The Offtopicgrad Soviet: A Place to Discuss All Things Red

[Traitorfish]

Such an attitude is also rather useless today in the First World, where the working class is shrinking almost as fast as the proletariat inside it

Wait, what?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Wait, what?

I jumbled my words. I meant to say the proletariat as a part of the working class is shrinking. At least in the United States, the percentage of the working population engaged in production, i.e., the proletariat, is only around 54%, which is around 25% of the population.

Source: http://dpeaflcio.org/professionals/professionals-in-the-workplace/professional-and-technical-employees-in-the-labor-force/

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm really not familiar with this categorisation. My understanding is that "proletariat" describes dispossession rather than occupation, dependence on capital rather than any specific place within its circuits. Unless the United States is running a vastly different economy than I'd been lead to believe, that must surely account for 90% of the population, at a minimum?

 

[ReindeerThistle]

One of our founding organizers wrote these words in 1973:

During the late 60’s, the term “organize” acquired a superficial façade of glamour it had lost since the tinselly grapes of wrath days of the 30’s. Rev. Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez and Father James Groppi were organizers, so were Gloria Steinham and Tom Hayden, and hundreds of thousands of erudite words were written about the charm, charisma and personal brilliance that surrounded organizing and organizers.

Those of us who came early and stayed late found ourselves facing a whole generation of excited, delighted young people who fell upon the so-called “movement with missionary zeal,” determined to bless it with their own particular talent – or torment, and help reshape others into an image each and every one of them felt within themselves to be the proper and correct perspective for the world in general and themselves in particular.

The cult of the individual preference, and the singular difference entered the collective presence once known as an organization. An organization is not a proscenium through which a talent or a genius is radiated to which an enchanted public is drawn to kneel in veneration of the TRUTH to the accompanying strains of the Hollywood RKO theaters, great Wurlitzer pip organ! If anyone reading this has any of those notions, for heavens sake, go join the Charisma Corps, or whatever particular counter-culture phenomena the United States government is offering these days to “give the helpless a hand” heroes. Or take a look at the box scores of successes piled up by the one big happy family people during the civil rights sixties and the simpering seventies. Those organizations aren’t with us anymore, or if they are, they’ve deteriorated into middle class handholding societies.

The ethnic sympathy lost their constituency, the religious experience labor people lost their contracts, and the anti-warers went home or to graduate school. So much for the great collective individuality of doing your own thing at the poor’s expense. If I sound a little bitter, I am. I had to live through it. I had friends and relatives die from it…so much for the hard facts designed to hit soft spots. We’re very happy you are here with us at <redacyed>. We hope you like it. We’re here to stay and we’re here to win. The others can have their learning experiences and their moral victories. We are poor and we cannot afford the luxury.

Those first few paragraphs were put there to discourage the dilettantes. They have closed the cover by now and we can talk to the organizers....

The basic idea is simple. When there is a wrong committed, there is a group of people wronged. They know better than any organizer what they need as an end result of the rectification process because they are suffering from the lack of that rectification. If they can see that others too suffer, and that sufferers are there because no one person can cure their suffering alone, they will join the organization. If they join the organization for any other reason than eventual clear alleviation of that problem, like admiration of the organizer, they have joined for the wrong reason. An organization offers a material manifestation of hope. It if does not, it misrepresents itself....

The first skill you must learn is the skill of emulation. Emulation means that you feel happy when you see another worker do a job well, and you go to that worker and try to learn from them. Most organizations work on a competition basis. Each worker tries to be a star, and tries to outdo the other workers. We have a long hard pull ahead of us. In less than a year, we have grown from a simple idea shared by 27 people into the largest effort of our kind in the United States. Do not let that thrill you. Do not let that frighten you. We aren’t worthy of that responsibility. Nobody is. We’ll talk more as we go along. We hope you like some of the talk. It’s personal and down to business.

I hope I meet and talk to each and everyone of you – not for you, for me. Each time a new organizer steps into the world, I know that that organizer will outdo me in worth and value by a thousand fold. A new organizer has the collective experience of the old-timers and the strength of the future.

The great sculptor Michelangelo was once asked how he molded the statue of a horse and he said it was easy, you just cut away all the marble that doesn’t look like a horse and there it is. Let the system cut away the marble that doesn’t look like an organizer.

No mention of "communism,""Marxism,""Socialism," etc, in it, but THAT passage, my friends, is Marxism-Leninism.

The dilletantes have stopped reading and they are preparing a snarky response... The organizers, like me, are now leaving to get back to work...

