sources
on the dprk
- right to housing and retirement, multi-party peoples democracy: constitution of the dprk
- power checks and balances: infographic: why the us is a dictatorship and the dprk isnt.
- welfare economy: prolewiki article about the dprk, section on economy (that whole article is generally really great and debunks a lot of western propaganda)
- democratic since inception: kim byong sik. "modern korea: the socialist north, revolutionary perspectives in the south, and unification." 1970.
on the rok
- poverty, slums: prolewiki-article on the term "hell josoen"
- political prisoners: western source confirming the existence of the national security law, stephen gowans (2018). patriots, traitors and empires: the story of koreas struggle for freedom: 'the political partition of korea' (pp. 115–116) , and the prolewiki-article on the rok, sections "national security law" and "unconverted long-term prisoners"
- widespread corruption: a lot of reporting can be found on this topic, even in western media. lets just take the government-sanctioned prostitution and sex trafficking as an example, though there is other equally horrific stuff, including the usage of disabled people as agricultural slaves.
- worlds second highest suicide rate: katrin park (2021-10-5). "south korea is no country for young people" doreign policy.
- tyrannical history: prolewiki-article on the rok, section "history" warning: very bleak read
debunking of anticipated liberal comments
norf korea no food
malnutrition was in fact a thing during the 1990s, though the portrayals of this time period, the so called "arduous march" in westen media are usually exaggerated. mostly omitted by american-allied media is the fact that those difficulties were caused by the inhumane and terrorist western sanctions and embargo against the dprk, as well as the cia-backed illegal and undemocratic dissolution of the ussr. nowadays problems regarding food security have pretty much ceased to exist in the country.
hermit kingdom
first of all, the term itself is nothing but racist, orientalist nonsense, but whatever... the dprk is in no way a kingdom, its democratic model of governance, while obviously imperfect and worthy of (constructive) criticism, is explained in the constitution and infographic linked above.
furthermore, the county is neither "reclusive", nor internationally isolated. the dprk enjoys very friendly relations with fellow aes china, cuba, laos and vietnam, as well as anti-imperialist nations like iran, russia and palestine. the reason you dont hear much from inside the country is due to western press not wanting to report the truth.
no lights, no electricity
the famous "no lights"-photo is a photoshopped fake initially circulated by a southern far-right tabloid. here is an actual image of east asia, including the korean peninsula:
haircut police
unlike south korea, the dprk never had such policies. here is a very entertaining video debunking that myth.
I think that being deceptive is counter-productive. The non-WPK parties in the DPRK are constitutionally limited, and any attempt to form an explicitly pro-capitalist party will land you in prison. Now, I think both of these things are not just fine but necessary measures, but pretending that it's only the RoK that imprisons people on grounds of being part of the wrong party or that the DPRK is multiparty in the way that people mean when they use terms like "multiparty". Just bite the bullet of explaining why having reactionary parties is bad.
I also think it's probably bad to exaggerate the quality of life the in DPRK when it still has a very high child malnutrition rate, and it's counterproductive to be exaggerating the RoK's suicide rate by saying "by the millions" when it is so high anyway. It's more like "by the thousands."
I lived in Seoul and I speak nearly fluent Korean
Photo on the right seems to be from like the 60s or 70s. Seoul does not look like that today, not even close. So that is a blatant lie number 1.
"many people too poor to afford housing' homelessness is lower in SK than in the US by a HUGE amount. So that is blatant lie number 2.
'slums like this are common' Absolutely not. There's only a couple remaining slums, and they don't look like the one in the photo there bc again, that photo is from like 60 years ago. There small number of slums (there's like 3) that still exist are currently being removed and the residents rehoused. So there is blatant lie number 3
'kill themselves by the millions' suicide rate is high but not that high and has been falling for over 10 years. Exaggeration
'only recently began to liberalize' 1988 is recent to you? That'd be blatant lie number 4, and to be honest it's quite disrespectful to the many south Koreans who struggled against the dictatorship for you to minimize their accomplishment like that
'the famous "no lights"-photo' there isn't a "the famous 'no lights' photo" there's many of them and its because NK often doesn't have fuel to keep the power running 24/7 due to sanctions so they practice energy rationing and shut down the power at night. blatant lie number 5
I'm not gonna get into your stuff on the left hand column abt the DPRK but suffice it to say, none of what you wrote there is known for certain to be true because of how tight the flow of information out of that land is.
