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[BertramCooper]

"We don't know much about North Korea, so let's assume the best!"

 

[dubq]

Isn't it disingenuous to assume you therefor know what's behind the scenes?

All I can tell from this is and other documentaries is that the Regime in North Korea cares an unhealthy amount about keeping up appearances, that's a remnant of Soviet control perhaps. But unless I can actually see behind the curtain my speculations are as good as his.

You're watching the wrong documentaries, then. This isn't about keeping up appearances in Pyongyang. This is about the terrible way of life that the common civilian worker has in NK. You have stories from people who have escaped this way of life, recorded and on record. You can't just sit there and write it off as a singular occurrence or "sample bias" (seriously, fuck anyone who says that). I'm really sick of this attitude that if you don't have explicit video footage of the conditions that it must all be speculation... ffs.

Go through Journeyman Pictures on YouTube. Search for North Korea. There are several documentary style stories of people recounting what life is like for the "common person" in North Korea.

http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures/videos?query=korea

Not every video in the search result is applicable, but use your brain and go through them.

 

[FStop7]

Let me just say this, there's a good reason my grandparents walked across the DMZ with their kids back in the 60s.

O_O Can you share the story? Did they have to cross the minefields?

 

[demolitio]

"We don't know much about North Korea, so let's assume the best!"

No kidding...And what we do know makes most people assume the worst if anything for good reason.

The government built up an appearance of being good but that's nothing but an appearance that even the Vice series showed off so well. Very eerie.

 

[Porcile]

Isn't it disingenuous to assume you therefor know what's behind the scenes?

All I can tell from this is and other documentaries is that the Regime in North Korea cares an unhealthy amount about keeping up appearances, that's a remnant of Soviet control perhaps. But unless I can actually see behind the curtain my speculations are as good as his.

It cares only about the absolutely limited view it gives of it's country to Westerners - pretty much solely Pyongyang.

 

[Korey]

They eat their kids from starvation.

 

[Hi i'm Caleb]

(well I guess if you get sent to one of the camps it is, but anyway...)

I know right, but is it REALLY that bad?

 

[PlayALLtheGames]

By whom are those metrics reported? North Korea?

 

[BocoDragon]

They eat their kids from starvation.

How many times did this really happen? Honest question.

I've said it before, but imagine how North Koreans process news of Aurora and Sandy Hook... "Their children shoot other children!"

 

[grumble]

To anyone who doesn't get how terrible it is. Watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to96UfT4YW4

Calling this place a nightmare is an understatement.

Examples:

In these prison camps (where hundreds of thousands of NK are), the women are raped constantly by the prison guards. The prison guards were told to 'take care of it' if they get a woman pregnant, which happens commonly. This obviously means killing them, or at least beating them until they miscarry. In one situation, a guard had a woman who was about six months pregnant, tied her up to a tree with a rope and beat her to death over a matter of hours.

A five year old girl was caught in a classroom with five grains of corn. The teacher took her to the front of the class and beat her with a stick for five hours. She died of her injuries.

Once a child of about 12 was carrying a sewing machine across a factory floor, when he accidentally dropped it. They took him and cut off one of his fingers.

You get beaten in NK constantly, not just using your hands. They use tools. They beat you to death without a thought.

 

[dubq]

I've said it before, but imagine how North Koreans process news of Aurora and Sandy Hook... "Their children shoot other children!"

They would need to have access to such news, first and foremost.

 

[BocoDragon]

They would need to have access to such news, first and foremost.

Oh, I'm sure they were told about it, at least in an abstract way. Events like that are a gift to their propaganda department.

 

[Korey]

How many times did this really happen? Honest question.

I've said it before, but imagine how North Koreans process news of Aurora and Sandy Hook... "Their children shoot other children!"

