TRASHFUTURE - North Korean Casino Tales ft. Jake Warren

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

Trashfuture decided to take on the concept of Juche this week. Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), and Olga (@rocknrolga) host VICE and BBC journalist Jake Warren (@TheJakeWarren), who gives his take on Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un’s recent get-together in Singapore, why it offended so many American liberals to see the American flag next to the North Korean one, and what North Korea is like on the inside (to include its only legal gambling spot). Hussein (@HKesvani) was out on deadline for this episode. He’s a ‘real reporter’ with ‘a career.’ You can commodify your dissent with a t-shirt from http://www.lilcomrade.com/, and if you don’t, you’ll disappoint us all. Nate (@inthesedeserts) produced this and is slowly but doggedly getting the boys to turn up their microphone levels whilst recording.  

Seriously, first of all, I actually really like escape rooms and and when you think about living in London, like twenty nine quid an hour for a huge room in central London. Yes, please. That's like that's good rent. That's good good price. That's very, it's very reasonable. I think I've changed my tune about escape rooms now that I think that's just don't escape. Stay there. It's great. Hold on. It's less than escape room and more of a sarcophagus. There's no windows, but hey fantastic transport links. I mean the the thing that would make it, I guess, especially unusual is is that unlike a normal flat, you would have to solve a bewildering

series of puzzles before going to work every morning. That's just being a woman for you. Hello again and welcome to this fine later in the week, possibly weekend. Who knows? Let's see how busy Nate is episode of trash future. The podcast, but how the future is trash. First, I'd like to issue a correction in the last episode we did. I said that I nailed the intro when upon listening back to it. I realized that I actually said the word future twice, so I still haven't actually nailed the intro yet. So I'm going to try to nail the intro this time. Welcome

to trash future. The podcast, how if we do not implement fully automated luxury gaze, gays, communism shit. I said skates, it's gays, communism. The future isn't well be trash. I didn't get it today. I will get it in the future. Why have I given myself a tongue twister that I have to say like multiple times a week for my podcast that I made up? I don't know. I might just not like myself very much welcome to pepper future. The podcast about how Peter Piper picked a pack of pepper. Peter, how Peter Piper redistributed the peppers among the needy.

Peter Pepper opened a pizza restaurant in a basement and then he was killed. Peter Piper's Peterphile pizza. Plain yeah, plain excellent, excellent. We are here today talking about North Korea and all of its glorious and wonderful ins and outs and the bounty that it provides to its people and the ways in which it resists US imperialism. Very little of that was actually sarcastic. Some of it was not as much as maybe a lot of liberal

outlets, such as maybe Vox, which we might actually read from later. Who am I joined with from my right in the ball? Hi, it's me, Milo Edwards. You can find me on Twitter at Milo underscore Edwards. You'll find that I am. I'm one of the few foreigners in Russia this week who hasn't taken a controversial selfie with Ramzan Kadyrov or as he's also known Ed Sheeran, if he had gigantism. Oh boy. My name is Olga. I'm a comedian. You can find me on Twitter at rock and roll guy. And I'd also like to issue a correction. Turns out Jurassic Park isn't actual science. Hello. I'm Jake

Warren. Thank you very much for having me. I'm a journalist who specializes in should we say the more interesting places and people of the world and I have some pretty strange experiences with North Korea. Yeah, so the original escape room. I mean, I think that might have been East Berlin. So you have you've been to North Korea many times in your capacity as a journalist and filmmaker. I believe you said you went with vice. Well, yes, I haven't been many times. I've only actually been the once. I've

been actually though. I got officially invited back yesterday friend of the regime. I do get New Year's Eve cards from them. And a few years ago, they do in terms of them that I am with most of my exes. That's one way of putting it. I mean, they did send me this lovely calendar with the big writing of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung forever. They are with us, which I have hanging up at home and next next to my his below flag, which my my window cleaner, because I keep it at my mom's house discovered a few weeks ago, and he was very close to calling the police until I had to

explain. No, I'm not a terrorist. Well, there was I'm actually a friend of North Korea. So we're now that there is as we it seems like we've taken it or maybe we're being taken for fools, but it seems as though we have taken a sort of step towards peace on the Korean Peninsula, a look towards actually ending the war that's been dragging on there. You think that's that there's any any credence to that? Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, the Donald in all his glory of seeking

two opportunities with strange and wonderful sort of authoritarian leaders is definitely doing some good. Yeah, well, that's probably next on his list. But yeah, I mean, I think clearly you have to give some credit for Donald. You know, it's a historic meeting that's taken place. Yeah, we're all here. We're wearing MAGA hats. The man can make a deal. I mean, he ran on that base. I heard it said a thousand times. Could anyone else make this deal with the North Koreans? No, Donald went in there and he was like, look, I'm telling you,

it's $50. It's three stakes of your choice and you can have sex with any of these women from the 90s. OK, if you don't take that, you're a madman. Kathy Ireland and I are still in very close terms. The summary is essentially that Donald Trump has gone to the Korean Peninsula for reasons that will get into, but that definitely aren't probably aren't related to wanting peace in the Korean Peninsula, but has sort of accidentally produced peace in the Korean Peninsula, or at least is getting there. But before we sort of jump in, there is a New Yorker article by E. Tammy Kim that ends President Moon of

