this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Nah, most people hate fascists.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Neither North Korea nor Qatar are fascist. The former is communist and the latter is an absolute monarchy.

Unless you're saying FIFA is fascist which might be true idk.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago

Fascism is when I don't like a government, and the more I dislike it the more fascist it is

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

North Korea isn't Marxist. It stopped being Marxist after the Soviet Union fell. They officially adopted a new ideology, that's more or less in line with what is traditionally considered Fascist. The North Korean regime is similar in function and ideology to other Fascist regimes like Belarus, Azerbaijan, or Turkmenistan.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

None of those countries are fascist

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What books have you read on the economy of fascism and on the economy of the DPRK? Are you uninformed and wrong or misinformed and wrong?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fascism doesn't emphasize economics, it's a minor point in the ideology. Most Fascist governments allowed a private sector to run, but they also nationalized any industry they wanted on a whim. There were also a lot of nonsensical regulations, but as long corporations didn't question the state then they were fine. North Korea doesn't really have a private sector or an economy, but again the focus of Fascism is mostly political and social. North Korea functions similarly to other Fascist regimes. North Korea is authoritarian, ultranationalist, ultra militaristic, it's run by a dictatorial leader, it is centralized autocracy, the government does forcibly suppress opposition, the government does pump out propaganda telling its citizens that subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation is a must, and so on. It's a Fascist state.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Fascism doesn’t emphasize economics, it’s a minor point in the ideology.

Their rhetoric maybe. I've studied fascism, in depth. Fascism absolutely is primarily class warfare waged by the petite bourgeoisie and precarious haut bourgeoisie and has common economic characteristics. A good primer on this would be "Economy and Class structure of German Fascism" It is a quick read, <200 pages.

North Korea is authoritarian, ultranationalist, ultra militaristic, it’s run by a dictatorial leader, it is centralized autocracy, the government does forcibly suppress opposition, the government does pump out propaganda telling its citizens that subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation is a must, and so on.

Are we just uncritically repeating the talking points of a country that killed 20 percent of Koreans in order to protect the puppet dictatorship riddled with former colonial Japanese oppressors they installed in the South? That claims the North invaded while their puppet dictatorship was busy slaughtering 10s of thousands of pro democracy protestors?

The DPRK literally has had workplace management elected by the workers since 1961 and you're accusing them of being undemocratic. Imagine how different your life would be if you chose your own management, and there was no owner to leech off of you.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Fascism absolutely is primarily class warfare waged by the petite bourgeoisie and precarious haut bourgeoisie and has common economic characteristics

I think you're missing the point. Fascism is neither capitalist or socialist. They just use whatever policies is convenient for the state at the time. If they deem a private sector is useful, they will allow a private sector. If they deem an industry is of national security, they will nationalize it. If they want to add or remove regulations on a whim, they will do so. There's no economic vision, there's no ideal economy that they work for. Class warfare is also used as a tool for power, it's not a defining part of the ideology. Fascism believes in social hierarchies, and this was just another way to enforce this idea. While Fascism's cousin ideology, Marxism, has class warfare as a definitive ideological enemy, this isn't the case for Fascism. When we look at North Korea, the country used to be mostly Marxist while the Soviet Union was still around, but they switched over to Fascism quickly afterwards. It doesn't seem like a lot changed because both ideologies are authoritarian, but Fascism is the more accurate term to describe how the country runs now.

Are we just uncritically repeating the talking points of a country that killed 20 percent of Koreans in order to protect the puppet dictatorship riddled with former colonial Japanese oppressors they installed in the South? That claims the North invaded while their puppet dictatorship was busy slaughtering 10s of thousands of pro democracy protestors?

And this is when you stop being a reasonable critic and start becoming a coping tankie clown. Just a few points here:

  1. Everything that I said about how North Korea is unequivocally true and this is does not disprove or take away from that in any way, shape, or form.
  2. America did not start the Korean war. The Korean war was officially started when the Soviet backed Marxist North launched a surprise invasion on the South on the 25th of June, 1950. This is basic history. Before that, most of the conflict was just political and there were a few minor clashes around the 39th parallel.
  3. US helping the South defend itself from the North is beyond justified. It was the right call. On top of the North invading and slaughtering civilians in the South, the North also had other problems. After the war, both countries were relatively equal in population, size, and economy. However, there was one stark difference, North Korea was heavily dependent on the Soviet Union for its existence. They barely developed a plan B for when the Soviet Union cuts support. When that finally happened in the 1990s with the failure of Marxism in Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea was left with nothing and ended having a famine that killed 3.5 million North Koreans. The entire Korean war killed an estimated 2-3 million civilians on both sides just to put things in perspective. Even if South Korea didn't democratize in the 90s and remained under a dictatorship, they were still better off sovereign as that led them to escape the fate of the North. If the famine was spread to the South, the death toll could've been as high as 7 million. From that point on North Korea became a chronically malnourished, despite having the better geography.
  4. North Korea was not and is not pro democracy, that's some low tier propaganda which even the most ignorant of people don't fall for. North Korea was a puppet propped by the Soviet Union, and the Soviets were very explicitly critical of democracy and saw it as a threat to their power, therefore North Korea was built with the same mindset.

