Kim Jong Il admits failure

[Red Fist]

SEOUL - NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong Il has admitted failing to deliver an acceptable standard of living for the communist nation's people, state media reported on Saturday.
Rodong Sinmun, the official daily newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, quoted Mr Kim as saying much remains to be desired in people's quality of life although the country has become 'politically and militarily powerful'.
Mr Kim's father, Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994, has been named as president for eternity of North Korea.
'The president has said that people should be allowed to eat white rice and meat soup, wear silk clothes and live under tiled roofs,' Mr Kim Jong Il was quoted as saying by Rodong. 'But we've so far failed to carry out this goal,' he said. 'I will certainly resolve the issue of people's livelihood within the shortest possible period and achieve the president's last wish.'
It was because Mr Kim Jong Il wanted to help improve people's living standards that he made a raft of visits to inspect industrial facilities in provincial cities last year, Rodong said.
The paper urged North Koreans to step up efforts to increase production of food and other necessities. North Korea has been suffering chronic food shortages. Last month, it carried out a drastic currency revaluation aimed at weakening the role of free markets and strengthening the socialist system. -- AFPstraitstimes dot com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_475312.html

Your opinions please...

[Q]

straitstimes dot com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_475312.html

Your opinions please...
He has some sense of reality after all?

[Glenn Beck]

Is this a sign that the DPRK going to be inviting the White Cat over for dinner?

[ContrarianLemming]

lying scum

[Red Fist]

He has some sense of reality after all?

I'm not quite sure but. I think now it is more a propaganda to get workers to work faster to increase production of food and other necessities without having them to put questions or avoid creating resistance among workers on the DPRK "socialist" system. But perhaps it is something else entirely. it will in time prove what is the purpose of this confession.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Who knows.

The beginnings of a political power struggle? Either way, doesn't look like they have any new ideas really. Then again, this is Juche - a nationalist, militarist ideology. Not likely to ever have worked.

[Dimentio]

Maybe the purpose is a resignation to the fact that it is impossible to hide how inefficient the autarchy is?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Also, why is it a 'communist state'? *Bangs head against wall.*

[scarletghoul]

Haha, everyone's baffled that such a 'totalitarian' government can show a bit of humility...


lying scum
:lol:


Is this a sign that the DPRK going to be inviting the White Cat over for dinner? Yeahh things like this do cause one to wonder about that.. but there's been hints and signs of market reforms for like 10 years, and still no major change has occurred far as i know

[Sendo]

the autarky can't last forever if it's failing. The mismanagement, the isolation from the world, and the isolation of elite politicians from the commoners have to take their toll. The military that's been propping him up could also be peeling back. I imagine any action would be slow since they all benefit nicely from a status quo--the whole nation's gotta be pretty delicate given the utter stagnation for decades now and the bleeding of citizens to rural China (what does that say about your living conditions?).

So I guess he's admitting he has to address domestic issues like "living conditions" There's no point in having a massive army if it relies on sheer numbers because your industry has been outmoded, and there's no point when all you have to defend is a workforce who's not accumulating anything and mineral resources that aren't even being used on the citizens.

(EDIT: error in copy and pasting on my part.)

[FSL]

Haha, everyone's baffled that such a 'totalitarian' government can show a bit of humility...


:lol:

Yeahh things like this do cause one to wonder about that.. but there's been hints and signs of market reforms for like 10 years, and still no major change has occurred far as i know


Just a while ago they changed currency and allowed only a certain amount of old money to be exchanged for the new so people who had been engaging in illegal trading or were corrupted or whatever would lose what they had earnt. So I doubt they did this to initiate big market reforms just a month later.

They probably want to try and strengthen the country's economy by making it even more autarchic so they appeal to citizens in advance.

[punisa]

Not sure what will happen, but I love those army parades :D

[The Red Next Door]

no shit sherlock kim.

[AkirAmaruBolivar]

Kim is just lonely

[Steve_j]

I wonder what that crazy spanish guy from friends of korea thinks now? Still a workers paradise?

