• spikkedd@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I speak Portuguese. I don’t need a translator. In the video he stated most people at the train station are tourists and very few are Koreans going to China to work.

    He also mentioned not being allowed to take photos of anything/anyone involved in the military and being that they’re everywhere, most places couldn’t be photographed.

    I’m also Brazilian. I visited a military base in Brazil and took multiple photos and videos without having to hide it. Korea is not a free country.

    This video also fails to show the parts of North Korea that hasn’t been specifically polished for tourists to see. If you want the true Korean experience, don’t take it from a polished North Korean tour experience. Take it from a North Korean refugee. There’s many videos, interviews, and books for you to read. Your English seems good enough.

    • bighi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yes, very few were Koreans going to China when he recorded the video. I just meant to show that they CAN go to China.

      Korea is not a free country

      No country is 100% free. They’re at war. Brazil is not. Not only that, but they’ve been infiltrated by CIA agents posing as tourists multiple times. So now they banned pictures of their military.

      But if you watch other videos from that playlist, you’ll see they did record military a few times.

      There’s many videos, interviews, and books for you to read

      I did. A lot. Like, A LOT.

      Unfortunately, some of the weirdest stories come from CIA-created propaganda.

      But NK did have a very bad period, which is when most refugees left North Korea. They were invaded and had their infrastructure destroyed so bad that they had to go back to using animal traction instead of motorized vehicles.

      That lack of infrastructure, together with the US preventing them from buying things from most other countries, meant lots of people were hungry and scared. They left Korea thinking that it was the worst place in the world. And for a few years, it probably was.

      Do you remember when a couple weeks of truck drivers on strike creating a blockade sent Brazil into chaos? Now imagine a blockade that lasts for decades. Now imagine that when someone destroyed your country so hard that you don’t even have reliable roads or factories.

      I would leave the country for much less.

      But they reverted that with a lot of hard work. North Korea today is not the same NK that these immigrants left behind a few decades ago. I’m not saying its perfect, I’m saying it’s not the hell that the US tries to make it look like. And it would probably be a very very good country to live in, if they could buy food and technology from outside.

      • Knoxvomica@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        No offense but it’s like the entire world is telling you something and you’re putting your fingers in your ears and shouting lalalalala.

        • bighi@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The US is not the entire world.

          There are many books and documentaries with a less biased view of North Korea.

          But the US is by far the biggest propaganda machine the world has ever seen. And when you hear something so many times without having access to different viewpoints, you might think it’s true and that “the entire world” agrees with it.

          • Avg@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Cara me fala o que você está fumando porque eu não quero nem experimentar.

            At the same time you claim the US to be this amazing propaganda machine that the world has ever seen, it is at the same time too weak to extinguish a few measley books and documentaries that are apparently not part of their propaganda.

            • BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tf
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              1 year ago

              Tell me you don’t understand propaganda without telling me you don’t understand propaganda. Maybe read Edward Bernays book Propaganda, or Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, or Parenti’s Inventing Reality. The propaganda model has been extensively analyzed and there is no doubt in anyone who has done the research that the U.S. and its media apparatuses are the single largest producer of propaganda in the entire world.

            • bighi@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yes. Because being able to publish propaganda is very different from being able to censor information that is published in another country.

              The US creates an overflowing amount of propaganda and they can push that to other countries. But they can’t come in here and take books away from libraries and bookstores. That’s not how things work.

              Their strategy is to drown the truth. And they’re really good at it.

        • bighi@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s much more complicated. There are many countries that doesn’t have an embargo against them, but still gets blocked by the US embargo. The US considers that selling them anything that had an American company involved is helping brake the embargo, and will bring consequences.

          So let’s say India wants to sell them electric bikes. These bikes are made in India. With engines made in China. And wheels made in… Germany.

          I never mentioned major parts coming from the US, right? But let’s say one screw in the engine was bought from the UK, and that company from the UK is owned by a company from the US. Because of that single screw, selling that bike to NK would be considered an attempt to help a country bypass the embargo. And India doesn’t want to lose all the commerce they have with the US and their direct allies.

          Since the US owns companies all around the world, they use that to “force” almost all countries in the world to also not sell to NK or Cuba, even though those countries are not part of the embargo.

          Edit: The UN can make a decision to end these embargoes. But the US holds a special position in the UN, with special veto powers. Brazil recently proposed to end the Cuban embargo. Most countries started voting yes. They all want to sell to Cuba. And then the US said “veto”, ending the proposition even if most countries were voting yes.

          There have been talks between BRICS countries about creating an alternative UN, since the US vetoes anything that doesn’t directly benefit them.

            • bighi@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Sorry, I thought you mentioned food just as an example of stuff in general.

              Food is a bit easier to trade with NK, although there’s pressure for countries to not do that.

              If I’m not mistaken, they mostly bought food from China. But they stopped when the pandemic hit, as an attempt to preserve their country.

              I also remember Brazil (where I live) invested a little bit in trading basic resources like food with “undesirable” countries like NK and Venezuela. But it’s very complicated because they can’t use the normal international means of bank transfer, and there were people complaining about feeding crazy countries. Of course, “crazy” means you don’t jump when imperialists say “jump”.

              But anyway, not being able to easily transfer money makes it harder. And they’re far away, which makes it more expensive.

              If it wasn’t for countries like China, these embargoed socialist countries would be in a much worse situation. I hope NK’s food trade with China goes back to normal, because no one deserves to starve.