The DPRK literally has had workplace management elected by the workers since 1961 and you're accusing them of being undemocratic. Imagine how different your life would be if you chose your own management, and there was no owner to leech off of you.

What's next, you're going to tell me that Kim Jung Un, his father, and grandfather all got 100% of the vote 100% of the time in free and fair elections? Listen, I understand you're a tankie and I commend your efforts to try and defend North Korea of all places, but this is not an argument you can win. North Korea is one of the world's most authoritarian and undemocratic countries in the world, and anybody can tell that this is objectively the case based on the information that North Korea itself publishes. North Korea isn't a communist utopia, it's the polar opposite.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're super uneducated on what fascism is.

Please, share with me one nonfiction book or academic text you've read seriously analyzing fascism.

While Fascism’s cousin ideology, Marxism, has class warfare as a definitive ideological enemy, this isn’t the case for Fascism.

Bwahaha. If they're cousins then fascism and bourgeois democracy are inbred twins. Facism exists to defend capitalism.

Everything that I said about how North Korea is unequivocally true and this is does not disprove or take away from that in any way, shape, or form.

Claiming your claims are true doesn't make your claims true.

America did not start the Korean war. The Korean war was officially started when the Soviet backed Marxist North launched a surprise invasion on the South on the 25th of June, 1950. This is basic history. Before that, most of the conflict was just political and there were a few minor clashes around the 39th parallel.

To liberate the south, where the US had installed a far right puppet government which was slaughtering 10s of thousands of pro democracy protestors and generally repressing the population. Thats a war to liberate their country. Next you'll tell me that the US Civil War was an unprovoked invasion by the North.

US helping the South defend itself from the North is beyond justified. It was the right call. On top of the North invading and slaughtering civilians in the South, the North also had other problems. After the war, both countries were relatively equal in population, size, and economy. However, there was one stark difference, North Korea was heavily dependent on the Soviet Union for its existence. They barely developed a plan B for when the Soviet Union cuts support. When that finally happened in the 1990s with the failure of Marxism in Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea was left with nothing and ended having a famine that killed 3.5 million North Koreans. The entire Korean war killed an estimated 2-3 million civilians on both sides just to put things in perspective. Even if South Korea didn’t democratize in the 90s and remained under a dictatorship, they were still better off sovereign as that led them to escape the fate of the North. If the famine was spread to the South, the death toll could’ve been as high as 7 million. From that point on North Korea became a chronically malnourished, despite having the better geography.

The US literally mass murdered civilians and indiscriminately bombed civilian infrastructure. MacArthur had to have his nuclear command secretly taken away because the president thought he would nuke Korea.

The DPRK was literally doing better economically until the US massively subsidized the south in the 80s. You are right to criticize their uneven economic development though, though to be fair the sudden undemocratic dissolution of the USSR is only obvious in hindsight.

What’s next, you’re going to tell me that Kim Jung Un, his father, and grandfather all got 100% of the vote 100% of the time in free and fair elections?

You do understand that it isnt 100 percent, is is like 99 percent right? Which is reasonable in a country with process democracy where the final vote is confirmation that concensus has been reached.

Has it occurred to you that you're uneducated on alternate forms of democracy, and you've been shown something that is more democratic outside of its context within other democratic mechanisms and told that it is proof theyre a dictatorship?

Also, each Kim has had less and less positions within the executive branch, and Kim jung Un wouldn't have been elected if the guy before him didn't try to do a coup to take the country in a far right direction.

What’s next, you’re going to tell me that Kim Jung Un, his father, and grandfather all got 100% of the vote 100% of the time in free and fair elections?

You're literally claiming a campaign of genocide was justified because after the 80s the country it was in defense of stopped being an overt dictatorship, why should anyone value your analysis?

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lmao the entire liberal media establishment has literally spent the last week defending a waffen ss volunteer.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

But… but… Galicia was judenfrei when he joined, he couldn’t have been a Nazi!

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

wonder-who-thats-for

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

During the campaign, conventional weapons such as explosives, incendiary bombs, and napalm destroyed nearly all of the country's cities and towns, including an estimated 85% of its buildings.

A total of 635,000 tons of bombs, including 32,557 tons of napalm, were dropped on Korea. By comparison, the U.S. dropped 1.6 million tons in the European theater and 500,000 tons in the Pacific theater during all of World War II (including 160,000 on Japan). North Korea ranks alongside Cambodia (500,000 tons), Laos (2 million tons), and South Vietnam (4 million tons) as among the most heavily-bombed countries in history.

