Slashdot Mirror
North Korea Erases Executed Official From the Internet
itwbennett writes "The North Korean state propaganda machine has edited and deleted hundreds of news articles that mention Jang Song Thaek, the former top government and party official and uncle to leader Kim Jong Un, who was executed Thursday. Earlier this week, Jang was arrested in front of hundreds of senior members of the ruling Worker's Party of Korea and denounced for numerous alleged acts against the state and Kim Jong Un. From arrest to trial to death took only four days and the unprecedented fall from grace is widely being interpreted as an attempt by Kim Jong Un to keep officials loyal and scared."
The term 'Orwellian' tends to be overused a bit these days. But, having read 1984, this is something straight out of that book. The adjective is appropriate in this situation: Go ahead and use it.
They exercised his right to a speedy trial all right.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
"is widely being interpreted as an attempt by Kim Jong Un to keep officials loyal and scared."
Sounds like Stalin all over again....
"The purge was motivated by the desire to remove dissenters from the Communist Party and to consolidate the authority of Joseph Stalin. " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
Uh... Slashdot is on the Internet last time I checked, and this article RIGHT HERE mentions Jang Song Thaek, so I'm pretty sure he was not "erased from the Internet".
How soon before what's left of your pathetic, useless brain leaks out the one nostril you don't pick?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yes, my heart goes out for Kim Jong Un, truly a victim of circumstance...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"That's not how the Internet works."
Oh sure, the locals (not having ample Internet, and being fed the story by speakers across the countryside) might think his uncle that taught him his tricks was a traitor scumdog etcetera because that's the story Kim Jong-Un has concocted recently, but the rest of the world hasn't lost their copies of the newspaper, the stories that are on the websites, and other proofs of concept that Photoshop or a text editor aren't going to negate from the other 99% of the world's media.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
"You have disappointed me. From hereon: You're dead to me."
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Maybe if he killed himself, everyone would win.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
In china, they have whole departments for the social networks to delete posts containing certain phrases. Like entire buildings full of people monitoring what they are saying, and deciphering codes just so they can control what people talk about.
Literally deleted within 15 minutes.
The news is that North Korea has an internet from which it can erase that information.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I think it was Stalin who erased people from existence. paintings, books, tax roles, every mention in every place. Very thorough, and very very paranoid.
Why doesn't someone karate chop his goofy ass out of the country?
That may have been what his uncle was trying to do.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Considering that the basic prerequisite for overthrowing the Republic is to gain the personal loyalty of the military (and preferably the veterans, especially in places like the US where they are armed), I'd say either "never" or "when he feels like committing suicide". The US military oath is to obey the constitution first. A president who declared himself supreme leader would suffer from a case of high velocity lead poisoning very quickly.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
My understanding is that the chief difference here is how publicly Jang Song Thaek was purged. He was a member (by marriage) of the Kim family itself, and the Kims have always been somewhat cautious on state media services not to impugn any of the Kims, because it risks undermining the notion that they are the rightful rulers of North Korea. Under normal circumstances it seems more likely that he would disappear; and apparently he has been sent packing a couple of times before, only to return.
My reading of what the analysts think is that Jang Song Thaek either got to uppity (he seems to have been Kim Jong Un's mentor during the early days of his reign), or possibly was attempting some sort coup or at least end run around Kim Jong Un, and was likely not alone. Other officials have apparently disappeared as well, and this is as clear a message to any of Jang Song Thaek's as-yet undiscovered sympathizers or allies that Kim Jong Un is in charge, has the loyalty of the military, and no one, not even those in the DPRK's inner ruling circle, is immune.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I never heard of him before this article; now he's indelible.
More like a banana republic with nukes than the USSR, but we can presume Kim has taken some historical tips.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
" I will erase even the memory of Thaek from the histories..." Anakin, Xerxes, Is there no quotable threshold this 'Un won't breech?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I'll take "never", for that one. Outside of diseased minds and idiot trolls, no one actually thinks that's a legitimate possibility let alone likely outcome.
Can you say "extrajudicial killings of US citizens"?
Or the North Korea Intranet?
You make a good point. This will be really embarassing for his memoirs: "I learned everything about leadership from my un--... uh, my dad." Of course he could spin this as having gifts from his deity since he can't admit his uncle existed and schooled him.
Also, whatever the North Korean version of Thanksgiving will be pretty awkward from henceforth.
