception of what North Korea is like.

Considering Dear Leader's eccentricities and the country's isolation, I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of people out there who would believe this stuff, since no one really says otherwise.

[Dimentio]

Well the stuff on Kim Jong-Il is obviously ridiculous, but I was more interested in the other claims.

Also, underlying all this is a cliche'd "Team America" image of the DPRK. Despite the fact that the DPRK does have problems, I think somehow the facts about the country need to be brought out without this psuedo-racist conception of what North Korea is like.

Considering Dear Leader's eccentricities and the country's isolation, I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of people out there who would believe this stuff, since no one really says otherwise.

Yes, people in America are believing that Chàvez somehow support the HAARP conspiracy theory.

[Q]

Could someone explain how it is crazy that education is staterun and the literacy rate is 99%?

I don't understand these teaparty people sometimes.

[Red Commissar]

I don't think a tea-partier made that. There's a trend on the internet to present "facts" in these cutesy "infographs" like the one posted. Most of the information tend to be things that one would probably find out of wikipedia or anecdotes in news articles.

Now if the majority of their sources on the bottom were from sites like worldnetdaily, then yes, they are tea-tards. Most tea baggers settle for sending poorly formatted emails or flyers to one another when doing stuff along these lines.

[ZombieGrits]

I'm gonna catch a lot of flak for this, but...
at this point NK is pretty fascist...

not to say i believe the whole "NK is EEEEEVIIIIL!" bit, but still, lots of parallels to fascism: extreme nationalism, extreme militarism, dictatorial control... all thats missing is capitalism

[Rusty Shackleford]

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: Fascism is a movement supported by the bourgeoisie in their final attempt to stave off revolution by the most reactionary means. If you think a big bourgeoisie is sitting somewhere in North Korea, do give some evidence of that. All the other "parallels" are liberal bourgeois slanderous propaganda against ALL socialist/progressive governments. North Korea is not socialist, but it is an anti-imperialist force. Do you think if all the wonderful anarchists and Trotskyists finally succeed in causing revolutions, the bourgeois would paint their revolutions as wonderful humanitarian ventures?
$700,000 annual budget for Hennessy sounds pretty bourgeois. :lol:

[Rusty Shackleford]

is that a joke?
yes :mellow:

[Action Johnny]

Found on reddit?

This really seems slapped together, maybe some of this is legitimate. The infograph has no mention of Juche..

I've heard stuff about Kim Jong Il having a bizarre fascination with western material goods; virgin blood, I don't know. I'd take this with a grain of salt.

[Audeamus]

Gee, there's no agenda here at all. It neglects to mention the capitalist nations with a GDP per capita below the DPRK's. It implies that 96% of children being enrolled in school until age 16 and 99% literacy crazy. :blink: As for the bottom half of the thing, smells like a whole lot of BS. In short, why post this?

[Invincible Summer]

Gee, there's no agenda here at all. It neglects to mention the capitalist nations with a GDP per capita below the DPRK's. It implies that 96% of children being enrolled in school until age 16 and 99% literacy crazy. :blink: As for the bottom half of the thing, smells like a whole lot of BS. In short, why post this?

If you read any of my other posts, I was curious about the other claims about the DPRK, such as the public executions, lack of vehicles, etc.


I just had a thought about the public executions thing - although to us in the West it seems very backwards and "barbaric," it's actually not that bad if you think about it. We watch movies and play video games that depict violence that is just as bad if not worse for entertainment on a daily basis. In a way, isn't that more sadistic than public executions? And besides, can't anyone go in to watch a criminal be executed via lethal injection?

[Ligeia]

If you read any of my other posts, I was curious about the other claims about the DPRK, such as the public executions, lack of vehicles, etc.

I don't know about the public executions but I've once searched for photography on NK since sometimes pictures are better than words...especially on such a clouded country.
And if you look at the photos of the streets, they are pretty empty,...some cars but it seems as if the streets were too big for so few cars,...then again, I've seen a photo of the same street on a festival day and it was full, there was actual traffic. I've also seen a photo of a car advertisement, too.
The metros on the other hand seem to be used much more often..and regularly.
I don't know which conclusion you can make out of this though....

(So I'd recommend to google photos of NK, on Flickr.com there are some people who even traveled there frequently, e.g. this one who even has made some videos and interviews with people there,too: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mytripsmypics/sets/72157604812751507/ ...but of course there's more out there)

[Axle]

Pundits predict North Korea has 5,000 tons of biological and chemical weapons

Oh, well if a pundit said so, then it has to be true.


And what a sleek, fun to look at, easy-to-read picture this is, filled with plenty of unsourced claims boiled down into simple sentences. Sure doesn't look like propaganda to me.

[Audeamus]

If you read any of my other posts, I was curious about the other claims about the DPRK, such as the public executions, lack of vehicles, etc.


I just had a thought about the public executions thing - although to us in the West it seems very backwards and "barbaric," it's actually not that bad if you think about it. We watch movies and play video games that depict violence that is just as bad if not worse for entertainment on a daily basis. In a way, isn't that more sadistic than public executions? And besides, can't anyone go in to watch a criminal be executed via lethal injection?

Well as far as a lack of vehicles goes, most photos of the DPRK (especially of Pyongyang) show the streets to be fairly empty of cars. Of course, the DPRK has public transportation in the form of trams, trolleys, and the Pyongyang metro (the cheapest metro in the world). According to defectors, in the absence of cars, bicycles are the preferred mode of transportation.

As for public executions, I think most people in the west balk at what people are supposedly executed for. Like the story of the guy killed for making international phone calls. The DPRK does not deny that they execute criminals in public, they admitted as such to the UN Human Rights Council, but the DPRK delegates stated it is only used for the most violent of criminals.

[Kléber]

Maybe, since North Korea is adopting market reforms under Chinese supervision, they will transition from public execution to death vans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_van). They make for easier organ harvesting too (primitive accumulation :thumbup1:)

http://images.usatoday.com/news/_photos/2006/06/15/van-large.jpg


"Apart from a small portion of traffic victims, most of the organs from cadavers are from executed prisoners," Huang said. "The relevant government authorities strongly require the informed consent from the prisoners or their families for the donation of organs."
Mao Qun'an, spokesman of the Ministry of Health, criticized what he called irresponsible media reports that said China had randomly taken organs from executed criminals for transplant.
Regulations require that organs from executed criminals be taken only when they signed a consent form, or their relatives agreed, to donate the organs, Mao said.
He conceded, though, that improper human organ transplants have taken place in China because of poor government supervision.
For example, some wealthier people, including foreign patients, can get organ transplant earlier and more easily than others only because they have more money

http://news3.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-11/16/content_5335427.htm