It's a very authoritarian and reactionary dictatorship which has literally nothing to do with communism or socialism (other than nominally), but acts as a good device for the media to insult these ideas.
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North Korea?
What do you guys think about North Korea?
It's a very authoritarian and reactionary dictatorship which has literally nothing to do with communism or socialism (other than nominally), but acts as a good device for the media to insult these ideas.
nothing good, I'll tell you that
Here are two 100+ post threads from earlier this year on the subject:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/support-no....html?t=187644
http://www.revleft.com/vb/north-kore....html?t=187070
It's just another bourgeois state that needs smashed.
"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless robots who protect them and their property." - Assata Shakur
An authoritarian state capitalist dicatorship, with a cool flag.
It's actually not even nominally communist anymore. They took out all references to communism in the constitution.
Whatever it is, it isn't communist and it certainly isn't a state we should defend or support.
I loved it. Beautiful nature and architecture, lots of fascinating history, good food, good people, etc. A recommended location for anyone to cross off their bucket list. Can't say I care much for the regime, though.
A socialist but buerocratic state. Not even close to state capitalism. There are some real positive aspects of north korea and the propaganda against it is at best half-truths.
Its wierd how antiimperialist leftist knows how bised capitalist media is but when it comes DPRK its alright to jump on the "bash north korea"-train. I personally think its a question of comfort.
However, it got some real weaknesses as well. The leader cult is anything else than progressive and the official ideology of DPRK, the Juche-idea, is both despotic and idealistic.
I recommend this site for a somewhat fair and balanced view of North Korea:
http://www.nknews.org/
Basically what Sinred said - a socialist state distorted by bureaucracy + ideological revisionism. I'd strongly recommend Socialist Korea by Ellen Brun, which is a good political econ analysis of the DPRK in the 1970s and indicates to what extent it's socialist in that sense. Bruce Cumings is also a good and balanced source to read on the subject.
“Socialism cannot abstract itself from individual interests. Socialist society alone can most fully satisfy these personal interests. More than that; socialist society alone can firmly safeguard the interests of the individual. In this sense there is no irreconcilable contrast between “individualism” and socialism. But can we deny the contrast between classes, between the propertied class, the capitalist class, and the toiling class, the proletarian class?” - Josef Stalin, Marxism Versus Liberalism: An Interview With H.G. Wells, 1934
"Those who are in ideology believe themselves by definition outside ideology: one of the effects of ideology is the practical denegation of the ideological character of ideology by ideology: ideology never says, ‘I am ideological’." - Louis Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, 1969
North Korea is BEST Korea!
"The Internationale, Unites the Human Race!"
Yep, couldn't have put it better.
Frankly, whatever nominally 'socialist' things they have accomplished are tainted by the crimes they've committed against the North Korean proletariat. Fuck the Kims, and fuck Juche.
"I've never read Marx's Capital, but I've got the marks of capital all over my body." -Big Bill Haywood
"...Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor."- Thomas Jefferson
-=UTOPIA IS THE MORAL RIGHT OF HUMANITY=-
It's not a socialist state. It's not a state run by the workers but by the bureaucracy and military.
Of course, our disdain for their government shouldn't translate to disdain for their people.
Socialist Party of Outer Space
So, in what way is it not "close to state capitalism"? Please do elaborate.
Are you sure you are using the term "anti-imperialist left" right? 'cause that's usually the sort of type that will apologise for Cuba and DPRK (and then also go on to pour heap of love on Libya, Syria and Iran -- mm delicious dinner, delicious Press TV neckbeard).
And then you link NK News, which is basically a rumour site (which is occasionally reasonable, but you also have amateur imbeciles like that guy from NK Economy Watch, who is a daft shitface who just sits around looking on Google Earth all day (just like me, woo!) and then starts making up things about what everything he can see is.
Then again - the so-called "Kommunistiska Partiet" is a bloody mess. It's like if you put a big horde of Maoists in a huge grinder, cut them all up, and mixed in some Left Party liberals. How's the council position in Lysekil? Let's be more Brezhnevite.
The revolutionary despises public opinion. He despises and hates the existing social morality in all its manifestations. For him, morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.
ex. Takayuki
Hey, someone mentioned Lysekil online! I almost feel famous by regional association.
There is no private capital accumilation and everything is basically socialized.
Well in retrospect we have always turned out to be right, havent we? That is, if you dont view the situation in syria, lybia and iran as humane and progressive after the imperialist intervention.
