tpaine posted:REDACTED by drwhat
red salute
Edited by drwhat ()
roseweird posted:you seem to be asking questions in bad faith by asking "are people in this forum just trolling me?" and then willfully misconstruing their beliefs with dogwhistle phrases like "socialist utopia". if this is where you're at intellectually then just keep going with it and continue to get told off, imo, it's good for you.
i seriously didn't know if people were posting ironically or not, there were a couple of people posting criticisms in that other NK thread and were basically being downvoted or told to wisen up. what am i supposed to learn from that?
labor camps are real things (prison labor exists in the united states, and international visitors are not invited to publicize their prevalence or conditions, so why is this an unthinkable concept to you?) and no one thinks they are an element of a socialist utopia, but they are an element of the oppression and destruction of the bourgeoisie by the dictatorship of the proletariat. so the question is not "are there labor camps" but whether or not the regime is using them effectively, ie, against the bourgeoisie, and for the creation of communism.
i thought as a good communist all forms of oppression were to be outlawed?
Ufuk_Surekli posted:the real answer to your newly re-framed question, is (unsatisfyingly enough) that there is no definitive answer. it really depends what facts you are trying to check.
the arch-narrative, which is that the DPRK is just some crazy personality-driven cult/monarchy bent on the destruction of western civilization, is best demolished by a basic examination of a) the political writings/priorities of its founding communists/leading subsequent theorists, and the most recent, up-to-date statements of its international ambassadors;
if we can't trust US officials why should we trust any other countries' officials? just because they claim to support workers isn't evidence in of itself. i think the best source of information would be from lower class people actually living there
and c) an accurate understanding of the political processes of the DPRK, which will quickly disabuse you of the idea that the WPK figurehead leader has any major administrative or executive power beyond military planning and party ideology
how much do we know of the political processes? why is information so restricted, do they not trust the people to fight against capitalist propaganda?
"are the labour camps real"? what labour camps? what particular Murdoch-owned tabolid article's sensationalist assertions are we supposed to be dismissing this time? There are labour camps in the United Kingdom. Are they real? "What is, real. How do you define, real". There are regular, non-labouring prisons in the UK, and the US. there are also labour-based prisons in the US. Are there prisons in DPRK? Probably. What are their conditions, how do you get sent to them, for what and for how long, and what do you do while you're there? I dunno, let's find out, rather than assuming that it's Nazi Germany and then working our way back...
i'd like to know too. is that testimony i linked earlier in the thread accurate? are there ways to confirm/deny details?
i guess what i'm getting at is that if we don't really know what's going on in NK it doesn't make sense to just give them the benefit of the doubt on everything. i think a more reasonable position would be to just ignore any western propaganda about NK and treat information from the actual country with neutrality
tpaine posted:because you touch yourself at night.
jokes on you, i've been so desensitized to the goatman that seeing him again simply returns me to a meditative state
5. The people
4. They have a city
3. They exist
2. Their sticktoitiveness
1. Their positive qualities
getfiscal posted:Five Best Things about Korea
5. The people
4. They have a city
3. They exist
2. Their sticktoitiveness
1. Their positive qualities
frontpage listicle
So then the question really becomes "is the DPRK state democratic?" which is an ok question, unfortunately the term "restricted" implies that the state has the power to hide things independent of its structure as representing popular will and thus precludes this idea. But even if we acknowledge this, the word "democratic" is poison. So here are some good questions which do not presume their own answer (based off western propaganda):
how does the DPRK government system function?
what are the institutions of workers power in the DPRK and how did they evolve?
how does the DPRK economy function? how has the DPRK system integrated special economic zones into its planned economy?
what is Juche? what is songun?
of course when you ask these questions what you really want to know is "is the DPRK socialist/democratic/dysfunctional/a cult" because that's what all westerners want to know. but you have not created a prison in which the terms that can be used are already defined by liberalism. how/what/why questions are usually the way to approach honest learning while is/why/when questions are bad because they already presume that the question is factually accurate.
ABUSES OF SOCIALISM ARE INTOLERABLE
At a time when the imperialists and reactionaries are resorting to unprecedentedly vicious schemes against socialism, many misleading statements are being made about socialism. The enemies of socialism are abusing it, calling it "totalitarian", "barracks-like," and "administrative and commanding," and are distorting the facts, pretending that the setback suffered by socialism is because its nature is such. The claim that socialism is "totalitarian", "barracks-like," and "administrative and commanding," is not in essence different from the pernicious anti-socialist propaganda which the imperialists have conducted since the first appearance of socialism in the world. The imperialists have always said that socialism is an inhuman society in which there is no freedom or democracy. The terms "totalitarian", "barracks-like," and "administrative and commanding" are a repetition of the imperialists false propaganda against socialism that uses new words.
...
The great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung created the Juche idea and, on this basis, has developed and perfected the socialist idea. The Juche socialist idea makes it clear that socialist society is the most advanced society where the popular masses are the masters of everything and everything serves them, and that it is a society which develops steadily on the strength of their unity. The socialist cause is just in that the popular masses lead an independent and creative life to the full as the masters of the state and society. Our people have this as their firm conviction, so they are moving steadily along the road of socialism in spite of the anti-socialist storms.
If the former socialist countries had developed and perfected the socialist idea in conformity with the requirements of the times and the developing revolution, and if they had equipped the popular masses with it and thus ensured that they accepted socialism as their firm conviction, the tragic events in which the popular masses, failing to see through the reactionary, corrupt nature of capitalist society and harbouring illusions about it, wavered ideologically and thus frustrated socialism would not have occurred. As experience shows, if we are to defend the cause of socialism and to bring glory to it the socialist idea should be perfected and the popular masses armed with it so that it becomes their firm conviction.
