PYONGYANG, North Korea (GlossyNews) — During a time when brewing unrest and financial insolvency are destabilizing the country, North Korean officials have executed Labor Party Chief Pak Nam-ki before a firing squad as punishment for a bureaucratic blunder.
Most analysts concede that Pak was guilty of nothing more than a botched economic reform policy, but the government accused him of conspiratorial activities, underscored by intimations of revolution. On paper, the sentence pronounced Pak the “son of a bourgeois, conspiring to infiltrate the ranks of revolutionaries to destroy the national economy.”
South Korean journalists who regularly monitor the situation in the North describe Pyongyang as operating under intense pressure to relieve problems that could upset the stability of its leadership. Because Kim Jong-il’s health has steadily deteriorated over the past year, officials are rushing to prepare his successor. The last straw for Pak, they say, was the threat of his blunder jeopardizing Kim’s succession process.
“My mind been going south for years,” the world’s most colorful and demented despot told reporters. “Now my body follow. But nobody gonna screw this up for my sons.”
Kim retired to his palace study after making the announcement, where he donned a feather boa and ordered his aides to re-enact the film “Purple Rain” in their pajamas.
But news of the execution, however localized, managed to draw a surprising amount of attention from politicians in the United States.
“Let’s just think this over,” mused Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY). “North Korea may be a little batty, but it’s a country just like ours, right? And like the U.S., North Korea’s going through a tough slog economically. They say it was just a policy blunder, that execution was too extreme. I don’t know how I feel about that. Wouldn’t you say that, oh I don’t know, failing to accurately price the risk associated with crappy home loans qualifies as a little blunder? And that little oopsie led to a liquidity shortfall that bankrupted America.”
Vice President Joe Biden also approached the news with an open mind, reminding his peers that “it only takes one snowball to cause an avalanche. Hell, it only took one sperm to create Dick Cheney, even though hundreds of machines are required to keep him alive. Point is, Kim’s on to something, and I don’t want to rush to judgment on this, especially in the middle of Secretary Clinton’s efforts to resume diplomatic talks with Pyongyang.”
“I agree with them both,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “The way I interpret it, it’s text book treason. A small group of individuals acted out of self interest and ruined the economy. Just like what happened here a couple of years ago with Wall Street executives. Intentionally sabotaging the ability of a country to operate, to support its citizens and to defend itself is treason. North Korea punished its malefactors properly. What did we do? We made sure the traitors got billions in bonuses, and we pulled that money right out of the asses of middle-class tax payers. They’re never going to see that cash again. And then we fed them some bullshit about owning the banks but having no power over them. Bullshit. I’m sorry. Please pardon my language, I just had lunch with Rahm Emanuel.”
Holder added, “You know, back in the days of Jefferson, treason was punishable by firing squad on the White House lawn. I say there’s a precedent. Honestly, it’s the only reason I haven’t pushed back as hard on all this OpenCarry stuff. When the time comes, we’re going to need as many marksmen as possible. There are a lot of bankers in this country. Really, bullets are a hell of a lot cheaper than TARP. We had Geithner crunch the numbers.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner didn’t share the same sense of enthusiasm. He cautioned, “I think we’re opening a can of worms if we seriously entertain the idea of making North Korea’s ‘frontier justice’ an international precedent for penalizing fraud, whatever the scope. Biden actually wants to use to same wording — all that stuff about entitled bourgeois children infiltrating fringe groups to bypass regulation, then ruining the national economy. It makes me nervous. And would that even apply in this situation? Our government’s far too big and overly regulated to allow a bunch of wealthy, mollycoddled elitists to take over the country and its banks. This is America, where our president and vice president come from working class families, not dynasties. This isn’t the plot of an Ayn Rand novel.”
Biden was overheard disagreeing with Geithner on the phone. “The hell it isn’t, Timmy. Christ, we all know Greenspan did her. It’s exactly a page out of Ayn Rand. And you know what that story’s called? ‘Atlas Farted.’ Now sack up, get your rifle and meet us out front.”