South Korea, surely knowing his man in Washington by now did not respond to any of Trump's unscripted remarks, but after the summit issued a short statement congratulating the US and North Korea on a successful and historic meeting, praising Trump for his initiative and promising to work towards inter Korean peace. South Koreans do not trust Kim or Trump or believe in the possibility of a quick reunification. They are simply aware of the toll that 70 years of national division have taken and are eager for an alternative future. And I think that is the passage to keep in mind when we

then sort of explore the rest of this, which is when you ask actual Koreans, they're like, yeah, this is basically a good thing because who boy are there a lot of people, mainly liberal think tank wonks who think this is a terrible idea. I mean, I think it's a good thing. I mean, you talk to people from South Koreans and people that are, you know, other than me can't speak from people I've spoken to, they think it's a good thing because homogenously, they are one people. There's no, no, nothing ethnically different from an North Korean to a South Korean, you know, you have uncles and aunts still separated by the

parallel. I think there's wariness though, because people say, you know, economically, when Germany reassembled, it was they're saying it will be four times the economic burden than it was for a West German to take on an East German, so that it will cripple the South Korean economy, unless that is done in a way in which they have assistance. Yeah, and I'm sure all of the it's weird. We're going to we're going to we're going to hear from a couple of the heritage heritage foundation ghouls, but I'm relatively certain that right now, when they're wearing their sort of Raytheon cheerleader hat, they're

saying, no, this is a terrible idea. They must reunify because we might be able to, you know, engage in a glorious bombing campaign and, you know, wipe an entire sort of one of the most densely populated peninsulas in the world completely off the map for the sake of flags, I guess, as soon as I mean, right, let's not let's not slag off that as an option too early. I mean, because look, I'm I'm an unemployed man, right? I mean, I have no way of making money. My only chance really of getting gainful employment is being conscripted into a pointless forever war in the Korean Peninsula, and you want to deny

me that opportunity. No, you have a podcast. You don't need to play in a movie. How dare you? You play anyone in a movie. No, he wouldn't Nicholas Cage money's right Nicholas Cage switches face with Kim Jong-un somehow Nicholas Cage is a great actor. I will not hear all the declaration and independence. Look, anyone who has anyone who is listening to this podcast, you hasn't watched bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans has to stop listening to this podcast and go watch bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans, perhaps one of the best films ever made. Is that a sequel to

something about the tenant? Okay, because I was like, does someone come into a studio and just pitch that long of a title about the tenant and go on what of God? Is that it? Hang on a minute is but which port what kind of lieutenant which port and of what type is it?

That's what we need to know. That's the minimum amount of knowledge for a title military honey. That's a synopsis. Oh what we don't go we need. What do we need? We need a descriptor. Okay, good. We need a military rank. Got it. We need a place. Okay, we need the function of that place, but we need to know specifically where on earth that type of place is. Otherwise, what's the point of going to see the movie? How do you know you're going to like it? It's why I'm so sorry. I refuse to see the toy story movie. I need to know plastic for plastic sheriff kids room and I don't know. It looks like it's sort of set in the

midwest plastic sheriff mid room Illinois kids room Illinois. That's what I want to know. That's all the basic information I need for a movie North Korea. We're talking about it. I took us on this entire rip. I don't even know what I'm doing anymore, but I was what I was saying. Look that all of these like liberal ghouls would be like ghouls shift will be a sharring shift of token will who are currently calling for the entire place to be obliterated in the name of respecting the flag as soon as it looks like there's about to be some reconstruction than you can. I'm calling it now. They're all going to switch their tone to be like look we're going to need to make sure we unleash the power

of the competitive market in North Korea. Like they're going to be like look we're going to the only way they're going to be able to compete in the world stage is if we set up a company that harvests organs. I think also people are sort of giving the Donald in America a lot of stick for seemingly legitimizing what is a terrible regime, but 70 years of the threat of nuclear war and sanctions and they're still standing. Maybe it's time to try something new and if the people of North Korea's life gets a miniscule better because the Donald's decided to shake hands with him for a photo opportunity, surely that's a good thing. I'm curious to find out like what is, first of all, is it okay for you to talk to like North Korean people that you met there about the

political stance of the future or no? I guess it is. I actually found that when I was in North Korea and the people I was with, obviously you're minded and you're watched, but they're actually far more nuanced than you would imagine in terms of understanding what's going on with the outside world. I always think like one of the most reductive things we do is when we talk about North Koreans as people, they're always sort of like these Stepford Wyve robots, goose stepping around on command and crying on cue rather than being individuals that understand any of the complexities and intricacies of the outside world. And actually they do a little bit more than you would imagine and especially when you deal with diplomats. They love all of the English idioms and sort of talking

about politics and stuff like that. So actually there is more space to talk to them on more of a human level than you would imagine rather than just being portrayed as robots with wearing little pin badges, sort of saying destroy the West. Actually there is space to have constructive conversations, I think. As I mentioned before the podcast, I am in no way equating our experiences. I never would. But when I came to South Korea, the craziest thing to me was that again, as you mentioned, because they see it themselves as the same people, for them, they don't see them as enemies. If anything, for me, you know that like classic Sundance movie of like a bad sister and a good sister and then like the good sister is like, oh, not again. And then North Korea is the one acting

out. But like it felt like they're constantly, like they are like, oh, we're going to unite, we're just waiting until we unite. Is that something, an attitude that they have in North Korea where they're like, yeah, we're definitely going to unite or no? I think so. I mean, they always talk about, you know, choreo, you know, the one nation of Korea, they're all together and that they're, you know, brothers or sisters or cousins who are, you know, of the same family of one who are, you know, pulled apart for political reasons and external reasons rather than them not wanting to be together united as one nation. So I think they both want to be reunited. They both feel they would be reunited. I think the, you know, the discrepancy comes from how, you know,

is it going to be with Kim Jong-un with his sweet fade leading us into the bright future? Or is it going to be, you know, president? Is it President Moon? That's pretty bad. I can't remember the South Korea or is it President Moon? So I think, yeah, they're both striving towards the same end. It's obviously just very different means in the middle. Full name Sailor Moon, right? I found the flag. I found one of the best flag takes on there from someone who is seen, who it likes to resist the savagery of Trump from someone who wants, outwardly wants a better, more peaceful world near a Tandon. I wish I had a near a Tandon

