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Cowbee [he/they]

@ Cowbee @lemmy.ml

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1
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1172
Joined
3 yr. ago

Actually, this town has more than enough room for the two of us

He/him or they/them, doesn't matter too much

Marxist-Leninist ☭

Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don't know where to start? Check out my Marxist-Leninist study guides, both basic and advanced!

  • There's almost always a more deserving community that could use some good content and growth!

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  • Yep, they even get a bunch of their posts from Lemmy.ml communities and cross post them to non-Lemmy.ml communities. That's fine, but this is just a huge dedication to inter-instance drama.

  • There's almost always a more deserving community that could use some good content and growth!

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  • OP makes these posts on around a monthly basis, they have a pattern of posting these instance-drama related posts fairly regularly.

  • There's almost always a more deserving community that could use some good content and growth!

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  • Some Lemmy instances are generally hostile to Marxists, who are more concentrated on Lemmy.ml.

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  • Oh, it's the regularly scheduled sabre-rattling post.

  • Kim Jong-un bans hotdogs for North Koreans, cooking them an act of treason

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  • Nice!

  • Kim Jong-un bans hotdogs for North Koreans, cooking them an act of treason

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  • Thanks! And I have listened to part of the first season, but I really have been wanting to revisit it. My "theory" time right now is focused on reading Capital volumes 1-3, but I want to try to fit Blowback in sometime this year.

  • Kim Jong-un bans hotdogs for North Koreans, cooking them an act of treason

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  • I didn't merely link a single source with respect to the "defector storytelling industry," but an entire documentary on the subject. I can find more sources if you prefer, it's quite well-documented. Yeonmi Park is a famous "celebrity defector" and her claims are often contradictory.

    As for this particular article? The source appears to be The Sun, citing a tangential article from Radio Free Asia, with a final source appearing to be... nothing. The RFA article was on tteokbokki and budae-jjigae, not hot dogs, and the RFA source for that article? "Residents in the country." In short, there is no hard proof, neither in this article nor the original RFA article.

    As for RFA, they have been called out on sharing misleading or fabricated information regarding geopolitical enemies of the US, such as anti-vaccine misinformation about Chinese vaccines. The RFA's speciality is reporting on United States Geopolitical adversaries, and given that the United States government has a dedicated interest in drumming up negative opinion on them, you have means (no listed source beyond "residents") and motive. The track record isn't "sterling," but "mixed," I'd say, considering issues like the anti-vaxx misinfo, unless you back that as well (I certainly hope not). The reporter for the tteokbokki article is Moon Sung Whui, who appears to have only been reporting since a few months back in late 2024, so either this is a pseudonym for a reporter who wishes to remain anyonymous, a brand-new reporter, or a ficticious one, even if searching in Hangol as 문성휘 (which they go by in the Korean version of the article).

    Even if you accept the RFA article as 100% accurate, that's not what this article is, as this article originates from The Sun. We don't even need to discredit the RFA, but understand that this is a completely unverified report from a tabloid being uncritically passed around. Clickbait makes money, and everyone believes anything about the DPRK. That was the point about the haircut video, anyways: misinfo isn't always entirely inaccurate, it usually relies on subversion based on kernals of truth, or uncritical reporting of dubious sources, ie the source may be "true" in that someone did claim such and such claim, but the validity of the claim is left unquestioned.

    The RFA article was dubious, but this is just a copy pasted Sun article as a clickbait based on the first RFA article.

  • Kim Jong-un bans hotdogs for North Koreans, cooking them an act of treason

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  • The problem with reporting on the DPRK is that information is extremely limited on what is actually going on there. Most reports come from defectors, and said defectors are notoriously dubious in their accounts, something the WikiPedia page on Media Coverage of North Korea spells out quite clearly. These defectors are also held in confined cells for around 6 months before being released to the public in the ROK, in... unkind conditions, and pressured into divulging information. Additionally, defectors are paid for giving testemonials, and these testimonials are paid more the more severe they are. From the Wiki page:

    Felix Abt, a Swiss businessman who lived in the DPRK, argues that defectors are inherently biased. He says that 70 percent of defectors in South Korea are unemployed, and selling sensationalist stories is a way for them to make a living.

    Side note: there is a great documentary on the treatment of North Korean defectors titled Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul, which interviews North Korean defectors and laywers legally defending them, if you're curious.

    Because of these issues, there is a long history of what we consider legitimate news sources of reporting and then walking back stories. Even the famous "120 dogs" execution ended up to have been a fabrication originating in a Chinese satirical column, reported entirely seriously and later walked back by some news outlets. The famous "unicorn lair" story ended up being a misunderstanding:

    In fact, the report is a propaganda piece likely geared at shoring up the rule of Kim Jong Eun, North Korea's young and relatively new leader, said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of Korean studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Most likely, North Koreans don't take the report literally, Lee told LiveScience.

    "It's more symbolic," Lee said, adding, "My take is North Koreans don't believe all of that, but they bring certain symbolic value to celebrating your own identify, maybe even notions of cultural exceptionalism and superiority. It boosts morale."

    These aren't tabloids, these are mainstream news sources. NBC News reported the 120 dogs story. Same with USA Today. The frequently reported concept of "state-mandated haircut styles", as an example, also ended up being bogus sensationalism. People have made entire videos going over this long-running sensationalist misinformation, why it exists, and debunking some of the more absurd articles.

