Photos of North Korea

[Error]

We aren't doing it for rice, we're doing it for sake. Read the post.

I'd just like to point out that this was a fantastic use of (looks up google...) a Homograph. Whatever it's called I applaud.

[voltz]

How do these people know that there is another way to live when they've never seen or heard of it?

Thats part of the propaganda their government throws in their face to try to convince them this is as good as it gets.

All that and the electric fences keeping them all in like cattle.

Kim II better have a good goddam reason for being their god/king/savior, otherwise for this and his threat of aiming nukes, he should be eleminated.

[Nick]

I'd just like to point out that this was a fantastic use of (looks up google...) a Homograph. Whatever it's called I applaud.

Thanks for noticing, but (a) I'm straight and (b) I have contributed nothing of substance to this thread.

[Fe 26]

(b) I have contributed nothing of substance to this thread.

bucker up. That is what TNL is all about.

[Jetman]

StriderKyo pointed out that pretty much everyone there knows people from the South and everyone knows how shitty it is there.

Yeah, I was going to comment that I wasnt too sure if the older family members would tell their kids and explain them how family members in SK live. Because I'm sure that current NK children and people who are our age havent visited SK, based on the barbed wire fences, demilitarized zone,etc. So , yeah, I'm not too clear on the level of interaction that still can and does go on betweeen family in that region.

And by your logic people in Ethopia who are starving and dying of AIDS and their little sisters die because of guerrilla combat are having a jolly old time because "that's all they know".

Maybe I'm trying to rationalize it, but those are different situations from what I know of going on in NK. I didnt see pics of starving (hungry maybe) kids in those city wide pics I saw or guerillas running around shooting people in the head for the hell of it. But, I havent really been keeping up with the local times of North Korea recently. Some of us here admittedly dont know everything. That's why we have you to correct us though, YAY!

There's a big difference between living poor without the hot new toy and having to eat tree bark for basic sustenance. You are clueless.

No, there is a distinction. I cant begin to imagine what life would be like to be that hungry. Once again, maybe I'm trying to find a way to rationalize why they would put up with what they do. Maybe, I'm wrong. Maybe, you're right. Maybe, both of us dont know shit, because we've never been there.

For a second there I felt bad because I called you an idiot, it was fairly classless.

It was.But when did anything you say ever have class in this place? In public and not on the internets if someone doesnt agree with you would you call them an idiot to their face? Its just internets though so no big deal, and prior to contrary belief its not always serious business. I've always liked reading your differing views on things, and I've mentioned that before, you just get too damn offended these days when someone doesnt share your opinions. Its very sandy. in the vagina

[frostwolf ex]

prior to contrary belief? im confused by this statement, before you knew otherwise?


I think you are mistaking one thing, i understand the point you are trying to make, that when you dont have the luxuries of life, you can still get by and not miss it that badly. but the problem is, you can do that if your basic needs are being met, one can be "hungry" and get by, because while you are not eating enough to feel full, you are getting enough food to survive. in north korea they are a bit more than hungry, they are starving, people are simply not surviving,and its hard to make the best of that. Honestly they appear to be a population in total despair, and thats why there probably wont be a revolt internally, they just dont see any hope, maybe im wrong, maybe there will be a floor yet to be hit, and they will lash back at the wasteful government, but they just look to be in the full grip of despair.

[Diff-chan]

Maybe I'm trying to rationalize it, but those are different situations from what I know of going on in NK. I didnt see pics of starving (hungry maybe) kids in those city wide pics I saw or guerillas running around shooting people in the head for the hell of it. But, I havent really been keeping up with the local times of North Korea recently. Some of us here admittedly dont know everything. That's why we have you to correct us though, YAY!

the stories are out there if you care to look. No, there are no guerillas AFAIK, but thats because the government liberally spies on people and every citizen has a "rating" based on how good a citizen they are.

A story was going around 1 or 2 years ago about how cannibalism is getting to be a problem in the country because of a lack of food. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../08/wkor08.xml

There are a lot of similar horror stories. Now, this stuff may be being spread by shady Ahmed Chalabi types, but I doubt it. The stories dont have the whiff of power brokering that the Iraq stories did, nor is there a large, powerful expatriate community around the globe actively and vocally pushing for regime change, a la Iran. It is desperation.

[Scourge]

This kind of thing breaks my heart. That's probably common sense, but, I don't know..., after reading up on China under Mao and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge/Pol Pot (both of which I believe were worse situations than NK though I don't know because I haven't looked into it) it shakes my faith that this type of thing will ever be a thing of the past.

There are millions of people out there under the thumb of totalitarianism, and they feel powerless against it because they started off living in fear of it and then gave up all hope having had their spirits crushed over successive generations. No one knows who they can trust so they trust no one and so regurgitate the party line by absolute habitual neccessity; do that for years upon years and your psychology becomes warped regardless of whether you truly believe in what you are forced to be like, and you really don't even know another way to be, not there, not now, not in any forseeable future. There is no sober wake up call where you one day just turn the tide in your mind, because your thoughts are layer upon layer of everything you've been indoctrinated to be through violence, fear, hunger, oppression... It's a sad travesty.

**edit**

Just to add to the above. There's a tried and true pattern that allows a totalitarian dictatorship in Asia to have that kind of control over a population. First, in order to stunt free thought, the intellectual class is killed off and/or "reeducated". Second, the family unit is broken down by sending family members including young children away from each other to disparate parts of the country, sometimes to not see their other family members for years, sometimes to never see them again. Third is to starve the population, using communalism as an excuse for everyone to have as little rationed to them as possible. Fourth is to subject all members of the population to hours daily of propaganda in town meeting fashion. Fifth is to set up a system where neighbors rat on neighbors for "political crimes", which are often ways for petty bickering between people who do not like each other to be resolved in the worst possible way. All of this is reinforced at gunpoint or fear of imprisonment.

I'm just trying to shed some light on how an entire population of a country can end up this way.

[Yoshi]

For a second there I felt bad because I called you an idiot, it was fairly classless. With your latest post I see it was appropriate.

He's a total idiot, but it's not all his fault. All people see on the news about Iraq even is any bad news they can find. They don't mention that the citizens that are not insurgents were not exactly having a jolly old time under Saddam. The same thing applies here. The media loves to quote Bush about the "Axis of Evil" as if it were a joke. It's dead fucking on, and the people in these countries would likely agree 100%.

[Fe 26]

It's dead one? There is a new third reich? Which one is making panzers?