Latest US propaganda on North Korea

[punisa]

http://www.vbs.tv/newsroom/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-14

It's a rather lengthy "documentary" which makes NK look like a hell hole. It has been promoted on CNN today, I believe that says alot about objectivity. Anyway, take a peak and comment if you like.

[Axle]

Its not exactly professional. The animations look like cartoons and whenever they want you to feel threatened they play a power chord.

I'm suprised this can pass of as a documentary, its all gloss and hype...it feels like a bad movie rather than something that's supposed to be informative.

And I love about 3:30 into the first part where they're at the DMZ showing all the signs and notes people have left and they zoom in and linger on a poster that says "Love Korea, Love Jesus"...I mean, they could NOT have been clearer right then that this is propaganda aimed straight at Americans.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

lol. This is Vice. They have a lot of great documentaries. This is by no means propaganda.

Obviously you guys aren't familiar with the kinds of people who read Vice. (hipsters, counter-culturalists, etc who tend to be lefties)

They don't make North Korea look like a hellhole. (anymore than it actually is anyway) They just make fun of it. Which it deserves to be made fun of. I see no problem.

[Wanted Man]

Latest? Wasn't this posted before a few months ago? I think I saw the first part. It had this fat guy going like: "ZOMG I'm in a hotel in the worst place in the world, holy shit holy shit!" That's the one, right? Boring.

[Bright Banana Beard]

American government can make "independent" critics.

[The Ben G]

This doesnt change any of my thinking about the DPRK. Its still a turdy peice of land led by a psycho.

[Wanted Man]

This doesnt change any of my thinking about the DPRK. Its still a turdy peice of land led by a psycho.

Well, there's always Florida.

[LeninBalls]

They just make fun of it. Which it deserves to be made fun of. I see no problem.

Laughing at working class people's living conditions is always funny

LOL did you hear about how bad they got it in Haiti. Vice should make a funny article about it.

[Q]

It's a rather lengthy "documentary" which makes NK look like a hell hole.

Are you arguing it isn't?

[Sam_b]

lol. This is Vice. They have a lot of great documentaries. This is by no means propaganda.

Oh, well thats okay then.

Was it also fine for them in their Russian magazine issue to heap praise on the National Bolsheviks?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

This is literally THE WORST documentary about North Korea I have ever seen. I'm no supporter of NK but this documentary is overflowing with lies.

Also, Vice seems firmly right-wing:


Vice has also been accused of using irony to conceal reactionary politics and to promote conservative, racist, and sexist attitudes.[14][15][16][17] In August 2003, Vice cofounder Gavin McInnes wrote a piece in The American Conservative entitled "Hip to Be Square: It’s getting cooler to be conservative".McInnes' views on immigration have generated controversy. In a September 2003 interview with The New York Times, McInnes stated, "I love being white and I think it's something to be very proud of." He also remarked, "I don't want our culture diluted. We need to close the borders now and let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English-speaking way of life." McInnes has since said that the interview was a prank on the young fashion journalist who wrote the piece.[18]Here are a few of the things I noticed when I first watched the documentary a while back:

"This is so full of bullshit. You can't get into North Korea? Are you kidding me? The KFA has regular trips there that you can go on, for example, and there are quite a few other organizations organizing them as well. You can't bring in computers or music? Yes you can, look at the plenty of documentaries about the place (where people bring their laptops and such.) Half the shit this guy says is just complete slander."

[punisa]

This is literally THE WORST documentary about North Korea I have ever seen. I'm no supporter of NK but this documentary is overflowing with lies.

Yes, NK is no socialist paradise. But the way they showed it is just too much, totally bloated and exaggerated. That's why CNN picked it up and used it as a headline news.



Are you arguing it isn't?


What? That North Korea is not a shit hole? No, I don't think it is. Any country that resists the imperialism will eventually look like a "shit hole" from a westernized point of view.
Go to Cuba - people driving those old car wrecks, another shit hole country right?
If that is the way we'll classify countries, then virtually every attempt at socialism was indeed a "shit-hole".
Still, if I had a choice, I'd prefer to live in any of these holes instead of capitalist exploitation.

But as far as NK goes, I can't give a definitive argument - simply because virtually every person that went inside and filmed some footage was very biased to begin with.
Perhaps a more realistic coverage would be provided if some of us managed to organize a week visit to NK and do our own reaserch there.
Who knows? perhaps we'd agree it's horrible, but then again perhaps we wouldn't.