[Axle]

Great, he admitted it. Its just a damn shame that Kim has apparently done fuck all to improve the lives of the people in the sixteen years since his father said it was a good idea.

[punisa]

I wonder what that crazy spanish guy from friends of korea thinks now? Still a workers paradise?
It's a workers ubber paradise :lol:
Well anyone who has a strong Stalin-rule-me-fetish, N.Korea is still the land of dreams, no doubt about it :cool:

[AkirAmaruBolivar]

its better than the west, the north koreans dont occupy other nations, dont rape each other with cocacola signs or degrade themselves for a place up the ladder, kim seems a tad unstable though.

[Weezer]

its better than the west, the north koreans dont occupy other nations, dont rape each other with cocacola signs or degrade themselves for a place up the ladder, kim seems a tad unstable though.

Kim is far too busy raping his people and nation's image to bother raping other nations.

[AkirAmaruBolivar]

so he isnt as bad as blair bush then, he only rapes koreans.
Better than any capie

[Weezer]

so he isnt as bad as blair bush then, he only rapes koreans.
Better than any capie

Sure, he isn't an imperialist, but how can raping your own country be justified? :confused:

[scarletghoul]

The word 'rape' is being used way too liberally, in both senses. Not only is it careless and stupid to compare an oppressive regime with someone being raped, but it also shows a silly and one-dimensional misunderstanding of North Korea.


its better than the west, the north koreans dont occupy other nations, dont rape each other with cocacola signs or degrade themselves for a place up the ladder, kim seems a tad unstable though.
It's important to realise the extent of the anti-cult of personality surrounding Kim in the west. Capitalist propaganda paints the image of him as crazy, unstable, infantile, whimsicle, lonely, etc, but there really isn't a lot of evidence that any of that is true. I mean, how has such a crazy man been able to stay in power, and how has a country in such a precarious situation been able to survive under the leadership of a crazy man ? It simply doesn't make sene.

The fact is that the personal attacks on Kim Jong-il amount to a racist caricature, part of the racist orientalist image being built about North Korea in the west: a nation of silly brainwashed asians living under the iron fist of an infantile madman. This is an old old propaganda tactic, portraying a country's leadership as crazy and evil, and the people as poor suffering stupid and brainwashed. But it's vital that we see it for what it is : propaganda.

Also note the Team America is not an authority on information regarding North Korea and Kim Jong-il.

[dar8888]

The word 'rape' is being used way too liberally, in both senses. Not only is it careless and stupid to compare an oppressive regime with someone being raped, but it also shows a silly and one-dimensional misunderstanding of North Korea.


It's important to realise the extent of the anti-cult of personality surrounding Kim in the west. Capitalist propaganda paints the image of him as crazy, unstable, infantile, whimsicle, lonely, etc, but there really isn't a lot of evidence that any of that is true. I mean, how has such a crazy man been able to stay in power, and how has a country in such a precarious situation been able to survive under the leadership of a crazy man ? It simply doesn't make sene.

The fact is that the personal attacks on Kim Jong-il amount to a racist caricature, part of the racist orientalist image being built about North Korea in the west: a nation of silly brainwashed asians living under the iron fist of an infantile madman. This is an old old propaganda tactic, portraying a country's leadership as crazy and evil, and the people as poor suffering stupid and brainwashed. But it's vital that we see it for what it is : propaganda.

Also note the Team America is not an authority on information regarding North Korea and Kim Jong-il.

Kim Jong-il is facing the same issues that most of the "enemies" of the U.S. face.

He has kept his country together, and N. Korea has not had a Tiananmen Square type incident in either the reign of Kim Jong-il or Kim Il-sung.

His Juche philosophy is a bit anti-Marxist, but beyond that we know very little about the actual man

[RedScare]

Words. Interesting words, and a good sign, but still just words. I won't be convinced they really care until I see a concentrated effort to raise standards of living.

