• Home
  • Illinois News
  • Illinois Politics
  • US Politics
  • US NEWS
  • America First
  • Opinion
  • World News
  • Second Amendment
Monday, June 30, 2025
Illinois Review
  • Login
  • Register
  • Home
  • Illinois News
  • Illinois Politics
  • US Politics
  • US NEWS
  • America First
  • Opinion
  • World News
  • Second Amendment
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Illinois News
  • Illinois Politics
  • US Politics
  • US NEWS
  • America First
  • Opinion
  • World News
  • Second Amendment
No Result
View All Result
Illinois Review
No Result
View All Result
Home Illinois News

One Kim to Rule Them All: Everything You Need To Know About The North Korean Threat

Illinois Review by Illinois Review
March 12, 2018
in Illinois News
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A
0
27
SHARES
458
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Unnamed

You might also like

JB Pritzker Receives 2% in Presidential Poll, Ranks Lowest in Minority Support Among Democrats

Trump’s Jobs Boom Skips Illinois—Thanks to Pritzker’s Tax Hikes

Opinion: We’ll Save You If We See You Burning

A nearly perfect totalitarian system. President Trump said on Thursday that he would like to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. From Nicholas Eberstadt, here are some things to understand about the regime:

The North Korean political system is one of a kind. Originally spawned by Stalin as a far-flung Soviet satellite at the beginning of the Cold War, North Korea broke free from Moscow early on, and has mutated into an Asiatic hereditary dynasty in its own right. It retains all the instruments of control and terror from the original Marxist-Leninist model, while supplementing them with a whole roster of inventive new totalitarian tricks of its own.

Evidently, the North Korean variant of totalitarianism is superior to the Soviet prototype. The latter, after all, is in the dustbin of history, and the former is very much still with us.

Where Marxist-Leninist states always have a secret police force, the North Korean state set up multiple services. Not only does they spy on and suppress the subject population, these services also surveille each other and report any signs of disloyalty or impurity to the very top. Marxist-Leninist states always had their dreaded gulags, but North Korea’s political prisons, or kwan-li-so, are even more terrifying. Adapted to capitalize on Asian family values, they threaten the horror of the concentration camp not only for the arrestee, but also for his whole extended family – children, cousins, grandparents, everyone. When you wonder why North Koreans don’t rise up against the horrible oppression they suffer, or why more people don’t try to flee its inhumanity, remember this part: The system is carefully designed to hold every North Korean’s entire bloodline hostage.

And then there is North Korea’s unique, and uniquely odious, Songbun system. Marx may have envisioned his Communism as a classless utopia, but Pyongyang pulled full throttle in the opposite direction, imposing carefully calibrated class designations as a tool for social control. In North Korea, class status (currently, there are over 50 of them) is assigned for life, and one’s Songbun determines one’s chances in life – and death. It is a safe bet that no one from North Korea’s privileged “core” classes died in the Great North Korean Famine of the 1990s, and that almost all the victims were members of the so-called “hostile” classes. Songbun formalizes and perfects techniques of social atomization that Stalin and Mao only pioneered, transforming divide-and-rule into a science, and thus routinizing internal mutual mistrust and hatred to a degree perhaps never attained through deliberate government policy.

[Nicholas Eberstadt, “One Kim to Rule Them All: Everything You Need to Know about the North Korean Threat,” American Consequences, February 2018]

Related

Tags: Illinois Review
Share11Tweet7
Previous Post

Brexit: Why Britain Left the European Union

Next Post

The Nordic Glass Ceiling

Illinois Review

Illinois Review

Recommended For You

JB Pritzker Receives 2% in Presidential Poll, Ranks Lowest in Minority Support Among Democrats

by Illinois Review
June 30, 2025
0
JB Pritzker Receives 2% in Presidential Poll, Ranks Lowest in Minority Support Among Democrats

By Illinois ReviewIn one of the first nationwide hypothetical polls for the 2028 Democratic presidential primary, Illinois Governor and billionaire JB Pritzker ranks at the bottom, receiving the...

Read moreDetails

Trump’s Jobs Boom Skips Illinois—Thanks to Pritzker’s Tax Hikes

by Thomas Mccullagh
June 26, 2025
0
Trump’s Jobs Boom Skips Illinois—Thanks to Pritzker’s Tax Hikes

Illinois is missing out on Trump’s U.S. manufacturing boom. While other states welcome new factories, Pritzker’s tax hikes and regulations keep businesses out—and force longtime employers to leave.

Read moreDetails

Opinion: We’ll Save You If We See You Burning

by Janelle Powell
June 21, 2025
0
Opinion: We’ll Save You If We See You Burning

By Janelle Powell, Opinion ContributorIn a dazzling display of bureaucratic brilliance, the City of Chicago has rolled out a new policy for the Chicago Fire Department that essentially...

Read moreDetails

Caught Off Guard: Pritzker Left Speechless on Women’s Restroom Question Amid Sanctuary City Testimony

by Illinois Review
June 12, 2025
0
Caught Off Guard: Pritzker Left Speechless on Women’s Restroom Question Amid Sanctuary City Testimony

By Illinois ReviewIllinois Gov. JB Pritzker testified Wednesday before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee alongside fellow sanctuary city governors – occasionally appearing visibly stunned and...

Read moreDetails

OPINION: Judicial Watch Petitions U.S. Supreme Court Over Illinois Ballot Counting — A Possible Turning Point for Election Integrity

by Janelle Powell
June 6, 2025
0
OPINION: Judicial Watch Petitions U.S. Supreme Court Over Illinois Ballot Counting — A Possible Turning Point for Election Integrity

By Janelle Powell, Opinion ContributorIn what could be a landmark moment for restoring election integrity in Illinois, Judicial Watch has officially petitioned the United States Supreme Court to...

Read moreDetails
Next Post

The Nordic Glass Ceiling

Please login to join discussion

Best Dental Group

Related News

IL Freedom Caucus calls on Lurie Children’s Hospital to cease gender services for kids

October 27, 2022

Beckman: Is the Brigham Young University racial slur controversy another hoax?

October 27, 2022

Salvi polling shows closer race

October 27, 2022

Browse by Category

  • America First
  • Education
  • Faith & Family
  • Foreign Policy
  • Health Care
  • Illinois News
  • Illinois Politics
  • Opinion
  • Science
  • Second Amendment
  • TRENDING
  • US NEWS
  • US Politics
  • World News
Illinois Review

© 2024 llinois Review LLC Editor in Chief Mark Vargas Publisher Thomas McCullagh Chief Counsel Scott Kaspar

Navigate Site

  • Checkout
  • Home
  • Home – mobile
  • Login/Register
  • Login/Register
  • My account
  • My Account-
  • My Account- – mobile

Follow Us

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Illinois News
  • Illinois Politics
  • US Politics
  • Health Care
  • US NEWS
  • America First
  • Opinion
  • TRENDING
  • Education
  • Foreign Policy
  • Second Amendment
  • Faith & Family
  • Science
  • World News

© 2024 llinois Review LLC Editor in Chief Mark Vargas Publisher Thomas McCullagh Chief Counsel Scott Kaspar

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?