The Dark Ages-The Worst Year In Human History-536 AD

The Dark Ages

People tend to look back with nostalgia, thinking yesterday was better than today.

But historians and scientists recently posited that one date in the past – AD 536 – was humanity’s worst year, CNN reported.

According to a study in the journal Antiquity, the team analyzed ice samples from the Swiss Alps and uncovered atmospheric pollutants deposited over the past 2,000 years.

They found that a huge volcanic eruption in Iceland in 536 caused a massive cloud of ash that engulfed the whole Northern Hemisphere in darkness and led to a drop in temperatures, resulting in crop failures and starvation.

More misery followed in 541 and 542, when plague hastened the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Study co-author Michael McCormick told Science Magazine that AD 536 was “the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year.”

The volcanic event led to Europe’s economic stagnation, plunging it into a Dark Age.

Luckily, however, scientists also found traces of lead particles in the samples, suggesting that silver smelting – which requires lead ore – helped revive the economy a century later.

“There is evidence of total economic transformation between 640 and 660,” co-author Christopher Loveluck told CNN.

Good times are always coming.

A Contrarian's View Of North Korea-Part 2

Journey to Pyongyang: Behind the North Korean Curtain, Part II Joel Bowman talks to Kolja Spöri

Photo: Kolja Spöri at the front desk of the Koryo Hotel, Pyongyang, North Korea. See more of his photos here.

‌  ‌

[Editor’s Note: What follows is the second installment ofInternational Man’s conversation with Kolja Spöri, a global traveler, serial entrepreneur, Austrian School libertarian and author of “I’ve Been Everywhere.” Below, Kolja and IM’s own Editorial Director, Joel Bowman, continue their discussion concerning, among other things, Kolja’s trip to North Korea earlier this year, how and why the Western media machine have propagandized the narrative, and where we might expect the story to go from here. If you missed Part I, you can catch up here. Please enjoy.]  Joel Bowman: Thanks again for taking the time to talk with us, Kolja. I trust our readers have found your insights fascinating. Kolja Spöri: You’re certainly welcome, Joel. JB: When we left off, you were telling us about some of the many “holes in the matrix,” as you put it, regarding the flawed Western narrative on North Korea. You spoke about Western aggression in the Korean War, about ongoing energy sanctions, even the possibility of “fake nukes.” What else did you see that you weren’t at all expecting? KS: Certainly there were other issues that caught me by surprise. I didn't know that there is an 8 to 10 meter high wall all along the 38th parallel. It’s only visible from the North, I saw it myself, but it’s covered with a slope of grass from the South. Guess who built the Korean Wall? The West. Few people know that even the Berlin Wall was provoked by the West, in a psy-op by U.S. Officer Tenenbaum called operation Bird Dog, although physically the German Wall was built by the Soviets. The other issue that I was unaware of, before doing research for my Korea trip, was that there have been several people fleeing over the Panmunjom Border Zone ... to the North! Who would have thought? These were actually U.S. American defectors, and there was even a British documentary movie about them, called "Crossing the Line". Who would have thought that Google-CEO Eric Schmidt would visit North Korea several times? Who knows that both ex-Presidents Carter and Clinton flew to Pyongyang to get U.S. American spies back in a private jet? By the way, none of this information was given to me by my local guides, or the North Korean side, but everyone can easily research it on the web, just as I did. The hard fact is: South Korea is an occupied country. And the North would love the reunification, just as much as the South, but it is still blocked by the West. When the Koreans will finally be allowed to live together, I expect them to be attacked by the migration weapon, to divide them from the inside, just as is happening with the Germans today. Currently, Korea is the culturally most cohesive and healthy society in the world. JB: We often hear about the North Korean government warning its citizens about the impurities of the West: celebrity culture, mindless consumerism, greed and corruption, that kind of thing. Were you able to talk to any North Korean civilians while there? Did you happen to ask their opinions of the West? KS: While it was perfectly possible to speak very openly with our two tour guides, there was unfortunately not a lot of in depth communication allowed with other people. That said, I realized when speaking with our guides that they were well educated and they had a good sense of humor. They are not cold and brainwashed, as we are led to believe. In fact, they were quite open in their discussion. More than I had expected, for sure. We even talked about Western literature, like Nietzsche, and movies, like James Bond, which they certainly knew well. As I said earlier [Ed. Note: Click for Part I of this interview], I’m certainly not here to defend North Korea and its government. Rather, I simply want to use the case of North Korea to shine a light on what’s also going on in our own backyard. What people in the West often forget is that we have censorship and media control too. Of course, I know that other readers of International Man will have similar antennas for what's going wrong here, that they aren’t swallowing the Western narrative either. They’ll recognize, for instance, that in the West we are sinking deeper and deeper into cultural marxism. For the hoi polloi, this can lead to blind acceptance of things like the surveillance state, political correctness, thought control and the general “dumbing down”.  These kinds of ideas are usually spoon fed to us with names like “tolerance,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” “sustainability” and “open borders,” among many others. I want to call those so-called “ideas” neurotoxins. As it happens, these particular neurotoxins don't exist in North Korea. They have others.

