Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant with Jerry Rowland. Do
Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do? And this
Speaker 1: is breaking stuff you should Know, recorded two days before
Speaker 1: it gets released. We're basically like pod Save America now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think it's funny that the only reason
Speaker 1: we are speeding this year was because of laziness, Because
Speaker 1: I said that an email early is like, guys, if
Speaker 1: we published this in two or three weeks, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to go back and rerecording dates. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to rerecord updates. I don't want to either.
Speaker 1: We could have also been super duper lazy and released
Speaker 1: it and not done updates, but then we would just
Speaker 1: been like slobs. Would have been like Blue Do Brother
Speaker 1: Blue Do in Animal House right, kind of like we
Speaker 1: went back and updated the Obamacare episode so many times exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think about how much work we put
Speaker 1: into that one. Man. Uh, So, Chuck, we're talking today
Speaker 1: about North Korea. I've been wanting to do this one
Speaker 1: for a while. I learned so much. Yeah, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I learned is that a lot of
Speaker 1: the bizarre rumors I've always heard about North Korea, a
Speaker 1: lot of those are actually totally true. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: learned that just knowing, just having a basic understanding of
Speaker 1: its history really just sort of helps frame everything it
Speaker 1: does very much. So you definitely get a feel for
Speaker 1: why it is the way it is, just a basic understanding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do. You know, we're definitely not North Korea experts
Speaker 1: by anything. But what's interesting to me is there are
Speaker 1: actually people out there who are it's their job to
Speaker 1: analyze reports that come out of pyeong Yang and um
Speaker 1: like the way that that Kim Jong un might um
Speaker 1: wave is using his left hand today, or that actually
Speaker 1: means this, there's people whose job it is to know
Speaker 1: that and to be able to say this is probably
Speaker 1: what they're going to do next. How is he wearing
Speaker 1: his hair today? Oh, the same easworn't every day of
Speaker 1: his life. Well, here's a fact for you. The the
Speaker 1: speaking of his hair, he has a very unique hairstyle
Speaker 1: for his country. As a matter of fact, he may
Speaker 1: be the only person in his country with that hairstyle. Yes,
Speaker 1: because when he came to power, Right after he came
Speaker 1: to power in two thousand and eleven, the North Korean government,
Speaker 1: lad of course, by Kim Jong un um, issued a
Speaker 1: decree that if you're a man, you can have hair
Speaker 1: that is two inches long, and if you're an older man,
Speaker 1: three inches long. That's it. If you're a woman, you
Speaker 1: can have one of fourteen hairstyles. I haven't. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they got the hairstyles for the men and women that
Speaker 1: are allowed. That's why I that's why I thought like
Speaker 1: that was just a rumor something. That's one of the
Speaker 1: things that was confirmed for me. I never oh the poster,
Speaker 1: although I probably would have been suspicious even after the
Speaker 1: poster because you know, photoshop and all. But his hair
Speaker 1: looks like one of the approved hair styles. It's long, well,
Speaker 1: way longer than a couple of inches. It's hard to
Speaker 1: tell because he's he's keeps it slick back. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that his hair is is totally unique in
Speaker 1: North Korea, at least with length. So when he wakes
Speaker 1: up in the morning and he's in shaggy dog mode,
Speaker 1: it's all hanging down in his face. Yeah, it looks
Speaker 1: like the new bass player from Metallica, who was who Oh,
Speaker 1: he's like the guy from Metal Metal Apocalypse. Is he
Speaker 1: the same guy that took over since the what, Sir Jason,
Speaker 1: same guy? Yeah, but he it's like him, And that
Speaker 1: does Zach Galifernakis, the guy who played guitar for Rozzy Osbourne.
Speaker 1: Like the two most metal looking guys in the history
Speaker 1: of metal. Probably the new bass player from Atallica. Oh yes, dude,
Speaker 1: it's almost like, you know, they prayed to God to
Speaker 1: craft a metal bass player. He's in. He's an archetype
Speaker 1: for sure, but I'm pretty sure he's the guy from
Speaker 1: Metal A, Metal Apocalypse, Metal Acalypse, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. It's like about the metal band from Adult Swim.
Speaker 1: There's like a cartoon about the Metal Bank. So I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that's him at any rate, North Korea. If
Speaker 1: if we're gonna have to talk about Dennis Rodman, then
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about Metallica's bass player. So let's
Speaker 1: start at the latest as it stands right now. Okay, Like,
Speaker 1: what's going on now? Do you want to or do
Speaker 1: you want to with that? That's fine? Okay. So there's
Speaker 1: been some really surprising developments and a lot of people
Speaker 1: are very much reserved and saying, do not be distracted
Speaker 1: by this, do not be fooled. Um. But as it stands,
Speaker 1: North Korea and South Korea just had a summit, which
Speaker 1: they've had from time to time, but they had a
Speaker 1: summit in the demilitarized zone where president the President's Korea
Speaker 1: and the president of North Korea got together and said,
Speaker 1: let's make this a de nuclearized peninsula. Let's end this war.
Speaker 1: By the way, the Korean War has still been going
Speaker 1: on since nineteen it never ended. Yeah, that's it's been
Speaker 1: a long truce. Let's end it and let's just reunify.
Speaker 1: And people are going nuts because this actually seems like
Speaker 1: there's a possibility of it. And one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why they think there's possibility is because this is such
Speaker 1: an about face for the North compared to two weeks ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, all right, listen again. Because there is reason
Speaker 1: for optimism, there is plenty of reason for skepticism. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I don't think anyone really knows whether or not
Speaker 1: to believe North Korea. No, but there are plenty of
Speaker 1: people who do believe that that you should not believe it,
Speaker 1: right because it could you know, some people say this
Speaker 1: could be a a ruse to unify Rhea and UM
Speaker 1: and get America out of there once and for all,
Speaker 1: which could be scary. Um. There's people that thinks that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's recent reports that this this whole notion
Speaker 1: of shutting down their nuclear test site is um merely symbolic,
Speaker 1: but for two reasons. A because they've got what they
Speaker 1: needed and they don't need to test anymore. And be
Speaker 1: because this geologist in China, did you see that report?
Speaker 1: He just came out like yesterday saying, I think that
Speaker 1: this site has has been destroyed. Oh I did see
Speaker 1: that via earthquake, via setting off nuclear bombs, So like
Speaker 1: it's not even there anymore anyway, right, they set off
Speaker 1: a hydrogen bomb and blew their nuclear testing facility up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so, but now it's a bargaining chip on the
Speaker 1: table exactly. And the reason they can say that is
Speaker 1: because it is such a closed off area. It's so
Speaker 1: difficult to surveil that you have to rely on the
Speaker 1: report of a Chinese geologist and and say, Okay, maybe
Speaker 1: that's true, maybe it's not. You don't know, because it's
Speaker 1: a hermit kingdom. Yeah, but there have been a few
Speaker 1: olive branches in the past few days. Um. I didn't
Speaker 1: even know this. In two thousand fifteen, Um, North Korea
Speaker 1: set their clocks off by thirty minutes so they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have the same time. Yeah, and so uh, North Korea said,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna set these clocks back. We're gonna realign.
Speaker 1: Uh and they I've also in recent days been dismantling
Speaker 1: these propaganda loudspeakers at the border where they both sides pump,
Speaker 1: Like on the south side they pumped K pop and like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is what it's like to be free, and then
Speaker 1: on the other side they pump out I don't know,
Speaker 1: just North Korean propaganda, but they're taking down these loudspeakers.
Speaker 1: So they're they're little signs that like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe this is for real. I was looking all over
Speaker 1: for some some verbatim examples of the propaganda that comes
Speaker 1: out of the North loud speakers. Should not find it anywhere.
Speaker 1: Set that to an nice beach, a K pop pit
Speaker 1: of your own. But yeah, dismantling this is is that's huge.
Speaker 1: That's a big deal. And the steam militarized and we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about it, but it is widely considered the
Speaker 1: most dangerous I think two mile strip of land on
Speaker 1: the planet um. And the reason why it's so dangerous.
