Seriously? This stuff is news to someone?
I expect some things from the folks that frequent our forum here, but I assumed the fact that this stuff was going on was common knowledge.
For those who may not yet know it, Kim Jong-Il is a murderous, psychotic despot along the same vein has Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, and Achmadenijad.
Sigh.
No, I knew the conditions in N. Korea were horrible. But I'd personally say that documentary is more horrifying to me than anything the nazis did... yes, genocide is awful, but being able to completely isolate a population and convince them of an alternate reality seems worse to me than anything Hitler (or even Stalin) ever dreamed of. And Kim Jong is just the successor... the real villain is his father, who somehow managed to propagate this insanity from beyond the grave. Can you imagine literally convincing your most loyal followers, who know it's all a big lie: 'Look, guys, I want you to keep this up after I'm dead and pretend I'm immortal. It'd be awesome, hundreds of thousands starving and worshiping my dead body and not knowing anything about any other kind of life.' It makes you wonder what the hell could possibly convince the people in his inner circle to follow through with that terrible stupidity. I'd say Kim Il-Sung might not have directly ordered the deaths of as many people as other nefarious leaders in the past, but the legacy he set up is far more evil in terms of human pain and suffering that resulted.
The scenes of people being momentarily reunited were awful, too. Can you imagine that happening, knowing that your loved one has to go back to that insane hellhole and probably end up dead as a result?
As a quick note, even making a comparison between N.K. and the United States is a joke. All people everywhere should always be on the lookout for government corruption, but the fact that we can criticize our own government openly should be a pretty good indicator that we're riding the gravy train in terms of levels of freedom worldwide.