Recommended Link

Richard Maybury's excellent investment advisory, EARLY WARNING REPORT (EWR) is a practical, rational and ethical explanation of how the world and markets work. Click here to learn from the man who created Uncle Eric!

JB: That’s a very interesting observation. And we know what they say about trends in motion; that they tend to stay in motion unless otherwise acted upon. On just that note, you traveled to North Korea right before Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un held their historic summit on the peninsula. What was your read on the situation? Were you watching that news at the time? Were you hopeful… skeptical… cynical? Perhaps none of the above? KS: I was actually in North Korea in January 2018. There were certainly some very high-tension days after the U.S. side erratically canceled the meeting. So, not only was it extremely cold in North Korea temperature-wise, but also politically. There were actually zero tourists there at the time. The U.S. had even bluntly forbidden Americans to travel there. I didn't know that the U.S. constitution allows for such travel restrictions. But to be honest, I don't watch the news much. I don't watch television or Hollywood anymore. I don't read newspapers. I’m fortunate to have built up a network of really reliable personal contacts all over the world. Colleagues, friends, people I trust. So I go directly to them when I want to know the real story in this place or that. And I pay attention to certain alternative media outlets, too, where I know the authors personally. Frankly, I don't give a damn if people announce things through the official media channels. JB: You'll no doubt recall Mark Twain's quip about the media: “Those who do not read the newspapers may be uninformed but it's those who read the media who are misinformed.” KS: [Laughs] Yes. That's a good quote. You really need to see things for yourself to understand the way the world works. I was 35 years old before I began to realize what was wrong, and I started to unlearn all the Western brainwashing and the propaganda. It is a hard process that I've gone through now for at least 15 years. And there are still new truths to uncover, for sure. Undoubtedly, my main teacher along the way was Travel. I've been to every crisis zone, every war zone, every danger zone in the world and I've seen the reality for myself. I've met many political players and top businessmen. I'll prefer the businessman any time. My motto is: Life is not a spectator sport. One should go out and see things with their own eyes, then come to their own conclusions. Then research who had the same thoughts before and you'll find a whole library of good thinkers, who existed long before the Internet, but who were – of course - never promoted by the mainstream system. JB: I think that's a sentiment that will resonate with our readership on a very positive note. As Doug likes to say, “We learn by doing.” KS: Yes, exactly. JB: You mentioned earlier your travels behind the Iron Curtain to some of the Soviet States. How did that experience compare with what you saw in North Korea? KS: Well, it is certainly true that in communist countries people become robots in life. I remember this when I was in former East Germany and other eastern European countries. And that certainly seemed to be the case when I was traveling through the North Korean countryside. The people out there seem to have a very hard life, all working and no smiling. But in the capital, in Pyongyang, it's quite different. It's really a very vibrant capital city. There are tall, modern skyscrapers. And it's actually people who live in them. There are no banks inside or insurance companies, but engineers and scientists living in super modern skyscrapers. So there's a positive aspect there. As for that kind of robotic, automated Golem existence, I see this developing more and more in the West. In the West, everybody's living under this fake social pressure, participating in Facebook and all sorts of social pressure platforms, checking their smart phones all the time, unable to pay attention to the real life going on around them. This new meme of the non-playing characters (NPC) was great. Unthinking, robot-like people is very much a reality in the west. I'm not saying it's better in North Korea, just that we are developing into a gray, robot-like world elsewhere, too. The word “robot” comes from the Slavic word “robota,” which means “hard work, slavery.”

