Oh Hi, I did not see you there, I was just celebrating the Day of the Foundation of the Republic for the DPRK. Sense you are here you might as well stick around and join us for this time honored tradition of our group, the weekly discussion thread.
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Forgive me for not being as clear and consice as I could otherwise be, It is early and I am quiet tiered and am I an expert on the DPRK, however I would like to point a few things out here.
First Wikipedia as a source has a big issue, wikipedia has a know bias in it, as it tends to be more libertarian in nature, and whenever you use a source you need to keep this in mind. As you used it as a source for fascism, this bias becomes only larger in nature, Fascism is an extention of capitalism and usually occurs when it starts to feel threatened, and the definition you gave for example of one of its omissions excludes any mention of capitalism. the second definitional issue is that yours is so full of terms that are meaningless, or used almost exclusively aganst “enemy” nations that I would not trust that to be a foundational definition. when I dug farther into your deffinition, it comes from the American Heritage Dictionary, that is assicated with the nationalistic magazine American Heritage, with the deffintion you gave I could make an argument that basicaly any nation with a military meets the criteria.
To respond to your first point, I have done a breif search and I have failed to find any source that is not directly tied to the CIA or linking back to a CIA source that indicated any dictitorial power. The only 3 offical government roles I have found listed for him are Chairman of the Party, while not technicaly governmental does allow for wight of influence, the head of state, and the head of the Korean People’s Army. As far as I can tell this is the extent to which his power runs, and if I understand the DPRK government it would be in error to call him the head of government because he is not the prime ministor nor holds that power. Second as for his being related to the founder, I would like to point out a few things, first this is under vote of the people if the people, it would be wierd if there was a prohabition of someone running because of who their parents are, let alone it feels patronistic at best to inform the people of the DPRK who they should elect as their leader. Second the DPRK has only had 3 heads of state to date, and while you are right it does warent investigation as to why all 3 are from the same family, 3 does not a monarchy make, nor does the rule of monarchical sucsession follow in any way but that they happen to be from the same family.
Agian, for your second claim, outside of CIA backed sources or sorces relying on them I have failed to see any “supression of minorities” while second you then take this and jump to belife in a higherarchy, I am not agian the most well versed in Juche but there is no belief in a higherarchy in any of the ducuments over it I have seen, and this feels like a leap. Agian there are elections that happen regularyly iin the DPRK
the subordiation to national intrests, I would not phrase it like that, but given your not raising that point into contention I do not see much use focusing on it.
The militarization, that you bring up, comes from 1 their nation being devided down the middle, 2 the US destroying I think it was 80% of them during the Koran war, that may I point out has yet to conclude, we are just sitting in a long armistice, and 3 the documented and observed history of the US seaking out and trying to destroy every socialist project that has ever existed, this is farther evidenced, especialy to them with the sanctions that got levied aganst them, these being the harshest in the world, coming at the time they would have needed the most help to rebuild from the atrocities caused by the United States. Nuclear wepons are seen as a way to ensure the US would not invade directly and is seen as some breathing room, and given the language the US uses around the DPRK this is justified.
This comunity both has a no facist policy and that policy is strictly enforced.
also follow up the DPRK is the last country, as far as I am aware that is still command socialism, and not market socialism and I commend them for that
Where would you suggest I go to learn about those terms and their differences?
I can give you the breif diffrence. in a command socialist economy everything is run through state planning and there are no market forces that push the economy around, while Market Socialist economies are run as socialist economies with market forces.
That’s mercantilism right? Except with democratic representatives setting prices rather than a monarchy. Doesn’t that get arbitrarily complex as new kinds of things are made? Why do you think it is better than “outsourcing” that work to a market?
Not really no, I think the thing you are missing is the key point of Socialism that seperates it, that is the workers own the means of production, now usualy this is done by the state, however the state under Socialism is run by the workers and for the workers, in essence it is owned by the workers.
The thing with the market is that it is incredibly inefficient, yes with market socialism you can plan it to an extent but it is less able to adapt to the plan, and more importantly it is unable to meet the needs of the workers. If I plan an economy, I can set needed staple goods at a large loss, and make up for that with luxury goods or with exports to Capitalist nations. In a planned economy the workers, through the state has FAR more of the ability to run its own affairs.
We can see this effectivness in capitalism, I cannot remember the company, I want to say it was Sears who decided to make their internal devisions run through a market system and it immediately started to fail, however we see Walmart, Target, Amazon, essentaly every big company internally plans there company, because it is SIGNIFICANTLY more effecent.
https://en.prolewiki.org
in my humble opinion, an experence, showing liberals prolewiki links does not help the conversation, I have found its use is usualy greater when talking into marxists, specificaly on marxist topics explicitly
I’ve had the opposite experience outside of this website. Liberals on here are just especially gross.
However, hihi seems to be a perfectly reasonable person. Here’s to actually learning.
Ha well you’ve never met me!
(Fact check: This still might not help conversation because I’m definitely just bad at conversation anyway lol, also hearing myself called a liberal just reminds me of conversations back in my hometown or with my grandparents lol)
Edit/Update: I suppose it hasn’t helped with conversation but I’d like to say I am using the wiki to define terms as I read them in State and Revolution, so that I understand the text as it was most likely intended, hopefully avoiding the misunderstanding that plagued me in this comment section lol
Thank you for your response.
Out of curiousity could you provide sources that you count as being backed by the CIA and evidence that the CIA is in fact backing that misinformation?
