"Let the strong wind of fish farming blow across the country!"

February 15, 2015 2:08 AM

North Korea has published 310 new patriotic slogans which, as translated by the BBC, are a mix of classic socialist pontification ("Wage the class struggle dynamically by relying on the masses!"), insight into the country's multitude of perpetual problems ("Bring to completion the rehabilitation of the northern railways as early as possible!") and frequent WTF-ness ("Read the minds of producers first before measuring the quantity of their products!")
posted by oneswellfoop (91 comments total)

"Let us turn ours into a country of mushrooms by making mushroom cultivation scientific, intensive and industrialised!"

Huh, and here I was thinking that they already are a country of mushrooms, what with being kept in the dark and being fed nothing but shit.
posted by sour cream at 2:27 AM on February 15, 2015 [17 favorites]

Builders!
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:37 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

Yeah, enemies of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism - motherfucking Builders. So suck on THAT shit!
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:41 AM on February 15, 2015 [5 favorites]

"We serve the people!"
Yep, definitely saw that one on an episode of Twilight Zone.

"Training is also a battle!"
So you've read the instruction manuals...

"Go beyond the cutting edge!"
Stole that one straight off the wall of some Silicon Valley startup.

"Let us turn the whole country into a land of the arts and make the arts mass-based!"
And that one's stolen from Disney.

"Keep your feet firmly planted on this land and look out over the world!"
Stole that one from Casey Kasem.

"Supply service work is immediately the struggle to defend socialism!"
Are they talking Supply Side Economics?
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:41 AM on February 15, 2015 [6 favorites]

Coal-Miners!
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:42 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Dishwasher Repair Technicia-oh wait that's not on there.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:43 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

Let us glorify the noble revolutionary career and undying exploits of the great Comrade the quidnunc kid for all generations to come!
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:53 AM on February 15, 2015 [5 favorites]

Hold fast to ideological work as the top priority!

Perhaps, at least for a little while, food production and distribution could take some precedence over ideological work?
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:54 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

"Fertilizer means rice and socialism."

I like that one, especially without an exclamation mark. Just a statement of fact. And it can be reversed. Digest rice (and socialism I guess), get fertilizer.
posted by susuman at 2:55 AM on February 15, 2015

best really short one...
"All at once!"
can't argue with that.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:05 AM on February 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

best really short one...

Umm, Hello? Not "Builders" - ?

You know, sometimes I think you aren't really serious about advancing vigorously, united firmly with one mind and one will, as befits the descendants of Comrade Kim Il Sung and the soldiers and followers of Comrade Kim Jong Il.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:23 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

"Let us model the whole Party and all society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism!"
I don't know if this is supposed to be new terminology, but crediting "isms" to both of the previous hereditary dictators is more than a little silly. Did son Jong Il really add much to what father Il Sung had already set in stone? Why not just call it "Kimism", or would that be at risk of getting confused with "Kimdotcomism" or "Kimkardashianism"?
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:26 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Did son Jong Il really add much to what father Il Sung had already set in stone?

That is revisionist thinking! You, sir, deserve to be put into a labor camp for the temerity to doubt the extra-ordinary achievements of our great comrade Kim Jong Il, peace be upon him!
posted by sour cream at 3:35 AM on February 15, 2015

Let us resolutely frustrate the anti-DPRK "human rights" schemes by the US and its vassal forces!

humanrightsfrustrations.tumblr.com
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:40 AM on February 15, 2015

best really short one...
"All at once!"
can't argue with that.

As an Englishman I'd prefer: "Form an orderly queue!"
posted by sobarel at 3:44 AM on February 15, 2015 [14 favorites]

Builders!

I bet that was like slogan 306. Like you're really really tired of having written slogans non-stop all week and it's Sunday and you just want to go home and hug your kids and honestly you can't be bothered anymore and if they don't like it fuck em you will volunteer for labor camp duty.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:47 AM on February 15, 2015 [6 favorites]

Overcome thoroughly the manner of working like extinguishing fire after it has broken out, like a flash in the pan and like conducting a shock campaign!

Uh. I can't even.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 4:01 AM on February 15, 2015

I assume these sound significantly less ludicrous in the original Korean. Was any effort made to give more than a literal translation?