[KC]

Edit

[Drace]

Apology REJECTED

[lines]

There is nothing wrong with the politics or ideology or leadership of North Korea. The reason for the standards of living they have is due to the sanctions by capitalist powers.

[Q]

Not sure what will happen, but I love those army parades :D


It's a workers ubber paradise :lol:
Well anyone who has a strong Stalin-rule-me-fetish, N.Korea is still the land of dreams, no doubt about it :cool:
You sure have some strange ideas of what socialism entails.

[MarxSchmarx]

The fact is that the personal attacks on Kim Jong-il amount to a racist caricature, part of the racist orientalist image being built about North Korea in the west: a nation of silly brainwashed asians living under the iron fist of an infantile madman. This is an old old propaganda tactic, portraying a country's leadership as crazy and evil, and the people as poor suffering stupid and brainwashed. But it's vital that we see it for what it is : propaganda.


Well sure, this partially correct as an analysis and also it's entertainment value and not just racist propaganda at work here. To characterize the N. Korean people as a bunch of zombies is ridiculous but does make the viewer feel better about their own situation.

I'd also point out that this view of the leadership is also common in S. Korea. It's not entirely racist, as a lot of the contempt for Kim as a person are, according to defectors, justified. It's no "sillier" than when you heard of many people dying of heart attacks when they heard Stalin died.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You sure have some strange ideas of what socialism entails.

You do realize he was being sarcastic, right? :confused:

[Q]

You do realize he was being sarcastic, right? :confused:
I can only hope so. There are enough nutjobs that actually think of socialism along these lines.

[KC]

Edit

[lines]

Your not aware of the sanctions?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There is nothing wrong with the politics or ideology or leadership of North Korea. The reason for the standards of living they have is due to the sanctions by capitalist powers.

Yet Cuba doesn't seem to do so bad, does it?

Come on, get a grip. Kim has shunned Socialism. Juche stinks of jingoism, it is thoroughly anti-Marxist in every sense, yet just because they have collectivised and are anti-imperialist, many support them.

They are not Socialist, not even in their rhetoric. Yet some on the left continue to fall over backwards to accommodate them.

[Chambered Word]

its better than the west, the north koreans dont occupy other nations, dont rape each other with cocacola signs or degrade themselves for a place up the ladder, kim seems a tad unstable though.

We have food to eat and personal freedom in the West.

Alot of Western countries also have free healthcare and education (which the DPRK has).

Once Kim Jong-il fixes his country up he can claim to be better than the West.

[whore]

http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/feb2007/picture8.jpg
one of the many sorts of photos and satalite images of north and south korea.

according to lenin, north korea wouldn't be socialist:

The Commission and Plan were initiated and supervised by Vladimir Lenin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin). Lenin's belief in electrification's central importance to the achievement of socialism is encapsulated in the popular Lenin quote, "Socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism) is the Soviet power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_%28council%29) plus electrification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrification) of the whole country."[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOELRO_plan#cite_note-0)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOELRO_plan

[scarletghoul]

Those images are ridiculous. Like a bunch of lights in the sea would shine brighter than a capital city ?
Japan is also largely without electricity too (some versions of this picture show japan with no electricity at all) and the major Russian city of Vladivostok must have been suffering a blackout too, at the time of that picture :rolleyes:
I dunno what exactly that image is about, but it's certainly not indicative of the distribution of electric power

Plus I think you're interpreting Lenin a bit too dogmatically, and stupidly

[Chambered Word]

Those images are ridiculous. Like a bunch of lights in the sea would shine brighter than a capital city ?


That is pretty weird. :confused:

[9x19mm]

DPRK has the potential to be a sucesful Nation if they had a potent leader.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Those images are ridiculous. Like a bunch of lights in the sea would shine brighter than a capital city ?
Japan is also largely without electricity too (some versions of this picture show japan with no electricity at all) and the major Russian city of Vladivostok must have been suffering a blackout too, at the time of that picture :rolleyes:
I dunno what exactly that image is about, but it's certainly not indicative of the distribution of electric power

Plus I think you're interpreting Lenin a bit too dogmatically, and stupidly
They do suffer from a lot of blackouts in NK, but this is the logical consequence of a lack of natural resources.

