North Korea: "Let them eat cake"

A Communist Big Mac attack.  The Comrades of the Communist ruling elite are importing
freshly made Big Macs every day from China along with other luxury goods.

There is little difference between the corrupt Ruling Elites of North Korea, Czarist Russia or the United States . . . all Elites in history work to concentrate wealth and power to a favored few.


North Koreans are said to be facing debilitating food shortages, the government continues its shopping spree for the pampered elites of Pyongyang flouting international sanctions against the authoritarian regime, South Korean government officials say.

News reports detail such conspicuous consumption as imported top-shelf whiskey and designer brands such as Gucci, Armani and Rolex, not to mention Big Macs flown in daily from China reports the Los Angeles Times.

North Korea spent $10 million on luxury items from January through May of this year. Imported through China, the items reportedly include Marlboro cigarettes, Hennessy cognac, whiskey and Japanese beer, South Korean officials said this week, quoting the Chinese customs report.

The imports included about $500,000 worth of high-grade beef, apparently for luxury meals, which North Korean leader Kim Jong Il uses to maintain the support of the power elite, Seoul officials said.


A brave Communist North Korean soldier crushes the evil United States.  But the
Communist Elite, like all Elites in history, are living well on the very best foods and
drink while their Serf subjects live in poverty.


Children begging, Army starving

Footage shot inside North Korea and obtained by the Australian ABC News has revealed the extent of chronic food shortages and malnutrition inside the secretive state.

The video is some of the most revealing footage ever smuggled out of the impoverished North Korean state.

Shot over several months by an undercover North Korean journalist, the harrowing footage shows images of filthy, homeless and orphaned children begging for food and soldiers demanding bribes.

The footage also shows North Koreans laboring on a private railway track for the dictator's son and heir near the capital Pyongyang.

Strolling up to the site supervisor, the man with the hidden camera asks what is going on.

"This rail line is a present from Kim Jong-il to comrade Kim Jong-un," he is told.

The well-fed Kim Jong-un could soon be ruling over a nation of starving, impoverished serfs.

The video shows young children caked in filth begging in markets, pleading for scraps from compatriots who have nothing to give.

"I am eight," says one boy. "My father died and my mother left me. I sleep outdoors."

Many of the children are orphans; their parents victims of starvation or the gulag.

But markets do exist - private markets that stock bags of rice, pork, and corn. The state no longer has any rations to hand out.

But the state wants its share of this embryonic capitalism.

In the footage, a party official is demanding a stallholder make a donation of rice to the army.

"My business is not good," complains the stallholder.

"Shut up," replies the official. "Don't offer excuses."

It is clear that the all-powerful army - once quarantined from food shortages and famine - is starting to go hungry.  "Everybody is weak," says one young North Korean soldier."Within my troop of 100 comrades, half of them are malnourished," he said.

Jiro Ishimaru is the man who trained the undercover reporter to use the hidden camera.  "This footage is important because it shows that Kim Jong-il's regime is growing weak," he said.

"It used to put the military first, but now it can't even supply food to its soldiers. Rice is being sold in markets but they are starving. This is the most significant thing in this video."

Kim Jong-il's grip on power depends on the military and if some of its soldiers have growling, empty bellies, it is bad news for the dictator and his hopes for a smooth transition to his son.

"The priority for Kim Jong-il is the succession," said Mr Ishimaru.

"But Kim Jong-un is still very young, just 27 or 28. He doesn't have any experience and hasn't achieved anything. So opposition to a third generation of the Kim family taking over is growing."   (ABC News)


The French discovered a way to deal with a corrupt Ruling Elite.


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