Victory through shoveling!
You are desired!
Continue in a state of relaxation.
Construct affection rather than battle.
My curiosity is regarding your location in the war.
We question war's utility; its lack of productivity is absolute.
posted by Lorc at 4:18 AM on February 15, 2015 [10 favorites]

Even though one may have 99 per cent of demerits and only one per cent of merit or conscience, boldly trust him and lead him to start with a clean slate!

This explains a lot.
posted by quiet earth at 4:22 AM on February 15, 2015 [5 favorites]

310?
posted by theredpen at 4:31 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Stole that one from Casey Kasem.

Huh. I've never listened to Kasem outside of his work on Scooby Doo, but now I suddenly get why Red Green always ended his show with the (appropriately Canadian) "Keep your stick on the ice".
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:23 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

I do not want to be downwind of the strong wind of fish farming. That is all.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:25 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, is there an actual linguistic reason that "Bring to completion the rehabilitation of the northern railways as early as possible" isn't just "rehabilitate the Northern railways now"? Or is it just for comedy value?
posted by TheophileEscargot at 5:34 AM on February 15, 2015 [5 favorites]

If you need more slogans, Markov & I can help.
posted by hexatron at 5:40 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

millennium hand and shrimp
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:44 AM on February 15, 2015 [8 favorites]

Behind our efforts, let there be found our efforts.
posted by moonmilk at 5:57 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh, my bad, "Victory through shoveling!" was meant to go to Boston, I must've stuck it in the wrong box at the slogan shipment warehouse.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:00 AM on February 15, 2015 [19 favorites]

"Accelerate the industrial revolution in the new century by introducing CNC technology into the production lines and achieving their full automation!"

It is a highly specific slogan, comrades!

"Let this socialist country resound with Song of Big Fish Haul and be permeated with the fragrant smell of fish and other seafoods!"

This makes fishing sound really exciting!

"More stylish school uniforms and quality school things for our dear children!"

On Wednesdays we wear pink!

... It is sort of bizarre how the middle section is like a corporate mission statement or planning document, but with exclamation marks. I'm going to mentally add them to all future corporatese and I bet it makes corporate nonsense much more amusing and absurdist.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:22 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

A lot of these would sound less rediculous if written in Korean. They seem to be translating as directly as possible, which doesn't take into account fundamental differences in the language and is uncharitable of a translation as possible.

And it's not like South Korea didn't do their fair share of sloganeering during their economic growth. Or for that matter, the government of literally every other country on the planet. This just seems like lolnorthkorea bs. How is this more absurd than "They hate us for our freedom"?
posted by pugg at 6:25 AM on February 15, 2015 [23 favorites]

Fairyland!
posted by box at 6:26 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Not trying to be defensive of N Korea, but I just don't see the point in cartoonishly other-izing our enemies.
posted by pugg at 6:26 AM on February 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

That last quote is just summarizing Marx.

The quantity of the goods produced should not be only measure by which they are considered.
posted by clvrmnky at 6:30 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

uncharitable of a translation as possible

Definitely. Consider that if you run Google's relatively snappy slogan through the translator to Haitian Creole and back, you get "You do not need evil," which isn't nearly as snappy.
posted by localroger at 6:31 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Freedom Fries!!
They Took Our Jerbs!!
In God We Trust!!
posted by ReeMonster at 6:34 AM on February 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

"Do not deal with horses in midstream!"
"Let the peace of the American presence!"
"Granted to the customer for another period!"
"At least four years of full dinner bucket!"
"No, no one is indispensable!"
"We're going to win this war, then peace!"
"This time, like the whole world is dependent on the vote!"
"Secure and hopeful world USA!"

A few entries from Wikipedia's List of U.S. presidential campaign slogans, translated into Korean and back into English by Google Translate.
posted by jhc at 7:02 AM on February 15, 2015 [35 favorites]

This stuff reminds me of the slogans printed all over the Dr. Bronners Magic Soap label.
posted by dis_integration at 7:03 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

I assume these sound significantly less ludicrous in the original Korean.

Well... it's a little more complicated than that. The modern North Korean dialect uses vocabulary and turns of phrase that are extremely archaic and stilted-sounding to South Korean speakers. These may sound a lot better in Korean as spoken and heard by a North Korean, but to a South Korean they would come off roughly as absurd as they do in English. If the translators have a background in Korean as spoken in South Korea, I could easily see them making such stilted translations to capture how awkward the slogans sound to a South Korean ear.
posted by Itaxpica at 7:15 AM on February 15, 2015 [22 favorites]

Also it's worh pointing out the English-language website of the KCNA - these are official news articles translated to English and released by the North Korean government directly, and they still read like bombastic, overblown insanity.

