Isolated and desolated North Korea is a very small nation with an even smaller economy. In the past years for the US to devote so much attention and energy bad-mouthing North Korea is indicative of ulterior motives. Other major powers have basically left North Korea to its own devices.

In the past the media have been complicit with the US government efforts by issuing exaggerated propaganda against North Korea. This mild photo shoot of North Korea's everyday life without the standard rant demonizing the North Korean government is evident that the US government has changed its political stance on North Korea. As for the North Korean government, perhaps, it too has a change of heart toward the rest of the world.

Um, the writer's intention was to pierce through ideology and share a little common humanity... but I guess you can't get that if you think in generic catagories.

Bluelake where do you get your information about North Korea?? The two pictures I was looking at, look like Sacramento,Ca. except the trolley car. You know that here in America, a photographer from North Korea could go into the ghettos and take pictures of all the boarded up homes and take pictures of the homeless on 12th and B street standing in food lines. The homeless drinking booze from a brown bag, sleeping in parks, take pictures of the crack and heroine addicts, then go back to his country and post them on the web and local news paper, spinning the news, about the GREATEST AND RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD DOES NOT CARE FOR IT'S PEOPLE, ONLY THE RICH AND NOT THE POOR.

"GREATEST AND RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD DOES NOT CARE FOR IT'S PEOPLE, ONLY THE RICH AND NOT THE POOR."

Unfortunately, this headline would be an accurate portrayal of the United States of America.

Oh Please! Yes people, the U.S. is the cause of every misery on earth...Right? Man am I sick of that stupid mantra! these people who are so self conscious of being Americans...all so ready to flog us all for their crybaby cause...sick f---s! With all your intentions to show the U.S. as evil empire...there is room for you in some lunatic terrorist platoon...they love psychotics from all nations! Now, let's see, wasn't it north Korea that attacked the South? Or,No! it was the C.I.A and a false flag incident...ya know? didn't the north blow up a south Korean navy vessel killing 34 people? Yeah, I know it was a Yankee trick to incite a war between the Korea's...yep that's it! Holy Cow!

I get my information by reading from diverse sources. I would strongly recommend that you DO NOT take these photographs at face value. The photographer was shadowed by an officer of the NK government at all times. What you see in these photographs are analogous to what you see on stage during a play. You see what is presented to you, you do not see behind the scenes. I guarantee that.

Nk has had, for a number of years and for a number of reasons, great difficulty in producing enough food to feed it's population. International observers have confirmed this and stated that people in rural areas were literally eating the bark off of certain trees. I do not blindly believe this but am quite sure there is incipient starvation in many parts of the country.

There are abusive elements in all political and economic systems. Socialism, communism and capitalism can and do produce failed systems. The west has been trying for generations to find the perfect balance between these systems. Right now we have seen, in the US a movement away from a collective responsibility. The American extreme right, under the cover of a corporate take over of government and the mantra of personal responsibility are indeed leaving many Americans destitute, jobless and totally unprotected by their own government. Helpless in the face of corporate oligarchy. The enormous gulf between the wealth of a tiny number of people and the rest of the population does not bode well for the future of this country. Comparing our country to NK is ludicrous of course but we have real problems to deal with right here.

I read thaat the top 5 hedge fund managers in the US made enough money in one year to pay the salaries of 300,000 teachers in that same year. Does that seem like a healthy situation to you?

GREATEST AND RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD DOES NOT CARE FOR IT'S PEOPLE, ONLY THE RICH AND NOT THE POOR.

What a mindless, asinine bed wetting comment. The US now has a record amount of people on food stamps. More people are on welfare now than when Obama took office. Nobody is starving to death in the streets. Besides, when you compare the "poor" in the US to the "poor" in other nations - like those in Europe - our "poor" are WAY better off.

We have a CHOICE how we want to live our lives in America. We can trash talk the president. We can work our way through college and reap the rewards. Ditto for starting our own business. We can also choose to sit on our collective asses and collect food stamps and welfare and buy lotto tickets hoping for instant gratification.

The wealthy are wealthy because they do what they do best: make good decisions. The poor are poor because they do what they do worst: make bad decisions. Then there are those others somewhere inbetween who just go to the same, boring, dull job, don't take steps to better themselves and learn new skills, go hit the bars after work instead of night school, and then wonder why they can never earn more money. You want to get rich? Get off your ass and go start your own business; up your education (many companies actually pay for it) and seek out promotion opportunities or even new job prospects. Just because you were born in America (or illegally immigrated here) doesn't mean you are ENTITLED to damn thing. I'm sick of the whiners who expect to have everything given to them without merit and without earning it.

Yeah, we're a little different than North Korea. Like night and day.

