On Kim Jong-Il and Idiots
A brief missive from the blogging wilderness:
Today is a special sort of a day. Today you may get incontrovertible proof that some people you know are total idiots. Because today some people, in the wake of his death, may feel lead to defend Kim Jong-Il. They may well feel that he represented some sort of realistic alternative to the capitalist liberal democratic model of statehood dominant in much of the rest of the world. If they believe this, then they have fallen foul of the empty politics of symbolism. They see problems in capitalism, yet are unthinkingly embracing an alternative that is far, far worse. If they defend him, then they have shown their commitment to evidence free idealism over actual engagement with reality. In short, they have shown themselves to be absolute idiots.
Because Kim Jong-Il really was a vile human being. He exploited his father's personality cult to propagate a regime that is virtually at war with its own people. He led the world's sole remaining Stalinist regime committed to an experiment with a whole nation that not only failed, but failed decades ago - leaving many starving and a whole people brutalised and brainwashed. If this is the socialist future, then we'd be as well to consign it to the past as soon as we possibly can.
In short: Kim Jong-Il is dead. While it is impossible to say what happens next, at this point the only appropriate response is good riddance to bad rubbish.
Labels: Dictators, Kim Jong Il, North Korea, Obits
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 12:17 pm
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Suprised the BBC didn't post a tribute.
To paraphrase the laudable Christopher Hitchens:
Only a complete moral idiot can believe for an instant that he was a great leader and saviour; he was the scum of the earth.
Agree wholely with your conclusion. This differs from the other falls of cunts that have occured in 2011 because this one died of natural causes rather than being overthrown. If it does implode, we'd better watch out, because it might face even greater obstacles to a free life than the Arab countries have.
One of the main reasons, I think, that Islamism has done so well in elections in North Africa is that the dictators weren’t against fanatical religion, they were only against threats to their own power. So the Muslim Brotherhood etc were suppressed but the climate of ideas was such that Islamists could capitalise on what were semi-officially encouraged feelings.
Whereas the ideas and organisations that are the lifeblood of democracy were ruthlessly crushed, and that’s why they struggle to establish themselves now.
Of course this is even more the case in North Korea. Given how famously insular the country is, they presumably won’t take to being ruled by foreigners. Who exactly are the leaders of civic society that will foster a new democracy?
I can only think of South Koreans (if they even count as being kindred to North Koreans after 60 years), and even that is a huge problem, probably even worse than the problems faced by absorbing East Germany into the liberal democracy.
This bellend and his predecessors have thoroughly finished their work, to the detriment of their country, and that's why we should be fearing the worst.
Maybe the successor can be made dead too.
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