Part Two: Kim Jong Un and His Family of Dictators

Robert is joined again by Eli Olsberg to continue discussing Kim Jong Un and his family.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M what's back, my listeners? You are because this is
Behind the Bastards, the podcast where we uh we talked
about the worst people in history and I make increasingly
stretch and uh terrible introductions because I just I'm losing it.
I'm losing my my everything here. But uh, you know

(00:22):
who's not losing his his his his person capacity. It's
Eli Oldsberg, our guest today, comedian, writer and host of
the Closure and pod is a Woman podcasts. Eli, are
you ready to learn some more about Kim Jong n?
I am, And you're right, I have it together, but
I'm hanging on by its threat. Just so the audience knows. Yeah,
I I threw out the threads long ago, and uh

(00:46):
let's just let just let's just get into this. In
March two ten, a South Korean navy vessel named the
Chionn sunk just a few miles south of North Korea's
nautical border. Forty six of the hundred and four South
Korean semen on board word were killed or possibly abducted.
Because the Chionan is believed by virtually everyone to have
been sunk from a torpedo by North Korean midget submarines,

(01:08):
possibly on the express orders of Kim Jong un, who
was at that point still just a leader in waiting.
For what it's worth, the North Korean government claims the
sinking was fabricated by pro Us conservative administration seeking to
incite a standoff between the two Koreas. Now, it's hard
to say exactly why North Korea would want the chion
And sunk. In subsequent years, Kim Jong un has continued

(01:29):
to deny any role in the attack and repeatedly refused
to apologize for it. So it may be as simple
as the fact that attacking the chion In gave him
something to rattle his saber about, an issue to loudly
deny complicity, and while also gaining respect and loyalty from
the navy for letting them sink their teeth into the
hated enemy. Whatever the truth of the sinking of the
chion And was masterminded by Kim Jong un, or at

(01:51):
least a plan he approved of, it wound up being
a very successful gamble. South Korea moderated its response to
the attack, and the North faced very little in the
way of consequences for the deaths of those men. People
have trouble understanding why dictatorships like North Korea would take
a risk like this, what they would have to gain
from kicking a hornet's nest. It's the same question people
ask when they see reports that the Assad regime has

(02:12):
gassed its own people. Why would they risk international sanctions
from using w m d S. Doesn't make more sense
for them to tow the line and not antagonize the
US and its allies. Well, the reality is that often
it does make sense to antagonize the U, S and
its allies, that often the gambles pay off. One could
make the same point about Hitler's quest to annex Czechoslovakia.

(02:33):
Many of his generals in fact, did, pointing out that
if it came to war, the Czech defenses would decimate
the still rebuilding German Wehrmacht, leaving them easy prey for
the French and the British. It seemed as if Hitler
had nothing to gain from pressing for the conquest of
Czecho Slovakia. But Hitler, like all dictators, was a gambling man.
So is Kim Jong Un, so is Bashar al Assad.
So are all dictators who wind up hanging onto power. Now,

(02:56):
of course, the gambles of dictators don't always work, said,
I'm who's saying gambled when he started kicking you in
weapons inspectors out of his country. He could have just
let them do their work and maybe managed to hang
onto power. But he gambled that he could stick a
thumb in the eye of his enemy, and their desire
to have would war would overwhelm their desire to punish him. Now,
Saddam was wrong, and it's also probable that nothing would
have stopped George W. Bush from invading Iraq. But Kim

(03:18):
Jong Una has so far been remarkably successful as a gambler.
He bet correctly on the chion in and he would
bet correctly many many more times in the years to come.
It's always interesting to me which of these guys like
because Kaddafi was another gambler, Like when he when the
civil war started against him and he started climbing that

(03:40):
he was going to wipe out the city of Benghazi
and kill all six hundred thousand people inside it just
bombed to the ground with his air force. That gamble backfired.
He got called on it, and he wound up killed
in the streets. Um. Yeah, but I think that often
tour it is like uh and also going back to
the previous episode we're talking about, like when it came

(04:00):
up about his you know, Kim's frame of reference. Uh.
You know, this is a kid from early on who
was critical of people and who was very uh you know,
very like in charge from the get go. Supposedly, how
much of that is probably anniversus. How much of that
is true is another story. But when you have those
frame of references, um, you're gonna double down until you

(04:23):
you meet your match or you you lose. And then
at that point, I think it really becomes like an
almost like in a like gambling addicts, where even if
you lose this round, it's trying to win the next
one to undo the losing. And then you know what
I mean, Like it's it's it's it's momentum one way
or another. And it's the thing that Kim Jong un

(04:44):
will have as soon as he comes to power that
Kadafi and Saddam didn't have. For example, that I think
is a big reason why all of Kim Jong UN's
gambles have worked out a lot better than those other
dictators gambles did, is he has nukes and you have
that's like that's always having like a pair of aces
in your hand every time, like like, yeah, it's it's

(05:06):
just a little bit of extra assurance that your gambles,
no one's gonna call your bluff because you got those nukes.
Um so yeah Uh. As Kim Jong ill grew sicker
and sicker uh from the consequences of being a sixty
four year old man with a two million dollar a
year hennessy konyak habit, he carefully prepared the stage for
his son, increasingly shut up at public events together as

(05:29):
he'd done with his father. In the eighties, North Korean
propaganda mills began to spread stories of the young Jong
uns close relationship with his grandfather, even though the two
had probably never met. One famous parable is that Kim
il sung once asked Kim Jong un for an apple,
So Kim Jong un asked for a shovel so he
could dig up an apple tree and present it to
his grandfather. The message was that the North Korean people

(05:49):
should be prepared to go the extra new mile for
their new leader, just as he'd gone the extra mile
for Kim Il sung. Very subtle messaging here, now, to
say the least, Kim Jong UN's propaganda charm offensive had
begun with the military, but it quickly expanded to the
rest of society. According to the Great Successor quote, at

(06:10):
their compulsory weekly education sessions, people around the country were
having messages drilled into them about the incredible feats of
this young genius. They heard the one about firing a
gun when he was three years old, and the ones
about riding horses and driving cars at an age when
most kids are just learning their A. B. C's. It
was hard for people to believe these things. We just
laughed at them. It may have worked for kids, but
not for adults. Mr Kang, the drug dealer, told me,

(06:30):
but if you questioned it, you'd be killed. Some of
his efforts to sell the new leader pushed the boundaries
of credulity even in this totalitarian state. One officially sanctioned biography,
called The Childhood of the Beloved and Respected Leader Kim
Jong Un, claimed that he had perfect pitch, that he
could ride the wildest horses at age six, and that
when he was just nine, he was had twice beaten
a visiting European powerboat racing champion. The youngster had driven

(06:52):
at speeds of a hundred and twenty five miles an hour.
It said it was so unbelievable that the textbook was
recalled after whispered criticisms began circus letting that it distorted
and exaggerated the leader's early years. It was revised to
make it more credible. Wow, that's like, that's like playing
a game of telephone and then starting the game all
over again. Yeah, it's really interesting. But it's interesting that

