RES: a trip to North Korea

[Michael Hoover]

> Anti-Stalinism as a 
> marketable intellectual commodity, 
> doesn't say anything 
> about how North Koreans thought and think about Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong 
> Il, & North Korean political economy in general, for instance.  One 
> may enjoy Zizek's brand of anti-Stalinism, but one remains ignorant 
> of North Korea (its past, present, and possible future directions) 
> after reading it.
> Yoshie

North Koreans' admiration for Kim stemmed from his composure under US 
bombing that left separated families, widows, orphans, disabled in its
wake (about 25% of NK population was killed and another 50% was
wounded).  In immediate aftermath of 1953 armistice, Kim gov't undertook
determined economic planning that succeeded in steady improvement of
people's lives for about 2 decades (heavy defense burden would be factor 
in eventual development lag).  Irrespective of later Kim-worship
- emergence of which coincides, not coincidentally I think, with onset
of economic stagnation in late 1960s/early 1970s - not hard to understand
why folks might have praised him.  Michael Hoover