Recommended Link

For three decades, Mark Nestmann has helped 15,000 clients successfully protect their assets and financial privacy overseas. His work has been featured in notable media including The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABCNews, Barron’s,  and Forbes. The Nestmann Group can help you internationalize. It's easy to start. Just click here.

JB: The idea of the non-playing character (NPC), of people turning into unthinking robots, existing merely to work on programed tasks, is frightfully believable. I remember having once written something about the nature of the Orwellian dystopia, of being forbidden access to truth, being constantly propagandized, fed lies, drowning in that sea of doublespeak Orwellian lingo. Well, a very insightful reader made the observation that perhaps it was the Huxleyan dystopia that was worse…and, in many ways, closer to our present reality. He explained that, whereas in the Orwellian dystopia people were actively forbidden from doing certain things – reading certain materials, for example –residents of the Huxleyan dystopia wouldn’t even think about reading those same materials in the first place. The impulse to seek truth was simply sedated over time, or bred out of them entirely, so that the idea of a world outside their basic, workaday existence never even occurred to them. KS: I totally agree. I have observed in our Western system that this sort of mind control, which produces the epsilons to which you just referred, is actually a step-by-step process. Like the frog in water where the temperature rises gradually over time, so he doesn't jump out immediately. He doesn’t recognize he’s being boiled… until it’s too late. This same step-by-step process is certainly part of the Fabian Society’s plans. Fabius Maximus was the great Roman general who believed in doing things step-by-step, methodically, slowly. He was called the great cunctator. The hesitator or procrastinator. Grinding the opposition down bit by bit. That’s exactly what the socialist gradualists are doing now. Two steps ahead. One step back. The current commissar-in-chief of the EU-SSR Jean-Claude Juncker even admitted this strategy publicly. I’ll give you an example. Think about how the State treats individuals when they exercise their freedom of movement, their natural right to travel. Anyone who’s been to Heathrow Airport knows that it’s one of the most dystopian airports in the world. There is so much nonsense announced over loudspeakers at any given time. Similar to the North Korean countryside by the way. It doesn't even matter what they say anymore, it's just important that there's a speaker above, with nobody visible, and that people are told to do things by an authority they can’t see. Even the architecture of “the facility” is cold and dystopian. The wet dreams of Orwell and Huxley came to life, frozen in ice. So especially when people travel, they are actually being trained to be the ultimate sheep. I don't think about this like a coincidence theorist would. “Hands up! Open your belts! Shoes off! Expose your toiletry bag!” This kind of environment is the perfect training ground where, under the pretext of freedom and travel, the sheep are being programmed to accept and obey. And it’s happening right now… one step at a time, one lost freedom, one surrendered liberty, one destroyed privacy, one exposed intimacy. JB: Until eventually, you don’t know whether you’re in Oceana or Eurasia or who’s at war with whom. “War is peace – freedom is slavery – ignorance is strength.” KS: Exactly. The whole world is put upside down. JB: Thank you so much for your time, Kolja. It’s been a real pleasure speaking with you. KS: Likewise, Joel. Thank you, too. Regards,  Joel Bowman and Kolja Spöri for International Man

The Deadly And Almost Forgotten War In Yemen

YEMEN

Fighting for Peace

Fighting broke out in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah recently, even as both sides agreed to meet in Sweden to discuss a truce to Yemen’s bloody three-year-long war. “We are facing indiscriminate bombing from both sides,” Hodeidah resident Ibrahim Seif told the Guardian.

The pending peace talks, set for December, unfortunately, won’t help Seif much in the short-term.

But Al Jazeera reported that the United Nations envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, believes the Saudi Arabian-led coalition backing Yemen’s government and the Houthi rebels are both growing sufficiently fatigued with the fighting to seriously consider laying down their arms. The rebels recently announced they would halttheir rocket attacks on Saudi Arabia and its allies, for example.

“They are committed,” said Griffiths.

That’s potentially big news. As ABC News explained, Yemen is the shame of the Middle East. The Houthis, who are Shiites backed by Iran, captured the Yemini capital of Sana’a in 2015 and forced President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile. Fearing Iranian influence on its doorstep, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab countries intervened.