(07:15):
they that they'll revise it. UM, which is going to
come up later. This guy is going to be a
little bit less actually dishonest to the people of North
Korea than his the private previous leaders have been. UM
a little bit teeny teeny bit. It's not a high bar.
So I do think it's worth talking about UM right

(07:35):
now sort of. How many of these crazy claims are
believed within North Korea? Um, because these are the stories
that most commonly make it out to the world media
about the Kims. Is all these crazy tales about like,
you know, how the like the you know, the lies
that are supposedly believed in North Korea about the Kims.
Uh And I found an article on a website called

(07:56):
North Korea News that was written by a former citizen
of the DPR a who fled home uh and included
interviews with several other like refugees from North Korea, and
this writer claims, quote, it is not wrong to say
they believe the propaganda before the death of Kim Il sung,
but the years of famine convinced many North Koreans that
their government could not be trusted anymore than you know,

(08:17):
most people trust governments. The article concluded, of people believe
what the government says, aren't quite sure what to believe,
and don't believe anything at all. So that's one dissident's
opinion on how many people buy the government lying on things, um,
which it makes sense. You know, if you've got twenty
percent who believe everything you say and back into the

(08:38):
hilt and fort who aren't willing to take a stance
one way or the other, than that forty percent who
realize that they're being lied to, aren't going to be
able to make anything happen. Yeah, they're already that they're
already in the minority. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Now. I would
also be remiss if I talked about North Korea's propaganda
and I didn't point out that the bullshit's pigott spews

(08:59):
both ways. The closed nature of North Korean society has
made it easier for the government to lie to its people,
but it's also made it easier for others to lie
about North Korea, since few people can come forward to
counter any falsehoods. I found one anecdote on a Christian
missionary news site called do the Word dot org that
I found deeply interesting. Now, this is from an article

(09:19):
written by a missionary who lived in South Korea with
his wife, and he's recalling a conversation he had with
another missionary. Quote. Miss Foley and I were in Korea
talking to a man doing North Korea human rights work
who shared with us the report of a tragic execution
in North Korea. A North Korean woman who had been
assisting a healthcare project of an international in GEO inside
North Korea. She was accused of being a spy and

(09:42):
after a rather summary investigation, executed. But here was the
tragedy that compounded that tragedy. The man said to us,
Americans want to hear stories about Bibles and people being
killed for having Bibles. I'm going to tell the American
media that she was killed for distributing Bibles. And so
he did, and so that's what American media reported. The
story was everywhere. It was completely untrue, a total fabrication.

(10:04):
The man who spoke to us wasn't even a Christian,
but in his mind he had accomplished his purpose punished
North Korea with bad press, even if the press was inaccurate.
His logic was this, if there was no Bible, there
would have been no news interest. If there had been
no news interest, the North Korea would have gotten away
with the killing of yet another innocent without any recrimination
at all. As it was, the outcry led to an

(10:25):
outpouring of donations to Christian NGOs doing North Korea work.
That's really interesting. That is really interesting. Yeah, it's funny.
I can't even like like hearing that. I'm kind of
almost had a lot of words for it because it's
so fascinating, Like it's just almost like a thing where
you're like, this is what else can you do with it?
You know what I mean, Like I'm already kind of

(10:46):
a little dumbounded. I'm like, well, yeah, yeah, totally. And
it's it's so like it's if you're if you're an
activist who hates the North Korean government, which is a
totally reasonable thing to hate um and you you see
it pass on to its third generation of ruler and
realize that, like, this ship is not dying out at all. Yeah,

(11:09):
so I I I can't even blame a guy in
that position for telling whatever lie he thinks will hurt
the regime, even though it just makes it a harder
for other people to like try and figure out what's
actually going on over there. I can feel the frustration. Yeah,
And and and it just to kind of like almost
draw a parallel. It's like that there's a lot of
arguments happening here now in regards to how democrats approach

(11:33):
things and how how liberal and leftists approach things in
regards to like, well, you have to be above that,
and some people are like, no, you have to be
as fucking dirty as the other side is in order
to get it done. And that kind of seems like
it's obviously in a much more it's morphed a little
differently there, but it's kind of the same thing where
you're like, well, by any means necessary and at whatever cost,
and other people are like, well, no, you still have

(11:54):
a kind of sense of duty and ethics to this
whole thing. And I don't know and I don't. I
almost want to say the truth lies somewhere in the middle,
But at the same time to say that means that, well, yeah,
you're kind of acknowledging it does have to be you
have to play dirty, and you know, I don't know
what the answer would be there. Yeah, And I think
the frustrating thing is that the the only real answer

(12:16):
can be the truth is, uh, whatever works. So if
whatever succeeds, whatever is shown to have succeeded in the
long run, Uh, that's that's the truth. Um. And so
it's kind of hard to say, like, right now, is
that guy right to have lied or not? Well, it
looks like he was wrong to have lied because it

(12:36):
didn't help, um, but maybe like yeah, I don't know,
Like it's but what if it worked? You know, that
goes the other way where that that creates like eight
thousand arguments because like, well it worked, but at what cost?
And then some people are like, well, that's what you
had to do, what he had to do, So you
know it feels like it's ultimately like it can really
be a lose lose situation something like that. Yeah, yeah,

(12:58):
it is, like it's uh, it's oh messy. Um. Yeah,
it's it's it's it's really fucked up. UM. So back
to Kim Jong un and his ailing father. UM. As
Kim Jong Ill got sicker and sicker and UH, it
began to become clear that death was imminent for him,
several actions were taken by the North Korean government to

(13:19):
very quickly prepare the way for Kim Jong il's air.
He started following his father on public inspections of military units.
His birth home was made a historical site. He was
made to assume leadership roles in the military and the
Communist Party and in the security UH divisions, and UH
he was made a for star general in two thousand ten.

(13:39):
So he's he's he's very quickly pushed up the ladder
much faster than his father had been because again, his
father's got like twenty years as the heir apparent and
he's really only got like three or so. UM. On
December seventeenth, two thousand eleven, Kim Jong Ill suffered a
catastrophic heart attack on his private train, probably driving around
to tell farmers had a farm better. His death was

(14:01):
officially announced two days later. Kim Jong un, for the
first time was addressed as the great successor to the
revolutionary cause. Now, two thousand eleven was a more optimistic
time and the rest of the world, the Arab spring
was still fresh, and it looked as if a surge
of democracy and freedom was in the process of overtaking
numerous dictatorships. Most international experts placed very little faith in

(14:21):
Jong UN's ability to hold power and maintain the rule
of the Kim's victor Chaw, who negotiated with North Korea
for the George W. Bush administration, were in an op
ed in The New York Times where he joyously predicted
the regime's collapse. The article was titled, well North Korea
become China's newest province. From the article, I love by
the way that he still calls it when when he

