sources
on the dprk
- right to housing and retirement, multi-party peoples democracy: constitution of the dprk
- power checks and balances: infographic: why the us is a dictatorship and the dprk isnt.
- welfare economy: prolewiki article about the dprk, section on economy (that whole article is generally really great and debunks a lot of western propaganda)
- democratic since inception: kim byong sik. “modern korea: the socialist north, revolutionary perspectives in the south, and unification.” 1970.
on the rok
- poverty, slums: prolewiki-article on the term “hell josoen”
- political prisoners: western source confirming the existence of the national security law, stephen gowans (2018). patriots, traitors and empires: the story of koreas struggle for freedom: ‘the political partition of korea’ (pp. 115–116) , and the prolewiki-article on the rok, sections “national security law” and “unconverted long-term prisoners”
- widespread corruption: a lot of reporting can be found on this topic, even in western media. lets just take the government-sanctioned prostitution and sex trafficking as an example, though there is other equally horrific stuff, including the usage of disabled people as agricultural slaves.
- worlds second highest suicide rate: katrin park (2021-10-5). “south korea is no country for young people” doreign policy.
- tyrannical history: prolewiki-article on the rok, section “history” warning: very bleak read
debunking of anticipated liberal comments
norf korea no food
malnutrition was in fact a thing during the 1990s, though the portrayals of this time period, the so called “arduous march” in westen media are usually exaggerated. mostly omitted by american-allied media is the fact that those difficulties were caused by the inhumane and terrorist western sanctions and embargo against the dprk, as well as the cia-backed illegal and undemocratic dissolution of the ussr. nowadays problems regarding food security have pretty much ceased to exist in the country.
hermit kingdom
first of all, the term itself is nothing but racist, orientalist nonsense, but whatever… the dprk is in no way a kingdom, its democratic model of governance, while obviously imperfect and worthy of (constructive) criticism, is explained in the constitution and infographic linked above.
furthermore, the county is neither “reclusive”, nor internationally isolated. the dprk enjoys very friendly relations with fellow aes china, cuba, laos and vietnam, as well as anti-imperialist nations like iran, russia and palestine. the reason you dont hear much from inside the country is due to western press not wanting to report the truth.
no lights, no electricity
the famous “no lights”-photo is a photoshopped fake initially circulated by a southern far-right tabloid. here is an actual image of east asia, including the korean peninsula:
haircut police
unlike south korea, the dprk never had such policies. here is a very entertaining video debunking that myth.
It is VASTLY lower to be clear. 1.7 out of 10k, vs 19.5 out out of 10k in America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_homeless_population
1.7 out of 10,000, obv that number should be zero, but does it sound like it’s true to say that ‘many people’ can’t afford housing and that slums from the 1960s are still around and are numerous? Or does it sound like a distortion made to make it seem like SK consists of acres and acres of shanty towns like Rio?
I compare with the US bc most of us here live in the US and I dind’t want to bother with finding the exact stat bc I was getting ready for bed when I wrote that.
OP is obv using that line to make it sound like SK is still basically a dictatorship. It’s a distortion of the facts at best, outright lie at worst.
It’s a colonial dictatorship of the bourgeoisieOP is explicitly saying that it isn’t something anymore and you’re saying that he’s using that to say it still isYea obviously they are lib and bourgeois.
The phrasing ‘spent it’s first 42 years as a dictatorship and only recently began to liberalize’ is a distortion. Very obviously so for 2 reasons I will enumerate
1 The country is going to celebrate 80 years of independence from the Japanese fascists on August 15 of next year. They liberalized about 36 years ago. They have spent roughly half of their existence as a dictatorship, roughly half as a liberal republic. The phrasing ‘42 years’ vs ‘only recently’ was clearly chosen to imply that the ‘recent’ liberal period is vastly shorter. Why use an exact number for one but a wishy-washy and vague phrase like ‘recently’ for the other? bc if OP used the actual dates and exact numbers, it would not sound as bad as OP wants it to. 42 vs 36 doesn’t sound bad enough for OP, so he has to be vague with his numbers. Why not keep it exact? It is a distortion of the facts meant to fool people who do not know when they gained independence.
2 ‘began to liberalize’ is a phrasing clearly meant to imply that they have not yet achieved very much liberalization. They did not ‘begin to liberalize’ they have liberalized and they are a full fledged bourgeois liberal republic. (and obv that’s not great but its far better than being a fascist dictatorship)
you keep acting like the 1988 upheaval made the south a nearly perfect utopia and pretend like any criticism of the south is now unwarranted and only done by bad-faith actors.
you didnt source any of your claims btw and still expect to be hailed as the harbinger of truth, while pretty much all of your argumentation has been a mix of shifting the goalposts, concern trolling and outright falsifications of what others are saying. fucking tsargrad tv has more intellectual honesty than you.
:PIGPOOPBALLS:
lmfao
I’ve been exceptionally clear in EVREY fucking reply I have given that there is plenty to criticize in the South. Are you so goddamn dishonest that you feel the need to lie to people when the evidence that your claim is false is present right here on this exact fucking webpage? Here’s what I said
Do you just lie like this all fucking day in real life too? Anyone on this webpage with a high school level of reading comprehension can see that I don’t think SK is ‘nearly perfect’. I’m talking about the positives because you are misrepresenting the facts to make them look like dystopia. When I talk to some dumb lib who wants to use Korea as an example of how America is awesome bc we helped the south and they build a perfect capitalist society, or a Kpop stan who thinks its perfect, I will talk about the negatives. It’s because I care about the facts and I do fact-based materialist analysis.
Good lord, you are the one throwing out random shit that has nothing to do with anything I said, like that they have a bunch of churches. And just to show how honest I am, I will acknowledge that yes it is of course true that they have a problem with a lot of people belonging to insane right wing reactionary churches. Happy? I’m fine with shit talking the parts of Korea that deserve to be shit talked. I’ll throw in another for good measure, they have a serious problem with bigotry and colorism against those from south Asia, as well as against those who are not “”“pure blood”“” Korean, and racial discrimination is not illegal. Toxic beauty standards against women also does serious damage against the psychology of women there, esp growing teenage girls, many of whom still wear covid masks, not bc they are afraid of the virus, but bc they are afraid they are not pretty enough to show their real faces. I bet you didn’t know all that, did you? Because you don’t know shit about South Korea (or you do know but lie anyway, either way doesn’t look good for you)
And btw, pls give me a citation, a real fucking citation not ‘prolewiki’ for these claims (the fact that you are old enough to have traveled to SK in 2007 but not mature enough to realize that ‘prolewiki’ doesn’t qualify as a reliable source does not reflect well on you) You are the one who made these claims in the first place, you are the one who needs to demonstrate that they are true with real sources.
That your photo is of current day Korea (I notice you didn’t address this claim at all, because you know you are damn liar)
That ‘many people’ cant afford housing
that shanty towns are common
that NK has enough energy to keep the lights on 24/7 and the numerous images showing them to be dark at night are fake.
EDIT:
And you know what, to further emphasize my honesty, I’m gonna walk back my earlier comment about suicides. While it is not literally ‘by the millions’ and it is still true that it has trended downward over the past ~10 years. It is indeed super high, one of the highest in the world and it’s fair to bring it up. I was overzealous in criticizing that claim , I guess bc I wrote that comment right before bed last night when I was tired and cranky. I can admit when I was wrong, can you?
lemmy.ml has the pigpoopballs emoji now!?
nah, i just happen to know the shortcut