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I'm really not familiar with this categorisation. My understanding is that "proletariat" describes dispossession rather than occupation, dependence on capital rather than any specific place within its circuits. Unless the United States is running a vastly different economy than I'd been lead to believe, that must surely account for 90% of the population, at a minimum?

My understanding is that proletariat describes a political class of wage-earners whose only private "property" is its capacity to perform labor (and thus "have nothing to lose but their chains). Such a condition does not apply to professional classes of workers, academics, civil servants, etc, who are still members of the working class, but not the proletariat. Aside from owning a variety of wealth, including retirement accounts (of some sorts, but not all) they have stocks of some amount, land, and other forms of wealth. In addition, most members of such categories, while obviously dispossessed of political power, are still very likely, in First World countries, to be paid more than their contributive labor's value. Again, these are still shackles, but they are shackles of gold.

The distinction is important because the proletariat's is the only class interest whose revolution is capable of bringing about socialism. It is they who are antithetical to capitalism, not the white-collar accountants and managers. Professionals, etc. who fight for socialism are acting in the proletariat's interest, not their own material interest, which likely lays with the ruling order.

If you're getting caught up by the percentages, remember that economies are not confined to national borders. Your 90+% proletariat exists, it's just primarily in the Third World now.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

One of our founding organizers wrote these words in 1973:



No mention of "communism,""Marxism,""Socialism," etc, in it, but THAT passage, my friends, is Marxism-Leninism.

The dilletantes have stopped reading and they are preparing a snarky response... The organizers, like me, are now leaving to get back to work...

Based on that metric, I could claim that Aristotle, Thomas Jefferson, and Batman are Marxists.

Your anecdote does not answer the claim that the DPRK ceases to identify itself as communist or as Marxist-Leninist. Even if it did say so, analysis of Juche Ideology should readily recognize it as anti-internationalist and anti-socialist.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

I'm sorry, I am ignoring the DPRK attacks because say what you want, they are not MY class enemy. I know who is opposed to my organizing, who openly reacts violently to the organizing of labor. The DPRK is not an enemy to workers.

The post I started with, and to which Gary Childress responded, was sort of where I was carrying on.
And Batman is fictional, and Aristotle and Jefferson were not organizers in the vain of which that passage speaks. Read it again... Please.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I'm sorry, I am ignoring the DPRK attacks because say what you want, they are not MY class enemy.

They are not your enemy because they stand up American foreign policy, which is a point of congruence between their interests and ours. But how one country's ruling class relates to another country's ruling class is not what determines how socialist or communist something is.

I know who is opposed to my organizing, who openly reacts violently to the organizing of labor. The DPRK is not an enemy to workers.

You're ignoring my critique completely. Don't hide behind your political work because the prospect of being wrong about DPRK is scary. A prospect you haven't even explored, and so aren't even sure if you're right or wrong yet!

And Batman is fictional, and Aristotle and Jefferson were not organizers in the vain of which that passage speaks. Read it again... Please.

You have missed my point. You presumably were arguing that DPRK was still Marxist-Leninist, despite having purged all mentioning of M-L and communism from its Constitution, by providing a document which by all appearances was Marxist-Leninist despite not actually saying so. Based on this criteria of "appears Marxist, therefore is Marxist," I can prove that Aristotle, Batman, and Jefferson were all Marxists, based upon the citation of Marxist-like language and concepts. But since we know that Batman, Aristotle, and Jefferson were not Marxists, this must be an improper method of evaluating how Marxist something is. Ergo, your proof of DPRK's Marxism is false.

 

[ParkCungHee]

The distinction is important because the proletariat's is the only class interest whose revolution is capable of bringing about socialism. It is they who are antithetical to capitalism, not the white-collar accountants and managers. Professionals, etc. who fight for socialism are acting in the proletariat's interest, not their own material interest, which likely lays with the ruling order.

I'd also throw in that on the other end of things the "proletariat" factor of the American working class is flanked on the one hand by these relatively better of white-collar workers, but also when you get beneath the poverty line, an absolutely enormous lumpenproletariat. If we go by Marx's characterization:

"Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars —in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème."

This is the reality of huge swaths of impoverished America. Stable productive work is regarded as a success in itself, and while selling their labor is common, it can't be regarded as the fundamental law of their existence. Sure the various caricatures may have changed (scrap collectors and meth manufacturers would probably make the list today) but "the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither" definitely describes a huge segment of the American lower and underclasses.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

They are not your enemy because they stand up American foreign policy, which is a point of congruence between their interests and ours. But how one country's ruling class relates to another country's ruling class is not what determines how socialist or communist something is.