"The performers sang high praises of the exploits Kim Jong Il performed by making journeys of devotion for the prosperity of the country and happiness of the people and opening up the avenue to everlasting happiness and prosperity of Kim Il Sung's nation."
posted by Itaxpica at 7:17 AM on February 15, 2015 [9 favorites]

Metafilter: Every one of these. Every single one.
posted by Naberius at 7:21 AM on February 15, 2015 [5 favorites]

Dear leader does not poop!
posted by The Deej at 7:38 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

This just seems like lolnorthkorea bs.

I was surprised to see the weird pro-Putin posts popping up on MeFi of late, but I never expected pro-North Korea posts.

Not trying to be defensive of N Korea, but I just don't see the point in cartoonishly other-izing our enemies.

Guys, maybe we're just misunderstanding this totalitarian dictatorship that puts entire families in concentration camps! We're doing a disservice to their hard-working propaganda ministry when we don't treat their slogans with respect.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:12 AM on February 15, 2015 [8 favorites]

pugg: "How is this more absurd than "They hate us for our freedom"?"

To me it is the same amount of absurd and that is why I like them.

And honestly, especially with the ones related to industrial planning and improvement, lots of them could be corporate unit mission statements. They made me laugh because if you stick an exclamation mark at the end of every bullet point in a shareholder's report, this is pretty much what you get. Because corporate communication is frequently stilted and ridiculous. To wit:

"Excellence in localization is a GE competitive advantage!"
"We will lead the industrialization of resource rich regions!"
"We Continue to Improve our Culture!"
"The mood reflects the economic environment!"
"We want the Company to be lower-cost, have shorter cycle times, and match authority to accountability!"

Those are some of the pull quotes from the GE Shareholders' letter last year, with added exclamation marks.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:21 AM on February 15, 2015 [27 favorites]

@relevant: Yesterday I watched this piece of 1941 filmed propaganda of Himmler in Minsk.
This reminded me of 1984's Winston Smith having to endure the incessant, loud videos piped in by the regime into every inch & moment of living space.
Life under constant assault by the propagandists can be hard.
Of course, watching a lot of TV makes people brain crazy too.
posted by growabrain at 8:40 AM on February 15, 2015

I was surprised to see the weird pro-Putin posts popping up on MeFi of late, but I never expected pro-North Korea posts.

I know that making fun of these signs is meant to poke fun at the government that created them but it doesn't come off that way. As messed up as everything about N.Korea seems to be, I feel awkward making fun of an entire country full of people living under such horrible conditions and that's what this feels like.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 9:16 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

Are you kidding? These aren't cultural creations of the North Korean people. These are literally propaganda put out by the murderous dictatorship that brutalizes and enslaves the North Korean people you claim to care for.

The idea that we have to treat these pronouncements with respect is disgusting, and it's bizarre to see people in this thread fretting over whether the proclamations of this dictatorship are being respectfully translated.

We don't have a chance to see creations of the North Korean people because they're no allowed to create them, and if they did create something without government approval or control we wouldn't be allowed to see it. Yet here we are worrying if we're showing proper deference to to the regime that does this.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:20 AM on February 15, 2015 [12 favorites]

Carry out the Party's policies as exactly in all aspects as the Chonji Lubricating Oil Factory did!

I wondered: is this a well known, heroic tale of wartime factory workers who continued producing lubricant under bombardment until the very last worker was felled?

I was amazed to find that no, it would seem the actual story is even more glorious.
posted by mubba at 9:28 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Let the strong wind of fish farming blow across the country!"

Priceless.

Surely that was funny, even in the original Korean. Were there stifled sniggers in the pitch meeting for that one?

I think a slogan writer might be spending a year or two rediscovering the cleansing pleasures of agrarian toil.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:29 AM on February 15, 2015

Sangermaine: This isn't about "respect" or "deference" toward North Korea's murderous dictatorship. It's about wanting to understand what we are reading.
posted by jhc at 9:31 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

I love the stilted authoritarian prose a lot, but there's an underlying sense of "jesus god we're starving" from all the ones about food. I'm very lucky.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:41 AM on February 15, 2015

Dear leader does not poop!

