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Comment count is 60
Accidie - 2017-04-22

This is the guy who it turned out was faking the whole story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Dong-hyuk


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-22

nice try, you racist jingos!


Ninehells - 2017-04-22

You see jingoism, I see distraction.

It seems like every time there is instability in the world, NK pops up yelling "Ooo! I'm a bad boy! Who's gonna punish me?" Like the leadership is desperate for attention and terrified of being forgotten.

Five stars in either case. If it's fake, screw this guy. If it's real, screw North Korea.


Accidie - 2017-04-22

No, it's CONFIRMED fake. You might have to read or watch recent things, but yes, it's confirmed. He confessed to making it all up and everything.


Anaxagoras - 2017-04-22

Do you have a link supporting your assertion that he's a complete fake? (The wikipedia article you linked states that he changed and/or embroidered many details, not that he made it up wholecloth.)


Gmork - 2017-04-22

This guy being fake wouldn't negate the real abuse / neglect of the population, so I'm not sure why you're acting like this is a "GOTCHA!" moment.


Accidie - 2017-04-22

I don't know why you're all so quick to make this somehow partisan. You sound like fucking trump supporters. I didn't make it a "GOTCHA" moment, nor did I take any particular joy in it. I just asked that you all read more about it and know that this story is largely fabricated.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/18/asia/north-korea-defector-change s-story/

Sorry I asked you all to read.


CIWB - 2017-04-22

"A Washington Post story based on information Harden said he had provided to the newspaper said "the most horrific details" of Shin's story "still stand," but some of the times and places of the events in his accounts were wrong."

So this guy changed parts of his story after North Korea released a video of his father, who is presumably being held prisoner, and was nevertheless severely tortured in a prison camp, albeit a less severe prison camp than he initially claimed.

This is hardly "faking the whole story". You do sound like a Trump supporter, in that you're angry for no reason and incapable of understanding simple news stories.


Accidie - 2017-04-22

His father was supposedly already dead in the story.


Accidie - 2017-04-22

Also, other escaped survivors had been question his story for a long time. Why do you people need this to be true so badly?


Anaxagoras - 2017-04-23

No, no. You misunderstand us. Badly. We don't "need this to be true". Rather, we're reading the very link that you posted and noting that it doesn't support what you're saying.

Quite being a douche, and either provide a link that *does* support what you're saying, or shut the fuck up.


Oscar Wildcat - 2017-04-23

I would agree that anecdotal evidence is poor at best. Should we believe this man's story? Probably not as such. It's better to think about the fact that he, and a lot of other people, have taken great risks to cross the DMZ to live outside NK. I am not aware of much traffic in the opposite direction. The wall keeps people inside NK, not outside.

Here is another piece of evidence to consider.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/roman-harak/5015891270

Go now to your basement, and kill the mains breaker. Live like that for a few days. Are you feeling the juche?


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

Lots of places in the world (especially places partitioned and sanctioned by the US and its western proxies and allies) look like this. Especially poor agrarian nations.

Do you really believe North Korean citizens live and work in the dark like robots?

What do you think Laos looks like at night, and why?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UM2eYLbzXg
Please look at this link, its a short animated map of the US bombing campaign in Laos (Operation Menu, I believe).

From the Deputy Chief of Mission to Laos testifying to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee--this is an exact quote--when he was asked why they quadrupled the bombing of northern Laos, he said, "Well, we had all those planes sitting around and couldn't just let them sit there with nothing to do. "

What do you supposed that does to a countries infrastructure and morale? How long would it take to rebuild and how much would it cost? And is it fair to compare standard of living and infrastructure of nations that we have nearly destroyed, to our own, as if it has no bearing on our critique?


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

woops, I left the bit about "all the planes sitting there" just flapping in the breeze. There was supposed to be a sentence or two in there about our bombings of Laos being conducted mostly out of boredom and caprice. But you get the idea.


