Here comes the crazy train!

Jason Unruhe, who looks like an overripe ripe kiwi fruit decorated with a Mister Potato Head set, goes by the Twitter handle “Maoist Rebel News” and calls himself the “No. 1 Marxist on YouTube,” and yes, that is like being the “No. 1” sommelier under the 395 overpass. It’s my privilege to report that Mr. Unruhe is upset with me, after he provoked a Twitter fracas by raging against “imperialist” sanctions against North Korea. At this point, I explained to Mr. Unruhe that he had no idea what the sanctions actually say, so he turned on his satan-worshipper under-lighting, put on his limo driver uniform, and made this 18-minute YouTube video about me.

Feel free to comment, should you choose to do so.

I learned three things from this video: first, that Jason Unruhe doesn’t know much about North Korea; second, that his reading comprehension skills aren’t much good, either; and third, that some people will believe just about anything if they want to badly enough. Unruhe calls me a proponent of “keeping” North Korea on the list of state sponsors of terrorism (it was taken off the list by George W. Bush on October 11, 2008). He claims that I cited the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan (which he mispronounces chee-yo-nan) as an example of North Korea’s international terrorism; I actually concluded that this act, as outrageous as it was, probably didn’t meet the standard. Unruhe appears to have skimmed the table of contents without reading the report itself.

Unruhe also credits conspiracy theories that a U.S. navy ship actually sank the Cheonan, and denies that North Korea was behind the Sony hack. Why blame North Korea? Beats me. Maybe President Obama needed a better excuse to not sanction North Korea. Unruhe also refers to North Korea’s “so-called” prison camps, whose existence he doubts, and which puts him in Holocaust denier territory. In other words, you can either take Unruhe’s word, or that of a U.N. Commission of Inquiry, the President of the United States, the heads of the FBI and the NSA, and an international investigation team.

What always puzzles me about Marxists who support North Korea is how unequal and un-Marxist North Korean society really is. I suppose we should add this to the long list of things Jason Unruhe doesn’t know about North Korea.

Nothing Mr. Unruhe says is quite as laughable, however, as his claim that combustible know-nothing Mike Bassett has a reputation among both pro- and anti-North Korea factions for being “neutral.” (Unruhe would have improved the comedy value of his video immensely if he’d used the word “balanced” instead.) Can anyone name a Korea watcher of any standing who believes this? Mike Bassett mainly has a reputation for his crimes against Godwin’s Law.

Mr. Bassett will not be taking part in today’s discussion, by the way, because he violated the comment policy, and because every day is too short to respond to “scholarship” of this caliber:

Remember, I’m not a mental health professional, and neither are you.

As for Bassett’s “neutrality,” his writing is cited by the Korean Central News Agency, an internet Marxist, and just about no one else. Also, his masthead looks like some sort of niche Kim Jong Un erotic fanfic site.

[Not that there’s anything wrong with that.]

Unruhe seems to have taken most of his talking points from Bassett, and that’s a problem, because looking for truth from Mike Bassett is like looking for love in the restroom stall of a bus station. For example, to support his Vishinskyist argument that I’m a McCarthyist, Bassett accuses me of calling for the prosecution of Christine Ahn under the Logan Act (in fact, I called for the repeal of the Logan Act as unconstitutional). I’d say Bassett was lying, but the more likely explanation is that he’s merely subliterate.

Similarly, I’m reliably informed that Mr. Bassett’s Swiss tweedledum, Felix Abt, is crediting the “FEMA camps” internet hoax, which actually uses images of North Korean prison camps that you can find for yourself on Google Earth, relabeled by a prankster with clever anagrams of phrases like “left wing suckers.” How prophetic of him, whoever he was, although the right-wing crazies have also picked up on this conspiracy theory.

None of this matches the honor of being denounced by North Korea itself, but it does mean that I must be doing something right. And that I must do much more of it. So now, let’s turn to something more substantial: a four five-part post on “guerrilla engagement” with the North Korean people.