Did you make this image? why do you feel the need to lie? Or do you just not know what you are talking about?
first ever activity on this account
immediately assumes bad faith and uses language right out of chosun ilbo
completely unsourced
yeah thats not suspicious at all...
first of all, ive visited seoul in 2007 and saw the misery of gulyongma-eul with my own two eyes. ive seen that the bagkaseu halmeoni are in fact a real thing. and ive noticed the inescapable presence of western evangelical churches and other similar monuments of neocolonialism. even in more "economically fortunate" areas of the city most people did not seem happy. and i mean, ive been desensitized to a lot of shit due to my own countries utter economic collapse in the 1990s, but what i saw there was an incredibly sick and disgusting society that lacked even the most basic fundamentals of human dignity.
you also for some reason decided to point out that the colonial masters you bootlick have an even higher rate of homelessness than your "country". but how is this of any relevance to the discussion? congratulations, the denizens of the system your society is trying to imitate are having it even worse. but this doesnt make your problems magically go away.
you then proceed to claim that the suicide rate in the rok has been falling recently. this is a lie: according to the world health organization and the korean national statistical office, the number of suicides in south korea since your supposed democratization in 1988 (a great "democracy" that allows for people like bag-geun-hye or yunseog-yeol to be president and for jaebeols to control domestic policy) is as follows:
- 1988: 4,879
- 1990s: The average annual number of suicides was around 6,000-7,000.
- 2000s: The average annual number of suicides increased to around 10,000-12,000.
- 2010s: The average annual number of suicides was around 13,000-15,000.
furthermore you somehow manage to accuse me of minimizing the accomplishments of the 1988 revolution. this is an absurd fucking accusation that you invented out of thin air while somehow wanting to accuse me of being dishonest. on the contrary! it is your government that is sweeping the role of certain leftist components of the protest movement under the rug, since they dont fit into the puppet regimes worldview. and yes, 1988 is recent compared to 1947. learn how time works, liberast.
the "no-lights"-photo in question
Show::: has long since been proven to bee debunked, hell ive included a photographic rebuttal in my original post. stop denying reality if it doesnt suit you. power outages are also a thing in eastern europe, yet there arent equivalent photos circulating online.
your assertion that nothing coming out of the dprk can be trusted, since the eeevil commies are supposedly restricting the flow of information just sounds like hilarious anti-communist cope to me. im really starting to question myself why i am even justifying myself in front of a moron like you.
first ever activity on this account
I've had this account since literally the first week this website was created, I just haven't been active for a long time. Part of the reason why tbh is that I dislike how many people on here like to tell distortions about Korea.
language right out of chosun ilbo
Where? Do you see me ranting and raving about how we need to bomb the North? Or do you see me stating facts about Korea which you yourself know to be true, like that the photo on the right is from the 60s or 70s .(which you tacitly admit is a lie bc you didn't mention it) have But ur right ig, prob Chosun Ilbo would in fact say that this photo is from decades ago, just like I did, and just like anyone else who has been to SK would say.
first of all, ive visited seoul in 2007
Ok, so you know that the photo on the right is from decades ago and that slums are not actually 'common' and you are in fact deliberately lying. Fantastic.
and saw the misery of gulyongma-eul with my own two eyes. ive seen that the bagkaseu halmeoni are in fact a real thing.
You should be glad to hear that half the population has since been relocated
https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220926000213
and ive noticed the inescapable presence of western evangelical churches and other similar monuments of neocolonialism. even in more "economically fortunate" areas of the city most people did not seem happy.
I'm gonna ask you to not bring up irrelevant points, please. Yea there are a lot of churches and yes quite a number of people are unhappy due to capitalist alienation, problems with sexism and toxic work culture etc. That has nothing to do with the false facts, exaggerations and misrepresentations in your post here.
but what i saw there was an incredibly sick and disgusting society that lacked even the most basic fundamentals of human dignity.
Really? free health care, fantastic public safety, complete lack of food insecurity, universal literacy + HS education, extremely low rates of homelessness, and some of the best urban design and public transportation in the planet. None of that has anything to do with dignity?
you also for some reason decided to point out that the colonial masters you bootlick have an even higher rate of homelessness than your "country".