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/n-s_korea_nigh t.png

Theres a higher res photo. You can see many homes and businesses lit up, all over the country. It looks like a poorer, less interconnected, more agrarian nation. But it's not the fucking stone age like you're making out.

Nevermind that SK has over double NK's population, and all the financial support and assistance it could want from the West (especially where it makes NK look bad or US look good).


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

If there were masses of evidence of corruption wrongdoing and torture, you'd be showing me that. We'd all have seen them.

But they don't exist, so you're showing me satellite photos, video game arcades, and rolling meadows. And going through all kinds of hideous contortions to make it seem bad, or at least worse than the US or other so-called developed nations. Look at the rest of the photos in the flickr archive. NORTH KOREA LOOK LIKE A FINE PLACE. AND IT IS ONE.


teethsalad - 2017-04-23

"If there were masses of evidence of corruption wrongdoing and torture, you'd be showing me that. We'd all have seen them."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnJMtV9x0ys

hey, here's some of that evidence you were talking about that you took the trouble of voting down in the hopper

and i'm sure we'll see plenty of reporting on the shortcomings of north korean society from their free and fair press any day now


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

if you ignore the totally manipulative and unsubstantiated claims of whoever is talking over this video -- it looks much nicer than our maximum security prisons (which is what it is).

You're right though, these people can never understand the comfort and human dignity our prisoners enjoy. They'll probably never get to take Amazon orders, or stamp license plates for 2 cents an hour.

SERIOUSLY -- SHOW ME A PHOTO OR VIDEO WITH SOME ACTUAL ABUSE IN IT

Not just some guy intoning evilly over totally innocuous footage.


Oscar Wildcat - 2017-04-23

I suspect it would be a lot easier to accomodate you, if there was any way to get into NK without a government minder or three tailing your every move. The country is a military dictatorship with a single family rulership. These kinds of arrangements keep the citizenry mired in poverty, no matter the country. Much like the dark ages in Europe.

Again, the DMZ keeps people _in_ NK, not out. Just like the old wall in Germany.

Speaking of which, we bombing the shit out of Germany and Japan, and it took perhaps twenty years or so to rebuild. Another twenty to exceed our infrastructure. Germany runs the EU now, not bad for fifty odd years... Remarkable that they accomplished, by peace, trade, and economics, what they could not with two world wars.


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

US intelligence services and their proxies have all the motive, money, personnel, and technology they need to show us anything they want to inside the dprk -- if it were there we'd have seen it by now.

in the 90's they showed us they could accurately photograph the topography of a golf ball dimple while ripping through the atmosphere at 2,000 mph

now they surveille every inch of the planet, read your email, record and store every 1 or 0 leaving the united states (and other countries via friendly foreign agencies), and watch you through your xbox.. but they just can't penetrate that crumbling, backwards, medieval slave-state! sure.


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

*the united states, clutching it's temples, punching itself in the face, screaming*

"THEIR STONE AGE TECHNOLOGY AND METHODS, WHICH DEMONSTRATE OUR OBVIOUS MENTAL, MORAL, AND MARTIAL SUPERIORITY, ARE JUST TOO EFFECTIVE! ARGGGGHHH!"


Oscar Wildcat - 2017-04-23

Why? There's nothing in NK our oligarchs want. If not for SK and our old cold war alliance, we'd ignore it entirely, just as we do many other countries run by despots. The only reason it's getting any attention now is our current leader is not much different than Kim. Also, Kim needs us to keep fighting, he's not going to let that stop, if history is any judge.

If the US really wanted to destroy NK, it would have stopped sending food aid in the 90s. That probably would have been enough.


Gmork - 2017-04-23

You're incredibly stupid and uninformed about this one particular subject, Choc. I've seen a plethora of documentaries and footage that show just how horrible it is there. I'm surprised you haven't seen the same ones, they're not exactly difficult to find. There is undeniable evidence of abuse, although abuse isn't what we're saying exists on a large scale - the abuses exist but aren't the main issue - the neglect and brainwashing of the citizens of the actual issue. You are hung up on one aspect which is harder but not impossible to prove (considering cameras aren't allowed there unless you have specific permission (and oversight by government minders) on what you're recording).

