JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
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> I distinguisged Kim Jr from dad in part by suggesting that Kim Sr _was_ a personality, apparently quite a forceful one with a fearsome record as a national liberation fighter.
Sr. was. In his time, a very handsome and dashing figure too.
> Of course NK is Stalinist; Stalinism is not (as I said elsewhere) a cult of Stalin's personality, but a kind of rule and a social order that the FSU shared with a number of its allies, NK included.
I disagree, but I don't want to have a discussion about who is Stalinist and who isn't.
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> I find this defense of the miserable regime in NK depressing and puzzling.
My point is not to defend the DPRK or write propaganda for it, but to try and get beyond the layers of doctrinaire bullshit written about it, maybe even suggest that that are positive things there. From what I've read and been told by friends who've been there, is that is an interesting and very hospitable place. Clean,modern, lots of street life but also very quaint; 50's style consumer goods etc. The rural areas are not much different from other poor countries apart from the heavy use of chemical fertilizers in the DPRK.
Sam P