Jimmy Carter: What I've Learned From North Korea's LeadersI have a lot of respect for Mr. Carter. Perhaps it's because he's probably the first U.S. President that I can remember campaigning and winning when I was a kid. At the same time, I'm told that he's just another in an unbroken line of war criminals or whatever.
But when he says:
I have visited with people who were starving. Still today, millions suffer from famine and food insecurity and seem to be completely loyal to their top leader. They are probably the most isolated people on Earth and almost unanimously believe that their greatest threat is from a preemptory military attack by the United States.... I do have to wonder why the people of DPRK don't seem to view their own government as a problem. He as much as acknowledges that they're starving. Could spending nearly everything on flags and statues be a part of that? NOPE! It's all about the imminent invasion that hasn't happened, despite being "any moment now" for the last 60 years.
They're like their own secular rapture cult.
You're kind of leaving out the facts that
1) It isn't possible for the people of the DPRK to overthrow their current government. Expecting them to try is the same as expecting them to commit mass suicide. Nobody revolts when they know there's no chance for a revolt to succeed.
2) The people of the DPRK have no particularly good reason to see "the West" as their friends. The nations of "the West" killed tens of thousands of innocent Koreans during the conflict...U.S. troops committed massacres. So, while the Kimearchy is a horror, we need to remember that there's no reason for the people of the DPRK to see the other "side" as any sort of a potential ally in liberation.
So it's somewhere between tunedeaf and unintentionally insulting for anyone outside the DPRK to wonder "why don't they just rise up?" From where we are, none of us are really entitled to ask that question.
