The Propaganda Parlour Games of Despotic Regimes and Why They No Longer Work

Some amusing world news just out, all the way from North Korea. Apparently recent reports from the West speculating on the health of leader Kim Jong Il are nothing but propaganda and ‘worthless conspiracy’. And there was me thinking that conspiracies generally had a point to them. Obviously not in this case. Our countries are that bored and strange, that we make it our business to make up evil plots and ‘conspiracies’, by intimating that leaders of enemy states are laid up on bed and not feeling very well.

Devastating stuff. Makes the boiling point of Twin Tower steel and the grassy knoll pale into insignificance, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Of course, the reports are true – he is ill. But Pyongyang retorts that the West are talking shit, Kim must be alright because he sent a birthday telegram to the President of Syria the other day. Never mind that any fucking half dead cunt can do that from the bed sore ridden confines of their chambers, by way of dictation. What about the fact he doesn’t go out anymore? Maybe he isn’t ill in the sense we understand it, but he’s got a touch of agoraphobia and simply needs to go for a walk in the park, get a bit of fresh air.

Either way, he’s not fit to run his ‘country’, and that odd country will soon be faced with the ominous task of replacing him.

Yet I can’t understand why the N. Koreans are getting so tetchy. Everyone has to die sometime, even Muppet faced little urchins like Il. At least Cuba don’t hide how Fidel is getting on. Why should they? Cubans would probably like to see a leader that is able to move, rather than one that is 108 years old and incapable of remembering what he had for breakfast. So they like Raul (or so they say) and are seemingly glad to see him take over. Which is a bit like all those die hard Michael Shumacher fans plumping for Ralph because they couldn’t bare to see the German legend retire. Even though Ralph was always shit and never came better than 8th.

The underlying fact here is that in the old cold war days of parochial journalism, before the days of modern technology, I.T. systems and instant news, seeing the whole picture for what it was could be difficult. Not that journalism is better now, it isn’t, but unworthy leaders just got away with far more in the old days. or at least, they did for as long as was necessary and then when things came out it was old hat.

Like the whole Russia – Georgia – South Ossetia fiasco. Putin and his glove puppet are popping up at Punch and Judy TV stations all over the Caucasus saying how the entire conflict was engineered and started by the West, specifically America (hmm, maybe Tony Benn should spend his retirement out there, he’d get on famously) and that poor Russia was defending herself against what was essentially NATO / Western aggression. Of course, one would hope, that common sense would prevail anywhere in the world long enough for most people to realise what a complete load of unsubstantiated bollocks this is. Georgia was not without blame, but there wasn’t anyone pressing the buttons there but Saakashvili. If those vulnerable states seek refuge with NATO, there’s a reason for that. Russia and its bollocks are swinging like two giant pendulums these days, and it’ll take something like an outrageous and brave act of American defiance to make them shrink again.

And of course, Il’s illness. How embarrassing it must be, to only be believed by the exhausted, brain washed and weary common folk within your erected fences and borders, with the world looking on half in pity and half in dismay.

The amazing thing about despots and their fiefdoms is just how pitiful they are. Almost like the toughened gangster who cries when asked about his upbringing by the Probation Officer. You don’t know whether to slap them or pat them on the head and give them a chocolate bar.