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August 1, 2017

Propaganda in the age of Kim Jong-Un: A discussion with Professor B.R. Myers

What follows is an email discussion between myself and Professor B.R. Myers of Dongsoo University, author of “The Cleanest Race” and “North Korea’s Juche Myth,” and keeper of the Sthele Press blog. At the end of the discussion, I thought readers might enjoy reading it, and Professor Myers graciously agreed to let me print it here. ~   ~   ~ Stanton: A few weeks ago, a commenter at my blog cited your work as evidence that North Koreans probably still...
Categories Interviews/Propaganda/Racism/Subversion
January 18, 2016

On MLK Day, remember North Korea’s state-sanctioned racism

Today, my multiracial family and I reflected on the debt we owe to the movement that Martin Luther King, Jr. symbolized and, for a too-brief period in our history, led. My children and I reflected on this day by talking about the fact that in the state where we live, within my lifetime, the marriage of their parents would have been unlawful under local anti-miscegenation laws. These, thankfully, were struck down as unconstitutional under the wonderfully named case of Loving...
Categories Racism
April 2, 2015

Tell me who you boycott and I’ll tell you who you are: On Indiana, S. Africa & N. Korea

As I write this, advocacy groups nationwide are recomposing the tested strategy of using economic isolation to coerce an oppressive, backward regime to improve its human rights practices. The regime, unfortunately, isn’t North Korea; it’s Indiana. That strategy, however, is a moral muscle memory to those of us who came of age as America and Europe mobilized to boycott and sanction apartheid out of existence. Then, when President Reagan came out for “constructive engagement” with South Africa, he was met...
Categories History/Racism/Sanctions
December 29, 2014

Christine Hong has been curiously silent about North Korea’s racism

By now, most of you have probably read that North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency, referring to President Obama’s failure to censor “The Interview,” said that “Obama Reckless always in words and Deeds Goes like a Monkey in a Tropical Forest.” (KCNA.kp is unlinkable, but I’ve pasted the full article below the fold. The article in question is dated December 27, 2014.) This is the third racist attack on President Obama KCNA has printed, and the second it has printed under its...
Categories Racism/Useful Idiocy
October 25, 2014

Charm offensive! N. Korean “diplomats” call Botswana’s UN Ambassador a “black bastard,” laugh at testimony of gulag survivors

Discussion about North Korea’s crimes against humanity is accelerating so quickly that it’s becoming difficult to keep up with it all. Last week, among other events, diplomats from Australia, Panama, and Botswana–which severed diplomatic relations with North Korea after the Commission of Inquiry published its report–held a Panel Discussion on human rights in the North. Not surprisingly, Botswana’s U.N. Ambassador is the latest target of North Korea’s racism, according to Vice News: At one point, members of the North Korean...
Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/Racism/WTF?
May 9, 2014

Full translation of racist North Korean attack on President Obama, now posted

Here. Some of the North Korean vernacular is quite a struggle to translate, and upgrades are welcomed. What’s most surprising about it, aside from the fact that it was published at all, is how crude and silly it is. Some will dismiss it, some will infantilize it, and some will trivialize it, but what we should do is confront and understand it. This is North Korea’s government — not as we want it to be, but as it is.
Categories Anju Links/Racism
May 7, 2014

Really? North Korea called President Obama “a wicked black monkey”? (Update: It’s worse than that; Update 2, now with full translation)

Oh, yes they did: Park made waste water-like reckless remarks slandering the DPRK’s line on simultaneously developing two fronts after inviting her American master reminiscent of a wicked black monkey to visit south Korea on April 25…. The people are unanimous in deploring the fact that there is no remedy for curing Park’s mental disease as she has gone so mad with hurling mud at the nuclear deterrence of justice which the fellow countrymen in the north have had access...
Categories AP Watch/Diplomacy/Racism/WTF?
August 30, 2010

North Korea and South Africa: A Study in Hypocrisy

After less than three weeks, FIFA has closed its investigation into allegations that players and coaches of North Korea’s losing soccer team were subjected to criticism sessions when they returned home. But when you go to FIFA’s web site, it’s apparent that FIFA’s “investigation” consisted of opening and reading a letter from the North Koreans denying it. I have no inside knowledge of whether the allegations are true, but I know that FIFA has no more idea of the truth...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Racism/Sports
February 2, 2010

Christopher Hitchens on Brian Myers’s “The Cleanest Race”

Hitchens writes: All of us who scrutinize North Korean affairs are preoccupied with one question. Do these slaves really love their chains? The conundrum has several obscene corollaries. The people of that tiny and nightmarish state are not, of course, allowed to make comparisons with the lives of others, and if they complain or offend, they are shunted off to camps that–to judge by the standard of care and nutrition in the “wider” society–must be a living hell excusable only...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Books & Films/Korean Society/Propaganda/Racism
January 30, 2010

Brian Myers Will Do Book Event in D.C.