Klaxon. I do not near a Tandon tweets. I'm just surprised everyone seems cool with the North Korean flag standing side by side with America, the American flag. Why won't every murderous dictator seek nuclear weapons? If this is the treatment they get after they do, how dare you have a bilateral summit where both countries are trying to print out a flag. You could do this in your home listeners. No, yeah. If near a Tandon so mad, why doesn't she just print out a whole bunch of copies of the Korean flag and arrange them all over her house underneath copies of the American flag? Is that an American journalist publication? She's like a near a Tandon is like a like

a big time, like Hillary figure. I just I just never understand the fascination with well, you know, the sort of like the fying of flags. It's such a strange. It's such a strange thing. The folding, the burning Jesus. I mean, obviously in America, you know, the flag is this great symbol of something. I mean, you know, the St. George's flag is all right. You know, it's great, but it kind of I don't think we feel the same way about it in England. You put it on Jerry Hallowell. Exactly. She wore the flag. You know, there's our diplomacy. Send her in American flag. I think what this is any anything to make Jerry Hallowell less visible. I think this is actually something very telling about the way

that anyone who tries to make politics about the flag is obviously being disingenuous and you can because anytime the sort of conservative chud media sort of lashes out at they, you know, the NFL for, you know, not, you know, sacrificing one player a game in honor of the flag in the troops, right? Like every time that happens, then what they're really doing, they're not really expressing how much they love the flag. They're expressing how much, you know, they just say, yeah, they're expressing how much they hate these damn ungrateful athletes who just happen to be black. You know, it's them expressing anger that someone dares defy them and it's the same thing with fucking dumbasses like near attendant where all of a sudden she's someone who tries to set

herself up in opposition to these like, you know, flag fuckers who are angry at that football and, you know, now she's saying, I know we can't make peace in their Korean Peninsula because of honoring the flag. It's like anyone who wants to honor the flag is trying to bring that reason to the North Koreans. We're very sorry, Kim, actually, because of some problems to do with honoring our flag, we aren't able to do it unless you stand at full salute, completely naked, sing the national anthem in front of the then we can we can get to talking. It's like, look, Trump is Trump has been a negative and mainly mainly negative and mainly murderous force. I mean, on this same day, Jeff Sessions announces that like asylum seekers of fleeing domestic violence and

other sort of similar situations are no longer going to be allowed in the United States, thereby making tons of asylum claims in the United States immediately invalid and probably leading to many deaths. That is something that they also did today, but for but people like near attendant are unable to sort of just foot there. Oh, no, the flag. We're good. We hate this guy, and so we're going to say that it's because we love the flag because in having a bilateral summit where any two countries would have their flags equal, any two countries would have their flags sitting beside one another having in a summit. It's like, no, he did the normal thing. He didn't say, okay, you know, Kim, we can have a flat. We can have a summit, but you're going to have to be

my footstool the entire time, right? Like, you know, because he didn't say that, but you'll have to wear one of Ivanka's purses. We can try the North Korean flag can be there, but Trump has to wear it as a bib. I'm going to eat him on Ribs Day. Yeah, right, like it. So that's and so there's just they're so there that you can anyone who's apoplectically angry about the use of a flag is always trying to act as a wallet inspector. It's strange that the idea that a flag is more important than someone potentially a human being losing their life. Like why is that more important? I don't understand. I think I feel like that's uniquely American thing. Well, they do worship their flag there on and that's the thing of all. I'm not going to say

both sides do it because there are three sides. The two sides that are to the right of everyone on this show. We love the flag, but the other it's weird not to bring up auto warm beer, but to bring up the flag. Well, yeah, even then I could be like, okay, well, this is a reasonable thing to say. I stayed in the same hotel as him, where he tried to steal the thing, steal the poster, whatever he tried to steal. There's it was like a massive hanging poster that was over the place where you go for your breakfast and he obviously just tried to rip it down and steal it and I mean, obviously, what happened to him is absolutely awful, you know, young guys. I just wanted to merge. That's something I can relate to.

It's weird because actually, I think there's actually like, there's quite an important point with that as well in the sense of, you know, auto warm beer was, you know, what was he like, 22 years old, you know, young, probable. I think it was like an evangelical Christian, you know, American kid for one of a better term. And there's these strange sort of touring companies which effectively portray North Korea as this sort of silly place where you can come and take selfies with, you know, funny dictators and come to a place, you know, where Christianity's banned and you can spread the good word and it's all a bit silly and fun. But then actually not making you aware of the consequences if something goes wrong, you know, especially in a country where

you have no diplomatic rights, you know, where, you know, you know that there's miscarriages of, you know, in terms of people, you can actually die if you do something wrong. I think actually, you know, it's so bad that that the touring companies are allowed to operate things like that where it's like just come and have a silly fun time without making people aware of the consequences. So yeah, the idea it is that sense of American exceptionalism where you feel like you can go to, you can go to a Jiu-Jitsu country and you can be like, I'm going to fuck about. Yeah, yeah, and there's no consequences because America. Yeah, because exactly because it's not okay for him to die, right? Can we just? Of course not. Absolutely,

tragically sad and by no means, you know, the tragic loss of life for a young person. My where I want to try and lay blame is the touring companies that effectively are, you know, enticing young, shall we say naive people who don't understand the consequences and the realities of places in the world like North Korea saying, come over and have a silly fun time, but, you know, not, you know, not making them aware that actually you do have to, you know, abide by a set of rules or if you get in the shit, we're not going to be able to get you out, you know, you're going to have to spend probably a minimum year doing some hard labor, you know, and I think that is actually criminal. But it's terribly sad that he, you know, he died. I mean, that's awful.