Not only Dear Leader, but in fact the entire mod team. This is why some of the mods volunteered to quit during the financially-strapped times, saying that moderation was a lot of pressure, and then reported a week later that they found their post-moderation life to be a great relief.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:45 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

Fishing!
posted by clavdivs at 9:48 AM on February 15, 2015

I wanted to know what the government is saying to the North Korean populace, and disappointed that BBC doesn't mention how the translation was done. I'm not interested in the yuks.
posted by zennie at 9:48 AM on February 15, 2015

Laughing at something is one of our strongest (non-lethal) weapons, and it cuts both ways. "Homeland Security" as a department name is equally ridiculous.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:57 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's about wanting to understand what we are reading.

I wanted to know what the government is saying to the North Korean populace, and disappointed that BBC doesn't mention how the translation was done.

If you're interested in what the North Korean government is saying to the North Korean people, read The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters by B.R. Meyers.

One of Meyers's points is that things like this that the NK government presents to the outside world is not what they're presenting to their people, and his is some of the first analysis of North Korean propaganda for North Koreans. The internal propaganda is very different than the nonsense we see every now and then.

There's nothing to be understood from lists like this but "yuks".
posted by Sangermaine at 10:27 AM on February 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

Best sub on reddit: r/Pyongyang
posted by ovvl at 11:28 AM on February 15, 2015

"At least four years of full dinner bucket!"

I would vote for this person.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:37 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Pretty sure I've seen at least half of the coal-related ones on bumper stickers here in KY.
posted by MysticMCJ at 11:52 AM on February 15, 2015

I read A Chinese Life a while back. It's the autobiography of a Chinese cartoonist who grew up in the Cultural Revolution and has been through all of China's upheavals from the fifties onward.

One of the most interesting aspects of it were the various exhortations-on-banners that showed up throughout the author's life, from The Great Leap Forward all the way to the nineties. A lot of these slogans were from the government, but quite a few came from companies, but still followed the same pattern.

I took pictures of them for an on-hold project. Many of them were also very specific.

"Let us fight against speculation!"

"Let us study the Little General of the Red Guard. Respect!"

"Let us give our country 30 days of unremitting labour as a New Year's Gift."

"Solidarity, intensity, seriousness, vivacity."

"Let us continue in the spirite of Norman Bethune (Canadian doctor) by saving the dying and healing the wounded."

"Develop the economy and guarantee supplies."

"Let us make haste in deploying the strategies of the central committee!"

"I hasten my pace toward modernizing the army!"

"Let us strengthen national defence, and defend the Four Modernizations!"

"Let us work hard to create a new era of socialist modernity!"

"Raise the level of our treatments and hygiene, and guarantee the quality of the people's health!"

"Have only one child"

"Let us carry the patriotic hygiene campaign to new heights right away!"

"Let us overcome every obstacle towards the advent of a modern socialist country: richer, more powerful, more civilized, and more democratic!"

"Family planning!"

"Spread free compulsory schooling!"

"Efficiency is life."

"Let us modernize the run-down areas of town!"

"The city makes life more beautiful and pleasant."

"Let us better understand the daily life of the people!"

"Work hard to keep up with the times!"

There's definitely a formula to the Maoist exhortation (I was trying to express it in code before I got pulled away to other things). It's weird to see North Korea is sticking to it so strictly in the year 2015, but I wouldn't be surprised if China was still using these. I don't think they're necessarily totalitarian, although they really make totalitarianism ring.
posted by ignignokt at 12:02 PM on February 15, 2015 [10 favorites]

I was surprised to see the weird pro-Putin posts popping up on MeFi of late, but I never expected pro-North Korea posts.

Oh come on.

We are presented with some slogans produced by a quasi-medieval dictatorship. One way we can react to those slogans is by shouting "loldictatorship!" and then hissing at the dictators as if they're pantomime villains or Team Rocket or whatever.

Another way to react to the slogans is by trying to figure out what's actually going on with them. There are a lot of questions here. For example, we can try to figure out how much of the weirdness comes from the weirdness of the cult of personality built up around the dictator. We can try to figure out how much of the weirdness is an artifact of the translation. We can discover really interesting things about how North Korean Korean has diverged from South Korean Korean over the course of North Korea's decades of isolation. We can try to figure out what, if anything, the slogans actually mean in their cultural context, and by so doing also learn more about how that cultural context works.

