for lefties too stubborn to quit
A series of posters praising Kim Il-sung. The Chicken factory one may be my favourite.
You’ll have to click on each image to enlarge where there is an English translation at the bottom of each poster.
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worldbystorm2014ATgmailDOTcom
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
If only we had leadership like that.
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Is the Juche regime, with all its attendant horrrors, really a fit subject for levity?
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No one is making fun of the North Korean regime. The whole point is that you don’t have to “make” fun of it. It just is objectively funny.
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Also, is any regime really beyond humour? Isn’t laughter sometimes a useful response to horror? Was The Great Dictator inappropriate?
That said, some humour about North Korea heads into racist/orientalist territory quite quickly.
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Very true.
Just on Dr. X’s poitn. The regime is grim beyond belief, but… at this remove we have zero influence. The only real players are the Chinese (and oddly enough the US to a lesser extent). But I think by not taking its pretensions seriously is okay.
All that said, solidarity with the people is absolutely fundamental.
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I’d never realised he was the tallest man in Korea.
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It’s… Jonathan! Apart from the later ones where he’s showing ‘paternal concern’ all the time – perhaps they started cranking those out when he was getting on. The KJU equivalent would be pure Jonathan, though. (Reference.)
“Theses on the socialist rural question in our country”. I shudder to imagine.
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Great ref, the Jonathon one. Love that episode. V. Appropriate too re cult of personality.
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I heard he was great craic. All went downhill after he died.
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Would it be fair to say that King Kim III is shaping up to be the most paranoid and delusional member of the family? And that’s quite an achievement.
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In truth that might be justifiable – from his perspective. Hard to believe an ambitious general or two can’t be wondering why he’s in charge and they’re not. But I wonder was this a transition of power too many, seeing as the regime is now so obviously hereditary. It’s hard to envisage it lasting another ten years like this, isn’t it?
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In general I tend to think that it’s more useful to assume a basic if nasty rationality when assessing the North Korean government. And also to see it as a complex, factional, set up rather than to try to look at in terms of the personal psychological traits of the Kims.
Or to put it another way, I very much doubt if the third Emperor of the Kim dynasty had his uncle killed because of paranoid delusions. It could be a variant on the traditional royal practice of having brothers strangled as soon as you inherit, which was ruthlessly rational. Or the result of a faction fight much like that which led to the downfall of Bo Xilai in China recently, but presented in the more colourful language of North Korea’s baroque Stalinism rather than Chinese bureaucratese.
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http://boingboing.net/features/northkorea/?traitor=Rockroots
Just in from Pyongyang. You better watch out, Rockroots!
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Ha! I confess, during a synchronised mass dance routine I turned the wrong way. I deserve my fate.
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Where is the poster where he gets up on stage and duets with Paul Cleary last week?
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🙂
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I think you’re right about the chicken factory one IEL, even the chickens are hanging on his every word
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‘Rodman “was very relaxed and excited to be back [in North Korea] to see old friends,” said Rory Scott, a spokesman for Paddy Power, the British sports gambling site that is sponsoring Rodman’s visit.
Following the “intimate dinner,” Rodman sang a karaoke version of a Pearl Jam song, while North Koreans in attendance sang patriotic songs.’ And so it goes.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/12/dennis-rodman-sings-pearl-jam-karaoke-in-north-korea/
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Paddy Power? British? The government needs to get onto this and quick. One of our greatest international successess and a shining beacon of Irish entrepreneurship, claimed by the Brits. This could damage inward investment and lead to England getting jobs that should be ours.
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-The growing basketball collaboration between Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, can be traced back to an Irish online betting company and the pope…
Paddy Power recruited “Rodman to encourage betting on a black pope, riding him around Rome in an ersatz popemobile, ” –
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Not to mention it’s the only bookie’s whose name is a political philosophy.
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Are these posters artistic? Yes, they show graphic skills not always evident in western abstract and conceptualist works.
Are they examples of proletarian art? Don’t know. Ask a marxist aesthetics expert. Ask Richard Barret Brown. Ask Eamon McCann. Ask Ciaran McGonagle. Arsk somebody at An Comhairle Ealaion – maybe they’ll get a grant somewhere to sponsor an exhibition aimed at fostering cultural relations between North Korea and Ireland. What Irish paintings would the North Koreans welcome in a reciprocal exhibition? Irish chicken farmers could be invited to offer a painting of the esteemed leader Enda Kenny visiting a farm up in Cavan.
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I would guess that North Korea only recognises Sean garland as an equal esteemed leader
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Has SG any clout with chicken farmers in Cavan?
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