And I think it's this is actually a very difficult thing to there's a very difficult thing to talk about where on the one hand you have to understand, right? Like only like 10 dumb tankies online think that, you know, North Korea is a good place to I think is a good place to live that you'd want to live and that is like your hero in the struggle against American imperialism. But I think it's also shout out to all ten of our listeners also. It's also important to realize right that like the they have in terms of foreign policy. They've acted entirely reasonably right. Like it's not like these people don't it's not like Kim doesn't look and see what happens when you get if you're a very friendly with the United States and get rid of your of your weapons.

I mean, Mo Marga Daffy was famously was brought back into the fold of into the fold of nations when he agreed to denuclearize and then nothing very good happened to him or at the same time you look at you look you look at at at Iraq, right? Like it maybe if they'd had a nuclear weapon they wouldn't like that country wouldn't be dust now whose main export was like beheading videos. Yeah, I mean like if you're Kim Jong-un, you'd be thinking, you know, a very high production values on those videos though. You know, people talk about, you know, Kim agreeing to, you know, complete denuclearization. But if you're Kim Jong-un and you're looking at it from the perspective of, you know, I'm a North Korea enthusiast in terms of the regime. Well, look at what happened to

Saddam Hussein when he, you know, supposedly gave his weapons up. Look what happened to Gaddafi, you know, this didn't end well for these guys, even Assad is, you know, sort of holding on. So actually, what is the benefits of you're trying to maintain your Gucci way of life of giving up your nuclear weapons? And I also think as a secondary thing, for me, one of my main motivations to go to North Korea and spend time there and, you know, be involved with it is because for me, that I don't see enough of a separation in when people talk about North Korea between the regime and the people. You know, 24 million people didn't choose to be born North of the 38th parallel. And I think to just sort of portray them all as robots is really dehumanizing. And actually,

it's one of the strangest but also most interesting places that I've ever been, you know, and actually there's a lot of commonality there as well as just fuck me, this is alien. Yeah. Can you talk a little more about that? Yeah. I mean, I still remember vividly my first official meeting when I got to North Korea, you know, you land and, you know, if you're landing at Heathrow, the first person you sort of see is wearing, you know, fuzzy earmuffs and wearing a high vis jacket, whereas the first person I saw was wearing a monstrously enormous hat and had a K-47 sort of like ushering you this way. I was like, well, I'm finally here now. That's what I were to prom.

And then I kind of truly monstrous hat. I met my like minders and my tour guides and my translators and all this stuff because they had invited me to come. And, you know, I got ushered into this strange bill. Everything is far too big in North Korea. It's, you know, it's enormous and doesn't need to be. And a lot of places we can go there, but I was mostly going to go down a real estate route. But they ushered me into this room and there's this enormous table and there was the sort of leader of the delegation of people who were meeting me and sort of was in charge of me. And I had this, my translator who spoke perfect English, you know, spoke English probably better than I do, said to me, Mr. Jong would like to ask you a question about your life in the West.

So I was thinking, oh, Christ, here it comes, you know, you running dog, you know, capitalist pig, all of this stuff, you know, what's it like living a life of sin? So I'm, you know, you know, preparing my answer, thinking in my head what's it going to be. And she said, Mr. Jong would like to know, is it true you eat bread with every meal in the West? And I didn't know what to do. And I just thought about it for a minute. And I said, yes, it is true, Mr. Jong, is it true you eat rice with every meal in the East? And he sort of, you know, did that sort of stern North Korean face? Oh, yes, yes, we do. And I really felt, you know, after that, we were friends. And that kind of, you know,

segwayed into the rest of the trip. And yeah, it's not a place where you're constantly told to admonish the sins of your evil capitalist Western lifestyle. I mean, sometimes you are. I can't relate because I don't eat carbs. And hey, maybe we should. Maybe we should be admonished for some of those sins. So I don't have you ever been to Vietnam where they have the American, the War of American War, the Museum of American War crimes. Oh my God, my mom told me about that. It's crazy. They have a similar one in North Korea. And they, I got was given a guided tour with this woman, you know, wearing full, you know, uniform. And she's taking us round. And she's telling us,

and this is where we shot down, you know, like 10 million US planes, you know, it's all complete bollocks. And we get to the end of the tour. And she said, if you'd now like to take a moment to admonish yourself for the sins of your forefathers, you may do so. I say that the end of sex. I will do that. Yes. I mean, it's this again. You also don't don't forget. It's not like, you know, I can't imagine if the US army flew in tomorrow, they would particularly be greeted as liberators because I think it's quite clear in the in the Korean memory in Korean memory that we have dropped or we the US has dropped millions of tons of bombs of napalm on this

peninsula as essentially put it in a state of like, you know, destitution for last 70 years. And, you know, is is now saying, hey, guess what? Can't you wait for us to come in and get back involved? Yeah, so I think there is there is this. There is this idea that that these aren't these are the that the much it's very easy for Americans, especially like Heritage Foundation goons and defense and like defense industry intellectuals to imagine the populations of other countries have totally have have personalities that are one of two things sometimes both at once you see it with Iran as well where the imagination where the imagine either this is a population that's crying out to be liberated by America specifically so that they could they

too can have private health care or it's a population that is working in lockstep all together to destroy America. And I see both I see both of those sort of stereotypes represented with reactions to the deal that Trump has managed to make. Well, I think also when it comes to North Korea, it's I think people feel like every single North Korean wants the regime to topple and they're just waiting for America to roll in and save them. But actually, it doesn't work like that. It's structured like any society, not necessarily for them predicated on class like maybe it is here, but it's done by a system of called Songbun, which is basically your position in society is is predicated by your

