Yoshie forwarded...
From alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Dave Walters is a Trot I know w/ a passion for Ducati motorcycles.
Nethinks, Yoshie listens to much to another Leninist-International poster, Heikki Sippila of the Kominform list who has been to the DPRK many a time.
BTW, the latest issue of the International Socialist Review, has a book review of 4 or 5 books on the DPRK and ROK. The reviewer, correctly notes that Martin Hart-Landsberg who wrote a Monthly Review Press book in '98 on the DPRK is a lefty, but, by implication that Bruce Cumings, isnt! Not the first time, that the ISR has given book reviews over to the youngest comrades who haven't taken the time to at least skim other works by the authors. M.Pugliese
>... From: David Walters (dwalters at igc.org)
Subject: Re: THE AGRICULTURAL SITUATION OF NORTH KOREA
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky Date: 2003-07-23 19:46:08 PST
Not wanting to get in the middle of this love fest, I want to added a two points and some comments... 1. I think we all agree there is a disaster in North Korea. 2. I think the disaster, while natural in origins, is exaerbated by the rigid and undemocratic nature of a regime that believes that they live 'under socialism'. There is no denying the fact that reversal of what had been a staggeringly growing economy in the 60s and 70s, even without a shred of socialist democracy and the moronic cult of personality there. That a rigid passport system in and out of the capital city creating an artifical Potemkin city of the capital with mass starvation on the outside cannot help. My sources are Maoist and DPRK symps who go to N. Korea on a regular basis...they are under no illusions as to the economic and POLITICAL disaster that North Korea is. David
From: kevinmurphy (kevinmurphy999 at hotmail.com) Subject: Re: THE AGRICULTURAL SITUATION OF NORTH KOREA
This is the only article in this thread View: Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky Date: 2003-07-24 17:21:42 PST
Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com> wrote in message
news:<6k1uhvggbmdvlbup30agn5glpe7jekg5p6 at 4ax.com>...
> On 23 Jul 2003 14:44:06 -0700,
kevinmurphy999 at hotmail.com
> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
> >
> >Concrete? Several million starved to death based on
the workers' bomb
> >policies of your hero Kim the Second, children dig
for roots and
> >insects for nourishment, several hundred thousand
North Koreans are
> >incarcerated in Gulags (how many hundreds of
thousands of political
> >prisoners starved to death during the 1990s is
unknown), rats are
> >considered a delicacy in the Gulags, your thug
rulers sell slaves to
> >Russian logging camps. All the while your Stalinist
heroes eat
> >lobster, travel with "lady conductors", live in
luxury apartments, and
> >drive around in Mercedes limousines. What part of
that wasn't concrete
> >Koba?
>
> Murphy, is there really something seriously wrong
with your brain? I
> posted a substantive article by a South Korean
scholar that explained
> the food shortage as a function of natural causes
and the collapse of
> the USSR. Are the words too difficult for you to
understand? I will
> raise money to pay for a tutor so that he or she
might run it down for
> you in terms understandable to a cretin like
yourself. In any case, I
> will post it again and assume that you will stand
before it at a total
> loss as before. Don't you understand that when you
evade replying to
> something like this that you appear even more stupid
than normal?
I did respond. This Kim is no "scholar". No one in
their right mind
would quote approvingly from a Stalinist slogan,
unless of course they
were a Stalinist hack:
> Water conservation is very important, especially in
rice-growing
> regions. North Korea has a slogan: "Irrigation is
the lifeblood of
> agriculture and without irrigation, there is no
increase in
> productivity."
Proyect's Stalinist "scholar" does not include a
*single* footnote is
his fourth-rate piece of crap. What are the
"scholarly" sources for
this "natural disaster" apologia by the "scholar"
Woon-Kean Kim? Well,
none other than "references" to Woon-Kean Kim and
"unpublished
mimoes"!
Question: why is the Stalinist hack Louis Proyect
offering the ISO
"scholarly" lessons on footnotes?
Kevin Murphy
REFERENCES
Kim, Woon-Keun. 1993 Evaluation of Agricultural
Productivity in North
Korea. Korea Rural Economic Institute, 1993.
Kim, Woon-Keun, An Estimation of 1996 Grain Production
in North Korea.
Korea Rural Economic Institute, 1996.
Kim, Woon-Keun. 1996. The Food Crisis in North Korea:
Background and
Prospects. 8,4 East Asian Review 1996.
Kim, Woon-Keun. 1998. Food Situation and Agricultural
Reform in North
Korea. Journal of Rural Development, Korea Rural
Economic Institute,
10.
Kim, Woon-Keun, Hyun Ok Lee, Daniel A. Summer,
Assessing the Food
Situation in North Korea. Economic Development and
Cultural Change.
Eugene, C.I. and B.C. Koh. 1982. Journey to North
Korea.
FAO. 1998. DPRK, Agricultural Recovery and
Environmental Protection
(AREP) Programme, 20 Nov, 1998. (Unpub. mimeo.).
FAO. WFP 1998. Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop and Food
Supply Assesment
Mission to the DPRK. (Unpub. mimeo).
FAO. DPRK, Livestock Development and Vegetable
Production
GCP/DRK/002/ROK. (Unpub. mimeo.).
Moon, Pal-Yong. 1992. Agricultural Economy of North
Korea.
IFAD. 1997. Investment Framework for the Agricultural
Sector, Dec.
1997. (Unpub. mimeo).