Post: #501

As for the pictures...there is a thing in asian societies called social harmony.
Where the needs of the society overweigh the needs of the individual.
Translated that means, they know that there is poverty in the country but they try to keep a positive mindset instead of always dwelling on the negative.

In the west, before the invention of television, people in the whole world weren't constantly being bombared daily with negative images of other towns, cities and countries that they would never visit where a few bad things happened. Over the course of many years, that shit just always puts you in a bad mood, even though where you live everything is actually fine. It's one of the main reasons why everyone is always either so pissed off and depressed nowadays.


Even in modern day Japan social harmony is the norm.
Japan has a lot of its own problems, like a dying birthrate and people working 18 hour shifts, but if you watch TV there or read media everything is mostly fine, all are happy and Japan is the best place on earth. They don't say it outright and blatantly like in the DPRK, but the general mindset is that.

Get some asian girlfriends and you can expierence this asian mindset full on.
The girl's obligations in regard to her family, friends, employer and overall reputation all come into play when she is deciding whether to do things your way.

Post: #502

(05-04-2017 06:13 AM)Mercenary Wrote:  Pizza has only recently been introduced into the country.
Most people in the DPRK have never tried it and frankly are very sceptical.
Also, it's probably expensive due to it being something "fancy" and imported.

You may think that's crazy that people don't want to eat pizza but I've met many people in my life who are disgusted when I told them I've eaten horse, rabbit, donkey, crocodile, ostrich, bear, puffin, and whale. The only reason they're grossed out is cause it is so foreign to them. Also, these things are expensive where they are rare. Once is becomes common the price goes down.

Have you lived there?

Post: #503

Mercenary I truly can't believe that you have continued to defend NK over the past many pages. It really baffles me.

Post: #504

(05-04-2017 07:08 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  Have you lived there?

No.

But the sources that are giving the negative information about the DPRK have lied about so many other things, there is every reason for me to be HIGHLY sceptical until I can go verify it myself.

Also, I have been to a lot of asian countries including South Korea and been in relationships with asian women. That helps a lot in understanding what those societies are actually like.

(05-04-2017 07:12 AM)Gmac Wrote:  Mercenary I truly can't believe that you have continued to defend NK over the past many pages. It really baffles me.

Try to see it not as a defense of the DPRK, but a strong call to be sceptical of what you are being told.
The DPRK is no paradise for sure....but it's also not the evil place we have been told.
The real truth is somewhere in the middle.

Post: #505

(05-04-2017 07:13 AM)Mercenary Wrote:  No.

I didn't think so.

It is strange that you use the "You don't live there and couldn't possibly know" retort when you haven't lived there yourself.

Quote:But the sources that are giving the negative information about the DPRK have lied about so many other things, there is every reason for me to be HIGHLY sceptical until I can go verify it myself.

What sources would that be? I have seen Sherman's videos and made a joke about how fake one of those videos looked.

Quote:Also, I have been to a lot of asian countries including South Korea and been in relationships with asian women. That helps a lot in understanding what those societies are actually like.

I can't imagine visiting South Korea would be similar to living in a dictatorship that doesn't allow freedom of travel.

Post: #506

Here is a documentary I watched some time ago about a American soldier who walked away from his post and crossed into North Korea. He seemed to be happy.

Post: #507

(05-04-2017 07:19 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  I can't imagine visiting South Korea would be similar to living in a dictatorship that doesn't allow freedom of travel.

Try telling your employer in south korea you don't want to reply to work related emails on your day off.
Try telling your boss in south korea you don't want to work more than 12 hours a day.
Try telling your local recruitment office you don't want to do obligatory military service.
Try convicing the majority of Korean parents it's ok if their daughter has kids with a foreigner.

Fuck, in south korea it is not even allowed for you to be anonymous on the internet.

Post: #508

(05-04-2017 07:29 AM)Mercenary Wrote:  

(05-04-2017 07:19 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  I can't imagine visiting South Korea would be similar to living in a dictatorship that doesn't allow freedom of travel.

Try telling your employer in south korea you don't want to reply to work related emails on your day off.
Try telling your boss in south korea you don't want to work more than 12 hours a day.
Try telling your local office you don't want to do obligatory military service.
Try convicing the majority of Korean parents it's ok if their daughter has kids with a foreigner.

Fuck, in south korea it is not even allowed for you to be anonymous on the internet.

Are you really trying to say those items are the same as living under a dictatorship?

I can't tell if you are being honest or trolling anymore.

Post: #509

Here are some photos smuggled out North Korea by a photographer.

http://www.boredpanda.com/illegal-photos...huniewicz/

The photographer always had a guide on his ass the whole time.

Post: #510

Chinese troops are preparing to deal with an influx of refugees on the North Korean border and have been learning Korean so they can shout orders such as, “don’t move or I’ll shoot!”

https://www.infowars.com/chinese-troops-...an-border/

Post: #511

(05-04-2017 12:32 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

(05-04-2017 12:28 AM)Sherman Wrote:  

(05-04-2017 12:18 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

(05-03-2017 11:52 PM)Sherman Wrote:  Have you seen any of the images presented here of normal North Koreans doing normal things, on the US television? I haven't. If someone tried to present even what was shown here on US television, they would be fired.