    As for Radio Free Asia, it is US-government founded and funded. There is good reason to be skeptical of reports sourced entirely from RFA about geopolitical enemies of the US, especially concerning a hermit country with very little accurate information coming out of it due to its secluded nature. Until we see hard evidence, I don't see why we should trust it, considering the track record of reporting on North Korea.

    This does not mean the subject of this article is necessarily false, but it does mean that uncritically accepting it as true when there is a proven track record of outlandish and absurd stories being reported about the DPRK that we should question its validity until proof is provided beyond heresay from a US-government funded media outlet. People are right to distrust the article, and I don't think this is a good hill to die on and ban people over. I don't generally believe anything about the DPRK unless there's hard proof for it because of how notoriously unreliable reporting on it is. You don't have to support the DPRK to question absurd sensationalist articles.

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  • This article is on an entirely different subject, namely labor conditions, not based on whether or not the CPC is driven by profit. Even if we fully accept everything in the article as factual (despite shaky sources like the New York-based China Labor Watch) it does not at all translate to the CPC being driven by profit, which you said was backed by evidence that I asked for. If it took you literal seconds to not even fact-check or verify if your source even supports your argument, I know for a fact you didn't even read the article, which is disingenuous at best. Not to mention the fact that it's paywalled, of course.

    Moreover, we can absolutely see the ongoing improvements in conditions for the working class in China, such as the completion of eliminating extreme poverty recently. It is truly difficult to comprehend the vast and ongoing improvements in China, a developing country, for the working class. It isn't a perfect wonderland, of course not, but it is Socialist and still guided by Marxism, and you haven't yet countered that.

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  • Where is this evidence?

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  • As am I. I am explaining my own experiences.

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  • I see the word "tankie" more often than not used by Anarchists against Marxists, and by liberals towards anyone to their left.

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  • I think you're a bit confused about what "State Capitalism" is in Marxian economics, here. Marx and Engels both repeatedly asserted that folding Capital into the Public Sector is a gradual process once "lower-stage Communism" (now referred to as "Socialism") was achieved. This directly implies markets and Private Property exist even within a society that had already become Socialist. I am not sure how you can counter that without attempting to redefine Marxism or reject it wholly.

    As for the nature of the PRC's economics, the Public Sector is primary, and the Private Sector is gradually more heavily influenced and planned by government. This does not mean it's "impossible to get relief because the CPC is their boss," the CPC is not run for profit like that. SOEs compete in the Private Sector, but the CPC itself is not made up of the bourgeoisie, but overwhelmingly not bourgeoisie.

    I think reading theory would help you a lot with understanding how the PRC operates and why.

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  • The distinction between Communists and "tankies" doesn't really matter at this point because the label of "tankie" is applied to every Communist these days, even Anarchists and progressive liberals. It's generally a term without meaning. Either way, though, Communists don't "love strongmen," that's more of a post-hoc explanation liberals come up with to denounce Communist movements, ie "Che Guevara is a strongman, that's why Communists support Cuba" etc. etc.

    You should read the book too.

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  • Not really. Historically, the PRC over-emphasized Class Struggle, which is only one aspect of Marxism. As a consequence, development was uneven and relatively unstable, what Marxists would consider an "ultraleft" error, ie dogmatism over pragmatism. The market reforms were done in a manner that clearly separated what must always remain in the Public Sector, like Steel, Energy, and Transportation, while opening up other industries for market reforms and foreign investment. This was a reversion to traditional Marxist economics.

    Fast-forward to today, we can analyze that economic growth was stabilized and improved, the sectors deemed as always to be in the public sector have remained, and in the current era the CPC has begun to exert more control and pressure over the Private Sector as the markets are doing their job and rapidly developing. This development of the Productive Forces drastically reduces the sheer difficulty of Central Planning by allowing markets to centralize by themselves and develop their own infrastructure for planning, and the CPC adds cadre to their top management to begin exacting more control.

    Think of it like planting seeds, watching them grow, carefully pruning them, and then harvesting them into the Public Sector. Regardless of your opinion of the PRC overall, the CPC's methodology is firmly based in a Marxian understanding of economics, and to deny that is an error whether you are a Marxist or a Liberal. If you fail to properly analyze the PRC, it becomes a bit of a "Schroedinger's Socialism," neither Capitalism nor Socialism, and thus any recommendations for changing their methods or continuing them is also bound to run into traps and pitfalls.

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  • Historically, the Left is made up of the progressive class interests, while the right is made up of the regressive, or "reactionary" class interests. Wanting to progress beyond our current Mode of Production to a more collective one is Leftist, while pining for "the good old days" and seeking to turn the clock back, so to speak, is right wing.

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  • This is just wishy washy vibes though. Historically fascism has risen from the interests of the Capitalist class and Communism has risen from the interests of the working class. Moreover, Communists have historically supported liberatory anti-colonialist movements, such as in Algeria and Palestine, Cuba and South Africa, while fascists have historically supported ever-more agressive colonialism. I suggest you read Blackshirts and Reds by Dr. Michael Parenti, it's a witty read with intense historical rigor.

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  • Communism and Fascism are entirely different, both historically and ideologically, and to conflate the two is a massive error. I suggest you read Blackshirts and Reds by Dr. Michael Parenti, it's a very enjoyable read due to Parenti's characteristic wit while being packed with exacting historical rigor.

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  • They certainly were/are run by Marxists trying to bring about Communism, I'm not sure what your point is here. They aren't Anarchist, but they are certainly run by Marxists.