Nth Korean propaganda posters

Thinking of Nth Korea brings to mind this famous poem...

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

They won't be around for long in their present incarnation..

[Edited on 10-3-2003 by Netchicken]

Anybody know what the writing means?

Dunno kegs... but I'm guessing it doesn't say "only kidding".

I watched a program which had some of the same posters, they were all about crushing the imperialist American state, etc. etc...

Did you know North Korea currently holds the only captured US Navy vessel in the world? Currently proudly parked in the capital...

Mr. Il seems to be a very meglomanical person and is using visual aids to project onto the general population's collect mindset, a subliminal message that defeating America is a given and very possible for them. The underlying message may be something like, "Don't be afraid of the Western Capitalist Americans or their military, we will be victorious".

Whatever his motives are, he seems bent on a showdown with the U.S. I sincerely hope that America & Japan can deal with him and this doesn't become a nuclear confrontation or protracted conflict.

I've lived around many Koreans in Los Angeles. My old neighbourhood is now predominently Korean (South Korean variety). They are very mistrusting of Americans in general and absolutely detest blacks.

I believe this could become a much bigger problem for the U.S. than some in this community think. Personally, I would never under estimate any opponent, even one who's 5'4, but has access to nuclear capabilities & a willingness to be aggressive and provocate a conflict.

Food for thought,
Deep

I knew the guy was a whacko, but I did not know how much effort was going into shaping his nation's views liekewise... While I don't think most of us are underestimating them, it does show what their intentions are... If these are official government posters, which I believe them to be...then I withdraw my earlier stance against taking a pro-active strike, vs. a reactive one. NK just might be right after Iraq after all...

Gazrok brings up an interesting point. With a bit of "education" the American people can be turned against North Korea fairly easily.

I think there's a good chance that their aggressive stance at the moment is out of fear rather than mischief. They know that after Iraq, they're next, so they're doing their level best to muddy the waters where Iraq is concerned in the hope that Bush's "let's free the world through war" campaign dies an early death...

Little Kim is a fruitcase, but the best hope to prevent him getting any further with nuclear weapons is to offer him trade agreements in return for the return of UN inspectors. This whole crisis came about because the US stopped shipping fuel oil to North Korea after thinking that they found a secret nuclear programme, oh, and the fact that Kim is totally loony.

is to pay them off? No, unacceptable... To do so is to invite more to follow suit. He's just hoping for a payoff, but when I was a little boy, and wanted money from my grandma, I usually paid her a complement, not stabbing a knife into her toe... Maybe that's the way they do it over there???

Their big excuse for using Nuclear reactors is because they don't have oil reserves and so need an alternative fuel. If you give them oil, they don't need nuclear reactors, and then you can get the monitors back in.

The alternative is far worse.

These have been around for six months or more (and I�ve seen a few others.) My Korean is pretty awful but the middle one - the rockets into the White House- is roughly: If someone invades, we will crush the US first!"
And the others are both something like �Let us punish/strike US imperialism�

And nice to see some Shelley on the board, Net-C. the first Kim was a shrewd operator who also happened to be mad. Baby Kim is simply mad.

"Their big excuse for using Nuclear reactors is because they don't have oil reserves and so need an alternative fuel. If you give them oil, they don't need nuclear reactors, and then you can get the monitors back in."

If this were actually the case, there would be no reason not to allow monitors back in. The only case to be made for not allowing them in, is to use the material for weapons manufacture... GIVE them oil? Why should we give nutjobs out to kill us anything? No, it's time to stop the handouts to nations which seem to hate us...and stop paying them bribes to play nice. They don't want to play nice? Fine...we can play that way too...

I think their argument was always that the nuclear reactors were intended for civilian purposes, so if you want them to stop using the reactors you have to give them an alternative fuel.

The fact that they've kicked out the monitors, made moves to restart their military reactor, etc. etc. is a case of N Korea playing hardball with the US.

It's a perfectly valid argument that we should not help them at all, and just go to war. But with North Korea's capabilities I think it's wiser to try a peaceful direction. After all, it's not as if the US has any moral qualms about backing up dictators...

As much as anything, the reactors were -I think -a bit of misguided US optimism. I fancy the Clinton administration was waiting for NK to go the way of East Germany and actively seek reunification.
What actually impoverished NK was, in fact, the collapse of Soviet Russia with whom the NK's had very extensive "barter" trade and as a result of which NK had quite a tolerable standard of living and plenty of oil.
I fancy the US thought this dramatic collapse of NK revenues would accelerate reunification.

You cheep ausie, you've deleted my comment!




Play some funeral music

[Edited on 11-3-2003 by Tyler]

You lucky guys.

One of my South-Korean friends has translated the pictures. ( Of course, I don't speak Korean, so, I believe him )

Here what he says about the pics :

1) A HARD PUNCH FOR AN OBSESSION(OR
RESTRICTION), A MERCYLESS PUNISHMENT FOR AN ARMED ATTACK!

2) AMERICAN PRODUCTS ! STOP SWAGGING !

3) IF YOU START AN AGGRESSIVE WAR,
AMERICANS, YOU WILL BE BEATEN TO DEATH FIRST!!!