>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>But it won't make anything better for any North Korean; it will
>>only reinforce the long-standing reactionary U.S. government policy
>>toward North Korea and other poor nations (especially Cuba, Iraq,
>>Yugoslavia, etc. that are under its sanctions). I suppose that's
>>the foremost political duty of American "leftists." What America
>>does to the rest of the world, if they ever disobey, is to napalm
>>them first and laugh at their scarred faces later.
>
>If you're saying that's what NK-criticizing leftists do, then that's
>libelous nonsense. If that's not what you're saying, then I'm at a
>loss to figure out what your point is.
Remarks made by you, Brad, Dennis, Elizabeth, etc., in my view, don't really rise to the level of "criticism." Criticism demands some real knowledge about the object of criticism -- say, the kind that Steve often provides with regard to China, which I've always read carefully and learned much from.
At least I made efforts to provide some empirical grounds for discussion by citing the CIA, the State Department, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a Washington Post article, Bruce Cumings' _War and Television_, etc. For my efforts, what do I get in return? Just logos: Stalinism, the cult of personality, etc. So, in my view, no one has actually criticized North Korea on this list, unless labeling is the same as criticizing. Such equation may well pass for "information" in America, the preeminent land of the cult of branding, however. Doxa works by self-evidence, not by encouraging informed discussion. Logos (as in branding) = Logos (as in truth).
Enjoy (as Coca-Cola says),
Yoshie