Breaking News! Kim Jong-il Is Dead!

[Marx]

Originally Posted by Hotwire

Not sure if it's real or not, but it's funny.

It would be hilarious if not for the fact that some of the people in North Korea probably believe something like that.

[Raiden]

Originally Posted by Marx

UPDATE: FUNERAL FOR "DEAR LEADER" TO BE HELD TOMORROW
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/27/world/...html?hpt=hp_t2

I know I've said this before but the over-the-top grief that some of these "supporters" are showing is beyond disturbing.

I think the world will get the opportunity to see just how sheltered the people from North Korea are from the outside by their authoritian government when we see the kind of funeral service that they're throwing for their late ruler.

[Marx]

I just saw a clip on CNN of a car in the procession. It had a giant framed picture of Jong Il on the roof. (I'm talking at least 10x15 feet.)

[Marx]

...here's an article from the AP about the funeral.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1...n_1172003.html

[Thundercrack85]

How old is that car? Seriously. And it looks... American.

[Axl Van Sixx]

Originally Posted by Marx

It would be hilarious if not for the fact that some of the people in North Korea probably believe something like that.

You're not far off. From The Toronto Star:

Just before Kim Jong Il died, the skies glowed red above sacred Mount Paektu and the impenetrable sheet of ice at the heart of the mystical volcano cracked with a deafening roar.

At least, that’s the official account of the supernatural circumstances preceding Kim’s death last Saturday at age 69, as relayed by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. The news agency is one of the chief propaganda organs tasked with building up the quasi-religious mystique around the Kims, North Korea’s only rulers since its founding in 1948.

Official descriptions of Kim Jong-il's birth in North Korean propaganda honestly read like the Christmas nativity story:

Kim Jong Il’s official biography says he was “heaven sent,” born in a log cabin in Mount Paektu while his father was fighting the Japanese.

“Wishing him to be the lodestar that would brighten the future of Korea, they hailed him as the Bright Star of Mt. Paektu,” his biography reads.

Lore has it soldiers spread the news of his birth by inscribing the announcement on trees across the country — a practice that North Koreans continue today by carving the leaders’ messages into rocks and mountainsides.

Soviet records, however, reportedly indicate Kim Jong Il was born the year earlier in the Siberia.

The account of his death was just as mythic. His obituary in state media called him the “illustrious commander born of Heaven,” and on Wednesday, KCNA said a Manchurian crane spotted in the city of Hamhung circled a statue of Kim Il Sung for hours before dropping its head and taking off toward Pyongyang. The crane is a traditional Korean symbol of longevity.

The mythmaking for Kim Jong Un has begun as well, with an editorial in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper calling him “born of heaven.” However, details of his birth, and the accompanying legend, have not yet been revealed.

[Thundercrack85]

And they say all communists are atheists.

[Raiden]

For a country that is supposedly communist, the way they worship their leader seemed to be the polar opposite of that.

[Axl Van Sixx]

Originally Posted by Raiden

For a country that is supposedly communist, the way they worship their leader seemed to be the polar opposite of that.

I know, right? It's almost as if...North Korea isn't really communist at all.

[Thundercrack85]

Originally Posted by Axl Van Sixx

I know, right? It's almost as if...North Korea isn't really communist at all.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck... I forget how the rest goes. Leader worship is a pretty universal communist theme though. Lenin, Mao... did they put Stalin on display when he croaked? Granted, the Kims have turned it into an art form.

[Sawyer]

Jesus, these people must have Stockholm Syndrome or something....

[Thundercrack85]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

Jesus, these people must have Stockholm Syndrome or something....

That or the guns trained on them. Cry or you get shot. Though some of them really are that deluded. They know nothing else.

[Hobgoblin]

Originally Posted by Thundercrack85

That or the guns trained on them. Cry or you get shot. Though some of them really are that deluded. They know nothing else.

A little of column A, a little of column B.

[Thundercrack85]

Any ideas on how the Kims got their hands on a fleet of Lincoln Continentals? Guess even communists like capitalistic cars.

[Axl Van Sixx]

Originally Posted by Thundercrack85

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck... I forget how the rest goes. Leader worship is a pretty universal communist theme though. Lenin, Mao... did they put Stalin on display when he croaked? Granted, the Kims have turned it into an art form.

What you're really saying is, the personality cult around Kim is just like that of all the other Stalinist countries you've ever heard of, therefore North Korea is a Stalinist state. That I can agree with. But there's little that's "communist" about any of them.

Marx, Lenin and Trotsky were all against any kind of personality cult. Lenin was embalmed against the wishes of his wife, who said: ""All his life Vladimir Ilyich was against icons, and now they have turned him into an icon." Trotsky railed against Stalin's personality cult for decades.

"Neither of us cares a straw for popularity. Let me cite one proof of this: such was my aversion to the personality cult that at the time of the International, when plagued by numerous moves – originating from various countries – to accord me public honour, I never allowed one of these to enter the domain of publicity, nor did I ever reply to them, save with an occasional snub. When Engels and I first joined the secret communist society, we did so only on condition that anything conducive to a superstitious belief in authority be eliminated from the Rules."

- Karl Marx, Letter to Bloss (1877)