@Bluelake:

The American extreme right, under the cover of a corp

orate take over of government and the mantra of personal responsibility are indeed leaving many Americans destitute, jobless and totally unprotected by their own government.

You do realize that Democrat liberals are just as much in bed with corporations as the GOP, right? Starting at the top with Obama and his Big Green Energy pet known as GE (and then there are failed billion dollar green energy experiments like Solyndra). Yeah that GE that didn't pay any corporate income taxes last year. And how the hell can corporations control the government when Big Oil is paraded around Congress and grilled about gas prices in some dog and pony show? How do corporations control government when government entities like the SEC punish or shut down bad ones like ENRON? Your tin foil hat is on too tight.

I read thaat the top 5 hedge fund managers in the US made enough money in one year to pay the salaries of 300,000 teachers in that same year. Does that seem like a healthy situation to you?

Apples and oranges. Hedge fund managers are paid by private business. Said business sets their pay based on performance. Teachers are public servants paid by taxpayer dollars. Their pay is based on district, performance, and seniority. Besides, radical left wing international media agitator George Soros - who is behind the Occupy movement globally - made his billions from hedge funds. I don't hear the liberal left whining about that too much.

We are not a nation of pure equality where everyone has the same amount of stuff (or in the case of extreme communist DPRK, same amount of NOTHING).

10tacle you paint such a black and white picture of the American experience. The rich get rich because they make good decisions? What a sweeping generalization! Next, you'll be saying that the rich are powerful because God wants them to be. That's what I don't get about people with the opinion you demonstrate. It's that old, "get off your ass and get a job" mantra. True, there is opportunity to make oneself better in America but you gloss over, conveniently, that those opportunities are often spread unevenly across society. I grow tired of the view that the poor are poor because they want to be or didn't work "hard enough." Assumptions are not facts.

Exactly, you'd think the guy would at least invest in having better looking hair too. He looks like an evil troll doll.

Just so everyone is clear, don't believe that useless article that said GE paid no income taxes. The CTJ who helped obtain the info is hardly a reliable source. I would be embarrassed at such a glaring error. Look at GE's financial statements. They reported a "cash tax payment" for 2010 of $2.7 billion, and an approximate tax rate of 7%-8%. The people who did this so called research twisted words on the financial statements. Look it up if you don't believe me.

@Ted: Study some economics. It would do you some good.

How IRONIC that EVERYBODY in the soccer photo is having the same reaction, open mouthed head and body lean to their right at identical angles... what a coincidence!

Creepy how nobody is on the streets and how nothing has moved off of the shelves in the mall. Couldn't they have staged this a little bit better?

I'm insulted that the photographer actually thinks that what he is showing is "typical" North Korea. Does he take us for dummies? He makes N Korea look like a walk through Disneyland. After 19 trips I would think he could show us something of substance. It just goes to show you that the N Koreans just show us the propaganda they want us to see. I think the photographer's days are numbered... (or should be).

I've seen various reports of N Korea over the years and they all paint a grim picture. Rural people starving so their million-man army can be fed. Dissidents and their families tortured in concentration camps. Govt broadcasts you can't turn off in every home. Afraid to disagree with the party line for fear of repercussions. A deep-seated belief the US hates them and wants to get them. N Korea is quite possibly the worst place to be on Earth, on a par with old Stalinist Russia.

I remember visiting the DMZ once and our S Korean escorts stationed themselves at various points along the border, facing N Korea in this sort of karate stance. I asked what they were doing and our guide said they were ready to prevent the N Koreans from running across and snatching one of us. I could see a massive N Korean flag across the DMZ and was told it was flying over an empty city, one built just so our view of the north was one of prosperity. I don't think the S Koreans were faking us out for propaganda purposes.

10tacle- Most rich are not so because they deserve it, they are because they came from it. 84% of the wealthy in this country received it through inheritance or are in the gainful employ of the families matriarch/patriarch heading the foal. Take a simple look at the Hilton girls, there isn't enough gray matter in that family to support an Amoeba yet the media and money worshipers line up for pantiless photographs and down blouse Oops moments. The world gawks, yet their never held accountable for anything and the money keeps flowing, it flows from taps, ones that never end and can't flow fast enough to ever put a dent in the principle, no matter how many BAD decisions are made. Our tax laws are a poignant example of why so many lag in our society, it has nothing to do with bad decisions, Most poor don't even know they have decisions to make let alone know how to make them. We just keep piling impediments in their way and wag our fingers in disapproval for their actions when a signature is obtained due to the predatory nature of our capitalist mantra of I got mine, you get yours.