[Weezer]

That is pretty weird. :confused:


Maybe they're islands? Korea has thousands of islands off it's coast, so I hear.

[the last donut of the night]

His Juche philosophy is a bit anti-Marxist, but beyond that we know very little about the actual man

A bit?

Are you referring to that nationalist and anti-worker ideology whose sole existence is to justify Kim's rule over Korea?

C'mon.

[gorillafuck]

Can we not talk about leaders "raping" people? It's a bit odd, to be honest.

Anyway, I don't support the DPRK but if they do start trying to improve living standards then that's good for the citizens of North Korea.

[cb9's_unity]

Your not aware of the sanctions?

Are you not aware of many of the tenants of Juche? Its nationalist ideology and its flirtations with mysticism and leader worship. I have my problem with apologists but anyone who says "There is nothing wrong with the politics or ideology or leadership of North Korea", needs to either learn more about North Korea or seriously rethink if they are a socialist or not.


Those images are ridiculous. Like a bunch of lights in the sea would shine brighter than a capital city ?

This was discussed here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/s-korean-man-t120788/index4.html?highlight=fishing+lights) and a pretty damn good explanation was given to why those lights in the sea were bright. But it is the creed of every apologist to deny first and then ignore.

People who are supporting North Korea are supporting a dangerous precedent. They basically recognize that if there is any sort of imperialist pressure, socialist states can start using nationalism and leader worship to get through their problems.

[Revy]

There is hereditary rule. Kim Il-sung passed his position down to Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-il will do the same for his son. Unless there is a coup from a faction. Who knows what direction his son will take it. Kim Jong-il jettisoned the ideological emphasis on industry and workers and promoted the military as the administrator of society.

[AkirAmaruBolivar]

Kim is a despot and i see no evidence of him being anything other than a power hungry prick.
Passing title to son to son, fuck that, its post modern royalty

[Robocommie]

Questions of economics and what exactly is going on in North Korea and just what the state of their healthcare and education is aside, not a lot of information comes in or out of North Korea but there is a fairly visible personality cult in play, and it's pretty creepy.

[Revy]

Questions of economics and what exactly is going on in North Korea and just what the state of their healthcare and education is aside, not a lot of information comes in or out of North Korea but there is a fairly visible personality cult in play, and it's pretty creepy.

It would also be futile to deny the personality cult. "Comrade Kim Jong-il, we cannot live without you, our country cannot exist without you" a popular song in North Korea goes.

[cb9's_unity]

It would also be futile to deny the personality cult. "Comrade Kim Jong-il, we cannot live without you, our country cannot exist without you" a popular song in North Korea goes.

Don't forget, the apologists blamed Stalin's cult of personality on Khrushchev. I'm sure its just another crafty revisionist who knows just how much dear leader hates attention. It's just weird how these cult of personalty things keep happening in Marxist-Leninist country's...

[Wanted Man]

Don't forget, the apologists blamed Stalin's cult of personality on Khrushchev. I'm sure its just another crafty revisionist who knows just how much dear leader hates attention. It's just weird how these cult of personalty things keep happening in Marxist-Leninist country's...

North Korea is not marxist-leninist. You fail.

[AkirAmaruBolivar]

wanted man well said haha :laugh:

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Kim Jong Il is also just a man. At least he is honest enough to admit that the path to Communism is hard to take, and that much has te be done, although the DPRK has already a massive advantage over most capitalist nations.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

North Korea is not marxist-leninist. You fail.
It is Socialist, in another way perhaps, but certainly not worse.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Kim Jong Il is also just a man. At least he is honest enough to admit that the path to Communism is hard to take, and that much has te be done, although the DPRK has already a massive advantage over most capitalist nations.

They are not on a path to Communism. Marxism-Leninism, or Marxism - or indeed Socialism - of any sort is not their ideology.

