Yeah I’m not sure this is a meme.
Doesn’t meet the min requirement of being funny.
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Lemmy is primarily developed by Marxist-Leninists, there are a lot of Marxists and anarchists here.
I’ll take your word on that for now. Tragic if true. Thankfully I’ve no problem calling out silliness when I see :)
There’s no need to take my word for anything, Lemmygrad.ml and Hexbear.net are some of the oldest instances. Lemmy was made as an anti-capitalist alternative to Reddit, where communists couldn’t be censored.
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In what way did you “address how stupid communists are?”
You have your own liberal instances. Honestly, I think you’re just angry.
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9·13 hours agoIt’s almost as if Cowbee responded to you ~2 minutes after OP and therefore was in here and could upvote just 10 seconds after OP made their comment.
Can confirm, I sort by “New Comments” so that’s how I see things.
the minimum requirement for this to constitute a meme is for the members of the KKKommittee (that you’re a part of) to agree on whether this is funny or not.
Get a grip.
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Aww, was that too much for you to handle, kkkrakker? Not even beating the allegations lol… Of course the Westoid projects his insecurity through the lens of submissive other, pornographic imagery and sexism.
real
True but, despite how soulless it is, I’d still rather live in the occupied zone. It’s financially privileged by the West though, so that makes sense. 🤷
You’d really choose to live under a foreign occupation? I’m not sure I would if I could choose.
What’s with all the Korea shit recently?
I live in South Korea. It’s convenient, safe, and modern. I might be biased because I live in Gangnam, but I feel like people here have more spending power on average than people in the US.
The societal pressure is a fucking nightmare, but that’s a uniquely Korean thing. Nothing to do with the US.
Calling the South under foreign occupation is utter nonsense. Obviously, it’s hyperbole and propagandist, but it also acts like Korea doesn’t have its own culture or resist American influence. Quit trying to be edgy and use your brain.
If you want to talk about occupation, read up on the Japanese occupation of Korea. That was foreign occupation.
The immense societal pressure is directly related to the ROK’s colonization by the US Empire. From the outset, when the US went in to the southern half and made the PRK illegal, the US millitary directly created a society strictly regimented, millitant, and with the purpose of being a foothold for the US Empire in East Asia. There is a direct line from imperialist Japanese colonization of Korea to the modern colonization of the Republic of Korea. Reunification activists, above all else, seek to expel the US Empire from the peninsula so that Koreans can decide for themselves how they wish to chart their course, free from US dominance and the chaebol compradors.
Korea absolutely has its own culture. It’s a rich, historied culture. Blaming societal ills on Korean culture, and not on the US-installed system that directly went against the collaborative system that Koreans were charting for themselves before the US made it illegal is a chauvanistic point of view. Lee Sung-Man, Park Chung-Hee, Chun Do-Hwan, all fascist dictators that were met with revolutionary violence that the US came in and crushed, or was crushed by the fascist comprador regime. Korean culture is not to be stomped on in a heavily regimented society, that’s a direct consequence of an uninterrupted line of colonialism that directly erases the common history across both sides of the DMZ of anti-imperialism and collectivization.
Okay, your second paragraph confuses the hell out of me. It sounds like you’re arguing against yourself. Can you rephrase it for me? I want to understand what you’re saying.
Also, the US doesn’t have an emperor. It may be imperialistic, but it’s not an empire. But reading that makes me imagine it as an actual empire, which is fucking terrifying. Please don’t? At least for me? That makes me wildly uncomfortable.
So… The US occupied the South until the ROK was established. This was kind of like Germany but for a much shorter time. When the North invaded the South, UN forces came to help. Yes, there was a direct line from Japanese occupation to US occupation, but US occupation ended very shortly afterwards. Say what you will about influence, but influence and occupation are very distinct. And yes, the US fucking with the PRK was terrible. I’m with you on that. But we’re talking about South Korea today.
But going back to the original point, if the societal pressure results from the US, then why don’t we see such pressure in the US itself? Your historical argument for this doesn’t stand.
A simpler explanation is the rise of Neo-Confucianism during the Joseon dynasty. It was patriarchal, focused on hierarchical structures, and expected testing for advancement. This clearly leads to competitive behaviors. While you could argue the US has similar things, Neo-Confucianism cranked that up to 11. The Joseon dynasty after Sejong was pretty shit. Korea was like this before the US showed up, even before the Japanese showed up (the last time. They tried so many times before that).
To rephrase the second paragraph, it isn’t naturally “Korean culture” that keeps Korean society in the ROK so strictly regimented and class-based. Korean culture, without US presense, formed to be very collaborative and anti-colonial from the decades of fighting against Japanese colonization. That’s why when Korea was free, they formed the People’s Republic of Korea, a quasi-socialist state based on people’s committees. The years and years of collective resistance to Japanese imperialism had advanced a collective culture.
When the US millitary came in, they divided the nation in two, and made the PRK an illegal state. This was a wildly unpopular thing to do, because Korean society was advancing its own sovereignty. This sparked conflict, such as the rebels in Jeju Island, to the general massacre of communists in the south. The US millitary installed what would later become the ROK in place, using much of the old, colonial compradors from Japanese colonialism. The new politicians, officials, etc. were the direct descendents and even the same people from the colonial government that cut deals with the Japanese and sold out their countrymen.
