Given my background in history and political science, I have a fascination with North Korea and its wacky Communist/Cult government, and Vice does some of the best/most interesting reporting on North Korea. The Caller has an interview with Shane Smith of Vice regarding his visit to these camps. Absolutely read the article, then watch the videos.
And can I just say this about the DC’s commenters? Seriously? You fucking mouthbreathers are whining about the fact that there are a few f-bombs being dropped by Smith and quoted by DC? Grow the fuck up, this Vice guy brings us absolutely brilliant original reporting, I, someone absolutely fascinated by North Korea (given my history and political science background) had no fucking clue about these Siberian labor camps, and you’re bitching because he drops a few f-bombs and used phrases like drunk-y and murder-y to describe his various run-ins with violent drunken Russian hoodlums? On top of the original reporting on yet more human rights violations that are routine with this absolutely sick, bizarre regime…and you’re bitching about a journalist using the word fuck in said reporting? Get over your fucking selves you goddamned immature puritans.
I’m totally humming No Motherland Without You right now.
Also, here’s one for the Paultards,
Take a hint, guys. Also,
doubleplusundead 
The horror stories you hear coming out of DPRK probably don’t really capture the whole flavor. It’s got to be pretty damn nasty for so much of the population to be so utterly controlled.
It does make me wonder sometimes, how one person can gather up enough like-minded people to create a self-sustaining/reinforcing system that is completely through-and-through insane and inhumanely oppressive – people are starving horribly and tortured yet no one has staged a successful coup and wiped them off the map. You would think that there would be enough horror there to give entire populations the impetus to rise up and savage them. But then again a standing army of 3,000,000 soldiers who get preferential treatment (read: fed real food) and are well-armed probably has an effect on the landscape.
China is the only thing allowing that insane house of cards to continue standing.
Kim Jong Il is one serious crazy little fucker in need of a vented brainpan.
(not sorry about the f-bomb)
Umm, F-bombs are required here, we were thinking of fucking banning you for the lack.
It gathered slowly under his father and now it’s all any of the people know. Not many remember before the place the was a commie hellhole and even back then, it wasn’t exactly a nice place to be. SoKo has not been the functioning democracy/republic it is now, so how much worse was NoKo?
The reason there hasn’t been a coup is probably because the army gets fed and also because he’s almost as much of a god-king as Obama. Replacing him would make the edifice collapse. His father groomed him to become the next Dear Leader so that transition was fine.
It’s not Rome, there is no history of sticking a new emperor on the throne and they can’t afford the civil war that would happen. If they did, you know SoKo would be able to scoop up lots of land and China would have to take the rest to keep a buffer so getting rid of him wouldn’t really help any of the people in a position to try it.
As for the conditions, I can’t imagine. I’ve heard believable stories about people eating neighbor’s dead because they don’t want to eat their own. It helps to have meat in your grass soup once in a while so you eat your neighbor’s dead babies or grandma and you eat theirs.
All the food aid they get only helps keep the ruling elite fed as they don’t allow anybody in to distribute the food. The gov’t decides who eats food and who eats grass soup.
The whole country is a stalinist hell-hole, I couldn’t even imagine how much worse their gulags are. At its worst, Russia was never as bad as NoKo. It has to be the worst place to have ever lived in the history of our sorry world and that’s saying something serious. Imagine the whole country being Jews to the rulers’ Nazis and you might be coming close.
When you’re presented with evidence of modern day slavery and you find yourself instead outraged that someone would use the word “fuck,” your priorities might just be a little out of whack.