It's _quite_ easy to see that they are completely oppressed, subjugated and neglected. You'd have to be willfully ignorant to think that their daily life is anything like the peasants of laos. Poverty sucks, sure, but poverty without basic freedom is far worse.


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

yeah, spook documentaries. most of you have never heard an opinion about north korea that didn't come straight from the state department or one of their lackeys in the academy or media. and you're so afraid of hearing a non-consensus opinion you're downvoting the only one you're ever likely to see, even though its from a fairly conventional source. (former attorney general ramsey clark)


Oscar Wildcat - 2017-04-23

Sez the man who downvotes every negative item in the hopper concerning NK, including this one. Did your mind change when you learned it was a fraud and supported your arguments?


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

i and everyone else on the site is already familiar with the consensus opinion about korea / russia /china, etc. you hear it every day on the news, and in tv shows and movies. it doesn't require any special attention, because its the totally dominant view here. it receives constant attention and reinforcement already. you could at least hear out and contend with one countervailing argument against the dominant narrative, before you try pummeling with the same old shit over and over.


Oscar Wildcat - 2017-04-23

Yes, that is what I am doing. We disagree, NK is not filled with video games, rolling green hills, and happy peasants enjoying the glorious fruits of democratic socialism. I wish it were, but it is a military dictatorship that requires armed guards to keep it's citizenry from flooding into South Korea. When you visit there, you are carefully monitored by government minders, just as it was in the old SU and satellite states. We don't do that in the US, or any other western state. You can leave the US whenever you like, and stay out of it as long as you like. Yet, despite this, you think you are being lied to. Well, so go to North Korea then. Nobody is stopping you. But remember, once in, you'll not be allowed to leave. Ever. Why this doesn't set off alarm bells in your head is anyone's guess, but I don't see you booking a plane ticket, so I presume you aren't entirely convinced of your own arguments.


Old_Zircon - 2017-04-23

"Chocolate Jesus
Lots of places in the world (especially places partitioned and sanctioned by the US and its western proxies and allies) look like this. Especially poor agrarian nations."


Also most of Eastern Oregon.


Anyhow, just about the the best thing I've read yet about contemporary (relatively, it was published in 2010) North Korean society is "The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters" and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to expand their view of it beyond news and Youtube videos.

https://www.amazon.com/Cleanest-Race-Koreans-Themselves-Matter s/dp/1933633913/


Old_Zircon - 2017-04-23

"Gmork
You're incredibly stupid and uninformed about this one particular subject, Choc. I've seen a plethora of documentaries and footage that show just how horrible it is there."


There are also a number of in depth, firsthand accounts and memoirs by other men and women who have been through the NK prison system that are readily available, although that means actually acquiring and reading books.


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

'love it or leave it, buddy!' -- the final contortion of national chauvinists, racial supremacists, and white liberals.

gofund my ass over there if it makes you so furious. i'll go. put me on the list with the other traitors like rodman and inoki.


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

while we're all reading books and shit, one of you might dare to pick up is I.F. Stone's Hidden History of the Korean War 1950-1951 (published in 52 and expanded and reprinted in 70 and 88).

A summary from wikipedia:

The Korean War

As a political liberal who was critical of the Russo–American Cold War, and its consequent reductions of the civil liberties and the civil and political rights of American citizens — what he saw as totalitarianism effected with the moral panic of loyalty oaths and the Second Red Scare (1947–57) of the McCarthy Era — Stone wrote a book on the origin of the Korean War (1950–52). According to Stone, in an effort to convince the American people to support and fight in a war between two undemocratic Asian countries, U.S. government propaganda misrepresented the Korean War as necessary to the rollback fight against the international communist conspiracy for world domination, with Josef Stalin controlling the conspiracy from Moscow. (see: Domino theory)

