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BigBlackEquus
Joined: 05 Jul 2005
Location: Lotte controls Asia with bad chocolate!
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 Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 6:39 am Post subject: Feelgood North Korea show on MBC |
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I just sat and watched this 'feel good' North Korea exchange program TV show where SK students went to North Korea. It was as surreal as ever, but watching the glassed-over eyes and meter-long smiles of my Korean friends watching with me made me think: gosh the South Korean people are hooked on all of the dog-and-pony show propaganda being fed to them. Makes me nervous. I definately won't be sticking around here if the walls come down. Their reactions are spooky, and I seemed to be the only one asking, 'Where are the people? Where are the cars? Etc.'
It is as if no one under the age of 40 (maybe 50?) sees any danger in North Korea. It's all like they're one big family that will join as one, with no consequences, and it will all be the fault of the foreigners that separation ever happened in the first place. Why do I get the increasing fear that these people will turn on foreigners and try to kill us non-Koreans with nationalistic furvor one day?
I asked them, 'Why don't the let North Korean students come here?'
No answer.
Is this gov't so stupid as to let this one-way propaganda street continue? Why do I feel like screaming, 'WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!' ??? |
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Alias
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 7:43 am Post subject: |
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| Just look at how little attention North Korean refugees receive. |
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jaganath69
Joined: 17 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 8:09 am Post subject: |
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| The SK government is actually promoting this crap, whilst ignoring the human rights situation and allowing themselves to be bullied into giving massive amounts of aid for nothing in return. The utter lack of thinking on this issue scares the bejesus out of me and makes me very wary of the average Korean. |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:44 am Post subject: |
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But NO, YOU can NOT understand this situation. Koreans are the same blood. We don't like their way, but they are our brothers. We have to accept them. We are torn country but western country makes us to be apart. America doesn't want us to be united.
Sorry- forgot to put quotation marks! That's what I've heard before though  . I wish they'd suddenly reunite though, just to see what happens.
I challenged some of the apologetic sympathizer weirdos the other day by showing them Google Earth. I scrolled first to Seoul, then to Pyongyang. "Look, Pyongyang is very organized, what happened to Seoul? It's all messy and disorganized" Suddenly they were anti-communist. Pretty funny actually. Their answers fit the situation which prevents them from looking like an idiot. They will justify both sides.
Burn in hell they will. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 10:48 am Post subject: |
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Come on, 5 years ago S Korean students going to N Korea would have been unthinkable, as would their watching it on the TV. Forgive them if they smile. Forgive them if this small step towards reunification of their nation makes them happy.
Ever think about looking at things from someone else's point of view for a change? |
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peemil
Joined: 09 Feb 2003
Location: Koowoompa
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Better dead than red. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 3:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| The SK government is actually promoting this crap |
This is true, or at least true of the Uri Party. |
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soviet_man
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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The crisis facing capitalists is this:
The more ROK citizens embrace their northern brothers - the more the global political pendulum (correctly) swings AGAINST the five decades of US military occupation in Korea.
The past year has seen negative critisism of the DPRK reduce significantly. The DPRK is being welcomed politically and culturally throughout the region and (most importantly) in South Korea.
Even the Bush regime has started calling the DPRK by its official name, thus recognising both its territorial legitimacy and active engagement with its current leadership.
The family reunions - the 6 party talks - the bus trips to Mt Geumgang - reconnecting the inter Korean railway - the mass games in the north - allowing DPRK ships into Jeju strait - joint Olympic teams - Kaesong - these and other initiatives have all happened ENTIRELY on DPRK terms.
Even the pathetic South Korean capitalist press has largely refrained from making anti-DPRK (and thus anti-Korean) statements in recent months.
Critically, where no particular political or class consiousness currently exists (read: apatehtic young people in the ROK) Kim Jong Il is carefully creating very powerful symbols, images, feelings and perceptions about the DPRK and the "Korean" national identity (no longer a north vs. south debate).
In my view, THAT is perhaps the DPRK and KJI's greatest masterstroke (for the better) in this debate. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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Would you really characterize the current US military presence as one of "occupation"? I haven't seen any soldiers running around enforcing laws, strong-arming legislators, or silencing any outspoken citizens. And Lord knows there's been no shortage of opportunities for that.
You're right that KJI is playing his hand quite skillfully. As for those North Korean masterstrokes being "for the better"...
http://www.onefreekorea.net/
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Ten years ago, the government of North Korea cut food rations for millions of people it classified as politically unreliable, either for perceived expressions of disloyalty or for being related to others deemed disloyal. This campaign of political cleansing has already killed an estimated two million people, nearly ten percent of the population.
Tens of thousands more have died in North Korea's vast network of concentration camps,which hold perhaps 250,000 prisoners, many of them innocent children. Thousands of these prisoners die of starvation, disease, torture, or execution each year. Others die in inhuman tests of chemical weapons on live prisoners--including the killing of entire families in gas chambers.
