Just kidding, Pyongyang!  Your subtlety in your latest propaganda video doesn’t quite mask your rage at the US for having electricity that can actually light up our communities at night and an economy that can feed our people.  Or was this from Pyongyang at all?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiA1bmWnRQM

Here’s the text of the video, translated by NKNews:

North Korea has succeeded in proceeding with this nuclear test despite the United States’ increasingly unfair bully activities against North Korea. That United States that has no respect to others nor appreciation to equality…

It is not incorrect to state that the United States strong hostility policy and endless violence toward North Korea in the past 70 years has helped North Korea become one of the world’s strongest military power states.

Words spoken by the United States, a country that uses the law of jungle as the law of survival for fitness, is meaningless. As a result, North Korea’s high level nuclear test conducted against American imperialist invaders is a nuclear deterrent that protects our sovereignty.

Thus, the United States has practically guided North Korea towards nuclear testing and therefore needs to be considered as an American virtue.

North Korea’s third underground nuclear test! Let it be known once more that this is strictly our practical counter-measure for North’s safety and to protect its sovereignty from the aggressors. It is also a solemn warning that time is no longer on the side of the United States.

The people are watching. America should answer.

That doesn’t quite match up with the imagery, which doesn’t show America “guiding” the DPRK to nuclear status, nor waiting for an American answer.  It rather bluntly imagines an America in flames, which would be an odd “practical countermeasure,” no matter what the producers of the remade Red Dawn imagine.

However, one analyst quoted by the Washington Post wonders whether these are coming from north of the 38th Parallel, or south of it:

The piece, which was likely made by South Korean sympathizers in conjunction with their Northern pals, is designed to encourage pro-North groups in the South and stoke the flames of anti-U.S. sentiment in broader South Korean society. As such, it is in line with North Korea’s long-cherished aim of getting the U.S. to withdraw from South Korea (I freely admit it is not a tremendously effective step in that direction, but that is by the by) as part of the move toward unification under North Korean rule. Remember that Rodong Sinmun article saying that North Korea was headed all the way to the South Sea under the wise rule of the supreme commander? Same thing, different day.

Max Fischer warns readers not to underestimate the power of Korean nationalism on both sides of the border:

This goal is indeed outlandish, but it’s worth remembering that, just a decade ago, anti-American protests were common on South Korea. That doesn’t mean those protesters want to submit to Kim’s rule, but it does give you a glimpse of that Korean nationalism, the extreme fringes of which this video might speak to.

I believe those protests mainly arose during the Iraq War, which prompted a politically safe moment for venting anti-American sentiment.  I’m not sure that this is a big issue in the South any longer — but it is something to keep in mind.  While many in the North don’t want to live as slaves to the Kim regime, not everyone in the South shares their sentiments.