North Korea

So I was driving home from the movies and I was thinking of North Korea. Doesn't everyone do this?

My family is convinced that this culture is going to fail. They see the poverty, the famine and the disenfranchisement and think the very logical (but inherently American) thought "fail." But I'm not so sure.

This is a culture that gets up at 4AM and works all damn day. And not American work, meaning roll in around 8:30 - 9:30, and eat breakfast at the desk, then start work (which is entirely seated for the most part) doing ineffectual inefficient meaningless paperwork, stopping frequently to use the rest room, stretch, eat, and fuck around, then begin to pack up at 4:30 and leave promptly at 5:00 to go home to way too much food, far too much TV and an increasingly adolescent social life - now, I'm painting America with a pretty wide brush so don't take me literally, I'm working in metaphor) manual labor, repetitive movement work. They do it with a dedication and fervor that, frankly, we will never get. They love their work because it's an extension of loving their lives, which is the direct instruction of loving the source of life, their leader. Their dear leader.

No president living or dead will ever be able to be as loved as the tyrants who have run the only monarchy in a communist country. Yeah, Marx would love the iron.. after he stopped screaming.

This is a culture that, when faced with famine, made starvation-level diets fashionable, important and almost holy. The wealthy North Korean eats approximately 1000 cals a day, which is found in the two meals a day. All North Koreans eat only two meals a day. They are happy to do this. And no, I don't expect you to believe this. It's not something that we, as Americans, can ever truly accept as a fact. But it is.

And finally this is a culture that believes whole-heartedly in their reclamation program. Justice is dished out in the most arcane, draconian and yet well-organized bureaucratic manner possible. If I commit a crime, I am sent to an internment camp. I will live there for the remainder of my life. My husband will accompany me there of course. The children I give birth to will live there as well. The children born from them will live there too. My great-grandchildren will be released. They will be shamed and must start at the lowest cast. This system is not only accepted, it is widely understood to be why North Korea is doing so well. Well, it's widely understood in North Korea.

North Koreans don't speak against their government. They don't worry about what each other are doing with their bodies. They aren't interested in sexuality. They don't have religious issues.

In this country we have too much. Too much food. Too much money. Too much TV. Too much internet. Too much. We don't know where to look or what to think. Once our eyes and brains have settled on something it is immediately hit with stimulus from another source. What do we worry about? Gay people getting married. Women having abortions. People not praying to Jesus in school.

So tell me again how North Korea's going to fail?