Dancing in our totalitarian paradise...
Sorry, I need to vent.
Grrr.
GRRRRR.
I just read a post where somebody defends North Korea and states it's all Western propaganda that the place is a hellhole just because it's communist.
I come from a "communist paradise" of former Soviet Union (and lived there while it was still USSR). I am hardly going to be screaming that any communist country = total misery. USSR post Stalin was not the worst place in the world and plenty of people had happy enough lives there before the economy tanked, even with political restrictions, corruption, and ethnic discrimination.
North Korea (which used to be sorta-buddies with USSR - When I was growing up, my best friend's Dad used to work in North Korea) is not the same thing! Leaving aside the cult of personality that makes Stalin's/Mao's/etc seem tame (did you know that Kim Il Sung could walk on water? That Kim Jong Il's birth was profesied by swallows and that he can manipulate time?), the creepy forced political education two times a week, and even hideous labor camps (gulags, NK-style) for anyone accused of slightest unorthodoxy and their entire families, children included!!!! Living in an Asian 1984 is bad enough, but I am not talking about that.
ECONOMY.
I don't mean healthcare and safety procedures still stuck in the stone age or the fact that there is not much one can buy or own.
I mean famine. Yes, under the glorious leadership of Kim Jong Il (who imports brandy, live lobster, and other staples), as many as 3 million people died in North Korea during a famine in mid-90s. Apparently that's 10% of N Korean population! (US, China, and other countries sent food aid, which ended up in hands of political bigwigs and not where it was supposed to go).
I have nothing against Communist regimes, even if I prefer democracies - China, Laos, Cuba, Vietnam - as long as the population at large is relatively OK with it, there are worse place to live in.
North Korea? COME ON!
Yeah, all those people are escaping to China because NKorea is such a great place.
I get so mad precisely because a person posting this is from a Western country - never had to undergo any financial/political restrictions - how easy it is to be smug. Also, the fact that the place is so horrifically controlled and has turned into a modern dystopia, soon with nukes, is scary as hell.
ETA: And now there is a moron who says people in Pyongyang appear very friendly - some wedding party even took pictures with foreigners. Ahhhh, isn't it precious!
That will teach me to read ONTD_political. (Don't even get me started on some of the posters on Iran who think Ahmadinejad is OK simply because US doesn't like him).
Grrr.
GRRRRR.
I just read a post where somebody defends North Korea and states it's all Western propaganda that the place is a hellhole just because it's communist.
I come from a "communist paradise" of former Soviet Union (and lived there while it was still USSR). I am hardly going to be screaming that any communist country = total misery. USSR post Stalin was not the worst place in the world and plenty of people had happy enough lives there before the economy tanked, even with political restrictions, corruption, and ethnic discrimination.
North Korea (which used to be sorta-buddies with USSR - When I was growing up, my best friend's Dad used to work in North Korea) is not the same thing! Leaving aside the cult of personality that makes Stalin's/Mao's/etc seem tame (did you know that Kim Il Sung could walk on water? That Kim Jong Il's birth was profesied by swallows and that he can manipulate time?), the creepy forced political education two times a week, and even hideous labor camps (gulags, NK-style) for anyone accused of slightest unorthodoxy and their entire families, children included!!!! Living in an Asian 1984 is bad enough, but I am not talking about that.
ECONOMY.
I don't mean healthcare and safety procedures still stuck in the stone age or the fact that there is not much one can buy or own.
I mean famine. Yes, under the glorious leadership of Kim Jong Il (who imports brandy, live lobster, and other staples), as many as 3 million people died in North Korea during a famine in mid-90s. Apparently that's 10% of N Korean population! (US, China, and other countries sent food aid, which ended up in hands of political bigwigs and not where it was supposed to go).
I have nothing against Communist regimes, even if I prefer democracies - China, Laos, Cuba, Vietnam - as long as the population at large is relatively OK with it, there are worse place to live in.
North Korea? COME ON!
Yeah, all those people are escaping to China because NKorea is such a great place.
I get so mad precisely because a person posting this is from a Western country - never had to undergo any financial/political restrictions - how easy it is to be smug. Also, the fact that the place is so horrifically controlled and has turned into a modern dystopia, soon with nukes, is scary as hell.
ETA: And now there is a moron who says people in Pyongyang appear very friendly - some wedding party even took pictures with foreigners. Ahhhh, isn't it precious!
That will teach me to read ONTD_political. (Don't even get me started on some of the posters on Iran who think Ahmadinejad is OK simply because US doesn't like him).