In Socialism everything gets better until things finally collapse. Nowhere is this more true than North Korea which promises that its population will see more of everything in 2012: more food, housing, clothing, etc. A Summer of Recovery on the Yalu. In the meantime the population is told to that it has to eat less and burn less fuel, to prepare for this glorious future.
But it hard to see how much more environmentally friendly the North Koreans can be. Chosin Ilbo notes that despite Pyongyang’s use of forced labor to reforest the hillsides, North Korea is losing its forest cover. The biggest reason is that a desperately cold people have taken to chopping down anything to stay warm.
Shortages of food and energy in North Korea have turned the country’s mountains into barren wastelands, and more and more people are cutting down trees for firewood, while most of the trucks in the North run on charcoal.
Charcoal-fueled vehicles appeared in North Korea in the mid-1980s. Most military vehicles back then ran on gasoline or diesel, but nowadays even military trucks, with the exception of combat vehicles, run on charcoal. An entire mountainside has to be razed every year in order to fuel one charcoal-powered vehicle. Oak, ash, and white birch trees, which are excellent sources of charcoal, have been cut down indiscriminately.
Nor is there any help for it. North Korea which has had history of exchanging ideas with Pakistan, shares one notion in particular with that Holy Nation: a deep sense of entitlement. “When the South Korean government offered to plant trees in the North, officials there asked for rice in return for allowing it.”
The Strategy Page notes things are so desperate that Pyongyang’s army is literally melting away as ordinary soldiers turn to black market activity, or illegal employment, or just plain theft to make ends meet. This has raised fears among the North Korean leadership that South Korea might be tempted to invade the North and soften the way firing packets of ramen in the path of advancing South Korean troops with the starveling defenders so busy consuming the noodles they will ignore the invaders.
The decline has accelerated in the last few years as the troops have lost their faith in North Korea. Part of this was hunger, for in the past the troops always had food. But most troops are conscripts, and they are coming from families who have known only increasing deprivation. The troops also noted that their senior officers live very well. The northern leadership is also aware that the South Korean armed forces have loyal, well-armed and trained troops. North Korean military experts point out that the southerners are strong enough, especially if their American allies help out, to invade the north. Of course, the south has no interest in doing this. The only talk of moving into North Korea is to restore order after a government collapse up there, or a civil war. But the northern leadership doesn’t care what the reason the southerners use to invade, just that they are planning to move north, and that they could get away with it.
The comprehensive failure of the North Korean economy has made them dependent, of all things, on the atom. Not to produce power but to produce weapons in order to blackmail neighboring nations into feeding them. The arc of North Korea is chilling preview of how socialism plays out. You get a deforested, starving and barren wasteland ruled by a hereditary aristocracy — all in the name of progressiveness and serving the people.
There are alas, too many capitalist roaders and wreckers sabotaging Pyongyang’s economy.
The number of North Koreans to make it to South Korea has increased 19 percent over last year. Over 2,300 have arrived so far this year, and nearly 23,000 of these refugees currently live in the south. Such migration only went into high gear in the last decade. Wealthy North Koreans (either corrupt officials or market entrepreneurs) are getting out, and organizations able to move the refugees through China to Thailand (the most common way station to South Korea) are larger and more efficient. South Korea is asking China to relent and allow North Korean refugees to go directly from China to South Korea. China has always honored North Korean demands that illegal migrants must be arrested and returned (to labor camp, or immediate execution). China has increasingly tolerated these illegal migrants, and is fed up with the North Korean government, perhaps to the point where North Korea escapees will become legal, and allowed to continue on to South Korea. The downside of this is that such a policy change could trigger a flood of refugees from North Korea. The negotiations with South Korea on this matter probably include haggling over how much the South Koreans will compensate the Chinese for the expense of dealing with the flood.
So the North has demanded that the South stop — stop everything, anything to keep from showing them up.
November 25, 2011: North Korea media threatened to specifically go after the South Korea president if South Korean “aggression” (in the form of military training) did not cease.
November 20, 2011: In an effort to calm down the increasingly paranoid North Korean leadership, the south has sent more medical supplies, and halted groups who release balloons (carrying propaganda items) that fly into the north. But the truth of the matter is that the only thing the south could do to placate the north is to disappear.
That is characteristic. Socialism is a jealous god. It must conquer the earth until it is magnificent by comparison with utter desolation. When only the socialist “Victory Gin” is produced will it finally be best brand of gin ever distilled on earth.
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We’ve had two perfect “experiments” in Communism vs Capitalism. The West/East Germany divide and the North/South Korea divide. No significant differences in populations or resources. The only difference is/was the ruling ideologies.
On Side A: blight, decay, starvation, misery, paranoia, repression.
On Side B: success, wealth, plenty, openness, freedom.
Ask a typical US college professor, and he’d say Side A was capitalism and Side B the glorious Leftist “future that is now” in those blessed locales (and he’d throw in Cuba for good measure).
