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Gulag

By lex, on March 15th, 2010

The Boston Globe takes a peek inside the Hermit Kingdom.

Charming.

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March 15th, 2010 | Tags: , | Category: Media

13 comments to Gulag

  • claudio
    March 15, 2010 at 4:43 pm

    Some seriously bleak living there

    Recently, a North Korean was sentenced to death (and carried out) for using a cell phone (illegal) to relate price of rice in DPRK to someone in China. Roughly the same area these pictures were taken.

    Friend and coworker Katy Hassig is an expert on the Hermit Kingdom.

    Highly recommend her most recent book
    http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-People-North-Korea-Everyday/dp/0742567184

  • GeoSTI
    March 15, 2010 at 5:28 pm

    Reading the comments at the link was also enlightening. Amazing how much some people are willing to either ignore or not think through because to admit otherwise would say “this is an evil inflicted on people.”

    Paraphrasing: “They might not have running water, but they are happy, so it can’t be that bad.”
    Yes, no running water, rationed or no power, rationed food. Happy because you’re still among the living? I can not understand how people can state that it is okay.

  • SK1
    March 15, 2010 at 5:37 pm

    The citizens of NORK are like a battered wife – for years, the Bastard has been beating the crap out of them until they don’t know any better….

    They are force fed the party line and under their present conditions, they go along as to not to would invite a doubling of the beatings….

    It was pretty telling that China came to us looking for help with the NORKs a while back…If they are so whacked that they were giving the “willies” to a country of 1.6 Billion people, then taht says a lot about how they really are….Glad that we have the ability to keep them bottled up as their kinda crazy needs to be kept in a padded cell.

    Paint wouldn’t help – That country needs a fleet of bulldozers 15 abreast to start over and build something that resembles real housing, not farm pens.

  • Paul B.
    March 15, 2010 at 8:09 pm

    Hell on Earth. If you displease the power structure, not only you but your entire family go to the Gulag. People stare at the ground, afraid of eye contact. All those who were never born there are the lucky ones.

  • Paul B.
    March 15, 2010 at 8:12 pm

    PS. Maybe I’m wrong though. Jimmy Carter visited and thought it was a pretty nice place.

  • Big Smoke Scope
    March 15, 2010 at 9:19 pm

    I agree. Give Carter a oneway; and then consider that if LBJ had done what he should’ve in early 1968 that would be a whole different country today. The mideast would probably be more tolerable too.

  • MaxDamage
    March 15, 2010 at 10:39 pm

    From my study of pictures the one thing the Communists and Socialists knew how to do was make cement, and the Norks can’t even do that reliably. And shovels? I grew up on a farm, a shovel is not a farming tool. A shovel is a tool for taking a simple job easily solved with animal or machine power and turning it into a full-time drudge-work job suitable for keeping people busy.

    A hundred and fifty years ago a man could farm 40 acres with just a mule. The Nork’s can’t even work up that level of mechanization.

    But what, pray tell, in the glorious planned economy of North Korea are all those wooden sticks in the fenced-in back yards? Electrical poles? In a country where everybody has a shovel? Telephone? Radio or satellite TV where such is banned? I just don’t get that. Unless they’re clothes-line poles, in which case that’s probably the one thing in the country that works reliably.

    Which, as an aside, here in the Upper Midwest we’re starting to see temps above freezing, so the weekend was spent getting implements ready for spring. The roto-tiller was prepped, the lawn mower gone over, and the clothes-line squared away with a proper cleaning and re-tension.

    Nothing says spring like clothes dried on a clothes-line. Soft, no wrinkles, and as fresh as the proverbial daisy.

    I’m guessing those poles in the Nork pics aren’t clothes-lines. You just aren’t allowed to use them in rent-controlled or neighborhood association housing.

    – Max

    • BillT
      March 16, 2010 at 9:10 am

      But what, pray tell, in the glorious planned economy of North Korea are all those wooden sticks in the fenced-in back yards?

      Stakes.

      In case Vlad Ţepeş ever makes a state visit…

  • LeastGuvmint
    March 16, 2010 at 5:43 am

    Ahhh, the joys of a Government-controlled society and economy. Bet they have comprehensive and equitable health care.
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