Around 10,000 have died in the violence. Today, 14 million Yemenis are also on the brink of famine. Children are especially at risk, the Associated Press wrote, detailing how parents have resorted to feeding their children leaves to survive. Amal Hussein, a 7-year-old girl whose photograph in the New York Times became a symbol of Yemen’s suffering, recently passed away.

Change is possible, however.

First, the world has turned a more critical eye toward Saudi Arabia after the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Turkey. CNN argued that while US President Donald Trump hasn’t criticized Saudi leaders – and the US is not backing a UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire – he might put pressure on them to take a more conciliatory tack on Yemen.

Second, writing in an opinion piece in the Hill, Atlantic Council senior fellow Nabeel Khoury postulated that the US might similarly seek – remarkably – to make common cause with Iran on Yemen in a bid to patch over disputes related to Trump’s pulling out of the nuclear deal that ex-President Barack Obama signed with Tehran.

Lastly, the Yemenis themselves are not giving up. For them, life continues.

The New York Times magazine profiled women’s rights activists who continue to fight for their freedoms despite living in a war zone. “They could have us burned alive or burn our children right before our eyes,” one activist said. “We are willing to die here. We’re demanding some human rights.”

Fighting for peace sounds like an oxymoron. But desperate times call for hopeful measures.

Giving Thanks Around The World

GIVING THANKS – AROUND THE WORLD

Thanksgiving is arguably the most American of holidays.

Originating in the devout Christian culture of early 17th century New England, Thanksgiving is secular. It’s also diverse and open – following in the spirit of Pilgrims breaking bread with the Native Americans: It’s welcoming of family, friends, colleagues, neighbors and even strangers.

Still, the whole point is to pause for a moment and reflect on one’s blessings, while reveling in them.

And in that, we are not alone: Thanksgiving is only one among many days of thanks worldwide, some religious, some quirky, most delectable. We bring you a sampling of how others celebrate their bounty, as we sit down to give thanks for our own.

A girl in Hyderabad, India, is caught up in the color bombs that mark the Holi festival. Photo by Shubham Sharma

THE AMERICAS

Starting at the end of February, Argentina celebrates its grape harvest in Vendimia with the Archbishop of Mendoza blessing the grapes before everyone has a tipple (or two). In neighboring Brazil, some sit down to give thanks and eat turkey the same day Americans do – a Brazilian ambassador to the US liked the tradition so much, he imported it, albeit with a local twist: A church service in the morning and a Carnival at the end.

Then comes Brazilian Black Friday – a day many countries have gleefully adopted.

To the north, Canadians have already finished their turkey leftovers by the time Americans start thinking about stuffing. Canadian Thanksgiving, in October, dates to 1578 when explorer Martin Frobisher sailed his convoy from England looking for the Northwest Passage. Surviving harsh storms, they gave thanks for their deliverance.

The Grenadians also celebrate a US-style Thanksgiving in October – in honor of the 1983 “liberation” of the Caribbean island by the US.

And in Barbados, giving thanks for the sugar cane crop, once the economic mainstay of the island, was long a tradition in the wild party known as Crop Over. And even though sugar cane production is no longer important, the party must go on – with Calypso and crazy costumes.

AFRICA

African gratitude festivals often involve surviving famine and war. For example, the Ga people of Ghana celebrate Homowo (literally jeer at hunger) in May to honor the end of a long-ago period of drought and famine and themselves for surviving it. Meanwhile, in northwestern Nigeria, Argungu celebrates the end of hostilities between two kingdoms in 1934 and ends in thousands jumping into a river with one hour to catch the largest fish using traditional methods.

In Swaziland, locals sing and dance during the Incwala Festival: On Day 4, the king tastes the first fruits of the new harvest before throwing a sacred gourd to a lucky young man. Meanwhile,  the Ngoni people of Zambia celebrate the first harvest of the year and the entrance of their people into Zambia in 1835 in N’cwala with a warrior dance competition in February.

And in Liberia, locals have celebrated Thanksgiving with mashed cassavas, green bean casserole and roasted chicken spiced with peppers on the first Thursday in November since 1820 when freed American slaves began colonization.

EUROPE

The northern Italian city of Alba loves its white truffles and celebrates their harvest in a fall festival with truffle-studded everything, truffle hunts and donkey races, too. In Olivagando in Magione, locals mark the olive harvest in November with a feast in a medieval dinner in the town’s 12th-century castle.