I'm not Korean to be clear, I just speak Korean + lived there. 'even higher' lol. One of the things westerners often comment on when going to SK is how you basically do not see homeless anywhere outside of a couple places like Seoul Station. Very, very, very few people are homeless, many live in poor quality housing like goshiwons or ban-jiha (the half basements, like seen in Bong Joon Ho's parasite) but they are not homeless and slums are not common.
you then proceed to claim that the suicide rate in the rok has been falling recently. this is a lie: according to the world health organization and the korean national statistical office, the number of suicides in south korea since your supposed democratization in 1988
(a great "democracy" that allows for people like bag-geun-hye or yunseog-yeol to be president and for jaebeols to control domestic policy)
You have to keep bringing up irrelevant facts bc you know you are lying. Anyway President Park was forced out of office once her crimes became public knowledge. There are many many many problems in SK, but that is the system working as it is supposed to. The South Korean people are extremely proud of having forced her out of office. and for good reason.
Notice how I skipped past your line about how there is corruption in SK? there is in fact an issue with corruption in SK, so I didn't comment on that or call it a lie, because I have intellectual honesty and I like to tell the truth.
2010s: The average annual number of suicides was around 13,000-15,000.
I assume you know math well enough to know that the 2010s was ten years ago, and that I said the rates have been dropping (slowly, not fast enough) for ten years. The early 2010s was the peak.
furthermore you somehow manage to accuse me of minimizing the accomplishments of the 1988 revolution. this is an absurd fucking accusation that you invented out of thin air while somehow wanting to accuse me of being dishonest. on the contrary!
People who want to defend North Korea like yourself are constantly telling distortions and exaggerations about South Korea to make it look worse than it really is, to make the North look better by comparison. Defend North Korea on it's own merits, please, and with out telling lies about SK.
Yes I think it's disrespectful of their accomplishments and their sacrifices to say that the society they fought and died to create is "sick", "disgusting" and lacking "even the most basic fundamentals of human dignity." That is a fucking lie and you know it. Those people fucking died to get health care, they fucking died to get cops to stop carrying guns and to stop shooting protestors, they fucking died to get habeas corpus rights, they fucking died to get the right to criticize their government. The created a society where homelessness is low and nearly everyone has access to food, health care, education, and fair trials. There's a lot of work left to be done there, but to tell these blatant lies is very low of you.
They built that society out of their own blood and you are calling it disgusting. It literally disgusts me to see you say this shit, and if you said these bullshit lies about literally any other country in Asia, you'd get called an anti-Asian racist and for good fucking reason. But when its SK, you feel free to lie as much as you want.
EDIT: btw I really think it says something of your mindset here that you thought I was a Korean talking about my own home country, which I obviously would know more about than you, and you still felt free to insult me and condescend to me. Do you talk to other POC like that?
Yes I think it's disrespectful of their accomplishments and their sacrifices to say that the society they fought and died to create is "sick", "disgusting" and lacking "even the most basic fundamentals of human dignity." That is a fucking lie and you know it. Those people fucking died to get health care, they fucking died to get cops to stop carrying guns and to stop shooting protestors, they fucking died to get habeas corpus rights, they fucking died to get the right to criticize their government. The created a society where homelessness is low and nearly everyone has access to food, health care, education, and fair trials. There's a lot of work left to be done there, but to tell these blatant lies is very low of you.
They built that society out of their own blood and you are calling it disgusting. It literally disgusts me to see you say this shit, and if you said these bullshit lies about literally any other country in Asia, you'd called an anti-Asian racist and for good fucking reaso
Are you a socialist? I don't see why you'd bother to have a HB account if not, and yet I cannot reconcile that with your statement here. If you'd let me use America as a reference point, it's like that moronic conservative talking point that "men and women died for the flag, show some respect!" It's a touch better, because you can point to actual rights won by the martyrs of struggle against the dictatorship and their successors (and also they weren't colonial running dogs), but that does not mean that the society as a whole isn't fundamentally sick, and respecting them doesn't preclude acknowledging that because it's not like they drafted the current structure of SK society. Like, the US is diseased and needs to be destroyed, but that's no disrespect to people who fought for women's suffrage or abolition or whatever. They were trying to improve the material conditions they were met with and so am I.
