Slashdot Mirror
North Korea Threatens South Korea Over Christmas Lights
K7DAN writes "North Korea warned South Korea on Sunday of 'unexpected consequences' if Seoul displays Christmas lights near the tense border, and vowed to retaliate for what it called 'psychological warfare.' From the article: 'The tree-shaped, 30 metre-high steel structure on Aegibong hill - some 3km (2 miles) from the border - was illuminated by thousands of small light bulbs last year. It could be seen from the North's major city of Kaesong across the border, according to media reports. Pyongyang has previously accused Seoul of using the tree to spread the Christian message to people inside the secular state.'"
Thats pretty wimpy psychological warfare, as decorating pine trees in the living room and shopping and fighting people on black friday and singing about red nosed reindeer is hard core capitalist worship, its not christian at all. I don't even know how you visually "do" christian christmas worship other than something like a 200 foot tall "nativity scene" which unfortunately makes no sense to someone not already versed in christian theology (my son, when he was very little, called it "the farmers", too little to know any better, yet +1 insightful as it was, after all, in a barn scene...)
Now real christian psychological warfare would be a larger than life Easter scene of the last supper with the table unbiblically piled with tons and tons of yummy food... most of the NK either are currently starving or recently were starving so a big food display is going to rile them all up to no end. Maybe they do that? Waving a bunch of food in front of a starving man with a gun is probably unwise, maybe its going too far?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I was stationed near the DMZ when I was in the ARMY. It's a very dangerous and volatile place just waiting to explode! The North Koreans are crazy; you never know what they will do. If a war breaks out between North and South, it will be the bloodiest and worse catastrophe in human history!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Bin Laden wasn't trained by the CIA. (In fact, very little of the mujaheddin was trained by the CIA, as the CIA mostly provided intelligence, weapons, and funding.) It's been pretty well established that he brought his own funding and later relied on funding from places like Saudi Arabia. With very few exceptions, he neither trusted Western powers nor did he want their assistance, believing that to do so was to accept help from heathens. Interviews with him by those outside of Muslim circles were rare but telling in how they were approached and conducted.
The mujaheddin was a complex network of resistance forces, and bin Laden was but one very small part of it.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
There's a National Geographic documentary you can watch free on Netflix (the Lisa Ling) one that gives a glimpse. Brainwashed citizens, traffic cops directing no traffic, empty roads... etc
Christmas is a heathen celebration of the winter solstice. The Christian priests didn't want people celebrating outside church, so they made up an excuse to co-opt the celebration already in place. There is nothing Christian about Christmas beyond the name (in English). The Hallmark holiday is more original than anything to do with Jesus, so if you want to go with the original intention, go worship Thor and buy some presents.
People in DPRK live to serve the government. They are effectively peasants and serfs, party members are vassals and the top generals are royalty, with the Kim Jong-il clan as the heriditary monarchy. This state is not communist, it's a throwback to the middle ages, when the King owned all the lands. Other than a little bit of planned economy, it's nothing like communism - because communisn is something people would strive for, not have forced upon them at barrel of gun or threat of dying in one dear monster's labor/re-education camps.
Some are born communist, some achieve communism, and some have communism thrust upon them.
More accurately Christmas is a Christian holiday originally timed to coincide and compete with a Pagan holiday which it pushed out though many of the pagan traditions ended up being incorporated by converted followers. There are lots of things Christian about Christmas such as the story, celebrating the birth of Jesus (even tho they don't believe it happened that time of year) ect, but many of the traditions such as the trees and candles are co-opted from Saturnalia.