The Counter-deception Blog

Calif. man catalogs N.Korea's over-the-top rhetoric

Reuters | 8/14/05 | Paul Eckert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Few can denounce the "imperialist ogre" or "kingpin of evil" as well as the writers at North Korea's official news agency, and a California graphic artist is now cataloging their rhetorical masterpieces on a Web site.

Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, is the only regular source of the views of the secretive government of Kim Jong-il available to diplomats, journalists and scholars.

But there was no way for them to search the archives of KCNA until Geoff Davis, fighting boredom during a rainy San Francisco spring, decided to hone his Web design skills on a topic he had followed in news reports on the North Korean nuclear crisis.

"Their propaganda is often unintentionally hilarious and I couldn't find an existing searchable database of the KCNA on the Web. Thus, NK News was born," Davis told Reuters.

Launched in May, http://www.nk-news.net boasts of having nearly every KCNA article since December 1996 -- "over 50 megabytes of hard-core Stalinist propaganda ... each article written in the unique and indelible style of the KCNA."

Readers can get a taste of that KCNA style from recommended key word searches, such as "burning hatred," which turns up 18 articles. The targets of that hot wrath include Japan, Yankees, "U.S. imperialist ogres" and "class enemies."

"Human scum" yields 25 KCNA reports applying that epithet to President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and diplomat John Bolton. Rumsfeld also keeps company with Japanese officials in the "political dwarf" category.

RANDOM INSULT GENERATOR

The flip-side of withering scorn for North Korea's perceived foes is fawning praise for Kim and his father, state founder Kim Il-sung. Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994, is hailed as a "peerlessly great man" in 139 articles since 1996.

"Inveterate" is another popular KCNA word and a search for it returns an entry describing "U.S. imperialists" as "a pack of beasts in human skin and the inveterate enemy with whom the Korean nation cannot live under the same sky."

"From browsing through the KCNA's propaganda, even the most casual observer can see that the regime is a cult," said Davis, 31, who makes his living producing graphics for court trials.

Davis took 10 weeks to build www.nk-news.net, which he calls a "hobby site," and spends $10 a month to run it. He said he doesn't count page visits but he has tallied 5,000 searches and has received positive feedback from journalists and experts on North Korea.

For those seeking a comic diversion from blood-curdling diatribes and self-congratulatory reports, Davis created a "random insult generator" using pejorative words commonly found on KCNA.

"You loudmouthed beast, your ridiculous clamor for 'human rights' is nothing but a shrill cry!" reads one insult. One click later and the message is: "You sycophantic stooge, you have glaringly revealed your true colors!"

Although he has found a source of satire in a country that is mostly known for weapons threats, repression and famine, Davis does not joke about North Korea's nature and says the world must not cut Kim's government any slack.

"The 'axis of evil' remark pales in comparison to a single day of KCNA rhetoric," he said, referring a controversial 2002 Bush speech that lumped North Korea, Iran and prewar Iraq in a trio of malign countries.

posted by Dr. Frank Stech  # 5:52 PM