The Wisdom of Kim Dae Jung: Slavery Is Prosperity, Censorship Is Freedom, Terror Is Peace

No matter what the North Koreans do with Kaesong next week or next year, their actions last week have already assured that it will fail to attract the international investment it needs to succeed. The North having demonstrated its willingness to hold potential investors’ capital hostage to their political whims, those investors will now stay away in droves.

It’s worth reviewing just how grandiose the dream of Kaesong had become so recently. If you recognize the url stamped onto this video, that’s probably because you’ve seen it here. These people truly, seriously suggest that landlocked, DMZ-bounded Kaesong, seated firmly on the pressure plate of what could become World War III in an instant, would have become an economic hub for the entire region, employing 200,000 laborers and eventually expanding into one of Korea’s largest metropolitan areas.

How is it possible for people so divorced from reality to gain control over that much capital? Oh, right.

There’s also something oddly familiar about this whole three-phase concept:

Why do I have this odd sense of deja vu?

Aside from the snicker-inducing not-quite-right English and the references to the North’s “superior” labor, the video claims that the workers’ monthly wage of $57.50 is the lowest on earth. Plenty of reputable newspapers (in my estimation, most of them) continue to falsely report similar “wage” figures for the North Korean workers, although we know that the regime’s inflated exchange rates and “voluntary” deductions leave the workers little if any money to keep for themselves. This is one instance where journalistic malpractice does not just flourish, it prevails.

The South Korean left is writhing mightily to find some way to blame its own government for North Korea’s strangling of Kaesong. One Hankyoreh columnist blames Lee Myung Bak for reacting calmly instead of desperately throwing money and concessions at the North Koreans. This makes for pretty amusing reading, though not as amusing as the columnist’s name. Funny, I always thought Koreans kept their maiden names ….

And of course, senile ex-President Kim Dae Jung can’t stand to spend his autumn years in quiet reflection, wondering whether that shiny Nobel Prize really was worth the massive illegal diversion of public funds he used to purchase it. (Depending on your answer to that, DJ was either Korea’s greatest statesan or just another crooked politician willing to swindle the public to aggrandize himself. Hmmm.) DJ, never one to let logic or the fear of rhetorical excess get in the way of any given instant’s objective, would have us all believe that Lee Myung Bak is leading a column of tanks back to Kwangju from the cupola of an M-113, with Chun Doo Hwan jerking levers under the driver’s hatch:

Speaking about what he says is a regression of the democratic reforms achieved up to this point because of the government’s mishandling of the candlelight demonstrations, Kim sent an indirect warning to the Lee administration, saying, “Those who are practicing strong-arm politics think they cannot fail, and are under the misconception that they are different from the past.

Kim asked the people to have confidence, saying that democracy “may be facing a temporary set back, but there will be no retreat. Can a dictatorship arise before people who achieved democracy?” In particular, Kim strongly urged the Democratic Party and the Democratic Labor Party to join forces to defend democracy.

Kim said, “I’m very concerned because a crisis of democracy is coming, but I’m not in despair. Democracy, he said again, “may be facing a temporary set back, but there will be no retreat. [The Hankyoreh]

Today’s topic: Is the Nobel Peace Prize merely conclusive proof of the recipient’s stupidity or the Mark of the Beast? Discuss amongst yourselves. Yes, do tell us all, DJ, how the forces of freedom can stop Lee Myung Bak’s iron heel from censoring its opposition in the South or stamping out the sassy, vibrant democracy that thrives in North Korea today? For starters, DJ thinks President Lee is letting entirely too much free speech running amok:

Regarding the propaganda leaflets bearing messages critical of the North Korean regime and sent to the North in balloons, Kim said, “The South and the North agreed not to slander each other (under the June 15 Declaration and others). However, we are not living up to that promise” because the leaflets are still being sent northward. “Are these agreements that the private sector doesn’t have to follow but the government does? Who are they trying to fool?”

I could ask the same question of a has-been politician who is about to mount the soap box of free-speech martyrdom. I believe DJ is telling us that South Korea must destroy free expression to save democracy. I’m certainly no big fan of Lee Myung Bak, but there’s no one quite like Kim Dae Jung to remind us all that Lee is still the lesser of two idiocies.