The land of the duped and the home of the propaganda stream

The US, the real hermit kingdom

You ever heard the expression "The Hermit Kingdom"? Well, if you read the mainstream press and watch TV, you would recognize it as a label often attached to the DPRK or North Korea.

Fittingly, the term was coined by one William Elliot Griffis in his book from 1882 "Corea: The Hermit Nation" The Wikipedia article adds, wryly, that "The writer of the book had never visited Korea, did not speak the language, and had no first-hand experience with the country."

Do we need to explain where the author was originally from?

The following piece is not an apology for the North Korean government, political system or lifestyle. One of the humble authors of this piece had the pleasure of traveling to Pyongyang and experiencing first hand the suffocating hand of government minders and peculiar dos and don'ts of the Juche nation.

We know, it's hard to believe but this occasional reporter is not traveling to a new place with a prepared set of clichés that passes for reporting. Hacks can also be human beings at times with a bit of curiosity. That curiosity led to researching the subject a bit deeper – like talking to expats who permanently live in North Korea.

You know what we came up with? That the closest comparison to DPRK is that bastion of freedom, the United States.
"Strike, if you please, but hear me."

So the bad boy of Athens, and its future saviour, Themistocles once famously said.

America bashing we are not – we simply compare what is considered to be the damning characteristics of North Korea with those of the US.

I.Travel restrictions and lack of world knowledge.
The majority of North Koreans have never been abroad. But, contrary to what Fox News tells you, it's not because a mere desire to travel will land you in some GULAG – but largely through a combination of lack of money and lack of interest. The North Koreans are poor but see themselves as culturally supreme. Check this: tens of thousands of North Koreans work in the Russian Far East, primarily in agriculture and construction and the number is growing. Some go back to DPRK with money they've earned, some try to settle in Russia permanently, The South Korean newspaper Сhosun Ilbo writes that their chief problem is "boredom and alien local culture".

Now, guess which nation is worldwide champion of self-imposed insularity and lack of travel abroad?
Less than 30% of Americans own a passport. (and before that passport became needed for trips to Canada and Mexico the number was more like 15%) By comparison, in Canada some 60% and the United Kingdom a whopping 75% have passports for foreign travel.

The number of Americans traveling overseas actually fell in the last year statistics are available – some 28,507,000 went abroad while the year before – 30,300,000. Travel to Europe fell by 7.3% and to Asia by 8.1%.
Most tellingly, the average household income of an American overseas visitor was a rather hefty $106,700.

In other words, well to-do travel – the majority stay at home.

Since we are on the subject – the foreign travel figure one should really take note of is this: in 2011 a record – 1.27 million – Chinese students study abroad. Compare that to the US' 270 thousands. Guess which nation will know the world around them better?

II. Access to Information
DPRK controls information in two ways: by restricting Internet access and foreign broadcasts physically and by doing a decent job of convincing its citizens it's all capitalist crap anyway, like pornography and propaganda of degenerate lifestyles. And terrorism, of course – there's always terrorism where the authorities want to ban something. Who would want to watch such abominations when perfectly patriotic and life-enhancing broadcasts are available domestically?

Hear us, Fox News and GBTV fans? What could be truer than domestic patriotism?

Now – ask that beacon of Arab Spring Al Jazeera how much effort and money they spent trying to get themselves broadcasted in the United States. Hardly a cable operator wants to have them in their line-up for the fear of being labeled "a terrorist facilitator."

More importantly, ask Americans whether they care about what is happening abroad in any shape or form. The last "major" foreign news event in America was William marrying Kate – and the next in all probability will be the Olympic Games. Both in London. Because London is where the civilized world ends. Right?

Do distinctively un-sexy sounding abbreviations such as SOPA or CISPA tell you much? Well, that Internet thingy got out of hand, you see – lots of people do what they please, there's no control and no morals. That cannot be allowed – freedom is what Washington says is freedom. In this case, freedom means we've got to monitor and punish you a bit.

III. Speaking of control.
The North Korean variety is of a classic flavor – every neighbor should be vigilant enough to report on any enemy, criminal or social deviant. Provided that you stay out of trouble as defined by the authorities you shall be okay.
The Unites States is a modern country. The job of surveillance and punishment has been delegated to hi-tech devices. They come in all shapes and colors and invariably cost taxpayer a bomb. All for his own good, of course.

A little GPS under your car? A little filter on your IPS? A (very) little drone in the skies watching your outhouse lest you assemble a bomb in it? Welcome to "1984" in 2012.

IV. Democracy Notions and Power-people compact.
The North Korean rulers are not crazy hermits the way they are portrayed in mainstream Western media. They are savvy, benign when it suits them and ruthless when they feel they must be. It never pays to force somebody to do something when you could convince him to do it with all his heart, willingly. It works better when society is in a permanent state of siege mentality. When there are monstrous enemies plotting to destroy you, your family and your life. When it's us versus them.

For the Fox News crowd and, alas, for the vast majority of the people in the West, the North Korean missile launch is a dangerous sabre-rattling by the evil regime. For the said regime it's Christmas come early – see what we told you about that terrible West? It would stop at nothing to prevent the peace-loving Korean people from claiming their rights. The Indians launched a rocket and openly said "we intend to put nukes on it" – not a peep. When the workers of Korea conduct a peaceful space launch – there's hysteria. Hypocrisy!

Now – compare it to one large country where the leaders tried – and succeeded – in convincing its people that an attack by 15 deranged terrorists requires going to two major and several smaller wars in countries that have barely heard of America before. At the price of 1 000 000 000 000 dollars and counting – most of them borrowed from abroad.

The country where a major pundit in a major mainstream newspaper openly calls for the US to bomb yet another country to smithereens "to assert its moral supremacy in the world"? If the North Korean Central News Agency does not reprint every op-ed by Jennifer Rubin, it should start to – no further proof of Washington's extreme bloodthirstiness is needed.

There is a State Secretary who praises whistle-blowers in other countries with a very serious and very straight face when her government has just arrested yet another whistleblower at home – the 7th under this administration according to Glenn Greenwald . And what did they charge him with? Espionage, of course, that favorite of all the regimes.

If the rulers of the United States and North Korea do not send each other Christmas cards and stage secret policy exchange seminars, they might as well start. Both desperately need each other to justify their expenses and their behavior.

http://rt.com/usa/columns/namenotfound/us-north-korea-hermit-kingdom/