RES: a trip to North Korea

[Brad De Long]

>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.
>
>Some leftists apparently like to defend North Korea because it helps 
>position themselves as more righteous & militant than those who 
>won't.
>
>Doug

It's much worse than that.

South Korea has (albeit starting relatively recently) multiparty 
elections; North Korea has hereditary dictatorship. South Korea is 
relatively prosperous; North Korea is desperately poor. South Korea 
has (relative) freedom of speech; North Korea does not.

To speak of North Korea's regime as if it has some merit--as if the 
best solution isn't its immediate collapse and absorption by South 
Korea--is to say that the abolition of private enterprise and the 
bourgeoisie is a benefit so overwhelming as to more than offset the 
absence of elections, the restrictions on speech, the material 
poverty, and so on.

And if you think that political democracy, free speech, and material 
prosperity are so unimportant, why on earth should the rest of us 
trust your judgment on anything else?

Brad DeLong