North Korea is a hellish twilight zone of tyranny

[lester1/2jr]

big surprise right?  I have a friend who is one of these venture capitalist in asia.  He's constantly showing these amazing pictures of the boom in and around China.  Shenzhen, which is next to Hong Kong, was a bunch of mud huts 30 years ago.  Now it looks like New York City.   All this makes North Korea, which was spartan and desolate even at the height of communism that much more distubing. 

       As the author, Peter Hitchens (the elder, his younger brother chris is a part time pundit and full time alcoholic) notes, there are alot of people who have no interest in bringing North Korea out of the shadows, most especially Kim Jong il himself.  Those who idealize collectivization and "security" need only look at the stark differnence between north and South Korea to see why our forefathers advised so strongly against it.

If you are very lucky and honored, you may penetrate the Kumsusan Memorial Palace. This was the home of the Great Leader when he was ordinarily alive, kept going in his later years by a special diet of extra-long dog penises

[Gerry]

I saw a documentary on N. Korea on PBS a few months back, and what it showed is exactly what this article describes.  It is almost unbelieveable that a country like this really exists.  It's like a bad science fiction movie government (AEON FLUX I'm looking in your direction).

[lester1/2jr]

it says alot about psychology and politics.  All the decisions made by Kim il Song were ostensibly to help his people, or at least justified on those grounds.  Someone in solitary confinement can't get run over by a train I guess.  I think most people would take the risk and just avoid train tracks with trains on them.  it's not hard!


a north korean guy was on a forum i used to go to.  his screen name was north korean which is so appropriate if you think about it.  as if he would use his own creativity to come up with screename.   he was a PHENOMENAL  debater.  I mean he was dead wrong but he could really spin a web of words.  I can't even imagine what his story was

[indianasmith]

Hey Lester, I think you found a topic that I am in wholehearted agreement with you on!  What a twisted and evil place!

[lester1/2jr]

Indeed.   Amazingly, from what I've read, CHina under Mao was actually far worse.  Mainly because Mao had several IQ points on Kim il Sung and used it for the chinese peoples distinct disadvantage.

[CheezeFlixz]

North Korea and many other countries is the PRIME reason you do not let the government know what's best for you. The more control the population turns over the more they take, until they are just taking with or without the populations consent. When the power is transferred from the people to the person, it's all down hill from there.

On the other hand Kim Jong-il did hit 11 holes in one the very first time he played golf ... wow. So he has to be larger then life ... or is it just the Napoleon syndrome, I think the latter.

[Inyarear]

I think this is the part where we all say "Duh!"

I might add, though, that when you hear of North Koreans fleeing to China just to keep from starving, you just know the situation has got to be hard-rock-bottom bad.

[raj]

North Korea is fascinating in a train-wreck way.  It's probably the worst place in the world to live, if you speak out against the regime basically your entire family (parents, grandparents and kids) get sent to concentration camps.

Here are a few more links with some pictures -- showing the sanitized NoKo.  Even these photos are depressing, if that is what the N. Koreans think is living the high life.

http://www.1stopkorea.com/index.htm?nk-trip1.htm~mainframe
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=82755
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3436436.html
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=490

[lester1/2jr]

the author claimed he was a tourist.  who the hell would go to north korea for their vacation?   only a maniac

[raj]

I wouldn't mind going, it would be interesting to see what a nationwide cult looks like.  The only problem is that I couldn't be sure that I wasn't eating dog.

[lester1/2jr]

It would be pretty far down on my list at any rate.  it would be hard to explore what north korea has to offer when

1.  you aren't allowed to explore and
2. it has nothing to offer

[Trevor]

  That is truly scary, Lester: karma for you for that.

That reminds me forcibly of what is going on in my country of birth, Zimbabwe.

The people are so hungry they are s**tting out their own intestines but the leader of that country refuses to believe that anything is wrong in his post-Rhodesia paradise.

My heart bleeds for my country of birth but there is nothing that I can do about it. 

[lester1/2jr]

trevor- i feel for you bro.  It doesn't get much worse than Mugabe.  He is the biggest racist ever, who else has been worse for black people in Africa? 

honestly, a place like somalia was in chaos for more than a decade which is terrible , but at least they don't have a guy like that running around taking peoples land and doling it out to his relatives and naming streets after himself.  at least one had a chance

predictably, zimbabwe's currency  is, as the bible would say, dross.  then again people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones (our dollar is currently "s**t")

[dean]

My girlfriend was planning on going to North Korea on part of her current holiday/trip, but 5 weeks was too short a time frame to go to many European countries, Singapore and LA [to visit relatives].  It wasn't too expensive and was essentially a 5 day tour or something like that.  I'm actually interested, since 1) I'm sometimes a political son of a biatch and 2) It's always more interesting an experience going somewhere completely different to the country you grew up in.

That being said, the country is crazed.   

[nada]

I saw a documentary that, in part, featured some Japanese tourists in North Korea. It was quite funny. They went to a war memorial and a NK army officer politely told them that they and their country was evil and they politely listened to it.

I have to agree with raj though it would be a unique holiday ... not sure I could handle it though.