In an interview with U.S. Air Force historians in 1988, USAF General Curtis LeMay, who was also head of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, commented on efforts to win the war as a whole, including the strategic bombing campaign, saying “Right at the start of the war, unofficially, I slipped a message in "under the carpet" in the Pentagon that we ought to turn SAC lose with some incendiaries on some North Korean towns. The answer came back, under the carpet again, that there would be too many civilian casualties; we couldn't do anything like that. We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another, and some in South Korea, too......Over a period of three years or so we killed off, what, 20 percent of the population of Korea, as direct casualties of war or from starvation and exposure? Over a period of three years, this seemed to be acceptable to everybody, but to kill a few people at the start right away, no, we can't seem to stomach that.”

Sahr-Conway Lanz, who holds a Ph.D. in the history of American foreign relations, has written extensively about the legacy and impact on American discourse on the international norm of noncombatant immunity. He states:

"During the war, American military and civilian officials stretched the term "military target" to include virtually all human-made structures, capitalizing on the vague distinction between the military and civilian segments of an enemy society. They came to apply the logic of total war to the destruction of the civil infrastructure in North Korea. Because almost any building could serve a military purpose, even if a minor one, nearly the entire physical infrastructure behind enemy lines was deemed a military target and open to attack. This expansive definition, along with the optimism about sparing civilians that is reinforced, worked to obscure in American awareness the suffering of Korean civilians in which U.S. firebombing was contributing."

The song was inspired by Korean war veteran that John McCrea met in a bar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Rgsihd6WM

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@[email protected] that feeling gnawing at the back of your awareness is the realization that you've been duped by the most prolificly evil entity to ever exist on the planet

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Won't realize anything. When I showed this article to my liberal friend he doubled down and said that while civilian deaths were unfortunate, it was a proportional response to Kim invading the South and compared it to Hitler invading Poland. Its veryt rare that shit like this gets through.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Hey I too know a lib I can't get through to; this guy however doesn't know nearly enough about history to try and sound informed; he instead spouts whatever comes to mind, for example: when I told him about what had been going on in Donbas until the war, and that Ukraine wanted the land but not the people, he argued for ethnic cleansing in the form of forcing all the Russians there to leave, and it was enough that the Ukrainian government wanted them gone for him to say that. When I brought up that the US is causing major issues with Taiwan, his response was "Do you believe that China does bad things?", and then wanted to start talking about the Uyghurs even though.....it has literally no relation to the situation with Taiwan. He pretends that countries not being democracies is the reason he supports the US intervening or invading many nations, and when I point out that Ukraine has shut down many left wing parties, he then pivots and says Putin does it too with a face as though he's said something really clever.

I've spent hours trying to educate him about what's going on in many countries the US intervenes in but the truth is this guy just inherently supports US empire.

Your friend may be different, but I suspect he's using what little historical info he has to try and lend legitimacy to his claims but the truth is he already knows who he supports (just not why).

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s not a pissing contest, but I still believe Nazi Germany takes the cake in that regard.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

its certainly possible, as someone living under the former example and 85 years separated from the latter, its impossible for me to say

Death to america/nazis!

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"During the war, American military and civilian officials stretched the term "military target" to include virtually all human-made structures, capitalizing on the vague distinction between the military and civilian segments of an enemy society. They came to apply the logic of total war to the destruction of the civil infrastructure in North Korea. Because almost any building could serve a military purpose, even if a minor one, nearly the entire physical infrastructure behind enemy lines was deemed a military target and open to attack. This expansive definition, along with the optimism about sparing civilians that is reinforced, worked to obscure in American awareness the suffering of Korean civilians in which U.S. firebombing was contributing."

One of the things I never understood is why Western countries (as we're not the only ones who do this) bother coming up with these laws and rules of engagement and such if they're just going to basically be interpreted in the most liberal sense to allow one to do whatever they want. Take that adviser to Trump who suggested sending out a drone to 'deal' with migrants before they crossed the US border or entered American waters because they wouldn't be protected by the US constitution at that point. What even is the point of these laws if the intent is ignored and people simply find a way to play the system?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

the mask of civility is the thin veneer that liberals use to hide their agenda

it's related to the difference between materialist and idealist perspectives

if you claim to uphold lofty ideals, then you can just claim the material failure to live up to those ideals is an oversight, mistake, accident, victim-blame etc

this is also why plausible deniability is a critical aspect of many operations, it was those few bad people that caused the bad things, not the institutional structure that is dedicated to lofty ideals

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

To say that they have them

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a war, what do you expect to happen? Regardless, considering how North Korea turned out, defending South Korea, was without a doubt, the right decision.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fuck you "the Korean War was the right decision"

Fuck you, imperialist warmonger. Pray that the souls of millions of dead Koreans killed by American hands don't haunt you tonight.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago

Fascism is when media tells me the country is evil bad country. What? Fascism has a definition and the DPRK doesn't come even close to fitting it? Bah, impossible. Trustworthy Sources (social media echo chambers) told me that Kim is an evil bad dictator man.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

I hate people who don't know what they're talking about

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Idk, people were leaping to the defense of that Waffen-SS guy in Canada

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

The Canadian government has proved you solidly wrong