If someone tried to present anything other than normal North Koreans doing normal things, on the North Korean television, they'd be shot.

What else can you believe? That is all you get from the US media.

So I should believe the North Korean media instead? For the fourth time: find me a news article from a North Korean newspaper that is openly critical of Kim. Or find me a North Korean TV broadcast where they acknowledge even a hairs-breadth of inequality of income between Potemkin Pyongyang and the outlying rural areas. Or is it that North Korea has managed to achieve the great communist dream of everyone being perfectly equal in income and status, regardless of where they live in the country?

Where is your evidence that North Korea is a bad place. Give us your best sources and the reasons why we should believe them. That way men can make their own decisions.

Also, why does a North Korean newspaper have to be critical of Kim? Tell us exactly when North Korea adapted the US constitution. Also, explain to us how Kim has violated the North Korean constitution. What gives you the right to tell North Korea what to do? Is this freedom?

Post: #512

How about this.

How many stable, economically responsible nations have in the last decade required international food aid in order to avoid a portion of their citizens dying of famine?

As a followup, if the powers that be were determined to get rid of this shining paragon of traditionalism then why would they have provided said food aid (cited by the NorK elite as being "tributes" paid to stay the wrath of the mighty NorKs)?

Post: #513

(05-04-2017 08:53 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  How about this.

How many stable, economically responsible nations have in the last decade required international food aid in order to avoid a portion of their citizens dying of famine?

It's real easy to create poverty and famines in a country if you create international sanctions that deny it all commerce trade with the outside world, and put in naval blockcades to enforce it, and punish all people and companies in a court of law that try to do business with them.

This is exactly what they did with the Unites States embargo on Cuba.

Post: #514

(05-04-2017 08:57 AM)Mercenary Wrote:  

(05-04-2017 08:53 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  How about this.

How many stable, economically responsible nations have in the last decade required international food aid in order to avoid a portion of their citizens dying of famine?

It's real easy to create poverty and famines in a country if you create international sanctions that deny it all commerce trade with the outside world, and put in naval blockcades to enforce it, and punish all people and companies in a court of law that try to do business with them.

This is exactly what they did with the Unites States embargo on Cuba.

Those damn american imperialists!

Post: #515

(05-04-2017 08:57 AM)Mercenary Wrote:  

(05-04-2017 08:53 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  How about this.

How many stable, economically responsible nations have in the last decade required international food aid in order to avoid a portion of their citizens dying of famine?

It's real easy to create poverty and famines in a country if you create international sanctions that deny it all commerce trade with the outside world, and put in naval blockcades to enforce it, and punish all people and companies in a court of law that try to do business with them.

This is exactly what they did with the Unites States embargo on Cuba.

How is it they can't even manage to maintain subsistence farming but have these busy roads and thriving pizza parlours?

And you never bothered to answer as to why food aid was sent to them by the dreaded imperialists. Why not?

Post: #516

(05-04-2017 08:57 AM)Mercenary Wrote:  It's real easy to create poverty and famines in a country if you create international sanctions that deny it all commerce trade with the outside world, and put in naval blockcades to enforce it, and punish all people and companies in a court of law that try to do business with them.

This is exactly what they did with the Unites States embargo on Cuba.

Mercenary, now you're just being dramatic. Cuba is free to trade with whomever it wants and has been for decades. Heck, it's even been a member of WTO for 20 years now!

Wikipedia Wrote:Despite the Spanish-language term bloqueo (blockade), there has been no physical, naval blockade of the country by the United States after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.[4] The United States does not block Cuba's trade with third parties: other countries are not under the jurisdiction of U.S. domestic laws

Cuba has only itself to blame for still being a poverty-stricken shithole.

Post: #517

(05-04-2017 09:38 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  And you never bothered to answer as to why food aid was sent to them by the dreaded imperialists. Why not?

The so called "food aid" isn't exactly the generous act of selfless charity you think it is. It often comes with a big hidden price like changing their laws and customs, and lot of little conditions like letting in foreigners to manage it. Of whom 75% are legit charity workers and 25% are spies.

The bogus charities and aid excuse is one of the main things Putin in Russia has cracked down hard on in the last 20 years. He's banned and/or kicked out the most of them. He knows what they really do behind the scenes. The DPRK is wise to this game as well.

Post: #518

(05-04-2017 08:27 AM)Sherman Wrote:  Where is your evidence that North Korea is a bad place. Give us your best sources and the reasons why we should believe them. That way men can make their own decisions.

No, dear. That's not how the game is played. I realise you'd love to turn this into a 50 page pissing match about who holds the burden of proof, but you don't get out from underneath your burden by claiming the other guy has one.

(05-04-2017 08:27 AM)Sherman Wrote:  Also, why does a North Korean newspaper have to be critical of Kim? Tell us exactly when North Korea adapted the US constitution. Also, explain to us how Kim has violated the North Korean constitution. What gives you the right to tell North Korea what to do? Is this freedom?