(14:42):
became the successor that the you know of the revolution?
What didn't the what revolution? It's always going on, man,
it's always a revolution in North Korea, baby, exactly. Yeah. Yeah,
it's still that same thing where it's like it's like
that using the saying the democratic people, you know, of
the of the people for the people. Yeah, it's you
always want to associate yourself with something that's as lively

(15:06):
and exciting as a revolution because just being nobody. Nobody's
excited by being part of a government that just functions
like like what, well, you wanna you wanna, you wanna
you wanna just be care takeover and fucking uh Norway,
where the state pretty much works and things go about.
Find No, it's boring as hell. That's why nobody watches

(15:28):
No nobody. Nobody pays attention to Norway. Everybody pays attention
to America because we're a train wreck seven like, yeah, yeah,
that's what people want to see. Yeah, surely feels like
at the moment, it's like a disaster where like everybody's
just gotten a huge car crash and then they're exchanging
insurance information and like a semi truck just comes along
and plows through that. Yeah, and that that semi truck

(15:50):
is driven by a seven year old Kim Jong on
a on a box yeah now and then and the
back cabs on fire. Yeah oh yeah, yeah forever on fire.
So yeah this uh, as soon as Kim Jong un
comes to power, um, like all these experts and pundits
start saying that, like the regime's about to fall. It

(16:13):
was unprecedented that Kim Il Sung passed on power to
his kid. There's no way it's going to happen for
three generations, um, Victor Chah wrote, Mr Kim's death could
not have come at a worse time for North Korea.
Economically broken, starving, and politically isolated. This dark kingdom was
in the midst of preparations to hand power over to
his not yet thirty year old son. The antested Kim
Jong Un, the great Successor, as he's been dubbed by

(16:35):
the state media, is surrounded by elders who are no
less sick than his father, in a military that chafed
his promotion to forced our general last year without having
served a day in the army. Such a system simply
cannot hold now as a general rule, when you have
people UH writing statements like this system simply cannot hold
about a system that is part of a foreign country

(16:58):
that we don't really know all that much about and
have great sources inside. You can assume they're talking out
of their ass a little bit, and Victor Chaw definitely was,
because all signs over the net last six years of
power for Kim Jong hun suggests that he has the
potential to be UH the most definitely a more successful
leader than his father ever was, and potentially even more

(17:21):
successful than his grandfather UM, which doesn't mean he's not
a terrible person. He absolutely is UM, But the initial
reactions to him in the world media were to make
fun of him as a bumbling, overweight simpleton Uh. In China,
he gained the nickname Kim Fatty the Third, and that
nickname spread faster than Chinese sensors could remove it from

(17:42):
their Internet. Reports began to surface in Western media that
he had murdered his girlfriend, who was a singer in
the North Korean Girl in a North Green Girl band.
The tabloids reported she'd been killed after he caught her
making lesbian pornography. Like most of the most lurid stories
of North Korea, this was complete bullshit. The supposedly murdered
woman later showed up just fine, clearly still in favor

(18:03):
with the regime, which is essentially the same thing that
happened with those negotiators for the nuclear summit. Right that's
become a trope. Yeah, That's also what I'm fascinated by,
because look like like K pop is having a moment
right now, more so in America than it ever has.
And I wonder what North Korean pop stars, what what
that kind of sounds like in comparison to South you know,

(18:27):
like K pop because K pop is referred to obviously
at South Korea. Yeah, and they've had there. There have
been some K pop acts that have performed in North
Korea altered versions of their songs in the last couple
of years as part of sort of the mild reproach
MAA that's occurred between North and South Korea. M that's something. Yeah. Yeah. Now,
when he initially came to power, Kim Jong UN's strategy

(18:49):
was to tie himself closely with his grandfather rather than
his market that's popular dad. This has been helped by
the fact that Jong Un bears a striking resemblance to
the old man, one that might have been enhanced through plastics,
Sir jury Uh. It's also equally possible that this, too,
is a lie, the Brookings Institute writes. Just a few
months after he became the leader of North Korea, on
the hundredth anniversary of his grandfather's birth, Kim delivered his

(19:10):
first public address as he invoked his grandfather's legacy. In
the lengthy twenty minute speech, he also affirmed his father's
military first policy, proclaiming that the days are gone forever
when our enemies could blackmail us with nuclear bombs. Yet,
even while endorsing his father's policy, he was making a
remarkable departure from his father's practice. For this was the
first time that North Koreans had heard their leader's voice
in a public speech since Kim ilsung's days. Kim Jong

(19:32):
ill shunned speaking in public during his almost twenty years
of rule. In fact, he only said like one sentence
and a mass public speech to his people. So right
out the gate, Kim Jong un is a very different
leader from his dad. Um spends a lot more time
in front of the people, does a lot more public speaking,
is a lot more hands on. Uh seems to be
a more functional guy in general. Now, Uh Kim Jong

(19:54):
un would continue to buck North Korean tradition and plow
his own path as the supreme ruler of the world's
most attack militarian state. On April twelve, the Korean Committee
of Space Technology launched load Star three, a brand new
observation satellite. The name was a reference to the Holy
star that supposedly bloomed in the sky when Kim Jong
ill was born. Despite its name, Load Star three only

(20:15):
stayed airborne for ninety seconds before crashing into the ocean. Now,
given what gets reported about North Korea, you might expect
the state propaganda to have denied any failure. Instead, they
leaned into it, admitting that load Star three had failed
to enter its preset orbit and announcing that their scientists
were looking into the failure. This marked the first time
that the North Korean regime openly copped to a mistake

(20:36):
of this magnitude. It started to appear as if North
Korea's new leader was trying to position himself as a
more reasonable, open minded ruler than his father or grandfather
had been. Now how true any of this is is debatable.
Vanity Fair spoke with Bill Richardson, former US Ambassador to
the UN and a guy who actually negotiated with North
Korean leaders in Pyongyang on several occasions. He generally is

(20:56):
seen as having decent connections inside North Korean leadership. In
two thousand and fifteen, he said, so let me first
give you what others in North Korea have told me
about him. Number One, he frequently jokes with other officials
about not knowing anything that he is new and young,
and that he has no experience. He actually thinks that
is funny, So that is one. Number Two. He seems
to be insecure. However, he hears no one and he

(21:16):
does not like to be briefed about issues. That does
not mean he is not street smart or that he
is not skillful. Surmising the way he has replaced the people,
especially in the military, that he felt were not his people,
he has actually done that quite effectively and brought his
own people in or people he thinks are more loyal
to him. So wow, it's like one opinion. Yeah, and
that's also that sounds like somebody pushing thirty, like the

(21:41):
the you know what I mean, like anybody that's the
you know, when I bought that up, I think, um
a little earlier, I had mentioned like I feel like
he because he's so young, like you know, he's gonna
be someone who's in hitting thirty. Which, by the way,
when we're talking about earlier, like how all these things
that could have affected him being the product of an