"Auntie, you look good..."
"Eat shit, you little bastard."
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Senator Obama voted for warrantless NSA spying 4 months before he was elected President. Try paying attention some time.
Look, his uncle was probably as much a despicable character as any in the NK ruling party, likely performing or being complicit in any number of crimes against humanity, so no real loss to the human race here in all likelihood. What I find disturbing though is that Jong-Un has displayed callous disregard for human life in recent months in order to maintain complete control over the population.
I had high hopes for him when I learned that he'd been schooled in Switzerland, spoke English and had made positive comments in the past about the plight of the NK people. I figured he was young, idealistic, and maybe not all that different from myself -- had I been placed into a very difficult situation due to my family lineage. If placed in such a situation, I imagine that for a year or two I might have acted the part (whatever that means) in order to maintain control long enough to come up with a plan to bring some level of reforms to the country and ensure a longer-term transition to democracy.
Then again, you never really hear about a dictator who had a change of heart and became 'sane' after being able to operate with complete impunity for a while. I guess it's true when they say absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It seems that his age and boyish looks belie the fact that Jong-Il chose and groomed his successor very carefully.
The issue isn't the senior officers. It is the rank and file whose loyalty is required to overthrow the constitution.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
This guy was one of the top brass in NK. Lets keep in mind how many millions of tortures and death he's likely responsible for. The worlds better off without him, and we can only hope NK becomes unstable soon. Those poor people that live there, my God. How can we still have such a place on this earth.
Yes, this execution evidences some element of fear. Though we don't need to feel sorry for Kim Jong Un, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes. Dictators rarely die of natural causes.
My goodness, only one reference to the Memory hole? That is where erased history went in the book 1984 and this situation fits it perfectly and there is only one bloody reference. I'm disappointed.
Oh and BTW, they aren't erasing him, only the mentions of him that were good. They broadcast live him being dragged out (by his elbows) of the politburo by soldiers.
How is he supposed to serve as a lesson to others if they're busy purging all records of him?
"Remember what happened to Jang Song Thaek before you think about crossing me!"
"Who? I don't remember him at all."
"Exactly!"
Sounds a bit more like bad comedy than a real threat.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
The term 'Orwellian' tends to be overused a bit these days. But, having read 1984, this is something straight out of that book
Millions of Jews died in the hand of the Nazis. Those who went through holocaust hell but survived fully comprehend the meaning of "LIBERTY".
Many people tried to scale the Berlin wall but was shot to death. Those who were successful fully appreciate the importance of "LIBERTY".
Some brave souls from North Korea risk everything and went through a very dangerous journey crossing the very heavily guarded border into China. To them, "LIBERTY" is worth much more than all the gold in the world.
They do not need "1984" to tell them the horror. They have experience it first hand.
I had befriended several holocaust survivors when I was in the United States (back when many of them were still alive, in the 70's) and I found that, for them, the same thing happen : Mere words could never justify the horrors that they had gone through.
The scars that they had was much worse than the scars that I have. They had their family slaughtered right in front of them, and yet, when I asked them to describe how they feel, they just shook their head.
They couldn't.
It's not the "hurt" that stopped them from telling me what happened. It's that SPOKEN WORDS itself is not sufficient.
Now, when I see people like you justifying your "understanding" the horror with a fiction, I sadly shake my head.
"1984" is but an old fiction.
You guys might find it useful, but to us who had been through the horror, that book does not even come close to the actual experience.
To us, "LIBERTY" means much more than life itself.
To some of you, that word is, a word.
That is why I mourn for the loss of "LIBERTY" of the United States of America but too many born and bred Americans themselves don't even understand what they have lost.
I humbly ask for your forgiveness because English is not my mother tongue. There are times, like now, I am at a total loss of words to describe how I feel.
All I can say is this --- You will never understand the importance of "LIBERTY" until you have lost it.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FISA_Amendments_Act_of_2008
The Evil Bert meme can be extended so Kim Jong Un's Uncle shows up in various photos on the internet. That should drive the pudgy dictator nuts!
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1380112/north-koreas-execution-kims-uncle-jang-will-test-ties-china
The government turned the electricity on so people could watch him being dragged out of the meeting on TV.
That Kim Jong Un is no fool. When executing relatives, always do it just *before* xmas, not *after*. That way you save on buying a present.
wait they killed who? I don't know anyone by that name.
