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The ugly face of socialism


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North Korea's Block and Food Aid Reflects Regime push for control

Seoul, South Korea - North Korea's move to ban international humanitarian assistance starting on Saturday is part of a campaign to regain control over food distribution, limit outside contracts and avert possible urban unrest.

Since famine killed an estimated one million North Koreans a decade ago, the communist regime has accepted foreign aid to alleviate chronic food shortages.

But North Korea says it no longer wants food aid from private charities and the United Nations' World Food Program. Insted, it is seeking development assistance for projects such as power plants - which it is unlikely to get as long as it pursues nuclear weapons.

The stark about-face comes in conjunction with another decision from Pyongyang: to ban free-market sales of food grains inside the country and revive its socialist ration system.

The moves suggest North Korea is increasingly concerned about the threat to political stability posed by potentially restive urban populations. That group has suffered from high unemployment and skyrocketing inflation as the government has worked to refashion its ailing, centrally planned economy.

North Korea seems to be picking up "signs of frustration and discontent," says Rudiger Frank, an economist and North Korea expert at the University of Vienna in Austria. "They felt they had to pull the emergency brake" on moves toward freer markets that were helping farmers at the expense of the city dwellers.

The moves are a big gamble for a country where food is in chronically short supply. But this year, North Korean farmers had what is believed to be their best harvest in a decade. The country, which objects to what it considers intrusive monitoring by aid agencies, also received large food donations - with few strings attached - from its neighbors, South Korea and China.

Aid officials and economists question, however, whether Pyongyang can repeat this performance in 2006. If crops fail or Seoul and Beijing are less generous, the country could slip back into famine, they say. Asked for comment, a diplomat at North Korea's mission to the U.N. in New York reiterated earlier statements that the ammount of outside food aid is small and isn't needed any more.

The World Food Program, which last year helped feed more than a quarter of North Koreans, has been talking to Pyongyang for months to keep up food deliveries. The agency's executive director, James Morris, went to Pyongyang earlier this month for talks, but left without an agreement. The agency is consulting donors to see if they will support the kind of program that North Korea wants.

World Food Program officials haven't made public details of Norht Korea's demands. But Richard Ragan, head of its North Korea operations, says, "One of their key objectives is to limit the international presence in the country." The agency now has more than 30 foreign staffers monitoring food deliveries across North Korea.

North Korea also has told private aid groups they must end humanitarian - assistance programs by early next year. Some already have pulled out. Catholic charity Caritas, for instance, closed a food aid - monitoring office it ran with other non - government organizations, though the group says it wants to remain "engaged" in North Korea.

Monopolizing rice and grain distribution gives Pyongyang an important tool of control over its people and the economy. Limiting the number of foreign aid workers in North Korea will restrict the already - meager flow of information about conditions indside the isolated nation to the outside world.

U.S. and South Korean officials say that they haven't detected any signs of serious dissent or instability in North Korea. Leader Kim Jong II appears firmly in control. But, they say, Mr. Kim's regime has been moving to tighten its grip, banning cellphones and reinstating stricter limits on internal travel.

It also is reversing liberalizing steps taken starting in the summer of 2002 that were designed to increase the role of markets in its socialist economy. Wages were increased and state enterprises were instructed to focus on profitability. Decison - making was decentralized and private sales of food and manufactured goods was legalized. *DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT SOCIALISM IS? Private sales of food and manufactured goos was ILLEGAL, the Government DECIDED HOW MUCH FOOD YOU NEEDED TO LIVE, and WHAT GOODS YOU COULD HAVE*

Much of the focus was on agriculture. Collective farms had to deliver a portion of their output to the state - run Public Distribution System for sale to citizens at subsidized prices. But the rest could be sold at higher prices in the market. Farmers also were permitted to till private plots and sell produce in small markets that had sprung up around the country.

All this appears to have helped boost food production, augmented by big grain shipments from China and South Korea. By last year, many North Koreans were obtaining much of their food from the market, while the government's distribution system was withering.

But recently, the government abruptly changed course. Soldiers were deployed to guard fields and monitor the harvest to make sure all rice and other grains ended up in government warehouses. Aid workers say the government purchased the grains at prices well below those prevailing in the market. *Yeah, right, "purchased"*

The apparent goal is to revive the reation system, say aid workers and experts. Instead of going to the market, women now queue up in food - distribution centers *kinda like slaves*, where officials behind a bank teller - like window dispense grain through a chute, aid workers say. People are allowed to purchase a fixed ammount of grain at subsidized prices.

Gerald Bourke, a spokesman for the World Food Program in Beijing who recently visited some distribution centers in North Korea, says rice was on sale for far less than the prevailing market rate before the recent changes. North Korea says the average daily ration for adults has doubled under the new system.

The government hopes the shift will help ease the pain of people in they cities, where the collapse of industry has left many unmeployed *so they make slaves out of the rest of the population and farmers to feed all* and without enough money to buy adequate amounts of food in the market *hence the reason the government looted the farmers by "purchasing" their grains under market prices, to give their grains to the rest of the people*. It likely reflects concern that further hardship could lead to unrest in cities and towns, analysts say.