As Robocommie has rightly said, and has also been identified in this thread, the North Koreans operate under a nationalist (Excuse this if you like), militarist doctrine, and exist in a country where huge nepotism exists, where no information comes in or out, and where, in any footage you can see a completely unnatural cult of personality around a leadership which has presided over a state which has come close to failing several times in its short existence.

Cuba has shown that not every single problem can be blamed on those big bad imperialists swirling, ready to pounce. Granted, that is a large obstacle, but that a command economy exists, and that North Korea is technically anti-imperialist (even though their anti-yankeeism is of a somewhat racist nature), is no excuse for operating such a system that the nepotistic Kim's have for decades upon decades.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Can we not talk about leaders "raping" people? It's a bit odd, to be honest.

Anyway, I don't support the DPRK but if they do start trying to improve living standards then that's good for the citizens of North Korea.

It's a dangerous mix if you ask me. "Improving living standards" sounds like opening up the markets to me. Prepare for another crazy totalitarian regime with a free market like China...

[the last donut of the night]

It is Socialist, in another way perhaps, but certainly not worse.

How is it socialist?

I've heard these wonders before, so let us deconstruct this one as well.

How can a nation who has renounced any Marxist ideology to nationalism, has been showing increasing signs of being led by a military junta, and has even started to show market reforms, slowly moving toward a greater unrestricted capitalism.

Not to mention it's complete lack of workers' democracy.

Just thought you should know.

[cb9's_unity]

North Korea is not marxist-leninist. You fail.

Oh i'm sorry, it just used to be. How petty can you get.

They may have officially abandoned Marxism-Leninism for Juche, but my point still stands entirely unaltered. Country's that adopt a M-L ideology have a nasty habit of developing a cult of personality. Its not as if some outside group came, destroyed Marxism-Leninism in North Korea, and then made their leader a demi-god. It were the M-L's themselves who created the nationalist, militarist, and mystic Juche ideology.

It may not be officially "Marxism-Leninism", its just the natural devolution of the same old stalinist bullshit.

[Bright Banana Beard]

It were the M-L's themselves who created the nationalist, militarist, and mystic Juche ideology.

It may not be officially "Marxism-Leninism", its just the natural devolution of the same old stalinist bullshit.

Actually, it was the Korean commies themselves that builds up DPRK, not any fucking foreigner. USSR rejected DPRK after the Pro-USSR coup failed. China and DPRK are just for trading. So, officially, it not Marxist-Leninists of the world, but the Koreans themselves. We only gave them inspiration since during the time so far MLs were the one that able to resist imperialism and the evil dictatorships didn't come in well.

[Chambered Word]

The fact is that the personal attacks on Kim Jong-il amount to a racist caricature, part of the racist orientalist image being built about North Korea in the west: a nation of silly brainwashed asians living under the iron fist of an infantile madman. This is an old old propaganda tactic, portraying a country's leadership as crazy and evil, and the people as poor suffering stupid and brainwashed. But it's vital that we see it for what it is : propaganda.

Must be why I don't care for Obama much either: I'm a racist. :rolleyes:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Actually, it was the Korean commies themselves that builds up DPRK, not any fucking foreigner. USSR rejected DPRK after the Pro-USSR coup failed. China and DPRK are just for trading. So, officially, it not Marxist-Leninists of the world, but the Koreans themselves. We only gave them inspiration since during the time so far MLs were the one that able to resist imperialism and the evil dictatorships didn't come in well.

What pro-USSR coup?

[dlm86]

Seems like he thinks he has military and politics down, he's just apologizing for his economic failures. Either way, to me it looks like he's just trying to stop civil unrest and so forth. Or push workers harder towards his goals.

