Contrary to the myth that North Korea starved because they diverted resources to their nuclear program, this piece by Jordan Weissmann in the Atlantic shows that it was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the inability of North Korea to abandon its inefficient food distribution system that led to 3 million people starving back in the 1990's:
The demise of the USSR threw North Korea's entire economy into chaos, and agriculture was among its most important casualties. Without imports of cheap fuel (self-sufficiency had its limits), the country's industrial base fractured, and production of fertilizer dwindled. Farm yields plummeted, and the government started a campaign urging citizens to consume less. Its cheery slogan: "Let's eat only two meals a day."
I found this article on the American Thinker website.
This past weekend, two stark reminders of the nightmare that communism was, and continues to be, left the world stage. These two people couldn’t be more different in their outlook and actions. One was Václav Havel, the Czech playwright, poet and intellectual, who spent years in prison, but whose willingness to stand up and tell the truth about the lies and brutality that were the essence of the Soviet Union and his own captive nation makes him a significant figure in the pantheon of those instrumental in defeating the Soviet Union. In 1993 he became the president of the Czech Republic. Here is a worthy obituary from The Telegraph.
My former associate Dan Flynn spent time in Havel’s prison cell in Prague in 2006, which was then a hotel room, reading some of his most powerful words, including the essay he was perhaps known best for, “The Power of the Powerless.” In it Havel wrote, “If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living the truth.” I recommend Flynn’s moving tribute, “Reading Václav Havel from His Jail Cell,” in which he describes Havel’s strength, wisdom and courage.
