RES: a trip to North Korea

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Apr 22 12:55:00 PDT 2000


Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:


>What's your (or anyone's) socialist alternative for North Korea?

That's an excellent question, and I don't know the answer, and I don't think you do either. NK-style "self-reliance" is a disaster. On all but the most slavishly devoted accounts, the country is desperately poor and governed by a bizarre personality cult. In what ways are "socialist" North Koreans any better off than the proletarians of capitalist South Korea? Do you really think a small country can disengage completely from the outside world?


>Don't tell me you propose that we send them Lou Reed cassettes &
>giant puppets made by Art & Revolution!

Gee, I hadn't thought of that. Excellent idea! Let's start a movement!


>I wish that U.S. leftists took seriously the necessity of removing
>the American military presence from the Asia-Pacific theatre (which
>would help North Koreans _a lot_), but I'm afraid anti-militarism &
>anti-imperialism in America are practically dead.

Oh really? There are few things I'd like to see more than the U.S. military pull out of everywhere, and I bet most of the people who constitute the U.S. left, such as it is, would agree. So who, aside from the NATO-loving social democrats, are you talking about?

Doug



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