(22:02):
affair that his uncle and you know that them his
um uncle anunt fleeing and all those things. This is
when that ship starts getting actualized. Do you know what
I mean, like in terms of the your brain starts
processing those things and whatever whatever you're going to be
like as a result of that, is is coming coming
to now, Yeah, and that starts to come out in

(22:25):
Kim Jong un. And one of the things we see
from him is that he is um capable of forging
a new path from his ancestors and also capable of
at least presenting a more open appearance. But another thing
that he shows of his personality is that he is
capable of the same kind of brutality that has kept
his family in power for almost a century. He famously

(22:46):
had his uncle Jiang Song Tyke murdered, reportedly for not
standing up when Kim Jong un entered a meeting. One
witness later recalled his uncle kind of sat in his
seat and didn't really get up. He was very slow
to get up until the last minute, and then he
didn't really do the full clap. On December of two
thousand thirteen, Jane was fired and arrested on state television.
He was not torn apart by ravenous dogs, as reported,

(23:07):
but he was executed, probably by firing squad. Kim Jong
Lun also had General Young Young Choll purged in two
thousand sixteen after he fell asleep at a meeting where
Kim Jong lund was speaking. In this case, the execution
was as brutal as you'd expect based on the fake
news about the Kim family. General Chol was publicly shot
to death with anti aircraft cannons, which essentially would have

(23:31):
just yet disintegrated the guy. Yeah yeah, yeah, Oh my god,
look at someone who who eats up like a very
specific brand of B movie that has that kind of
ship to For that to be an actualized, non like
exaggeration without hyperbole is fucking bonkers. And it does sound
like the execution that you order if you're a kid

(23:53):
who's raised on Jean Claude Van Damn movies. Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah. It's hard not to see a little bit
of a line there. If Kim Jong un was indeed
behind the sinking of the Chon. In the years since
two thousand tens seemed to have seen him double down
on his strategy of launching provocative attacks. Many of those
have occurred online. North Korea has long had a devoted

(24:15):
quadra of hackers attacking South Korean banks and TV stations,
but according to Brookings, quote. The state's hacking activities have
grown exponentially under Kim Jong Un. South Korea is hit
by about one point five million North Korean hacking attempts
every day. That's seventeen every second. According to Southern officials,
Pyongyang used cyber attacks to mount asymmetric warfare, the American

(24:36):
military commander in South Korea said at the end of
two thousand fourteen, North Korea provided a stunning illustration of
this theory, the first target with Sony Entertainment Revenge for
the film the Interview, which ended with a Kim Jong
Un character exploding in a fireball to a Katie Perry soundtrack.
Hacking is the country's strongest weapons, said another former student
in North Korea. It's called the secret war, he added.
American intelligence agencies say North Korea has a total of

(24:59):
more than one thousand cyber operatives living and working abroad
where there is better access to the internet. Most are
in China, but somewhere in Russia and Malaysia. They have
one purpose to earn money for Kim Jong UN's regime. However,
they can malware, ransomware, spear fishing, sneaking into gambling and
gaming sites as long as they meet their targets. The
good ones can make a hundred thousand dollars a year,
ninety thousand for the regime, ten thousand for themselves. And

(25:23):
I'm curious, where were do you? Did you see the
interview in theaters when it had that small run? No,
you know, I torrented it, uh it once it got
like released onto the internet. Um, I did that whole thing.
So I remember I saw it at the Lost Polease three.
It was one of the few theaters that got it
in l a um and it was like so every
showing was sold out and and I remember that very well.

(25:45):
It was Christmas, Christmas Day it opened, and um, I
went on a whim and managed to get a ticket
and I was like, oh, great, okay, I'll watch it.
And it was such a It's been a while since
something's felt like because I remember it was there was
a thing that you're like, is there going to be
a consequence for me seeing a movie today? Um? You

(26:06):
know what I mean? Like that you couldn't help but
think that way kind of in the same way. Obviously,
the stakes were a little different, but I remember thinking, Um,
you know, I remember after like nine eleven, they were
like saying they're like, go shopping, go to the movies,
go live, you know, do the things that bring you pleasure,
but like like you know, double down on them. And
I remember the interview that was a thing that you're like,

(26:28):
go see the movie, don't let that strip your freedom.
Almost there was almost this like mentality towards that. Yeah,
and it was not a great movie. Yeah that's what
kind of Yeah, of course that that drives the whole
thing that you're like, well, even even on the level
of what those guys were delivering for the movie, you're like,

(26:49):
that's fine. Though, I will say, uh, if I remember correctly,
this was a few months ago. South Rogan was on
Fresh Air and and I had a lot to say
about it, and it was a pretty pretty and I
don't want to quote any of it because I'm really
my brain is kind of a little not remembering it
super well right now. But he was pretty articulated about
it and felt like, you know, had his had pretty
okay feelings about the whole thing. Like once it was

(27:10):
all said and done, well, we're gonna talk about the
interview a little bit more after this, uh, and we're
gonna talk about Kim Jong UN's nuclear ambitions after this. Um,
but I have to bring us into an ad pivot
right now because Sophie is not here to call them,
and I am very late on calling it this episode
because I I fall apart without Sophie to run this thing.

(27:33):
So that's a terrible ad segue, but I think that's
the best one to date, just admitting my incompetence and
throwing the dick pills. I wish, yeah, I wish more
podcasters will vulnerable. Vulnerable. Well, I'm bad at my job
by dick pills because erections are good. And that's it.

(27:55):
That's the ad fucking pivot. We're back, Okay, So we're
talking about the interview, which, UM, yeah, it's it was
an interesting provocation from North Korea because it's the first
time any state did anything like that, because there were

(28:16):
threats of violence. I remember they made claims about how
like if theater showed it, they would attack, there would
be attacks on the theaters that would be like nine
eleven in scale, which none of that happened, but they
did really funk with Sony's bottom line and throw a
lot of their internal emails and stuff onto the internet,
and it was kind of a preview of some of
what we'd see in the election with Russia and the

(28:37):
d n C leagues and stuff. Yeah, and it it.
What I remember about it specifically very well was that, like,
it is interesting that that threat about like going to
the movies it could have consequence or showing it at
a certain theater, and I remember it was the first
time that I was like, oh, we're actually more worried
about um like hacking and those kinds of attacks versus

(29:00):
um like a physical threat like that actually outweighed. I
remember that being somewhat the sentiment. And one of the
things that's interesting to me if we're looking at how
Jong un is different from from Kim Jong il, is
you know, Kim Jong il had his own movie that
was arguably even more offensive from the perspective of the
North Korean state Team America, uh, where he's yeah, like, uh,

(29:22):
it's interesting that nothing was done about that. And maybe
it's just like the Internet was not as pervasive a
thing when that movie came out as it was when
the interview dropped. But I think it also might be
evidence that uh, you know, there weren't North Korea didn't
have nukes. Well, I'll also say in regards to Team America, Um,
it didn't. It didn't going into seeing it didn't ride

