Ufuk_Surekli posted:should we literally just sit here and declare that support is impossible. is that the greatest possible use of our powers
As opposed to our normal behavior of trying to insight US military/Japanese military personnel to abandon their posts in Korean bases or like saying out loud to people that they really vote, or by offering up topical Mao quotes?
Ufuk_Surekli posted:I'm sorry for being abrupt but can I just ask - what is your actual proposal for how western leftists should act towards the DPRK
Idk ask one if they register an account here
EmanuelaBrolandi posted:I remember the first time I wrote sentences in a human tongue
Okay 2 put this more simply you're forwarding the line that contemporary instances of actually existing socialism or revolutionary movements can be seen as representative of a general revolutionary socialism adapted to particular national conditions, necessitating particular strategic retreats or advances but nevertheless adhering to revolutionary socialist strategy in general
you can likely make a consistent and reasonable argument in favour of this view but the problem is that it's generally framed as a neutral or non-partisan perspective. that is, this line is positioned as a deference to the initiatives of those in the developing world and avoiding the chauvinist intervention of first world theoretical squabbles
what this ignores is that this isn't actually the theoretical perspective of the individual parties being described as such. anti-revisionism as a theoretical tendency is not the product of first world bloviating but the contribution of revolutionary movements in the developing world themselves. the cpi(maoist) are resolutely opposed to the assertion that the prc is communist. china does not believe the cpp are legitimate representatives of the filipino people. this identification of a general revolutionary tendency is imposed from without
that is, it's a heteredox and ultimately partisan position regarding what socialism is or can be identified as that actively contradicts, for the most part, the theoretical perspectives of the majority of parties being identified as such
there's nothing explicitly wrong with taking that line in itself but i entirely resent the idea of presenting it as one that is somehow contrary to first world theoretical squabbles or somehow more in tune to the perspectives of the revolutionary movements it is in marked distinction to. this line should be recognised for what it is, which is a heterodox theoretical position staked out in contrary terms to a majority of the theoretical contributions of those it lends allegiance to
Yes it is possible to give ideological support to the DPRK from your home in the USA. That is you can be active across all forms of communication defending the DPRK, you try to set up a Juche-style homestead way out in the sticks, you can launch campaigns to mock imperialist liars, all of these paths are open to you. On the other hand it's impossible to give material support to the DPRK from your home in the USA without giving up your freedom, citizenship, or both.
I'm sure ideological support is greatly and graciously appreciated by North Koreans and it may even be possible to organize some Americans in opposition to their crimes in Korea. And it is a prerequisite for material support. But it's not material support. The instant ideological support solicits real involvement from Westerners it becomes material support and violates sanctions.
The most annoying part about this is that, in terms of behaviorism, the fastest way to gain ideological support for the DPRK in America would be to get Americans to engage in repeated, low-scale material support. But I can't think of anything to try that wouldn't be totally illegal. Since I'm not willing to break American law to support the DPRK I can only be said to be an ally in the weakest way.
swampman posted:The most annoying part about this is that, in terms of behaviorism, the fastest way to gain ideological support for the DPRK in America would be to get Americans to engage in repeated, low-scale material support. But I can't think of anything to try that wouldn't be totally illegal. Since I'm not willing to break American law to support the DPRK I can only be said to be an ally in the weakest way.
Being a genuine communist has, on one level or another, been illegal throughout the west since the late 1940s-early 1950s. How one solves this general problem is an open question.
you’re not a nation, you’re a community. You’re a dispersed collection of communities.”
Because the Black Panther Party is not embarrassed to change or admit error, tonight I would like to accept the criticism and say that those critics were absolutely right. We are a collection of communities just as the Korean people, the Vietnamese people, and the Chinese people are a collection of communities-a dispersed collection of communities because we have no superstructure of our own.
The superstructure we have is the superstructure of Wall Street, which all of our labor produced. This is a distorted form of collectivity. Everything’s been collected but it’s used exclusively in the interest of the ruling circle. This is why the Black Panther Party denounces Black capitalism and says that all we can do is liberate our community, not only in Vietnam but here, not only in Cambodia and the People’s Republics of China and Korea but the communities of the world.
We must unite as one community and then transform the world into a place where people will be happy, wars will end, the state itself will no longer exist, and we will have communism.
