North Korea is a hellish twilight zone of tyranny

[Jack]

The thing that boggles my mind is that there must be hundreds of people surrounding Kim Jong Il, I mean, a single person can't actually run a country, it takes a lot of administrative staff.  And these people must know that all the crap they're telling the population is total BS - their economy collapsed a long time ago, they're not under imminent threat of invasion, etc.  So why don't any of these guys just whack the SOB over the head?  Even if they knew they would be killed for it, you'd think someone would have the courage to take a major step forward for their country.  Hell, I can't imagine why all of them don't just say "You've gotta be kidding me!" and just overthrow the idiot.  I mean, how can an entire government sit there and watch their country be starved and tortured to death, and just keep going along with it, just because they're getting some personal gain out of it?   

I absolutely cannot fathom it.

[Jim H]

The only problem is that I couldn't be sure that I wasn't eating dog.

Reminds me of a story of a friend of mine's father, George.  He was in South Korea (during his time in the military), and stopped at a local place to eat.  He pointed to something that was displayed as a special, and was served a large meat dish.  George ate it and it was good, but afterwards was a bit perplexed by what kind of meat it was.  Evidently, he thought it was beef or pork, but wasn't sure which.  So he talked to the guy running the place.  George didn't speak Korean, so he couldn't get across very well, but eventually he pointed to his leftovers and started making "Moo" sounds. 

After a while, the guy figured it out, and shook his head.  So then he tried oinking and grunting.  Again he shook his head.  Then he did a terrible goat impression, a chicken impression, and finally he meowed.  He got a negative and all of them. 

At this point, he shrugged at the owner guy and started to walk away.  But then the owner paused for a second, and went "Bow wow?".  George stared at him for a second, thought "Oh well", and walked away.

So why don't any of these guys just whack the SOB over the head?

I've thought the same thing about many dictators.  Sometimes they get caught up and really believe in what they're doing.  But in NK's case, I don't think that can be it anymore.  It is worth noting that at times that DOES happen.  Hitler got very lucky in escaping one assassination attempt, for example.