perceived loyalty to the regime. So if you're a member of the party, and you're living it up in Pyongyang, and you're the son of some general, you're probably living quite a good life, as being part of that regime. If you're someone who's not allowed to be in the party, you're essentially a surf in a field toiling, breaking your back, and then you die, then you probably do feel like actually, I want the regime to topple and for its change. But it's not one or the other, I don't think. Well, it's as I think many Hawks would prefer that it were just one or the other. Well, that is very similar to, as my parents were born and raised in a Soviet Union, that's very similar to the Soviet thing of money not really doing the talking,

but more your social standing during the talking and like your connections. Yeah. And it all comes down to being a member of the party. So you're not automatically a member of the Workers' Party. In the Soviet Union, you had to apply and sometimes the interviews and you would just not be part of it. And then you would like wouldn't get a job. I mean, like it's kind of like you have, I guess it almost the most important class for one of a better way of terminal is the middle, because the top people who are the sons of the diplomats and the generals, they're always going to live the life of Riley, they're going to have a great time. You've got the people who are literally just surfs in the field who are going to have a terrible

life. It's those people that have the opportunity to go to university to become a member of the party or a shunned, you know, because one of the sort of awful things they have in North Korea is they have a grandfather clause in terms of if you commit crime. So if someone commits a crime in your family, not only are you guilty, but the next two generations of your family are guilty, so as to weed out the criminal gene for want of a better way. So it's like grandfather clause for me is a loophole for me to cheat on my boyfriend. What if you had a grandfather two generations ago? You can cheat on your boyfriend. No, I just can fuck grandfathers only if you wear your cat clause me. Yeah, I'll go and I only peg you show peg your children and your children's children.

That's how far reaching my dildo is. It fucks through time. It's like Brazilian barbecue. I did weirdly have the sound almost of like an official North Korean government statement, like the far reaching dildo of justice and it's righteous vengeance. But I mean one thing about the liberating thing, the paradox of the liberating is like we will liberate you as Americans by destroying your country, but then we won't let you into ours. Like the internal logic of that is so warp, especially given that like both of those kind of happen today. Exactly like it's like you stay, but don't be how you were. Stop it. Stop everything, including moving freeze. Did you see that weird thing where it was like Trump made the little gag to the photography was like

make us look thin and great and you know, that's like gag. I don't believe that Kim Jong-un doesn't speak English. I think he's that's my fear. I think he speaks quite good English, but just can't be asked to talk. How does he communicate with Dennis Radman? Well, they have translators and stuff. But yeah, basketball as well. He's a Chicago Bulls fan. But you could see Kim Jong-un's face kind of linking one. What the fuck is this guy talking about? You know, like and to me, that just he understood what you know what Donald Trump was saying was completely bizarre. Make us look sexy. Make us look thin. You know, what the fuck? Yo, I'm here trying to get a new Tinder profile picture. Really excited that even Donald

Trump has body image issues. Oh my God, Kim Jong-un is married to the love my curvy wife guy. Oh, that guy fucking sucks. God, I wonder what that guy's doing right now. That I mean, his life was ruined by that. No, he's doing it. No, he's tripled down. He's doing it all the time. Every morning of my life, I wake up thinking like imagine his wife walking into his room after finding it online and be like, what the fuck? You think I'm fat? You should be so lucky. Donald Trump. I love my curvy dictator. I just I just I just have to read everything he says in the voice of Johnny sack. People say my wife. I gotta have a whack. It's a matter of respect. But actually the there are a couple of things I want to I want to hop to before we

before we carry on totally, which is the second half of the near attendant tweet, which is just brilliant. Why won't every murderous dictator seek nuclear weapons if this is the treatment they get after they do being just generally respected and not just played hardball with like the Obama administration did for eight years, accomplishing nothing or in the case of the of the Iran deal, accomplishing something that was immediately torn up is the treatment taking a picture with Donald Trump because that's what every person in Trump University mean with a cut out of Trump, but still really. That's oh yes. You get to meet Donald Trump. What a fucking reward

that the one is just doing the little thumbs up to Kim Jong-un. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed that. Nice work, buddy. It's it's nice that they bring the kids out now. When's the guy getting here? Really? It's the why won't every murderous dictator signal cure weapons if this is the treatment they get after they do? Well, it's I don't know politics. Maybe is why I'm pretty sure every murderous dictator does seek nuclear power, doesn't he? I mean, I'm sure they wouldn't turn it down. Yeah, it's like, oh, no, if I hang, it's like you just someone's like walking into like walking, walking up to like Ramzan Kadyrov and it's like, hey, you could split away from Russia. We're going to give you your own nuclear weapon. You could have your own thing.

And then he's like, no, I want to meet Trump. Yeah, I want a killer weapon or a photo with Trump. It's just like, no, I just want the shape of you to go triple pleasure. These guys are just it's just wonderfully stupid, especially because the one of the articles I'm using as a reference for this is on liberal publication of Vox, so shouts out to Matty Glacius and Ezra Klein, my melt gods, shouts out, shouts out, shouts out to my boys, the the old school fam, the the young guns specifically who really want the guns aimed back at North Korea. So the actual agreement it comes in four parts. It's that the US and DPRK commit to establish new US DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for

peace and prosperity. The US and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime in the Korean Peninsula, reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Penmunjom declaration, the DPRK commits toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the US US and DPRK commit to recovering POW and MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified. And I think the only take that we should actually listen to on the effectiveness of this particular sort of agreement framework is that of the South Koreans, which follows now. So this this this article by in in Vox, so shouts out Matty Glacius and Ezra Klein Olga really wants to fuck Ezra Klein for some reason. I mean you maybe you could you could

you think you could turn him left wing with pegging you love pegging I love pegging. That's why I first listened to this show because it's pegging Barbie and that she's pointing left. So I just pointed to the scientist plus sized Barbie that I have in my home that has a strap on on it. I always like to imagine that that's actually like a real production Barbie that was made in like the late the late 90s in a misguided attempt to produce a feminist Barbie. If you enjoyed business Barbie, you'll love pegging Barbie. It is very much she's very much all business pegging Barbie comes with an additional hobbling Ken in this new gift set the this this Vox article. I won't read from it too much,