I have a somewhat macabre interest in all the misinformation and coup stuff the US does. Like the coup over bananas? Fascinating
As for using Wikipedia as a source and the definition of fascism, I used Wikipedia because I assumed that definition was the most widespread. Words have the meaning we give them, so If we don’t have the same definitions in mind then the term fascism isn’t useful in our discussion.
However, I do appreciate that you still adressed each part of the definition I used since those items are still negative traits whether they fall into the definition of fascism or not.
Also, good point, I guess lots of the countries I can think of with extensive militaries kind of fit that definition.
Where would you suggest I go for less CIA-biased information on the governmental structure and history of DPRK?
Sorry for my delay in your responce, I have been away from my computer.
In this context the 2 root sources for every or almost every claim on the DPRK starts from one of 2 places Radio Free Asia, and DPRK Defectors. I am going to start with RFA because the other will be a little more nuanced. With Radio Free Asia please see provided links coming from the Wilson Center, New York Times, and Declassified FOIAed documents from the CIA
As for DPRK Defectors, we have 3 issues here, the first one is the most obvious, this is a self selecting group that is far more likely than a standard population to harbor a grudge aganst the DPRK than would be a standard individual. There is a town in Brazil called Confederados who spreads similar things about the US, how it is Authoritarian and it stole there property ect ect, and while we could belive it at face value, if we look at who started it, people from the CSA who where mad there slaves where taken away we start to see context for a picture, weather you belive that it is a full lie, or if you belive it is a distortion of the facts based on their perception is up to you. We can also add into this issue 2 and 3 that come in conjunction, the DPRyK due to the repercutions of the still ongoing war, and the unprecidented sanctions imposed at the insistence of the United States, is cash poorer than the ROK, aswell as the economies are set up completly difrent, the DPRK is a command socialism, and that has kept them alive throughout the sanctions, while the ROK is a hyper Capitalistic Market economy on the imperal periphery being suported in no small part by the United States. This leaves defectors from the DPRK to be in a world of hurt, not to mention that the ROK routeenly deprives them of their right to return under international law, although some do get back. This leaves them both destitue and at the whim of either the ROK or USA, both having vested intrests in making the DPRK look worse than it is. If you look at the most popular defectors, like Yeonmi Park is a CIA asset, aswell as her story has changed wildly, and every time she tells it it only gets more outlandish. I would not call either of these, nor sources citing exclusivly these reliably by any strech of the imagination.
While yes language works by words carying meaning that is interchangable, and deffinitions are suposed to be descriptive not prescriptive, however not even deffinitions are without some source of bias, and it is important to look at where the deffinition is origionaly pulled from, and depending on the word where it comes from. The deffinition you provides boils down to “Scarry Athoritiarianism” and because athoritiarianism is already a badly defined term that can be applied to what ever enemy you have your deffinition does the same. Dictator, Militarism and Autocracy are all words that in common useage have become scarry words but loosely defined, Social Higherarchy does not apply in the strictest sense to the DPRK, however family dinamics, or willingness to follow laws could be construed as a social higherachy if I was working in bad or mixed faith. and Subordination of Individual Interests to those of the collective is just how society functions, at some level in any society I have to give up individual rights for that of the group.
I would say a better definition, even as just a working definition of Fascism, is the 8 points listed out by Luis Britto Garcia and published by the National Autonomous University of Mexico being as follows 1) Fascism is the absolute complicity between big capital and the State 2) Fascism denies the class struggle, but it is the armed arm of capital in it 3) Fascism summons the masses, but it is elitist 4)Fascism is racist 5) Fascism and capitalism have abhorrent faces that need masks 6) Fascism is blessed: Some religious groups typically support fascist movements, providing their blessing. 7)Fascism is misogynistic 8)Fascism is anti-intellectual, Each of these points have an expansion similar to point 6 but I did not feel like any of them were explicitly needed, howver this covers both its social and economic aspects and is an easy to test mechanism.
As for CIA safe places, I do not have a list of them, I can say are garenteed to not be CIA, and lots of what I would normaly use for quick refrence that are, are probably far to Marxist bent for it to be useful to propose, so what I do is I will over rabit whole each and every source I am given.
As for the topic that is at hand the 2 videos I would recomend on this is the haircut video and Loyal citizens of Pyongyang in Soul. I will admit the second video has a much bigger and more obvious bend to it, however I do think it is quite good
Well said.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Wikipedia isn’t necessarily always bad; it’s just that as Marxists have to examine the bias, reasoning and the “why” of a certain author writing a book, who funded the book and who’s using the book, media or whatever example as a source. A lot of liberals misunderstand the sheer level of cold-war era disinformation and fear-mongering that is waged constantly by the ruling class. Communist parties are “banned” under the Communist Control Act of the 1950s. While technically not active, it could be easily invoked at any moment and exists as a sole reminder of how brutal the suppression of our very freedoms was during the Red Scare.
With that precedent alone; we also understand both our domestic AND our foreign intelligence agencies had vested interests in suppressing dissent or “volatile revolutionary ideals” during the cold war. That much is obvious. Declassified documents and even Wikipedia itself documents “Operation Gladio” and the litany of other clandestine acts they committed against foreign nations or against activists at home in COINTELPRO.
Do you think they just stopped? They just brushed their hands in the 90s, kicked back and retired off selling crack/cocaine? A lot of our opponents criticize us for using “CIA” or other organizations such as the Heritage Foundation (which, if you dig enough, as Comrade Pup Ivy showed, has literal CIA connections) to blow off Western media or sources; when in reality it is them who is completely denying the reality of information warfare. Truly, you see the consequences of that.
As for sources you can use, Grayzone is good. Browse the news comm on Hexbear and a few more will pop up from time to time.