You look around you at a world you think has abandoned you. You owe money for student loans you took out to pay for your Political Science major, or a Fine Arts degree and are discovering the world is a harsh place. Maybe a family elder warned you about that, maybe not, but still here you are.
You curse the bank who loaned you the money and now wants it back, but you find after taxes, your job barely covers your rent, and it looks like Ramen Noodles for dinner again tonight.
Taking out your iPhone, you Tweet your despair and anger. You blast the comments section in a YouTube video featuring Michele Bachmann while on your MacBook, disgusted and angry at the very sight of her.
One day you hear about an exciting new movement, with the goal to actually take over Wall Street until your world is a better place, not so filled with hopelessness and despair. You’ll help to create a world without Capitalism, a world without corporate greed. A better place to raise children. You hope.
A lot of people hope for that, hope for a better place to raise their children. Even “right wingers” hope for that, if you can believe it.
Did you know a place without the evils of capitalism already exists? No Big Corporations either! A utopia for such principles. It’s North Korea.
How are the children? Lets look formerly/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~butte20s/;
- The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the sole political party that exists in North Korea. No political opposition parties are permitted. [Hey! One party rule!]
- The government owns all property as well as business enterprises. [After all, doesn’t government know best? I mean, really?]
- Services such as healthcare and education are provided according to a classification system that is based on the political loyalty of the family. [No problem, nobody more loyal to the correct political party than you, right?]
- North Korea does not allow the freedom of information, association, movement, religion, labor activism and political opposition. [The ultimate “Fairness Doctrine!”]
- All media is controlled by the state and all publications are censored because the regime of Kim Jong Il believes it could lead to” ideological contamination” and “subversive behavior.” [Nothing better than a media that knows it’s place. None of the “New Media” hassles like over here]
- The practice of religious faith outside temples and churches that support the state and its propaganda is forbidden. [Which is cool, because, like, they’re all hypocrites, anyway]
- At least 2 million people have died in North Korea due to starvation in recent years. [Well, numbers are probably inflated by the “Faux News” channel]
- Children suffer the worst; in 2003 a reported 42% of North Korean children suffer from malnutrition. [Yeah, but we’re smarter here, Ivy League and all that]
- There are an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 North Koreans in an expansive network of political concentration camps. [Probably deserved it. Or…something…]
- The norm for actual or perceived “political crimes” is collective punishment for entire families, including children. Legal counsel is not provided or allowed for criminal suspects, and many of them are abused and mistreated during the interrogation process. [Wait. What? That’s, like, GITMO, dude!]
- All prisoners are forced into labor and face inhumane, cruel and degrading punishment. [You mean, like Abu Ghraib? Dude!]
- People receive death sentences for any crime ranging from stealing a cow to the sale of pornographic material. [Wait, aren’t we, like, against the death penalty? Or something?]
- According to Asia News, a refugee testified that a nurse forced her to abort her child by hitting her repeatedly in the abdomen. The nurse justified this by saying, ” We don’t have adequate medicines in the hospital.” [At least they have abortions. Is that a good thing for you, or bad?]
Well, getting back to “the children” (doesn’t it always seem to go there?), UNICEF reports as of April of this year;
NEW YORK, USA, 7 April 2011 – The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is running out of food. About a quarter of the population – some 6 million people – don’t have enough to eat, according to a new report by UN agencies. Nearly a million of them are children under the age of five.
VIDEO: 6 April 2011: UNICEF Nutrition Specialist Mandana Arabi discusses the food crisis in North Korea. Watch in RealPlayerThe UN assessment – conducted by UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization – was done with unprecedented access to families in the country. Food is rationed in DPRK and authorities say that public distribution centres will be empty by the end of this month or early next. Unless immediate action is taken, the consequences will last much longer.
“Think about a population that’s totally dependent on rations from the government, and we know that these rations are going to run out,” said UNICEF Nutrition Specialist Mandana Arabi, one of the team that travelled to DPRK to complete the assessment. “There are really not a lot of resources they can tap into.”
That’s only one country, picked because it happens to have the same fiscal plan for its citizens as the people around you do for yours. No, not all of them do, but enough that it should be scary for you to think they might actually get somewhere with their “demands”.
And yes, I’ve seen the some of bloggers who’ve gone to North Korea and gotten the “guided tour” of the Wonderful North Korean built by its Glorious Leader. They accuse the US of “spreading hateful lies” about that country, and accuse the US of having caused all their misery by “Half a century of US hostility and a decade of forced isolation…” Again, everything is the fault of the United States. Don’t you ever get tired of hearing that crap? Or spouting it, as the case may be. And if it IS true, why are you/they still here?
The point is, just how bad do you have it, really? Would you believe it if I told you most of us went through the same thing when we were young? Would it even matter?
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