Re-Framing our own perspectives on North Korea

They control the narrative deliberately - we need to think about what that narrative says, and consider the implications of THAT narrative for their own domestic political reasons and how that could unfold regionally...

It would seem that our past analytical framing, possibly constrained by our own domestic Cold War rhetoric and politicization, may have had us looking at the tightly controlled country through a very narrow key hole... KJI assumed leadership on December 25, 1991.  Now his sun, born to a mother who was suppossedly born on December 25th (Virgin Mary/Ancient Solstice date comes to mind), has also assumed leadership as "supreme commander/leader" on December 25th - the birth of a new rising sun if you will. 

They are building a myth - where are they building it to?  Will the next (only the 3rd) transition occur in ~40 years on December 25th as well?  They have blurred religion, state, and party into "Juche" - and if we look at them holistically, and how they are building a mythology as they go, we might be better set...

(Note:  I wouldn't get wrapped up in the title "Supreme Commander" - when we have our own people claiming that we need a "'strong' Commander-in-Chief" (organizational titles shouldn't scare people into paranoia)... Point being, I think these kats might still be framing (the revolution continues, right?) their communist society (only 65 sum-odd years old now) around a Spartan-like mythology... Lycurgus (who starved his warriors to make them hardened and resourceful, and established a hard, communal, defensively-militaristic state) might be an archetype through which to consider KIS, KJI, and maybe KJU...

If these guys were an animal - they might be more like a porcupine, than a hyena... We might need a new (post Cold War) analytical framework for looking at these guys...   On starving rural peoples, we don't know the hard demographic stats (are their starving rurals like our starving rurals in W. Virginia?) ... finding this out will help us... on political camps - maybe they buy into Newt/Bachmann/Perry/Palin-like notion that if you don't buy off on the political-religious state that is "self-reliance", you are not moral enough to be a citizen or participate, and you need to have "coming-to-Juche' moment through a nice state sponsored correctional labor camp or public-school curriculum adjustment." 

Understanding their perspective may help us understand them (for good or bad)... Understanding them can help us prepare to deal with them, or continue to contain them, and t least deter them from acting in a way that would trigger a response that they themselves wouldn't understand (provocations vs. posturing) ...

Some fresh eyes might be in order.