Saturday, May 6, 2017

Dennis Rodman on Kim Jong Un

RW note: The paragraph below highlighted by me dovetails nicely with my post at EPJ: Has Kim Jong-un Launched a North Korean Economic Miracle?

The New York Post reports:

With the free world on eggshells over North Korea’s nukes, Dennis Rodman insists in a new interview that his “little guy” pal Kim Jong Un is “just like anybody else,” and even told him, “I don’t want to bomb anyone.”

He adds that the kooky, missile-parading despot loves the US so much he listens to the “Rocky” and “Dallas” theme songs for hours on end.

Rodman has visited North Korea six times since 2013 and is so close with its supreme leader, he explains to DuJour Magazine, “No one’s ever held his baby before but me.”

“When he’s around his people, he’s just like anybody else,” he adds of Kim.

“He jokes and loves playing basketball, table tennis, pool. They love American ’80s music. They do karaoke . . . He has this 13-piece girls’ band with violins . . . He loves the Doors and Jimi Hendrix . . . When I first went, the live band only played two songs for four hours: the theme songs from ‘Rocky’ and ‘Dallas.’”

But Rodman adds to DuJour, “When I first went there it was so . . . communist. Dry and dreary . . . like ‘The Walking Dead.’ But the third time I went there, wow. [Pyongyang] changed a lot . . . [Kim] is building all these new condos and hotels. He built the largest water park in the world, a ski resort and this big bowling alley.”

Rodman also says he was “shocked” to visit the “frozen” bodies of Kim Jong-un’s grandfather and father in a mausoleum.

Rodman says, “The grandfather is in the middle of the room . . . and he’s frozen. That’s a true story!” Rodman reports, “150,000 people go in a day. They have to wear black suits. You see them crying the whole time.”

Of Kim’s nuclear plans, Rodman adds, “He’s saying the reason why they have the nuclear bombs is because they know that Americans think they can take over. He says, ‘I don’t want to bomb anyone. But we keep our nuclear weapons because we’re such a small country — that’s the only way we can defend ourselves.’ They just want people in America and the government to know they don’t hate Americans. They want to work with Americans.”

8 comments:

  1. Until now, I’ve thought calls for the impeachment of Trump were premature, if not downright silly. Not any longer:

    President Donald Trump opened the door Monday to a future meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, offering unusual praise for the globally ostracized leader at a time of surging nuclear tensions. . . .

    “If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump told Bloomberg News.

    Honored?

    Just get rid of him, he’s a disgrace to the United States of America.


    Master of Market Funny Money Scott Sumner.

    http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=32439

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    1. How can a guy with so much libertarian cred be so Fu%#%@#ing stupid??? Have Americans completely lost the concept of ***Diplomacy***??? Answer: "YEP".

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  2. You know we're in trouble when Dennis Rodman sounds saner than anyone in Government.

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    1. Scary. Rodman might actually be the man that helps broker peace!

      If so he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe they can give him Obama's.

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  3. I would love to have Dennis Rodman return to North Korea with Michael Malice in tow.

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    1. I believe Malice once called Rodman a traitor for the lavish praises he bestowed on a murderous dictator who currently has hundreds of thousands of people in concentration camps. I'm all for diplomacy but Rodman clearly doesn't understand what the regime is. Negotiators can put on a facade abs talk like this, but i think Rodman is just naive.

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  4. Thane, that's the best idea I have heard. Hopefully Trump wouldn't nuke NK once Malice showed up there.:-)

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  5. Malice did an interesting (hour long) talk at his alma mater recently.

    https://youtu.be/4UuY8XdXHjg

    The NK regime is definitely not crazy and will do whatever it takes to remain in power and to personally survive.

    At the same time, a la Wenzel's speculation, there is -whether the regime supports it or not - a small black market / cash economy revival at play. This is mostly thanks to the attractions of the great market economy to the north across the Yalu river. That's where the new cash economy players come and go.

    Can this small green seed might eventually take root? Maybe but i wouldn't want to hold my breath waiting. The NK regime has a ruthlessly effective "paleo-stalinist" regime. And of course we have seen communist regimes temporarily open up markets to get them out of a economic mess and then come down hard after. Remember Lenin and the N.E.P. following the disaster of bolshevik "war communism".

    BTW this episode of "Caspian Report" provides a good backgrounder on NK's quest for nukes. It's blowback -unexpected consequences - from regime change imperialism from the washington based global planners.

    https://youtu.be/ykYRsmIQkyw

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