this post gonna do numbers
The only lesson that this teaches me is
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ALWAYS go to war agains the global northerners when they try to squash you Proletarian Uprisings
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NEVER.EVER.EVER.EEEEEVER.GIVE.UP.THE.NUKES. Socialism is impossible in the modern world without nukes
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Is anyone here posting from NK?
Everyone but you, yeah. Everyone is an evil scheming FOREIGN agent because people with views that contradict yours doesn’t exist! (and if they do, they are actually suppressed and don’t know FREEDOM like you)
Sooo much of projecting and propaganda uhhh
…What are you talking about?
I’m curious about an NK resident’s perspective here, on Lemmy.
The DPRK has an intranet, and is cut off from the broader internet. It’s illegal, for example, for an ROK resident to access a DPRK-hosted website. That being said, many travel to Russia and China (including for work), and there are citizens of the DPRK that reside in New York City for UN purposes, as well as those that work at embassies around the world, such as in Cuba.
I just learned they have an embassy here. I should email them asking for a flag
Hell yea
Because these kind of questions are always followed with some form of chauvinism or racism.
Probably still one of the worst places to reside in as a citizen on the world
Yeah, the US is shit. It’s even shittier than Canada and western European countries. Utter shithole.
Any reason why? Like truly, what is it that you think is awful in the DPRK?
Yeah, the random kidnappings, being killed by officers at random, mass surveillance and censorship, propaganda all the time about its enemies, the crippling homelessness and starvation, lack of healthcare and how aggressive it is towards everyone else makes me NOT want to reside as a citizen in the United States.
DPRK is just so nice.
The US? Maybe.
I’m sure the forced labor and death camps really help their self reported statistics. DPRK is NOT a socialist country, it’s an authoritarian shithole not worthy of praise. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/north-korea “North Korea uses songbun, a socio-political classification system that ranks people based on perceived loyalty to the Kim family. Those in lower classes face discrimination in employment, housing, health care, and education” Fuck OP fuck this news source and fuck anyone who wants to justify governmental violence on a repressed population
This sounds exactly how american propaganda would sound, it’s always the same western leftists demonizing US enemies like the good dogs they are.
Fuck OP fuck this news source and fuck anyone who wants to justify governmental violence on a repressed population
motherfucker the DPRK is historically oppressed through collective punishment by the fucking Western powers!
HRW is just another way for the empire to have a “justification” to oppress anyone. It’s literally an Amerikan front.
a lost redditor appears, it is very confused
The DPRK is a socialist country, the economy is overwhelmingly publicly owned and the state is run by the working classes. The idea that the DPRK is an “authoritarian shithole” based on unverified western allegations doesn’t hold any water; the west committed genocide against Koreans and bombed their country into oblivion, then proceeded to sanction them for decades. Western atrocity propaganda helps foment discontent against the DPRK and reduce the chances of reunification, which would be devastating for the US’ encirclement of China.
A country that has an inherent extreme class not based on labor but political loyalty (and extreme punishment of the opposite by labor/death camps) is not socialist in its nature, but just a generic extremely oppressive governmental self-enrichment machine. Socialism requires flattening distribution of capital in either meritocracy or true egalitarian distribution. This again is just a self-enriching regime of oppression no different than some dumb tyrannical king and his stooges of sycophants. I’m sure you just deny reporting on this country as propaganda but most of us live in the real world.
There is no class-based system regarding political loyalty. To begin with, class is a relation to the means of production and distribution, not a category of loyalty. The DPRK has an overwhelmingly publicly owned economy, and the working classes control the state. There is no “king” of the DPRK, no matter what fanfiction you write about it.
You have to be pretty ignorant to make this statement. The allegations are verifiable: leaked video of concentration camps, escapee testimony, human rights groups reports of famine and so on. DPRK is in fact, an authoritarian shithole.
To the contrary, you have to entirely ignore the role of western propaganda to credibly believe everything the west says about a country they committed genocide against, and disbelieve everything said country has said about itself.
There are no “concentration camps.” The DPRK has prisons, sure, as do all countries.
Defector testemony is notoriously unreliable. Defectors are discriminated against in the workplace, and as such most turn to spinning tall tales to make a living. Speaking positively about the DPRK is illegal in the ROK and is punishable, as is returning to the DPRK, despite a good number of defectors wishing to return to their homeland.
“Human rights groups” are often heavily western influenced, and as such western biases plague reporting. Famine did exist during the 90s and early 2000s when the USSR dissolved and massive flooding ruined farming for years in the DPRK. These days, however, food is far more stable, and rural areas are seeing priority in development through the 20x10 policy.
You don’t really have a leg to stand on here, you are trusting the empire that committed genocide against Korea to be truthful about Korea.
Post proof including that leaked video of concentration camps
What video?
