> From: owner-lbo-talk-digest at lists.panix.com (lbo-talk-digest)
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 06:34:32 -0400 (EDT)
> To: lbo-talk-digest at lists1.panix.com
> Subject: lbo-talk-digest V1 #2879
>
> Maybe Brad's right and the North Korean government is just lying.
>
> Or maybe the bourgeois press is cynically hiding the fact that North Korea
> really IS a proletarian paradise. :)
I don't see how anybody could possibly doubt the words of the beloved North
Korean leader. Seriously, off the top of my head I can't think of any other
communist country where that father-son passing of the torch has happened,
at least so officially.
Sorry if I sound naive again (bear with me) but I find the fact that an entire country can pretty much "disappear" from scrutiny quite interesting. It beats Albania, and Albania's peak of secrecy was before the web and hyper-sophisticated satellites. In this age of "globalization" and "information" and seemingly immediate access, North Korea has succeeded in blocking itself from the world. I'm far from being anti-communist, but rationalizing this opacity now ("they're surrounded by hostile countries!") reminds me of the French communists who, up to the early 80s, closed their eyes, put their hands on their ears, and started mumbling as soon as the subject of Moscow showed up. (Sorry I can't quote a report on that, but I was there.) Obviously the US-supported military buildup in the region is reprehensible, but frankly at this point in time it looks like NK is in the very firm grip of an old fashioned totalitarian regime. So yeah, maybe the (military) trains run on time, but isn't that looking at the tree and missing the forest?
Elisabeth