"Crossing The Line" 60 Minute Interview

The Sundance Film Festival showed the third in a trilogy of documentaries produced and directed by one [not bad-looking, if I do say so myself] British Daniel Gordon on the Democratic People's Republic, or as most of the world knows it, North Korea. "Crossing" follows "The Game of Their Lives" and "A State of Mind." And since North Korea's so isolated from the world, I am insanely intigued by the smallest glimpses into their lives.

Last night, 60 Minutes interviewed Mr. Gordon and his co-producer Nick Bonner about their documentary's main focus, American defector Joe Dresnok. Story in a nutshell: Dresnok dropped out of school, enrolled in the military, went to Korea, forced an authorization signature to leave base for a night of womanizing, got caught, heard he was about to be court-martialed, decided his life sucked, crossed a minefield, and defected to North Korea. That's right, folks. Dresnok chose to go to North Korea. And he doesn't want to leave.

And of the clips shown during the 60 Minutes interview, the commentator and Dresnok said something that struck a chord with me:

The government he ran to still takes care of him and didn’t cut his rations even during the recent famine when perhaps a million North Koreans starved to death.

"When I eat my rice I think about the people who died who starved to death but yet they fed me. Why do they let their own people starve to death and feed an American?" Dresnok wonders.

Clearly, Dresnok didn't realize what he was saying. I mean, you're living in a country whose government actively refused aid from the outside world and let hundreds of thousands of its people die. So maybe, Joe, just maybe, you should sit and think about what this all means. Why DO they let their own people starve to death to feed [your] American [fat ass]? Let's just think about that for a moment.

Truth is, neither I nor the rest of the world knows anything about this so-called Democratic (ha!) People's Republic. So while I criticize this American defector, I do wish that the DPR would open its doors to the world and act more as a neighbor than a threat. Sometimes world peace seems so far away.