Hermit Kingdom

"THE MORE CORRUPT THE REPUBLIC, THE MORE NUMEROUS THE LAWS"

TACITUS

At the height of the anti-apartheid movement that pushed for divestment of business interests in South Africa I was a university student just getting my start in campus politics. I wasn't an activist in the anti-apartheid movement but if I had a blog going in the 1980's I know I would be posting regularly to point out how wrong those bastards were who controlled the South African government. Now that we all live in the blogosphere our modern day "South Africa" in terms of oppressing basic human freedoms is North Korea thus I have posted on the subject of its "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il, numerous times.

Today's rant against the sushi-loving, jump suit-wearing Dear Lear was inspired by a very TINY article in the Financial Times this week -- I note that it was "tiny" because during the anti-apartheid movement the articles were BIG and front page news not buried like this one was regarding recently announced European Union sanctions against North Korea ("EU Ban on Luxuries for Kim Jong-il").

The European Union exhibited "bold" (is there an emoticon for sarcasm??!!) leadership by declaring that the following goods can not be exported to North Korea as a protest against their nuclear power ambitions --

-racehorses
-luxury watches
-limousines
-jewelry

Wow, thanks European Union, you will surely bring Kim Jong-il to his knees!! If you don't know already check out http://www.cnn.com/ for the news stories regarding how most of the North Korean population survives by eating tree bark as a staple in their diets. South Africa is a free society today ( granted they still have a lot of challenges but yet much freer than during apartheid) but what of North Korea? It is not a nation, it is a prison camp run by a corrupt megalomaniac and as such North Korea should not be allowed to be a member of the United NATIONS since this entity is a club for nation-states not prison camps.

The Hermit Kingdom needs reunification,

Todd