Speaker 1: So the reason why it's there is, again, as far
Speaker 1: as Korea is concerned, and especially as far as North
Speaker 1: Korea is concerned, the Korean War is still ongoing back
Speaker 1: and I think nine fifty three they signed an armistice
Speaker 1: a piece, not a peace treaty, a ceasefire, but there
Speaker 1: hasn't been a peace treaty, so the war is still
Speaker 1: going on, which is clue number one that I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: But that's clue number one to the situation over there.
Speaker 1: Once you understand that, you start to understand, oh, they've
Speaker 1: been in a warlike stance this whole time, because they
Speaker 1: consider themselves to have been at war still. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: no one even knows what this early on as of
Speaker 1: this recording, no one even knows what nuclearization, that word nuclear,
Speaker 1: what that even means in this case. Does that means
Speaker 1: we're not we're gonna stop our building programs, but we're
Speaker 1: keeping those missiles or does this mean we're going to
Speaker 1: destroy everything? Right? That is another reason why it's so surprising.
Speaker 1: But the whole reason that this is such big news
Speaker 1: is because and the reason that this this this summit
Speaker 1: is is even on the world stage is because North
Speaker 1: Korea has finally gotten to a point where they are
Speaker 1: they have just come out of being strictly a regional
Speaker 1: threat and a big regional threat to South Korea and
Speaker 1: to Japan, but now they're actually a threat to the
Speaker 1: United States because they've just shown through an intercontinental ballistic
Speaker 1: missile test that had the trajectory been a certain way,
Speaker 1: they could have hit Chicago. And that changes everything. And
Speaker 1: then of course after that, we conducted a test of
Speaker 1: our SAD system Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. I looked
Speaker 1: into that. You know what that thing is? It is,
Speaker 1: uh it basically shoots the rocket out of the sky
Speaker 1: in orbit. But it doesn't like it doesn't have any
Speaker 1: um explosives. It just it works through velocity. So just
Speaker 1: punches right through. It punches right through it with the
Speaker 1: idea that it won't detonate the nuclear warhead smart so
Speaker 1: it'll just disable the rocket and uh, I guess it'll
Speaker 1: just tumble back into the atmosphere in land where it
Speaker 1: may right hopefully the ocean. It's probably gonna try to
Speaker 1: shoot it down over the ocean. I think it's the idea, right,
Speaker 1: So I saw that we have a about a fifty
Speaker 1: fifty chance of shooting down any I c b M
Speaker 1: coming out in North Korea. Yeah, which is as Mark
Speaker 1: Bowden put it in this article that I read, it's good,
Speaker 1: but at the other hand, it's actually really bad because
Speaker 1: that's even that that I CBM will strike the United
Speaker 1: States if they shoot it. So the point is North
Speaker 1: Korea showed that they actually have this technology now and
Speaker 1: it changed everything. So the idea that they just proved
Speaker 1: that they could do this and are now saying, let's
Speaker 1: d nuclear eyes. That's huge and crazy. And actually people
Speaker 1: are talking about no bells over all this. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean left leaning websites are are saying Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: done what no other president has been able to do.
Speaker 1: Potentially if this happens the way it looks like it
Speaker 1: could happen, which was it's a shocking thing to read.
Speaker 1: It's a shocking about face from North Korea. Yeah to
Speaker 1: see c an nd go like I had to say it,
Speaker 1: but he's really done something here the end, right. It
Speaker 1: was written by Wolf Blitzer while he was applying like
Speaker 1: hot paper clips to his inner thoughts. Is things are
Speaker 1: getting strange. So it's gonna be really interesting to see
Speaker 1: how this unfolds um and whether or not it is
Speaker 1: a trick. Yeah. I mean, like it's it's really weird
Speaker 1: for weeks and months ago for North Korea to be,
Speaker 1: you know, saying like we will destroy you, we were,
Speaker 1: we will crush you, we will blow you to pieces,
Speaker 1: and like everything's good that they will strike a merciless
Speaker 1: blow at the heart of the US with our powerful
Speaker 1: nuclear hammer, honed and hardened over time. That was from July,
Speaker 1: less than a year ago. Chuck, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: is it possible that he's seen the light? I mean,
Speaker 1: these sanctions have put a serious hurt on a country
Speaker 1: that was already in a bad way, right, but they've
Speaker 1: lived in a bad way for like half a cent
Speaker 1: well more than half a century. Now. It's so weird
Speaker 1: that it that's it's if that's true, then we figured
Speaker 1: out a sanction that no one had tried before and
Speaker 1: it was exactly the right thing. It's just too bizarre
Speaker 1: because they've lived with this stuff well. And but it's
Speaker 1: it also could be a symbol of just the changing times.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of North Korean citizens now
Speaker 1: that are saying, like, you know, we should reform now,
Speaker 1: that now is the time to play with the rest
Speaker 1: of the world and become part of the rest of
Speaker 1: the world and not be a hermit kingdom. See it's
Speaker 1: my understanding that if you would say that out loud
Speaker 1: in the north, like you would be executed with an
Speaker 1: anti aircraft gun. Well, I think a lot of these
Speaker 1: have been defectors that have said, like, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of quiet sentiment. You know, I don't think anyone yet
Speaker 1: in the country is standing upon the rooftop side reform,
Speaker 1: because that's what Kim Jong Ung's brother, um. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was two women at assassins at an airport, sprayed
Speaker 1: him in the face with a nerve agent and killed
Speaker 1: him because well for a few reasons. One is because uh,
Speaker 1: it was because he believed in reform. Potentially, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: get that he was a little more Western oriented than
Speaker 1: he's trying to get to Disneyland, Disneyland Japan, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: on a on a Japanese or I'm sorry, Dominican Republic
Speaker 1: passport that he had and he got killed, assassinated, and
Speaker 1: you know, of course they haven't come out and said
Speaker 1: so but it's it seems like a direct order from
Speaker 1: the top from his half brother, who, unless I misread,
Speaker 1: they have never met or had never met. That's possible
Speaker 1: because I think the tradition is he raise potential successors
Speaker 1: in isolation from one another. Oh, I had not heard that.
Speaker 1: I just assumed that, like the first family was in exile.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I mean they were half brothers, and that
Speaker 1: makes sense, kind of like a little lab experiment, and
Speaker 1: see which one grows the way you wanted to. You know,
Speaker 1: one grew up and I was like, I kind of
Speaker 1: want to go to Disneyland, and he got caught doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was assassinated. I would guess. His name was Kim
Speaker 1: Jong Kim Jong nah Um and he was assassinated in
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen. And Um, I would guess because Kim
Speaker 1: Jong un was trying to consolidate his power to make
Speaker 1: sure there was nobody who could be like, you know,
Speaker 1: built up as a leader in exile and come and
Speaker 1: take his bro was in line. You know, he was
Speaker 1: the first born. Right, So let's let's take a break
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna come back and talk about Korean
Speaker 1: history and maybe things will get a little clearer. Huh. Alright, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we're back. What an intro. It really was. Intrigue, assassination.
Speaker 1: I felt passionate metallica. Yeah, at it all I forgot
Speaker 1: we talked about in town. All right. So, um, let's
Speaker 1: go back in time because understanding and this article is
Speaker 1: actually really good on our site from Patrick Gold. He
Speaker 1: does a good job. Um that. The section is titled
Speaker 1: how North Korea came into existence, and it really just
Speaker 1: kind of brings it all into focus once you know
Speaker 1: how this all because I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: these days don't educate themselves. They watched mash and that's
Speaker 1: about the extent of it. That's about all I knew
Speaker 1: about Korea, me too, sure. So Korea was actually a
Speaker 1: for a very brief time in the twentieth century, actually
Speaker 1: not too brief, but nineteen ten and nine it had
Speaker 1: been invaded and annexed by the Japanese and it was
Speaker 1: in the process of becoming a Japanese colony when Japan
Speaker 1: lost World War Two. Yeah. Go look at Korea on
Speaker 1: a map. Start there. It's pretty close to Japan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's also just it's a little little dongle peninsula
Speaker 1: hanging down from China. It also has amazing food. By
Speaker 1: the way, okay, so, um, Korea fell out of the
Speaker 1: possession of the Japanese and into the possession of the Americans.