No... DPRK is a socialist republic. That is what makes them NOT my enemy. I do not use temporal national allegiances to determine who my friends and enemies are. That is oppositionalism and it is what put China at odds with the USSR from 1956 to 1991!

The enemy of the Communist movement, of the movements for liberation of the working classes is the reactionary forces of the world, and those forces are currently headed by the United States. It is not static. In 1941, the only socialist nation on earth allied itself with two imperialist nations to defeat the [Anti-Comintern] Axis. In the years that followed that great world war, the balance of power shifted, and the world no longer contains only one socialist nation. However, the world also lacks an announced International in what could be a potentially overwhelming socialist camp.

The victories of each Party of the Proletariat, each proletarian movement belong to the workers of the world, the proletariat of the world and the Parties of the proletariat of the world. Relations between socialist nations must be from positions of respect for a nation's national sovereignty, as well as its path to socialism.

You're ignoring my critique completely. Don't hide behind your political work because the prospect of being wrong about DPRK is scary. A prospect you haven't even explored, and so aren't even sure if you're right or wrong yet!

No... I do not think I am wrong. But, yes, I am ignoring the critique. Apols for that, but I have little tolerance for attacks on socialist nations -- especially from the left. Particularly from those who do not organize. For you, I can and will answer. See below.

You have missed my point. You presumably were arguing that DPRK was still Marxist-Leninist, despite having purged all mentioning of M-L and communism from its Constitution, by providing a document which by all appearances was Marxist-Leninist despite not actually saying so. Based on this criteria of "appears Marxist, therefore is Marxist," I can prove that Aristotle, Batman, and Jefferson were all Marxists, based upon the citation of Marxist-like language and concepts. But since we know that Batman, Aristotle, and Jefferson were not Marxists, this must be an improper method of evaluating how Marxist something is. Ergo, your proof of DPRK's Marxism is false.

First of all, I was presenting the excerpts from the Introduction to an organizing manual because I was demonstrating that for those who will see, what they see when they walk in our doors is part of a Marxist-Leninist formation. However, for those who do not see, they still get what they came for: a labor organization (or whatever other type of organization we build, be it alternative press, medical professional organizing, lawyer organizations, etc) of a new type, not bound by the strictures of the law, completely independent of the government, all-volunteer. Because, our organizations do what they do... but when you put them together under a strong centralized apparatus, they become the tools to take down this system and build an alternative. I know so damned much about socialism versus communism because our organizations demonstrate those principles in practice by growing STRONGER as more people who need them join. By establishing ties with governments of socialist nations and demonstrating international proletarian solidarity. By estabishing mutually beneficial relationships. (e.g. our legal fraction provides legal support for foreign consuls; our medical organizations get them medical care in this country, we arrange speaking engagement and functions for them and they for us. They arrange for us to travel there.)

I have never argued that DPRK was Marxist-Leninist. I never argued that there was one path to socialism. What we have seen in the latter half of the twentieth century and in the beginning of this is that there IS not one binding method to achieve a socialist state, which is the path towards communism. I am a Marxist-Leninist because I believe that is how the world works. For millennia, people believed the earth was flat, believed the sun ran around the earth and that there were only four elements. That did not mean that the 106 or so elements did not exist, it did not mean that the earth was not round. The physical realities exist regardless of our perception of them, and regardless of our understanding of them.

Circumstances of history, not circumstances of bourgeoisie appeal, determine the course of action of the movement.

In 1971, Salvador Allende Gossens, a Marxist-Leninist, was elected to power in Chile, and he was removed by a coup. In 1979, the Sandinistas -- who were NOT purely M-L, took power in Nicaragua by armed force, but they lost it in an election (incidentally, we assisted the Sandinistas in the early 80s with agronomists and farm worker trainers, I believe). In 1994, the ANC (not M-L, either) was elected into office in S. Africa, only to have no resources to put in the provisions of the Freedom Charter, which is on its face a socialist program. In 1998, Chavez was elected in Venezuela. He was not a Marxist-Leninist, either. In fact, on the surface he looked like a social fascist -- but he had friends in high places (The Castro Bros.)-- but he built and the Bolivarian Revolution continues to build 21st Century Socialism.

History has proven that NO revolution that came to power by election stayed there by election.

Don't concentrate on what you think was taken OUT of the DPRK Constitution (I have read the 1973 or whatever and the 2002 and none of them mention Marx or Communism, either. But, as I pointed out earlier in this thread (or maybe the East Asia Thread), this is the constitution of a socialist state -- and since there IS no state under communism, why would communism be mentioned, since it CAN'T happen in one state... not while there are still class contradictions.