In Madeira, April’s flower harvest festival sees the island’s children creating the colorful Muro da Esperança (Wall of Hope) with flowers, as flower carpets grace the streets of Funchal. And in Lithuania, locals celebrate Nubaigai, the “Festival of the Old Woman” in October with a scarecrow resembling an elderly woman and songs of a bison that tried to eat the wheat crop before ultimately being defeated by the people.

Since 1810, Bavarians have donned lederhosen and dirndls to celebrate Oktoberfest in Munich and elsewhere in southern Germany. Meanwhile, across the country, many mark Erntedankfest (harvest festival of thanks), more religious than beer-soaked. And then there are the gourds: In the Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival, locals take to the water in a regatta involving canoes made out of giant pumpkins.

Meanwhile, the industrious Dutch have two days (Dankdag voor Gewas en Arbeid) to be thankful for “crops” and “work”: The first involves prayer for the future bounty and the second, gratitude for it. Meanwhile, some in Leiden celebrate that they were involved in the first American thanksgiving: About 40 percent of the Pilgrims were here.

MIDDLE EAST/ASIA

Sukkot marks the end of the harvest in Israel. Recalling their people’s tribulations in the desert – and their escape therefrom – locals build temporary shelters and eat and sleep in them.

It’s all about the moon in China: The 400-year old Mid-Autumn Festival coincides with the first full moon of the season involves eating moon cakes and gazing at the moon. In the 14th century, Chinese rebels used mooncakes to distribute secret messages to undermine the Mongolian empire.

Indians celebrate Holi which dates back to the fourth century by singing and dancing around a bonfire and then having a fight: In the Carnival of Colors, everyone tries to paint everyone else with colors via squirt guns and water balloons. Meanwhile, the Iranian harvest festival, Mehregan, dates back to ancient Persia: Locals wear purple clothes, apply eye-liner for luck, drink special drinks from fruit and flowers, and throw handfuls of sugar plums, lotus seeds and wild marjoram over each other’s heads as they embrace.

In Japan, things become more somber in the Labor Thanksgiving Day which originates from the sixth century BCE. These days, in November, the Japanese honor labor and the fruits of it (production) and thank each other while children draw pictures and gift them to police stations.

Asia’s main staple, rice, gets its share of attention: In Bali, the rice harvest festival honors the goddess of the staple grain, Dewi Sri, while in Malaysia (and also Borneo), Kaamatan has six distinct ceremonies honoring the rice harvest. Koreans celebrate, too, in Chuseok, with much sampling of rice cakes and rice wine. And while most honor the grain, Vietnam’s Tet Trung Thu Festival(Festival of the Children) celebrates the ‘latchkey kids’ left at home while the parents work in the rice paddies.

Fruit in Asia comes in crazy shapes and colors (to the Western eye). Chanthaburi in Thailand celebrates these durians, rambutans, longans, and mangosteens in the summer with parade floats made from fruit. And not to be outdone, Turkmenistan’s ego-in-chief, President Saparmurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov, created a festival in 1994 to honor the cherished Turkmenbashi melon, his fruity namesake.

OCEANIA

In Australia, it’s all about the tipple: Dating back to 1954, the Stanthorpe festival in March celebrates wine and holds a celebrity grape crush. Meanwhile, in Tasmania, locals honor the hop harvestwith beer and hop brownies.

Thanksgiving on Norfolk Island was imported by American whaling ships: These days, the tradition is to tie corn stalks to the pews and flowers to the altar on the last Wednesday of November.

Defeating the wilderness and overcoming hardships, respecting and harnessing nature, affirming not just family but community and, of course, expressing gratitude unite all of these holidays.

The lesson is clear: There are many ways to give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

D

A European Business Man Talks Positive About North Korea

Journey to Pyongyang: Behind the North Korean Curtain, Part I Joel Bowman talks to Kolja Spöri

Photo: Kolja Spöri at the front desk of the Koryo Hotel, Pyongyang, North Korea. See more of his photos here.

