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>North Korea's leadership doesn't seem to have any interest at all in the wellbeing of the populace. It's a manufactured impression. Western oligarchy control

by pydry 3y ago

>North Korea's leadership doesn't seem to have any interest at all in the wellbeing of the populace. It's a manufactured impression. Western oligarchy controlled media doesnt like to talk about how they pay $0 for college and medical care. They focus exclusively on the prison camps, etc. North Koreans are fed an impression of America that centers around stuff like Guantanamo bay, Abu ghraib, medical bankruptcies and the unfair cost of college. I'm sure many are equally perplexed about why Americans haven't yet "risen up".

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Making that argument about, say, Cuba makes plenty of sense to me. Sure, there's a relatively oppressive regime, but they also have made a lot of moves that genuinely have the people's interest at heart, and most people's needs are being met. That claim doesn't work when almost half your populace is starving: literally the second most important human need is being failed.
- pydry 3y ago
  >That claim doesn't work when almost half your populace is starving: literally They're not. This is another consistently manufactured impression - that the famine never ended. They were starving in the 90s but it wasn't like that was deliberate and it ended 25 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine There's a number of ways the media continues to manufacture this impression, including: * Interviews with people who fled North Korea a long time ago - closer to the famine. * Paying North Koreans they can gain access to for good stories - at which point they get some really juicy stories. A small number of these apart under the weight of their own contradictions - the rest, of course, can't ever be verified. * Looking at satellite photos and drawing dubious conclusions (like if there isn't food being imported from China this month that they don't have food). * Looking at trailing indicators of the famine like stunted height. * Comparing everything to South Korea - which has really good metrics even by first world standards - rather than, say, an average middle income or 3rd world country.

by pydry 3y ago

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

Making that argument about, say, Cuba makes plenty of sense to me. Sure, there's a relatively oppressive regime, but they also have made a lot of moves that genuinely have the people's interest at heart, and most people's needs are being met. That claim doesn't work when almost half your populace is starving: literally the second most important human need is being failed.

pydry 3y ago
>That claim doesn't work when almost half your populace is starving: literally They're not. This is another consistently manufactured impression - that the famine never ended. They were starving in the 90s but it wasn't like that was deliberate and it ended 25 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine There's a number of ways the media continues to manufacture this impression, including: * Interviews with people who fled North Korea a long time ago - closer to the famine. * Paying North Koreans they can gain access to for good stories - at which point they get some really juicy stories. A small number of these apart under the weight of their own contradictions - the rest, of course, can't ever be verified. * Looking at satellite photos and drawing dubious conclusions (like if there isn't food being imported from China this month that they don't have food). * Looking at trailing indicators of the famine like stunted height. * Comparing everything to South Korea - which has really good metrics even by first world standards - rather than, say, an average middle income or 3rd world country.