Speaker 1: The allied forces that had invaded Japan and part and
Speaker 1: parcel with that was invading Korea as well. Right, So,
Speaker 1: because the United States and the uss are divided up
Speaker 1: the world, basically one of the things that got divided
Speaker 1: was the Korean Peninsula. And right at the thirty parallel,
Speaker 1: above it was the North, and below it was the South,
Speaker 1: and the South was controlled by the US supported Sorry
Speaker 1: I just made scare quotes for those of you can't
Speaker 1: see me. And the North was a puppet regime installed
Speaker 1: by the USSR. Yeah, pretty simple, okay, uh, so to
Speaker 1: to run the show up there in North Korea. Um,
Speaker 1: this is really interesting how this dynasty started with the
Speaker 1: with this family that's been in power for so long. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Soviets said, all right, Kim Il sung, you were
Speaker 1: born Kim Song jew In, you grew up in China mainly,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna install you as a leader, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna tell everybody at least that you were a very
Speaker 1: brave leader and fighter in the resistance against the Japanese. However,
Speaker 1: no one really knows if that's true or not. He
Speaker 1: might have pulled the Don draper. In fact, there are
Speaker 1: but the probably shouldn't eat while it's too late now. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are some people believe that he is living under
Speaker 1: or lived under an assumed identity from another guerrilla fighter
Speaker 1: who who died in battle, who actually was like a
Speaker 1: glorious resistance leader against the Japanese. Yes, so this family
Speaker 1: that has been ruling since the mid forties may not
Speaker 1: have even had any legitimate claim whatsoever. Right, so so amazing,
Speaker 1: So Yes, it's it's entirely possible that the first president
Speaker 1: of North Korea, who's known as the Eternal President Kim
Speaker 1: Il sung, was an impostor. That's not widely widely confirm.
Speaker 1: It's not confirmed at all, uh, and it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: widely held. But there's at least one Korean analyst out
Speaker 1: there who says is that the deal. Is it a
Speaker 1: fringe like, uh, conspiracy theory? No? Is it a little
Speaker 1: more like, Hey, this might be real. I think I
Speaker 1: think the ladder of the two. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory at all. I think it's entirely possible.
Speaker 1: Either way, it doesn't matter because what happened was whether
Speaker 1: this guy was the guy or whether this guy was
Speaker 1: the guy posing as that guy. This person Kim il sung.
Speaker 1: With the world knows that Kim Il sung was installed
Speaker 1: as the leader of Soviet controlled North Korea right after
Speaker 1: um the World War to also a similar haircut, yeah
Speaker 1: to his grandson. Sure they all kind of had that look.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well Kim Jong il had his own look.
Speaker 1: He had the little mini fro going on. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: correct short, you know, crops close on above the years
Speaker 1: of fondness for coverall pants suits. Uh, all right, So
Speaker 1: nineteen forty he joins the Soviet Red Army. This is
Speaker 1: Kim illsong uh In forty six, Stalin makes him what
Speaker 1: they called the head of North Korean Temporary People's Committee,
Speaker 1: and then finally they appointed him North Korean. The Soviets
Speaker 1: did pointed in North Korea's prime minister. And then you know,
Speaker 1: the whole propaganda machine of communism and especially here in
Speaker 1: Korea has always been massive, yes, huge, Right, So there
Speaker 1: was this uh, this woman I cannot I wish I
Speaker 1: could remember. Her name is Suki something, but she posed
Speaker 1: as a an English teacher for a missionary group in
Speaker 1: North Korea. She's actually a journalist planning to write a book.
Speaker 1: But she went undercover, which ethically there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things going on here. But she came back and reported
Speaker 1: on this and said, seriously, honestly, this whole country has
Speaker 1: suffered generations of psychological abuse and the propagandas everything to them, like, yes,
Speaker 1: some of it is overdone and overblown, but ultimately at
Speaker 1: their core, like they experienced happiness by thinking of of
Speaker 1: sacrificing for the their dear leader and their country. It's
Speaker 1: not about themselves, it's not about their friends. It's about
Speaker 1: the country and dear leader in particular, because yes, the
Speaker 1: propaganda machine works that combined with surveillance, right, Okay, so
Speaker 1: uh so he's in power. Um, the regime is going strong,
Speaker 1: the Soviets withdraw and there are a lot of little
Speaker 1: skirmishes breaking out. Um along that. I guess it was
Speaker 1: the thirty parallel back then. Even yeah, it's always been
Speaker 1: all right, So they were they were fighting a little
Speaker 1: bit back then, and I get the sense that he
Speaker 1: was sort of not well maybe paranoid, but definitely I mean,
Speaker 1: this article says he was uneasy, so he sort of
Speaker 1: overcompensated by saying, you know what, if you if anyone
Speaker 1: comes at me, you will be crushed completely. Um. He
Speaker 1: had a lot of fear that he was going to
Speaker 1: get overthrown from the South. Yeah, because I mean the
Speaker 1: Soviets withdrew and they were like, we're still we're still bodies,
Speaker 1: We're still supporting you, right. Our military is not going
Speaker 1: to be there to back you up any longer, which
Speaker 1: is a big deal. Right, But he said basically to
Speaker 1: the Soviets, hey, listen, I'd like to preemptively take care
Speaker 1: of this problem. Can I do this? And finally in
Speaker 1: ninety the Soviets said, sure, right, go for it, which
Speaker 1: was a huge surprise to South Korea and the U. S. Military. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't expect that all of a sudden, the North
Speaker 1: Koreans overrun the thirty parallel and invade South Korea and
Speaker 1: almost had the place. And it turned out it was
Speaker 1: a small handful of UM Japanese regulars who had been
Speaker 1: UM I guess, flipped to fight with the Americans and
Speaker 1: the South Koreans, and they were the ones who actually
Speaker 1: managed to repel the North Korean invasion long enough for
Speaker 1: MacArthur to bring in American troops and push the North
Speaker 1: Koreans back up over the thirty parallel. Yeah. Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know a lot of military history, but from what
Speaker 1: I did research wise on this, MacArthur is a renowned
Speaker 1: figure for a very good reason. Like it seems like
Speaker 1: he pulled off a near impossible feat here. He did.
Speaker 1: He was famously fired in the middle of the Korean
Speaker 1: War though by Harry Truman, at a time when people
Speaker 1: had no idea the president could actually fire a five
Speaker 1: star general, especially the nation's most prize general. But he did.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I found was because MacArthur wanted
Speaker 1: to keep going right into China, and Truman and actually
Speaker 1: the Joint chiefs too, said, look, man, we are kind
Speaker 1: of overextended as it is right now. If you invade China,
Speaker 1: then we're at war with China. Don't forget North Korea
Speaker 1: is a puppet stat or it was of the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: So you're gonna draw Russia into this war no way.
Speaker 1: And actually had to fire MacArthur because he was not um.
Speaker 1: He was publicly criticizing the fact that they weren't allowing
Speaker 1: him to go into China right, So MacArthur, though, pushes
Speaker 1: up into North Korea, staves off above the thirty parallel,
Speaker 1: and then in the meantime, Kim Kim il sung is
Speaker 1: going to the to Stalin saying, hey, I need them.
Speaker 1: He's a back up here, he said, I could do this. Now,
Speaker 1: this MacArthur guy is ruining my party. Can you help?
Speaker 1: And out of nowhere, to everyone's surprise, China comes on board,
Speaker 1: right because Russia said no, oh yeah, which is that's huge, right,
Speaker 1: So they left their guy twisting in the wind well, which,
Speaker 1: as we will later see, did a psychologically did a
Speaker 1: little uh mind game. There's some people who say that
Speaker 1: that that experience crafted the mindset of the Kim dynasty today. Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean a bit of an overreaction, but it does
Speaker 1: make sense a little bit. So the Soviets said, and
Speaker 1: yet we're not going to help you. We're definitely not
Speaker 1: about to get into a ground war with um, the
Speaker 1: United States right after World War two, UM. And then
Speaker 1: he turned to Beijing and Beijing said, let us think
Speaker 1: about it. And apparently there were two days, two long
Speaker 1: days before Beijing finally surprised everybody, like you said, and
Speaker 1: came into the war and those two days where the
Speaker 1: Soviets had said no and China was thinking about it,
Speaker 1: North Korea was utterly and totally alone and they were
Speaker 1: against the United States, and that helped create the mythos
Speaker 1: that still to this day is the the point the
Speaker 1: existence of North Korea. Yeah, isolationist nation that know that
Speaker 1: they feel like they can't trust anybody. They can't trust anybody.