As instructed by Lenin, names are of little or no importance. Lenin and his Bolsheviks were still "Social Democrats" until the 1917 Revolution, were they not?

But let's look at what is still in the DPRK Constitution:

Chapter I: Politics
Article 1
The Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea is an independent socialist state representing the interests of all the Korean people.

Article 2
The DPRK is a revolutionary state which has inherited brilliant traditions formed during the glorious revolutionary struggle against the imperialist aggressors, in the struggle to achieve the liberation of the homeland and the freedom and well-being of the people.

Article 3
The DPRK is guided in its activities by the Juche idea, a world outlook centered on people, a revolutionary ideology for achieving the independence of the masses of people.

Fair Enough, verdad?

Article 4
The sovereignty of the DPRK resides in the workers, peasants, working intellectuals and all other working people.
The working people exercise power through their representative organs -- the Supreme People&#8217;s Assembly and local people&#8217;s assemblies at all levels.

Sounds good to me...

Article 5
All the State organs in the DPRK are formed and function on the principle of democratic centralism.

NOW we are getting somewhere. Democratic Centralism is the hallmark of Marxism-Leninism. Discuss,debate and fight it out, then if 100% agree, everyone fights for it to happen. Even the doubters. Especially the doubters.

Article 6
The organs of State power at all levels, from the county People&#8217;s Assembly to the SPA, are elected on the principle of universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot.

Article 7
Deputies to the organs of State power at all levels have close ties with their constituents and are accountable to them for their work.
The electors may recall the deputies they have elected if the latter are not to be trusted.

Article 8
The social system of the DPRK is a people-centered system under which the working people are masters of everything, and everything in society serves the working people.
The State shall defend and protect the interests of the workers, peasants and working intellectuals who have been freed from exploitation and oppression and become masters of the State and society.

I still see no problems with this constitution.

Article 9

The DPRK shall strive to achieve the complete victory of socialism in the northern half of Korea by strengthening the people&#8217;s power and vigorously performing the three revolutions -- the ideological, cultural and technical -- and reunify the country on the principle of independence, peaceful reunification and great national unity.

Article 10

The DPRK bases itself on the political and ideological unity of the entire people based on the worker-peasant alliance in which the working class plays a leading role.

The State strengthens the ideological revolution and revolutionizes and working-classizes [sic] all the social members, and binds the whole society in a united group, linked up with comradeship.

Article 11
The DPRK shall conduct all activities under the leadership of the Workers&#8217; Party of Korea.

Article 12
The State shall adhere to the class line, strengthen the dictatorship of people&#8217;s democracy and firmly defend the people&#8217;s power and socialist system against all subversive acts of hostile elements at home and abroad.

Uh-huh... not seeing a great divergence with being a socialist republic.

Article 13

The State shall implement the mass line and apply the Chongsanri spirit and Chongsanri method to all its activities, the spirit and method by which superiors assist their subordinates, mix with the masses to find solutions to problems and rouse them to conscious enthusiasm preferentially through political work, with people.

Article 14

The State shall powerfully conduct the Three- Revolution Red Flag Movement and other mass movements and accelerate the building of socialism to the maximum.

Article 15

The DPRK shall champion the democratic, national rights of Koreans overseas and their rights recognized by the international law.

Article 16

The DPRK shall guarantee the legal rights and interests of foreigners in its region.

Article 17

Independence, peace, and solidarity are the basic ideals of the foreign policy and the principles of external activities of the DPRK.
The State shall establish diplomatic as well as political, economic and cultural relations with all friendly countries, on principles of complete equality, independence, mutual respect, noninterference in each other&#8217;s affairs and mutual benefit.
The State shall promote unity with the world public defending peoples who oppose all forms of aggression and interference and fight for their countries&#8217; independence and national and class emancipation.

Article 18
The law of the DPRK reflects the wishes and interests of the working people and is a basic instrument for State administration.
Respect for the law and its strict adherence and execution is the duty of all institutions, enterprises, organizations and citizens.
The State shall perfect the system of socialist law and promote the socialist law-abiding life.

That's the political section. I dare not go on, as it is late. But I wanted you to know, most of all, why I do not criticize the DPRK. I owe it to you as a comrade and a friend, and the rest of the lurkers and posters get this late little easter egg free of charge!

 

[Gary Childress]

Maybe this is just coming from the untrained eye of an outsider, however, it doesn't sound like the debate over the DPRK is a very productive one right now. It doesn't sound like an essential debate to determine who is "truer" to Marx or whatever. It sort of sounds to me like there are cases to be made that the DPRK is not the "real" enemy so to speak and perhaps cases to be made that they are not the ideal either.