but just to point a few things out. Number one, the biggest policy change that Trump actually unveiled was that the US will halt joint military exercises with South Korea, which they basically used to put military pressure on North Korea. Now if your framework of your agreement commits to working towards peace and prosperity, it kind of makes sense that you would stop joint military exercises unrelated not to be confused with pegging Barbie, the lesbian punishment for now and that was for you and that look and that they say that look oh Trump has made this concession without getting anything remotely comparable from Kim in return despite the fact that one of the main principles is the complete denuclearization of the Korean

peninsula and also I think it's important to remember that symbolism is really powerful for North Korea. So the fact that yes, it's just war games and you know exercises the fact that if you say that you're going to stop doing that that probably is far has far more weight in North Korea than it does for people in America because you know they're so big on their imagery and symbolism and actions that the fact that they're not doing that actually that is a that is a big breakthrough I think because if you do do that then it's all about it's all about North Korea saving face isn't it and exactly it's that and I think a lot of the liberal the liberal commentators the especially the liberal ones the ones who are angry that that the American flag was placed on

unequal footing with the Korean flag and the fact that and simply the fact that like they shook hands you know and and these are the ones who are saying that like we're going to put aside our 60 year old ally and friend in South Korea on showing I think in just such complete such complete ignorance that this is this was this was this was one of the one of these guys one of these sort of liberal professors Robert telly the guy whose kid ran in on him in the in that very yeah but he's saying that the guy who's definitely not wearing any trousers and those as well as just suit done up to 11 but he's definitely not wearing trousers this the kid's like dad what are you doing with barbie get out of here son I'm saving the world oh he's saying that we're casting aside our 60

year old our 60 year ally and friend despite the fact that if you listen to earlier in this episode you'll hear the president of South Korea say this is basically a good thing it's like no it's a bad thing you don't know we need war war war war war yeah it's bizarre it's completely nonsensical to say that South Korea would be anti-trump and Kim meeting anything that you know looks like it's going to foster more of an environment of peace on the Korean peninsula it's surely a good thing for South Korea as well especially if you look in the recent weeks the friendly relations between president Moon and you know Kim Jong-un like it it it's a good thing not I've done that so hard to make that to see the plausible argument for being a bad thing then

it's like the near attendance in the Robert Kellys of this world are just going into full goldfish brain mode because they've utterly forgotten that there is a broader air of rapprochement that's happening on the peninsula that's followed an increase in tensions it's almost as though there it's almost as though liberal intervention isn't just the end all be all of foreign policy and either we're going to sort of have an expanding version of the European Union or we're just going to get nuked into dust by murderous dictators it's like if you really push the way they see the world this is how like even the heritage foundation people and there is like near attendant this is how they all see the world guys also as ever this is just history

repeating itself because the pearl clutching over America's big clever boy Donald Trump shaking hands with Kim Jong-un really only serves to remind me of my favorite incident of I want to go with like 2003 maybe 2002 when Jack Straw supposedly accidentally shook the hand of Robert McGarbie and then when it became a sort of weird controversy tried to get out of it by saying it was dark one of the best things that ever happened in world politics in my I thought it was it was Morgan if like that sounds like like you're at like a swing party like you just you hey you don't know whose hand you're shaking but but also I think it's it was it it was it one of Sylvia Berlusconi's parties but I also think the argument for not for Donald Trump legitimizing

the North Korean regime like I'm not an expert or an analyst on North Korea I'm just you know I've been there and know a few North Koreans but if you were you would not be on this podcast but Bill Clinton had one of the generals to one of the North Korean generals at his White House when he was in power and Jimmy Carter actually flew there not when he was president but actually flew there as a head of a dedication and a delegation into North Korea to negotiate the release of prisoners so there is you know years and years of history of high-ranking American diplomats and politicians engaging with the North Korean regime and not only that right like like these these there also is years and years of history of politicians like Barack Obama and

George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush all going to like supporting like basically like fascist terrorist regimes throughout all of Central America about Noriega you know he's a bastard but he's our bastard yeah well it's like these it's like they're all going to be like no no it's it's it's okay that Barack Obama it's okay that Barack Obama like you know shook hands with scar from the lion king and then like you know had it had like inspector guy inspector gadget catapulted into the sun like that was that was different that was smart diplomacy but this rapprochement with a murderous dictator this is bad for some reason I always think with North Korea is yeah it's also like what is what is legitimizing the North Korean regime mean anyway because it's like well they are

the regime so like you can either acknowledge it or not but like whether or not you acknowledge it makes absolutely no difference whether or not it is in fact the truth like yeah exactly like that and also just I think it goes uh no pun intended but hand in hand with like the flag things like we have these weird like obscenely like obscene over reactions to rituals like flags and like handshakes I mean a handshake is like a polite thing to do that just what you do in society we live in society just like we over assign meanings to like pieces of cloth it's insane also it's like I always enjoy looking at twitter you know the the dark never regions of twitter when stuff like this happened because you always have these people going oh well that's a mason

handshake they just did you know this is the illuminatiere play here I was talking to some woman the other day I was talking to some woman the other day and she said well you know of course the both trump and kim are masons I was thinking they're masons yeah I mean that is such a small niche part of communities to be a part of anyway that fucking masons are running the world it completely baffling well I think we shouldn't kid ourselves that sort of trump is doing this because he is genuinely interested in pursuing peace I mean I I as much as I impune his critics who are all all of whom are just the worst type of people who should be mercilessly denied a public platform at the same time like you can't imagine like it's it'd be foolish to imagine that you

know donald trump thought he was doing anything other than going to like you know a weird guns version of disneyland which was here right yeah self glorification isn't it the abilities for him to turn around and go well I managed to do something north career is a reality tv show and that he went there to congratulate the winner kim jong-in the most hot dogs and that's why I want yeah that might genuinely be the case you might be like who is the who is this guy is this a cancer kid oh I can't imagine him saying to kim jong-in be like hey man I hear you ate over 400 hot dogs I got a lot of respect for that I did a similar thing myself once when I was fucking these two hookers back in the 80s and kim jong-in's like what