Speaker 1: They are the defenders of the Korean race, which is
Speaker 1: the purest, greatest race on the planet. As far as
Speaker 1: the North Korean mythology is concerned, I didn't see whether
Speaker 1: it was widely held in South Korea or not, but
Speaker 1: the North Koreans definitely believed they are, and that the
Speaker 1: North Koreans are actually still to this day the defenders
Speaker 1: of the Korean peninsula. And if it weren't for the North,
Speaker 1: the American hordes would have overrun the Korean peninsula by now,
Speaker 1: and so South Korea should be thanking they're lucky stars
Speaker 1: at North Korea is there to defend them, even though
Speaker 1: the South is just a bunch of ingrades. That's that's
Speaker 1: the mythology behind this, and all of it is finds
Speaker 1: it's its place in the guys or in the persona
Speaker 1: of the dear Leader, whichever member of the Kim family
Speaker 1: that is at the time. Right, So after this happens,
Speaker 1: after China saves their bacon, and fighting, you know, fighting
Speaker 1: just continues for a couple of years before this this
Speaker 1: truce is signed. Um, bad fighting, you know it was.
Speaker 1: It was not pretty. Um, things got really serious, and
Speaker 1: Kim Il sung within his country said you know what, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go a little crazy here, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: purge the system and anyone who's a threat to whether
Speaker 1: they're citizens or whether they're military leaders of my own. Um,
Speaker 1: they're all They're all gonna be under the gun, like literally,
Speaker 1: and I will kill them. I will assassinate them. I
Speaker 1: will cleanse my country of anyone who doesn't worship me. Basically,
Speaker 1: that's a kind of a good way to say it.
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, like it was, it's almost like worship.
Speaker 1: He turned right, very much so, and it still is today. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I guess he turned since he his his campaign
Speaker 1: to retake the Korean peninsula was repelled, he turned inward
Speaker 1: and focused at all inward, and it became very very
Speaker 1: dark in North Korea. Yeah, he had fifty thousand statues
Speaker 1: of himself erected. And this is with a money from
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union in China that was meant to go
Speaker 1: to UM. I don't know things like housing construction and
Speaker 1: food and all that stuff. Yeah, so, I mean, if
Speaker 1: there was a propaganda machine before, it's it like he
Speaker 1: turns it to eleven at this point, right, And this
Speaker 1: is how this is how the place is going for
Speaker 1: years and years and years and years until the early
Speaker 1: nineties when something really significant happened, and that was the
Speaker 1: fall of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union kept
Speaker 1: North Korea as a client state, but not exactly as
Speaker 1: a communist country. They had communist ideology, but you can
Speaker 1: make a case, and a lot of people do that
Speaker 1: North Korea is not actually a genuinely communist country because
Speaker 1: part of that experience of Kim Il sung being left
Speaker 1: a twist in the wind against the Americans by the
Speaker 1: Chinese and the Soviets was a concept called juja. I
Speaker 1: really tried and I could not find the right pronunciation,
Speaker 1: but it's j u c H. What did you get? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you believe that that YouTube videos Emma
Speaker 1: saying what is it called Emma saying Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Is that what it is where it does like the
Speaker 1: crazy circle wipe? Yes, yeah, they said, jusia right. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a little on the nose. Okay, I
Speaker 1: saw I saw in like written out and I'm no linguist,
Speaker 1: but um it didn't look anything like that. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: either way, this was in early nineteen seventies. This is
Speaker 1: the political philosophy, which is basically what they call here
Speaker 1: being the master of revolution and reconstruction in one's own country.
Speaker 1: In other words, self reliant, reject all outside influence. We're
Speaker 1: the masters of our own domain, except for whatever financial
Speaker 1: assistance you want to give us, right, but we're not
Speaker 1: going to tell you about that. We're not gonna tell
Speaker 1: you we're getting aid from the outside world because you're glorious,
Speaker 1: dear leader, and eternal President is providing for you, So
Speaker 1: don't you worry about that at all. Right, So it
Speaker 1: isn't exactly a purely communist country. It is its own thing.
Speaker 1: It's actually a unique country in that because of the
Speaker 1: Jusha thing and the fact that it has communist ideology,
Speaker 1: and then that it's actually what's considered to be a
Speaker 1: um ah hereditary dictatorship. Very close to a monarchy, but
Speaker 1: it's not exactly, although it is frequently called the Hermit Kingdom.
Speaker 1: So that's the way it stayed for years under Kim
Speaker 1: Il sung, and then the U. S s R. Fell.
Speaker 1: And when the U. S s R. Fell, like most
Speaker 1: of the aid to North Korea that kept things humming
Speaker 1: went away, humming being a relative term. Right. They weren't
Speaker 1: living large, no, but they certainly weren't engaged in famine,
Speaker 1: which is what happened right after the Soviet Union stopped
Speaker 1: being the Soviet Union. All right, So that's the Kim dynasty. Um,
Speaker 1: like we said, it might as well be a monarchy,
Speaker 1: but what you call it a hereditary dictatorship. And the
Speaker 1: whole thing is that Kim dynasty. Yeah, that was just
Speaker 1: Kim Il Song. Yeah yeah, Kim Il Well I was
Speaker 1: setting up with the Kim dynasty to follow. So Kim
Speaker 1: Il Song passes away. His eldest son, Kim Jong il,
Speaker 1: who most people probably know because he was around until
Speaker 1: pretty recently. He had a big part in UM Team
Speaker 1: America World Police too. I never saw that. Oh you're
Speaker 1: missing out. I know that one just got by me.
Speaker 1: It just just watch it. It's yeah, these guys are
Speaker 1: great and make sure you see the unedited cut version. Okay,
Speaker 1: uh so he was selected, well, he was the first,
Speaker 1: first born, the eldest son. However he was there seems
Speaker 1: to be a lot of leeway because it's not a
Speaker 1: monarchy under they select, and he seems to have been
Speaker 1: selected because out of the five kids, he was the
Speaker 1: biggest jerk. You know. This article says that he'd shown
Speaker 1: his um, his talent at um propaganda. One of the
Speaker 1: ways that he showed his talent and propaganda was by
Speaker 1: kidnapping a famous director and his actress wife from South
Speaker 1: Korea and forcing them to spark North Korean cinema. That
Speaker 1: was one of the ways he was a propagandist. Have
Speaker 1: you ever heard that story? It sounds familiar. But kidnapped
Speaker 1: a film director and made him make propaganda movies for
Speaker 1: the North for years, years and they finally escaped and
Speaker 1: did the wife star in them? Yeah? Husband directed at
Speaker 1: wife started him as hostages of the state of North Korea.
Speaker 1: And was it like, hey, we'll take care of you
Speaker 1: and they you know, gave them a nice place, or
Speaker 1: was it like there's a gun at your head, go
Speaker 1: make this movie. The first four years were spent in
Speaker 1: a concentration camp. The rest of the time after that
Speaker 1: was in the lap of luxury. But did a little
Speaker 1: and then or give very little and then take care
Speaker 1: of him right, sort of like a game, I think
Speaker 1: very much. So, Yeah, but four years in a concentration
Speaker 1: camp to start right, that's which means you'll do anything right.