The revival of the ration system also gives the government an important tool to control the population. "The government's influence over its people has diminished with the rise of the market," says Lee Young Hoon, an economist who tracks North Korea for South Korea's central bank. "The government doesn't want to stand by and let this happen."

Under the current system, says Mr. Frank, the University of Vienna economist, people who are employed receive larger rations than those who are unemployed, a sign, he says that the government is using food in an effort to prod people to return to state - run factories. Many have largely abandoned their jobs in the centrally planned system in order to earn a living by trading and working in the informal sector. "They're very uncomfortable. They want to have people back in the system," says Mr. Frank.

Taking control of food sales also allows the government to clamp down on flows of money that have created rival power centers. "Some in the elite started making money. And power groups started to form around the flow of cash," says a senior U.S. official involved in North Korea policy. "There is a high level of discomfort with the redistribution of wealth *from the SCUM to the people who ACTUALL EARN THE MONEY, and the SCUM in power is UNCOMFORTABLE* and the new loyalty groupings that have been forming around people with access to money." *That's why in Socialism, money is linked to power, and power linked to evil. To perpetuate the thoughts that only the government and it's officials should have money/power, because they know better than you, they know how much food you need, and how many goods you need to live, and will take care of you*

Many aid officials and ecnomists question whether North Korea will be able to keep the ration system going in the long term. The sudden change in the government's social contract may undo the incentives that helped boost food production in the first place.

"You can do that once," says Marcus Noland, an economist and North Korea expert at the Institute for International Economics in Washington. "But one has to assume that farmers will revert to their old coping mechanisms, harvesting crops early and hiding them in farming secret plots."

The University of Vienna's Mr. Frank, however, says Pyongyang's plan could succeed if it curbs the hyper - inflation that has hobbled the economy. If the North can then attract foreign capital to get some of its industry operating again, market - opening efforts could resume.

-----> Coming up in the next couple of days, The Ugly Face of Socialism part II. An article about how the Venezuelas scum bag Chavez is expropriating "idle" industry and land. US HAS to lock down it's borders and STOP accepting any and ALL emigrants from third world coutnries. Maybe those people that hate socialism enough to pick up and more thousands of miles away, changing their whole life, in many cases move illegaly, putting themselfs in mortal danger, will actually stay in their native countries and FIGHT TO DESTORY socialism, to make their own countries better.

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US missed an opportunity to dissarm North Korea? How about EU. What has EU done in the last 50 years? Zilch that's what. So don't try to say that we are missed an opportunity to act on North Korea by getting involved in the middle east, what we do is our bussiness, and considering that EU hasn't done anything but stew like aged *****, and considering you are live in EU, the last thing you can do is go around talking about what US should do concerning world involvment.

Second, Chavez IS a scum bag. It doesn't matter if he was elected or not. He is CONFISCATING other peoples land and property. If majority voted to take your house away, does that make it right? I guess when the time comes, and EU will vote that there is NO such thing as private ownership (hey, they already voted that there is no such thing as certain intellectual property by refusing certain software patents rights), you will be ok with them confiscating everything you worked your whole life for, expropriating it all for "the good of the people". No matter who and how many voted for such wrongs, doesn't matter, for it is WRONG and CRIMINAL. So, Chavez being a scum bag is not just my opinion, it is a FACT.

As far as Belorussia goes. I hate the country so much that if there was ever a war and U.S. chose to invade it just like it did Iraq, to overthrow those criminals in power, and set up a REPUBLIC, I would support U.S. and fight for it. I came to U.S. when I was 11. I didn't jump the fence, and I didn't violate any laws. I haven't accepted any social programs, including government grants for education. I paid taxes since the age of 15. If you compare my track record to some of U.S. BORN citizens, you will understand that a word CITIZEN should mean more than just being born on a certain side of the border. Unfortunatly it doesn't, that's why U.S. is in the shape it is now, because those "citizens" and illegals think U.S. owns them, liberals have granted those people a sence of entitlement, the right to rob, loot, and live off of your neighbors labors. So, as far as me just talking instead of acting, I am acting. When I told you that the BEST way to fight socialism is to STOP working to the best of your ability and stop supporting it, I wasn't kidding. It destroyed North Korea, those people DO NOT want to work for the government, without even realizing it, they know enough to feel that it's simply not worth it, they don't want to be slaves, and THAT'S why the country is in the shape it is. It also destroyed Russia, people, smart, skilled, intelligent people, stoped applying their skills, smarts and intelligence. They stoped working for the benefit of the society, because it wasn't benefiting them. Russia collapsed. So, like I was saying, me, I am working, to support myself. When I make enough to never work again, I will not continue making more and giving the socialist scum the benefits of my labor, my inventions, and my intelligence. I will take my money and live off of it the way I chose, and maybe I will even be able to convince others, interpenuers, inventors, capitalists to do the same. Once they listen and understand how the scum lives off of them, and gaining that extra million will not do anything for them beyond what they already have, nothing but feed the scum and the looters, maybe then they will STOP. How long will the leeches last without us Nomad? LOL, How long will you be able to feed them? How long will you be able to give out wellfare, to support all the scum, leeches and looters, how long will your socialism last when the slaves revolt and REFUSE to work?

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