I don't know but I just googled this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-j-furney/north-korea-cannibalism-hunger_b_2601956.html

Amid this bluster flaps a fetid tapestry of the very worst of human suffering. Undercover reporters from the Asiapress news agency, which has a focus on North Korea and is based in Japan, discovered last year that the depths of starvation in the North are so severe that people are being forced into cannibalism. In a report released by Asiapress this week, an official of the Korean Workers' Party detailed in a rare clandestine meeting with the reporters that on visits he made to farming villages in the middle of last year he found only infinite despair. "There was no food at all," he was quoted as saying.

"In a village named Hwayangri in Chondang," he added, "a man who went mad with hunger boiled his own child and ate his flesh and got arrested."

An illicit trade in human meat has sprung up around North Korea, according to the journalists, who spoke to local residents. One man was executed by firing squad last May after being found guilty of killing 11 people and selling their flesh as pork, one of the reporters found. Elsewhere, a father killed his two children and tried to eat them; he, too, was executed. Another man "killed his eldest daughter, and because his son saw what he had done, he killed his son as well. When his wife came home, he offered her food saying 'we have meat.' But the wife, suspicious that her children were missing, notified the Ministry of Public Security (the police), which led to the discovery of part of their children's bodies from under the eaves."

Another member of the undercover team reported that, "There was an incident where a man was arrested for digging up the grave of his grandchild, and eating the remains."

Because it is almost impossible for reporters to officially gain access to the cut-off country, apart from state-sanctioned public relations junkets (Google, this month) to marvel at Pyonyang's new buildings -- including, one presumes, the 3,000-room, space-ship-like Ryugyong Hotel, nicknamed the Hotel of Doom, whose construction began in the 80s and is due to finally open this summer -- and extraordinary celebratory displays, it is almost impossible to know what goes on behind this most barricaded of iron curtains. But the Asiapress team estimates that, based on what they saw and heard, tens of thousands died last year as crops like corn and rice failed.

 

[Porcile]

I know people like to reference the Vice documentary as some sort of overall representation. But when you actually dig deeper you'll find that experience is almost entirely in line with every limited experience a Westerner has in North Korea. Go read Guy Delisle's Pyongyang. Only Daniel Gordon's documentaries have ever really given a different view of the country because of their unusual subject matter

Probably the reason you don't see any of the other cities is because they're so bloody average. People work Monday to Saturday, children go to school and others train in the army. Spare time is spent doing fairly menial things with their family.

 

[hym]

You're watching the wrong documentaries, then. This isn't about keeping up appearances in Pyongyang. This is about the terrible way of life that the common civilian worker has in NK. You have stories from people who have escaped this way of life, recorded and on record. You can't just sit there and write it off as a singular occurrence or "sample bias" (seriously, fuck anyone who says that). I'm really sick of this attitude that if you don't have explicit video footage of the conditions that it must all be speculation... ffs.

Go through Journeyman Pictures on YouTube. Search for North Korea. There are several documentary style stories of people recounting what life is like for the "common person" in North Korea.

http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures/videos?query=korea

Not every video in the search result is applicable, but use your brain and go through them.

Look I have listened to a couple lectures of people that escaped North Korea over the last decade, what they describe are Nazi type concentration camps with the most horrific imagery imaginable.

If this were to be true the world loses any claim on humanitarian concerns, it's not that hard to collect evidence these days with satellites and drones.

(and malnourished homeless kids can be found in the EU as well)

And we are running circles, I'm certain the life of the average North Korean is crap and if they were more aware of our living standards they would be even more upset, but the stories I'm hearing simply don't make sense and without any evidence or unrelated defectors sharing the exact same account about specific events or locations I can only assume that they are very happy to be out of there to such a degree that they want to assist in demonizing their former country and please their new hosts. When North Koreans flee and requests asylum in South Korea they go through a 6 month isolation program to “remove the brainwash” and adapt to their new environment, I have my doubts about such practices as well.

If it's really as bad as some say and we find out after some war we should be ashamed for not acting earlier and it's despicable none of our officials are sharing the evidence, the only thing they have to fear is letting NK know we are spying them. If we don't find these weapons of mass human agony then nobody will even mention it again because the crazy military in power there is more than enough justification to poke them.