Joel Bowman: Good day, Kolja. Thanks very much for taking the time to speak with International Man today. Where in the world do we find you right now? Kolja Spöri: Merhaba, Joel! I am just in Istanbul at the airport, in transit to Munich, coming from Baghdad. JB: Having literally written the book “I’ve Been Everywhere” (in German: Ich war überall), you certainly fit the bill as a true International Man. I imagine our conversation could go in many directions today, but I wanted to start with a particular trip you embarked on earlier this year that must have been quite eye-opening, even by your own standards. When most people think of taking a vacation, they might imagine heading down to Florida, or the Bahamas, or maybe nipping over to Hawaii. You decided, instead, to opt for the decidedly cooler climes of Pyongyang, capital of North Korea. What inspired you to set off on an adventure to one of the so-called “Axis of Evil” countries? KS: There's actually warm weather and good surfing in North Korea in the summer! But yes, I have been a world traveler for a long time, both privately and on business trips. My goal became to visit every country in the world. It was just a natural thing that I would also visit North Korea on the way. North Korea is a good example where I learned that our Western view on the world does not always hold true, or at least the narratives that we are spoon fed from our Western media and our Western education system. Fifteen years ago, I was in South Korea visiting the demilitarized zone in Panmunjom, from the south. And at that time, already 15 years ago, I had a feeling that something was wrong about the way I was taught to look at things. Now that I’ve seen the border from the other side, from the north, I have a much clearer picture of where I was wrong, and where maybe many of us are wrong in the West. I want to make clear that I don't defend the North Korean system. After all, I am an Austrian School Libertarian. But I use the small case study of North Korea to build a strong case against our Western regime. JB: You mention this disconnect in a blog post you wrote about the trip, concerning the West’s general drift towards collectivism and cultural-Marxism. I definitely want to get into all that but, before we do, I imagine our readers have similar questions to the ones that are at the fore of my mind right now, and that is… how does one go about, from a purely logistical perspective, getting into and around North Korea? We’re told that it’s a total hermit kingdom, more or less impenetrable. No one goes in, no one gets out. How does one even begin planning for a trip like this? KS: In fact, the idea that it's impossible to get to North Korea is already propaganda. Western propaganda. In reality, it is very easy to get to North Korea. There are three or four travel agencies in Beijing with whom you can communicate via e-mail, and you get your visa from them online. Then, you simply travel there, usually via Beijing. There's a daily flight to North Korea's capital, Pyongyang. There's also a daily train from Dandong, China, to Pyongyang. And there are two flights a week from Vladivostok, Russia. This is all totally easy. Certainly no reason to be afraid. JB: That definitely runs counter to the Western narrative. So you took the plane from Beijing, is that right? Can you tell us about that? KS: Yes, I went on Koryo Airlines, the national airline of North Korea, which is purported to be the worst airline in the world. It is the only airline that has only one star on SKYTRAX. Now, I would ask people not to think badly of Koryo Airlines. Rather, one should think poorly of SKYTRAX, because this is pure propaganda. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Koryo Airline. Actually there are lots of airlines that are far worse in Europe and in America too. I am happy to encourage people to fly on Koryo Airlines. They offer decent food, the air hostesses are young and friendly, there are regular television screens, a complimentary English newspaper, the Pyongyang Times. And, believe it or not, they offer a business class cabin, contrary to many of the Western no-frills cattle transport planes.  JB: So what were your first impressions? Getting off the plane… the airport… the trip out to your hotel... actually arriving in the capital. Was it a hotel that you arranged through the travel agency? I’m sure people are interested in a real, behind-the-scenes perspective. KS: First of all, the propaganda in the West says that there are terrible airport immigration controls, where you spend hours getting a complete shakedown. Sort of TSA-style atrocities. That's just not true. In my case, immigration was a breeze, very friendly. The only thing they really want to ensure is that you have no data storage possibilities where you can take data in or out; computer programs, movies, et cetera. So no small computer chips or USB sticks that can be exchanged for a warm beer on the personnel floor of the Yanggakdo Hotel. The other thing is, they don't want you to allow Internet access for the locals, so Internet routers are usually also taken away. Now, I should point out here that “taken away” actually means the tour guides keep the goods in a safe box, and you get them back when you exit the country. As a tourist, it is true that you have these sorts of restrictions, and you are always traveling with two tour guides, and the driver, who undoubtedly spy on each other as much as on their foreign guest. JB: I imagine most people would still find that environment a little intimidating, even if, unlike most other states, they do return your confiscated goods. Were you at all unnerved by the experience? KS: Let's not forget that our Western governments confiscate property all the time, under pretexts like money laundering, war on drugs, custom duties, taxation, etc. especially at airports, and they don't return it. In North Korea there is a strong sense of the surveillance system for sure, and while I am obviously not happy about it, I can understand that they want to safeguard their internal security. North Korea was viciously attacked by the US in 1950 in the Korean War. And they are still under attack. There's still no peace agreement. And they suffered enormous destruction and a staggering death toll.

