Kim Jong-Il is dead.

[The Hitch]

Well....
there is CERTAINLY a lot of ongoing discussion of Kim Jong il and North Korea in the last 24hours...

Dutch history.
Serb History
Nazi History
Neville Chamberlaine?

Guys, stay get back onto the topic. I will decide shortly whether to move those posts to another thread or just delete them..

Nazi history can go in here. Or at least it was discussed here many a time.

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=9917

 

[daveinzambia]

Jeez, making the admins work hard over christmas period tidying up these threads.

would people please stop dying to give them a break.

 

[Spare Tyre]

"It's a terrible mixture of fear, terror and apprehension about the future, mass hysteria and possibly genuine grief as well.

"It's very difficult to know the reality and I think we'll never know the reality. There are huge cultural barriers anyway and then you have to remember this is a regime where everything that isn't forbidden is compulsory, so it's difficult to know what their state of mind really is."

More here.

It's very difficult wading through the bs-political/corporate/media spin in the Western world to work out the reality of life in the West -- most of us seem to live in bubble of denial about climate change, for instance -- so, yeah, getting past our own perceptions and biases to ascertain what's really going on in NK when we don't have access to comprehensive information is going to be pretty damn tricky indeed.

 

[auscyclefan94]

It's very difficult wading through the bs-political/corporate/media spin in the Western world to work out the reality of life in the West -- most of us seem to live in bubble of denial about climate change, for instance -- so, yeah, getting past our own perceptions and biases to ascertain what's really going on in NK when we don't have access to comprehensive information is going to be pretty damn tricky indeed.

You seriously do live in lala land, don't you?

 

[Maxiton]

It's very difficult wading through the bs-political/corporate/media spin in the Western world to work out the reality of life in the West -- most of us seem to live in bubble of denial about climate change, for instance -- so, yeah, getting past our own perceptions and biases to ascertain what's really going on in NK when we don't have access to comprehensive information is going to be pretty damn tricky indeed.

I honestly know what you're saying. And, really, if one were to get past / see through it all, to something corresponding, roughly, to reality - one might have holy hell scared out of themselves. Most people - and in this, at least, we are probably like the North Koreans - would rather be given a narrative they can follow, something always at variance with reality and serving someone else's ends, but comforting, or at least servicable. (The problems come, of course, when something - unemployment, loss of rights, war, and so on - abruptly disrupts the narrative.)

So, yeah, we have our own issues, I know that. But, up until now, at least, we in the West have enjoyed the fruits of historical liberalism. Flawed as our world is, at least we're not worshiping at the foot of a secular, hereditary tyrant, in some sort of odd statist feudalism.

I guess there are other ways of looking at it :

 

[Maxiton]

Well....
there is CERTAINLY a lot of ongoing discussion of Kim Jong il and North Korea in the last 24hours...

Dutch history.
Serb History
Nazi History
Neville Chamberlaine?

Guys, stay get back onto the topic. I will decide shortly whether to move those posts to another thread or just delete them..

Lol, it has been rather wide ranging, hasn't it? I noticed that myself. Fun, though. For some reason, Neville Chamberlain is the best bit.

 

[greenedge]

I'm not saying there aren't many North Koreans who aren't sad. They are brainwashed from birth to worship their great leader. But the ones chosen in the clips have just been forced and staged it. We have a couple of jounalists who have been in North Korea making af documentary and this was exactly what they said. If they are not necessarily fond of the great leader they better have to hide it since it would mean, as you already metioned yourself, jail or even death penalty. The scenes where the people completely exaggerated cried their lungs out were just yet another way of showing the rest of the world how 'appreciated' Kim was by the people and removing any doubt we could possibly have.

I wonder how they will feel when the US food aid is cut off for them.

 

[Granville57]

Here's an interesting assessment, from the Associated Press, of the social dynamics at play in North Korea.

Loss, fear, threats drive North Korea's mass grief
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45749144#.TvHmdJjN7zJ

More than theatrical, the mass mourning over the death of dictator Kim Jong Il is being driven by a mix of forces.