Speaker 1: But but they were in the lap of luxury. The
Speaker 1: director later said that, you know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: thought that I was living it up. He said, yes,
Speaker 1: I had everything I wanted. But to live in comfort
Speaker 1: like that while everyone around you is an agony is terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's something that the Kim dynasty doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: mind so much because they very much live in the
Speaker 1: lap of luxury. Obviously, so Kim Jong il he inherits
Speaker 1: in North Korea that's not in good shape. The Soviets
Speaker 1: are gone economically, like you said, they are uh, like
Speaker 1: you mentioned, there was there was a brutal famine. Um,
Speaker 1: there were floods, there were draughts. About two and a
Speaker 1: half million people supposedly died of starvation. And so he said,
Speaker 1: all right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna maybe
Speaker 1: try some small economic reform and in the early two
Speaker 1: thousands he started sim allowing a semi private markets to
Speaker 1: a merge. But it was not much, certainly, not the
Speaker 1: kind of thing to turn the country's economy around. Not
Speaker 1: enough for sure. Yeah. So, um, after the Soviet Union fell,
Speaker 1: they were down to one state and they still received
Speaker 1: outside aid unless somebody had a sanction du jour against them.
Speaker 1: But the one country they could rely on was China
Speaker 1: for for financial aid. So, but they were dead. They
Speaker 1: used to be the Soviet Union and China, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the Soviet Union went away and
Speaker 1: then it was China. Well that's why the most recent, uh,
Speaker 1: the most recent UM sanctions have packed such a punch,
Speaker 1: because China got involved. Because you're saying earlier, like whatever sanctions,
Speaker 1: it's because China, I think, Well that that was That
Speaker 1: was part of Obama's UM what's it called the strategic
Speaker 1: Patients was basically being like you, guys, when I act
Speaker 1: like a bread that's fine. Check out our military over here.
Speaker 1: And while you're just over here being like this, We're
Speaker 1: gonna go to China put pressure on China, like China
Speaker 1: was the key you get China further and further out
Speaker 1: onto the world stage, more and more ameshed in global markets,
Speaker 1: the less they're going to tolerate outbursts by North Korea.
Speaker 1: And if you take China away from North Korea, north
Speaker 1: Korea has done the strategic patients is has there ever
Speaker 1: been a more like Obama esque term well and just
Speaker 1: government crafted. Yeah, it's like, here's a good one to
Speaker 1: try it out there. Strategic. But that was one thing
Speaker 1: and one reason why a lot of people are crediting
Speaker 1: Trump with with this about face. And we'll talk more
Speaker 1: about this, but it's worth saying right now is because
Speaker 1: he very much went against strategic patients and his whole
Speaker 1: thing was a show of bluster and strength saying We're
Speaker 1: not going to put up with your crap. Don't push me, fella,
Speaker 1: and they it's a lot of people are saying that
Speaker 1: this is this is why I actually got North Korea
Speaker 1: at the table. Did he like actually scared that? To me, though,
Speaker 1: is like, that's what makes it so unbelievable to me,
Speaker 1: That's what makes me suspicious of the whole thing. That
Speaker 1: that that that is what worked. Yeah, that the Kim
Speaker 1: family scared that easily. I don't know, man, who knows. Uh, alright,
Speaker 1: so semi private markets not working out too well, certainly
Speaker 1: not turning the country around. Uh. Kim Jong ill died
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eleven of a heart attack. And
Speaker 1: we're skipping over a lot off like if you want
Speaker 1: to if you want to know more about just how
Speaker 1: bizarre North carea class right, but but also specifically look
Speaker 1: at Kim Jong eels reign, like he was well known
Speaker 1: for importing nearly a million dollars or the kagnac into
Speaker 1: his country every year when the the average wage wass
Speaker 1: like just crazy stuff, crazy stuff. But he was also
Speaker 1: able to be bought off. That was a big one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was um? I know, I think this was for
Speaker 1: Kim il sung when when they first got the propaganda
Speaker 1: machine going that they said things like he, uh, the
Speaker 1: first time he went bowling, he scored a three hundred
Speaker 1: and the first time he went golfing he got eleven
Speaker 1: straight holes in one the first time ever. That's so
Speaker 1: funny that like it just sounds like something like they're
Speaker 1: got a third grader, so right, the his hit backstory, right, Oh,
Speaker 1: I know, I got it. This is going to knock
Speaker 1: their socks off. He grew full Beard when he was four, right,
Speaker 1: just because he could. So you got Kim jong Kim
Speaker 1: Kim Il song, and then Kim Jong il his son,
Speaker 1: and then Kim Jong il dies and Kim Uh Kim
Speaker 1: jong un takes over and he's the third in line.
Speaker 1: I think he was like twenty seven when he took over,
Speaker 1: and he was different for sure. He had been exucated
Speaker 1: in Switzerland. He was a fan of um western music.
Speaker 1: I love basketball. Basketball is huge in North Korea, but
Speaker 1: they actually have slightly altered UM rules. Like there's such
Speaker 1: a thing as a four pointer. Did you know? Really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What is that? Just a super long shot? I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I do know that if you miss free throws
Speaker 1: you actually lose points. Oh interesting, kind of a good idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really puts the puts the heat on you. That
Speaker 1: sounds like something that whatever the XFL version of the
Speaker 1: NBA would do, right, you know, but this is the
Speaker 1: North Korean version of the NBA. Or like if you
Speaker 1: shoot a three pointer or with your with your eyes
Speaker 1: closed behind your back, over your head, so explains Dennis
Speaker 1: Rodman at least right sort of talk about Dennis Rodman. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't have a whole lot on him,
Speaker 1: other than he very famously made the news. Uh was
Speaker 1: it a couple of years ago and then again within
Speaker 1: the last year or so. Yeah, by going over there
Speaker 1: and kind of being buddies with him and then coming
Speaker 1: back and saying he's not such a bad guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. He was super criticized for Robin was because
Speaker 1: he didn't go under the premature of the State Department
Speaker 1: or anything like, we did not send him. He was
Speaker 1: a rogue envoy. But at the same time, some people
Speaker 1: were saying, like, hey, man, a rogue envoy is an
Speaker 1: unofficial ambassador to North Korea. Is better than the status quo.
Speaker 1: Right now, let's see what he comes back with. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the things he said was that Kim Jong
Speaker 1: un lives basically on a bitha or Hawaii, except he's
Speaker 1: the only one that lives there. Yeah, he lives on
Speaker 1: an island off the coast, a gorgeous tropical island of
Speaker 1: his own, right. Um. And there's lots of other stuff
Speaker 1: that Robmin came back with. But the point was, there
Speaker 1: is a period of time where Dennis Robin was the
Speaker 1: unofficial ambassador to North Korea for the United States. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. I'm sure they showed him a great time.
Speaker 1: Rodin was probably like, oh man, that dude knows how
Speaker 1: to party, right. And so with Kim Jong ou coming
Speaker 1: in like this being Western influenced in some ways, um,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of hope that he was going
Speaker 1: to open up the country. He was going to drop
Speaker 1: the saber rattling and belicosity of his predecessors, his father
Speaker 1: and his grandfather, and that maybe maybe the North Korea
Speaker 1: problem was going to be solved now. And it looked
Speaker 1: like that for a month, and then he started killing people.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but that's why I think it might be
Speaker 1: real now, is that after he went through his his
Speaker 1: kill people face that he he might have been like, well,
Speaker 1: this isn't working. Sanctions are worse than ever. I've got
Speaker 1: this new president in the United States that um, uh,
Speaker 1: how should I put this? That that uh, that that
Speaker 1: wants to prove a point. Oh wow, that was very
Speaker 1: You should be the ambassador that wants to prove a
Speaker 1: point with his bluster and his belicocity. So maybe like
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be so bad to get get American movies
Speaker 1: over here, and and kind of like I'm young, and
Speaker 1: like he's totally watching all that stuff. Oh, sure he is,
Speaker 1: you know, but the idea the like, am I really
Speaker 1: threatened by my own citizens? I don't know if he's
Speaker 1: threatened by it. And this probably isn't a huge factor,
Speaker 1: but the the amount of psychic damage that that would
Speaker 1: do if it wasn't properly handled by their propaganda machine,
Speaker 1: would it would just supposedly mentally crumble or emotionally crumble
Speaker 1: a significant portion of their population who are just so
Speaker 1: dedicated to this that the idea of North Korea suddenly
Speaker 1: laying down its arms when the whole purpose of North
Speaker 1: Korea's existence was to be armed against an American invasion,
Speaker 1: it would It doesn't fit it, So it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: All right, Well here here, let's talk about is killing
Speaker 1: people phase and then take a break. Sounds good because
Speaker 1: I don't want to leave people hanging. Okay, So, like
Speaker 1: you said, he comes in there, he's in his late twenties,
Speaker 1: mid twenties, and in his first five years he's just
Speaker 1: executing people left and right. Yeah, Like basically his father's contemporaries.
