Tankies be like: Wow such unity. That’s because he’s such a magnificent leader and there are zero problems in the very democratic people’s Republic of Korea.
Yeah, why would anybody run against such a great and glorious leader?
Edit /s
Top ml mod has a say sorry to DPRK form he sometimes sends, I’ve heard.
My political beliefs are maybe…tankie adjacent. I think it’s totally fair to criticize the lack of a fair and equal democratic process in Korea. However, the conditions in that country are in a lot of ways the direct result of how the Western world has treated them for almost a century. It’s a very predictable reaction if you don’t buy into the philosophy of the predominant capitalist empire of their day.
why are they invading the Ukraine?
Everyone needs a friend.
Maybe I’m out of the loop, but wasn’t that debunked? Or at least there was never any concrete evidence that was true? Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong though. I haven’t been following the Ukraine war super closely.
Definitely an interesting story. I guess Russia and Korea view NATO as their common enemy. So it makes some sense to me even if it seems over the top on paper.
Quick question. If Russia invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO expansion, why are there now two more countries in NATO than before the invasion? Is NATO encircling Russia like the tankies say, or are Russia’s neighbors running for any protection from Russian imperialism that they can get?
You and I both know you’re not going to get a real answer to that.
Who knows for sure. I don’t think the war has gone completely Russia’s way. So I guess maybe both are true.
I’m reasonably confident they aren’t doing out of some solidarity against the west. NK is getting knowledge of weapons/missile research, and probably some money and other resources. Russia is getting soldiers they don’t care about to throw at Ukraine to satisfy Putin’s ego project of “restoring the borders of the USSR.” They don’t care what the west is doing. That’s just an enemy they can point the populace against. It’s about power and resources.
There’s some logic to that for sure.
Nah. This is what Trumpers dream of
To be clear, Kim Jong-un was not up for “election” in 2019. According to Wikipedia, it was actually the first time someone in his seat didn’t even bother with the sham.
Not like it’s a huge change, going from being the only name on the ballot to not even letting people vote.
So the citizens still have to physically vote even though there’s only 1 option? Do they hire people to count it and announce it on the radios/tvs?
So the citizens still have to physically vote even though there’s only 1 option?
Yep! Technically tho, they can cross out the name of the candidate to vote “no”.
See that little table to the right? They have to use the red pen sitting on top of it. But don’t worry, it’s “anonymous”!
Apparently in more recent elections, “no” votes just go in a separate bin?
It also appears to double as a census, since voting is mandatory. That same Wikipedia article says elections are watched by the inminban to keep an eye out for no-shows.
To be completely fair, there is apparently one position in local elections that can actually have two candidates. It’s mostly a figurehead that’s subordinate to the unelected mayor, but hey! Two names on the ballot!
Can’t find anything about how ballots are counted, though that doesn’t exactly surprise me.
Hey comrade-citizen! I can’t help but notice you are about to use the red pen! Just a note: there is no ink left in it! You should have notified the authorities of your vote 6 years ago! Not to worry though, you can ask the secret police officer in plain clothes over there for a replacement cartridge. He will gladly deliver it to you at the back of the building, against the wall. Don’t forget to declare all your family members to him, too! Have a good last day. Before tomorrow I mean.
Why does he like those long coats so much? Does he think they hide his fatness?
Stalin and Mao were also fond of the great coat, so it might be a thing that’s just been in the public awareness, as well. I do guess he personally would have selected it for the slimming effect.
His father, and his father’s father, didn’t wear one of these year round. So I assume this isn’t a nod to his great comrade idols he learned about in Switzerland among cheese and whiskey and Xbox.
Fricking lazy millennials. His ancestors did proper sham elections, put the effort in.
Bah, and calls himself a dictator. Where’s the passion? The effort of staging a fake election?Ah, thank you. Without context this looks like it might be in earnest.
I assume someone is just done enough to actually use the dissenter box sometimes, so it’s “only” been in the high 90s.
My God he’s such a gifted politician
No sane person would be caught in opposition!
Oh man I was on the edge of my seat wondering how this election was going to go.
It’s really wholesome to see people in agreement for once.
From the polling I can find, his father and grandfather were similarly beloved. It’s so nice to see a local, family-run organization that actually seems like family.
That’s exactly what his older brother would have said
It’s definitely a democratic ‘front’, they got that right
Literally democracy: one vote per person. Hope that helps!
Now let’s do china, i’m sure it would be better after all that hype by certain group.
May he reign for a thousand years
oh good, democracy!
Vote or Die!
Love how anybody not a tankie is automatically a liberal. 🙄
Kind of like how anyone not Amish is English.
In both cases, it’s a group of people who use vaguely-comical ideas to define an exclusive community, and periodically shun some of their own to keep it that way.
Citizens so poor they have to eat grass to survive, so socialist!
I’m not the target of your meme, being a massive leftie/socialist, but what do you call someone who has a frownie face for both of those things, and a smiley face for a country with free and fair elections and genuine socialist/progressive representation?
Because OP’s not a socialist. They believe in a conspiracy theory where all the countries the West doesn’t like are the good guys and, less plausibly, working together.
The red stuff is just decorative. And you’re probably still a “liberal” in their books, because you’re not towing the line.
a country with free and fair elections and genuine socialist/progressive representation?
Do you have any examples?
Nope!
Idk that sounds pretty sick maybe we should focus our efforts on making one instead of defending fake socialism?
I agree with you but I’m not sure you meant to reply to me
North Korea?
Nothing says socialism as an absolute monarchy. Stalin would be proud
Disregarding the fact that Stalin’s attempts to resign were rejected multiple times, the CIA had some words.
Even in Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organi- zation of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf
Stalin’s attempt to resign
He had a massive cult of personality and the whole thing was a charade. Who in their right mind would support the dictator saying they’ll resign?? First time he tried to resign I think it was an actual political gamble, he wasn’t a dictator at that point yet.
Not to mention he also shuffled the members of that “collective leadership” often and nobody was safe even at the very top. Such collective leadership.
Random CIA document, a “comment” from someone with no context and apparently right at the time and huge “this information is UNVALUED” vs all the later studies that could rely on vastly more information on the subject of Stalin indeed having been an absolute dictator during the height of his power to the very end
Yeah checks out.
Someone put it well in Reddit’s AskHistorians:
On the topic of this kind of CIA document in general, see this discussion. We don’t know who wrote this. We don’t know why they wrote it. We don’t know on the basis of what they wrote it. We don’t know exactly what was meant by it. There’s a big ol’ paragraph at the beginning that probably explains what the basis of this “information report” is, it’s blacked out, no doubt to protect “sources and methods.” So this could be a wise report from someone who know what they are talking about… or it could be a report of something overheard at the cocktail party of a middle-ranking Warsaw Pact bureaucrat.
The problem with these kind of intelligence sources is that to a layman they might look authoritative or like they had access to special data and so on. But in reality we know that the CIA was wrong about as much as it was right in those days, and that individual analysts and sources could be hit and miss. Just because they stamp “SECRET” on it doesn’t make it authoritative in any degree.
