North Korea Blues

(a potential fraud? — so what else is new on the Kim Farm?)

Major fedora-tip to Richard yesterday at ADM.com for pointing out this groundbreaking brief Gadling post by Tom Johansmeyer detailing some particularly perplexing news about recent propaganda efforts currently underway on the Kim Farm.

Apparently, that North Korean propaganda poster some Chinese businessman snapped then subsequently published over the net from China? You know, the one (above) chiding the South Koreans for their blame of the North for the Cheonan‘s mysterious March 2010 sinking?

Well, it’s a fraud!

Apparently, says Richard again, this NYT article describes the semi-bloody Yellow Sea pitched naval battle that precipitated the creation of said above poster.

A battle that took place in July 2002!

Sorry haters! As for the rumors this was an original Cheonan-related bit of North Korean classic agit-prop — better luck next time.

Its caption reads:

“We will smash you with a single blow if you attack!”

So it would appear that Pyongyang and Bam Bam totally lucked out on this one: socialist-realist art so drippingly generic that it can serve multiple purposes and multiple masters, causing the hearts of die hard North Korean Commies to swell with pride!

So why is an 8 year-old poster being regurgitated for the masses’ viewing pleasure?

Likely due to the large coming-out party for the young Padawan warrior and heir apparent to NK’s throne,”Youth Captain” Kim Jong-un. This seems part and parcel of his initiation into the delicate art of DPRK military-intelligence subterfuge. Dad’s poppin’ his cherry, to bandy about a phrase…

I can just imagine the conversation around the (geriatric) dinner table between Kim and his youngest son about all this:

Bam Bam: “Son, let me share with you a little secret: if it’s good enough, it’s good enough.  Nothing needs to be perfect in this country. Policymaking ain’t literature. It ain’t no movie either. And it ain’t poetry. Shit, it ain’t even (as he surveys the lavish spread dedicated to no one in particular) a dinner party! Ha! Mao would have liked that one!”

Jong-un: “I realize, Dad. But don’t you think the people might remember this one hanging from back in oh-two? You think we can fool them twice? People aren’t that stupid, you know. Especially the ones living near the border. They have Chinese cellphones now.”

Bam Bam (spooning a piping mouthful of some decidedly medicinal-looking oatmeal into his awaiting maw, spilling most of it on his brown leisure suit on the way up): “Goddamit Jong-un! Buck up and act like a Kim, will ya already?! Let me teach ya something about street-level dopes: they’ll believe just about anything you tell ‘em to believe! Imagine ‘em as your little playthings. People to do with as ya bloody well wish. Pretend they’re sweaty, um…field…cows, strapped to, er…your heavy yoke (licking his chops). The nation sometimes steps outta line. But all’s ya gotta do is whip ‘n kick and spank ‘em back — even breaking or killing a few if you got to — and watch how they slide right back into formation. They’re deathly afraid of me, you know.”

Jong-un: “They are?”

Bam Bam: “Yeah, get a load of that, eh? Little pussycat like me with a high voice and I make ‘em squeal! Ha! Now don’t be afraid to do it too. You’re bigger, stronger, and more educated than me. And better-looking, too! The people will fear you more, trust me.”

Jong-un: “But the army…why don’t the generals show up for your meetings anymore, Daddy?”

Bam Bam: “Generals shmenerals! Don’t you worry about those jerkys, okay? I’m the one with (lifting a small box out from beneath the table) my pinky finger on the button. They don’t got diddly compared to what I got! (tapping the box lovingly)”

Jong-un: “So the key is whatever’s in that box?

Bam Bam: “Duh?! That was like the first lesson your grandfather taught me during my first Chinese brothel experience. Never — and I mean never! — underestimate the force of threats, Jong-un, especially when you’ve got a finger inches away from this little red button. And quit worrying about that damned poster, will ya? You’re a Kim for crying out loud! You’re royalty. Start acting like it already, even in front of me!”

Jong-un nods, slowly — ever so slowly — understanding.

Bam Bam: “C-plus to A-plus my boy. It might be completely shitty policy when I sign the damn thing. But by the time Old Kim here is done with it, it’s gonna shine. Shine like poetry.”

Jong-un smiles…

Anyways — kidding completely aside — “Postergate” certainly raises a series of deeply perplexing questions:

1. If the above poster is indeed a dud, perhaps North Korea didn’t sink the Cheonan after all and are being wrongly framed, as the Russians seem to claim as part of their own independent investigation?
2. And if we, once again, presume that the above poster is indeed a complete and total fraud, why has this gross misinformation not been announced by the international press and duly corrected? Koreans (and their US allies) could be going to war again on the peninsula over a silly piece of socialist-realist “art.”
3. And if we presume this poster is indeed a dud and the North Koreans didn’t really sink the corvette Cheonan — yet the poster is still being pasted all up around Pyongyang and other large North Korean cities to milk the tragedy for all its apparent propaganda value — what’s it really saying about Bam Bam’s already tenuous hold on power?
4. In advance of the KWP congress this September, Bam Bam has likely decreed this poster displayed alongside images of the Youth Captain — Kim Jong-un. Kim is thereby signaling to the masses that Jong-un intends on following in his footsteps. It’s a clear indication that Bam Bam is indeed still in firm control of North Korea’s military, make no doubt it.
5. Knowing that NK is currently weaker than weak, low on national food stocks, losing increasing numbers of its population along its border areas to Chinese and North Korean snake head traffickers, suffering under an ill-conceived currency reevaluation — is this yet another saber-rattling show of bluster and force by the Kim Court to demonstrate power where none actually exists?

Some pertinent advice to Western corn-fed media stooges:

Don’t believe everything you read! Especially when the rumors are being spread mostly by South Korean (ROK) news organizations. I think ROK press outlets have just a wee bit of an agenda in full-effect when it comes to reporting DPRK domestic blunders, don’t you think?

Scant and almost nonexistent as it is, there still exists a whiff of NK investigative journalism, even in the case of hapless Bam Bam.

Just something to think about…