In no way do these attempts to figure out what we can do with these slogans (other than shout "boo hiss!" at them) add up to "support for the dictatorship." Claiming that attempts to understand a thing are tantamount to support for that thing is an absolutely pig-ignorant thing to do.

I'd hate to see someone going into, say, medical research with the attitude you bring to understanding society. "No, no, we shouldn't try to understand how cancer works! We should just shout as loud as we can about how bad it is! Anything less is a sign of support for it!"
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:20 PM on February 15, 2015 [13 favorites]

Builders!

Wrong. It's "Developers!"
posted by Ber at 12:21 PM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

You Can't Tip a Buick,

Get over your cargo cult sociology.

As I said above, the answers to the questions you pose are not to be found in these propaganda pronouncements, so it's both funny and sad to see people like you hold them up as Very Serious objects of study. They're conscious creations of the ruling regime designed for consumption by the outside world that have little to no bearing on what the population internally either reads or believes.

The only "pig-ignornat" thing to do here is to repeat the same old tired bullshit with regard to "understanding" North Korea that has already been shown to be worthless. You're not going to learn any truths about NK from things like this list any more than you'd learn what Nazi Germany was really like by reading only dispatches from Goebbels.

You want to move toward actual understanding and not just pose? Read the book linked above and articles about the topic.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:10 PM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Even though one may have 99 per cent of demerits and only one per cent of merit or conscience, boldly trust him and lead him to start with a clean slate!


I thought this one was odd. Not funny, just strange.
posted by Omnomnom at 1:40 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Guys, maybe we're just misunderstanding this totalitarian dictatorship that puts entire families in concentration camps! We're doing a disservice to their hard-working propaganda ministry when we don't treat their slogans with respect.

North Korea is run by a horrible, horrible regime. I have nothing good to say about it. I don't know if it would be as horrible, though, if half their country weren't effectively occupied by the world's strongest superpower. It's quite astonishing that North Korea survives at all, and I think a more normal regime would have collapsed decades ago - which was really what the US occupation was meant to achieve.

So yes, it's a cartoonish dystopia, and yes, it's obscene that the ruling dynasty wallows in wealth while people starve - but consider how much of their GDP is being spent on their military: they maintain a force of nuclear weapons, even though they don't have enough electricity (or fertiliser, or food) for civilian purposes. Their country would have collapsed long ago without aid from the USA, which makes me wonder:

Why does the USA prop up the North Korean regime? I think the usual argument is that the regime would be even less predictable if it collapsed, but so what? I suppose the nuclear force may be scary, but why did the USA give them the chance to achieve it? I very much think that the USA wants North Korea around for some reason: perhaps as an object lesson, or to justify keeping forces in South Korea, or as a bulwark against China.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:41 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

China also indulges its southern neighbour, perhaps partly out of Communist solidarity, and/or having fought on the same side in the Korean War, though there are undoubtedly pragmatic reasons. For one, a Washington-aligned Korea stretching all the way to the Chinese border would probably be as unwelcome to Beijing as a NATO-aligned Ukraine would be to Moscow. And then there's the fact that any collapse of North Korea would cause a massive flood of refugees into China. So, in effect, North Korea is a misery containment system.
posted by acb at 2:00 PM on February 15, 2015

if half their country weren't effectively occupied by the world's strongest superpower.

This is a very odd way of putting it. South Korea wouldn't see things this way, nor would they appreciate this characterization of them as an occupied territory of the North.

Their country would have collapsed long ago without aid from the USA

This is also very strange and backwards, and simply wrong. NK was doing fine until the 70s when its system began faltering. It was propped up by Soviet aid until the USSR fell in 91, and now it survives largely due to Chinese aid/trade. You seem to be either ignoring or unaware of this, so you arrive at the exact opposite of reality: China wants NK as a bulwark against American/SK forces. The last thing they want or need is a unified US-friendly Korean peninsula, hence they put up with the antics of their neighbor.

There is no scenario, from collapse to reunification, that helps China, so they are happy to maintain the status quo.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:16 PM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

"Thoroughly get rid of abuse of authority and bureaucratism!"