The US didn’t do this all just to be evil. The US did this because the US Empire’s long-term plans for the Pacific involved restarting the Japanese empire as a subservient empire. Essentially, the US was rebuilding Japan and trying to start the same colonial relationship going, but instead of the Japanese Emperor, the profits would mainly be going to the US. What prevented this from truly happening was the Korean War. Following the Korean War, the ROK went from Lee Sung-Man to Park Chung-Hee to Chun Do-Hwan, all fascist dictators, and US financial capital poured into the ROK to both build it up and profit dramatically from it, directly working with the government and the chaebol. The ROK millitary is even subservient to the US millitary “in times of war,” which hasn’t ended since the 50s.
To sum it up, had Koreans been left to their own devices, the PRK would exist today as a more collaborative, quasi-socialist or outright socialist society. The strict regimentation of society and dominance of the chaebol we see in the southern half of the peninsula is due to the comprador regime put in place by the US Empire, which still recieves backlash from the revolutionary undertones of the Korean working class. We see this at Jeju, at Gwang-Ju, and so forth. The US occupation of Korea serves as a millitary base in East Asia to keep the PRC in check. This is all ignoring the atrocities and genocide committed by the US against Koreans, including various massacres and the entire history of “comfort girls.”
As for the US Empire, it very much is an empire. An empire is not determined by having a literal emperor, but by running an economy that leverages economic and millitary power to extract vast wealth from other countries, in this era through the dominance of finance capital. This is a good article on imperialism, but if you want to understand it from how it formed to how it exists today then Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism followed by Super-Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance will catch you up.
As far as decolonizing Korea goes, check out the orgs listed in the People’s Summit for Korea, particularly the Korean orgs as you said you’re in Gangnam.
but it also acts like Korea doesn’t have its own culture or resist American influence
Also… I am no Korean expert, but doesn’t North Korea have, uhh… some influence from their northern neighbors, too? Like, significant influence?
I wouldn’t call the North ‘occupied’ either, and obviously the agreements and military logistics are different, but still, it seems a bit hypocritical to call South Korea an assimilated vassal or whatever.
The DPRK has some mutual trade and cultural exchange with the Russian Federation and PRC. It’s certainly not colonized like the southern half of Korea is, though, it’s just normal diplomacy. The ROK, on the other hand, was directly set up by the US Empire after declaring the country the entirety of Korea was making, the People’s Republic of Korea, illegal. The ROK’s millitary is directly subservient to US commanders. Recognition of the ROK as colonized isn’t exclusively a communist thing, reunification activists generally recognize this. Check out the orgs that attended the People’s Summit for Korea.
Uhh… the USSR occupied the North until Kim Il-Sung took control. Just like the US with the South.
The (current) relationships between the North and China and between the South and the US are very similar, except the US has military bases in the South. But the US does that with all its allies.
As for the ROK military being directly subservient… I’m not as knowledgeable about this, but I think that’s only half true. The Korean military largely focuses on logistics and raw manpower, plus their special forces. (Holy shit, Korean special forces are fucking terrifying.) It’s largely understood that the US would lead operations, given that the US has more veterans, mass, and better-tested doctrine. However, as I understand, legally, Korea still controls its own military. KOTRA is one exception, but that’s a small subset of Korea’s military. But to be clear, this is my understanding from passive learning. I could be wrong about things and don’t have the time to read up right this moment. I’d appreciate corrections with sources.
The USSR was mostly hands-off with the DPRK, when the DPRK formed it was more of a merging of the various socialist parties with the remnants of the PRK that were not declared illegal in the North. Further, the US is extractionary towards the ROK, while the PRC is not towards the DPRK, the economic relations are different because the modes of production are different. Further, the scale of US millitary presense in the ROK is far beyond typical for its allies.
As for the source on the US being in charge, here’s the Wikipedia article on the ROK/US Combined Forces Command. 1 four star US general in command with 1 four star ROK general as deputy commander. It only applies “in wartime.”
To give you a real answer and not a canned response by a North Korean propagandist lol, the uptick in Korea-posting is probably due to the fact that Trump and the South Korean president met either yesterday or the day before, and the meeting (afaik) went well. I’m no fan of Trump, but I can also recognize that SK is a long-standing US ally, so I’m glad things went well. Obviously, NK is pissed that it went well so they’re sending out propaganda for dipshit “leftist” westerners to parrot brainlessly while also likely having their own people comment on places like this.
International politics is weird nowadays and everything revolves around social unity/division through internet platforms.
Yeah, I realized that when I saw that news later. Not sure about the DPRK explicitly sending out propaganda, but it makes sense the it would get pro-DPRK folks active
Let me get this clear, you think the DPRK is sending out propaganda on Lemmy.ml? Because of a meeting between Trump and Lee Jae-Myeong?
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What counts as “doing work” for the DPRK? Further, the ableism and ageism in the rest of that paragraph is disgusting, even ignoring the generic anti-communism.
As for posting about Korea, it’s not a new thing. There are many communists, anarchists, and otherwise anti-imperialists that want the US kicked out of the peninsula. I have met several Koreans IRL that want the US out so that reunification can happen, this is the standard demand from reunification activists. Check out the orgs that attended the People’s Summit for Korea in July of this year, with many Statesian and Korean orgs attending.
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Sometimes (but rarely, I’d like to believe) I make decisions out of convenience and leave my ideals behind, what can I say. 😓