Recommended Link

There’s a new source of dividend-like income... And no one on Wall Street is talking about it. This is a temporary anomaly in a special sector of the tech market.  And these payouts are unlike regular dividends. These special payouts allow you to get paid as often as once a day! “Over the past year or so, I got paid 1,198 different times.”  – M. Wutzer, Blockchain Analyst, Casey Research

Most people don’t realize this but, in fact, the Korean War was already decided on at the Yalta Conference, in 1945, where the division of the Korean Peninsula was agreed upon between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill. There it was decided to split Korea at the 38th parallel. The war was just designed to make money for the US military industrial complex, to have a US military presence in that strategic corner of the world, and to have a showcase for the Cold War of two systems, with a regional hot war, contained in a defined area. Similar to the Donbass today. The war was brutal. The U.S. dropped more than 10 million bombs on North Korea, which is more than one 500 kg bomb per inhabitant of North Korea. Now, 500 kg is a big bomb. It’s half a car. Every inch of land in the north was destroyed. A quarter of North Korea’s population – roughly 2.5 million people, mostly civilians – was killed in a short time. Imagine 80 million U.S. civilians wiped out in an air attack. That's the proportions. The U.S. also used chemical and biological weapons like napalm barrel bombs and anthrax. Therefore the Koreans have kept a siege mentality, which leads to these sorts of restrictions for outsiders traveling to the country. But it's not this dark kingdom of evil that I did occasionally see when the Iron Curtain was still up, when I was in Bulgaria, or East Germany. That was a lot worse. North Korea is actually quite tourist friendly, that's why it also had the biggest hotel building in the world from 1987 until the Burj al Arab was opened in Dubai in 1999. JB: Well that’s certainly counter to the narrative presented by the talking heads in the Western media. Interestingly, you mention in your travel writings that you think North Korea is moving, in general, towards a more open, freer society. Of course, it’s a long, long way from the libertarian kind of society we might wish to see, but it’s at least moving in the right direction, is that your impression? KS: Yes. In North Korea there is a good momentum, whereas in the West the totalitarian surveillance, tax theft and social control is getting worse. To be absolutely clear, I don't want to defend a communist system at all. On the contrary, I'm an Austrian school libertarian. The Juche philosophy of national autarky that the Kim family has introduced to North Korea is not only a socialist system, it is even a national socialist system. I'm not going to defend it at all. I merely want to expose the Western propaganda that we are fed against North Korea, in order to expose the holes in the matrix, the wrong narratives and the contradictions that we have to suffer in the West. JB: Indeed, sometimes the best perspective is from the outside looking in. So let's explore that a little bit. How did you see reality on the ground there as juxtaposed to the narrative that we're typically presented? KS: Traveling there I found many, many examples where the accepted narrative of the West broke down, ranging from little, every day occurrences, to very obvious holes in the whole storyline. We spoke about the immigration process a bit before, but let me say that the narrative already began breaking down before we even landed, when I met a foreign expat worker on the plane. He was actually a Norwegian, a former Bundesligafootball star who is now the national trainer of the North Korean football team. So this Norwegian, along with his German wife, actually works in North Korea as an expat. Who would have thought that? I also learned later on the trip that there is quite a number of businessmen, even European businessmen, doing business in North Korea, traveling there just like I did. So there are possibilities and opportunities. There are foreign expat teachers there just like everywhere else in the world, teaching English and other languages in Korean schools or universities. There are even Christian missionaries. So people can and do travel to North Korea, and work there. They are under restrictions, of course, but it does happen. And to my surprise, I found that it worked the other way around, too. North Koreans do, in fact, travel to the outside world. One of our tour guides, a very friendly and intelligent woman, was the daughter of a North Korean businessman. To be sure, he may not own a company or the means of production per se, but through a separate company he was able to do international trade. I think that's mostly with Chinese businessmen. There is a certain element of enterprise, and private business people in North Korea. Before my trip, I did not know that. JB: Do you recall any more about him, the father? KS: He is now an artist after having retired some time ago. He actually sent his daughter, our tour guide, to Poland to study in the 2000s. Remember, we're not talking about the Cold War, during the 1970s and 80s, when this would have been standard between communist countries. Nowadays, too, it is possible that a North Korean girl studies in the West, in Poland. Then there are so-called “export workers,” consisting of about 100,000 North Koreans currently working abroad. One typical export good is gastronomy. North Korea has two famous brands, Pyongyang Restaurants, and Okryu Restaurants, which have about 65,000 people living and working abroad in restaurant chains that serve the national North Korean dish, the “cold noodle”. JB: That’s some no-nonsense marketing... KS: Right. And the other big business abroad is construction. There is a company that specializes in constructing monuments, called Mansudae. They typically build these big, socialist style statues and monuments in other countries that like this sort of thing. I think Zimbabwe is a big client, but also Qatar, Egypt, Namibia, and others. What I'm trying to say is that, contrary to popular belief, a lot of North Koreans do work abroad. And, of course, they want to send money home, but one part of the sanctions that the West has imposed on North Korea is that their expats are not allowed to transfer their money back home. The West blocks the banking system access for North Koreans, similar as they do with sanctions against some Russians, and all Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians, or other good folks who are blacklisted for money transactions by the Western regime. Those on the blacklist can't even use Moneygram or Western Union. So much for “free markets” in the West.