Isn’t leadership inherited? Aren’t they on the third guy from the same dynasty now?
No, all positions are elected. That’s like saying Bush Jr. inherited his position from Bush Sr.
I mean, inheritance means that a family member takes over when the current ruler dies, and rules for the rest of their life (or until they abdicate).
That has happened twice in NK, and it’ll likely happen a third time, right?
The Bush Jr/Bush Sr thing is pretty messed up, but since neither sat for a lifetime, and Jr didn’t take over from Sr, I wouldn’t call it inheritance. Bad, but not inheritance.
Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un have all held largely different positions. All have had high levels in the WPK and sometimes government, but each was elected into their positions. The Kim family has outsized influence due to being seen as heroic figures, this is not a “dynasty” but normal electoral politics surrounding popular figures.
Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un have all held largely different positions.
If we consider the title “Supreme Leader” to be understood as supreme leader of NK, they have all held that position, and only they have held that position. I know it’s been posthumous for the first two Kims, but it’s at least indicative. Has there been periods where the Kims have not had de facto power?
this is not a “dynasty” but normal electoral politics surrounding popular figures.
Hmm, normal? Are there many other examples of apparent inheritance of supreme leader titles for generations in electoral politics?
“Supreme Leader” is more of an honorific title, hence the posthumous designations.
As far as being normal, the DPRK pretty much is. It’s not some alien dynasty, it’s a socialist country under siege.
Stealing from @RiverRock@lemmy.ml
I’m not an expert on DPRK history, so instead I’ll try and speak to the prominence of the Kims:
Think back to the enormous popularity the Kennedy family enjoyed in the US for decades. For a good thirty years, if you had a guy named Kennedy on your ticket, he was gonna win. Even Capcom, as recently as 2004, named their heroic American protagonist Leon S Kennedy, because the association of “Kennedy” with “Heroic/good/representative of America’s better angels” was strong in pop culture. It’s an incorrect association, but what matters is it existed.
But what did John, the one people remember most fondly, actually do to earn his reputation? Give a couple well-received speeches, have sex with a trafficked actress, propose a drawdown in Vietnam that never happened, and then get his shit blown smoove off? That’s not much of a legacy when you put it on paper, but here in America our standards are very low. with that in mind, let’s imagine a different history:
The Nazis win WW2. Doesn’t matter how, they just do. After cannibalizing Europe to rebuild their military, they cross the Atlantic with a massive fleet and start systematically dismantling the United Stated via carpet bombing. First electricity goes, then water, then food as every farm, dam and railway is destroyed. After all the infrastructure is gone they start leveling apartment blocks and houses, and entire towns are wiped off the map with few survivors every night. The bombers never stop coming, hitting even ruins where people might be hiding, scouring nearby forests with incendiaries, and allegedly (though I believe it) dropping viral and bacterial weapons with knowledge given to them by Japanese war criminals. Somewhere between one fifth and one quarter of the population is dead, starvation and disease are rampant, every single building has been leveled, and the traumatized survivors are hiding in caves. At this moment John F Kennedy shows up, leads the military in pushing the Nazis out of the northern states with help from Canada, and organizes the rebuilding of the liberated area. When the Nazis consolidate their hold on the southern states and create a military puppet government there to serve as a foothold for invasion, he oversees preparations to drive them back again. Obviously he becomes an instant folk hero, and his descendants both enjoy great political goodwill by association and experience great pressure to live up to the accomplishments of their fathers. //End hypothetical
In the US, a place that has not been touched by war in living memory, we very easily fall into the trap of thinking of other peoples as somehow sillier and more emotional, or more prone to irrational thinking. This is the message that our corporate media has always given us, through careful implication, picture choice, orientalist framing. The unspoken message is always: look at the latest inscrutable conflict these primitives have gotten themselves embroiled in now, aren’t you glad to live somewhere civilized where rule of law prevails?
Of course, the truth is that we export our instability: more than that, our stability depends on constantly destabilizing others and collapsing entire societies into nightmares from which can be easily siphoned cheap labor and resources. These aren’t random conflicts: almost always, they’re our conflicts, our proxy wars, our coups and propaganda drives. “Our” prosperity (mostly the prosperity of the capitalist class, but we do still get the crumbs) is inextricable from their suffering, it depends on it. If other societies are able to stand up for themselves, they can’t be threatened into extortionate “free trade” deals that let western corpos make an insane markup on some tv assembled with rare earth minerals from Vassal Country A by wage slaves in Vassal Country B. That sounds random but it has to be stressed that almost every supply chain for everything in the entire “first world” is built on that relationship, all the profitability of western companies is built on that relationship, and they have before and will again kill untold millions if that relationship is ever threatened.
