Welcome to North Korea

[Starke Von Oben]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ6E3cShcVU

Welcome to North Korea is a grotesquely surreal look at the all-too-real conditions in modern-day North Korea. Dutch filmmaker Peter Tetteroo and his associate Raymond Feddema spent a week in and around the North Korean capital of Pyongyang -- ample time to produce this outstanding film.

This one will send shivers down your spine, a true Orwellian nightmare.

[deathbringer]

Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick powers the world, but after discussions with the dear leader, who is an expert in martial arts, Chuck Norris was able to roundhouse kick 30% more efficiently, thus saving 20,000 man-size steaks a year which the dear benevolent leader distributed to the people.

[myk]

Starke Von Oben said:
This one will send shivers down your spine.

Indeed, I'm sure they use this style of "documentary" in North Korea a lot.

[Starke Von Oben]

http://www.korea-dpr.com/

The official webage of North Korea. Kim Jong Il describes himself as an "internet expert", and probably the only citizen in the country with internet access.

Judging by the amateurish outdated style of the website I wouldn't be surprised if North Korea's only internet expert designed and made it personally after a game of golf that involved 18 holes in 1.

[esselfortium]

http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/uuaMx2mGq

http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/uuafT4CCF

"You try to leave the country, but Ultraviolet just moves it right along with you. Crap!"

[Nomad]

Starke Von Oben said:

http://www.korea-dpr.com/

The official webage of North Korea. Kim Jong Il describes himself as an "internet expert", and probably the only citizen in the country with internet access.

Judging by the amateurish outdated style of the website I wouldn't be surprised if North Korea's only internet expert designed and made it personally after a game of golf that involved 18 holes in 1.

I like how "The Forums" are just a blag. It's updated pretty frequently, though, and equally as surreal. I refuse to believe anyone there actually refers to him as The Great Leader.

[Mr. Freeze]

Nomad said:

I refuse to believe anyone there actually refers to him as The Great Leader.

I've got some bad news for you...

[Belial]

Yeah, I've seen a documentary on Discovery about two sisters who escaped to South Korea, then one of them went back because she couldn't live knowing that she abandoned The Great Leader.

I'm dead serious.

[Nomad]

Well, let me rephrase. I refuse to believe that any rational person there would ever willingly refer to him as The Great Leader. Being brainwashed doesn't count.

[Scet]

Nomad said:

I refuse to believe that any rational person there would ever willingly refer to him as The Great Leader.

They don't want to be v&.

[Shaikoten]

Nomad said:

Well, let me rephrase. I refuse to believe that any rational person there would ever willingly refer to him as The Great Leader. Being brainwashed doesn't count.

So by your logic essentially no one within the borders of North Korea is rational? Everyone who exists within any particular society is brainwashed to a certain extent.

Also, this website is mesmerizing. It's just so bizarre reading such blatant propaganda, looking at the retouch photos, and the paintings of things that could have never happened.

Now that I think of it, much of the data on this site in its presentation, and the visuals, remind me of Jehovah's Witnesses material like Watchtower or Awake.

[TheeXile]

Heh, who needs horror movies for Halloween when you have this?

Thanks for the link, but I'm going to make myself not care about this now because there is not going to be a damn thing I could possibly do about it. I don't need more reminders about human nature.

[Technician]

Christ, its like 1984.

[david_a]

Starke Von Oben said:

http://www.korea-dpr.com/

It looks like that site is registered to some Spaniards. Also, a Cafe Express store?! I have my doubts about it's legitimacy...

I think this is the real site: http://www.naenara.kp/en/

[Nomad]

Shaikoten said:

So by your logic essentially no one within the borders of North Korea is rational? Everyone who exists within any particular society is brainwashed to a certain extent.

No one who willingly worships that midget butch-dyke in that country is rational, no. I'm sure there are plenty of rational people there who do so unwillingly because they have to.

[Aliotroph?]

For added fun there's the Korean Central News Agency of DPRK. Funny that it's hosted in Japan. Anyway, it's a good read when you want to find out which five books and three CDs were released in North Korea this year. Also, it's fun to see what they say whenever they appear in our news.

[Shaikoten]

Nomad said:

No one who willingly worships that midget butch-dyke in that country is rational, no. I'm sure there are plenty of rational people there who do so unwillingly because they have to.