All this talk about how it's the most horrible place on earth to live seems as much propaganda as what the North Koreans get to hear.

 

[IAmtheFMan]

Isn't it disingenuous to assume you therefor know what's behind the scenes?

All I can tell from this is and other documentaries is that the Regime in North Korea cares an unhealthy amount about keeping up appearances, that's a remnant of Soviet control perhaps. But unless I can actually see behind the curtain my speculations are as good as his.

http://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/HRNK_HiddenGulag2_Web_5-18.pdf

The HRNK, led by former Amnesty International Directors have continued to follow defectors and their testimonies. There have been over 60 independent defectors that have given their testimony about the prison camps all essentially corroborating each other's testimony. Google Earth maps are detailed enough now that they can make out specific buildings, barb wired fences and guard posts. Former prisoners/guards that defected have confirmed what the buildings are in detail, again all independently from one another. Unless all of these defectors are talking to each other before landing in the South, or all have the same twisted flair for embellishment, there's more truth then not in the reports.

And yeah, you could argue that "they have an agenda" because they defected from the North to the South. But so did Jan Karski, but it doesn't mean he was wrong. And even if the vast majority is still bullshit, if even a small percentage of the reported atrocities are true, that's still absolutely harrowing human rights violations.

 

[zero shift]

I can understand the OPs skeptism. Cuba (especially modern Cuba) for example is immensely exaggerated by the west (coming from someone who has talked to many Cubans/Cubans that have visited there). Many of the previous iron curtain nations were nowhere near as bad as 80s action films lead you to believe. http://www.pewglobal.org/2010/01/20/the-post-communist-generation-in-the-former-eastern-bloc/

That being said North Korea really is more or less as bad as people say it is. A huge portion of the nation is starving and people go to jail for the most mundane things such as folding a newspaper in a way that the crease goes on the Dear Leader's face. What they don't say is that a vast majority of North Koreans that escape to South Korea dislike their new life. I read a study where half of them try to escape back into North Korea, not sure how reliable it is so don't quote me on that.

EDIT - That being said if your country has Nazi concentration camps, does it really matter if the "average" North Koreans life isn't "so bad"?

 

[bonercop]

And we are running circles, I'm certain the life of the average North Korean is crap and if they were more aware of our living standards they would be even more upset, but the stories I'm hearing simply don't make sense and without any evidence or unrelated defectors sharing the exact same account about specific events or locations I can only assume that they are very happy to be out of there to such a degree that they want to assist in demonizing their former country and please their new hosts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodok_concentration_camp

 

[richiek]

And we are running circles, I'm certain the life of the average North Korean is crap and if they were more aware of our living standards they would be even more upset, but the stories I'm hearing simply don't make sense and without any evidence or unrelated defectors sharing the exact same account about specific events or locations I can only assume that they are very happy to be out of there to such a degree that they want to assist in demonizing their former country and please their new hosts. When North Koreans flee and requests asylum in South Korea they go through a 6 month isolation program to “remove the brainwash” and adapt to their new environment, I have my doubts about such practices as well.

If it's really as bad as some say and we find out after some war we should be ashamed for not acting earlier and it's despicable none of our officials are sharing the evidence, the only thing they have to fear is letting NK know we are spying them. If we don't find these weapons of mass human agony then nobody will even mention it again because the crazy military in power there is more than enough justification to poke them.

All this talk about how it's the most horrible place on earth to live seems as much propaganda as what the North Koreans get to hear.

Actually, North Koreans are gaining access to bootlegged DVDs from China and are more aware of how things are in South Korea.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-Koreans-secretly-watching-foreign-media.html

 

[Wellscha]

I can understand the OPs skeptism. Cuba (especially modern Cuba) for example is immensely exaggerated by the west (coming from someone who has talked to many Cubans/Cubans that have visited there). Many of the previous iron curtain nations were nowhere near as bad as 80s action films lead you to believe. http://www.pewglobal.org/2010/01/20/the-post-communist-generation-in-the-former-eastern-bloc/

That being said North Korea really is more or less as bad as people say it is. A huge portion of the nation is starving and people go to jail for the most mundane things such as folding a newspaper in a way that the crease goes on the Dear Leader's face. What they don't say is that a vast majority of North Koreans that escape to South Korea dislike their new life. I read a study where half of them try to escape back into North Korea, not sure how reliable it is so don't quote me on that.