I don't know a great deal about life in the DPRK other than what I have gathered from various news reports which are mostly unfavorable toward it. I suppose a case could be made that if the "Western" media were so truly concerned about injustices in the DPRK then maybe they should be more concerned about injustices in countries that are "friendly" to the "West" or perhaps more critical of great disparities in wealth among citizens of the supposedly "civilized" nations of the world.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting but I sort of take RT's position to be along the lines of there are worse enemies to worry about and TF and Cheezy are perhaps simply stating the opinion that the DPRK does not represent an ideal. In that sense I would think both "camps" are essentially probably right and not in fundamental disagreement with each other?

Or maybe I'm completely misinterpreting the nature of the disagreement?

EDIT: Sorry, cross post with RT's. I typed this before I saw his response.

 

[luiz]

Maybe this is just coming from the untrained eye of an outsider, however, it doesn't sound like the debate over the DPRK is a very productive one right now. It doesn't sound like an essential debate to determine who is "truer" to Marx or whatever. It sort of sounds to me like there are cases to be made that the DPRK is not the "real" enemy so to speak and perhaps cases to be made that they are not the ideal either.

I don't know a great deal about life in the DPRK other than what I have gathered from various news reports which are mostly unfavorable toward it. I suppose a case could be made that if the "Western" media were so truly concerned about injustices in the DPRK then maybe they should be more concerned about injustices in countries that are "friendly" to the "West" or perhaps more critical of great disparities in wealth among citizens of the supposedly "civilized" nations of the world.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting but I sort of take RT's position to be along the lines of there are worse enemies to worry about and TF and Cheezy are perhaps simply stating the opinion that the DPRK does not represent an ideal. In that sense I would think both "camps" are essentially probably right and not in fundamental disagreement with each other?

Or maybe I'm completely misinterpreting the nature of the disagreement?

EDIT: Sorry, cross post with RT's. I typed this before I saw his response.

I think you are misinterpreting their disagreements severely. TF at the very least sees the DPRK as the nightmarish, starving, torturing, militaristic and racist hellhole it is. It's not that the DPRK is not an ideal, it's actually a dystopia, one of the worst if not the worst regime in the world. But RT actually thinks it's a jolly nice place to live ruled by a benevolent chubby despot. I have no idea about Cheezy.

But the disagreement between TF and RT were made transparently enormous here.

 

[Gary Childress]

I think you are misinterpreting their disagreements severely. TF at the very least sees the DPRK as the nightmarish, starving, torturing, militaristic and racist hellhole it is. It's not that the DPRK is not an ideal, it's actually a dystopia, one of the worst if not the worst regime in the world. But RT actually thinks it's a jolly nice place to live ruled by a benevolent chubby despot. I have no idea about Cheezy.

But the disagreement between TF and RT were made transparently enormous here.

EDIT: Never mind. Time to go to bed and I'm too tired to edit and think anymore.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Maybe this is just coming from the untrained eye of an outsider, however, it doesn't sound like the debate over the DPRK is a very productive one right now. It doesn't sound like an essential debate to determine who is "truer" to Marx or whatever. It sort of sounds to me like there are cases to be made that the DPRK is not the "real" enemy so to speak and perhaps cases to be made that they are not the ideal either.

I don't know a great deal about life in the DPRK other than what I have gathered from various news reports which are mostly unfavorable toward it. I suppose a case could be made that if the "Western" media were so truly concerned about injustices in the DPRK then maybe they should be more concerned about injustices in countries that are "friendly" to the "West" or perhaps more critical of great disparities in wealth among citizens of the supposedly "civilized" nations of the world.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting but I sort of take RT's position to be along the lines of there are worse enemies to worry about and TF and Cheezy are perhaps simply stating the opinion that the DPRK does not represent an ideal. In that sense I would think both "camps" are essentially probably right and not in fundamental disagreement with each other?

Or maybe I'm completely misinterpreting the nature of the disagreement?

EDIT: Sorry, cross post with RT's. I typed this before I saw his response.

See my Edit, above, Gary... there is more. Thanks for the observation.

Here's some more lefty Propaganda (from my last entry in the East Asia Thread)
UN hypocrisy and human rights in North Korea

UNHRC report a laundry list of inaccurate accusations
ByMike Wang
March26,2014

The United Nations' Human Rights Commission released a report this year accusing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or North Korea, of committing crimes against humanity, concluding that the country's leadership should face trial. In presenting the report, Michael Kirby, the chair of the UNHRC and co-founder of the far-right monarchist group, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, went on to compare North Korean leadership with Nazi leadership while calling for their trial.
Accusations like these are hardly new: mainstream news is laden with a laundry list of accusations like it. Like the great majority of accusations hurled at North Korea in the past, the UNHRC Report rings hollow as a thinly veiled justification for U.S. aggression toward North Korea.