(29:46):
that same way of controversy. And they also um that
that movie isn't single minded in who it was going after.
It had so many people on their on their play
as as uh Trey Parker and Matt Stone are known
to do, which is that they go after anybody, you
know what I mean, like to the point that they
literally had Isaac Hayes walked away from South Park because
they wouldn't even bend there, like, well, you're not the

(30:08):
exception here after going after scientology. So they were throwing
in everything and the kitchen sink in terms of who
they went after h and So I think that was
the one advantage that they had, even though he is
the still the kind of the main villain and the
whole thing. But I mean, you know, they literally go
after everybody in that movie, even Michael Moore, who at
the time had just did um, Fahrenheit in Night eleven, Yeah,

(30:29):
Fahrenheit in and n eleven. Whereas the interview I think
came after this period where we were what in Obama's
second term, you know, he beat he beat he beat
Romney effortlessly. Um and uh. And Kim Jong un was
very new in power too. There was like this stuff
to prove too, Yeah, and and and not only that,
but he was just the sole focus in a way

(30:49):
that we weren't thinking about other people, you know, any
other movies that had come out at that point, like
Zero Dark thirty. These were things that we're looking back
on on victories, uh, in a certain way, whereas this,
you know, a movie like this is pure speculation. You know.
One thing I do remember about the movie that is
the scene where he goes out into the street and
it turns out it's all like a set, a constructed set.

(31:11):
And I do think about that and relate in relation
to everything you're talking about in terms of the stuff
you're reading off about how much of it is edited
versus real? Yeah, what if it's all just a huge veil? Yeah,
and it's uh. You know, I've heard from a couple
of North Korean dissidents who have written about sort of

(31:31):
our dissidence, even the wrong term, people who fled North Korea, Um,
who took offense to the interview in a way that
I don't think I've heard about them doing to Team America.
And I think part of that might be that kind
of the in addition to sort of like like it's
one thing to lampoon a dictator, um, and it's another

(31:54):
thing too kind of lampoon the idea of a revolution
against a dictation later and put a couple of white
guys from Hollywood at the center of that revolution. Um.
So I think that was something also that like some
people who some North Koreans or former North Korea, I
don't know like what terminology would invest, but some people
who grew up in North Korea and had to leave

(32:16):
because of the terrible government in that country reasons why
they too were offended with the interview, you know, even
though they have no no issue with wanting to fantasize
about Kim Jong un being blown up in a helicopter
or whatever. Um. Yeah. And yet I bet like I said,
and we obviously talked about this way back at the
beginning beginning of part one, which is that like I

(32:36):
bet this this guy watches whatever is out and you know,
whatever the big stuff, be it mc U stuff or
First Reformed or any you know, whatever movie, I bet
he takes all of that in with much more of
an open mind. I I would argue that that it's like,
because you're saying earlier on the consumption of Western art

(32:58):
and all of that, he must he must just have
a huge pile of just stuffy streams. Well, and it's
that's like one of the longest running dictator tropes because
Stalin loved Cowboy movies, um, and and Adolf Hitler loved
American movies, and like one of the things that's like,
you know, in terms of like another movie that we

(33:20):
that an American comedy star made about a dictator, Charlie
Chaplin's The Great Dictator um was very controversial at its time.
It kind of ended Chaplin's career or was a big
factor in Chaplain's career collapsing. He had to funded himself.
And um, we know Hitler watched it twice. We don't
know what he thought about it, but we know he
saw it twice. UM. So I would be very interested

(33:44):
if I almost want to know more what Kim Jong
un felt about Team America World Police. Um that I
want to know how he felt about the interview, just
because I feel like Team America has more artistic merit
to it, and I wonder if if even he could
lose himself and sort of like, oh, well, this is
some really cool puppets. This is like a neat they're
doing something interesting. Yeah, I would. I would that that's

(34:04):
a really good point, because again, I think part of
that is that there are so many other people that
get targeted in that movie and in terms of what
they go after and what they're commenting on that. I
wonder if he does look at it as like the
same way a celebrity attends their own roast. Yeah, so,
Kim Jong, un if if you listen to Behind the Bastards, uh,

(34:25):
drop us a line, let us know what you think
about Matt Stone and Trey Parker depicting your dad as
a singing puppet at Eli Olsburg. Let me know all
forward it if you whatever. You're he's on Twitter, right, yeah,
Kim Jong. Yeah he's a big Twitter guy. So um Yeah.
The what I do think the interview is illustrative of,

(34:47):
and a lot of coverage of Kim Jong and is
illustrative of it is just sort of how consistently underestimated
he's been um by a lot of world media. Uh.
He was familiously declared little Rocketman by our resident. A
New Yorker cover on January two, sixteen, showed him as
a fat baby playing with toy nuclear weapons and tanks. Um.

(35:08):
Especially early on in his reign, he was depicted as
like this idiot, fat child who had inherited an arsenal
and didn't really know what to do with the power
in his hands. Um. And I think that time has
proven all of those takes very wrong. Absolutely. I was
just thinking, as you're telling me all these things, I'm like, man,

(35:28):
every person involved in that, I bet on that day
got a real fucking pad on the back. And now
looking back at it, it's obviously it's a sign of
the times, but it's still like, holy sh it. Not
only were they off, but they were way yeah. Yeah.
Kim Jong un has carried out four of his nation's
six nuclear tests, including the largest in September two thousand seventeen,

(35:52):
where they detonated a hundred to one and fifty kilotone warhead,
roughly ten times the size of the bomb we dropped
on Hiroshima. Uh. He has tested ninety ballistic missiles, three
times as many as his father and grandfather combined. Under
his leadership, North Korea's arsenal has expanded to between twenty
and sixty nuclear weapons. His scientists to build I C
b ms that can theoretically reach the continental United States.

(36:16):
CIA analysts consider North Korea now to be the hardest
of hard targets, and much of that is due to
Kim Jong UN's incredibly successful military policies. According to the
Great Successor quote, nuclear weapons and missiles have been built
into lessons at school, with little children taught to have
pride in the programs and older ones taught about the
physics involved. An elementary school socialist ethics textbook published in

(36:40):
two thousands thirteen shows a man, a boy, and a
picture of an Unha three rocket. Is it true that
you gave joy to the respected leader? The child is
asking his father, who appears to be an engineer. Kim
Jong Lun has lavished praise and luxuries on scientists of
all stripes since he became the States leader. Boundless is
Kim Jong UN's loving care for the scientists and technicians
who have played a big role in improving the people's

(37:01):
livelihood and beefing up the defense capabilities. State media reported
when the Great Successor visited Kim Chike University of Technology,
the m I T of North Korea in two thousand
and thirteen. One of the most surprising images of Kim
Jong UN's tenure that they're not involved. Dennis Rodman came
after the ground test for a new rocket engine in
March two thousand seventeen. The respected Marshall and brown overcoat
and with a broad smile give a piggyback ride to