But we cannot do this right away. When transformation takes place, when structural change takes place, the result is usually cultural lag. After the people possess the means of production we will probably not move directly into communism but linger with Revolutionary Intercommunalism until such time as we can wash away bourgeois thought, until such time as we can wash away racism and reactionary thinking, until such time as people are not attached to their nation as a peasant is attached to the soil, until such time as that people can gain their sanity and develop a culture that is “essentially human,” that will serve the people instead of some god.
Because we cannot avoid contact with each other we will have to develop a value system that will help us function together in harmony."
https://translationcollective.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/intercommunalism.pdf
bhpn linked to some writing 'Intercommunalism' as a theory which has been overlooked till now; this speech by huey newton in 1970 brings it up and some of it seems relevant to present discussion
thirdplace posted:My local school board isn't sovereign, but that doesn't make it a farce,
if you know anything about local politics in the US you would know that school boards are nothing if not a tragicomic farce
blinkandwheeze posted:there's nothing explicitly wrong with taking that line in itself but i entirely resent the idea of presenting it as one that is somehow contrary to first world theoretical squabbles or somehow more in tune to the perspectives of the revolutionary movements it is in marked distinction to. this line should be recognised for what it is, which is a heterodox theoretical position staked out in contrary terms to a majority of the theoretical contributions of those it lends allegiance to
I disagree w this but I'm not gonna write a response because Jesus Christ dude
i dunno if it makes sense to be super picky when trying to tell if some country existing today is "socialist" in the same sense as countries are "capitalist". capitalism has had centuries of continuous subsumption of the productive forces, materially and socially restructuring human life to make it more amenable to its existence. i think theres a reason that it took until the 1850s for someone (marx) to uncover the "secret" of profit formation under capitalist production, the extraction of surplus value. before capitalist production was sufficiently developed it would be a lot harder to try and figure out what exactly the important things about capitalist production were and how they interacted with each other. i think socialism/communism works in the same way as a mode of production. the key concepts that are unique to socialist production, that aren't defined in more or less oppositional terms to capitalism, will only become clear as socialist/communist production starts to become more dominant and starts to subsume human material and social life.
this is sort of why i feel that questions like "is NK Actually Socialist" aren't that important because we dont even have the right tools for the analysis of a highly developed socialist economy. its like asking if crafting guilds, traveling merchants or tenant farmers are protocapitalist, except that we know what to look at the answer that question much more adequately. we can see not only how they started to develop in ways contrary to the previous mode of production and we can start seeing the process of the development of the credit system, the disposession of the landed peasantry etc, and because we have a certain historical vantage point we can more easily identify how those relate to the development of capitalism.
drwhat posted:ilmdge posted:"Pak Chooie Unf" is an old SA catchphrase.
it was very hard not to downvote the post specifically because of this. d&d level Old Meme Refs are way more offensive than casual racism
sorry but seeing this one-trick pony step to getfiscal got me feeling all revanchist
edit: "one-trick pony" was needlessly insulting and I regret saying it
Edited by thirdplace ()
tears posted:place looks alright to me, they certainly got their educational priorities right
what's incredibly disconcerting in this photo is that the moon sticker's face is on the wrong side
Edited by swampman ()
Headline: "North Korea praises Trump and urges US voters to reject 'dull Hillary'"
below the fold
"“There are many positive aspects to Trump’s ‘inflammatory policies’,” wrote Han Yong-mook, who described himself as a Chinese North Korean scholar...
“This is very striking,” said Aidan Foster-Carter of the University of Leeds. “Admittedly it is not exactly Pyongyang speaking, or at least not the DPRK government in an official capacity. But it is certainly Pyongyang flying a kite, or testing the waters."
in a major attempt to 'be hip' with 'the kids', the National Defense Commission was dissolved and reformed into the State Affairs Commission, and kim jong un was sworn in as the chairman of the organization. the primary difference being that the NDC had unclear authority over the economic planning of the country and was oriented solely towards the policy of songon . the SAC has clearer ties to economic organs, is assuming full responsibility for the success of the Five Year Plan for State Economic Development (really playing on the millennial love of nostalgia :stalin
, and has as its mission statement the policy of pyongjin - the dual focus on defensive nuclear deterrence and economic development.
in his opening speech to the party congress, kim jong un reportedly extolled the north korean people's resilience, and laughed at foiled western hopes of 'change of direction' or 'collapse of system'. jong un followed that with this statement: “Despite the filthy wind of bourgeois liberty and ‘reform’ and ‘openness’ blowing in our neighborhood, we let the spirit of songun rifles fly and advanced according to the path of socialism that we had chosen.” which, according to the washington post's top sources in japan, was presented alongside this image:
i was totally enthralled by the drama of how the kaesong industrial zone, the jointly operated factory park which both koreas agreed in 2013 to never shut down due to political issues, was shut down by south korea due to political issues this year. the dprk's response was to seize the assets of the companies invested in kaesong, and to renamed the 'Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea' to 'the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country of the DPRK'. Yikes, Thats Good TV!