Now that's just fucked up.

 

[BocoDragon]

I don't know but I just googled this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-j-furney/north-korea-cannibalism-hunger_b_2601956.html

See it's all from one source: Asiapress, which specializes in digging up dirt on North Korea.

Now I think story this is totally true! But it's also one report based on one source based on some hearsay.

If we were to say "NKs eat their own children", that may be a generalization of the highest order. Not unlike saying that American kids like to go on murder sprees.

But perhaps cannibalism IS widespread enough to say that. I don't actually know.

 

[hym]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodok_concentration_camp

NK has a population of 25million, the 6 Political Prison Camps identified thanks to google maps hold according to a Human Rights commitee an estimate of 175,000 prisoners.

That's 0.7% of the population....

Yet what I'm hearing is that North Korea is hell on earth...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_North_Korea#Internment_camps_for_political_prisoners

 

[zero shift]

Now that's just fucked up.

It does happen. http://www.businessinsider.com/some...e-in-the-south-that-they-go-back-north-2012-8

But I guess it isn't half at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_defectors#Statistics

Its mostly due to unemployment (50% of defectors are unemployed and the fast paced consumerist minded Capitalist culture.

 

[radios shipping overview]

I can't decide if this thread is about playing devil's advocate or just being pedantic.

 

[Porcile]

NK has a population of 25million, the 6 Political Prison Camps identified thanks to google maps hold according to a Human Rights commitee an estimate of 175,000 prisoners.

That's 0.7% of the population....

Yet what I'm hearing is that North Korea is hell on earth...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_North_Korea#Internment_camps_for_political_prisoners

It's hell on earth for those people in the camps, I don't think that can be denied. . But you are right in that the prisons only represent a minor fraction of the general populous, which this thread seems to be trying to discuss.

 

[FStop7]

I can understand the OPs skeptism. Cuba (especially modern Cuba) for example is immensely exaggerated by the west (coming from someone who has talked to many Cubans/Cubans that have visited there). Many of the previous iron curtain nations were nowhere near as bad as 80s action films lead you to believe. http://www.pewglobal.org/2010/01/20/the-post-communist-generation-in-the-former-eastern-bloc/

There may be some truth to this but the fact is that Cubans aren't jumping into makeshift rafts and crossing a dangerous stretch of the ocean because it's so great there. This is something I've got some first hand experience with.

 

[BocoDragon]

Actually, North Koreans are gaining access to bootlegged DVDs from China and are more aware of how things are in South Korea.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-Koreans-secretly-watching-foreign-media.html

Yes and do you think that means they instantly think it's a better way of life?

They're gonna think South Korea (and the rest of the west) are controlled by Americans, subjected to propaganda, programmed by capitalism to make other people rich, obsessed with image to the point that they modify their bodies with surgery, subject to crime and disorder, etc.

There is a video on the internet, purported to be from North Korea (for an audience of Westerners), that depicts everything from people lining up for iPhones to Fox News as evidence that America is the worst place on earth (even if they are better fed).

I'm not sure if this actually is from NK, but in any case, it shows how it's perfectly possible to spin a western lifestyle as the most depraved... and how N. Korean life could be spun as preferable.

NK has a population of 25million, the 6 Political Prison Camps identified thanks to google maps hold according to a Human Rights commitee an estimate of 175,000 prisoners.

That's 0.7% of the population....

Yet what I'm hearing is that North Korea is hell on earth...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_North_Korea#Internment_camps_for_political_prisoners

Interestingly, that's exactly the same as the US. 0.743% of Americans are in jail.

 

[bonercop]

That's 0.7% of the population....

