I find it odd that criticism of certain countries is now limited to inhabitants of those countries, or, as Wojtek Sokolowski claimed a while ago that you have to speak German in order to critize state socialism in the former East Germany. Of course one should speak with knowledge, but knowledge is not restricted to certain groups.
Is it possible to hold multiple thoughts at once? that Yoshie is correct, if uncharitable in her expression, to insist on reparations to North Korea and to insist on acknowledgement of the terrible damgage done to NK during the war by the US, that North Korean development has been damaged by US militarization of Korea, AND that North Korea has been ruled by a self-serving and self-sustaining bueracratic elite that restricts political, civic, and social freedoms that have value in a human life.
Interesting too for Yoshie to compare the cult of personality in North Korea to the cult of the Founding Fathers in the US, but I do think that the cult in North Korea is of a seriously greater intensity and allow for no dissent at all.
Jacob Segal