[Scary Monster]

Perhaps a more realistic coverage would be provided if some of us managed to organize a week visit to NK and do our own reaserch there.
Who knows? perhaps we'd agree it's horrible, but then again perhaps we wouldn't.

That sounds like a very swell idea actually. We could pool our money together, because i dont have the thousand dollars to do anything like that at this very moment, as i am just a jobless student with bad debt :p I seriously think itd be a good idea so we can get our own objective view of the supposedly "big shithole" and see how much of that claim is false western propaganda.

[punisa]

That sounds like a very swell idea actually. We could pool our money together, because i dont have the thousand dollars to do anything like that at this very moment, as i am just a jobless student with bad debt :p I seriously think itd be a good idea so we can get our own objective view of the supposedly "big shithole" and see how much of that claim is false western propaganda.

Well, I'd be in. Too bad the comintern is not around to finance us :laugh:
But if we organize something, it would really be awesome.
Does anyone have contacts within NK? Any personal friends with Kim maybe? :lol:

I must say I'd be just a tiny bit scared of being falsely accused of some counter revolutionary / counter juche activities and end up spending the rest of my days in a Stalinist prison. But then again, I always hated the predictable life. So count me for that trip to Pyongyang ! :thumbup1:

[Saorsa]

I know a guy who went to the DPRK. From everything he said, living standards are no lower than in any third world country, and higher than in some.

It's not socialist, but it deserves to be defended from imperialist attack the same as any other country. And we should defend the DPRK's right to develop nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

[Glenn Beck]

This doesnt change any of my thinking about the DPRK. Its still a turdy peice of land led by a psycho.

You're pretty shitty.

[The Ben G]

Well, there's always Florida.

Florida is only a little better than the DPRK.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Laughing at working class people's living conditions is always funny

LOL did you hear about how bad they got it in Haiti. Vice should make a funny article about it.

Who said anything about working class people's living conditions? Who the fuck would laugh at that? Obviously that's not what they make fun of in the documentary.

Way to make assumptions while admiting that North Korea is a hellhole.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

This is literally THE WORST documentary about North Korea I have ever seen. I'm no supporter of NK but this documentary is overflowing with lies.

Also, Vice seems firmly right-wing:

Here are a few of the things I noticed when I first watched the documentary a while back:

"This is so full of bullshit. You can't get into North Korea? Are you kidding me? The KFA has regular trips there that you can go on, for example, and there are quite a few other organizations organizing them as well. You can't bring in computers or music? Yes you can, look at the plenty of documentaries about the place (where people bring their laptops and such.) Half the shit this guy says is just complete slander."

I swear I've had this debate on this forum before and someone brought up that exact same article. Anyway, I wouldn't judge Vice on one article about the "hipness" of conservatism. Vice is a hipster rag first, and anything political a distant second. Like any media source, it has multiple contributors of varying ideologies. It's not mainstream enough to have an agenda.

From my own personal experience the people who read Vice tend to be Liberal at worst, Leftist at best. Mostly due to the counter-cultural aspect it appeals to artistic and worthy cause oriented people who tend to lean to the left.

I'll admit it wasn't their best documentary as they obviously do have misconceptions about North Korea and don't seem to have done as much homework as they should have. But remember, hipsters like drugs and being lazy.

[Wanted Man]

Obviously you guys aren't familiar with the kinds of people who read Vice. (hipsters, counter-culturalists, etc who tend to be lefties)


I swear I've had this debate on this forum before and someone brought up that exact same article. Anyway, I wouldn't judge Vice on one article about the "hipness" of conservatism. Vice is a hipster rag first, and anything political a distant second. Like any media source, it has multiple contributors of varying ideologies. It's not mainstream enough to have an agenda.

From my own personal experience the people who read Vice tend to be Liberal at worst, Leftist at best. Mostly due to the counter-cultural aspect it appeals to artistic and worthy cause oriented people who tend to lean to the left.

I'll admit it wasn't their best documentary as they obviously do have misconceptions about North Korea and don't seem to have done as much homework as they should have. But remember, hipsters like drugs and being lazy.

So, basically, bourgeois liberal pricks. Thanks for clearing that up.