Speaker 1: One of the guys was his uncle. Hundred and forty
Speaker 1: senior members of the military government and the party elite,
Speaker 1: his uncle. Like you said, how did you kill his uncle?
Speaker 1: Tell him? Well, uh, if you believe reports, he was
Speaker 1: literally torn apart by an anti aircraft gun in front
Speaker 1: of his family. In front of his family, which that's
Speaker 1: not a good look, like a four barreled gun used
Speaker 1: to shoot down planes. They used on hean young Choi
Speaker 1: who was also his defense minister, and his uncle and
Speaker 1: and if you believe reports, which I mean they have
Speaker 1: to be true, had his his half brother assassinated by
Speaker 1: two female assassins sprang him in the face in an
Speaker 1: airport because he's trying to go to Disneyland. I also
Speaker 1: saw reports that he had um I think also by
Speaker 1: anti aircraft gun, executed his mistress and there was um
Speaker 1: suspicions that it was at his wife's behest. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so that happened like right after he came to power.
Speaker 1: To that basically signaled like nope, this guy's this guy's
Speaker 1: following in the family footsteps for sure. Well, there was
Speaker 1: a very embarrassing video of his uncle um nodding off
Speaker 1: at an event. Oh that's what got him killed. Huh,
Speaker 1: he was the guy that was the guy who did that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that may have been the tipping point, but
Speaker 1: you know, he wanted him out of there for whatever reasons.
Speaker 1: But he was caught on video napping at an event
Speaker 1: where Kim Jong n was and that I think was
Speaker 1: what seals fate. You know, Chuck, Like, if you listen
Speaker 1: to us, we're both kind of hedging, like if these
Speaker 1: reports were true, or reports say this or whatever. We
Speaker 1: were raised in the Cold War, right, and once the
Speaker 1: Cold War was over, we realized that a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff we were told about the Soviet Union was
Speaker 1: just total b Yes, so I think we're we can't
Speaker 1: help but approach. You know what We've been told about
Speaker 1: North Korea with the same kind of suspicion, Right, but
Speaker 1: from what I've seen, a lot of this stuff seems
Speaker 1: to be totally true, like it doesn't need to be exaggerated,
Speaker 1: which is really jarring. Yeah, you want to take a
Speaker 1: break now, Yeah, let's do it, Okay, Okay. So North
Speaker 1: Korea is known as the Hermit Kingdom, and for good,
Speaker 1: good measure, right, for good reason, they have sealed themselves
Speaker 1: off as much as is possible in today's modern age
Speaker 1: of information, pretty successfully sealed himselves off from the rest
Speaker 1: of the world. Yeah, Oh yeah, I'll bet other totalitarian
Speaker 1: states are just like those guys do it, right, They
Speaker 1: really do so. One of the ways that they do,
Speaker 1: like they really keep outside influences to a very large
Speaker 1: degree outside right, Um, the radios that you buy. And
Speaker 1: again I can't help but see us in like fifteen
Speaker 1: years being like, I can't believe we said that was
Speaker 1: in fact. But what I've been told is that the
Speaker 1: radios and televisions that you buy in North Korea are
Speaker 1: pre set to the state channels so that they can't
Speaker 1: tune in anything but the state approved media. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: no labor unions, no independent news media. They jam networks
Speaker 1: foreign like broadcasts from coming in. Right, they still use
Speaker 1: Yahoo netscape. Uh. People, there are public executions. It's very
Speaker 1: grizzly scene, um to keep everyone um in line their
Speaker 1: labor camps. I took issue with the public execution thing
Speaker 1: because I think that that's like, that's pretty standard. It's
Speaker 1: like something the state does any state. Oh you mean
Speaker 1: to keep people in line our own executions of criminals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody does that. It's like to keep people in line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think when they say public it's probably broadcast
Speaker 1: on television. See that kind of thing whereas we don't
Speaker 1: do that yet. No, there was a moment do you
Speaker 1: remember that that um TV special that almost aired in
Speaker 1: like the late nineties early two thousands where they were
Speaker 1: gonna they were going to broadcast in execution on like
Speaker 1: Fox or something that's horrific. Uh So, Yeah, force labor camps,
Speaker 1: um and and this is startling to supposedly sometimes like
Speaker 1: you could be in a labor camp because of a
Speaker 1: sin uh quote sin unquote that your grandfather committed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have like a three generation rule in some cases
Speaker 1: where if who did something, they would put you and
Speaker 1: then two other generations of your family into a labor camp.
Speaker 1: Forced labor camp, not fun labor camp. A forced labor
Speaker 1: not a fun labor camp. We already talked about the hairstyles.
Speaker 1: Go look up the posters what's approved. The women's hair
Speaker 1: styles are not current to say the least. The men's
Speaker 1: hair styles are kind of all the same version of
Speaker 1: the Kim family, which is to say, high and tight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they look like a racist bugs bunny western propagandy cartoon.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means. Look it up, okay, Um.
Speaker 1: We talked about their military for the size of their country.
Speaker 1: Their military is huge. They only have million people and
Speaker 1: they have one point two million full time service members
Speaker 1: that's just full time, and another almost eight million reservists.
Speaker 1: That's insane. Yeah, compared to South Korea, they have twice
Speaker 1: the population and only about six d and fifty five
Speaker 1: thousand full time soldiers. And from what I understand, if
Speaker 1: you just put North Korea against South Korea, South Korea
Speaker 1: would whip North Korea just wallop them militarily, right, even
Speaker 1: though they have half the soldiers. But that's not to
Speaker 1: say that North Korea has some slouchy, sloppy military. They
Speaker 1: spend almost all of their money on their military, and
Speaker 1: it's actually pretty top notch. Plus it's it's peopled by
Speaker 1: extraordinarily dedicated soldiers. Yeah that they parade through their every October.
Speaker 1: Everyone's seeing those parades with the tanks and the I
Speaker 1: c b ms and it's a big show. It's a
Speaker 1: big show. Yeah, it's gonna follow that up, but that's
Speaker 1: what it is. You just say it twice. It's just
Speaker 1: a big show. It's the description. So nice, you said
Speaker 1: it twice. Um, they're g d P is small. It's
Speaker 1: just about forty billion. Um. They like we said, they
Speaker 1: have a life. There isn't isn't fun. They don't produce
Speaker 1: a lot um. They certain they can't produce enough for themselves,
Speaker 1: so they're really reliant. That's why these sanctions are put
Speaker 1: such a whopping on them because they really rely on
Speaker 1: imports and exports to get by. Right. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that workers have to do, no matter what
Speaker 1: your industry is, almost all workers have to stay after work.
Speaker 1: Part of part of your job is after you're done
Speaker 1: laboring for the day. God, this is so bleak, you
Speaker 1: have to stick around for mandatory government meetings. And there's
Speaker 1: two varieties, right. There's one um where it's called the
Speaker 1: community session where they talk about you know, production goals
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. That's fine, I mean it's like
Speaker 1: a work meeting basically. But then there's the learning session,
Speaker 1: and that's just yeah, that's when you basically rap people out,
Speaker 1: even yourself, wrap yourself out on if you break broke
Speaker 1: any rules, if you saw someone breaking rules. Uh. And
Speaker 1: apparently this is where the defectors have shed a little
Speaker 1: light and said that that people aren't coming to these
Speaker 1: as much as they used to because things are so
Speaker 1: bad here. People need the spare time after work to
Speaker 1: go in and hunt and scour the for food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got to look for food there. You might also
Speaker 1: be just sick, not like you basically have to work,
Speaker 1: but you're just too sick to stick around for the
Speaker 1: learning session, right, Well, yeah, I mean it's amazing the
Speaker 1: physical hole that life. And this is just since the
Speaker 1: forties that it's taken. The life expectancy is UM sixty
Speaker 1: seven for men and seventy four for women, and it's
Speaker 1: all compared to South Korea, which by all accounts, you know,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be that different. No, No, there's literally divided
Speaker 1: families that we're still divided from the Korean War. So
Speaker 1: sixty seven years for men, seventy four for women UM
Speaker 1: compared to seventy nine and eighty five to South Korea.