As for North Korea you need nothing but a mere satellite image at night to confirm their meager existence. The south is lit like like a Christmas tree, The north like a desert. Pyongyang resembles a mer night light. No place inhabited on our planet suffers in such silence, Google some covert North Korean films and documentaries and get back to me about those bad decisions, Those people have none to make, None at all....Peace

(LAUGHING!!!) I just asked an honest question. I lived and work in Nairobi, Kenya for three years, when I traveled back to the USA, the U.S. MSM was making false reports about what had happen in Nairobi after the Presidential election of 2002. That wasn't all they had reported to the American People that wasn't true. So America has it's propaganda. I honestly wanted to know where Bluelake had gotten his/her information and they told me. I wrote that a photographer from North Korea could come to the United States of America, travel to all the major cities to the ghettos and even needle park, New York City and take pictures of crack and heroine addicts, go to Detroit take pictures of the boarded up homes, go to the Salvation Army and take pictures of the food lines, go to the Tent Cities, go to the Bridges and take pictures of the people sleeping there. Some are U.S. Military Vets. and the photographer from North Korea, or some other country, lets say China, goes back home and post these pictures on the internet and/or local News Paper with the caption "THE GREATEST AND RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WOULD DOES NOT CARE FOR IT'S PEOPLE, ONLY THE RICH" now that would be a good propaganda piece. Because it doesn't tell the whole story, it only tells their story. Now my question is, some on this thread believe that people choose to live this way. Has anyone visited and interviewed the homeless and asked if this is how the enjoy living sleeping under a bridge, in a park, a vacant home/building, standing in food lines, and why they are not working, own a business, own a lap top, microwave, A/C, married and have children, go to church, pray to Jesus, drive a truck??? The ones I have talked to are mentally or physically ill (one leg or no legs, one arm or no arms) and can not have those things, not because they enjoy being hungry and homeless, or that their lazy. Also tell them "Hey you have it BETTER then the homeless in other countries, the USA takes care of our homeless. and see what happens to you.

christopher pinola you answered and embarrassed yourself at the same time. And you also made a fool of yourself. Yes a North Korean journalist and photographer can come to the U.S. if given a visa and they can travel the whole country "without an escort" and take pictures and interview any one they please. Now you try and do that in North Korea. These pictures were puff shots. They were reviewed and allowed to leave the country. This "JOURNALIST" was led by the nose to all the prepared sites so he could get his pretty shots. But go back and look at all the pictures "CAREFULLY" how many people do you see in the background and did you notice????? NO CARS!

THIS IS NOT JOURNALISM, THIS IS STAGED PROPAGANDA. AND ASSOCIATED PRESS SHOULD BE ASHAMED AT PUBLISHING THIS WITH THE GARBAGE ATTACHED TO IT REPORTING IT AS NEWS. BUT GIVE ANYTHING FREE TO MSNBC.COM AND IT WILL PRINT IT.

(LAUGHING!!!!) How did I embarrass and/or make a fool of myself for expressing what I feel and think is the truth. I asked a question, and I told what I had experienced living in Kenya and moving back to the USA. I wrote asking where bluelake got his/her information so I can educate myself, nothing embarrassing or foolish about wanting to educate myself about a subject I do not know and wanting to learn. I have never been to North or South Korea so I don't know. BUT the United States of America also spreads it's propaganda to Her people, like all countries do. Like "THEY HATE US FOR OUR FREEDOM", that is a lie, they hate the U.S. GOVERNMENT because of it's policies. When I was living in Nairobi, I was watching the local news, it was about why Kenya and parts of Africa was so poor, (I'll paraphrase what I heard). The Woman was saying, If the United States of America let Kenya put it goods into the world market like they wanted, they would be a very wealthy country. She said all the money the USA and other countries like England give to Kenya only goes to the Kenyan Politician to line their pockets and it doesn't help the Kenyan People. Now do you believe like some of the people on this thread the American Homeless have it better then the Homeless in other parts of the world (I just find that ironic)?? Do you believe that the homeless want to live like they do or choose to live like this?? I'm asking you an honest question.

christopher pinola, when you stop posting in bold print and acting like you know everything, I may read one of your posts. Don't shout at us, okay? Your post is no more important than anyone else's, whether you can understand that or not.

@Bluelake, To quote you: The Perfect Leader feels it is far more important to build nuclear weapon capability than feed the rural populace. Let them eat tree bark.

We have millions starving here in the US as well, and that is not stopping us from spending trillions on our military. replace the word The Perfect Leader and it applies to the USA as well. See below:

Congress Feels is more important to build a huge military and police the world than to feed the populace. Let them eat "Whatever trickles down"

OF Course that doesn't make it right and I am by no means siding with N. Korea. My point being we should be more concerned with our own Citizens, and Ex military than running out and increasing military spending. We have millions below the poverty line, and untold numbers of Veterans that need help. This is not one party's problem, this is something all of Congress needs to address. enough with the bull@!$%# already.

