
Unsurprisingly the programme was a disturbing affair,
exposing the horrendous conditions that Koreans are forced to live under, whether
it was electricity constantly turning on and off, people cleaning clothing in
streams due to a lack of running water, hospitals totally devoid of patients,
and most of all the effort that the government went through to present a façade
of normality. The programme also turned out to be yet another excuse for
leftists to continue with their perpetual revisionism absolving Marxism of any association
with totalitarianism.
The morning after watching the programme my wife and I
both awoke with accounts of how the programme made us feel uneasy during our
slumber. My wife dreamt that she was forced off the bus that Sweeney and the
students were ushered around in, told that she would have to stay. Most of all
we both felt a similar sense of fear over the very thought of one day being the
ones forced to live as the North Koreans do now. Seeing North Korea from the
inside reinforced my own desires to stand against collectivism through raising
awareness online, so useful idiots can’t cause yet more horrendous suffering. The
potential of this suffering happening once again was made all the worse for me by
one particular claim during the programme.
Close to the start of the programme a professor of “International
Studies” (yes I know, any professor of a course with “studies” in the title is
going to be a leftist nine times out of ten) by the name of Brian Myers stated
that North Korea was a “far-right” regime because it had such a large military
and a heavy sense of nationalism and racial superiority in the country. To say
I was shocked that the revisionism on the BBC has become so brazen is an
understatement. I struggled to contain my frustration over the Stalinist style orthodoxy
that the BBC was airing.
The man who made this claim has an MA in “Soviet Studies”
(there it is again) and wrote the book “The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters” which insinuates that North Korea has a
policy of racial purity, while the North is a liberating force that will free
the South from foreign corruption. There is so much wrong with this description
that it would take far longer than I care to spend explaining why this is yet
more Marxist revisionism. However, I will focus on some key points.
What Korea is today is indeed a far more insular place
than it ever was. Its old ally the Soviet Union has long since collapsed and its
other major ally China is liberalising, seeing far more benefit in being a part
of the world economic arena than isolating itself as it once did. This leaves
North Korea more alone than ever, and the recent threats of force appear to
be a combination of desperation to make other nations provide aid and a means
for the new leader Kim Jong-un to show that he is a strong and capable leader. But
this was not always where North Korea found itself.
Like all Marxist and communist regimes North Korea started
with aspirations to centralise all control so that the workers could run the
factories, and the technocrats could deal with day-to-day bureaucracy. It never
occurs to leftists that this is a recipe for disaster. This centralisation of bureaucracy
is a sure-fire way to provide psychopaths with a means to kill off competitors (often
literally) and create a cult of personality based around them. This happens
every single time communist revolutions occur. We then hear the excuses ad
nauseum; the Soviet Union was state capitalism, Karl Marx had nothing to do
with the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century claiming to be
influenced by him, and now North Korea is “far-right”.
The biggest bee in the bonnet that destroys Brian Myers’ suggestions
about North Korea being “far-right”, and leftists go insane at the very mention
of, is that fascists are actually leftists, the term “far-right” is thus a
red-herring in this context. But once again we get the excuses; fascists were
capitalists because of the dominance of corporations and a strong focus on hierarchy,
this in spite of the fact that corporations are a marriage of state and corporate
central planning and cronyism. Leftists also ignore the amount of socialist subsidies
and welfare that fascist regimes have traditionally been involved in. Most of
all it’s when we use the accurate definitions of socialism that we can past the
lies; communists are international socialists, unconcerned with race but very much
concerned with eradicating class. Conversely fascists are national socialists,
more insular in their policies by focussing on preservation of race.
While communism is a naive ideology that suggests that
people can all be involved in decision-making without a leader naturally emerging,
even if this does end up becoming a psychopath prepared to kill all those in
their way, fascism does not try to dismiss the inevitability of hierarchy,
actively fermenting it through central planning. Above all both fascists and
communists do not believe that individuals can do a better job than the collective,
however they believe this can be achieved. What matters most is that individual
will and autonomy is crushed by these totalitarian ideologies, with all the
trappings of utopian promises that go with it.
When people understand the similarities between national
and international socialists they can then appreciate the nature of North Korea.
What happened to North Korea is what happens to all communist regimes. When
communist revolutions first occur this is far more optimistic than the isolated
racial purity of even fascism. Dreams of all workers of the world uniting are
what people strive to achieve. As the knowledge problem leads to failures of
central planning, along with a battle for control by the most dominant
personalities, the ‘people’s revolution’ becomes an Orwellian nightmare. If the
regime is unable to expand, as the USSR initially did, its attention will divert
ever more inward through the subjugation of its citizenry, so that leaders
cannot be overthrown. As the regime inevitably grows threatened by ‘outsiders’
it becomes more nationalistic and racially driven, just as North Korea has.