In The Hidden History of the Korean War, 1950–51, Stone contended that South Korea had provoked North Korea to war by way of continual guerrilla attacks across the border (38th parallel) into the north of Korea, and that, thus goaded, the communists eventually counterattacked the South providing the official casus belli (25 June 1950) required for Korean reunification. Stone said that such cross-border attacks, authorized by the South Korean government, were part of the U.S. foreign policy for the worldwide containment of communism, advocated by John Foster Dulles, realized in the field by General Douglas MacArthur, U.S. commander in the Pacific Ocean military theatre, and countenanced by Syngman Rhee, the strongman President of South Korea.


Oscar Wildcat - 2017-04-23

And of course, unable to respond to legitimate arguments or verifiable claims, you resort to insults. I am asking you to put your money where your mouth is, hardly what you claim I am saying. If NK is much better than America, why don't you emmigrate? Nothing is stopping you. Can't you answer that without insult? I guess not.


Maru - 2017-04-23

What kind of argument is "love it or leave it", anyway? I thought you were supposed to be educated and worldly, but you resort to that kind of vulgar challenge when faced with a consistent rational argument against your own.

Just visiting Asia would be enough to ruin most people's finances. It's not some shit anyone would do to prove a point to the internet so it's nothing like an earnest challenge anyway. Is that really the best you've got now? Do you think anyone is actually afraid of going to NK?


Oscar Wildcat - 2017-04-23

It's really very simple. I am not suggesting he visit North Korea. I am suggesting he defect to North Korea. I'll bet that if he wrote to the NK government and explained what he wanted to do, he might actually be helped to get there. Money is not what is stopping him.

So, let's recap. There is a big wall between NK and SK. Guards with machine guns are there to ensure no one crosses the border. You can emigrate to the North if you want to, a very few have done so. No emigration is allowed to the South. Many have tried, and a few scores of thousands have succeeded. They risk their lives to do so.

Does anyone deny what I wrote above? Because I'm reading the above comments closely, and it seems not. I am suggesting this tells you something about the situation on either side of the wall.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but ChocoJ asserts that 1) America is an oppressive society and 2) North Korea is not. So why on earth would you stay here, if you have the option to leave? This is pretty basic, and doesn't require anyone love america or leave it. It does require him to answer why he wishes to stay here, in this oppressive society, when the solution is so readily at hand. The NK government would, I am sure, help him in this regard. I highly doubt the American government would do anything to stop him. However, once there, he will not be allowed to leave. Neither side would tolerate it.

And yes, I am suggesting that ChocoJ is terrified of the prospect of actually emigrating to NK. As any rational person would be. It's a military dictatorship, run by a family cult. Only a fool would consider such a thing. Whereas, many many North Koreans risk their lives to go in the opposite direction. Because life under a military dictatorship lead by a personality cult is unbearable. We're experiencing a little of that now with Donald Trump. How about Donald Trump and his family forever, with complete control over every aspect of your lives? Sound good?


Oscar Wildcat - 2017-04-24

So, lucky you, there is a North Korean embassy right next to us in Mexico City, Mexico. Here is the contact information.

Calle Hally No. 12
Colonía Anzures
Delegación Miguel Hidalgo
11590 México, D. F.
Mexico
TELEPHONE
(+52) 55 5250-0263
FAX
(+52) 55 5545-8775
EMAIL
dprkoreaemb@prodigy.net.mx

OFFICE HOURS
09:00-13:00
HEAD OF MISSION
Mr Kun Song An, Ambassador

Why don't you contact the ambassador, explain that you want to defect from the Evil Empire, and see what he has to say?

BTW, the last American to do this was in 1982, here's his story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_T._White


15th - 2017-04-24

America is like, the real North Korea, man.

One would be foolish not to assume that a good portion of mainstream information about NK is slanted propaganda. One would be a fucking moron to imagine their quality of life wouldn't be severely degraded living under militaristic dictatorship, compared to the US.

