Tuesday 20 December 2011

Kim Jong Il - a nation mourns, in -12 degrees on empty stomachs


We are now all - as a nation - taking the piss out of the North Koreans for their public displays of grief for the death of their beloved ruler, Kim Jong Il.

Haven't we forgotten something? Like the death of Princess Diana, for instance? What short memories we all have.


10 comments:

  1. Tom, to my way of thinking, the difference between the deaths of Princess Di and Kim Jong is that here we can express ourselves any way we want to (within reason) In North Korea they are constantly being monitored and watched. If the 'loyal' subjects do not put on a public display of grief they and/or their families are either tortured or murdered. Freedom to be ... is more than <

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  2. Mourning the devil-they-know while likely fearful of the one they don't.

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  3. this blog has an interesting look on thngs
    http://steve-bailey.blogspot.com/

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  4. What was 'within reason' about the national hysteria surrounding Princess Diana's death, Moll? And what makes you think that we are not being monitored and watched? If I try to find any pictures of Diana without any clothes on (not that I often do that, you understand) then I am bound to get a pop-up (no pun intended) which tells me that many girls in the Bath area are keen to date me. If I open a new bank account, then my mobile phone provider knows ALL about it. Do not think for one minute that we are not being monitored.

    Meanwhile, we have only just stopped torturing and murdering about 180,000 innocent people in Iraq for the sake of the oil which North Korea does not possess. If there was oil in North Korea, do you think we would sit back and watch the Kim dynasty kill their own people like we watched Pol Pot do?

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  5. P.S. - Just looked at Steve Bailey John. My favourite was the use of duct-tape for the arthritic recipients of Christmas parcels.

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  6. You are right, the gates look just like Diana's death.
    You headline says it all. What a travesty.

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  7. The dictator is dead; long live the dictator!

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  8. The gates are Diana's floral tributes, Donna - I don't think that the Koreans could afford to leave all those flowers, they'd probably have to eat them!

    Looking back up, I think the words 'torture and murder' I used in my response to Moll were a bit strong, although there was certainly a lot of both going on. We know that about 5000 Americans died in the conflict too, but we don't know how many Iraqis were killed because nobody bothered to count. That in itself shows a marked lack of respect for innocent people.

    It should also be remembered that of the Americans that died, many were 'security' experts - i.e. mercenaries, who went there knowing the dangers involved in their highly lucrative work. Then there were the trade experts, trying to plug the holes that Saddam had punctured in the oil network - they too knew the risks.

    It is all the women, children and wedding parties that I really feel for.

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  9. Actually Tom - 4,486 Americans and 179 Brits have, to date, died during the Iraq war. But there were 2,977 people who were killed as a result of 9/11 and should also be included in the final tally. I recently read that 41 percent of the 9/11 dead currently remain unidentifed - although dna profiling continues.

    Of the Americans that have died - 225 were private military contractors and 32 general contractors. They did indeed know the risks. However, I do find it horrifing, as I read down the list of dead "mercenaries", how many were captured, tortured, and/or mutilated and then displayed in public.

    Sorry Tom - statistics are my life. I had to jump in with some of the hard numbers.

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