On the latest Global Pulse episode, Korea Family Feud, host Erin Coker reviews world reaction to rising tensions between North and South Korea. Watch the episode below and share your thoughts!

With a simple YouTube search you can find hundreds of North Korean karaoke videos featuring catchy pop tunes. Some show scenes of young couples on dates eating ice cream. Others highlight hydroelectric dams. Oddly, some mix both in the same video. The most popular of these videos is "Pangapsumnida." It displays scenes of naval and air prowess spliced with images of families reuniting under North Korean flags. The bizarre imagery plays out as a sort of Northern fantasy in which Korea is once again reunited -- as a socialist Korea, of course. Watching "Pangapsumnida" is both fascinating and eerie. Who knew a song sponsored by a brutal dictatorship could be so catchy? It's eerie because the video allows the viewer to temporarily forget the horror that is modern North Korea.

That suspension of reality is perhaps North Korea's biggest export. Desperate to sugarcoat the bleak reality of successive famines and international scorn, North Korea's propaganda machine pumps out some of the most elaborate deceptions on earth. Consider for example, the Arirang Mass Games. Imagine an Olympic opening ceremony in which every reference to sport is replaced with odes to the Great Leader and scenes of the industrial and technological wonders possible under socialism. Regardless of the contrived message, Arirang is quite possibly the most spectacular show on earth. It features up to 100,000 gymnasts and performers moving with razor-sharp precision.

North Korea's deception machine doesn't stop at catchy songs and gymnastics routines. It extends all the way to its own Potemkin village, Gijeong-dong. Gijeong-dong is the only urban area in North Korea visible from the South Korean border. It features a small assembly of concrete buildings and the world's largest flagpole. What it apparently does not include are actual residents. Although no one can be entirely sure what happens at Gijeong-dong (commonly called Propaganda Village), many believe the village is actually unlivable and that the buildings are hollow. Electric lights turn on in unison as if by a flip of a switch, and few people walk around during the day.

Luckily, very few outside of North Korea are fooled by the deception. North Korea's belligerent behavior and abysmal human rights record continue to earn it well deserved scorn from around the globe. While it's difficult for a westerner to swallow any of the outlandish propaganda North Korea feeds us, it might amaze us that we too might be influenced by more subtle propaganda every day, whether by advertisements or our own societies. Propaganda can be powerful. Images and sounds stick to the mind easier than words do, regardless of how odious we find the message. If you don't believe me, try watching “Pangapsumnida” a few times. I guarantee you’ll start humming it when you least expect it.

Nearly ten years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the failed car bombing in Times Square has reminded Americans that terrorism is still a very real threat. It comes as little surprise to an American public used to Islamic terrorism that Faisal Shahzad is believed to have received training from terror groups in Pakistan. Shahzad lived in the US for more than 10 years, but the influences and planning behind the attack are primarily foreign in character. With all the attention focused on Islamic foreign terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and Pakistan's Tehrik-i-Taliban, little is said about another threat that is largely invisible and just as real: home-grown domestic terrorism. 

Two recent incidents confirm the reality of the threat. In February, Joe Stack penned an anti-government diatribe before flying a small plane into IRS offices in Austin, Texas. Little more than a month later, nine members of the Christian extremist group "Hutaree" were arrested in several mid-west states in connection to a plot to target and kill federal law enforcement agents. 

Of course domestic terrorism isn't new, and it isn't confined to the extreme right. In the 1960s and 70s, leftist organizations like the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Weather Underground targeted financial and government institutions in attacks on capitalism. By the 1980s attacks by leftist domestic terror groups had waned. In the 90s, extremists on the right took their place. These groups surged with the type of anti-government rhetoric that fueled Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. Some experts believe the election of the first black president and uncertain economic times have spurred far-right extremist groups to a level of activity unseen since the early 1990s.  

So if there is a dangerous up-swing in domestic militias and terror groups, why has the media been largely silent on the issue? Why isn't there as large of a concern about the next Oklahoma City bombing as there is for the next 9/11? Perhaps it's easier to rationalize that foreigners would try to hurt us, but it's harder to come to terms with the fact that there are American-born citizens who want to do the same. Many were surprised to find out that Islamic radical Faisal Shahzad had lived a fairly typical American life for years before he turned to extreme violence. Then again, so did Timothy McVeigh. 

While the threat from Islamic extremism is the most reported (and also, very real) threat, it's important that Americans realize that extremist violence doesn't just come from one religion or political ideology. Whether extremists are Islamic or Christian, radical or reactionary isn't as important as the threat itself - anything taken to the extreme can be deadly.