> NK-style "self-reliance" is a disaster. On
>all but the most slavishly devoted accounts, the country is
>desperately poor and governed by a bizarre personality cult. In what
>ways are "socialist" North Koreans any better off than the
>proletarians of capitalist South Korea? Do you really think a small
>country can disengage completely from the outside world?
I think Doug looks at this the wrong way 'round. It wasn't North Korea that separated itself from the world, but General Douglas MacArthur who divided Korea. The policies of the admittedly mediocre North Korean leadership are only a response to the Cold War policies that vilified N Korea as 'the enemy' - the better to militarise the region. IF Stone's Hidden History of the Korean War is good on this, as is Walden Bello's People and Power in the Pacific.
After Iraq, Gen Colin Powell said that he was running out of bogeymen - there was only Castro and Kim Il Sung left. That's the importance of N Korea for US foreign policy, and a good reason to oppose anti-North Korean propaganda. -- Jim heartfield