Just another second banana
"You've just been erased..."
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
You modern right-wingers collectively can't muster the balls of Timothy McVeigh (who failed to kickstart anything because the rest of you are gutless) so all you do is snivel on the internet, forward Faux News articles, and grumble like a bunch of blue-haired biddies in your little circle jerk of mutual affirmation.
You don't do shit, so quit bitching. You rant about the "Greatest Generation" but you aren't a bump on their collective posterior.
YOUR GOPs relentless incompetence and pathetic candidates are why Obama (who I also dislike) is in office in the first place! YOU got him elected twice.
The refusal of modern so-called "conservatism" to do anything other than preach like the White Trash Christian Taliban you are at heart while gargling the balls of rich people who wouldn't be caught dead with you is a disgrace.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Dictators rarely die of natural causes
His father and grandfather died in the saddle of natural causes.
And actually, unfortunately, plenty of others do too, e.g. Franco, Salazar, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot... And if you include the ones ousted but not killed (e.g. Duvalier, Amin, Pinochet) the list gets even longer.
(not killing dictators is actually important because if killing them is the only way to get rid of them they will hold on more tightly. The means of bribing them by letting them keep some ill-gotten gains is justified by the ends).
"Enforced Ignorance", what an interesting term. In the U.S., ignorance isn't actively enforced, but education is widely discouraged.
Due process, The North Koreans have apparently eliminated such inefficiency from their system. A shame to let them get ahead of us in that.
You seem to be keeping score better than I have; perhaps I overstated it by saying "rarely". However, I tend to think more of such notables as Hitler, Mussolini, Ceauescu, Saddam Hussein, and Gaddafi, who all died untimely deaths from the hazards of the job. (And they never even lived to get workman's comp for their trouble.)
Generally speaking, one seems to stand a better chance if one doesn't invade other countries, which is a mistake several of the preceding made - and which the most longstanding dictator of modern times, Castro, notably hasn't made. The Kims also seem to have used this technique to their advantage - maybe with a pinch of missiles and nuclear weapons thown in. The latter is largely an unproven technique, though it arguably worked for Stalin.
Regardless, I still don't like the odds. So, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of The Party for another term as your dictator.
I recall hearing Kim Jong-Un already had someone executed by artillery in the recent past. I'm curious to know if he tried to top that with this one.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If they are all scared of the fat little shit why doesn't someone just shoot him.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You seem to be keeping score better than I have
Well, everyone needs a hobby. My other is the Missing Children -- I have quite a collection!
> And? Check the official vote rolls [senate.gov]. He didn't vote for it. His name isn't even in the list. Want to try again?
Please try to get the facts correct.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (also called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008, H.R. 6304
The roll call is here:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00168 (vote 168 not 236 which you linked to)
His name is on that list from 2008. You linked to the extension vote in 2012...of course his name isn't on it as a voting SENATOR.
Obama's the PRESIDENT at that time.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Fuck you, fuck you twice. I no of no one who thinks that's a realistic possibility. Do no project your demented idea of what others are like upon them.
"The North Koreans possess no such technology"
The only reason the constitution gets violated so much today, is because the american people are lazy ass bastards thet prefer to take care of themselves instead of fighting for the common good. This applies to most countries tough, including mine.
Tomorrow is another day...
Say what you will of the GOP. But I find it especially revealing how it's the right wings fault for not convincing/educating the unwashed masses to not vote for Obama. And you would be correct. We did failed to stop ignorance.
Evil prevails when good men do nothing. -Edmund Burke
Life is not for the lazy.
Suicide by firing squad, real classy.
Tomorrow is another day...
You know what, a citizen from Quebec got bared from travel for a more frivolous tweet than your post. I respect your courage. Mike (talking to my NSA friend here) you are invited for dinner next Saturday in my country house. You know how to contact me.
Tomorrow is another day...
LOL. "Gutless" conservatives? The moment that conservatives actually did something the media would be all over them like stink on shit, telling the world that they're terrorists no better than McVeigh. You remember McVeigh? Executed.
It is rather telling that you think that a terror campaign would be a good choice for the Right...you must know something they don't. I also like the "white trash" bigoted comment, shows your true colors. Stay classy!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I bet 20$ the uncle was not present at said celebrations.
Tomorrow is another day...
To be clear
"To be clear" seems to be Obama's way of saying, "I am about to be unclear."