The bomb left never sieze tyo supprise....
What apolagize are you talking about? It is straight up facts and debunking myths. Either you have a very naiv look at capitalist media/politics or you just like to bash these state out of leftist comfort.
KP have in Proletären and its website several article that critize both cuba, DPRK and venezuela so your argument is not valid.
Sure. Maybe it is not that tactical to focus on defending these states.
Given the indoctrinated propagande that has basically has done any claim (no matter how low) about north korea "true" in the eyes of the public.
That is however not related to whats actually true about the socialist state.
First off, do you have any real wsource for your claim or are you guessing? Second of, dprk-news have conduct several trips to North Korea and been in contact with many koreans (both living there and in exile). In the time of blatant, and many times obvious, propaganda against north korea, the DPRKnews-sticks out as someone who can both critizise and praise north korea.
I do have some critiqe against my old party. Im not a member anymore btw. But it does evolve and gets better and modern everyday. Even though IMO it goes to slow.
You can critisize the party for being old fashioned and dogmatic.
But liberals and maoists? are you kidding me??
I start to question if you have ever meet a member of KP.
But there is accumulation, and "socialised" is not the same as "state-owned", at least not in terms of socialism. The industry is hardly operational for a multitude of reasons, some of which the DPRK cannot help, but nevertheless - the DPRK is still capitalist. There are private markets, and people have savings, there is currency and there is commerce, goods and services are exchanged for profits, both internally and externally. Black markets were a few years ago permitted and legalised, now selling scraps of food for extortion prices as before. Scarcity is extreme.Originally Posted by sinred
Now there are a number of concrete reasons for why the DPRK is so notoriously deformed, how it became a paranoid military state, which have its origins in its formation and how it's leadership adapted to the challenges they faced (and the extent to which they were ever communists is dubious - more than anything an attempt to please the Soviet Union which was in charge of managing the region of Korea after the Japanese military had been driven out - as they were from the get-go nationalistic and tolerant of the local bourgeois.
State-ownership does not negate capitalism, or Mussolini's Italy was socialist.
What are you even raving about? Did I suggest that military intervention would be good? (It would - but only if said intervention was done by a state having had a socialist revolution - the DPRK never had a revolution, you know?)
I don't care about the propaganda. I don't believe in Human Rights, I don't care what "violations of human rights" are required in achieving the socialist revolution. I don't care what transgressions and abuses happen in the DPRK, I do not judge it based on that; I judge it based on the lack of socialist character of its system, I judge it based on its deranged ethnocentric nationalism, etc.
There's a difference between saying that they ought not to be bombed and sanctioned into dark medieval abyss and defending what they do, however, but the distinction is often lost on WWP:ers and their ilk, or PSL types who dine with Iranian officials like the useful idiots they are, stooges to a bourgeois state.
I never trust an exile. Exiles always lie. Ever seen the Cuban exiles? They're all bonkers. The same goes for the Korean exiles. Never trust an exile of any sort. When has that shit ever praised the DPRK, besides? It's a fucking pay-walled rumour website, most of whose posts are by amateur researchers and brain-dead pol-sci majors who think the DPRK is so fucking funnily exotic.
Gets shittier, you mean, surely? Worse than in the days of the KPML(r). Praises democracy, praises elections, moans about the Soviet Union as "lacking democracy", such clichéd shite. If that's not liberal shit, how far does one have to go to be one according to you? The only thing good to be said in the KP's favour is that they are somewhat more professional than SKP, whose blog is run by a conspiracy nut who moved out into the woods, but they are dreadfully bland.
What does a member have to do with it? I have no interest in meeting people. I don't care for individual's position. I care about the organisation's official stances.
The revolutionary despises public opinion. He despises and hates the existing social morality in all its manifestations. For him, morality is everything which contributes to the triumph of the revolution. Immoral and criminal is everything that stands in its way.
ex. Takayuki
It's a pseudo-monarchy absolute tyranny unrelated to anything Marx, socialist, or communist - and the go to prop-strawman example of a "communist country" for all western media.
I want to move there and I like Juche, the kims, Psy, kimchi, anything Korean. It's the Best Korea.
Come little children, I'll take thee away, into a land of enchantment, come little children, the times come to play, here in my garden of magic.
"I'm tired of this "isn't humanity neat," bullshit. We're a virus with shoes."-Bill Hicks.
I feel the Bern and I need penicillin