Still trying to straw man, are we? Having problems finding an article in a North Korean newspaper critical of Kim, I take it?

The US Constitution does not have a monopoly on the concept of freedom of speech. Indeed America was not even original on that score: the UK had already enacted freedom of speech in Parliament in 1689. But pretty much every rational, sane nation on the planet which proclaims itself a democracy recognises that freedom of speech is twinned with democracy.

And, at least according to North Korea's own name for its nation -- the DPRK, standing for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- North Korea holds itself out to be a democracy. They even hold elections, though amusingly Kim's party of choice hasn't lost since the Korean War, oddly enough. North Korea need not have the US Constitution. But if it doesn't have at least something approximating freedom of speech, it's not a democracy, and its assertion of its own identity is false.

If a paper is free to be critical of its own government it's a pretty good rough indicator that the nation has something approximating a free press, and therefore something approximating freedom of speech in that country. The corollary is clear: if the paper never criticises the government or the ruler, it's a strong indicator they are cowed into obedience or are simply not allowed to criticise the government at law.

Time and again, the historical record shows that a country in which you cannot criticise the government, at point of law (or at gunpoint, as is more likely in North Korea) is a country where the government can't afford to allow anyone freedom of speech because of how it's treating its own citizens. It also cannot allow anyone to criticise the ruler because that ruler rests on a cult of personality which must be fuelled in order to remain credible to the populace he oppresses, and which open criticism by a media source endangers. There is no other reasonable motivation for doing that to your own people.

That is, in North Korea the concept of lese majeste -- offending the dignity of the monarch -- is still in existence. Most other democracies got rid of that idea around the time they got rid of their monarchs or relegated their monarchs to figurehead status. But given Lil' Kim has most of his military stuck in the 1980s, it's no surprise his ideas of democracy are also still sitting back around the 1500s as well. Some people have said North Korean government looks a lot more like an Imperial Chinese court from a thousand years ago than it does a communist state, or even a democracy for that matter.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #519

Countries with the word "democratic" or the phrase "people's republic" in their names are usually anything but democratic. DPRK has both ...

Post: #520

Some members in this thread souns awfully similar to Alejandro Cao de Benos

Post: #521

(05-04-2017 10:43 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:  Some people have said North Korean government looks a lot more like an Imperial Chinese court from a thousand years ago than it does a communist state, or even a democracy for that matter.

...

Post: #522

(05-04-2017 06:45 AM)Mercenary Wrote:  Even in modern day Japan social harmony is the norm.
Japan has a lot of its own problems, like a dying birthrate and people working 18 hour shifts, but if you watch TV there or read media everything is mostly fine, all are happy and Japan is the best place on earth. They don't say it outright and blatantly like in the DPRK, but the general mindset is that.

The top story today on Yomiuri (One of Japan's largest newspapers) national news page is about the declining birthrate. This took me about 30 seconds to find: I went to Yomiuri, clicked "national", and there it was. It was at the very top. I didn't look for a story on say 過労死 (Death from Overwork), but I know there was one that was one in April that was widely reported enough that it hit the US media.

How much time do you spend reading Japanese media that you feel comfortable making pronouncements like this?

Post: #523

(05-04-2017 10:43 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

(05-04-2017 08:27 AM)Sherman Wrote:  Where is your evidence that North Korea is a bad place. Give us your best sources and the reasons why we should believe them. That way men can make their own decisions.

No, dear. That's not how the game is played. I realise you'd love to turn this into a 50 page pissing match about who holds the burden of proof, but you don't get out from underneath your burden by claiming the other guy has one.

In other words you don't have evidence to back up what you say. Not even any government reports? And please no fag talk. Lets keep this civil. After all, isn't America suppose to be about having a difference of opinion?

Post: #524

(05-04-2017 02:37 PM)Sherman Wrote:  

(05-04-2017 10:43 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

(05-04-2017 08:27 AM)Sherman Wrote:  Where is your evidence that North Korea is a bad place. Give us your best sources and the reasons why we should believe them. That way men can make their own decisions.

No, dear. That's not how the game is played. I realise you'd love to turn this into a 50 page pissing match about who holds the burden of proof, but you don't get out from underneath your burden by claiming the other guy has one.

In other words you don't have evidence to back up what you say. Not even any government reports? And please no fag talk. Lets keep this civil. After all, isn't America suppose to be about having a difference of opinion?

I doubt North Koreans are more alpha and strong than US servicemen, the NKs are chronically malnourished!

Quote:"The soldier may have decided that he couldn’t stand another eight years after enduring repeated beatings without getting properly fed for the past two years. As starving soldiers are even forced to farm the land to survive, those who cannot bear the hardship anymore are deciding to desert," added a separate source in Ryanggang Province.

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?...Id=nk01500

Post: #525

(05-04-2017 07:36 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  Here are some photos smuggled out North Korea by a photographer.

http://www.boredpanda.com/illegal-photos...huniewicz/

The photographer always had a guide on his ass the whole time.

That place is weird...

How does the photographer know that the guys by train are selling human feces? He's zipping by on a train, and they don't have a sign?

As wacky as the place is, just remember the propaganda goes both ways.

Aloha!