You've basically talked yourself into a deeply conservative dogma on pure indignation.
It is not conservative. And yes I am a socialist.
They achieved real advances in human rights and human dignity in Korea. Work remains for them to do to move the country further along, but to talk like OP is talking here is basically to say that they accomplished nothing and that is simply false. I think spreading falsehoods and saying that leftist activists in SK have achieved nothing is disrespectful.
That country was one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world in the 60s with some of the lowest living standards in the world. They have archived a lot
Whatever you call yourself, you have argued yourself into a position of extreme, sanctimonious conservatism if you are claiming the present Korean society does not deserve harsh criticism. Nowhere did OP say that things are just as bad as under the military dictatorship which, as you say, was one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. The thing about that being true is that you can make significant progress in the state of things and not even escape being under a military dictatorship, so I think acknowledging the current state as a deeply unwell bourgeois democracy is being borderline charitable when you look at the sordid state of Korea's electoral politics (which might be owning communism being banned, something the communists who were persecuted and slaughtered by the dictatorship certainly didn't fight for the preservation of).
if you are claiming the present Korean society does not deserve harsh criticism.
Criticize all you want. But do so with facts, not with lies. There are factual problems in SK like sexism, homophobia, corruption, poor enforcement of labor laws and more. Saying that shanty towns are common is a lie.
The only person who would say that SK "lacked even the most basic fundamentals of human dignity." quite frankly sounds like a privledged first worlder who does not understand how bad things can really get, and what a society that lacks human dignity really looks like. A society that is disgusting and lacking in human dignity looks like S Korea in 1960, or Alabama in 1860. Not like S Korea in 2024.
Criticize all you want. But do so with facts, not with lies
I was on this thread criticizing OP before you were, you don't need to tell me that
The only person who would say that SK "lacked even the most basic fundamentals of human dignity." quite frankly sounds like a privledged first worlder who does not understand how bad things can really get, and what a society that lacks human dignity really looks like. A society that is disgusting and lacking in human dignity looks like S Korea in 1960, or Alabama in 1860. Not like S Korea in 2024.
I don't understand why you're so ready to call tone a concrete statement with a truth value. I'm sure you'd agree that America today is disgusting and lacking in human dignity if we point out practices from one of its largest companies, Amazon, essentially forcing its employees to piss in bottles and shit in bags to make quotas on time, forcing employees to work around the body of their collapsed and eventually deceased coworker, demanding that they come in even when forecasts predicted the facility would be destroyed by a tornado (and it was). There is so much in America, even when we constrain our view, that we can use to support the country being disgusting and lacking in human dignity, and I'm sure we can find different but still comparable stories in SK. For example, check out their human-trafficking fueled "defector" industry where they hold N Koreans hostage by preventing them from leaving and trapping them in a society where they struggle to find work and can even starve to death in the middle of a city if they don't work as good little media puppets spreading lies about the North.
ahh look my new favourite anti-communist rok apologist is bringing out the classics! dont you just love the pecking order misery olympics bullshit people broing out when somebody says that things are not as good as they should be? Oh you think things are bad? Try shoveling burning coal with your bare hands, like in mordor! :maybe-later-kiddo:
for a person claiming to be this principled against supposed "lies" you sure do make a lot of shit up about other people. never have i claimed that the rok has achieved absolutely zero progress, this would be absurd. yet you, the supposed beacon of honesty, simply invent such statements of me.
you continue to confuse, at this point probably willfully so, the justified admiration for the 1988 revolution with respect for the decrepit south korean puppet regime. to use an analogy: every leftist will admire the heroism of the 1789 revolution in france, but that doesnt make the french dictatorship of the bourgeoisie any less horrible. leftists recognize that things are progressive or reactionary in the context of their material conditions.
you on the other hand use right-wing liberal logic at best and end up sounding like piłsudski rallying against the bolsheviks. have you even read socialist theory? are you member of a party?
and you really dont get how all this makes you sound like chosun ilbo?
never have i claimed that the rok has achieved absolutely zero progress, this would be absurd. yet you, the supposed beacon of honesty, simply invent such statements of me.