Is it just me, or is the final rung of the new left's enlightenment that western society is the greatest force of evil in the world? We're far from perfect, we've got blood on our hands, but get real.


Old_Zircon - 2017-04-25

The New Left? They got kind of fragmented after the '68 democratic convention.


Albuquerque Halsey - 2017-04-22

https://medium.com/defiant/north-koreas-government-is-terrible-and -that-s-beside-the-point-d3505818845b


Spaceman Africa - 2017-04-22

Don't most of the stories that go around about NK prison camps come from this guy? Like how there's "Generational punishment" and that the guards eat babies or something.


Ninehells - 2017-04-22

All guards eat babies. It's one of the many perks of Party Citizenship.


teethsalad - 2017-04-23

the generational punishment thing is real and has been confirmed by multiple sources

http://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/HRNK_HiddenGulag2_Web_5-18.pd f


Spaceman Africa - 2017-04-23

so its just like working at Circle K


Old_Zircon - 2017-04-25

Be serious, Spacean Africa. This is nothing like working at Circle K.


It's like working at Amazon.


Hooker - 2017-04-23

This is bizarre that suddenly voices of "Do we _really_ know that North Korea is a totalitarian hellhole?" have popped up now that Trump is making aggressive motions towards them. Like, what is real? How can we know anything? Let's not do anything ever because despite overwhelming evidence. This presumably also includes global warming, of which there's always a few scientists out there that deny it if you turn over a few rocks.

Yes, it really is one of the worst places on Earth. South Korea has extensive programs to help North Korean defectors adjust to free society and the defector's stories about conditions in the country agree. There are roughly 30,000 North Korean defectors in South Korea and over 100,000 North Korean defectors across the world. Since 1953, the United States government has frequently provided relief efforts to North Korea to help with their chronic food shortages. There really are concentration camps that you can _see_ on Google Maps. There's no moral equivalency here with America and while some of what Shin Dong-hyuk has said - maybe even all of it - can be disputed, it doesn't cast doubt on the reality of life outside of the camps or even life in the less secure camps, of which there have been other escapees to successfully defect. It's not too strong to call questioning all the horrors of North Korea either profound stupidity, wilful ignorance, or (most likely) a blatant failure of conscience that rises to the level of outright evil. Acknowledging the reality of the country does not mean supporting a war with North Korea.


misterbuns - 2017-04-23

Don't you DARE take away the right to desperate transgression. Not in 2017. Not when it's all these people have.

Trolling is LIFE.


Bort - 2017-04-23

Ever since the Bush administration, the American Left has lost its ability to think critically about foreign policy; the Left assumes America is in the wrong no matter what it does.

The Left had traditionally been skeptical of American foreign policy, and good on them, it's one place where skepticism is called for. But if you walk into every situation with the conclusion that the US is motivated solely by malice and greed, that's not skepticism, it's closed-mindedness and it's likely to give a pass to other parties.

Remember when that crazy out-of-control Obama was going to destroy Syria for no reason whatsoever, and it took the wise and just Putin to rein in the savage black man? We've got old threads on this here site where you can see the Left doing what it does best these days, assuming America is in the wrong no matter what and anyone who's not America is in the right. Hey dummies, are ya still on Putin's side? At least, during the Cold War, naive fans of Stalin knew to not proclaim their idiocy too loudly.


animegurl1000 - 2017-04-23

Just as many people on the Right sided with Putin on Obama as well, you know. Just as many on the Right chastised Obama for supporting anti-Assad rebel groups in Syria. "Assad is not the bad guy" they used to say. Now that Trump is in charge, the Right's opinion on Assad seemed to have made a complete 180; suddenly Assad is an evil dictator that must be taken out.


Bort - 2017-04-23

"Just as many people on the Right sided with Putin on Obama as well, you know."

Yeah but they're irredeemably broken; the Left ought to be better than that.