Speaker 1: And then just their height and weight is different. North
Speaker 1: Korean men are between about two and four point three
Speaker 1: inches shorter in thirteen to twenty seven pounds lighter. That's
Speaker 1: based on a study, a study of defectors from North
Speaker 1: Korea compared to their South Korean counterparts. I don't know
Speaker 1: how how robust that is, but it's actually literally taking
Speaker 1: a physical toll on a population, and from all accounts,
Speaker 1: life is extraordinarily hard there. It gets very cold in
Speaker 1: North Korea, even though there's Pacific Um paradise island that
Speaker 1: Um Kim Jong Hoon lives on, uh In. In the mainland,
Speaker 1: it's actually it gets very cold in the winter. But
Speaker 1: they don't have a lot of electricity brown o blackouts,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of lack of heat. There's a
Speaker 1: lot there's a lot of yeah, blackouts and brown outs. Um.
Speaker 1: It's a very hard existence, which makes it makes it
Speaker 1: all the more remarkable that they've managed to keep the
Speaker 1: population this devoted, not just in line, utterly devoted UM
Speaker 1: for decades, for generations. Now are they yes, how do
Speaker 1: we know that I'm basing mine on? I think from defectors,
Speaker 1: uh and I think from the the woman who posed
Speaker 1: as an English teacher, she's she came back saying like yes,
Speaker 1: She's like, yes, there are glimmers here. They're like curiosity
Speaker 1: about the outside world, about all this other stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: But there's so much self censorship because everyone knows that
Speaker 1: they are Um being surveilled at all times by their buddies,
Speaker 1: by military soldiers, by everybody that for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 1: They just the easiest. The path of least resistance is
Speaker 1: to just be dedicated and devoted as much as they
Speaker 1: expect you to be. Yeah, but my point is there's
Speaker 1: a difference between really believing in that and doing it
Speaker 1: out of fear for being killed. And like as soon
Speaker 1: as that Berlin Wall falls, then it's then everyone awake.
Speaker 1: But I don't know that that's necessarily true, because I
Speaker 1: think about people who are institutionalized in prison. You spend
Speaker 1: enough time in prison, the day you get out of
Speaker 1: prison is not necessarily like you're right back into society.
Speaker 1: And Red hangs himself in a halfway exactly. That's where
Speaker 1: I learned about this. Does that make that means it
Speaker 1: must feature so many lessons from shall shank Um? They
Speaker 1: do things like control or the ways that people can
Speaker 1: can get a little taste of the West. Is I
Speaker 1: thought this was interesting, is that they will um, Now
Speaker 1: who is making these DVD players with the USB China? Okay,
Speaker 1: so China will make a DVD player with a sneaky
Speaker 1: little USB port so you can have the state propaganda
Speaker 1: disc digital versatile disc in the player but be sneakily
Speaker 1: watching something else via usb port like whatever. Uh, welcome
Speaker 1: back Cotter. Yeah. I literally couldn't think of a name
Speaker 1: that's huge in North Korean Avengers Infinity War actually um.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, the North Korean media and on
Speaker 1: TV consists of three channels, two of which are available
Speaker 1: only on the weekends. And so the North Koreans really
Speaker 1: love bootleg smuggled South Korean soap operas love them. So
Speaker 1: there are outside influences that do trickle in, especially along
Speaker 1: the border between China and North Korea, but there's it's
Speaker 1: just not widespread, and it's certainly not widespread enough that
Speaker 1: there's there doesn't seem to be any internal threat to
Speaker 1: the Kim dynasty, Okay none. And the whole reason for
Speaker 1: this is because it's US against the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: and they've been They've managed to keep that mentality going
Speaker 1: for generations. So the idea that now now that the
Speaker 1: the Kim Dynasty North Korea has the very thing that
Speaker 1: they've sought for decades, U nuclear warhead that could pierce
Speaker 1: into the United States, now that they're saying we'll give
Speaker 1: that up, it's it boggles the mind. You know what's
Speaker 1: mind boggling is to go to an image source online
Speaker 1: and type in um daily life in North Korea and
Speaker 1: Daily Life in South Korea and bring them up and
Speaker 1: just to look at one modern society, uh, on one side,
Speaker 1: and then one on the other side, and realize this,
Speaker 1: there's just like an imaginary line drawn between these two things. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: really unbelievable. Yeah, it's actually a pretty serious, very real
Speaker 1: line at DMZ. Well you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: do know what you mean. Although I will tell you this,
Speaker 1: I was very surprised to hear this pot is not
Speaker 1: at all illegal in North Korea. Pot so they use
Speaker 1: it and smoke it. Yes, isn't that bizarre. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they do that to keep everyone just sort of
Speaker 1: but you think they'd be like, wait a minute, things
Speaker 1: are really messed up here. Oh I got all reflective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: look at Bob Marley or damn man, things aren't so bad.
Speaker 1: It's possible. It depends on what strain you're smoking. But
Speaker 1: look at Bob Marley. He was like get up and
Speaker 1: uh you know the other thing, Uh stand up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he was also like, let's go kick the soccer
Speaker 1: ball around. Yeah. Um pod also made him invincible when
Speaker 1: he was shot. Is Bob Marley shot. Oh yeah, he
Speaker 1: saw that documentary. It was really good. I just forgot
Speaker 1: that part. I don't remember why, but somebody tried to
Speaker 1: assassinateh he got shot with and managed to live. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: would someone killed Bob Marley. I was just listening to uh,
Speaker 1: Talking Blues this past weekend and Emily was like, why
Speaker 1: is he talking so much in between the songs and
Speaker 1: what language is that? And I went, he's talking because
Speaker 1: these were studio sessions. It's called Talking Blues and he's
Speaker 1: speaking English. Is just very heavily excent it. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like you need a subtitle almost we should do one
Speaker 1: on Bob Marley. I think you're right man. Have you
Speaker 1: ever heard his Dortmund Germany show from I think it's great.
Speaker 1: It's not just one of the greatest Bob Marley shows,
Speaker 1: not just one of the greatest reggae shows. It is
Speaker 1: one of the greatest live shows of all time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: check it out. Why that one? It just you know,
Speaker 1: when you see a live show every once in a while,
Speaker 1: everything they came together, just comes together. And it just
Speaker 1: happened to converge on Bob Marley and the Whalers and Dortmund,
Speaker 1: Germany in nineteen eighty. It was amazing. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: at a show like that about a month ago. Should show, No, No, No,
Speaker 1: just Albert Hammond Jr. But it was just you catch
Speaker 1: someone on the right Friday night and the crowd, everything
Speaker 1: just kind of came together to where you could see
Speaker 1: the band look at each other going like, what is
Speaker 1: going on tonight? You know? It was just one of
Speaker 1: those things. I'm sorry I missed that show. I would
Speaker 1: like to see you. I interviewed him for movie Crush.
Speaker 1: Oh when is that coming out in the next couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. I can't wait to hear it. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: an interesting eye, I'm sure. Yeah. Okay, So where were
Speaker 1: are we done here? Which do we need to know?
Speaker 1: We need to talk about what's going on today? That's right.
Speaker 1: I brought us up to today basically the idea that
Speaker 1: Kim Jong un, now that he has everything he wants,
Speaker 1: would just turn his back on it. It makes zero sense, dude,
Speaker 1: So what is going on? I don't know? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: how about this? Um let's talk about Up till two
Speaker 1: days ago, there were there were basically four um ways
Speaker 1: of dealing with North Korea that had been discussed and
Speaker 1: bandied about. Did you read that Mark Bowden article? Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you know these four four prongs basically, I guess
Speaker 1: that would be that'd be part of the last the
Speaker 1: last one. Yeah, but their prevention, turning the screws, decapitation
Speaker 1: and acceptance. Where where does patient what was obamas jam patients? Um?