National and international socialists often feed off one
another through demonization of the other ideology, but have also allied
together in the past, as in the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939. Fascists
and communists are certainly two sides of the same coin, and have often validated
one another prior to World War Two, Hitler’s appreciation of Karl Marx for
example. It is a blatant strawman to conflate military might with fascism or
communism, as Brian Myers did in the BBC programme. Demand number eight of the
communist manifesto establishes that industrial armies are a requirement and
there is no mandate on their size. The origins of North Korea as a Marxist
state are impossible to refute, even if this did end in disaster, albeit I don’t
expect leftists to be honest enough to admit Marxist roots when presented with Kim
Jong-sung’s ‘Juche’, Mao’s collectivised farming in China, Stalin’s orthodoxy
based entirely around Marx’s historical materialism, or any other proof of Marx’s
pervasive influence on totalitarianism. What you can bank on from leftists is
more Marxist revisionism so that the mistakes of the past can be pushed for in
the future.
Excellent article, I listened to a radio show where "Dennis Prager" interviewed Brian Myer where he made the claim that North Korea was "far-right" ignoring every economical and sociological aspect of North Korea in his desperate attempt to draw a red line to Nazism. NSDAP was called the nationalist socialist workers party, there is nothing "far-right" about Nazism in the first case. The communist are trying to rewrite history again as they did with fascism claiming fascism and socialism was two different economical models. Your clarification between fascism and socialism is excellent in this article. The good thing in my experience so far is that none are fooled by this statement and that everyone knows north korea is a failed Æcommunist* state.
ReplyDeleteLiberals also forget the definition of corporatism, Norway is a corporate country and the Norwegian political science definition of corporatism is "a state were the government, unions and corporations work together through legislative action". Corporations are not "far-right" and looking at campaign contributions in the US proves that corporations donate more money to socialist.
It's information that people like you and I are having to repeat over and over. Make no mistake, this is deliberate misdirection, or otherwise known as lying, and it's time we fought fire with fire by shutting down their ability to perpetuate this. Leftists have no right to lie about the facts so that they can revise reality and make more people suffer under their rule. It's truly sickening.
DeleteThere is but one, more simple distinction between communists and fascists: the balance sheet. Communists own the means of production outright, thus their value is held in equity; whereas fascists prefer to lease the means, leaving them booked as a liability. Hence the Nation, rather than the State serves as the Owner and Master. I myself struggle to grasp the distinction without a difference.
ReplyDeleteThat aside, perhaps we should not overlook the European tradition that shows little tolerance for classical liberalism. In that European sense, fascism perhaps is indeed to the far right of communism. Forms of corporatism, mercantilism, or cronyism may be about as far to the right as they can get!
That's a nice distinction, and a very apt one. It has nothing to do with free markets, as leftists try to purport.
DeleteEver since the enlightenment a new form of collective tyranny began to emerge in Europe. It started with Rousseau, which resulted in the bloodshed of the French revolution, and is still continuing today with Marx's evil inspiration.
Until collectivism is outlawed, considering how immoral it is, its dark cloud will forever re-emerge.
I don't necessarily disagree with what you are saying in this article. However, your apparent inconsistency regarding left versus right is quite confusing. In an older article, you suggest that conservatives and liberals are both "leftists", libertarians on the right. And yet in this article, it seems as though you are blurring the lines and confusing your very own position on the matter. Unless you are indeed suggesting that conservatives are supporters of communists? I think this article would be far less confusing if you used "liberals," or something similar, rather than "leftists."
ReplyDeleteAs a libtard myself, I do not deny that communism is a liberal left ideology. However, what I do deny is any suggestion that I am somehow guilty by association, and that I must certainly adhere to all or even certain parts of any ideology.
You've basically just taken a whole load of statements I've made in many places and muddied them all together in an incoherent manner. This means that you are either obtuse, dishonest, or just not smart enough to grasp the philosophy. If you sincerely want to work on this then watch my video here:
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsVXqGX_Vx8
As for conservatism, it is a stance wherein the status quo is protected, and in China this is Maoist because that is what the establishment is derived from.
I am merely trying to offer a suggestion to avoid confusion.
DeleteThe problem with this article is when you use the word "leftist" I assume you mean liberal. And when you suggest that leftists are attempting to revise history to absolve ourselves of totalitarianism, you must be implying that we are attempting to shift the blame to the conservatives. I have never heard anybody anywhere ever accuse North Korea of being libertarian, or your understanding of "right wing." Collectivists, as you call us (both cons and libs), as opposed to libertarian/minarchist/anarchists, are the only ideologies that without limits can become totalitarian.
Therefore, your use of the word leftist in this article is confusing. I would suggest you say "liberal left," and or briefly explain what your spectrum is, and how you intend the words being used to be interpreted.
I offered you a video to watch, wherein you could understand the distinction between left and right, devoid of leftist revisionism. Yet here you are with more nonsense failing to distinguish between individual and collectivist rights, or negative and positive rights. You are thus blatantly insincere.
DeleteFor the record though, any system can only be legitimate if it protects rights that you have the natural ability to uphold, and are thus a part of your being, such as freedom and property. To actually grant an unnatural right makes it an act of suppression, since it is an act that must be based on coercion, particularly through the use of an authority that redefines natural law. Here is ANOTHER video explaining this aspect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6AzOTJzouE
Don't waste my time with another reply of this calibre. You must think me a fool if you actually believe I consider this behaviour to be anything more than muddying. I get this over and over again from collectivists of all extremes, be it soft collectivism from neo-conservatism, or hard collectivism from fascists and Marxists.