North Korea is now a trump franchise well here's the thing you like you it's like one massive gulf course you can you can look at like you can look at what some of the things that that trump has said there are two that really leap out to me one is look the war games are very expensive and we paid for a big majority of them we fly bombers in from guam that's a long time for these big massive planes be flying from south to south korea to practice then drop bombs over the place and then I'll go back to guam look I know a lot about airplanes it's very expensive again this this is the this is this is the similar thing where it's like yeah we have to cancel the naval operations look I had a lot of I've had a lot of great times on boats and let me tell you if

we take out those guns we could put in a lot more hot tubs of course referring to the time that he bragged about being in a boat or g to the Boy Scouts of America which he did last year okay look my friend Jeffrey says he can get us a very good retron trip deal from guam to career and back look I have if there's there's there's a good friend of mine his name is Jeffrey Epstein we can have a lot we could be look I'm just saying there are lighter things out there than bombs to load to load it for plane with look but it's so trump is fundamentally a transactional person he just he sees everything is a deal the entire world is just deals and this is just another deal to him he sees he sees it as a business deal and he's like oh we could we can save a bunch of money

on on fly on on just not flying planes out anymore because he's just like oh we can save on gas we won't have to send a text message to the president of South Korea being like ass gas or grass like we're not going to have to do that anymore it's going to be great we're going to save on our phone bill I just made two deals really that's that's that is what's going through his head like we can't we can't imagine that he's some kind of like you know an internationalist peacemaker no it's not it's definitely you know you'd have to be very naive I think to accuse trump of doing it for humanitarian reasons you know it's all about one-upmanship with him isn't it you know you know Obama could never do this but Donald I'm going to do it baby you know it's it just lead him to

making doing good things make it seem like it's his idea if he does good things with terrible you know with sort of bad intentions in mind well there's still good things that are being done no one hundred percent so like I'm going to I'm going to problem with that you know donald donald listen to me listen to me ice that that gestapo that is operating in america that's like separating children from their families and like you know committing unspeakable heinous violations Obama significantly strengthened them he actually increased their power again that's actually true he did do that so maybe I don't I don't I don't I don't buy the whole sort of like dichotomy of like Obama good trump bad you know I don't think I don't think any of our

listeners do either no that's yeah that's certainly not one for this podcast is it it's more of a vox readership this podcast absolutely hates compromise no we're all about compromise most of our listeners sing trotski also may please delete that boy scouts of america bit please but leave in that bit so people wonder what it was perfect perfect perfect perfect and then they'll DM me and be like are you single another another sort of brilliant trump utterance in the in the aftermath of this was saying that look north korea as north guys that maybe sanctions start to lift an international investment in north korea as possible like quote they have great beaches you see that wherever they're

exploding their cannons into the ocean I said oh boy look at that view wouldn't that make a great condo as zayn malik one saying it's a paradise and it's a war zone thank you and I explained I said condo with a great view of generals being executed by artillery fire and I explained I said you know instead of doing that that you could have the best hotels in the world right there think of it for a real estate perspective you have south korea you have china and they'll land in the middle how bad is that right it's great I mean well he's got north korea also bizarrely in different circumstances would be a wonderful place to go on holiday the temperatures there you can go skiing in the winter super cold lovely mountains of snow very warm in the summer they have lovely beaches

they've just in the process of building or maybe it's just come out they've sort of built their version of fort park in their northern town of woosan well you're going to have to tell me a lot about that right now well so unfortunately I've not been there yet although I did have an invite to go but uh yeah effectively it's fort park north korea so some lovely slip and slides playing around in the sea intermingled with a bit of jiu-jitsu messaging so for a lot of your listeners it's probably actually their idea of heaven can you buy entry using nectar points get a little before you go on drop zoo and you get a little loyalty test to see if the brakes go it's perfect I mean yes it's uh well actually if you go skiing in north korea you're taking your life

into your own hands because they built this ski resort called massacry young which is kind of crazy and a lot of japanese russians um chinese go skiing they're not really many westerners and they you know they're trying to make it very westernized lots of alcohol all the signs are in english are they built russians go there russians go there russians do something insane that's going to say indulging in a authoritarian regime but um they built this they built this ski resort and unfortunately due to international sanctions um no country would sell the many ski lifts so in the end on whatever i don't know what the black market i got it yeah they ended up buying these 1960s bulgarian ski lift casts off so if you go skiing there you are literally taking your life

you're an ant hell have you been skiing there yes haven't sadly yet i can't imagine how bad and the ski lift wasn't bulgarian in the 1960s but i'm going with bad yeah i think the safety record is probably not the greatest i mean what what more i mean what more of a free song could you get not just rushing down the the hill but also knowing that you just beat the odds i literally live mr kim we got these ski lifts from from a country at the forefront of technology yugoslavia i think look as a as a sort of concluding thought i think the really telling line from that last line of trump it trump said is think of it from a real estate perspective which he more or less is he doesn't he's not thinking of it like someone who wants to say you

know um it engage in a glorious war and is willing to you know sex up a dodgy dossier to do it he's thinking of it from someone who's like oh i could probably corruptly make a few bucks off of the korean peninsula but i feel like look if trump is going to make another half million dollars also it makes the idea of the idea of like regenerating a country through real estate is insane because like real estate has no inherent value like real estate is only as valuable as like the stuff that it's near so like just saying like look you have space in north korea it's like all countries have space like that's not a it's not like a thing you can make money out but it's undeveloped it's relative some kind it's relative it's like seashore is relatively undeveloped due