(37:23):
one of the key men involved in the project. The
clearly anguished rocket scientists who his decades his senior, bounced
around on Kim's back as other officers, all decked out
in all of green military uniforms, laughed and cheered. Yeah.
I always the Dennis Rodman thing. Uh, Like I remember
it and then I forget about it, and then I
remember it again, And every single time I hear it,

(37:43):
I literally chuckled myself. Yeah. Yeah, that that's in the
mix here too. Um. I love thinking about him giving
rocket scientists piggyback like it has its root in like
Korean wedding ceremonies, like the groom is supposed to like
put his bride on her back and carry him around.
So he's like almost like symbolizing his marriage to nuclear weaponry,

(38:07):
like the marriage of the regime to nuclear weapons. Totally
where he's like, and that ultimately serves as like a
thing where he's like, he's like, look at what a
fun guy we can be with with my nuclear family. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's so weird now. Under Kim Jong in, the
North Korean economy has also improved markedly, reaching estimated growth

(38:29):
of four to five percent per year, which is low
for the region, but substantially better than the country enjoyed
for virtually all of his father's tenure. Much of this
is because of reforms that Kim Jong un instituted, allowing
rudimentary markets to form or to be more accurate, allowing
the rudimentary markets that had formed already to not be
wiped out by state power. According to Andrei Lenkov, a

(38:50):
Russian North Korea expert, he decided to do what his
father was deadly afraid of doing. He allowed farmers to
keep part of the harvest. Farmers are not working now
as essentially slaves on a plantation. Technically the field is
still state property, but as a farming family, you can
register yourself as a production team and you will be
working on the same field for a few years in
a row. You keep of the harvest for yourself, and
this year, according to the first unconfirmed reports, it will

(39:12):
be between forty and that will go to the farmers,
so they are not slaves anymore, their sharecroppers. So yeah,
he's uh, like he's he's been involved in consistent reforms
and they seem to have been pretty successful as a
results oriented what what's weird is it with with you know,
when you look at like the the U. S economy

(39:33):
and and and other economies, it's obviously a combination of
of who's in office at that time, and then part
of it is is cycles obviously, and some of them
inherit the bad while others get to inherit the good
and call it their own. That doesn't seem to be
the case here because the families like the through line,
So whatever they're doing seems like they can they can

(39:56):
really not only brag about it, but in a way
that almost that can't come under scrutiny. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that may be the case, um, and it's of course
made easier by the fact that they have so much
control that over outside. But also that's probably why he's
had to open things up somewhat, is that over the
last decade, North Korea has become a lot less closed.

(40:16):
They they've like because it's like the regime wasn't able
to stop much smuggling, like people have been getting in
DVDs and whatnot. They watch South Korean soap operas, they
watch American movies, they become aware of how the rest
of the world lives, and so they really kind of
like I think Kim Jong un had to knew that

(40:37):
he had to open things up to allow them to
gain some of the luxuries that they knew were out
there because the information the world just wasn't as closed anymore.
I wonder how much of how much of China he
uses as a reference point for that, because you know,
they allow art in, but it's very specific what goes
in and what goes out, and and how much of
it is you know, can be edited versus you know,

(40:58):
obviously the China's different cause they also have as they now,
there's funding coming from there but for for certain movies.
But and we're keeping box office in mind for them though,
But I wonder how much of that benefits North Korea
as well, not in terms of being in bed with China,
but what I mean is like how much of that
is mimicked yeah, and I couldn't tell you that, but

(41:19):
it does seem that the evidence suggests things are a
lot better in North Korea for the average people than
they were ten fifteen years ago, um ago, not that
long ago. I found a Vanity Fair quote and of
Vanity Fair article I came across from Brian Myers, who's
a professor at South Korea's Dongso University. Uh. He has

(41:40):
defectors from the North visit his class and has been
doing this for years um to talk to his students,
But in recent years, you know, previously when he'd have
defectors in, they would talk about the unspeakable privation in
North Korea when they fled, and how rough it was
and how how many people were starving. But over the
last few years, the newer refugees who have it have
been more likely to describe the company as and these

(42:02):
are Brian's words, a cool place um where they would
have liked to remain if they hadn't been forced out
for one reason or another, usually due to government repression.
But like they described life as reasonably nice in the
place where they came from, and like we're more regretful
of having had to leave um So yeah, that's one
data point at least. Um. Now, speaking of data points, Eli, uh,

(42:27):
this is another AD pivot um, which I am just
I am just not on the fucking ball with the
AD pivots today. Um, I don't know. I mean ads,
ads are generated by data. Yeah, that's true. And data
is how they how they sell, how they hawk the stuff.
So I don't know. I think it was a good segue. Yeah, Well,
contribute your data to these product producers and let's all

(42:52):
contribute to the glorious cycle that allows our our great leader,
which is the almighty dollar to Uh. I don't know
where this was going. Products. We're back, We're back, uh,

(43:13):
moving fast so that nobody notices how bad that last
AD plug was. So uh pro Kim Jong lun propaganda
has continued to be outwardly ludicrous during uh the later
year or the more recent years of his reign. Util Thus,
in fifteen, the Telegraphed published an article about a manual
that had leaked out of North from North Korean teachers,
ordering them to inform students that their new leader had

(43:34):
some spectacular talents. Quote. North Korean children are being taught
that Mr Kim is a skilled artist and a composer
of musical scores. While he was able to drive when
he was three. Mr Kim is also apparently a natural sailor.
At the age of nine, Kim Jong un raced the
chief executive of a foreign yacht company who was visiting
North Korea at the time, the books claim, adding that
he overcame the odds to claim victory. This is the

(43:55):
second rumor we've come across of him being really good
at racing yachts as a little kid. And it's also
it's interesting the stuff that it's important because you see
the repetition in the different types of propaganda. He really
wants people to believe he can raise yachts and has
been doing so for a long time, and that he
was driving as a toddler. That's important, yea. And I

(44:16):
feel like the only one missing is that he flew
like a Harrier jet in you know what I mean? Like, well,
he actually is a pilot. He has a pilot's license.
He does fly things. Yeah, like like that's actually seems
to be real, Like he does fly planes and stuff. Um,
but he doesn't. He doesn't lie about having flown a
plane as a kid that I found, But he lies
about piloting a yacht for some reason, which like flying

(44:40):
a plane is impressive. That's a cool thing. If our
presidents and if if we had a president who could
fly a plane, that would be a thing they'd brag about.
Of course Bush bragged about it. Yeah, exactly. I was
just gonna say, it's like one of bushes a few
things where people were like, oh, yeah, well yeah, I
mean he did it so he could he could fly
that plane. Yeah, that ain't nothing. Yeah yeah, yeah, So

(45:04):
it's that's just so weird to me. And I don't know,
I don't know, if you like, I don't even know
how much. One of the things I'd be really interested
to learn is how much input he actually has. Like
clearly if he wanted the propaganda to stop, he could,
but like does he approve it all or does he
just trust his propaganda people to put out whatever. And
they have kind of done like focus testing to be
like the people are really soothed when they hear about