Poor and largely isolated from outside information, North Koreans grieve in an atmosphere that is part family mourning, part coercion.

The scenes from North Korea ring true for older Chinese who remember the death in 1976 of Mao Zedong, the revolutionary leader whose radical policies killed millions and impoverished China but whom they were all taught to worship as a godlike father.

 

[Cobblestoned]

Those mourning people are really outlandish to watch for me.
Especially that cursing, angry man.

And I have seen much.

 

[The Hitch]

The Communist Party of Great Britain is holding a memorial in my suburb for "Comrade Kim Jong Il", to remember all the work he did for the peasantry, against US Imperialism, for socialism, the proletariat etc.

 

[BroDeal]

The Communist Party of Great Britain is holding a memorial in my suburb for "Comrade Kim Jong Il", to remember all the work he did for the peasantry, against US Imperialism, for socialism, the proletariat etc.

I would love to attend, but I think I'll wait for the big commemoration celebration they throw for the 20th anniversary of Pol Pot's death. That won't be one to be missed. The comrades really know how to party.

 

[craig1985]

Bro Deal in England?!?!?!

God help us all.

 

[DenisMenchov]

Also I think you people don't know that the ruler of North Korea is Kim Sung Il, so I don't understand what do you mean by saying that Kim Jong-Il was a successor.

 

[Mambo95]

Also I think you people don't know that the ruler of North Korea is Kim Sung Il, so I don't understand what do you mean by saying that Kim Jong-Il was a successor.

I think you mean Kim Il-Sung, not Kim Sung-Il. Please sentence yourself to 20 years eating grass in the gulag for such an insult to the Great Leader and Eternal President.

 

[ChrisE]

Bro Deal in England?!?!?!

God help us all.

Hey, I've been there and I survived it. Those Brits can drink.

 

[DenisMenchov]

I think you mean Kim Il-Sung, not Kim Sung-Il. Please sentence yourself to 20 years eating grass in the gulag for such an insult to the Great Leader and Eternal President.

You got the point.

 

[craig1985]

Hey, I've been there and I survived it. Those Brits can drink.

I don't mind England but I hate the game of 20 questions that the Border Control officers at Immigration like to play. Yes I don't have a visa to work, and no I'm not planing to work illegally, and if I was, do you think I'm stupid enough to admit it?

 

[Christian]

I don't mind England but I hate the game of 20 questions that the Border Control officers at Immigration like to play. Yes I don't have a visa to work, and no I'm not planing to work illegally, and if I was, do you think I'm stupid enough to admit it?

lol that's nothing compared to the fun questions they ask you at US immigration

 

[Martin318is]

lol that's nothing compared to the fun questions they ask you at US immigration

definitely!

And then they get all wounded when I reply saying that I have no intention of leaving the airport because the only reason I'm entering the US was to get a flight out of it...

(that seems to be a lot less funny when I am flying back the other way and have entered the US on a flight from Colombia...)

 

[Granville57]

It must be true.

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea says a fierce snowstorm paused and the sky began glowing red above sacred Mount Paektu just minutes before leader Kim Jong Il's death.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hmHq1xmuz_t5ukPpQieW7yaSM7nw?docId=6bc2a56d38344969b20cf58b21306df9

 

[BroDeal]

It must be true.

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea says a fierce snowstorm paused and the sky began glowing red above sacred Mount Paektu just minutes before leader Kim Jong Il's death.

That was the fires of hell being stoked in anticipation.

 

[Race Radio]

Volcano's? Was Xenu there?

 

[sublimit]

RE - Those grief stricken mourners... It reminds me of myself when Sepp Blatter was re-elected to be FIFA president again.

 

[Race Radio]

RE - Those grief stricken mourners... It reminds me of myself when Sepp Blatter was re-elected to be FIFA president again.

Well, at least that disproves the rumor that Kim Jong-Il and Blatter are actually the same person

 

[Cobblestones]

The Communist Party of Great Britain is holding a memorial in my suburb for "Comrade Kim Jong Il", to remember all the work he did for the peasantry, against US Imperialism, for socialism, the proletariat etc.

One of them must have written this masterpiece.