Image is from this CNN article.
The DPRK's history has been a rollercoaster, with admirable highs and heartbreaking lows, most notably the Korean War and the fall of the USSR. Its steadfast commitment to Juche, a variant of Marxism-Leninism that focuses on self-sufficiency, has both made the DPRK a target for imperialist genocidal powers, and allowed them to survive these attacks.
Lately, we seem to be seeing a transition from surviving to thriving. China and the DPRK have always had a much more complicated history than Western education and media allows its population to know, with periods of quite strong disagreement - it's not the case that China is somehow the DPRK's master. Russia is the DPRK's other neighour that isn't US-occupied, and while they obviously differ substantially in ideology since the USSR fell, the tsunami of sanctions on Russia has changed things. The stick has been removed from the equation, with Russia facing no possible punishment from the West because they were unable to enact sanctions effectively and used all their ammunition in the first few barrages rather than turning the screws over time (I don't care if we're on the 14th sanctions package, it's all been meaningless for Russia since the end of 2022).
The carrot is also more visible, with an alliance making a lot of sense for both. Once again, Western education and media would have you believe a Parenti-esque reality in which Korea is a massive and unpredictable danger to the world, but is simultaneously so poor and destitute that their artillery pieces are made of wood and their missiles out of paper-mache. The truth is that Korea has innovated greatly in missile technology, with some of their weapons matching or even exceeding those of the Russians, hence the Russians' use of them in Ukraine. Russia also finds it advantageous to invest in Korea to strengthen the anti-hegemonic alliance's presence in the Pacific, countering the US-occupied lower half of the peninsula who has naturally sided with Ukraine. Additionally, Russia is investing deeply in the Arctic sea route. This will open up as climate change continues; is naturally quite defensible for Russia so long as Korea is there to provide further defense at its eastern edge; and is both a faster and safer route for Russia to access China - especially in a world where straits can be blockaded by even impoverished yet determined countries like Yemen. The situation in the Red Sea benefits Russia and China now, but in the coming years, the US may apply the same lesson for their own benefit elsewhere.
It is perhaps this new sense of self-confidence that has let Korea give up on reunification with its lower half via peaceful measures. A new Korean War would be devastating for both sides even if it remained non-nuclear, but with a rising DPRK and with the South falling yet further into hypercapitalist exploitation and misery, and a US that remains non-committal to its "allies" when times get difficult (as in Ukraine and Europe), a reality where Korea may finally hold the upper hand and have the ability to liberate its south may be approaching in the years and decades to come.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is *the DPRK! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
He doesn't try to vote-shame so much, but yes. Here he is from about a week ago:
All you have to do is mention Trump for Hasan to start defending Biden and blaming every bad thing Biden has ever done on Trump. And you should hear him talk glowingly about Biden's domestic policies regarding the environment, labor, etc. He absolutely runs interference for Biden and for the Democrats. He may not do vote-shaming in the same way as most liberals do, but he's 100% of the opinion that Democrats are far better than Republicans, that they should be supported, and that the main problem is that they just don't market themselves effectively enough by highlighting what he views as very significant differences between them. How he can express that and still say in the next or previous breath that he thinks it's a one-party system...your guess is as good as mine, but he does. Streamers. shrug
And while he doesn't really try to shame people into voting for Democrats (and Biden specifically), he does advocate for it. Go ahead and get on his stream and ask him how he thinks you (or people generally) should vote in November.
One party as in same economic interests, class interests even, not same (democratic) principles or values. The democrats did successfully destroy any real leftist alternative and if you're naive you look at the differences between voters and politicians on both sides you start to actualy believe there is a real difference between them.
Its why he is mad the dems are moving to the right. But for socialists we know the Dems were never actualy leftists at all, it was always inevitable that late-stage capitalism becomes more and more fascist, it is dropping the mask, not any sort of significant change in core values.
The problem is he is inconsistent, here the reaction to the Michigan vote this is a good segment(28:45-38:00) he is almost giving the entire standard Hexbear line including dunking on someone suggesting voting uncommited is voting for Trump.
You're right he is still on harm reduction theory, he is still on Trump will be worse line etc. But you can also tell very obviously its unconfortable, the rethorical questions like this one below only have one answer, you have to abandon "democracy" as a principle. This shit, even though it sounds cringe it is almost arguing with fundamentalist Christians, how else to explain that your entire set of beliefs is founded on a lie and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of reality?
But Hasan's value is at least this time around at least he is cynical enough that he is also telling people the true path of the Democratic party, whether he likes it or not I believe he is doing more to encourage apathy in the end because the Dems will not appreciate even this form of criticism(which he rages against in that segment).
Even though he can reconcile/cope with it, his audience may not. Its realy the same of what happened with the Bernie base too, if Trump wins, Hasan will be criticized for being against Biden lol even though he was warning about Dems losing, warning against shaming etc.
His true enemies are the Twitch/Reddit politics/streamers/gamers base that knows and cares about him, and against them he will be wrong no matter how much he reconciles and copes with Biden. Even this form of criticism is unacceptable and as I said this will keep pushing his audience away from libs because libs are pushing him away even harder.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I can sort of make an argument for harm reduction and that the uniparty is real. The overall class interests of both parties are the same since they're both owned by Wall Street but there are particulars for how they're different. This is because they are different factions within the uniparty that have different voting bases. This results in voting for democrats essentially being voting for the monstrous face of capital to wear a nicer mask and to be less homophobic. There is a difference between how they function as well. Basically the ratchet effect also means that if you don't want things to get worse at a faster rate you have to vote for the democrats.
This is all stuff at the federal level though. At the state level republicans just do whatever they want to viciously seize power and the democrats act like boring middle managers.
Ultimately, Capital always wins but if someone wants to take the time to vote for a marginally slower decline into American fascism I won't argue against them.