I feel stupid, I didn't realize the reason Pyongyang looked so different is because there are no signs.
I love it.
It makes me so happy that most of us are unironically pro-DPRK now. The sub used to upvote posts calling it a fascist ethnostate.
Still got a long ass way to go but its nice that people are finally starting to question their western propagandizing. If leftists just learned the simple principle of purging their inner reactionary tendencies and actually engage honestly with the rest of the world we'd be in much better place. Unfortunately many westerners still think they have some sort of god given enlightenment upon understanding the rest of the world, even on topics that they've probably never spent more than 5 minutes reading headlines about. How does someone even have the audacity to talk about something that they know they've never spent any serious time looking into?
Some other good info threads too on the DPRK
https://twitter.com/NatalieRevolts/status/1277869404102025217
https://twitter.com/LiberatedLabor/status/1264850657732816898
To clarify, if you were a black child voluntarily joining the US military in the 1950s they would let you do it. They did not check your ID or try to get in touch with your parents. They just let you say were an “adult” and would send you off to die for uncle sam. real fucked up shit that doesn’t get talked about much. i think they would even let white kids lie their age too, as long as they didn’t look like trust fund babies.
Yeah I mean I've talked to people who did this and knew people who did this as late as the 80s at least. You could lie about your age, lie about eyesight problems and other medical concerns, whatever. They didn't give a shit, regardless of race. At least in some places, I'm sure it depends on what branch and in what region specifically.
I'm pro-DPRK insofar as I believe that the best thing for the Korean people that America, as a state, could do, is cease to exist.
But it's not a model
The DPRK is an extremely militarised state, with poor public involvement in decision-making, poor infrastructure, and a still proletarianized populace.
You can argue that that's because of the American-Korean war and outside aggression, and that the small nation of the DPRK has very limited options, and that there's little else you or I could do if either of us were in charge. And I'd agree with you, at least to an extent.
But that's also not the goal.
I agree that it's not a model insofar as the material conditions of Korea are different than elsewhere, but that also yes, their system is the way it is in large part due to conditions of siege socialism imposed on them (mostly) by the US, which of course wouldn't apply to a post-revolutionary US.
poor public involvement in decision-making
How so?
a still proletarianized populace
In what sense?
The form and structure of the government of the DPRK looks just like any other modern nation, as well as the form and structure of work. The DPRK participates in global markets, still retains the structure of the firm, of the work-week; still has merchant and political classes.
[The] working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm
In fact, as with Cuba, economic growth and relief in recent years have been largely due to liberalisation, not state-planning or purity of thought. This isn't really surprising as both nations are quite isolated, but as good communists we shouldn't cover our ears and pretend it isn't true.
It might be tempting to group nations into categories of good and bad. The bad ones are America, they're imperialist, they're capitalist; the bad ones are socialist, they hate America. And then, we might be tempted to look at the nations in the "good" category and envy them, to say "Yes, that is what we want, here. That is what we are fighting for". And the temptation is great when you live in the Great Satan. But this is a deeply idealist way of thinking. It dulls the sharpness of any critique you might make.
The liberals think this way; they simply have their categories reversed. But, either way, to claim "socialist" or "capitalist" becomes a moral claim rather than an analysis. Like the joke posts where "you have 30 seconds to pick a side" where it's a Wikipedia cutout of a war, and you're supposed to decide which half of the belligerents you like better. Who you "root for".
Well, I think a couple things need to be considered here:
First, the conditions in Korea and Cuba are unlike those in the imperial core in that they come from backgrounds of historically underdeveloped capitalism and have had their growth stymied greatly by economic sanctions. Liberal reforms are an extemely useful way for these countries to build up the productive forces that Marx assumed would already exist when proletarian revolutions occurred. An agrarian society, one coming just out of feudalism, can't develop straight into a more advanced form of socialism just because socialism is such a good idea; the forces of production must be sufficiently developed first.
The circumstances would obviously be different in a developed, fully industrialized nation like the US or UK, but again this would be due to the differing material conditions, not the ruling parties of these socialist countries just not doing socialism right.
I also haven't read anything about the DPRK liberalizing their economy recently.
Second, features that are shared in common with capitalist production will inevitably exist under socialism as part of the process of building communism. For example, commodity production exists under socialism and will exist in every socialist country basically until world socialism exists. It can't just be willed out of existince, at the very least because trade is necessary and global trade currently exists under conditions of global capitalism; to acquire needed goods on the market, goods have to be produced for sale on the market in exchange. But also, again because of historical underdevelopment, many socialist countries maintain internal markets, such as the farmers' markets in the DPRK, in the absence of more efficient forms of central planning that aren't yet possible.
But regardless, these workers aren't proletarian since they aren't employed by capitalists who appropriate the value they produce.
As far as classifying countries as good or bad, I think it's reasonable, as socialists, to classify those countries that act against the interests of the global proletariat as bad, and those who act in their interests as good; imperialists bad, anti-imperialists good. Rooting for socialist countries is internationalism.
please tell me the brand/product names are hilarious
EXCRETOR MAXIMUS or THE WASHINATOR
Ha ha, Joe Bidet, very funny. Is this name-calling how you hold a civilized discourse? Y'all know his name is actually Joe Robidet Biden.
I mean I buy flushable wipes but I just get the generic non-gendered ones lmao.
Sorry about your asshole
About the Sauron tower, there's actually a telecom skyscraper in the southeast that looks exactly like the LOTR tower lol
edit: southeast USA, still trying to remember what building it was
Yes that's it! I couldn't remember what city it was in lol. Hilarious building