You seem pretty lacking in cultural relativity! I don't consider the existence of the Christian God to be a particularly rational thing, yet people are brought up since birth to believe in something. Even something as ridiculous as a man in the clouds speaking to you with a zombie son who died for your sins. People who are bought up as Christians can often not conceive of not believing in God despite any lack of proof, yet are perfectly capable of rational thought in other arenas. How is believing in Kim Jong Il any more ridiculous than believing in any deity when you've been raised to do so?

[Nomad]

Shaikoten said:

You seem pretty lacking in cultural relativity! I don't consider the existence of the Christian God to be a particularly rational thing, yet people are brought up since birth to believe in something. Even something as ridiculous as a man in the clouds speaking to you with a zombie son who died for your sins. People who are bought up as Christians can often not conceive of not believing in God despite any lack of proof, yet are perfectly capable of rational thought in other arenas. How is believing in Kim Jong Il any more ridiculous than believing in any deity when you've been raised to do so?

So you're saying that rational people can think Kim Jong Il is a good leader? Stalin was a good leader, however dangerous, and I could understand allegiance to him. Hitler was a very strong leader, and I can definitely understand allegiance to him. Both of those men led their nations to become powerhouses, and threatened the world.

Kim Jong is a fucking madman that keeps an entire nation in the dark. I don't see any conceivable reason why anyone with a rational mind could sit in their dirt hovel, eating nothing but a cup of rice every night, working their asses off for nothing, with no electricity and probably in many cases no running water or indoor plumbing at all, and then think about how much they are grateful that Kim Jong Il is their leader.

Culture relativity my ass. Infringing on basic human rights has nothing to do with culture relativity.

[Mr. Freeze]

Nomad said:

So you're saying that rational people can think Kim Jong Il is a good leader? Stalin was a good leader, however dangerous, and I could understand allegiance to him. Hitler was a very strong leader, and I can definitely understand allegiance to him. Both of those men led their nations to become powerhouses, and threatened the world.

Kim Jong is a fucking madman that keeps an entire nation in the dark. I don't see any conceivable reason why anyone with a rational mind could sit in their dirt hovel, eating nothing but a cup of rice every night, working their asses off for nothing, with no electricity and probably in many cases no running water or indoor plumbing at all, and then think about how much they are grateful that Kim Jong Il is their leader.

Culture relativity my ass. Infringing on basic human rights has nothing to do with culture relativity.

It IS brainwashing, and like all effective brainwashing, it starts early. I remeber seeing some grade-school textbooks translated from Korean to English. They literally *worship* Kim Jong.

[Shaikoten]

Nomad said:

So you're saying that rational people can think Kim Jong Il is a good leader? Stalin was a good leader, however dangerous, and I could understand allegiance to him. Hitler was a very strong leader, and I can definitely understand allegiance to him. Both of those men led their nations to become powerhouses, and threatened the world.

Kim Jong is a fucking madman that keeps an entire nation in the dark. I don't see any conceivable reason why anyone with a rational mind could sit in their dirt hovel, eating nothing but a cup of rice every night, working their asses off for nothing, with no electricity and probably in many cases no running water or indoor plumbing at all, and then think about how much they are grateful that Kim Jong Il is their leader.

Culture relativity my ass. Infringing on basic human rights has nothing to do with culture relativity.

You have said it yourself, though. They are completely in the dark. They do not know anything else, therefor they are thankful for what they have. They are _completely_ shut out from the outside world, and think that what they have going on is the best thing out there. And that is why it makes sense for them to worship who they see as their provider of _everything in their entire lives_.

[Aliotroph?]

Stalin did exactly the same crap. The USSR had its famine, its propaganda, its cult of personality, and even its ridiculous monuments. Stalin had a bigger country with more toys to play with, but it was very close to the same thing as North Korea. I think the bigger difference is despite Russians liking strongmen on the whole, they also love to break rules. The USSR had one heck of an underground economy. I've heard no reports of such a thing from North Korea. Living there seems to be basically worse than 1984.

Also, that film didn't cover it much, but South Korea has freedom issues too. The Korean Wall example illustrates that nicely.