You said they lack even basic human dignity. IDK how they could have made progress and still be lacking in basic human dignity. Again, free health care, fantastic public safety, nearly complete lack of food insecurity, universal literacy + HS education, extremely low rates of homelessness, top tier public transportation. Is that related to dignity or not?
in the context of their material conditions.
I'm the one here making factual statements about the material conditions in SK, acknowledging the positives and the negatives. If you like to do materialist analysis, why are you giving false facts about what the material conditions there really are?
you on the other hand use right-wing liberal logic
my terrible liberal logic that free health care, education, the right to fair trials and a lack of cops murdering people in the street give human dignity? and that seoul is not covered in shanty towns? You better put me up against the wall
chosun ilbo?
Do you read chosun ilbo? I don't think you do.
"many people too poor to afford housing' homelessness is lower in SK than in the US by a HUGE amount. So that is blatant lie number 2.
Homelessness in the US is pretty high. A country having lower homelessness than the US is an extremely low bar. Compare with the DPRK, which has near-zero homelessness.
to be honest it's quite disrespectful to the many south Koreans who struggled against the dictatorship for you to minimize their accomplishment like that
lmao what concern troll bullshit is this? The dictatorship is still easily, easily within living memory, it doesn't insult the people who struggled against it to acknowledge that obvious fact.
Homelessness in the US is pretty high. A country having lower homelessness than the US is an extremely low bar.
It is VASTLY lower to be clear. 1.7 out of 10k, vs 19.5 out out of 10k in America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_homeless_population
1.7 out of 10,000, obv that number should be zero, but does it sound like it's true to say that 'many people' can't afford housing and that slums from the 1960s are still around and are numerous? Or does it sound like a distortion made to make it seem like SK consists of acres and acres of shanty towns like Rio?
I compare with the US bc most of us here live in the US and I dind't want to bother with finding the exact stat bc I was getting ready for bed when I wrote that.
The dictatorship is still easily, easily within living memory,
OP is obv using that line to make it sound like SK is still basically a dictatorship. It's a distortion of the facts at best, outright lie at worst.
you keep acting like the 1988 upheaval made the south a nearly perfect utopia and pretend like any criticism of the south is now unwarranted and only done by bad-faith actors.
you didnt source any of your claims btw and still expect to be hailed as the harbinger of truth, while pretty much all of your argumentation has been a mix of shifting the goalposts, concern trolling and outright falsifications of what others are saying. fucking tsargrad tv has more intellectual honesty than you.
:PIGPOOPBALLS:
lmfao
a nearly perfect utopia
I've been exceptionally clear in EVREY fucking reply I have given that there is plenty to criticize in the South. Are you so goddamn dishonest that you feel the need to lie to people when the evidence that your claim is false is present right here on this exact fucking webpage? Here's what I said
There are factual problems in SK like sexism, homophobia, corruption, poor enforcement of labor laws and more.
yes quite a number of people are unhappy due to capitalist alienation, problems with sexism and toxic work culture etc.
Work remains for them
many live in poor quality housing
There are many many many problems in SK
Do you just lie like this all fucking day in real life too? Anyone on this webpage with a high school level of reading comprehension can see that I don't think SK is 'nearly perfect'. I'm talking about the positives because you are misrepresenting the facts to make them look like dystopia. When I talk to some dumb lib who wants to use Korea as an example of how America is awesome bc we helped the south and they build a perfect capitalist society, or a Kpop stan who thinks its perfect, I will talk about the negatives. It's because I care about the facts and I do fact-based materialist analysis.
shifting the goalposts,
Good lord, you are the one throwing out random shit that has nothing to do with anything I said, like that they have a bunch of churches. And just to show how honest I am, I will acknowledge that yes it is of course true that they have a problem with a lot of people belonging to insane right wing reactionary churches. Happy? I'm fine with shit talking the parts of Korea that deserve to be shit talked. I'll throw in another for good measure, they have a serious problem with bigotry and colorism against those from south Asia, as well as against those who are not """pure blood""" Korean, and racial discrimination is not illegal. Toxic beauty standards against women also does serious damage against the psychology of women there, esp growing teenage girls, many of whom still wear covid masks, not bc they are afraid of the virus, but bc they are afraid they are not pretty enough to show their real faces. I bet you didn't know all that, did you? Because you don't know shit about South Korea (or you do know but lie anyway, either way doesn't look good for you)
And btw, pls give me a citation, a real fucking citation not 'prolewiki' for these claims (the fact that you are old enough to have traveled to SK in 2007 but not mature enough to realize that 'prolewiki' doesn't qualify as a reliable source does not reflect well on you) You are the one who made these claims in the first place, you are the one who needs to demonstrate that they are true with real sources.