An estimated 300,000 North Koreans have fled their homes and are hiding in China. China regularly rounds them up and forcibly returns them to North Korea, in violation of the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees and the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Once returned, most refugees are sent to the gulags. Pregant women who are returned to North Korea are given forced abortions. Guards kill any babies born alive. |
Quite a series of masterstrokes of genius, indeed.
Last edited by Hater Depot on Sat Nov 05, 2005 6:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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jaganath69
Joined: 17 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Honestly, why bother engaging with a twit who supports the world's most brutal dictatorship. SM is either a troll or a Nork propagandist. |
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Wrench
Joined: 07 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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| soviet_man wrote: |
The crisis facing capitalists is this:
The more ROK citizens embrace their northern brothers - the more the global political pendulum (correctly) swings AGAINST the five decades of US military occupation in Korea.
The past year has seen negative critisism of the DPRK reduce significantly. The DPRK is being welcomed politically and culturally throughout the region and (most importantly) in South Korea.
Even the Bush regime has started calling the DPRK by its official name, thus recognising both its territorial legitimacy and active engagement with its current leadership.
The family reunions - the 6 party talks - the bus trips to Mt Geumgang - reconnecting the inter Korean railway - the mass games in the north - allowing DPRK ships into Jeju strait - joint Olympic teams - Kaesong - these and other initiatives have all happened ENTIRELY on DPRK terms.
Even the pathetic South Korean capitalist press has largely refrained from making anti-DPRK (and thus anti-Korean) statements in recent months.
Critically, where no particular political or class consiousness currently exists (read: apatehtic young people in the ROK) Kim Jong Il is carefully creating very powerful symbols, images, feelings and perceptions about the DPRK and the "Korean" national identity (no longer a north vs. south debate).
In my view, THAT is perhaps the DPRK and KJI's greatest masterstroke (for the better) in this debate. |
What Crack are you smoking? |
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chiaa
Joined: 23 Aug 2003
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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The only reason the South does all this crap with the North is so South Korean big businesses have a crack at the cheap labor up there. All this aid and money being sent up there is to make sure the South Korean companies are the only ones or at least the majority of companies exploiting the cheap work force.
The crap you see with all the loving cultural exchanges is to sway the minds of the South Korean people and protect the image of the South Korean companies that are/will be operating up there. If they portrayed the North as their enemy in the media, no SK company could do business up there.
North Koreans and South Koreans are markedly different. Unification in the way it did with the two Germanys(ies?), I believe will never take place. Everyone in the South Korean government knows very well what it will do to this economy. |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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| chiaa wrote: |
| The only reason the South does all this crap with the North is so South Korean big businesses have a crack at the cheap labor up there. All this aid and money being sent up there is to make sure the South Korean companies are the only ones or at least the majority of companies exploiting the cheap work force. |
That may be their scheme, Chiaa, but I wonder if the South Koreans are going to find many welcoming export markets for those manufactures. The US is already indicating that "Made in NK" goods will be regarded as such despite what the south wants, and that could mean an outright import ban or heavy tariffs. I'd expect a nasty consumer boycott vilifying the South if it happens. ASEAN has apparently flip-flopped on the issue and now says that it can't/won't regard Made-in-NK products as "Korean". The EU, while not above accommodating the Chinese gangsterocracy when it suits them, is probably not going to decide in favour of unfettered global-gulag free trade in this case.
So then, just who's going to buy all these made-in-Kaesong Samsung SyncMasters? The Chinese, who can make them just as cheaply and already are? Or, will the chaebol dump them in the South and cut their own throats? Or might they slap "Made in S. Korea" labels on them, perhaps after tightening a few screws just prior to loading onto containerships at the Port of Busan?
However, nobody familiar with how obstreperous the Koreans can be when they set their minds to it would dare put it past them to hector international organisations into making exceptions in their behalf. If ever there was a cause that would get a free-market capitalist like the Guru to dawn the black ski-mask of anti-globalisation and join the anti-WTO mob in the trenches (right alongside die-hard socialists like Soviet Man, right?) then, Chiaa, you've just mentioned it. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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I can't believe I'm arguing with Soviet Man, but it's Sunday afternoon and I could use a laugh so...
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The DPRK is being welcomed politically and culturally throughout the region and (most importantly) in South Korea.
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I'm not sure if I'd say they're being welcomed, exactly. Japan seems most interested in getting its abductees back, and since NK is the country that abducted them, dialogue with NK has become a neccesity..
China is NK's longstanding ally, so no real change there. But I think that alliance survives mostly for geostrategic reasons, one of which now might be that the Chinese worry that a sudden regime collapse in NK would lead to destabilization along the border(refugees, armed conflict spreading into China, etc). Plus, I don't think the recent Chinese posturing on Koguryo says much about China's general regard for North Korea as an autonomous nation.
re: the US: Bush's switiching to "DPRK" as the preferred term is more likely just a result of someone finally telling him that tossing around insults at your adversaries is not the best way to conduct diplomacy. |
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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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| Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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[....]
Last edited by Moldy Rutabaga on Wed Jan 01, 2014 11:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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