[Bank]

Complete thought control compiled with extreme xenophobic/isolationist policy will create this. I've often wondered how the government keeps its thumb so firmly pressed against the freedom of these individuals, how a revolution has not occurred in this long is unbelievable. I truly think most people believe the mythology and propaganda whole-heartedly, otherwise there's no way this government would still be standing.

I will say that when it does collapse, it will be bloody and irreparable.

[mammajamma]

Apparently the forum/blog used to be a full blown forum with threads and everything. I read some of the threads when it was still active and the mindless worship of the regime exhibited by the posters unnerved me. The forum is not around anymore, but Something Awful took screencaps of some of the types of posts that were on there and appropriately mocked them here. (Here's an wayback machine link from July of 2008)

These were people around the world that bought literally every word of this tyrannical douchebag.

e: Here's a youtube channel loaded with NK propaganda by either one of the country's sympathizers, or the country itself: http://www.youtube.com/user/Songunblog

Also, a roller coaster in Pyongyang.

[Aliotroph?]

What bothers me is why anybody would want to run such a country. Having monuments is awesome, but not if they can't be enjoyed. Where does Kim Jong-il get any fun or pleasure out of any of it, since obviously he knows it's all staged crap?

[TheeXile]

Bank said:

Complete thought control compiled with extreme xenophobic/isolationist policy will create this. I've often wondered how the government keeps its thumb so firmly pressed against the freedom of these individuals, how a revolution has not occurred in this long is unbelievable. I truly think most people believe the mythology and propaganda whole-heartedly, otherwise there's no way this government would still be standing.

They're entrenched in a mindset that the evil West is out to get them. It's like a self-reinforcing catch 22 of fear and pride.

[Sharessa]

That was a pretty good documentary. Definitely had more information than any I've seen. However, I kind of like this one better. I've watched it twice myself. It's basically a small documentary group who takes the official tour of North Korea. It's really surreal.

Nomad said:

Kim Jong is a fucking madman that keeps an entire nation in the dark. I don't see any conceivable reason why anyone with a rational mind could sit in their dirt hovel, eating nothing but a cup of rice every night, working their asses off for nothing, with no electricity and probably in many cases no running water or indoor plumbing at all, and then think about how much they are grateful that Kim Jong Il is their leader.

Rice? My dear boy, did you not watch the documentary? It's tree bark and clay!

Also, if you were being told that your leader is a benevolent man with super-powers who is trying to unite Korea and bring peace to the world and that the reason why you're living in a hovel is because the Americans and Japanese are secretly plotting to keep Korea divided every day of your life...then yes, eventually you would come to believe it. They have no internet, no TV, no radio, no newspaper. All they know is what they were taught in school, what they hear from officials over the loudspeakers, and their forced tours of the capitol city.

[deathbringer]

You might think living in a hovel with no plumbing and a bowl of rice a day is pretty damn good if you'd never seen anything better to compare it with, and i'm guessing 99.9% of North Koreans haven't.

I was watching a few NK vids on Youtube recently (searching for imperialist/fascist/communist propaganda songs - some of the Italian ones are hilariously camp) and they had an interview with somebody who was bought up in a prison camp because of some vague accusation against his parents. After being tortured and seeing his parents shot he escaped (having to climb over the corpse of the guy who got to the electric fence before him in the process) and thought that NK was a "free society" because people could walk around and sit down when they wanted. Then he eventually reached China and then South Korea, where he talked about his experiences.

[Use]

Too bad they don't have oil.

[Starke Von Oben]

Nomad said:

Stalin was a good leader, however dangerous, and I could understand allegiance to him...

Artificially created famines? Stalin was a thug, a bank robber and political gangster who used intimidation and fear to gain dominance in the soviet state after Lenin's death.

There's nothing "good" about him. If you measure goodness in the the success of the his five year plans and the industrialization of Russia, you may as well measure the success of the recession in the amount of pay rises that all the bankers gave themselves in it's aftermath.

Stalin's successes are stained with the blood of MILLIONS, and are not good in any sense. They are "successful", but far from good from any moral perspective.

[destx]

Danarchy said:

However, I kind of like this one better.

I second that, this is an excellent documentary. Really eerie.

I eagerly look forward to seeing how North Korea turns out after their great leader disgusting psychopath dies. Though it would be nice if someone gets sick of putting up with his shit and invades before that.