(45:26):
him driving a yacht at age three. That's that's a
good question. Here does this ship come from? Yeah? I
think well I don't. Yeah, I don't think he dreams
it up. I I can I can tell you. That's
where Trump serves as a reference point, because this is
a guy who literally will just on the flight say
something that is a complete crock of shit and about whatever.
You know, I'm sure at some point, let's let's put

(45:47):
it in his if he was like, yeah, you know,
I um, I flew a plane and then when I
got off the plane, I landed on a ship that
I actually steered back to home, we do I'll be like,
what a fucking liar? And and he has people doing
it for him. I do think there's an approval process.
That would be my guest. If it wasn't coming from people,
and he was just doing it like talking about it

(46:08):
on a podium in that same way, like pontificating in
this way, then I would say he's obviously not consulting
a team. But I think I think he has some
say in it. Somehow. He has to yeah, And that
must mean that it is really important to him that
people believe he was driving a truck at age three, ye,
because otherwise, if he had people just doing it without
any kind of saying it, like those those people who

(46:31):
are making this up, they're they're one, they're playing without
a net and they're also putting themselves at a risk
for being killed because if they say something that makes
them look bad, he's gonna he's gonna have him killed.
And this is what's so interesting to me about trying
to psychoanalyze this guy from Afar and with his little
information as we really have about him, is you get

(46:52):
these these these snippets of his personality, Like you see
the result of his actual policies, which is pretty cold
blooded and effective. He's been a very effective dictator. And
most of the sober analysis I've read about him recently,
people say he doesn't he doesn't seem to be crazy.
He seems to have a pretty reasonable understanding of the
geopolitical situation. Uh, he's been very smart with his gambles

(47:17):
and they've mostly paid off for him. But you also
get these hints that he there are chunks of him
that never grew up that are still childish, like this
desire is a kid, Like this lying about driving a
truck at age three is like the kind of lie
a seven year old would tell in kindergarten. Um. I
think that goes back to the mythology thing that the
family has a crew line. Um. And and I think

(47:40):
if he were to x all that out, it would,
um it would almost be like writing off the nonsense
of of past, you know what I mean, Like like
there's this thing there that I think he that will
always be there. But I'm sure there's like a soft
rollout of lessening it. Maybe Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's
really hard to say like it, Yeah, it's it's definitely.

(48:03):
Definitely I'll say it's it's less ridiculous than the stuff
you were hearing about his dad. So yeah, maybe it
has gotten milder, But there are like in terms of
like just trying to figure out what this guy's like personally. Um.
One of the other data points we have is the
two thousand thirteen trip that Dennis Rodman, former Chicago bull
star and uh actor in the Perfect movie The Minis,

(48:27):
which you should really see if you haven't seen, And
just to tie it all together with this podcast, in
Double Team with John clad In Double Team with John
clad Van damn that's damn right, Van damn right. As
a matter of fact, Um, so yeah, Rodman in two
thousand thirteen travel to North Korea with vice producer Jason
Mohika and a camera crew, all of whom apparently got

(48:47):
ship faced with Kim Jong un after like a series
of a big public press events. Now, unfortunately there's not
video footage of all of this because at a certain
point they weren't allowed to have their cameras on. But
the Great Successor has a pretty good rite up of
what happened when things went off the rails, and it paints,
I don't know, it adds a little bit of extra

(49:07):
depth to our picture of Kim Jong un. So I'm
gonna read that exert now, Uh Mohika, who's the vice editor,
feeling emboldened by the shows you, which is like like
a type of liquor in that part of the world,
kind of vaguely analogous to like schnops, Maybe Uh invited
Kim Jong un to make the return journey to New York.
He then raised his glass, a tumbler of Johnny Walker

(49:28):
black that the waiters had been filling throughout the night
as if it were wine, and took a sip. All
of a sudden, the young dictator was yelling and gesturing
at him. For a second, Mohico wondered if he'd committed
a grave error. Then the translator kicked in with a
bottoms up. It was a command performance. Mohica told me
the evil Dictator was demanding that I chugged my drink.
So I chugged my drink. He was woozy, but he
still had the mic. He slurred, If things carry on

(49:48):
this way, I'll be naked by the end of the night.
Madame Choe had a look of complete disgust on her face,
but as the translator, she relaid the mark to Kim
Jong Un, who broke out into laughter. The Shows You
was working, Kim's face grew progressively to ear and a
smile grew broader, revealing the discolored teeth of a heavy smoker.
Mohica estimated that The Great Successor had at least a
dozen shots of Shows You. Everyone was in the vice

(50:09):
producer's words, wasted. At one point, the Globe Trotters were
on stage hand in hand with the Morongbong band members. Later,
Rodman had the microphone and was singing My Way while
Barthelomy played the saxophone, leaning back with his eyes closed
like he was channeling Kenny g Rodman sent his sidekick
over to Mohica to tell him to tone down their
raucous behavior. That's when Mohica realized how out of hand

(50:29):
things had become. You know, it's wild when an internationally
notorious bad boys telling you to cool it. Everything else
is hazy. If I was being my best journalist, I
would have stayed sober and committed everything to memory, said Mohica.
But we all got really caught up in the spirit
of the evening. After several hours, Kim Jong uns stood
up to give the final toast. He said that the
event had helped promote understanding between the peoples of the
two countries. So he's this guy who's capable of kind

(50:54):
of defintely navigating the takeover of power from his father
and like the content nuance of an unprecedented like chain
of succession within a communist country, and also the kind
of guy who is going to get wasted with Dennis
Rodman when he comes in and like like like uh,

(51:15):
clearly like aspects of him that didn't grow up in
aspects of him that are very cunning, but like you
get this like these flashes that he still has this
like lack of impulse control in some ways that his
dad did totally and again, and I hate to keep
chalking it up to that, but that's age right there.
I mean, this guy didn't get to um, you know.

(51:36):
I mean, look, at the end of the day, I
do think even people of whatever stature, anybody who like
comes from that type of privilege, is gonna wanna just
fucking party like yeah, you know. And it's like the
one thing people at that level can't do, which to
be clear, as a champagne problem. They can't just be

(51:56):
normal fucking people. They can't just go out and party
and be seen partying and be seen being in any
way shape or form sloppy, drunk, even buzzed. Yeah, and um,
it's it's just interesting to me that that same guy
is capable of the discipline, plan and planning that was
necessary to uh. I mean, he really came off as

(52:17):
the winner in the nuclear summit with our president, where
he didn't give up anything we didn't get up end
up getting a single real concession from North Korea and
that and he got the thing that every generation of
North Korean leader before him had failed to get, which
was a direct meeting with the United States President. Um,
which is the kind of legitimacy that the North Korean

(52:39):
regime has always wanted. And I think from like their
point of view, like if you're wondering, like why they're
so like in terms of like why they're so married
to their nukes, Like number one, they see what happens
to Saddam Hussein and Momar Kadafi who like give up
their nuclear programs and get murdered as a result of it.
And they also see like, if you have nukes, you