and who can forget the plot twist when on july 7th the dprk broke kayfabe and offered to start negotiations with the united stands over mutual denuclearization of korean peninsula, lowering tensions along the dmz, reestablishing diplomatic contact between the two koreas, and then on the Very, Same, Day, the united states rejected the offer and issued personal sanctions on Kim Jong Un and other top north korean politicians!
I started talking about it with my one Marxist friend and four years later, WHAM, I'm posting in the world's foremost forum of
also e: so I just read through the rest of this thread and I guess I'm pretty late to this but it makes me happy that other people think western propaganda about the DPRK is nonsense only believable through latent orientalism. I've had so many unproductive arguments at college about this that it was really refreshing to read this thread.
Edited by Belphegor ()
an article on cnn that doesn't appear (at first glance, at least) to be completely full of racist assumptions regarding nk
is this the new propaganda line, or an outlier?
Edited by swampman ()
Thanks in advance.
wahoopride posted:I am having a discussion with some people about starvation in North Korea. Does anyone know how big a deal food shortage and food insecurity actually is in North Korea? If so, can you provide any sources for that which you believe to be reliable on the topic?
Thanks in advance.
http://apjjf.org/2014/12/18/Henri-Feron/4113/article.html
anyone who talks about starvation in nk in 2017 is full of shit. meanwhile how many people die of starvation and disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo? and how many people care? or worse, actually think they are good people for this geographical blindness because they uncritically accept the lies about the Rwandan 'genocide' to justify its current puppet regime and simultaneously use that fiction to agitate for intervention in Korea.
babyhueypnewton posted:
Thank you very much. I will read this.
babyhueypnewton posted:anyone who talks about starvation in nk in 2017 is full of shit.
Did the famine that happened back in the 90s really happen? Was it as bad as what it says on, say, wikipedia? Or is even that famine an exaggeration? If the famine happened what caused it?
babyhueypnewton posted:meanwhile how many people die of starvation and disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo? and how many people care? or worse, actually think they are good people for this geographical blindness because they uncritically accept the lies about the Rwandan 'genocide' to justify its current puppet regime and simultaneously use that fiction to agitate for intervention in Korea.
Yes, this is of course a good observation.
in terms of now though, westerners who do business with them have mentioned that since kim jong un arrived on the scene there's apparently widespread development and work projects happening even in rural areas and certainly no evidence of starvation (not reliable sources of course). trade with china also grew in the last year despite china's economic slowdown.
https://www.nknews.org/2016/12/five-years-of-kim-jong-un-how-has-north-koreas-economy-fared/
Edited by aerdil ()
babyhueypnewton posted:Rwandan 'genocide' to justify its current puppet regime and simultaneously use that fiction to agitate for intervention in Korea.
can you run through these scare quotes for me? I am aware that genocide is a politically-charged term but I have always seen the Rwandan genocide as one of the more clearer examples of this, so I must be missing something.
aerdil posted:yeah the famine in the 90s was very real and desperate, and the dprk doesn't make any attempt in denying how bad it was and mentions it all the time in their press releases.
in terms of now though, westerners who do business with them have mentioned that since kim jong un arrived on the scene there's apparently widespread development and work projects happening even in rural areas and certainly no evidence of starvation (not reliable sources of course). trade with china also grew in the last year despite china's economic slowdown.
https://www.nknews.org/2016/12/five-years-of-kim-jong-un-how-has-north-koreas-economy-fared/
i feel it's a common element of propaganda in the united states that socialist countries' policymakers are completely unresponsive to their populations due to a commitment to bogus wizard spells or whatever. when of course it's an extremely rare and usually short-lived situation where any state whatsoever doesn't try to respond to the desires of the people in it or under it, at least to some degree. just applying that as the base assumption over the years when reading news stories has allowed me to tune out a lot of the static.
your_not_aleksandr posted:babyhueypnewton posted:Rwandan 'genocide' to justify its current puppet regime and simultaneously use that fiction to agitate for intervention in Korea.
can you run through these scare quotes for me? I am aware that genocide is a politically-charged term but I have always seen the Rwandan genocide as one of the more clearer examples of this, so I must be missing something.