My hunch is those examples you gave are either infrequent occurrences or mischaracterizations of real instances of spying, infiltration, and foreign interference. You're using scenarios of state repression being used against petty, inconsequential acts when the reality of the situation is those organs of state repression exist to ward off the complete encirclement states like the DPRK face. They face a daily reality of other nations stopping at nothing to tumble their society over, which isn't something nations always know how to deal with effectively.
In fact, I'm usually quite suspicious of calls for more free speech or more free press in nations like the DPRK or Cuba since it's typically just a cover to allow in imperialist/corporate propaganda. Consider it, who would love to finance and direct internal opposition in the DPRK? Who would love to see the society split and their media out of public control?
And your hunch is wrong. State repression in a lot of autocratic regimes is indeed used like that. Think of the US police and how out of control and unaccountable it is? This is what happened in a lot of places with authoritarian regimes, regardless of whether they style themselves communists, fascist or else. In fact this is one of the key features of such regimes - that ideology almost doesn't matter because it is hijacked by the state apparatus.. It was never about whether these people really were of consequence or not, but about power tripping from the cops and the lower level functionaries.
This highlights the problem of runaway lack of accountability of institutions. And when your country is in danger of being infiltrated, invaded or toppled at any point, it is very easy to get such institutions, because you rely on them to protect you from this threat. In a way this is also how US letter agencies get to that point - they use an external threat to justify more and more power. Free speech and expression etc. are very natural human desires, and this is why letter agencies and corporations are using them. Its a hijacking of fundamental things that people desire, and hijaking of the dissatisfaction that these people feel when the institutions take it away.
I honestly dont have a solution to this, obviously dont have unaccountable institutions, but its easier said than done... and also don't be a besieged country, but how does that happen without becoming a bitch to capital?
My hunch is those examples you gave are either infrequent occurrences or mischaracterizations of real instances of spying, infiltration, and foreign interference. You're using scenarios of state repression being used against petty, inconsequential acts when the reality of the situation is those organs of state repression exist to ward off the complete encirclement states like the DPRK face. They face a daily reality of other nations stopping at nothing to tumble their society over, which isn't something nations always know how to deal with effectively.
In fact, I'm usually quite suspicious of calls for more free speech or more free press in nations like the DPRK or Cuba since it's typically just a cover to allow in imperialist/corporate propaganda. Consider it, who would love to finance and direct internal opposition in the DPRK? Who would love to see the society split and their media out of public control?
And your hunch is wrong. State repression in a lot of autocratic regimes is indeed used like that. Think of the US police and how out of control and unaccountable it is? This is what happened in a lot of places with authoritarian regimes, regardless of whether they style themselves communists, fascist or else. In fact this is one of the key features of such regimes - that ideology almost doesn't matter because it is hijacked by the state apparatus.. It was never about whether these people really were of consequence or not, but about power tripping from the cops and the lower level functionaries.
This highlights the problem of runaway lack of accountability of institutions. And when your country is in danger of being infiltrated, invaded or toppled at any point, it is very easy to get such institutions, because you rely on them to protect you from this threat. In a way this is also how US letter agencies get to that point - they use an external threat to justify more and more power. Free speech and expression etc. are very natural human desires, and this is why letter agencies and corporations are using them. Its a hijacking of fundamental things that people desire, and hijaking of the dissatisfaction that these people feel when the institutions take it away.
I honestly dont have a solution to this, obviously dont have unaccountable institutions, but its easier said than done... and also don't be a besieged country, but how does that happen without becoming a bitch to capital?