UNHRC and other UN reports

What is unique about the most recent report is that it brazenly disregards decades worth of the UN's own research. Researchby Hazel Smith, recently published in the journal Critical Asian Studies proves this in detail. In a brazen display of laziness, the new UNHRC report goes as far as to literally copy and paste from previous UNHCR reports, evidencing a lack of new research on North Korea by the UNHRC.

Moreover, UNHRC stands alone among other UN agencies in drawing such drastic conclusions about North Korea. In fact, the vast majority of information regarding food, nutrition and health in North Korea proves exactly the opposite of the UNHRC's findings. These include reports from the UN World Food Program, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the UN Development Program. This impressive array of organizations has been conducting research in North Korea since the 1990s. As a result they have produced a wealth of information regarding access to food and healthcare in North Korea.

The data they have collectively produced firmly contradict the figures cited in the UNHRC report. For example, whereas the UNHRC report claims 6 million people in North Korea &#8220;urgently required international food assistance,&#8221; the most recent FAO, WFP and UNICEF reports argue that there are no famine-like conditions and that there is no general food and health crisis when compared with other countries with similar income levels. In fact, previous UN specialist agencies' reports show the UNHRC's accusations are pure fantasy: no UN specialist agency has identified the North Korean government's food and health policy in terms even vaguely similar to the UNHRC's report.

To the contrary, conditions in North Korea are vastly better than those in other developing countries.
For example, as of 2012, North Korea's rate of wasting &#8212; abnormally low weight in children &#8212; was at 5.2 percent in 2012, whereas wasting children counted in at a whopping 20 percent in India and 13 percent in Indonesia. In 2012, stunted height&#8212;a sign of low caloric intake over an extended period of time&#8212;was 28 percent in North Korea, compared with India's staggering rate of 47 percent, Indonesia's rate of 36 percent and the 39 percent average for South Asia.

Contrary to the UNHRC fantasies, the facts show an impressive record for North Korean public health policy. While having nearly half the stunting rate of India, for example, North Korea has been isolated internationally thanks to decades of US-led diplomatic, economic and military pressure. Combined with northern Korea's mountainous geography, the blockade against North Korea produces very formidable public health policy challenges. That conditions in North Korea compare so well with countries elsewhere in Asia with plentiful and fertile farmland and which are well-integrated into the world economy speaks to North Korea's heroic resistance to U.S. efforts at isolation and forcible regime change.

Hypocrisy hiding history

The UNHRC's report reiterates a long list of tried-and-true lies about North Korea, which the United States has used in its longstanding campaign to overthrow North Korea's revolutionary government. Since the victory of revolutionary Korean socialist forces against Japanese colonialists in 1945, the United States has demonized North Korea at every turn in an attempt to unite public opinion against North Korea.

Socialists of all stripes in the United States should understand that imperialism is the foundation of modern capitalism, since capitalism requires ever-cheaper resources and labor power, which can ultimately only be found in sufficient quantity through imperialist conquest. In other words, imperialism is the most advanced stage of capitalism.

Opposing imperialism is consequently imperative for all people in the hubs of global capitalism in the struggle for socialism. In North Korea's case, the historical record is clear: the struggle against the United States is a struggle against imperialism, pure and simple. The nature of the struggle against North Korea should merit support for the Korean working masses by any and everyone seriously committed to ending capitalist oppression.

Content may be reprinted with credit to LiberationNews.org.

Word...

 

[Agent327]

Oh dear, the UN is a political organization....who'd have thought...

Maybe that's why NGOs are generally more reliable when it comes to human rights reports.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

My typically Stalin-like response to people who dismiss my 22 years of revolutionary practice, from Stalin.himself:

People talk about science. They say that the data of science, the data contained in technical handbooks and instructions, contradict the demands of the Stakhanovites for new and higher technical standards. But what kind of science are they talking about? The data of science have always been tested by practice, by experience. Science which has severed contact with practice, with experience - what sort of science is that? If science were the thing it is represented to be by certain of our conservative comrades, it would have perished for humanity long ago. Science is called science just because it does not recognise fetishes, just because it does not fear to raise its hand against the obsolete and antiquated, and because it lends an attentive ear to the voice of experience, of practice. If it were otherwise, we would have no science at all; we would have no astronomy, say, and would still have to get along with the outworn system of Ptolemy; we would have no biology, and would still be comforting ourselves with the legend of the creation of man; we would have no chemistry, and would still have to get along with the auguries of the alchemists.