Here are a few of the things I noticed when I first watched the documentary a while back:

"This is so full of bullshit. You can't get into North Korea? Are you kidding me? The KFA has regular trips there that you can go on, for example, and there are quite a few other organizations organizing them as well. You can't bring in computers or music? Yes you can, look at the plenty of documentaries about the place (where people bring their laptops and such.) Half the shit this guy says is just complete slander."

In fact, there are several travel agencies organising trips there. Go go go! (http://www.stat.ualberta.ca/people/schmu/nk.html) (zomg it's a secret hermit kingdom where nobody can go, and i just went, holy shit holy shit holy shit!!!)

[What Would Durruti Do?]

So, basically, bourgeois liberal pricks. Thanks for clearing that up.

trustfund hipsters would be, yeah. but most of them have to work for a living like anyone else. i dont think being a hipster automatically qualifies one as being a prick either. annoying, maybe, pricks, nah

but you can just keep generalizing everything you see as bourgeois capitalist propaganda if you want. Just saying, I enjoy a lot of Vice's documentaries. Just because they make fun of the socialist paradise of our glorious leader Kim Jong Il himself, doesn't mean they're evil fascists.

[Wanted Man]

"Evil fascists", "socialist paradise", "bourgeois capitalist propaganda" = your words. Don't attribute your shallow "political" qualifications to me.

Anyway, you went at lengths to defend their film on NK, despite its obvious flaws, by assuring us that they're really cuddly lefties. The point is that their political positions (which we can't really know, considering that they're more interested in having a laugh) are completely irrelevant when the film is so full of shit.

Perhaps they just wanted to be painfully white and privileged by making fun of poor countries, a possibility that you also explored (and defended). I don't see what's so great about that.

[punisa]

Perhaps they just wanted to be painfully white and privileged by making fun of poor countries, a possibility that you also explored (and defended). I don't see what's so great about that.

Nothing even remotely funny about it. One could take a camera and go film some of the run down working class neighborhoods or tent cities in the US and make a very "laughable" project for the filthy bourgeois.

Only we who can grasp on what it actually means to (successfully) resist the imperialist empire should be privileged enough to share a joke or laugh on behalf of some DPRK practices, others should back off :p

[What Would Durruti Do?]

"Evil fascists", "socialist paradise", "bourgeois capitalist propaganda" = your words. Don't attribute your shallow "political" qualifications to me.

Anyway, you went at lengths to defend their film on NK, despite its obvious flaws, by assuring us that they're really cuddly lefties. The point is that their political positions (which we can't really know, considering that they're more interested in having a laugh) are completely irrelevant when the film is so full of shit.

Perhaps they just wanted to be painfully white and privileged by making fun of poor countries, a possibility that you also explored (and defended). I don't see what's so great about that.

My words? Pretty sure "propaganda" is right in the title of this thread when it obviously isn't. Just because CNN picked up a piece that was done by an independent source a long time ago does not make it propaganda, or even political at all. The OP and the people who agreed with them make those assumptions.

I agree that it is irrelevant, thus why I'm not the one making it a political issue.

Again, I said nothing about making fun of poor countries. They make fun of North Korea because it is North Korea, not because it is poor.

In fact, if people would be bothered to actually watch the thing they'd be surprised that there is very little mention of the living conditions of the working class.

[FSL]

Again, I said nothing about making fun of poor countries. They make fun of North Korea because it is North Korea, not because it is poor.



Sure, like making fun of blacks because they're black. Why would that be considered racist propaganda? It's fine.

[Invincible Summer]

I think I watched a Vice doc where they went to Venezuela or some South American country where the Nazis had been trying to create communities of Aryans or something. The guy who went was basically like "These people are all Nazis LOLZ This is fucking weird!" even though the locals only had a remote connection to the Nazi party, and didn't even really have a connection to the outside world.

it was so condescending and immature it blew me away that their profession is to make such bullshit.

[Uppercut]

I'm still unsure of the situation within North Korea. I've heard good and I've heard bad.
This video does show the "brighter" side of things though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYvbkSUL4DI

At least the Danish are having fun.

[Yazman]

http://www.vbs.tv/newsroom/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-14

It's a rather lengthy "documentary" which makes NK look like a hell hole. It has been promoted on CNN today, I believe that says alot about objectivity. Anyway, take a peak and comment if you like.

Two things here:

-I don't think its propaganda that NK is a hellhole

-VBS documentaries don't try to be objective. I believe its gonzo journalism.