Image is from this CNN article.
The DPRK’s history has been a rollercoaster, with admirable highs and heartbreaking lows, most notably the Korean War and the fall of the USSR. Its steadfast commitment to Juche, a variant of Marxism-Leninism that focuses on self-sufficiency, has both made the DPRK a target for imperialist genocidal powers, and allowed them to survive these attacks.
Lately, we seem to be seeing a transition from surviving to thriving. China and the DPRK have always had a much more complicated history than Western education and media allows its population to know, with periods of quite strong disagreement - it’s not the case that China is somehow the DPRK’s master. Russia is the DPRK’s other neighour that isn’t US-occupied, and while they obviously differ substantially in ideology since the USSR fell, the tsunami of sanctions on Russia has changed things. The stick has been removed from the equation, with Russia facing no possible punishment from the West because they were unable to enact sanctions effectively and used all their ammunition in the first few barrages rather than turning the screws over time (I don’t care if we’re on the 14th sanctions package, it’s all been meaningless for Russia since the end of 2022).
The carrot is also more visible, with an alliance making a lot of sense for both. Once again, Western education and media would have you believe a Parenti-esque reality in which Korea is a massive and unpredictable danger to the world, but is simultaneously so poor and destitute that their artillery pieces are made of wood and their missiles out of paper-mache. The truth is that Korea has innovated greatly in missile technology, with some of their weapons matching or even exceeding those of the Russians, hence the Russians’ use of them in Ukraine. Russia also finds it advantageous to invest in Korea to strengthen the anti-hegemonic alliance’s presence in the Pacific, countering the US-occupied lower half of the peninsula who has naturally sided with Ukraine. Additionally, Russia is investing deeply in the Arctic sea route. This will open up as climate change continues; is naturally quite defensible for Russia so long as Korea is there to provide further defense at its eastern edge; and is both a faster and safer route for Russia to access China - especially in a world where straits can be blockaded by even impoverished yet determined countries like Yemen. The situation in the Red Sea benefits Russia and China now, but in the coming years, the US may apply the same lesson for their own benefit elsewhere.
It is perhaps this new sense of self-confidence that has let Korea give up on reunification with its lower half via peaceful measures. A new Korean War would be devastating for both sides even if it remained non-nuclear, but with a rising DPRK and with the South falling yet further into hypercapitalist exploitation and misery, and a US that remains non-committal to its “allies” when times get difficult (as in Ukraine and Europe), a reality where Korea may finally hold the upper hand and have the ability to liberate its south may be approaching in the years and decades to come.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is *the DPRK! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
I honestly still cannot believe that Biden knowingly started a war in Ukraine that will inevitably bring devastating consequences to Europe itself where hundreds of millions of lives are at risk. This is insanely ghoulish and will be looked back upon in history as a critical hinge point. I feel like 20 years from now Biden’s atrocities will result in higher, far higher casualties than both Bush presidencies combined.
Like, Trump is obviously bad for assassinating an Iranian general (you could even argue that he was duped by his advisors for “assassinating a rogue general will force the Iranians to stand down”), but Biden just knowingly goes on and on with the intent of getting as many people killed as possible, with no signs of willing to cede to diplomacy at all despite what some have been saying. It’s insane to even think about it. We might truly be on a brink for WWIII.
Biden is fast approaching the worst US President in all of history, and that’s a high bar
Yeah, Bush II is his only real competition for worst and all the other presidents were ghoulish monsters so the bar was about as low as it could get
IMO Jackson is still in the run for the Trail of Tears and other contributions to acute genocide at home. But there’s definitely something to be said for the global impact of Dubya and Genocide Joe’s…contributions.
I don’t really like most/best/worst judgements anyway, I guess. They are fucking horrific monsters who have destroyed the lives of millions if not billions. Why make it a competition to compare details of that just to see who we think comes in “first”? There’s no need to beauty-contest this shit.
I mean Poppy Bush perhaps, but it might be cheating when you did most of it before ever eventually managing to drag yourself over the finish line to the Oval Office.
For modern presidents, his main competitors are Dubya for Iraq and Truman if you blame him for the creation of the CIA and for letting the Dulles bros do what they wanted. Truman also signed off on nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
While I agree with the general sentiment, it really is hard to fathom how truly evil Nixon was. All US presidents are war criminals, they all have blood on their hands. But Nixon is probably the only US president that belongs alongside Hitler with the truly, most heinous political leaders of the last few centuries.
Throwing Europe under the bus to delay America’s decline was a feature
I’m an American who is old enough to have protested the Iraq invasion when I was in college. And a question I have been asking myself recently is, is Biden’s involvement in Gaza the most evil thing the US has done in my lifetime? Both the support given to the Contras in Nicaragua and the Iraq invasion have a higher death toll. But there is something about the sheer cruelty of Gaza that is so visible, and the outcry from the rest of the world so loud… it’s a question I have been thinking about, at least.
It’s gonna be hard to top Bush Sr and the genocidal sanctions regime deployed against the Iraqi people, at least in numbers. Millions of deaths. That is shared between him and Clinton, of course, just as Biden’s wars in Ukraine and Palestine will be inherited and likely continued by whoever succeeds him (in some form or another).
That’s why I said it will take 20 years before the effect will be apparent. With dozens of African countries set to default over the next few years due to Biden’s policies, together the fact that Europe hasn’t even gone under and is just starting to pursue an austerity policy that has nothing to slow it down, the blood under Biden’s hands is going to be much, much higher than anyone can imagine right now.
korea and vietnam wars included the deaths of over 10 million people, but that blame is spread over several administrations