Which is the highest rate of incarceration in the world, matched only by the US of A.

How cartoonishly evil does the North Korean government have to act to be considered as running "hell on earth"?

 

[zero shift]

There may be some truth to this but the fact is that Cubans aren't jumping into makeshift rafts and crossing a dangerous stretch of the ocean because it's so great there. This is something I've got some first hand experience with.

Cuba is far from "great". But I wouldn't rate it THAT much worse than a nation hosted by another dictator. I feel a big reason for the makeshift rafts is because people are essentially stuck there. You can't go anywhere else so if you don't have any opportunity there then tough luck. Thankfully this is starting (albeit slowly) to change.

The country today is essentially like the surrounding third world Caribbean nations, with huge government ownership, draconian censorship (but not one of the worst in the world), and good healthcare compared to the surrounding area.

Again I'm not saying Cuba is comparable to say Argentina, Brazil, or Venezuela. It certainly isn't your average Latin American country and the country does many immoral things. However there is a reason why most South American countries don't agree with America in treating them as an axis of evil.

 

[Porcile]

Interestingly, that's exactly the same as the US. 0.743% of Americans are in jail.

I've watched America's Toughest Prisons on TV in the UK. California and Florida are clearly like hell on earth!

;-)

 

[Hermii]

Interestingly, that's exactly the same as the US. 0.743% of Americans are in jail.

If you assume the nk stats are legit which is a pretty far fetched assumption.

 

[I'm new be nice]

When I think of North Korea these are the images I have in mind.

 

[hym]

There is a video on the internet, purported to be from North Korea (for an audience of Westerners), that depicts everything from people lining up for iPhones to Fox News as evidence that America is the worst place on earth (even if they are better fed).

I'm not sure if this actually is from NK, but in any case, it shows how it's perfectly possible to spin a western lifestyle as the most depraved... and how N. Korean life could be spun as preferable.

Seems a bit reminiscent of the documentaries by Adam Curtis but exaggerated and paranoid, as if everything serves a perfect purpose to a specific goal, if only our rich were that competent.

It doesn't really sound like something intended for an unknowing North Korean audience though, more like a film to make Westerners question the West, but I have no clue what the benefit for them would be in that.

 

[Passive Assassin]

http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Envy-Ordinary-Lives-North/dp/0385523912. This is a great book.

 

[R&R]

Eventually when the NK regime collapses I am sure the horrors that will be found in those death camps will match the nazi concentration camps...or even surpass them.

 

[BraXzy]

How so? Surely if your quality of life is that bad, you don't live long.

This comment is just...

There's a lot of bad stuff that can happen to you that doesn't cause your life to come to an untimely end.

 

[BocoDragon]

Seems a bit reminiscent of the documentaries by Adam Curtis but exaggerated and paranoid, as if everything serves a perfect purpose to a specific goal, if only our rich were that competent.

I'm insulted that you would compare them to Adam Curtis, who does great documentaries

Actually what comes to mind for me are Zeitgeist and Loose Change.

It doesn't really sound like something intended for a unknowing North Korean audience though, more like a film to make Westerners question the West, but I have no clue what their benefit for them would be in that.

It might be high level propaganda intended to infiltrate foreign minds, but perhaps not.

It could just be a pet project of one of their cultural centers or universities. Its a good anti-western essay and a good practice of English, so maybe the powers-that-be liked it enough to disseminate it on the open internet.

Or it could just be another Zeitgeist-like film that pretends its from NK to get views.

If it is really from NK, clearly it is intended for westerners, but I still think it provides an example of how even knowledge of the outside world doesn't mean they automatically want the Western lifestyle. They probably think like the most conspiratorial and anti-establishment people in our own society.

 

[hym]

I'm insulted that you would compare them to Adam Curtis, who does great documentaries

Heh I just meant the narration style and visual cues, take it as a compliment that I don't consider Adam Curtis' work to be exaggerating or paranoid. I don't always think he's spot on but he has a profound insight on what makes societies act and think the way they do.

