Stop the Idiocracy: North Korea

Monday, September 7, 2026

Bridging the pariahs

A darkly fantastical Gothic illustration depicts a newly constructed road bridge spanning a mist-shrouded river between two monumental authoritarian landscapes. Military lorries travel in procession across the pale, bone-like arches towards a forbidding red-starred citadel, while an older railway bridge carries a steam locomotive nearby. In the foreground, scantily clad women in stylised military attire gather ceremonially around an enormous pair of golden scissors and a flowing red ribbon, evoking an extravagant ribbon-cutting ritual. Watchtowers, barbed wire, abandoned helmets and boots, ravens and a colossal stone handshake reinforce the atmosphere of militarisation, repression and deepening strategic alliance beneath a blood-red crescent moon..

image generated via ChatGPT

Russia opens its first road bridge with North Korea. {DW 7 September}

https://www.dw.com/en/russia-opens-first-road-bridge-with-north-korea/a-79142595

FTA: Russia and North Korea on Monday cut the ribbon on the first road bridge linking the two countries as Moscow and Pyongyang deepen their strategic partnership.

The crossing spans the Tumen River and marks another expansion of transport links between the two countries.

The road crossing is near the existing Friendship Bridge, a railway bridge commissioned in 1959 following the Korean War.

Russia and North Korea already have direct rail and air connections, but until now there had been no road bridge between them.

The new bridge is named after Soviet Red Army officer Yakov Novichenko, who is credited with saving North Korean founder Kim Il Sung's life. Relatives of Novichenko attended the opening ceremony.

Construction began in April 2025 after the project was agreed during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea in 2024.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said the new crossing should boost economic development, tourism and employment.

"I am convinced that the expansion of cross-border transport infrastructure will provide a powerful impetus for the further development of trade, economic, scientific, technological and cultural cooperation," the TASS news agency quoted Mishustin as saying by video link at the opening ceremony.

Relations between Moscow and Pyongyang have strengthened considerably since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

North Korea sent thousands of troops to Russia's Kursk region to help Russian forces repel a Ukrainian incursion launched in 2024.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Friday, July 24, 2026

The capitalist backlash and the growing appeal of socialism in Trumpistan

A dramatic, Socialist Realist-inspired illustration depicts a tall, powerfully built red-haired woman dressed entirely in glossy black leather, seated rigidly upon a wooden chair with a stern, commanding expression. One gloved arm is thrust straight outward in a forceful gesture while her other arm firmly restrains a much smaller blonde woman across her lap. The blonde wears a rumpled white blouse, a tartan skirt, patterned black tights and black shoes. She twists away in visible distress, her face streaked with tears, mouth open in a cry, one arm flung outward and one leg kicking into the air. Behind them, heavy crimson drapery and a monumental stone statue reinforce the austere, authoritarian atmosphere. Strong directional lighting, rich earth tones and polished painterly realism create a theatrical composition emphasising the stark contrast between dominance and vulnerability.

generated via ChatGPT

Poll suggests that even some Republican voters may be losing faith in capitalism. {CNN 23 July}

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ar-AA28yb43

Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. American capitalism, at least as it presently exists, is corrupt, bloated, and in dire need of reform and restraint. We could start with regulating the content of these inane television commercials. I digress, however, for the words ‘communism’ and ‘socialism’ still scare the majority of the American people, and not entirely without reason. Communism was and is — look to Cuba and North Korea — a brutal and inhumane system of governance. Leftists can, and will, try to sugarcoat matters all they want, but many of the most notorious dictators of the twentieth century — Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Ceaușescu — were Marxist-Leninists. Nor is it a coincidence that such ideologies have repeatedly attracted ruthless authoritarians willing to subordinate individual liberty to the demands of the state. Fascism combined authoritarian nationalism with extensive state control and accommodation of powerful private interests, producing one of history's most destructive political systems, the worst of all worlds — and, perhaps, the closest historical relative to what exists in the former United States of America today.

Absurd, pie-in-the-sky ideology requires ruthlessness and suppression of human rights in order to implement and enforce; not entirely unlike forcing an entire empire (#Murica) to revolve around the ego and ambitions of one extremely flawed and pathetically insecure man. Perhaps some Americans believe it could not get any worse by now, but that is rather a moot point as everything is going to get worse still: so long as this buffoon remains president, and so long as everybody, left and right, is flirting with previously failed economic and political ideologies, instead of coming up with practical solutions — within the context of our democratic and free market traditions — on how to fix what is broken. Old-fashioned, reasonable, and measured centrism is the most unfashionable thing in the world right now, but it direly needs to make a comeback: boring and safe is far preferable to constantly teetering on the edge of the cliff, and will always produce greater prosperity and liberty than constant chaos.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