...
The Juche idea contains the original concept that the makers of history who forge the destiny of humanity are the popular masses, not individuals, and that they should be combined into one sociopolitical organism in order to forge their destiny independently and creatively. An isolated individual cannot become the motive force of socio-historical progress, nor have socio-political integrity as a social being with independence, creativity and consciousness. The parental organization of a person's socio-political integrity is the social community. It is only when an individual, as a member of the social community, joins his fate with that of the community that he can have sociopolitical integrity which is different from the physical life and live and develop independently and creatively as the master of his own destiny. In a social collective in which the people, the makers of history, are combined into one socio-political organism, the principle of comradely love and revolutionary obligation holds sway in the relations between individuals and between the collective and individuals, the principle of sharing life and death, and of devoted service to one another. The expression of the relations of comradely love and revolutionary obligation between the collective and individuals sharing life and death is socialist collectivism which embodies the principle of "One for all and all for one". Our socialist society based on the Juche idea is the society in which socialist collectivism is most thoroughly embodied.
The full PDF can be found here, it's pretty short: http://www.korea-dpr.info/lib/Kim%20Jong%20Il%20-%206/ABUSES%20OF%20SOCIALISM%20ARE%20INTOLERABLE.pdf
Donald P. Gregg Ambassador to South Korea 1989-1993 posted:This is a work that CIA can truly be proud of.
WHy has the songbun narative only gained traction in recent years?
What can we make of a concept that is promoted in a book written by a CIA agent?
When we know the defectors from communist countries make the worst witnesses (c.f. soviet defectors) what weight should we pay their testemony?
Why is the songbun stuff pushed heavily by the US government and US govt funded anti-com propaganda agencies?
Why when you ask actual people living in the DPRK do they not have any idea what your taking about?
Theres some good work to be done investigating the origin of the songbun lie tbh
North Koreans are marked for life - Stephen J. Solarz, Foreword, in Helen-Louise
Hunter, Kim Il-song’s North Korea (Connecticut: Praeger, 1999), p. ix
The regime itself produced a movie entitled “Guarantee” that explains the songbun system. Produced in 1987, the movie portrays the suffering a poor worker faces because of his poor songbun classification due to having family members living in South Korea - 1996 White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (Seoul: Korea Institute of National Unification, 1996) here: http://www.kinu.or.kr/eng/pub/pub_04_01.jsp?page=2&num=2&mode=view&field=&text=&order=&dir=&bid=DATA04&ses= Why the 1996 report was used when these are produced yearly as anti-com propaganda I don't know but it starts out by saying "acording to reports north korea is the the country with the worst human rights evar" - total bs from start to finish produced by US vassal state south Korea
Other Korean institute for national unification propaganda cited: http://www.kinu.or.kr/eng/pub/pub_02_01.jsp?page=8&num=53&mode=view&field=&text=&order=&dir=&bid=DATA05&ses=
essentially a rigid caste system, songbun leaves most North Koreans with little-to-no hope for reward for personal initiative and very little room for personal choice. It is very difficult to improve one’s songbun, particularly if it derives from one’s family’s pre-revolutionary class status or the behavior of one’s parents or relatives - according to: Robert L. Worden, ed., North Korea: a country study, 5th edition (U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008), 78
Some Charles K armstrong refs
According to party doctrine, to successfully carry out its complete social policies, North Korea must conduct the tasks of songbun and social stratum classification, organize surveillance networks and the party’s organizational guidance, and maximize all of the people’s strength through a pan-society mobilization system. - Naver.com Encyclopedia, Bukhan-ui Sahoe Jeongchaek (North Korea’s Social Policy). URL: http://100.naver.com/100.nhn?docid=718411 lmao, and while were at it let me just consult yahoo answers about the moscow trials
it goes on, there might be better stuff later but i cant be fucked, a reliance on US state department reports & propaganda, south korean unification institute reports, second hand defector testemonies and random south korean internet articles seems to be the sum evidence that the US can find
aerdil posted:on a related note, that awful bbc 'journalist' who was detained for ten hours (TEN HOURS! COULD YOU IMAGINE? SUCH LOSS OF LIBERTY WOULD NEVER OCCUR HERE!) wrote an article about his experience, wherein he's relatively gently taken to task over his obviously biased and orientalist articles: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36200530
some stuff in LA Times this month in a similar vein:
http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-north-korea-kim-jong-un-chairman-20160509-story.html
On Monday, about 30 reporters were allowed to enter the April 25 House of Culture, but were allowed to stay for only about 10 minutes. Reporters from Reuters, the Financial Times, CBS, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times were among those excluded.
Government guides -- who almost always accompany foreign journalists when they leave their designated hotel -- told this Los Angeles Times correspondent that she was not invited to the venue because her reports from recent days “were not beautiful.” Pressed for specifics, one guide said: “Ask yourself.”
also this one has some pretty pictures of buildings alongside scary references to ""shock brigades"" that built them
Constantignoble posted:also this one has some pretty pictures of buildings alongside scary references to ""shock brigades"" that built them
let's play: federation headquarters from new star trek movie, or north korea:
getfiscal posted:all those buildings are probably catastrophic engineering fails patched together with enormous cost overruns because they basically import chinese contractors to do it all
nah man, weren't you reading, they get shock brigades to do it
goddamn shock brigades.
getfiscal posted:Five Best Things about Korea
5. The people
4. They have a city
3. They exist
2. Their sticktoitiveness
1. Their positive qualities
Ah yes, because USA doesn't have people or exist... Hmm... You know they actually have work camps in USA too... It's called a job. Think about it before next time you fling stones in tiny pink and green houses decorated with murals of smiling farm workers.