(53:02):
can get an American president to the table with you,
and that brings you a kind of legitimacy that nothing
else does. Um. And you know, it was not Kim
il sung who managed that. It was not Kim Jong
il who managed that. It was Kim Jong n the
little rocket man, the kid that like everybody made fun
of when he took power. Um, which is I don't know,
that's really interesting to me. Like he comes across is

(53:25):
maybe the most adept of his family, and which really
says something because this is the period I think in
in terms of all the cultural shifts we've had in
the past since since that family first took hold, this
is the one where um, and I'm talking about on

(53:46):
a global level, for everybody in terms of any kind
of career, anything you're doing, this is the period I
feel like things are the most in freefall, and it's
the hardest to adapt to things because you don't know
what what's going to be the thing or what's the
right way to go about it. And yet it does
make you one here, like in that talking about gambling before,
if it's just him rolling the dice every time, or
if it's him with a specific instinct for this ship,

(54:08):
like what is it? Because a lot of other people
in so many different ways have failed in terms of careers,
in terms of all these other things because of the
paradigm shift of the last like ten to fifteen years
has been so severe, do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah,
and it it really has. And if if nothing else,

(54:29):
like the message that you get from Kim Jong UN's
story is like, if you're going to be a dictator,
you better have a couple of fucking nukes in your
pocket because like that really smooths out your ability to
handle the travails of the world. Oh totally. And and
it is. And I guess in talking about all this
stuff where we're saying we're like the past few years

(54:50):
he's managed to adapt to these things. That obviously is
the big uh, you know, the key the secret. Yeah,
and he's you. As the years have gone on, there
have been other things we can tell about him, you
know from pictures. We know that he's gotten more and
more obese, shall we say into this? In fourteen he
was out of commission for six weeks and when he

(55:11):
came back into the public eye, he was wearing a
walking stick. The rumors that circulated widely in the news
where that his addiction to rich Swiss mment tail cheese
had made him so fat that his ankles had collapsed. Uh.
More realistic and sober appraisals of things suggest that he
probably just got gout better known as Paul Manafort's disease. UM.
So kind of the end of this. The picture that

(55:33):
we're left with of Kim Jong un is a cunning,
brutal and sometimes brilliant, generally balanced, insane dictator who knows
how to sort of weigh practical repression of his people,
um with enough freedom to maintain power and give them
a sense of improvement and hope for the future. Um.
But he's also a guy of strong appetites and little

(55:55):
self control when it comes to desires of the flesh.
And I can't claim to know the man but based
on my reading, the most compelling picture I think I
found of his personality was written out in a Vanity
Fair article by Mark Bowden. Uh Mark notes, at age five,
we are all the center of the universe. Everything our family, parents, home, neighborhood, school,

(56:16):
country revolves around us. For most people, what follows is
a long process of dethronement. As his majesty, the child
confronts the evermore obvious and humbling truth. Not so for Kim.
His world at age five has turned out to be
his world at age thirty or verily, very nearly so
everyone does exist to serve him. The known world really
is configured with him at his center. The most senior

(56:36):
men in his kingdom have power because he wills it,
and they smile and bow and scribble notes and moss
and little notebooks whenever he dines to speak. Not only
is he the one and only Kim jong Un, he's
officially the only person who can carry the given name
Jong Un. All other North Koreans with that name have
had to change it. Multitude stand and cheer for the
merest glimpse of him. Men and women and children weep
for joy when he smiles and waves, so Yeah, that's

(57:01):
what I got. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing more to like,
it is a thing where I mean, I don't know.
That's that. It's what I've been thinking about a lot. Actually,
for this entire coverage of all of this has been um,
you know a lot of people talk about nature versus nurture.
This is pure nurture, do you know what I mean?
Like this guy has it doesn't matter what nature whatever,

(57:23):
he's chemically bound to whatever, it is pure nurture. I
think that has shaped him through and through a lot.
If this kid hadn't been the son of a dictator,
he would have been that kid that you like played
PlayStation sports games with and like through the controller across
the room when he lost. And then as he grew up,
he either would have like become an in cell and

(57:44):
joined the alt right, or he would have like gotten
some sense smacked into him somewhere along the line and
like grown up as a human being and like become
a functioning member of society or become all of those
tech dudes like IMRCI, even a merciless version of Well,
a lot of guys are merciless, and he's would I
would argue he would probably become an app developer that

(58:05):
would shift everything for the better for his pockets and
the worst for everyone else. Yeah, if he wound up
having that kind of he is pretty mechanically inclined, so maybe,
but you know, he's UM. I think one of the
things that ought to be clear to everybody at this point,
after seeing how he's taken advantage of the Trump years,
is that he was made fun of pretty much roundly

(58:27):
when he first came to power. But he's proven himself
to be one of the most able people in global politics. Um,
which is frustrating, and it's like not a fun note
to end these It's way more fun when we can
end them on like the you know, dying from self
indulgence or being killed by their people or whatever. But like,
he's in power, and he'll probably be in power for decades.

(58:48):
He's only he's not even forty yet. Like, yeah, well,
if if whenever his rain ends, if the if the
pods still going, if climate change hasn't rendered a podcast obsolete,
we should talk about it again. Yeah, we we can.
We can finish his story either in a podcast or
in what I'm sure will be the method of communication

(59:08):
of the future, which is shouting into quant shells from
underneath dead power lines. Uh, like the like the Tributors
used to do. Yeah, like the Tributors of old. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Eli,
you've got some plug doubles to plugged. Yes please at
Eli Olesburg on all the socials, And you can listen
to Closure of the Podcast That Never Ends on iTunes,

(59:29):
Spotify or Every Year podcasts, and we talk about I
just interview people in regards to certain events or situations
in their lives or anything they want to talk about
and if they found closure in it, much like we
haven't found closure in the story. Uh. And yeah. You
can also listen to Pot as a Woman, which I
co host with Cresa Lee, and we do track by
track breakdowns of Ariana Grande songs and whether our guests

(59:51):
like them or not. And lastly, if you're in l A,
please come to Performance Anxiety at the Pleasure Chest secondary
Dave every month. Check out Performance Anxiety at the Treasured Chest.
Check out Ellis Treasure pleasure Chest, pleasure Chest, pleasure Chest.
Oh that's a way better name than treasure Chest. Uh.
Check out Eli's podcasts um and uh you know, uh

(01:00:13):
check out this podcast on line Up Behind the bastards
dot com. Find us on Twitter, at Instagram, and at
bastards pod. Um. This is the episode that everybody wanted
you need to do, and I'm sorry that it ends
with no closure and that it's not nearly as funny
as as you are all hoping for. But this is
the best information I could bring you on the kims.
So be careful what you fucking ask for, because sometimes

(01:00:35):
it's just a bummer. Um, that's the episode. Buy a
T shirt, ONTI public dot com. We're done. Go uh
We'll build your own Nates. It's the only way to
be saved.