# Kim Jong-un

[tomorrowusa]

« All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of an autocratic state. There is a bad man at the top. He controls the army and the police. The army and the police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the twenty-first century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality.

Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy but by sophisticated networks relying on kleptocratic financial structures, a complex of security services— military, paramilitary, police—and technological experts who provide surveillance, propaganda, and disinformation. The members of these networks are connected not only to one another within a given autocracy but also to networks in other autocratic countries, and sometimes in democracies too. Corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another. The police in one country may arm, equip, and train the police in many others. The propagandists share resources—the troll farms and media networks that promote one dictator’s propaganda can also be used to promote another’s—as well as themes: the degeneracy of democracy, the stability of autocracy, the evil of America. »

– Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum at Substack quoting from her soon to be released book Autocracy, Inc..

You can read several more paragraphs from Autocracy, Inc. at the Substack link above. Her book will be published on the 23rd; if you're within distance of Washington, DC she will be doing a free book reading and Q&A on Friday July 26th at Politics and Prose. She's a good writer and speaker. I've read two of her previous books and can vouch for their quality.

The war in Ukraine is not some remote conflict that idiots like J.D. Vance or Neville Chamberlain might dismiss out of stupidity. Ukraine is just one arena in a worldwide clash between liberal democracy and kleptocratic tyranny.

[kirstythejetblackgoldfish]

[rickmctumbleface]

[anti-imperialist-squad]

[szeengames123]

(via https://comic.studio/s/9138)

Kim Jong Un uses the rocket and killing the RED Medic, Taken off TF2′s Deathrun Map, Trump Tower Redux

[dadaonice]

Kim Jong-un

[falseandrealultravival]

North Korea is a spoiled child (verse)

Kim Jong-un

This country,

Information on the latest weapons

They openly publish it.

Lao Tzu says,

"Don't show anyone the sharpest weapon of the nation."

I'm sure North Korea

It seems like they don't really want to fight.

If so, as Lao Tzu says

Will hide the weapon.

There are reasons not to do so.

The USA, which almost wiped out North Korea before,

They are scared, so to hide their fear,

To the “scary father” called USA

They want to show off their expensive toys.

They have a low mental age.

Rei Morishita

(2023.11.21)

北朝鮮は甘えん坊だ（韻文）

この国は自分の持つ最新兵器の情報を

惜しげもなく公開する。

老子は言う、

「国家のもっとも鋭い武器は誰にも見せるな」

どうも北朝鮮は、

ほんとうには戦う気はないらしい。

あるなら、老子が言うように

武器を隠すだろう。

そうしないのは、

北朝鮮を消滅させそうになったUSAが

怖いので、その怯えを隠すため、

USAという「怖い父」に

高価な玩具を見せたがっているのだ。

精神年齢が低いね。

[chungkong-nl]

Dave Skylark and producer Aaron Rapport run the celebrity tabloid show “Skylark Tonight.” When they land an interview with a surprise fan, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, they are recruited by the CIA to turn their trip to Pyongyang into an assassination mission.

Director: Evan Goldberg

Stars: James Franco, Randall ParkQuote: “Come on let your colors burn!”

Year: 2014

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

[groovybouquetgoatee]

[tomorrowusa]

Anne Applebaum's book Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World was published a few days ago. in the book she describes the basic nature of contemporary autocracies and how they cooperate with each other.

About two-thirds of the way through this NPR audio she pivots from overseas autocracies to talk about how disinformation and outright lies are undermining democracy in the US.

The transcript for the audio can be found here.

A few bits from the transcript:

You know, for a long time, certainly since the end of the Cold War gave us this feeling that our political system was the best and it was inevitably the best, we took for granted the idea that somehow, you know, information was like - was another free market. And there would be a competition in the market between good ideas and bad ideas, and eventually the good ideas would win. That's actually not how it works. And that's not how the news business works anymore. It's not how information works. And understanding how important it is and how important it is to engage in it, both in our country and around the world, I think would do us a lot of good. I mean, we - you know, we sort of stopped competing or - again, out of complacency, out of the assumption that everybody would eventually agree with us, we didn't really have to do anything. We didn't have to try very hard. I think we misunderstood that. [ ... ] I want people to be convinced that ideas matter, that we're going to have to defend and protect our political system if we want to keep it. We have to do that around the world, but we also have to do it in our own country. So much of what I suggest is to do with changing the way things are done in the United States. And much of it is also to do with people becoming engaged in public life, in understanding what's happening, and not just voting, but participating. With autocrats, whether they're in American politics or in Russian politics or in Chinese politics, what they want is for you to be disengaged. They want you to drop out. They want you to become overwhelmed, and they want you to, you know, to say, I can't do anything. It's all hopeless. So it's very important to remember that our ideas are better. And our system is better, and however flawed it may be - and I'm sure you could do another whole radio program about the flaws of the United States and our democracy - it's still better than the autocratic world. And I should also say, it's still the case that our ideas are the ones that people in the autocratic world wish they had. The people who are really the most eloquent spokesmen for freedom of speech aren't the kind of free speech warriors in America. They're Russians who don't have it. And the people who are the greatest advocates for transparency in the rule of law are also people who live in states where they don't have it. And remembering that these are things that we have that they're under threat, and they need to be protected and defended, I think is extremely important.

We fight autocracy by being engaged and by challenging disinformation.

The book is brand new. Here's a link to the publisher's site for Autocracy, Inc.. Take note of the title and author's name and then buy it at a local independent bookstore. 😉

Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World

@npr

[kirstythejetblackgoldfish]

[nelc]

Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un

[memenewsdotcom]

Kim Jong Un arrives in Russia

[anti-imperialist-squad]

Imagine Putin, Kim, Lukashenko and Bashar enjoying some blueberry ice cream