But for any normal person, the results of these two real-world experiments are only too evident. Pity the American education is so hapless and wrong-headed that most Americans have little if any clue about this. Starting with our President.
Americans forget that there is no Peace Treaty with North Korea. There is only a truce, which will end after formal notice. This might be the issue Obama is looking for.
The Short Victorious War that gets his poll numbers across that 50% line. ROK’s have the troops, all the US needs to do is provide the initial “shock and awe” strikes and enough carrier battle groups to keep the Chi-Coms from getting frisky. Two weeks max.
Then this long running abscess in the side of humanity will be lanced, drained and bandaged.
Then we bring the troops home. Or send them to OZ to chase the native girls.
The description of Socialism as a jealous all consuming God reminds me of the Hindu Goddess Kali. Now there’s a woman to keep away from. As her face book page says: Kali the cannibal mother. The terrible one of many names whose stomach is a void and so can never be filled. The one whose womb is giving birth forever to all things. A river of blood has been pouring continuously for milennia, from beheaded offerings, into Kali’s void to be returned still living from her womb.
Of course the North Korean Government is contributing to society according to it’s abilities – somewhere around zero. Just like government everywhere, it then receives from society according to its need – somewhere approaching infinity. Following the Socialist Way, the North Korean Government’s need is consuming its people and apparently even its vegetation.
North Korea is a beacon of hope for OWS and their spin offs who demand to be compensated according to their need for free stuff. I can’t understand why OWS et al aren’t making tracks for the North Korean Fatherland.
wc, probably they’re not going there in droves because transportation to NK is still not free. I think I’ll start a fund. “Occupy Pyongyang” has a comforting sound, doesn’t it?
Remember, the guiding principle here is Juche, some mumbo jumbo cooked up by the first Dear and Glorious Leader that means “self-reliance”.
This is the damnedest form of self-reliance I’ve ever seen.
The German and Korean cases are controlled experiments. Also available are what is called longitudinal studies wherein one traces the decline of an economy over time after socialism replaced a functioning capitalist system: Cuba, Venezuela and Rhodesia.
For pre-Castro Cuba, see:
http://www.neoliberalismo.com/unnecesary.htm
http://www2.fiu.edu/~fcf/cubaprecastro21698.html
“Will the last person to leave North Korea please turn out the lights.”
Oh, wait… never mind, already there aren’t any lights….
The best suggestion I ever saw for what to do about North Korea would be for Disney to buy it and keep it open as it is now, as a communist theme park. All US politicians, media people, and union leaders would be required to spend 2 weeks there every winter.
Dack:
Having served in four African countries that had Nork embassies, I can tell you that Djouche is real. All four embassies had to be financially self-sufficient, something they accomplished by importing illegal drugs and counterfeit dollars in their diplomatic pouch. In all cases the host government was aware of the illegal activities and turned a blind eye out of “socialist solidarity.” One of those embassies (Tanzania in the early seventies) also turned a blind eye to the Nork embassy buying full page ads (with counterfeit $100 bills) in the Swahili-language weekly extolling the glories of Djouche. It was horrible drivel but elegant Swahili.
this post has helped me understand the role and purpose of socialism: it weeds out the weak willed and weak minded. culls the herd, and purifies the base stock.
yin and yang, vorlon and shadow, pendulum in motion.
cjm @ 9 said:
“this post has helped me understand the role and purpose of socialism: it weeds out the weak willed and weak minded. culls the herd, and purifies the base stock.”
Unfortunately most of the human race takes to socialism like flies to manure. No learning is possible here. It doesn’t matter how many times socialism clearly fails. A large fraction (majority) of the population will always want someone else to pay their bills through the coercive power of government. This fundamental human flaw represents a basic weakness in democracy.
On the subject of human stupidity, the situation in Egypt is on the verge of going into the worst possible failure mode, refer to:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/150311#.TtfbHoR0r8B
We are witnessing the utter failure of democracy in Egypt with it poised to become the new Iran. This is a disaster for the Copts, secular Egyptians, the Israelis and the human race. At least it will happen on Obama’s watch. The irony is remarkable that just as Iran sealed Carter’s political fate, so will Egypt seal Obama’s.
of course no learning takes place, that’s why culling is necessary.
are the copts any better than the muslims, in egypt?
It was the abandoned (and supposedly destroyed) Allied supply dumps that stopped the Kaiser’s armies in 1918, the starving German troops gorged themselves to the point that even physical violence from officers would not stir them. Perhaps the South Koreans could develop a Ramen Shell that would burst over enemy troops and shower them with ready-cooked noodles. That would lead to a total loss of command & control of the Nork troops.
While I have no desire to disappoint the paraniods in the North, the South Koreans have little desire to have anything to do with taking over the Northern wasteland. They saw the decade of economic woe that the West Germans endured integrating the Easterners into a modern culture. The difference there was one of degree, between the North and the South there are several orders of magnitude. Any invasion on the peninsula will be a southbound one of shrivelled refugees seeking food and shelter after the Norks implode. Hopefully somebody will shut the nuke plants down before they walk away.