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
But its ability to selectively document or revise history is not something unique to NK.
History is your friend. When NK was created, US still had segregation going on. Then selective neutering of population and general bio/chem/atomic weapon testing its and canada's citizens done in the name of NATIONAL SECURITY. To this day, we still have to get justice for these acts. We live in a cocoon, but we pissed off many people building our empire, everything have a price, someday.
Tomorrow is another day...
They also deleted his Facebook profile ... oh wait, they can't.
You haven't read 1994
When I enrolled into the university in America back in the early 1970's my English needed a boost, so they put me into some "intensive English program", something like the ESL classes of today
In the classes the instructor asked us to read "Animal Farm", "1984" and stuffs like that and that we had to write report and do presentation (kinda like show and tell) in front of the class
In other words, I not only read "1984", I read that fiction __before_i>_ the year of 1984
I do not know which year you were born, but there is a possibility that when I read that book, you were not born yet.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
not killing dictators is actually important because if killing them is the only way to get rid of them they will hold on more tightly. The means of bribing them by letting them keep some ill-gotten gains is justified by the ends
Putting aside the moral argument, I disagree with the practical effect. Providing a way out might encourage the current tyrant to retire peacefully, but it also makes the position more appealing to the next ten guys who want to take his place.
The reason Obama won each time wasn't because an insufficient number of people didn't trust/like him -- it's the "lesser evil"voting method at work. It's a lot like the old joke about being in a crowd chased by a monster:the folks that survive aren't all the fastest, they're simply not the slowest.
In 2008, the Democratic Party was dangerously split by hostility between Obama's & Clinton's fans, and the Left was further fractured by the voters angry over Democrat politicians not living up to their pledge to change things. The GOPlost that time because of the damage Bush/Cheney had caused and because the GOP's candidates were literally considered laughably awful.
In 2012, Left-leaning voters were extremely angry over the performance both Obama *and*the other Democrats had given over the previous four years. There was a very real chance that the Democrats were going to lose...but because the Right-Wing politicians had managed to make their side look like it would've probably caused even more damage, the GOP once again lost.
That's the reason that the guy you're responding to blamed the GOP for putting Obama in power -- it could've convinced any number of people that the guy wasn't a great candidate, but it *couldn't* convince them that its own candidates weren't worse in one way or another. It's something to keep in mind in the near future, too; 2016 will be here before we know it...
North Korea doesn't have a death row. It's more like a death toboggan chute.
If I have to remind you again to use my alias, I will be forced to thaek your life. Sincerely yours, Mike.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Jang Sung-taek lifted himself to the power in his 20s via marriage. It is safe to say that he has had 40 years to build social networks within the North Korean elite.
Kim Jong Un is a heir to a communist tyrant but we didn't hear from him until 2009. It is quite safe to assume that he has had only four years of time to make alliances with the North Korean elite, military and Workers party - and only two years as a ruler.
Jang Sung-taeks network of people was most likely within the Workers Party of North Korea.
I would say that people who knew Jang Sung-taek is most likely in thousands and people who valued him is also very high. My guess is that now the fat boy has to be extra paranoid - he can not possibly know the extent of J.S-t's social network. Some of J-S.t's friend may have guns, or just a knives, and as we can see Kim Jong Un is not fat enough to be stab proof. I am expecting that North Korea may go to a bloody revolt after all.
He murdered his uncle for political reasons and doesn't want everyone to know about it, that kind of behaviour predates 1984 by several millennia.
Actually, we don't really know that. We are too far removed from it. It could also be that somebody else had his uncle murdered to show him what could happen to him, or to punish him, or otherwise keep him in line. The Uncle would be an obvious target for that kind of move.
Putin. Kaderov. Omar al-Bashir. To name three in power at the moment.
You're reading way too much into it. Look, it's real simple this time. Obama won on "like-ability", not capability.
Read up on the JFK / Nixon debate of 1960. Those that heard it on the radio thought Nixon was the better candidate on ideas alone. Yet those that watched it on TV hands down thought JFK won. JFK looked handsome and sat with a calm confident posture. Nixon was recovering from previous hospitalization. Proof that image is everything in an election!
Life is not for the lazy.
