Most frightening is how the DPRK regards their neighbors to the south and how they have militarized their border to prevent the free flow of people.
To start a war with another country, draw a line in the sand, militarize it and then imprison people because they want cross a line in the sand to be repatriated with their families is the mark of a very totalitarian regime. If it weren't for their military I don't think anyone would put up with this kind of behavior. The really cruel thing is that their people are impoverished by their military spending and then told that there isn't enough money for basic medical care. Even sadder than that is that what little is left after military spending is spent to fund the lavish lifestyle of the politically well connected in a futile attempt to make some pretense that their economy has not failed the vast majority of their populace.
What kind of country would buy more tanks while their vetrans, women, and children are left homeless?
What the world is proposing, namely that the DPRK stop spending so much on their military and take care of their people is really rather modest.
We could talk about how the DPRK uses its military against its people (college kids and religious sects), or uses it's vast prison complex as a labour pool. I've been told that some prisoners are being forced to labour to build new prisons and that companies in the DPRK can requisition workers from the prison pool to work for the companies and if they protest they will have their sentences extended.
Apparently Dear Leader has also requested that the courts start handing out even harsher sentences even though the DPRK leads the world in it's incarceration rate, rather than look to more progressive models such as in Europe that drastically reduce recivitism by treating convicts as people. I've even heard that even though you only have one candidate to vote for in the elections that you can still be stripped of this right if convicted of a crime, leading to a situation where vast swaths of the population cannot even participate in the ostensibly democratic process of the country.
Lets not even talk about the repressive system the DPRK uses to keep basic medicine out of the hands of those who need it. If you manage to afford medicine, you're not quite of of hock yet, even if you have a prescription you can still be jailed for drug offenses and aren't allowed to present the fact that you had a prescription at trial.
I've heard in their school system even in elementary school before the children have a chance to develop free thought that they must make group devotions to dear leader.
To start a war with another country, draw a line in the sand, militarize it and then imprison people because they want cross a line in the sand to be repatriated with their families is the mark of a very totalitarian regime. If it weren't for their military I don't think anyone would put up with this kind of behavior. The really cruel thing is that their people are impoverished by their military spending and then told that there isn't enough money for basic medical care. Even sadder than that is that what little is left after military spending is spent to fund the lavish lifestyle of the politically well connected in a futile attempt to make some pretense that their economy has not failed the vast majority of their populace.
What kind of country would buy more tanks while their vetrans, women, and children are left homeless?
What the world is proposing, namely that the DPRK stop spending so much on their military and take care of their people is really rather modest.