I can just see it now: somewhere in the bowels of the North Korean politbureau, there's a low-level dude apologetically going to his boss: "Um, sir? Sir? Excuse me, sir, but we might want to re-think this one...."
posted by easily confused at 2:20 PM on February 15, 2015

Sangermaine, you are embarrassing yourself. If you don't want to hang out in the company of people who are capable of both understanding that the North Korean regime is horrible *and* analyzing the ways in which is being framed by a news story, I'd suggest quitting the thread rather than throwing psuedo-intellectual fits.
posted by tavella at 3:07 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you can be assured to get to define what constitutes abuse of authority or bureaucratism because you say so, such a slogan ceases to be a liability.
posted by acb at 3:08 PM on February 15, 2015

I'm with Sangermaine. Really who the hell cares how they're "translated"? Even if they were translated by fuckin Robert Pinksy they would still be as ridiculous and I would still be laughing at them.
posted by ReeMonster at 3:42 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

These will be familiar to those who spent any time listening to Radio Tirana in the good old days of cold-war shortwave propaganda (and if you care to dial up Voice of Korea, ex-Radio Pyongyang, it's all still going on. I can't get the streaming audio to work. though.)

It's surprisingly hard to make up slogans that have the same sense of sincere lunacy. Strain every sinew of the typing finger to further the just cause of Social Justice Warriors! Cast down the trolls through shining light of online truth! Strive to fill all bandiwdths with ineluctable pearl of mighty Matthowieism!
posted by Devonian at 3:48 PM on February 15, 2015

It's surprisingly hard to make up slogans that have the same sense of sincere lunacy.
Have you ever listened to Rush Limbaugh? I wonder sometimes if he's grooming a son to succeed him... Rush Young-Un.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:58 PM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

I don't think they're necessarily totalitarian, although they really make totalitarianism ring.

Aren't they basically the same as corporate department mission statements?
posted by PMdixon at 4:14 PM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

I always look at a "strong man" in one way, could I do a music video with this person.
posted by clavdivs at 4:37 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yes, there is obviously much lost in translation. The recurring use of the word 'gold' in phrases surrounded by quotes: "gold mountains", "gold plains", "gold sea" and the 'wind' analogies for so many things. An obvious cultural thing, but one you don't have to be racist to laugh at.

And ridiculing the obvious propaganda of terrible oppressive regimes is nothing new. Growing up during the early days of Dr. Demento, one of his most popular songs was Spike Jones' 1942 "Der Fuehrer's Face" which was turned into a Disney cartoon with Donald Duck, a proudly American propaganda piece (and no doubt inspiring Mel Brooks' "Springtime for Hitler" within "The Producers"). Just because we can not yet look back safely and laugh does not mean we cannot laugh.

"All forward towards the venue of victory celebration!" is just their way of saying "Party on, dude!"
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:50 PM on February 15, 2015

Are we really okay with making fun of sayings from other cultures just because they lose their meaning in translation?

Because that's shitty, and just a few doors down from President Kirchner's racist tweets or "Long Duk Dong."
posted by Joseph Gurl at 4:54 PM on February 15, 2015

tavella, if you have a problem take it to MetaTalk. Childish personal insults help no one, least of all you.
posted by Sangermaine at 5:00 PM on February 15, 2015

>Strive to fill all bandiwdths with ineluctable pearl of mighty Matthowieism!

MetaFilter is the precious fruit of the leader's profound, widespread ideological and theoretical activities, and its creation is the most brilliant of his revolutionary achievements.

By creating MetaFilter, the leader opened up a new road leading to victory in the revolution before the working class and the masses of the people, and brought about a historic turn in the fulfillment of the revolutionary cause of the people.

The image is the work of mattdidthat.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 5:13 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Are we really okay with making fun of sayings from other cultures just because they lose their meaning in translation?

No, if the problem with North Korean propaganda was just that it lost its meaning in translation, we probably wouldn't be making fun of it. It's really the murderous totalitarian part that makes it mock-worthy.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 5:21 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Are we really okay with making fun of sayings from other cultures just because they lose their meaning in translation?

Because that's shitty, and just a few doors down from President Kirchner's racist tweets or "Long Duk Dong."

Joseph Gurl, that is a good point, but the thing is, I don't think they do not lose their meaning in translation.
posted by ignignokt at 5:36 PM on February 15, 2015

"Fertilizer means rice and socialism" kind of reminds me of the Soviet slogan "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country," which people supposedly used to parse (quietly) to reveal the messages that "Soviet power is communism minus electrification!" and "Electrification is communism minus Soviet power!"