It's either, "lesser evil", or "the devil we know." People were fearful of Romney because they didn't know him. Their ignorance allowed them to assume the worst based on his wealth, no-context statements, and political talking points. And of course he's a Republican who designed something very similar to the Affordable Care Act. That's a double strike. Democrats couldn't vote for him because he was too easy to illustrate as a wealthy Republican cartoon character, and Republicans couldn't vote for him because he did the same thing Obama did. Never-mind what was written by the Heritage Foundation in the 90s, now anything similar to the ACA is radioactive.
I voted for Romney, but it was a hard vote. I didn't like either option, but fear was enough for me to break my promise to vote third party. These days I recognize that it doesn't matter who the President is. Politicians spend all their lives making themselves look good by publicly saying and doing whatever it is the people like, then when they're elected to the top-office, they do whatever they want. It happens repeatedly and everywhere. When it comes to elections, the votes that really matter are for your Representatives and Senators... but for how long is anybodies guess, since they're losing power and legitimacy.
In 2016 Hillary Clinton will be elected. The whole Benghazi thing has successfully been illustrated as a tin-foil hat conspiracy thing. The official line that there was nothing anybody could do, not the Marines, and much less our top diplomat, is the line that has won out. No candidate stands a chance against a Clinton. As president what she'd do is anyone's guess, though I would hope that we don't have a rubber-stamp legislative and judicial branch by that time.
Where they pride themselves on the use of Orwell's 1984 as the standard operating manual of State propaganda.
Read up on Luntz's Dunces back in fall 2012 and pair that up with the GALLUP numbers at the time. Almost split in difference, most people had already made up their mind. However a massive double-digit of independent voters were rocking back and forth right up to election. A wild card.
Let's focus on that last group for a moment. What Luntz showed on TV was that the independent voter was making decisions based on feelings, not facts. Their options swayed back and forth like seaweed in shallow ocean waters. Back and forth, back and forth. For this very large representative group, it was driven purely on emotion.
So basically the decision was largely on tribalism and emotion. Competency was way at the bottom of the list for most Americans.
Life is not for the lazy.
The quotes and bolding around liberty seemed to indicate you thought nobody else understood it. The sheer repetition indicated you thought nobody understood it. I have never experienced a "real" loss of liberty. But I fled from the US. I recognize what was lost, and I expect it will take a bloody civil war to get it back, and that is both unlikely and devastating were it to happen, so the only rational course for anyone in the US who likes liberty is to leave.
Yes, the US doesn't have issues like others have. I know someone that fled *to* the US (the same place I fled from). His brother was killed by death squads in a Central American civil war. Because he was brothers with a revolutionary, his name was on the list. So he packed up everything he owned and his family, and illegally crossed into the US. He managed to eventually get citizenship. The people in the US talk about freedom, and have policies about taking in political prisoners, but it's all a sham.
But now I have "no liberty" on the twisted US scale because I'd need a permit just to buy a gun. Very few (almost no) eligible people are refused, but the fact I'd have to apply seems to indicate that I have no freedom at all, based on US conservative standards.
Learn to love Alaska
Kim Jong Un grew up in fucking Switzerland. If he wanted out, he had his chance to get out.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The fact that you posted anon made me wonder if you were the OP (Taco Cowboy). As did the use of the colloquialism for someone who asked forgiveness for English being a second language for him.
I'm not trying to be pedantic here. The point (continues) to be, on a broader level, that it's harder to convey anything, especially emotions, via the written word. It's easy to misinterpret the written word (note the unintentional information that your post conveyed to me).
Enough of the discussion about the discussion. Back to the important subject, I was thinking about your statement "I was sad that people having to rely on an old fiction to understand the true nature of the human society."
In a way, it's sort of a good thing. It means times have been good. We should aspire to longer and longer periods of "good times". And the memories of the bad times will only be available via the written word (and other media, of course, which may change the equation some).
Of course, a problem is that once we lose that emotional, visceral feeling, we go back to doing the things that lead to the bad times.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Sometimes people make bad decisions. Even dictators.
Notice that there were no more Wacos or Ruby Ridges after OK City? Sometimes force works. "Class" is bullshit when class doesn't succeed.
Of course mainly what I'm getting at is the all talk and zero action aspect of modern conservatards.
The lefty kids in the 1960s who had the balls to protest even when that ensured they'd be teargassed and beaten had the guts to keep doing it. The anti-WTO folks still do, but I don't see shit from the old Rightist gummers. The talk doesn't match the action!
If you SAY that Obama is the Antichrist and the end of the Republic then FAIL to act, that makes you a hypocrite.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."