Speaker 1: That could be conceivably part of turning the screws because
Speaker 1: it's sanctioned heavy. It's also in a way part of acceptance,
Speaker 1: depending on your take on it. But there were there
Speaker 1: were a couple that we need to talk about. Real quick.
Speaker 1: Prevention is a full on an attack on North Korea,
Speaker 1: a preemptive attack on North Korea. And here's why no
Speaker 1: one did that yet. No one's done that. It would
Speaker 1: be a devastating loss of life. There would be literally millions,
Speaker 1: if not tens of millions of people who died in
Speaker 1: the handful of hours the first day following that attack.
Speaker 1: They would be people who lived in Seoul, which is
Speaker 1: forty minutes south of the d m Z, and they
Speaker 1: would be people in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan. They
Speaker 1: would just they would die. Because the North Koreans have
Speaker 1: not just nuclear warheads that are capable of hitting Soul
Speaker 1: in Tokyo, right, So right there, you've got fifty million people,
Speaker 1: more more than fifty million people, almost sixty if not more, UM,
Speaker 1: who are just vulnerable in two cities. They also had
Speaker 1: eight thousand what they call big guns, which could just
Speaker 1: rain our chillery down on Soul for as long as
Speaker 1: they were allowed to stay in intact. They also have
Speaker 1: nerve gas and chemical agents and biological agents enough to
Speaker 1: kill many, many millions of people just by releasing this gas.
Speaker 1: We don't really have any means of of defense against
Speaker 1: a gas attack, which is one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: chemical and biological agents are just internationally outlawed. But if
Speaker 1: you're a hermit kingdom, you don't have to play by
Speaker 1: those rules. So the fact that they have had all
Speaker 1: of the stock pilot at least since is the reason
Speaker 1: why no one has just gone in and taken out
Speaker 1: North Korea, because it would result in a huge loss
Speaker 1: of life that just could not be um morally defended. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, geographically it's so unique, Um, like you said,
Speaker 1: with Soul being right there, there's just no way around it.
Speaker 1: The I mean, the the brightest military minds have tried
Speaker 1: to construct ways to do this, and it's just not possible.
Speaker 1: It's just not so. So prevention is basically like, we
Speaker 1: can't do that, which is one reason why Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: bellicosity really made a lot of people nervous, because it
Speaker 1: made some observers think, oh god, he might go for
Speaker 1: the prevention um choice, which is not okay. Right. There's
Speaker 1: also turning the screws, which is basically like a series
Speaker 1: of drawn out attacks with pauses in between to let
Speaker 1: North Korean know this is not the prevention. But um,
Speaker 1: we're still going to hurt you. But it would leave
Speaker 1: Kim Jong hoon in power on purpose to keep stability
Speaker 1: in the country. There's decapitation like assassination, yes, yeah, and
Speaker 1: that that's just tough to do. Um. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: the U S supposedly doesn't sanction assassination like this. I
Speaker 1: think the rest of the world would kind of be
Speaker 1: like on this one. But at least the way this
Speaker 1: writer sees it is that any assassination attempt would require
Speaker 1: at least some kind of inner circle cooperation. Um. And
Speaker 1: that's just impossible, they say, right, They're they're so dedicated
Speaker 1: that they even one person wouldn't be a turn code no,
Speaker 1: and even if they could get them, these people are
Speaker 1: so surveiled and watched that they would be Yeah, it
Speaker 1: would be. And then the last one is acceptance, the
Speaker 1: idea that we would just have to live with the
Speaker 1: idea of North Korea being a member of the nuclear States,
Speaker 1: and that's just that. The idea with acceptance is that
Speaker 1: then you create a framework to de nuclearize them, um
Speaker 1: by continuing with sanctions, by using carrots and sticks, and
Speaker 1: and hope that they will end up behaving enough that
Speaker 1: you can keep them from using their nukes. So here
Speaker 1: we are today with a complete about face, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people say, okay, what's going on? And from
Speaker 1: what I understand, the talk is that South Korea is
Speaker 1: now headed by a president who's a liberal human rights lawyer,
Speaker 1: correct Moon jay En, and um the South Koreans and
Speaker 1: the North Koreans. We'd like to think of South Koreans
Speaker 1: as our allies, and they are, but they're also Koreans
Speaker 1: and North Koreans and South Koreans. They're Koreans, yeah, and
Speaker 1: they have family that are on the other side, right.
Speaker 1: So to be a Korean and say we want to
Speaker 1: just reunite, we want to end this this war first
Speaker 1: of all, but we want to reunite. To do that
Speaker 1: at the expense of the U. S having a post there,
Speaker 1: you could see South Korea being like, okay, let's figure
Speaker 1: this out. The problem is that leaves Japan extremely vulnerable
Speaker 1: because don't forget, Korea was a colony of Japan as recently. UM,
Speaker 1: and the US would very much like to have a
Speaker 1: presence on the Korean peninsula UM either way, and North
Speaker 1: Korea just wouldn't put up with that. So is that
Speaker 1: the case? Because I don't see any scenario where the
Speaker 1: US are just like, all right, well we're out of here.
Speaker 1: Then you guys, good, we're out of here. Right. I
Speaker 1: don't either, but I don't Also, I also don't see
Speaker 1: North Korea saying yeah, we'll unify and US you can
Speaker 1: stick around. It's going to be a very interesting few weeks.
Speaker 1: It certainly is. And we could talk about North Korea
Speaker 1: for ten more hours. But if you want to know
Speaker 1: more about it, just start looking into it. It's a
Speaker 1: fascinating country. Or go visit. Oh wait, you can't know,
Speaker 1: you can't not anymore. No, Uh, let's see you got
Speaker 1: anything else right now? Okay, Well, we said North Korea
Speaker 1: in there, I think once or twice, which means it's
Speaker 1: time for listener. Man, I'm gonna call this Walrus correction. Hey,
Speaker 1: guys a little behind recently listen to Walrus podcast. It's
Speaker 1: very exciting to hear some familiar places and names because
Speaker 1: I've just gotten back from the Arctic in the last month.
Speaker 1: I'm working towards my PhD studying Arctic sea ice, and
Speaker 1: I spent six weeks in Small Bard recently. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know Chuck was excited to talk about as Alaska friend,
Speaker 1: but now you can say you have another Arctic friend,
Speaker 1: even if I technically live in Colorado. So, um, we
Speaker 1: got something a little wrong here emailing you because, um,
Speaker 1: you guys said Walruss can survive water down to negative
Speaker 1: four uh, and then Chuck said even down to negative
Speaker 1: fifty nine fahrenheit. I'm pretty sure you meant air, because water,
Speaker 1: even with a lot of salt, does not get that
Speaker 1: cold without freezing, certainly not below twenty degrees. I stand
Speaker 1: by negative anyway. I've been listening since two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: back when I was a baby scientist just working on
Speaker 1: my undergraduate degree. Still love the podcast. I wish your
Speaker 1: Denver shows didn't sell out so fast. That's from Erica Schreiber.
Speaker 1: That's it, that's it, all right, you left just hanging there.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been in a car where like you
Speaker 1: pressed the brakes, but the the it doesn't fully complete
Speaker 1: and you just kind of roll to a stop and
Speaker 1: it feels like you haven't really fully stopped, but you're
Speaker 1: not moving any longer. I have no idea what you mean.
Speaker 1: That means you have bad breaks? No, it just means
Speaker 1: like a weird twist of fate happened. It's it's possible.
Speaker 1: You don't lurch to a stop at all. That's what
Speaker 1: you just did with that listener mail. Thanks a lot, Erica,
Speaker 1: glad to hear that you made it back safe and
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. And if you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us, you can tweet to us at s
Speaker 1: Y s K podcast or Josh M Clark or movie Crush.
Speaker 1: You can hang out with us at Facebook dot com
Speaker 1: slash Stuff you Should Know or Facebook dot com slash
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email
Speaker 1: to Stuff Podcast to how Stiff works dot com and
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Speaker 1: H