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

This is what you call 'atrocity propaganda' Hooker. I bet you have an overturned incubator story to sell me too.
as defined on wikipedia:

Atrocity propaganda is a term referring to the spreading of deliberate fabrications or exaggerations about the crimes committed by an enemy, constituting a form of psychological warfare.

The inherently violent nature of war means that exaggeration and invention of atrocities often becomes the main staple of propaganda. Patriotism is often not enough to make people hate, and propaganda is also necessary.[1] "So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations", wrote Harold Lasswell, "that every war must appear to be a war of defense against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about who the public is to hate."[2] Human testimony is deemed unreliable even in ordinary circumstances, but in wartime, it can be further muddled by bias, sentiment, and misguided patriotism, becoming of no value whatsoever in establishing the truth.[3]

According to Paul Linebarger, atrocity propaganda leads to real atrocities, as it incites the enemy into committing more atrocities, and, by heating up passions, it increases the chances of one's own side committing atrocities, in revenge for the ones reported in propaganda.[4] Atrocity propaganda might also lead the public to mistrust reports of actual atrocities. In January 1944, Arthur Koestler wrote of his frustration at trying to communicate what he had witnessed in Nazi-occupied Europe: the legacy of anti-German stories during World War I, many of which were debunked in the postwar years, meant that these reports were received with considerable amounts of skepticism.[5]

Like propaganda, atrocity rumors detailing exaggerated or invented crimes perpetrated by enemies are also circulated to vilify the opposing side.[6]

.Techniques.

By establishing a baseline lie and painting the enemy as a monster, atrocity propaganda serves as an intelligence function, since it wastes the time and resources of the enemy's counterintelligence services to defend itself. Atrocity propaganda can either be white, gray, or black. Atrocity propaganda is often white, as it makes no attempt to hide its source and is overt in nature. The propagandists' goal is to influence perceptions, attitudes, opinions, and policies; often targeting officials at all levels of government. Atrocity propaganda is violent, gloomy, and portrays doom to help rile up and get the public excited. It dehumanizes the enemy, making them easier to kill. Wars have become more serious, and less gentlemanly; the enemy must now be taken into account not merely as a man, but as a fanatic.[7] So, "falsehood is a recognized and extremely useful weapon in warfare, and every country uses it quite deliberately to deceive its own people, attract neutrals, and to mislead the enemy."[8] Harold Lasswell saw it as a handy rule for arousing hate, and that "if at first they do not enrage, use an atrocity. It has been employed with unvarying success in every conflict known to man."[2]

The extent and devastation of World War I required nations to keep morale high. Propaganda was used here to mobilize hatred against the enemy, convince the population of the justness of one's own cause, enlist the active support and cooperation of neutral countries, and strengthen the support of one's allies.[9] The goal was to make the enemy appear savage, barbaric, and inhumane.



If you want me to spell out individual instances from american military interventions over the past 50 or 100 years i'll do it.

I'm sure many of you know you've been lied to where it concerns Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, etc -- Why can't you apply the same kind of skepticism to Syria or North Korea?


dairyqueenlatifah - 2017-04-23

"This is bizarre that suddenly voices of "Do we _really_ know that North Korea is a totalitarian hellhole?" have popped up now that Trump is making aggressive motions towards them."

Yeah, I've seen and heard a lot of that kind of shit. I've heard people who, before the election, were going on and on about how fucking awful TPP was, and then after Trump killed it, those same people said it was a great thing how dare he. I've also heard people who previously painted Julian Assange as the literal devil now saying he's a heroic martyr because the US government has suddenly decided they want him arrested. It's like what's actually happening doesn't even matter, people are more concerned with Trump and his administration being evil. If he and his administration do something, it must be evil, and they have to be against it.

Anyone who thinks North Korea is anything other than an evil insane totalitarian dystopian zero freedom totally dictated starving joyless shithole is insane, or insanely uniformed, and if there was any justice in this world the Kim family would be thrown in a pit of thumbtacks and salt in the middle of a jungle and left to starve to death. But removing them from power would suffice.