Recommended Link

JB: Who knew there was such a market for “socialist realism,” or that the North Koreans were the ones meeting that demand? So what about their transaction channels? I assume this has something to do with their international communications restrictions? KS: We’re told there is no Internet, no mobile phone network in North Korea. Actually, there is. The Egyptian Swiss billionaire, Sami Sawiris, owner of Orascom telecommunications, built their Internet and mobile phone system. It is divided into a sort of “intranet” for the North Koreans, where they always stay inside their country and cannot call outsiders. And as a foreigner you can use the Internet just as you want, along with their mobile phone network, but you cannot connect with the North Koreans. They are completely closed off in that regard. So that part is true, but the technology is there nevertheless. While communication is difficult enough, the big problem currently is the energy sanctions. People are freezing in the winter in North Korea because they do not have coal or gas or oil. They are completely cut off by the West. They are simply not allowed to buy energy, due to the Western sanctions. That is a big problem, a crime against the people, committed by the West. Letting people starve or freeze or die for lack of medication is a typical trademark strategy of the Anglo-Saxon empires over the last century, be it against Germany, India, Ukraine. Madeleine Albright famously admitted it on CNN when she said that killing 500,000 children in Iran due to the U.S. sanctions was a high price, but it was ok. JB: Which leads us to that other “hot button” topic, that of nuclear energy on the peninsular. KS: Yes, I actually wondered about that while I stayed there. Something doesn’t quite add up. Let us believe, for an instance, that they have nuclear technology for military purposes. This is what we are told. And that is, in fact, what they say themselves. I'm not 100% convinced. Why? I asked our tour guides, "Why are you freezing here in the winter due to lack of energy when you have atomic energy, this huge atomic weapons program. Why is there no civilian nuclear energy program?" Apparently they have their own uranium in the country. Now, I’m certainly no expert in nuclear power, but I would imagine mastering their civilian technology would be a lot easier than building out their military nuclear capabilities. I don't have a good answer to that. There is room for speculation. Maybe there is not only fake news, but also fake nukes. With the U.S. secretly complicit in North Korea's atomic bomb propaganda, fake or real. After all, dangerous bogeymen like Castro or Kim are in continuous demand to justify the U.S. military doctrine. JB: Perhaps one of our International Man readers is a nuclear physicist who might like to comment. [If that’s you, feel free to help us get a fuller picture of the situation. Write in here.] Getting back to what you said then about the manufacture and export of socialist style statues, it would be the ultimate irony if, sometime in the future, North Korean private businesses began exporting socialist style statues to the EU and to the United States, which seem to be heading in that general direction. KS: You know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. That would indeed be the ultimate irony, and not a happy one for those in the West. Editor’s comment: Tune in this time next week for Part II of Joel’s exclusive conversation with Kolja, when they’ll discuss Orwellian vs. Huxleyan dystopias, the Fabian Society’s slow and methodical path to collectivism and plenty more from Kolja’s journey to North Korea.