To tie it all together, my thesis about the apparent popularity of the Kim family (and I say apparent because I can’t know for sure from outside the DPRK either way, but haven’t seen any signs of internal struggles, which you know our western press would pounce on) is this:
-The US and it’s co-belligerents visit an untold amount of conflict and misery on the global south as a matter of course
-Those who stand up to them are remembered fondly by their society, especially if they succeed, especially if they succeed and survive to old age
-Those who stand up are demonized in the western press, especially if they succeed, especially if they succeed and survive to old age
-The people we in the US are conditioned to view as lesser are if anything much more level headed on average than we are, and if the armageddon we made over there happened to us over here the result would probably look less like a socialist republic and more like a loose confederation of death cults
-With this in mind, and knowing that they aren’t actually central to the government of the country, I cannot possibly begrudge Korean society and the Korean state their affinity for the Kim family as a national symbol
the rise of north korea will be another thing that glitches libs the fuck out
It already does, this thread is proof enough.
lmfao yeah
It’s not like they care about reality, they can just use the ultimate argument of this is propaganda and you are a bot.
You saying this is literally gommunism 1 gorillion dead you tankie
I expected a lot better from you, DPRK
Hey, you try and build the most advanced socialist economy in the modern world while being arguably the most embargoed country in history while having faced a genocide less than a century ago.
Only reason we don’t call the DPRK a miracle is because US propaganda. Imagine if Palestine today got an umbrella from Iran, but could only trade with Iran while its neighbours remain hostile. Then Iran collapses as well and Palestine is put through the worst economic sanctions. But it still holds on, and has a higher literacy rate and life expectancy than the US, universal healthcare, and an industry that produces damn near everything.
There’s a reason the DPRK has never recognised Israel as a state. They see it as an even more twisted version of South Korea
Just now? C’mon, Kim Jong-Un.
To be fair, they had to start from scratch after the US leveled the country and killed a quarter of the population.
But at what cost 😱😭😠
no mcdonalds burger 😱😱😱
I mean, come on. The bar to beat is like on the floor now.
The bar would’ve been on the floor twenty years ago, they’ve hit the mariana trench since then.
So a communist state is winning from America.
What about liberty ! Ha, got you.
those almost 800 000 homeless people sure love their freedom
You guys actually read the article?
If you believe this you’re the exact same type of sheep that believes the “capitalism No.1”.
Like a North Korean dinner, there’s fuck all meat here. It’s just parroting a bunch of claims. From the same country that says it has a cure for cancer and aids, and that unicorns actually existed at some point.
Then there’s all the mythical, legendary, “by the grace of gods” shite. The same justification European royalty used.
You do realize that you’re nakedly repeating myths with no self-awareness, right? For example, the DPRK doesn’t actually believe unicorns existed, just like western countries don’t actually believe dragons existed, despite using the iconography as cultural symbols. Whatever you believe is common sense is in reality whatever the ruling class finds it best for you to believe.
You do realize this article proves exactly what I said, correct? Korean history is incredibly ancient, and as such part of it has heavy elements of folklore. This does not mean Koreans actually believe in unicorns, but that the iconography is symbolic, and as such it has historic ties. Have you ever spoken to a Korean, southern Koreans included? This isn’t exclusive to the north, the South also has mythologized elements (they have a common history), they aren’t treated as actual history and instead as folklore. The west reports on this as though northerners believe the folklore, which is wrong.
Then there’s all the mythical, legendary, “by the grace of gods” shite. The same justification European royalty used.
North Korean government claims that the discovery proves that Pyongyang is the historic capital of Korea. Analysts outside North Korea have put the announcement in the context of long-running North Korean attempts to link the country’s regime with the ancient Korean kings, and so position it as the legitimate heir to the legacy of Goguryeo.
And it proves exactly what I said.
No, it does not. The historic link to the mythologized aspects of Korean history does suggest links to material history. The mythologized elements are cultural and not seen as historically accurate, but the locational links are to real, historic leadership. There was no unicorn, but there were generations of kings that did exist. This is not “divine right,” it’s a tie to history.
All I’m saying is that everyone in Italy believes their capital city was founded by the twin sons of Mars, who survived drowning as infants and were raised by a wolf and a woodpecker.
Lmao
From the same country that says it has a cure for cancer and aids, and that unicorns actually existed at some point.
Citation needed.
They call it Kumdang-2
Yeah that’s not a citation. Please post a link to any official DPRK source to back up your claims of what they say.
…they’re going to link to a wikipedia article, aren’t they?
https://everything.explained.today/Kumdang-2/#Ref-5
Links within there
Not a single dprk source. Please post a DPRK source saying the things you claim they are saying not westerns asserting this is what they say.
Yeah… you just posted wikipedia lol
You’re literally parroting propaganda without a shred of self-awareness lol. Do you ever bother to fact check anything about the designated enemies of western capitalism?