to all the cannon fire or at least it's undeveloped in terms of a valuable real estate i think the point i'm making is look i'd rather no one owned that he land privately that would be my preference but if like you know allowing donald trump to enrich himself slightly that comparative what he currently has in exchange for like deescalating a species threatening a prospect of nuclear war i'm basically fine with that i'm calling love island north korea now that'd be a great show finally some fucking diversity on that show but also i think actually and i'm not an expert again there's a i have to put that in as a caveat but the idea of sort of like free market principles in north korea isn't as alien i think as people assume it is you know

they've already started having these sort of market stools which have run in a far more sort of capitalist way than just being assigned here's your stall here's your goods you know they're allowing people to make money you have these special cards so they're starting to open up and do more and more schemes which are far more westernized although of course it is still illegal to engage in capitalistic tendencies as i found out with um because you can pay but i've got a coffee there once i'm good this is a bit tangent but i've got a coffee there a coffee and you can pay in you know in wong in yen in euros or in dollars and i um overpaid and the woman didn't have enough change and she was really like worrying i was like you know keep the change

she's like no no no i can't send it up giving me like a stick of gum because if she had kept you know the 12 cents change that would be indulging in capitalist behavior and is a criminal offence wow the thing that you we have to look out for in in the it as if north korea if this goes well and north korea does emerge more into the world economy i think the thing that kind of makes me slightly well depressed about it is that i always sort of remember the statistic that the biggest single drop in living standards um in recorded history was when the soviet union broke up in the early 1990s right like because yes life wasn't great but at least all the things that made life bearable like like the fact that they had like at least some medical care were

then immediately privatized and taken away from everybody so like i completely don't think you know enough about this and i know much more about this but i will not comment i think the i think i like obviously that wasn't a perfect way to do it but i don't think that that is an argument to keep people enslaved no it's not the argument to keep people enslaved it's to it's to un enslave in such a way that doesn't just make them new i think it's very easy to talk about it in such a way and i think rush is a particularly good example of how poorly it can be done but also when in history do you know a situation in which it was done well the thing is history doesn't know how to do it well no and we can theorize about it so much there just isn't a

perfect and the problem is it's not going to be it's unless all of a sudden like the core western countries who are going to be managing this process like unless there's some kind of series of lightning strikes and then we end up with like you know bernie sanders and cherry corbin in charge of like two of the more powerful western countries and we sort of end up negotiating maybe a less free market-based approach to the reintegration you have to have people like completely agree sorry i'm quite passionate about the subject i am doing a show about it at the end of refresh but like i think or just you have to negotiate with people to agree to take kind of like cuts the way that west germany did right like you need to have people on board to like to lower their

standard of living in order to improve somebody else well i mentioned it earlier about the you know the economic burden for south koreans if they were you know it's four times what west germany was you know having east germany joined them but i think there's a few key differentiators between you know north korea and russia you know the main one being literally just the vast size of population difference and also i think it's important you know north korea clearly in it is you know the cousin of china for one of a better word you know they're still closely aligned you know you could you could make the argument that he went to see li xing ping recently to get his orders for what he was to do when he was seeing trump so if north korea was to you know enter

the brave new world it would have to be done and it likes it probably would be done with the assistance of china south korea and america and you'd like to think that with all of them combined there'd be a way in which it was less disastrous than when the soviet union did it i mean maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part but i mean china is theoretically halfway through or however long i said but guys there's nothing to worry about because russia's completely fine now in the end well i think and speculating as to how it will go is probably pointless i hope it won't be too free market oriented i think it probably will end up being pretty free market oriented the way china is doing it is super free market oriented it's basically capitalist except it's i mean

short yeah and you can say that but like i suppose that's a less shocking way to get out of it right no it's going it's going to be capitalist which is going to be bad but i'm trying to say the good thing is is that i mean at least we won't get annihilated in a nuclear war so they have a casino in north korea so they're already indulging in some capitalistic tendencies i've actually i had quite a weird experience there in the north korean casino um so it's in the it's in the bottom of i don't know if i should be talking about this it's probably not allowed but i'd say it anyway so it's in the bottom of a hotel and i you know walk in you know we're looking very western and it's a bunch of north koreans and chinese people all playing games around tables with they had like

someone sitting in like a tennis umpire chair looking over the tables and as i walked in like everyone just stopped and looked at me like who the fuck is this guy so i was like i panicked i was like right i need to play a game so i went up to a table there was no one there and there was just a female croupier you know wearing a uniform and there was like hieroglyphs hieroglyphics like on the table i had no idea what this game was so i put down like hurriedly put down like ten us dollars and you know there was no cards there was no dice nothing was spun like she literally just waited two seconds put her hands on the ten ten us dollars just looked me straight in the eyes just goes you lose and i was like oh i should probably shall i spin again no i should

probably leave yes the wallet inspector game yeah go well i think that's gonna about do us for today this north korea super special so um thank you to jake for coming on thank you very much for having me it's been a where people find your work so i've done a lot of stuff with vice and with bbc you can get me on twitter at the jake warren had to be the jake warren because there's already a more vastly famous a more famous jake warren sadly what is he up to so he's a he couldn't he come here he's a minor royal actually so he goes to the royal weddings and in his i think he's like a horse racing trainer or something so he's far eclipsed me does he have a fat wife that he loves anyway i hear that's the way to get famous these days that's what i'm grinding at

all right well oh yeah our theme song is here we go by jin sang you can find it on spotify if you want or and also you can do the other thing which is you can commodify your descent with a shirt from a little comrade in any case thank you very much and we will see you in that capitalist tendency you will see you next time i know it's kind of ironic isn't it