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

This has nothing to do with trump for for me. I would have indicted obama, clinton, or bush in the same way for the same reasons. (especially bill)


Hooker - 2017-04-23

Do you have any evidence that the western understanding of North Korea, which is almost universally unchallenged and is consistently reinforced by defectors, is propaganda? Or is the fact that atrocity propaganda as an abstract concept exists sufficient for you to vocally cast argue that it's all a falsehoods on a scale of conspiracy that is mind-boggling? How long does it take to reach the depth of your intellectual honesty?


bawbag - 2017-04-24

"the western understanding of North Korea, which is almost universally unchallenged..."

That should be a source of concern to anyone who is capable of applying even the slightest amount of skepticism.

Remember when 'WMDs in Iraq' was the story that was almost universally unchallenged in the west? That's just one example but the western powers do this all the time.

So much of the western ideas of NK are the result of speculation + the shifting testimonies of defectors (who incidentally make money from selling these same testimonies to a hungry media and are quoted as 'feeling pressure to embroider' their stories) and supposition from those outside.

It's not even that you have to argue that NK is 'good' (spoiler: it's not, it's fucking awful) or that the defectors are 'all liars' to see that there is a real problem in the west of accepting stories on the basis of eyewitness testimony (that wouldn't pass muster in a court) because it lines up with our existing speculation and sensationalistic media tales.

Again, it's not that NK is some paradise nation that has never done any wrong but there's certainly a need for more skepticism around reports that aim to create cheerleaders for a pre-emptive strike on a China-allied nation that has every piece of conventional artillery on their border pointed directly at our allies in SK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_North_Korea


Old_Zircon - 2017-04-24

Hey Hooker, unrelated to the topic of this argument but related to your justified frustration with the recent spike in bullshit magical thinking and late-stage pseudo-postmodernist relativism, at an event we had at work a couple weeks ago I got to hear a respected, successful, tenured, ivy league professor tell a crow, without a bit of irony, that there is no scientific consensus about whether or not Atlantis existed.


Yet another example of why architects should never be allowed to talk authoritatively about anything outside of their field ever.


Old_Zircon - 2017-04-24

Also it's worth pointing out that "the Left" and "the Right" is a bullshit false binary that doesn't actually reflect the plurality of political belief, experience, ideology, social theory, street smarts, theology, delusion, critical analysis, cultural heritage and so on that actually makes up American society, and actually believing that there is a monolithic "left" and "right" is just about as deluded as thinking there is no scientific consensus on the existence of Atlantis.

So I tied it in after all.


Ok, carry on.


jfcaron_ca - 2017-04-24

When the US is the Giant in the Playground, indeed almost any possible military intervention is going to be more destructive than constructive. EVEN IF their intervention was motivated primarily by humanitarian reasons (and afaik it's never been), it would likely do more harm than good. The US barely has its shit together internally and we think they can save fucking North Koreans from themselves? The best move is obviously non-intervention as a default and only intervene in extreme cases.


jfcaron_ca - 2017-04-24

Using a term like "extreme cases" blandly was stupid. I'm pretty sure the US (or any powerful country) shouldn't intervene militarily regardless of the motive. Existential threat should be the only excuse for war, and existential threat should be hard to justify unless the enemy is already on your soil.


Old_Zircon - 2017-04-25

BUT BUT BUT TERRIST ANCHOR BABIS A HOOO BLOO BLOO


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/n-s_korea_nigh t.png

Theres a higher res photo. You can see many homes and businesses lit up, all over the country. It looks like a poorer, less interconnected, more agrarian nation. But it's not the fucking stone age like you're making out.

Nevermind that SK has over double NK's population, and all the financial support and assistance it could want from the West (especially where it makes NK look bad or US look good).


Chocolate Jesus - 2017-04-23

Accidental double post. Sorry everyone.


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