I may have to find the time to attend this: Brian Myers is coming to The Wilson Center to discuss his new book. I’m going to withhold judgment until I read it. Myers has written much great work about North Korea, the state’s wierd pathology, and the problems with viewing it as merely a Stalinist state, but the thing is, the Great Confiscation looks awfully Stalinist to me, and I’m not yet persuaded why North Korea can’t be both racist...
Categories Books & Films/Racism
October 4, 2009

Brian Myers on the New North Korean Constitution

My thanks to one reader and one commenter who have drawn my attention to Brian Myers’s latest piece in the Wall Street Journal. Here, summed up, is Myers’s central thesis: These changes do not reflect a sudden shift in policy. Despite the world media’s tradition of referring to North Korea as a “hardline communist” or “Stalinist” state, it has never been anything of the sort. From its beginnings in 1945 the regime has espoused–to its subjects if not to its...
Categories Kremlinology/Propaganda/Racism
April 3, 2008

Not Another Nazi Ad Campaign in Korea …

Yes, I’m afraid it is. Hurry and see the video on this Naver page before it’s taken down. [Update: Brian, praise be unto him, made YouTube videos, which you can see on a previous post at his blog. Oddly enough, I looked for something about this on YouTube and didn’t find them, but it’s good to record these things for posterity.] “Even Hitler didn’t unite the East and West.” Isn’t fascism erotic? I wonder how long she would have lasted...
Categories Korean Society/Racism/WTF?
March 30, 2007

Back (Nationalism, Meet Socialism, Part 3)

For those who noticed my absence, thanks.  Work became too busy to allow any time for blogging, and what time wasn’t spent reading First Amendment cases was spent cleaning up kid-puke. So, have you seen UsInKorea’s video?  You really, really should.  Especially if you’ve ever considered going to the Arirang Festival. Update:   You may recall that I’ve noted some of the same similarities of ceremony,  as well as the  similar ideology of racial purity  shared by North Korea and...
Categories Racism
February 8, 2007

Wiesenthal Center Condemns Anti-Semitic ‘Monnara Iunnara’ Comic Book

A few initial observations before I relate the rest of this story.  First, I predict that no embassies will be burned and no riots will ensue as a result of these comics. Second is a story that I may never have told here, but will tell now.  In February of 2004, when British newspapers first reported that North Korea was killing men, women, and kids in a gas chamber at Camp 22, near Hoeryong, North  Hamgyeong Province,  I (and others)...
Categories Korean Society/Racism
May 17, 2006

Nationalism, Meet Socialism, Part 2

Behind chilling practice lies chilling theory, as expounded by a North Korean general: “Our nation has always considered its pure lineage to be of great importance — I am concerned that our singularity will disappear. Instead of contradicting him, the South Korean delegation said such dilution of the bloodline was “but a drop of ink in the Han River,” adding this would cause no problems “if we all live together.” Let’s not bicker and argue over who diluted who…. But...
Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Society/NK Military/Racism
April 29, 2006

Nationalism Meets Socialism: North Korean Propaganda Extols Racial Purity

As one who takes the position that our problems with North Korea will only end with the inevitable destruction of its regime, it’s moments like this when I have to pause to thank the Korea Central News Agency for giving me gems like this one (ht to the Marmot): A strange farce to hamstring the essential characters of the Korean nation and seek for “multiracial society” is now being held in south Korea. In this regard Rodong Sinmun today runs...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Korean Society/Racism
August 7, 2005

Signs of the Times: So This Is Why I Spent Four Years in Korea

Above: 1950. A Marine plays taps over the graves of just a few of the 33,629 Americans killed in action in Korea. Below: August 2005. South Korean demonstrators show their appreciation for their prosperity and freedom of speech by standing at the entrance to a soccer match holding signs that say, “American soldiers not admitted.” The U.S. team was not playing. Isolated incident? No. Barring American soldiers from Korean businesses is quite common, as I can attest from personal experience,...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Racism