These photographs follow the journalist's earlier series of photos on North Korea. Two pictures are worth commenting on. One is of a classroom where each student is at a computer. EVERY students is wearing a thick jacket. . . They have computers, but no heat. The other is picture of large group at picnic. There is only bread and beer, not one speck of the Korean's verison of potato salad. Also look in EVERY group picture, there is not one overweight person. The people of North Korea and hungry and cold.

go get an fen life and climb of the fen droma train

No, Ron - this is decidedly not what Occupy Wall Street wants for us. What they do want is less concentration of wealth in the hands of so few as to be pathetic. They do not want all of us reduced to the level of North Korea (which is still in some ways better off than some countries in Africa, sadly). Learn more about OWS and what they want before you attach them to this photoessay...it might help you understand why so many of your fellow Americans are upset. I'd recommend the movie "Inside Job" as a basic education.

No, it's not what they want for us. That first picture of the laughing, must have hard for the photographer to get them to cooperate. Even harder for the thugs who are protesting to strike a similar pose.

People like rick d don't seem to understand that there is no such thing as just redistributing the wealth. Our poor are much better off than most people in other countries. That is made possible just because people are allowed to make money. In ever society that has tried concentrated on equality over prosperity, they've ended up with equality of poverty, except for the ruling elite.

How did you manage to connect this to Occupy Wall Street? You have a very strange mind.

Occupy wall street isn't about redistribution of wealth. Nobody gives a ***t if you are wealthy or not.

It's anger towards a system that gives wall street bailouts to continue playing shady games with taxpayer money instead of investing that money into the country, or simply giving it back to the people.

It's anger against a system that has decided corporations are people and that those same corporations are more important than the citizens.

It's anger at a system that doesn't want to provide a social safety net to the laborers of the country who worked to make the rich richer, but is ok to give break after break to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

To broad brush the Occupy movement as a desire to be a communist state is woefully ignorant.

Ken, "taxpayer money instead of investing that money into the country, or simply giving it back to the people." sounds an awful lot like redistribution of wealth to me...nevertheless, it doesn't matter what you call it, but what it actually is.

Truth is, a social safety net sounds all well and good, but no one seems to know or consider the extreme consequences of said safety net. I assure you that if such a plan were put in place, there will be consequences that no one ever anticipated.

What Occupy wall street wants will simply make the system more complicated. The great marvel of our modern day financial and corporate system is based on competition and rewards. Take these away, and the system can no longer be self-sustaining.

And the whole 1% business is a bunch of BS. Look it up.

Amen! Best guess you better buy your guns and ammo now. The 1 percent control 99 percent and will not give it up easily.

I've got mine, and am ready to rock-n-roll!!

You have a chance here to better yourself. The country that has the number one inventors and start up companies is the U.S. Want to guess how many inventors and stat up businesses and companies in North Korea?

You want socialism go to Europe. My daughter and son both started businesses and I helped them. Now if they can do it, other people can do it. My daughter employs 13 people and my son 6. They found a niche and worked hard and are doing it.

Now if Obama and Biden will stop bleeding this country dry with their stupid get rich quick schemes, then the money can be used for Americans to start their own businesses.

Go Pack!

That will only happen if we continue to allow big business and our government to continue what they are doing. The OWS folks are drawing attention to it. Most of us have a job, roof over our head and food, so we get lazy. We think that the OWS people are nut cases. Some are, but if things continue, most of us will be living like the people of North Korea.

If there were no big businesses where would funds come for expansion, invention, and investigation for new products. It ain't cheap you know. You got a few billion to put into research. Obama and Biden have shown they are idiots and lose billions of dollars on their schemes. Get rid of unions and the protections they have and let people compete honestly for the best jobs. Hey even the multimillion dollar union bosses and thugs might have to get a job after they pay back what they stole!

Nearly overwhelmed by the flood of good info in the article.

And our roads and bridges and our infrastructure in general look a lot older.

And this is not North Korea!

That's what I noticed..................and the fact that everyone looks depressed.

Even the kids in the second picture don't look happy.....

I don't know if they have any unions at all, but I bet that their children can read and write, unlike our high school graduates, who are functional illiterates.

And I have no sympathy for that country at all.

I too was in North Korea but from a "slightly" different prospective. As I recall it wasn't a pleasant place in November of 1950 at the Chosen Reservoir. Of course I wasn't there as a tourist & trying to stay alive rather than Sight See.

Thank you, my wife is South Korean and thinks very highly of all the people that defended her country. So again, THANK YOU.

Are you kidding me? North Korea is a liberal utopia. A place where the government does all the thinking for you.