What I said comes from NK.
designated enemies of western capitalism?
There’s not stories coming out of Vietnam now are there?
Like a North Korean dinner, there’s fuck all meat here. It’s just parroting a bunch of claims.
It’s just parroting a bunch of claims.
Seems like the only parrot here is you.
a lost redditor appears, it is very confused
Then educate me.
If NK is so good prove it.
Because that article reads like an AI generated fluff piece.
enjoy being educated https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-wsj-just-confirmed-what-socialists
And how do I know that’s not just propaganda?
Right, Wall Street Journal and other western media cited are doing propaganda for DPRK. That’s definitely an interesting take you’ll have to expand on.
EVERYTHING IS PROPAGANDA YOU FUCKING IDIOT
JUST BECAUSE ONE VIEW ALIGNS WITH YOURS DOES NOT MAKE THAT NOT PROPAGANDA
What?
You want to read what you said again. Slowly this time.
Meanwhile, America has a “cure” for cancer every other month
We come up with a new gun every other month? Seems low.
AND with a new type of school shooting too!
Dont you just luv freedumbs and Kimberlies?
Based on the articles I’ve seen from HR News linked on Lemmy I’m pretty sure it’s AI generated, although they do it somewhat more competently than other more blatantly generated news content. The links backing up its arguments at least have a vague connection to the claim in the article, but it’s still pretty questionable, for instance they say “free education” and then link to this page which gives a single data point from 2008 that says NK has a “100%” literacy rate, information credited to “World Bank”. There’s a claim that the country has universal free healthcare, and then in the next sentence links a wikipedia article that contradicts that claim in the second paragraph. You don’t even need to say these claims are definitively false to realize this is lazy journalism at best.
It’s very clear that whoever runs this site. Had an idea for a clickbait title, and that’s it.
Anything being claimed by NK is questionable at best.
And everything claimed by America is done to further their goals of global domination. Why would you watch every American news channel lie out their ass for the past 3 years about their ally committing a genocide, and then go on to happily believe everything they say about NK?
You do know it’s not just Americans reporting this stuff?
Although the fact that you brought up America without prompt in very telling.
You do know it’s not just Americans reporting this stuff?
Yeah it’s also
Lol, this is great
Because their propaganda is the most prolific in human history? Gee I wonder why they would be relevant? 🙄
it quite literally is just americans, other media just reposts what america posts.
Not sure what the fuck I just stumbled into but holy shit the comments here are wild. This is some twilight zone shit assuming everyone here are real people.
It’s much simpler, most people on Lemmy.ml are communists. Communists naturally have analysis that differs from norms in capitalist countries.
Just like you don’t consider the citizens of DPRK to be real people, they exist and aren’t in some cartoon logic world you liberals have in your mind.
Welcome outside of the US imperial information bubble you lived your entire life in. I hope you read and stay.
Liberals when encountering a dissenting opinion:
This is Lemmy.ML, as in Marx-Leninism. It is filled with entirely delusional people. I’d give you examples of what they believe, but I can’t think of anything more ridiculous than believing that North Korea is some sort of paradise. It’s best just to point, laugh, and move on.
Nobody says the DPRK is a paradise. The DPRK is a resiliant socialist country that has managed to achieve incredible results given that they were subject to mass devastation and genocide, and incredible sanctions. That doesn’t mean it’s heaven on Earth either, but because it’s incredibly hard to deny that the DPRK has done a lot with very little it’s common for opponents to pretend communists believe a hyperbole.
This is Lemmy.ML as in Marx-Leninism
It’s actually .ml as in Mali, but okay.
I’d give you examples of what they believe,
You actually don’t know because everything you know about Marxism-Leninism (and communism as a whole) you learnt from Western media.
It’s best just to point, laugh, and move on.
“Everyone who disagrees with the extremely propagandized bubble of liberalism I’ve been raised in is mentally defective, ignore how many times they’ve been proven right.”
When you have to pretend that nobody could actually disagree with you without being insane or paid, you have the most fragile ideology in history.
Believing North Korea is some sort of paradise
See? If you didn’t have straw men you’d have no men at all. I can do it too. You think America is a paradise, how insane is that? Get help for your delusions, dude.
What exactly is wild? You’re unfamiliar with the modern day DPRK?
Some people just want to be hipsters and against the grain.
If that’s your read on the situation, you should give it about ten years more thought and maybe crack one (1) history book before you come back here and try again, okay bucko?
Some people guzzle western propaganda about NK, like every male has to have the same haircut as Kim, or that they constantly execute people with aircraft cannons, and then somehow come to find that the supposed executed people are alive and well!
Time to wake up and learn that American propaganda has been the most successful propaganda in human history.