Before the split into North and South Korea, the North was the industrialized part and the the South the primarily agricultural. Most of the Japanese industrial development had taken place in the North since it was closest to Japanese raw material sources in Manchuria/China. At the start of the Korean War South Korea was desperately poor. There was a post by a S.Korean lady from a small town in which she reports trying to go to sleep but her mother wanted to spoon just a few more bites of food into her. A number of commenters responded that mothers of the Korean war generation did that. If you had food you got it into your kids while you could.
Now refugees from N. Korea have problems functioning in S. Korea. Bad diet in infancy and childhood has stunted mental and physical growth. Having to keep their heads down and a generally insufficient education has left them ill prepared for fast paced life in South Korea. The tend to do better in third world countries that aren’t as fast paced as S. Korea is these day. It will/would take a generation to restore the general population of N. Korea to what they should be.
I agree we need to ship OWS types and Lawyers to N. Korea.
@ 11. cjm asks:
No, they rape and pillage and mutilate their daughters genitals and….oh, they don’t? Wonder why?
it was a genuine question, i have never heard one way or the other. do you know for certain, or was that just an uninformed “guess”? <= another genuine question
cjm @ 11 asked:
“are the copts any better than the muslims, in egypt?”
I know from personal experience that the Copts are decent people. I might that for the most part, Arabs are decent people when you can get them away from their damned religion.
firing packets of ramen in the path of advancing South Korean troops
Has someone been reading my “Vouchers for guns and Walmarts at the DMZ” plan?
The Norks have a cunning plan more cunning than the most cunning plan of the Capitalist Cunning Plan Company. First they starve off one third of their population, then there will be more for everyone. Has the Bernanke been moonlighting as a consultant to the North Koreans?
W: “Socialism is a jealous god.”
The Soviet dissidents agreed. Socialism is an earth-bound religion where the masses are required to worship the State – a small group of other people after all.
“The religious aspects of socialism may explain the extraordinary attraction of socialist doctrines and their capacity to inflame individuals and to inspire popular movements. It is precisely these aspects of socialism which cannot be explained when socialism is regarded as a political or economic category. Socialism’s pretensions to be a universal world view comprising and explaining everything also make it akin to religion. A characteristic of religion is socialism’s view of history not as a chaotic phenomenon but as an entity that has a goal, a meaning and a justification. In other words, both socialism and religion view history teleologically.” Igor Shafarevich
The Soviet dissidents also noted the hostility of Socialism toward competing religions.
“It is certainly true that socialism is hostile to religion. But is it possible to understand it as a consequence of atheism? Hardly, at least if we understand atheism as it is usually defined: as the loss of religious feeling… Furthermore, socialism’s attitude toward religion does not at all resemble the indifferent and skeptical position of someone who has lost interest in religion. The term “atheism” is inappropriate for the description of people in the grip of socialist doctrines. It would be more correct to speak here not of “atheists” but of “God-haters,” not of “atheism” but of “theophobia.” Such, certainly, is the passionately hostile attitude of socialism toward religion. Thus, while socialism is certainly connected with the loss of religious feeling, it can hardly be reduced to it. The place formerly occupied by religion does not remain vacant; a new lodger appeared.” Igor Shafarevich
http://www.robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html
W: “Socialism is a jealous god.”
George Orwell understood that Socialism is a dogmatic and evangelical religion.
“You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident… I tell you Winston that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else; not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes and in any case soon perishes; only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth… We are the Priests of Power… We do not destroy the heretic… we convert him; we capture his inner mind… we bring him over to our side.” George Orwell – 1984
Milleniem Poem
Listen friends, and mark my words in this moment and this hour–
God is jealous for his name for his name is jealous.
Nor is this a charming flower to set before a man
nor one of his commands.
Yet, without Jesus, this is more than we can love as we desire peace,
and less than we can know as we desire joy.
For the sacred fire
that makes us liars–
I mean, that separates speech from dreams,
and separates our flesh from the future–
is God’s power manifested.
So, in the year and the hour– for his sake, invest your desire in Jesus.
Follow his holy fire for right now. Right now he intercedes for us in heaven!
Some will say we are people of the way.
We are people of the way.
We praise his holy name
Yahweh.
I am who I am.
I cause things to be.
I am the first cause of creation.
We praise his holy name
Elohym.
And say “Thank you Jesus for your precious blood–
better, so much better than the blood of Abel.
How then should we pray?
I pray bless me a lot oh God.
Show me your kingdom and righteousness
in such a way that my thoughts words and deeds
reflect your wisdom and power–
and that– for the sake of your honor and glory.
So that I will live in your presence
in this life and the next.
For your name sake
Let me hear my children praise your name
And their children too.
I pray all this in Jesus name.