Kim Jong Un by a landslide

[bmasters1993]

 

[Gregster]

[CONT'D]...Past chart-toppers include "My Country Is the Best Country," "North Korea Is My Heaven," plus heartfelt odes to patriotic sacrifice like "I'm In Love With A Crippled Soldier."

Outside media is totally restricted. Owning a radio or TV capable of picking up anything but state media is punishable by a term in prison that makes "Papillon" look like a Club Med vacation.

NK grants about 2,000 tourist visas a year, mostly to expat patsy groups that shill for the NK government in their own country. Reporters who do get in usually sneak in under an assumed cover; one guy I read about posed as a member of Optometrists Without Borders, and John Sweeney from the BBC slipped in with some academic exchange group from a Brit university studying NK economics (must've been a riot).

Regardless: visitors' movements and activities are rigidly controlled by government minders, 24/7.
BETTER TO RULE IN HELL....
NK's top dogs-- mostly senior military brass-- have it great an know it. They don't buck the system.

 

[KILL KILL]

There was a good one on Netflix where the NatGeo crew piggybacks on a trip with IIRC a Nepalese Ophthalmologist who was doing free cataract surgeries for the NK people (apparently cataracts are a symptom of starvation). The NK officials thought the film crew was doing a pro-NK documentary.

I think I saw that one as well.

 

[Gregster]

AND OF COURSE the Chinese don't want anything dodgy or unpredictable going on with a starving, fucked-up country with stockpiles of chemical, biological, and of late nuclear weapons bordering them.

Nor do the South Koreans-- agreeable noises aside-- wish to suddenly be reunited with their cousins in the North who've been running a country with a failed, moribund economy divorced from reality since the '50s.

 

[DhakaMMA]

I do NOT suspect vote rigging or fixing in any way. Simply because it would be batshit ridiculous for any North Korean to vote for anyone besides Kim Jong Un if he's running in a particular district. But aside from that, I'm curious whether anyone even ran against him. A 100% landslide would make perfect sense if he was the only one running.

 

[Jukai]

NKorea: Not a single vote cast against Kim Jong Un

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP)

 

[ncordless]

I do NOT suspect vote rigging or fixing in any way. Simply because it would be batshit ridiculous for any North Korean to vote for anyone besides Kim Jong Un if he's running in a particular district. But aside from that, I'm curious whether anyone even ran against him. A 100% landslide would make perfect sense if he was the only one running.

Heh. No one has every run against him, or any of the people he has chosen to run in other races. There is only one candidate for each elected office in North Korea. That candidate is chosen by whichever Kim is in charge at the time. Nobody else can run, and the vote is a yes or no vote with penalty of death for voting no.

 

[Manson75]

I have seen so many docs but none on N Korea. Can you recommend a couple?

I liked this one. From a tourist's perspective. No ideology or investigative reporting going on. Just what one would see if he happened to visit with a guided tour.


DPRK: The Land Of Whispers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oULO3i5Xra0&list=LLFImMCX2KscmoMCCMqt9ENQ&index=10

 

[Matt]

Someone mentioned the VICE one, that's the one I was thinking of earlier. Very entertaining.

 

[Satanical Eve]

Frontline on PBS has a couple good ones. They did one recently about children there who escape, and how NK is trying to keep media out of the country, but people are smuggling in flash drives and stuff like that.

There was a great one that someone posted here once but I haven't had any luck finding it. I think it was only on the web. These guys basically get to take a very guided tour of NK, they pull out all the stops for them to show them what a great place it is - really bizarre.

The documentary you are referring to is Vice's Guide To North Korea

Vice co-founder and CEO Shane Smith visited the country and was given a guided tour of the parts only the NK Government wanted you to see. Here is the doc
[YT]OtuFaEy4jzE[/YT]

 

[Marsupial]

I do NOT suspect vote rigging or fixing in any way. Simply because it would be batshit ridiculous for any North Korean to vote for anyone besides Kim Jong Un if he's running in a particular district. But aside from that, I'm curious whether anyone even ran against him. A 100% landslide would make perfect sense if he was the only one running.

Of course it was rigged.

Even allowing for the obvious fact that Kim Jong-un was the only candidate and appearing even unenthusiastic to participate in the farce election would be risky for North Korean citizens, you have to consider the extent to which the DPRK lacks transport, infrastructure, media, etc. to organize even a shame vote. I could buy a high turnout in Pyongyang (maybe), but see it as unlikely in other towns/cities and especially in rural areas.

 

[Kingz]

One day, we'll touch them with the jab.

 

[7437]

I'm shocked at least one guy didn't get his rivals ballot and vote against him .

They dont count the votes of men who never existed.

 

[Chinballs]

Seems like a good way to get rid of someone you don't like.. cast thy vote on him

Kim Jong Un won a landslide by 24,052,230 votes to 1 for Tap Sum Bong.

 

[DhakaMMA]

Uh...

So you really believe Kim Jong Un "stole" votes? That's like saying Jesus ran in Texas and got 100% votes, and he "stole" votes. Especially if he's the only one running!

 

[Gregster]

Funny thing (one of them, anyway) is: Kim Jong Un wasn't Dad's first choice.

the original heir-apparent, whose name eludes me at the moment, was a bit of a party animal (and I don't mean Worker's Party [*rimshot* :-D ] ) fell out of favor after stepping on his own dick a few times in ways Kim Jong Il found embarassing. The most infamous faux pas (as far as most anyone outside DPRK knows) took place when he got nabbed at Narita Airport in Japan trying to enter the country (I think he had some friends with him) under an assumed name with a hilariously-bad forged passport. He was briefly detained and questioned by Japanese authorities, then turned over to North Korean officials.

The objective of this covert mission: visit Tokyo Disneyland.

Tragic, really. I mean, I've been to Tokyo Disneyland; it's *okay,* but it ain't all that and a jar of kimchi. Compared to the one in Anaheim, anyway.

I think the highlight was making out/copping a few feels on my Japanese girlfriend on the "Haunted Mansion" ride.

 

[tkotom]

He landed a man on the sun, for God's sake. He has my vote.

the key was to travel at night

 

[Byron Carter]

I have seen so many docs but none on N Korea. Can you recommend a couple?

 

[Amerikuracana]

I just want their borders to stay closed so they don't further the 'race to the bottom' and screw up the free market along with short sighted American firms with no care for America's future. We don't need a somewhat organized country which will pay it's employee's 2 cents an hour plus cat food privileges 17 hours a day 7 days a week. Free market brainwashed types will think it's cool to send American jobs there because the CEO makes more money for 15 minutes

 

[shunyata]

Kind of surprising that the people have tolerated this as long as they have. You would think they'd overthrow this regime by now.

Anyone with the will to fight gets put into a camp immediately.

Plus the three generations policy is incredibly effective at reducing civil disobedience.

Plenty of people are cool with martyring themselves for freedom, but knowing you parents, grandparents, siblings, siblings children, your children, and even your grandchildren will all be tortured and either executed or worked to death for your crime against the establishment has quite the effect on neutralizing rebellion.