hue (3,342 posts) http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014645048
North Korea 'executes 80 people for watching foreign films'
There are those on the thread that try to reason with the DUmpmonkie, who comes off like a NOK propaganda hacker, but they don't make much head way. I am just gonna roll it all up for you:
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ronnie624 (3,990 posts)
4. Mmm hmm.
Whatever.
8. "Citing a “single unidentified†individual as the source of the story"
No way would I hang my hat on that. This article is about as credible as any other similar 'news' story about N. Korea.
15. A highly charged issue,
both politically as well as emotionally for some reason
16. Not without corroboration from other sources. n/t
18. Lots of "documentaries" with similar "sources", no doubt. n/t
32. Life in N. Korea is, no doubt, oppressive and stultifying,
Last edited Mon Nov 11, 2013, 01:26 PM - Edit history (1)
and I would love to see an open, democratic system there. I just don't think the current method of political/economic coercion and military threats is the way to achieve it. The Clinton Administration was on the right track, with its policies of engagement.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.kaplan.html Ranchemp. (901 posts)
33. So the U.S. is to blame for NK not having an open, democratic system?
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Response to Ranchemp. (Reply #33)
Mon Nov 11, 2013, 12:30 PM
ronnie624 (3,990 posts)
35. Yes. n/t
44. By reading about the history of US involvement in Korea.
It didn't begin last week, you know.
Lots of people posting on this thread need to stop jabbering and start reading.
47. I think reunification would be much more likely without US belligerence. n/t
51. If N. Koreans feel compelled to do so, it is their prerogative.
Sorry I can't give more complete answers. I'm hurrying in preparation to go to work.
54. You are completely wrong.
You don't even bother to learn anything about this topic.
49. What you are saying, in essence,
is that the complete destruction of Korea and the murder of millions of people was preferable to allowing a government that the US objected to.
I disagree with that sentiment.
Ash_F (2,919 posts)
85. You need to read more history
For decades, the SK junta was far more cruel and an totalitarian the North and this was supported by the US due to right wing financial interests. It was through decades of hard work, protest and loss of life(all made worse by US interjection) that SK managed to change the country into what it is today, much to the chagrin of the US right.
That said, the old right wing SK power families still wield a disproportionate amount of power.
88. To try give the US credit for what South Koreans have built is sickening
They got there by rebelling against US interests. Don't try to pretend the US were the good guys here.
This doesn't have anything to do with being "pro-DPRK"
You don't know what you are talking about. You can start here though.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=64877791. You do realize a lot has happened in the last 70 years right?
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SK has had multiple revolutions in that time period. Things did not settle until the late 80's. Between WW2 and then they spent most of that time fending off right wing %1 cronies, who were supported by America's own right wing 1%'ers
You care too much about this subject to be so poorly educated on it. So here is some further reading.
93. Just read the articles. /nt
95. Well that's great that you made some steps to educate yourself.
Last edited Fri Nov 15, 2013, 02:03 PM - Edit history (1)
Your are on your way to getting it. You need to spend some more time reading up on the lead up to the War. In the early days, the South had many revolutionaries, liberals students and academics, who attempted to resist the lord-peasant system that the right wing US and SK power-mongers had in store for them. They were brutally put down and yes it was unlike anything that happened in NK at the time. The atrocities were a major trigger for the war.
NK's regime is actually worse than it was in the 1950's, not the same. The country has moved towards right wing totalitarianism, while SK has moved ironically, and thankfully, to the left. Shifts like that happen in war and politics as time goes on. Consider that Republicans were the party that freed the slaves, and look at what they are now.
But don't confuse these shifts, however fortuitous for SK, with the notion that US has done the right thing for Koreans at any point in its sordid history with them. They did their best to beat down ordinary Koreans, time and time again in the favor big business and feudal lords, right up through the Reagan administration. By then it was the fifth or sixth revolt and most of the culprits had grown old or died. Their kin were diminished and lacked the energy and power to dominate(though they make up what remains of the far right today). Only after that was SK able to claw its way towards first world status.
Once Americans begin to accept what they had done wrong, they can stop making the same mistakes in the present. The major mistake at present would be letting the wealthy few dictate national policy while lapping up inane media soundbites from television intended to make them docile and pliable.
97. Instead of making up strawman to argue with...
..which does little to expand your mind, pick a up a history book and read. Don't you think it is a little silly to be so impassioned, yet be so unarmed? It's clear you've learned a lot about Korean history just from these few posts, but this will only go so far. You will need to seek it out yourself.
100. Someone that knows their history can tell when they are talking to someone who doesn't
What happened before the partition?
Korea would have been better off if there had been no civil war.