If "fertilizer" = "manure,"
and "manure" = "bullshit,"
and "fertilizer = rice + socialism,"
then "socialism = bullshit without rice,"
which sounds accurate for the context.
posted by ostro at 5:41 PM on February 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

>No, if the problem with North Korean propaganda was just that it lost its meaning in translation, we probably wouldn't be making fun of it. It's really the murderous totalitarian part that makes it mock-worthy.

Which part of the propaganda is "murderous" and "totalitarian"? DPRK's government may be those things, so by your logic that's mock-worthy, I suppose, but we're making fun of these expressions because they sound funny in English. Fuck that noise.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:41 PM on February 15, 2015

we're making fun of these expressions because they sound funny in English

I'm making fun of them for the same reason I make fun of the workshopped 'vision statements' my own government makes. They're preposterous, delusional fantasies.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 12:21 AM on February 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Except this one's an FPP and those would not be. This is an FPP because they sound funny in English.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:24 AM on February 16, 2015

Putin: pick up what he's putin down!
posted by maxsparber at 3:23 AM on February 16, 2015

Which part of the propaganda is "murderous" and "totalitarian"? DPRK's government may be those things, so by your logic that's mock-worthy, I suppose, but we're making fun of these expressions because they sound funny in English. Fuck that noise.

One could make a case that the propaganda is totalitarian, because the very fact that such absurd and stilted statements can be said and repeated, not only with a straight face but reverence and zeal, in itself reveals the presence of a system of coercion so entrenched that any sort of resistance, or indeed anything short of whole-hearted participation, is not even a possibility.

It's like the Turkmenistan thread, with the population devoting their time to studying Turkmenbashi's holy book of imperial brain-farts. If you see a society participating, in lockstep, in some kind of absurd, whimsical ritual, there's probably an unseen apparatus of terror not too far behind the scenes.
posted by acb at 5:55 AM on February 16, 2015

This is an FPP because they sound funny in English.

This is an FPP because: North Korea

Also, c'mon.... as I brought up earlier -
"Let the strong wind of fish farming blow across the country!"

... that MUST still be funny, even in the original Korean.

A big difference between us and North Korea is that we get to openly laugh at such twaddle, even if it's from our own leaders, and they don't. So please let's not PC our sense of humour away.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:55 AM on February 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Someone needs to create one of those markov chain sentence generators that mashes up NK propaganda slogans with tech recruiter emails, a la Erowid Recruiter. Better yet, mash up the NK propaganda slogans with tech recruiter emails AND Erowid trip reports.
posted by evil otto at 9:32 AM on February 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ok, this is not the thread I was expecting.

My Secret Quonsar[*] got me The Orphan Master's Son, a Pulitzer-winning exploration of NK, and I've been slowly, slowly savoring each chapter as I read it. It's terrifying, harrowing, devastating - I don't have enough adjectives to praise it, but it's hands down one of the best books I've read in the last couple of years.

So reading these slogans just chilled me. To me the most surreal aspect of the ludicrous and horrifying stories about North Korea is the fact that these stories are real. Real people live in these circumstances, where "Bring to completion the rehabilitation of the northern railways as early as possible!" is probably a mass mobilization to shock-work labor camps, and "Read the minds of producers first before measuring the quantity of their products!" is maybe interrogation for failure to meet work quotas.

This is horror, not comedy.

[*] Thank you again, Kostia, if you read this!
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:09 PM on February 16, 2015 [5 favorites]

North Korean Slogan or Ted Talk?
posted by frimble at 5:16 AM on February 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

Except this one's an FPP and those would not be.

People have been making fun of this shit for decades - see, for example, Dilbert. Corporate buzzwords have been regular fodder on this site. As for FPPs, see these examples of people ridiculing a particular group's propaganda:

The Arty Bollocks Generator

Financial Advice Generator

The latter link also includes a Corporate Slogan generator. "Continue to evolve, helping to enable VPN-enabled eProducts for today's data-driven information workers!" is no different to the NK stuff. Except for the murdering innocent people in labour camps, I guess.

This is an FPP because they sound funny in English.

Hey, sure, whatever makes you happy.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 10:59 PM on February 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hey, sure, whatever makes you happy.

Likewise.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:33 AM on February 21, 2015