Word

 

[Traitorfish]

My understanding is that proletariat describes a political class of wage-earners whose only private "property" is its capacity to perform labor (and thus "have nothing to lose but their chains). Such a condition does not apply to professional classes of workers, academics, civil servants, etc, who are still members of the working class, but not the proletariat. Aside from owning a variety of wealth, including retirement accounts (of some sorts, but not all) they have stocks of some amount, land, and other forms of wealth. In addition, most members of such categories, while obviously dispossessed of political power, are still very likely, in First World countries, to be paid more than their contributive labor's value. Again, these are still shackles, but they are shackles of gold.

The distinction is important because the proletariat's is the only class interest whose revolution is capable of bringing about socialism. It is they who are antithetical to capitalism, not the white-collar accountants and managers. Professionals, etc. who fight for socialism are acting in the proletariat's interest, not their own material interest, which likely lays with the ruling order.

I dunno, that's really not how I see things. Like, take the category of "material interest", presented here as something objective and inherent. How does that work? How is material interest determined, if not by human beings through their own practice? I swing heavy Thompsonite on this one, I'll grant you, but I just can't get my head around the idea that the working class precedes the worker, that the worker is simply a particular iteration of a pre-existing yet disembodied historical agent.

The way I see things is that the essence of the proletariat is dispossession. That's what "proletariat" literally means, after all, one's who have nothing to sell but their offspring, and it would have been terribly uncharacteristic of Marx to simply use it as synonym for "labourer" without considering this additional meaning. Granted, what he's addressing isn't simple lack of possession, and there's actually a section of his notes where he scoffs at another write who describes hunter-gatherers as "primitive proletarians", drawing a distinction between non-possession and dispossession. The latter requires that there is something to be dispossessed of, in this case, labour, but this dispossession exists prior to entry into a formal wage-contract, and certainly prior to the assumption of "productive" work. The proletarian is enmeshed within the wage-system before he ever draws a wage, because it is after all that enmeshment which compels him to pursue employment in the first place. His dependence on the sale of his wages is an expression rather than definition of his class-status. (As a consequence, I would consider most of the modern lumpenproletariat, which Park describes, as proletarian, Marx's own prejudices notwithstanding.)

"Class interest", in this view, isn't something which precedes a worker and propels him forward, but the very opposite, something which is achieved through struggle, as workers find common ground between their particular interests, the most essential and most radical of which, the culmination of this process, is the abolition of the wage-system itself. This is basically E.P. Thompson's argument, that the working class as an historical agent rather than as a position within the wage-relation is self-creating. This allows us to avoid generalisations and false clarity, to avoiding drawing artificially clear lines between productive, blue-collar "workers" and administrative, white collar "under-bosses", which I think obscures the reality of how capitalism operates in the global North. If a bus-drive can be a worker despite producing no discrete physical commodity, then why not a clerical worker? And if a clerical worker, why not a junior doctor? And if a junior doctor, why not an assistant professor? These people will all have different levels of institutional investment, different financial prospects, different experiences of capital, that's all true, but none of that tells us that they are something other than workers, at least for the time being, and doesn't tell us that they are incapable of achieving this shared "class interest".

I think you are misinterpreting their disagreements severely. TF at the very least sees the DPRK as the nightmarish, starving, torturing, militaristic and racist hellhole it is. It's not that the DPRK is not an ideal, it's actually a dystopia, one of the worst if not the worst regime in the world. But RT actually thinks it's a jolly nice place to live ruled by a benevolent chubby despot. I have no idea about Cheezy.

But the disagreement between TF and RT were made transparently enormous here.

Indeed. The DPRK are all but fascists, certainly by the everyday definition, because their regime is ultra-nationalist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, anti-socialist, anti-union, militaristic, revanchistic and expansionistic; all traits which have appeared in previous so-called "socialist" regimes, but presented here in the most unambiguous form. This is abundantly clear to anyone with even the barest acquaintance with first-hand accounts given by North Korean citizens, who have been very consistent about these details. A degree of scepticism towards the Western media's presentation is warranted, if nothing else because it tends to fall all too readily into imperialist clichés of Oriental hive-despotism, but coming to any other conclusion would involve deliberately avoiding this sort of information, which is hardly in the spirit of the "ruthless critique of all things existing".