102. Well that and the killing of students, liberals and leftists
Read about this man.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyuh_Woon-HyungAsh_F (2,919 posts)
104. Another Strawman.
This getting unproductive.
You need to stop looking at this through the scope of the US and USSR and their designs for Korea, but rather from the perspective of Koreans and how those superpowers' affected them.
I have opened some doors for you so hopefully you will continue your reading. Cheers.
ronnie624 (3,990 posts)
106. As soon as the US began to occupy S. Korea in 1945,
It began oppressing leftist, and then initiated the civil conflict in Korea in 1948, by installing a right-wing military dictatorship in S. Korea, in violation of its agreement to allow reunification in 1950. With the aid of the US government, the S. Korean government began a brutal campaign against leftist, which included mass killings. When N. Korea invaded, the S. Korean government murdered as many as a hundred thousand people, to deprive the North manpower for its army. The US government participated directly in these atrocities. South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has identified 138 instances in which the US was involved in mass killings.
It isn't possible for Korea to have "invaded" itself. N. Korea "invaded" S. Korea, primarily to engage a foreign occupier.
It is past time for the US to leave Korea and allow the nation to heal its wounds.
ronnie624 (3,990 posts)
109. I don't disagree that the goal was reunification,
but first, they had to drive out the foreign invaders.
The movement in the north had the popular support of the entire nation, which was the motive for the extreme oppression of leftists in the south, and their subsequent mass slaughter by the US and its puppet dictatorship.
110. "Amazing" how "apologists" for ignorance
think they are advancing their point of view with demonstrably false ad hominem attacks, instead of addressing facts and logic.
10. I Asked Noam Chomsky His Thoughts on the North Korea/US Situation:
Most (who know of him) would agree that Noam Chomsky is one of the greatest minds of our time. Besides being the "father" of modern linguistics, if you've ever seen him in interviews or debates, you'll know he's like a polymath of old. Science and philosophy, theory and practice, current events, history and the future. If you want to take him on, you'd better have an encyclopedic grasp of it all, because he does.
Which is why I contacted him. I've been seeing lots of heat from the media regarding North Korea, but (as usual) little light. Since Chomsky has a knack for clarifying these things, both from an analytic as well as moral perspective - and I hadn't seen anything from him on it - I sent him an email:
34. The division of Korea was morally illegitimate.
It was done by the US government, with no input from any Koreans. In fact, it was opposed by virtually 100% of them.
The crimes you cite do not compare to what the US did to Korea, one of the most heinous crimes in the history of human civilization. The US government murdered millions of Koreans and utterly destroyed the country.
46. Clicking the link will lead to obvious conclusions.
as should highlighting the excerpt, thus.
76. 60 Years After The Korean War, The U.S. Must End Its Cold War Alliance With South Korea
There’s nothing mysterious about North Korea’s program. The advantages of being a nuclear power are many. Most obviously, nuclear weapons offer an effective deterrent. Serbia and Iraq demonstrate the danger of becoming an American target without nukes. Libya demonstrates the danger of becoming an American target after abandoning nukes.
As Henry Kissinger once reportedly observed, even paranoids have enemies. Pyongyang knows that the U.S. means it ill—President George W. Bush famously termed the DPRK a member of the “axis of evil†and said that he “loathed†Kim Jong-il, the current ruler’s father.
President Barack Obama has said less, but American policy remains largely unchanged. The U.S. maintains a defense guarantee with and nearly 30,000 troops in the ROK, has been tightening its alliance with Seoul, sent B-52s and B-2s to overfly the peninsula earlier this year, and conducts annual exercises with the ROK military.
This policy is not in America’s interest. Washington should disengage from the peninsula. That requires turning security for the South over to Seoul. Normalizing relations with North Korea while handing the nuclear issue to its neighbors. And leaving the two Koreas free to decide their future relationship.
78. Every analyst worth their salt, knows N. Korea does not want war.
You have no idea what the "Norks" would "love". Your opinions make it clear you understand nothing about this issue.
80. N. Korea would be no match for S. Korea,
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especially with US military aid, and they know this. Attacking S. Korea would be suicidal.
Your view depends on your ability to read the future, which you clearly cannot do. History shows a willingness to cooperate on N. Korea's part, in an atmosphere of less belligerence. The Clinton Administration's policies of engagement were making progress, until the Bush Administration ended them and began its hostile rhetoric. It was then that N. Korea withdrew from the NPT and began refining weapons grade nuclear material again. What the N. Korean government wants, is a non-aggression pledge from the US.
82. South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
is piecing together long suppressed accounts of mass killings early in the Korea War; executions of South Korean leftists and supposed sympathizers by their US-allied government, and killing of South Korean refugees by the US government
