Article

2006-08-09 China-Japan-Koreas

North Koreans risked lives over Kim Jong-Il's portraits

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Posted by Fred 2006-08-09 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11126 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Perhaps the paper Dear Leader ws printed on was made from soybeans and thus had nutritional value

Posted by USN,Ret 2006-08-09 00:27|| 2006-08-09 00:27|| Front Page Top

#2 Iff memory is correct, its Norkie law that every North Korean home have one or more pictures of "the Great/Dear Leader" lest they be viewed as traitors to the anti-Chinese Chinese kimchee-land.
The threat of the gulag andor death camp, etc, naturally has nothing to do wid anything.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-08-09 00:29|| 2006-08-09 00:29|| Front Page Top

#3 Anything for the "Choson one".

Posted by Thoth 2006-08-09 00:56|| 2006-08-09 00:56|| Front Page Top

#4 Re the pic, I wonder : is this a really big glass, or a very dwarfish dictator? Or both?

Posted by anonymous5089 2006-08-09 02:27|| 2006-08-09 02:27|| Front Page Top

#5 I'd not be surprised if this is absolutely true. If you read accounts of the sinking of Imperial Japanese Navy warships in WWII, you'll notice there's always some guy who gets detailed to rescue the emperor's portrait. If the emperor--ooops, excuse me, I meant Dear Leader--is a living god, it's the least you can do.

Posted by Mike 2006-08-09 07:09|| 2006-08-09 07:09|| Front Page Top

#6 Gotta wonder if they could've floated out of there and made some money off the portraits on Ebay.

Posted by BA 2006-08-09 09:46|| 2006-08-09 09:46|| Front Page Top

#7 It's just not the same as reading the unexpurgated KCNA version:

Spirit of Defending Leader with Life Displayed by Flood Victims

Pyongyang, August 8 (KCNA) --The Korean People are willing to dedicate their lives for guarding the leader. The lofty spirit of defending the leader with the very life was given full play among the people in the flood-hit areas of the DPRK including South Phyongan, Kangwon and North Hwanghae Provinces in the middle of July.

Kim Tok Chan who was a designer of the Yangdok Forestry Designing Institute, South Phyongan Province, awoke from a sound sleep by a roaring sound of landslide triggered by torrential rains on the dead night of July 16.

He brought down the portraits of President Kim Il Sung and General Secretary Kim Jong Il from a wall of his house, wrapped them with care and tried to evacuate. Having lost time to do so, he handed them over to his wife and pushed her to a safe place before he was buried in the landslide.
That's gotta be the slowest moving landslide in history...

There are so many similar stories in the flood-damaged areas.
The Piryu River flooded to inundate some parts of the Jangrim workers' district in Songchon County, South Phyongan Province. The house of Kim Sung Jin, a tunneling worker of the Unsu Pit of the Songchon Mine, was waterlogged. His family members were stranded on the roof. Seeing this scene, head of the production workshop Ri Sang Son and rock-drill operator Jon Tae Yong swam to them. Kim Sung Jin gave them the portraits of the President and the leader, not his children.
Yeah, well ya can't eat Kimmie portraits...

Ri Hak Chol, manager of the Songchon Mine, told KCNA on the spot: "We suffered a serious flood damage this time. However, the workers of the mine and the residents displayed the noble spirit of defending the leader with their lives during the natural disaster. As the saying goes that the hard time tests a man, our people put the Party and the leader above their lives and property on the crossroads of life and death."
And, in the immortal words of Roseanne Rosanadana, as the saying goes, "It just goes to show ya, it's always sumthin!"

Posted by tu3031 2006-08-09 12:27|| 2006-08-09 12:27|| Front Page Top

#8 I don't think they save their pictures out of admiration. It's total fear. They all wear a lapel pin with his picture all the time. And I mean all the time. My friend that was there last year said not one person the entire time was without the lapel pin. Not one person forgot it at home. Not one person's pin was lost in the laundry. Not one person had their pin fall off inadvertently. Pretty harsh control eh?

Posted by Intrinsicpilot 2006-08-09 13:13|| 2006-08-09 13:13|| Front Page Top

#9 Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure. On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?

-George Orwell
-"Animal Farm"

If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right.

-ibid.

Posted by BigEd 2006-08-09 13:53|| 2006-08-09 13:53|| Front Page Top

#10 Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure. On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?

-George Orwell
-"Animal Farm"

If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right.

-ibid.

Posted by BigEd 2006-08-09 14:08|| 2006-08-09 14:08|| Front Page Top

#11 Any bets on whose family owns the portrait printing and lapel pin assembly businesses?

[crickets]

Posted by Zenster 2006-08-09 15:32|| 2006-08-09 15:32|| Front Page Top

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