Is it any different than the AmeriKan version?
"In Kim regime, brainwashing begins early, defectors say" by Anna Fifield, Washington Post January 18, 2015
SEOUL — For North Korea’s dynastic Kim regime, citizens are never too young to be indoctrinated. Indeed, an all-encompassing personality cult has kept the country intact even as the Soviet Union collapsed, and as China and Cuba have opened up.
It's a celebrity cult(ure) over here.
With its pudgy leaders and their comical haircuts, its goose-stepping soldiers and its inventive turns of phrase, North Korea has provided endless opportunity for mockery, most recently with the controversial Hollywood film ‘‘The Interview.’’
Although critics have questioned its artistic merits and defectors have lamented the way it makes fun of North Koreans, the movie revolves around a central tenet of Kimist mythology: Its leaders are divine beings.
Here it is the institution of government that is the protector.
The crucial moment in the film is not the death of Kim Jong Un, the regime’s current leader, but earlier, when a talk show host interviews Kim and taps into his daddy issues, leading the young dictator to start blubbering, ‘‘I am strong,’’ revealing him to be not only human but insecure.
The personality cult that permeates every aspect of North Korean life has become an ideology in itself. It revolves around Kim Il Sung, portrayed as an anti-Japanese revolutionary hero and founding father who remains North Korea’s ‘‘eternal president’’ more than two decades after his death.
His son, Kim Jong Il, was, according to North Korean myth, born on a sacred mountain, under a bright star at night. (In reality, he was born in Siberia.) Since Kim Jong Il’s death in 2011, son Kim Jong Un has taken over the family business.
‘‘I believed in this system for more than 20 years, but I was so thirsty to find out about the outside world,’’ said Jeon, who lives in South Korea and works in an office. This precipitated her decision to sneak across the border to China. ‘‘Then, when I realized it was all lies, it was like I was just born at 23 years old. Twenty-three years had been stolen from my life.’’
I know very much the feeling.
In North Korea, there is no escaping the Kims. Every home, office, classroom, and even train car features portraits of the first two leaders, and the pictures must be cleaned with a special cloth every day.
North Koreans wear pins, usually of Kim Il Sung but sometimes of both Kim One and Kim Two, on their chests, close to their hearts.
Television sets and radios are fixed to state-run channels — being caught with an unfixed device, or worse, foreign DVDs, is a severe offense often leading to time at a labor camp — and there is no Internet.
Then how could they have done the hack?
Although an increasing amount of information is seeping across the border from China, the state continues to have almost total control over the flow of information.
Do they collect it like ours?
After years of futile efforts to stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, the international community is now focused on human rights violations in the country, and unprecedented attention is being paid to political imprisonment and executions.
Also see:
"Shin Dong Hyuk, the best-known survivor of a North Korean prison camp, said Sunday he was retracting central elements of his widely reported life story that has helped him win international human rights awards and become a star witness for the United Nations’ investigative report on North Korean human rights abuse. Based on the panel’s report, published last year, the United Nations adopted a resolution recommending that Kim Jong Un and other top North Korean leaders be sued for a “crime against humanity” at the International Criminal Court. But his credibility has been questioned by not only the North Korean government but also a number of human rights advocates and former North Korean political prison camp survivors living in South Korea."
Oh, no, MORE WAR ACCUSATIONS turning out to be a PILE OF PROPAGANDA?
Related: UN human rights official questions US approach toward N. Korea
Is it because "we," you know, tortured?
More pervasive, but less obviously gruesome, is the way the regime brainwashes children from an early age to believe in the Kims as godlike leaders.
This indoctrination program has two basic goals, according to a groundbreaking 372-page report published last year by a United Nations commission of inquiry: to instill utmost loyalty and commitment toward the supreme leader, and to instill hostility and deep hatred toward the United States, Japan, and South Korea.
I'm looking at the entire media and educational apparatus around me my whole life and.... sigh.
The brainwashing starts in kindergarten.
Children’s books are not immune. Take ‘‘The Butterfly and the Cockerel,’’ a story about an irascible, bullying rooster (the United States) that is outwitted by a small, virtuous butterfly (North Korea).
Teachers don’t just teach history, they teach ‘‘revolutionary history.’’ And all music, storybooks, novels, and artwork relate to the Kims.
The UN report said that this indoctrination system amounted to a raft of human rights abuses, including violations of the freedoms of thought, expression and religion....
Don't you say that about my, 'er, their gov.... ern.... me.... nt.
--more--"
While on brainwashing, there is the war propaganda that the "North may now have the ability to strike the US mainland because of its progress in missile technology [and] miniaturize nuclear warheads — although how far it has progressed remains a subject of debate."
I implore you, readers; can you understand why I'm not up for the war games?
Also see: Former Korean Air executive pleads not guilty in jet tantrum
Who is the nut?