[Ismail]

I said this on another topic so I'll just repeat it:

The DPRK is mainly poor because it is isolated and because its landmass (mostly mountains) is not good as far as agriculture is concerned. Kim has, however, recognized that life isn't the best in the DPRK (http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_475312.html). The government's answer, however, is to (as Enver Hoxha would put it) open up the country to the economic laws of capitalism by focusing on light industry (consumer goods and increasing exports) and possibly hinting at market reforms: "Local-industry factories should be operated at full capacity, and units, as many as possible, should launch a campaign to turn out more daily necessities favoured by the public." (See: http://www.korea-dpr.com/forum/?p=408)

So basically 2010 is apparently the year wherein the DPRK does whatever it can (regardless of ideology) to improve living standards.As Hoxha noted, the DPRK was and is a revisionist state. Juche is an obviously revisionist ideology. Sooner or later admitting "failure" and saying "We must now transition from state-capitalism to market-capitalism FOR THE PEOPLE!!!" was bound to happen sooner or later. "Reforms" towards capitalism in revisionist states always started from the pretext of existing economic problems, from Khrushchev criticizing "Stalinist overcentralization" to Gorbachev condemning "Stalinist totalitarianism."


Don't forget, the apologists blamed Stalin's cult of personality on Khrushchev. I'm sure its just another crafty revisionist who knows just how much dear leader hates attention. It's just weird how these cult of personalty things keep happening in Marxist-Leninist country's..."On December 21, 1929, the nation celebrated Stalin's fiftieth birthday with unprecedented extravagance... It was the beginning of the Stalin cult, which developed on a phenomenal scale.

The frenetic adulation was in part the enthusiastic work of the party machine in Moscow and of the party officials throughout the country. They were praising and ensuring that the people joined by praising their chief, the General Secretary of the party. They owed their positions to him and they knew how his authority could reach into the most distant corners of the party organization. But servility and self-interest were accompanied by genuine veneration...

While accepting the need for the cult, however, Stalin probably took little active part in promoting it. The Yugoslav communist Milovan Djilas, meeting him in 1945, formed the opinion that 'the deification of Stalin . . . was at least as much the work of Stalin's circle and the bureaucracy, who required such a leader, as it was his own doing.'"
(Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin (London, 1962), p. 98. Quoted in Grey, Ian. Stalin: Man of History. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979. pp. 233-34.)

Damn that anti-Stalin Stalinist Djilas!

Now let's compare Stalin, who suggested that as far as the Stories of the Childhood of Stalin went, that people should "burn this book" (in his words), to Kim. Well, we know (from reading Kim's works and works on Juche) that both Kims are essential to Juche and that they themselves stress "devotion" of the people to them. Both Kims stressed the "unique" nature of Juche and that it has "succeeded" the "out of date" theories of Marxism-Leninism. And finally, Stalin's personality cult (as with Hoxha's, even) were never used to promote "new forms" of Marxism-Leninism or whatever. Mao's personality cult and the Kims' personality cults were and are, however, used to promote just that.

Those are pretty big differences.

[Yazman]

I am sick to death of the media painting that country as "communist."

ugh.

[Wanted Man]

Oh i'm sorry, it just used to be. How petty can you get.

They may have officially abandoned Marxism-Leninism for Juche, but my point still stands entirely unaltered. Country's that adopt a M-L ideology have a nasty habit of developing a cult of personality. Its not as if some outside group came, destroyed Marxism-Leninism in North Korea, and then made their leader a demi-god. It were the M-L's themselves who created the nationalist, militarist, and mystic Juche ideology.

It may not be officially "Marxism-Leninism", its just the natural devolution of the same old stalinist bullshit.

Ah, so all the marxist-leninist movements in the world have naturally devolved to Juche? Oh wait, no they haven't!

And it's "petty" to point out the fact that "it just used to be"? Are you sure you want to argue that? There are vast differences, and you know it. Pointing that out is not "petty", it's refuting a plainly false claim, that comes from either ignorance or dishonesty. What is wrong with that? Do you have a problem with telling the truth?

And of course revisionism doesn't come from an outside group. That's what anti-revisionists have been saying for decades. That, regardless of outside interference, revisionist ideologies like Juche come from within the communist party itself, and need to be fought. This includes militarism, nationalism, leader-worship, etc.

It's always a good idea to learn the basics before mouthing off.