Maybe it's just propaganda intended for North Koreans who will be directly exposed to the west, keep them loyal.

 

[BocoDragon]

Heh I just meant the narration style and visual cues, take it as a compliment that I don't consider Adam Curtis' work to be exaggerating or paranoid. I don't always think he's spot on but he has a profound insight on what makes societies do and think the way they do.

I think I'd agree with your assessment of his work. And I do see the comparison.

Maybe it's just propaganda intended for North Koreans that will be directly exposed to the west, keep them loyal.

Yeah that's true. Evidence that they are spreading their "truth" abroad.

I'm sure for the people who do have access to the internet, it's a no brainer for a NK version of their own "viral video". It's the same reason they have a twitter.

 

[RedSwirl]

And as if the country didn't have enough problems, they also have a huge meth epidemic.

Wait really? I remember hearing about farmers being forced to grow drugs instead of food, but I didn't hear about meth actually running amok throughout the country.

 

[Log4Girlz]

All that needs to be said.

North Korea is a world leader in energy conservation. When their people are supposed to be in bed resting for the next day's work, lighting is not necessary. Imagine how tiny their carbon footprint must be. Truly the envy of the world.

 

[hym]

North Korea is a world leader in energy conservation. When their people are supposed to be in bed resting for the next day's work, lighting is not necessary. Imagine how tiny their carbon footprint must be. Truly the envy of the world.

Reminds me of something CNN reported yesterday, North Korea declared Nuclear power plants to the International Atomic Energy Agency that aren't connected to the power grid.

Just a little bit iffy.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Reminds me of something CNN reported yesterday, North Korea declared Nuclear power plants to the International Atomic Energy Agency that aren't connected to the power grid.

Just a little bit iffy.

Sampling bias.

 

[CHEEZMO™]

ITT: North Korean defence force via concern trolling.

 

[J-Rod]

Sub-Saharan Africa and other select parts of the world may be worse, but I'm not sure what is gained from making that point. That NK is competitive with, but perhaps not technically the absolute worst place in the entire world?

 

[RedSwirl]

Sampling bias?

Unless you're in the freaking military it's the entire damn country! Random arrests, starvation, work camps, etc, etc, etc.

And even then, there are reports that even the military is starving. I don't know much about much, but wouldn't that be a bad sign for a regime?

To be fair. A lot of North Korea is fairly inhospitable, mountainous and rugged terrain.

A lot of Japan is fairly inhospitable, mountainous and rugged terrain. Isn't like 70 percent of Japan basically mountains?

 

[CrazyDude]

How many times did this really happen? Honest question.

I've said it before, but imagine how North Koreans process news of Aurora and Sandy Hook... "Their children shoot other children!"

It has happened a number of times, such a the famine in the Ukraine and when Leningrad was isolated.

 

[Kinyou]

You know, I've never been to America. Maybe the North Korean video is the first time I actually saw what's really going on over there :O

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Kq78G2nxA

 

[Porcile]

And even the, there are reports that even the military is starving. I don't know much about much, but wouldn't that be a bad sign for a regime?



A lot of Japan is fairly inhospitable, mountainous and rugged terrain. Isn't like 70 percent of Japan basically mountains?

Japan emerged, rebuilt and expanded itself from WW2 with financial backing from the US. North Korea emerged from the Korean War relying on industrialisation of it's resources to expand as a nation. It grew quicker than the South initially but then stalled because it has no real industry or vast amount of resources to speak of. And since neither China or the Soviet Union could support it in a meaningful way, it's growth has basically stalled for about 40 years. Like the person who compared it to Greece, the differing economic situation of the country's are much too different to make a valid comparison.

 

[Dunk#7]

Doesn't the fact that the people of NK are cutoff communications-wise with the rest of the world say enough.

If the conditions were remotely decent they would be on here defending themselves. They are kept in the dark and lied to on a regular basis. That combined with the fact they can't cry for help because they have no means with which to do so spells disaster.

If it wasn't terrible they would allow their citizens to talk openly about the conditions.