 

[Gary Childress]

Indeed. The DPRK are all but fascists, certainly by the everyday definition, because their regime is ultra-nationalist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, anti-socialist, anti-union, militaristic, revanchistic and expansionistic; all traits which have appeared in previous so-called "socialist" regimes, but presented here in the most unambiguous form. This is abundantly clear to anyone with even the barest acquaintance with first-hand accounts given by North Korean citizens, who have been very consistent about these details. A degree of scepticism towards the Western media's presentation is warranted, if nothing else because it tends to fall all too readily into imperialist clichés of Oriental hive-despotism, but coming to any other conclusion would involve deliberately avoiding this sort of information, which is hardly in the spirit of the "ruthless critique of all things existing".

My apologies for underestimating the vigor of your critique, TF. That's certainly my impression of the DPRK also. Was just trying to see things from RT's perspective.

So how do you account for the article cited above by RT which seems to associate the DPRK as a kind of Asian Cuba where conditions are better there than in some other developing countries which cooperate with the "West"? Here's a little more from the article RT cited:

The data they have collectively produced firmly contradict the figures cited in the UNHRC report. For example, whereas the UNHRC report claims 6 million people in North Korea &#8220;urgently required international food assistance,&#8221; the most recent FAO, WFP and UNICEF reports argue that there are no famine-like conditions and that there is no general food and health crisis when compared with other countries with similar income levels. In fact, previous UN specialist agencies' reports show the UNHRC's accusations are pure fantasy: no UN specialist agency has identified the North Korean government's food and health policy in terms even vaguely similar to the UNHRC's report.

To the contrary, conditions in North Korea are vastly better than those in other developing countries.

For example, as of 2012, North Korea's rate of wasting&#8212;abnormally low weight in children&#8212;was at 5.2 percent in 2012, whereas wasting children counted in at a whopping 20 percent in India and 13 percent in Indonesia. In 2012, stunted height&#8212;a sign of low caloric intake over an extended period of time&#8212;was 28 percent in North Korea, compared with India's staggering rate of 47 percent, Indonesia's rate of 36 percent and the 39 percent average for South Asia.

Contrary to the UNHRC fantasies, the facts show an impressive record for North Korean public health policy. While having nearly half the stunting rate of India, for example, North Korea has been isolated internationally thanks to decades of US-led diplomatic, economic and military pressure. Combined with northern Korea's mountainous geography, the blockade against North Korea produces very formidable public health policy challenges. That conditions in North Korea compare so well with countries elsewhere in Asia with plentiful and fertile farmland and which are well-integrated into the world economy speaks to North Korea's heroic resistance to U.S. efforts at isolation and forcible regime change.

http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/un-hypocrisy-and-human-rights.html

I'm a bit curious as to your interpretation of the information above, TF? From the information above it sort of sounds almost like the DPRK is almost a shining bastion of socialism fighting against persecution by the rest of the world or something. At the very least it seems to indicate that the DPRK isn't worthy of being completely "demonized" if the article is accurate.

Again, I find it difficult NOT to think of the DPRK with the utmost contempt but maybe RT has a point to be made and that's just me internalizing a lot of capitalist propaganda or something. Obviously one of the wonderful things about living in a "western" democracy is that I can openly entertain sympathetic thoughts toward the DPRK without being shot or imprisoned, something that may not be true of a citizen of the DPRK who openly entertains sympathetic thoughts toward the US or South Korea.

 

[Traitorfish]

The Party for Socialism and Liberation are a Marxist-Leninist party who accept the socialism of Cuba, the DPRK et al. as revealed truth. The article, despite its journalistic presentation, is basically propagandising.

Some of the statistical comparisons might be sound; I've no more interest in defending Indian capitalism's ability to feed people than North Korean capitalism's. But when even the DPRK's most ardent supporters are unwilling to venture higher praise than "not as bad as it could be", you know that we're looking at something short of the promised land.

 

[Gary Childress]

The Party for Socialism and Liberation are a Marxist-Leninist party who accept the socialism of Cuba, the DPRK et al. as revealed truth. The article, despite its journalistic presentation, is basically propagandising.

Some of the statistical comparisons might be sound; I've no more interest in defending Indian capitalism's ability to feed people than North Korean capitalism's. But when even the DPRK's most ardent supporters are unwilling to venture higher praise than "not as bad as it could be", you know that we're looking at something short of the promised land.

Hmm. This is a good point. I guess I'm a little perplexed as to RT's position on the DPRK. With apparently 22 years of working with the working poor and disenfranchised I guess I would think that RT's position on such issues would be well informed. I mean I guess I can see where maybe the DPRK is no morally worse nor better than the government of India, for example, which most in the west do not have such contempt toward but to say that the DPRK is any sort of ideal is pretty difficult to go with, at least for me. But I'm willing to listen if there is a case to be made.