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That your photo is of current day Korea (I notice you didn't address this claim at all, because you know you are damn liar)
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That 'many people' cant afford housing
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that shanty towns are common
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that NK has enough energy to keep the lights on 24/7 and the numerous images showing them to be dark at night are fake.
EDIT:
And you know what, to further emphasize my honesty, I'm gonna walk back my earlier comment about suicides. While it is not literally 'by the millions' and it is still true that it has trended downward over the past ~10 years. It is indeed super high, one of the highest in the world and it's fair to bring it up. I was overzealous in criticizing that claim , I guess bc I wrote that comment right before bed last night when I was tired and cranky. I can admit when I was wrong, can you?
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OP is obv using that line to make it sound like SK is still basically a dictatorship. It's a distortion of the facts at best, outright lie at worst.
It's a colonial dictatorship of the bourgeoisieOP is explicitly saying that it isn't something anymore and you're saying that he's using that to say it still isYea obviously they are lib and bourgeois.
OP is explicitly saying that it isn't something anymore
The phrasing 'spent it's first 42 years as a dictatorship and only recently began to liberalize' is a distortion. Very obviously so for 2 reasons I will enumerate
1 The country is going to celebrate 80 years of independence from the Japanese fascists on August 15 of next year. They liberalized about 36 years ago. They have spent roughly half of their existence as a dictatorship, roughly half as a liberal republic. The phrasing '42 years' vs 'only recently' was clearly chosen to imply that the 'recent' liberal period is vastly shorter. Why use an exact number for one but a wishy-washy and vague phrase like 'recently' for the other? bc if OP used the actual dates and exact numbers, it would not sound as bad as OP wants it to. 42 vs 36 doesn't sound bad enough for OP, so he has to be vague with his numbers. Why not keep it exact? It is a distortion of the facts meant to fool people who do not know when they gained independence.
2 'began to liberalize' is a phrasing clearly meant to imply that they have not yet achieved very much liberalization. They did not 'begin to liberalize' they have liberalized and they are a full fledged bourgeois liberal republic. (and obv that's not great but its far better than being a fascist dictatorship)
"In South Korea there so cold inside the houses that people are freezing their clothes in the winter because they will warmer covered in frozen clothing than living in the unheated house."
I agree fundamentally, but what about the DPRK here is an "obvious lie"?
That the photos of them with the lights off at night are fake. They don't have enough fuel due to sanctions to keep the power on all the time so they often are forced to practice energy rationing and shut down the power for entire cities at night so that they can keep things running during the day.
Yes. When talking about North Korea I mostly restrict myself to discussing and analyzing their foreign policy. There's just simply not very good information available on their internal domestic affairs and living standards. There's only a handful of things we can say with any definiteness, and even tho, only in generalities rather than specifics. Certainly there is not enough to make some sweeping claim like this image has.
It is true that the Yeonmi Park variety of defector testimony is distorted and full of bullshit. It does not logically follow from this that they therefore have zero corruption or that Kim Jong-un enjoys wide popular support, maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. Maybe corruption is low, maybe it is high. Maybe it's different in different regions, maybe it goes up and down over time. We don't know and you should be skeptical of anyone claiming absolute knowledge about this kind of stuff. I've talked to people with advanced degrees in this topic and this is what they say, there's just a lot we don't know. It's very hard even for people fluent in Korean who spend years studying this stuff to talk definitively about this kind of thing.
ive never claimed that the dprk is "a paradise", as there are various things to criticize about it. ever heard of critical support?
the purpose of my post is to debunk the western imperialist lies about the korean situation.
good post, typo in the food section
seized to exist
should say
ceased to exist
If OP moves to North Korea, I'll move to South Korea and after a year we can compare notes.
I'd take you up on that offer in a heartbeat, but it's literally illegal for me to go there on account of US law unless I'm willing to get stuck without a passport. Maybe Cuba vs Argentina would be a fairer challenge
