Don't fund this horrible, cruel dictatorship. Don't go to North Korea, people.

Edit: Seriously? I know America has its problems but how is this a controversial position?

@txag70
The US government is trying to outlaw citizens from travelling there.

While I don't see why anyone would want to travel there, I have my doubts whether the US government has the legal right to outright forbid it's own citizens if the recipient country is okay with it.

@Dan for the longest time they did it with Cuba so they probably do.

@Zentalon The thing is, no one actually travels directly to North Korea from the United States. You have to go through either South Korea or China. The U.S. forbids you from travelling directly to Cuba, but you can still theoretically get in if you go through another country.

@PavelB The difference between what the restriction on direct travel to Cuba and the ban on travel to North Korea is that it is still legal to travel to Cuba with a US passport (some border guards will even offer not to stamp your passport); the ban on North Korea however is that it has become illegal to use a US passport to go to North Korea, as in if you tried even by the necessary indirect method through China it would not be possible as the Chinese border officials would tell you your travel document is not legal for use (US citizens also have to go with tour groups and the tour companies will know they cannot accept US documents).
For a time the same thing was used with Cuba, Libya, and Iran, but now the US says it is legal again to use your US passport to visit those countries (you just have to go indirectly for Cuba, must be supervised at all times in Iran (per Iranian law), and it is very difficult for US citizens to get visas to Libya (they need to be sponsored like they are for Russia but are still usually denied) AND the US has no consular representation in Libya, not even through a special office at the Swiss embassy like it does in Iran and used to in Cuba.

@Zentalon What a shame that is, since Cuba doesn't have near the problems that some of our so-called "allies" do.

@txag70 The cold war realy linger too long in some places of the world.

@txag70 The US actually lifted the Embargo on Cuba. Since starving them out doesn't work, President Obama decided to try flooding them with capitalistic goods to bring about change.

@PaxRomana I have my doubts about that policy sticking around during the Trump administration.

@txag70

They certainly don't.
In fact - Cuba doesn't have near some of the problems the US have.

Just look at child mortality - Cuba has a lower child mortality rate then the US.

US - the richest nation in the history of the world, only western nation without universal healthcare
Cuba - one of the poorer, subjected to a US embargo for 50 years, but has had universal healthcare for decades

That's not to say that Cuba is a perfect society or even a democracy of course. But they most certainly aren't as terrible as North Korea and in some ways they even achieve better results then the US.

And I have to say I don't get why people where upset with your original post either, so I gave you an upvote for balance sake.

@Dan No, the govt shouldn't forbid travel to there. But they really, really shouldn't need to. They also shouldn't need to be responsible for any US citizen going there -- they've been warned. Anyone who goes there is part of the problem.

North Korea is like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. Ignore it's bad behavior and eventually the bad behavior will wither away. One of the things I thought Obama did right was not engage with the Kims.

@Dan

Protecting idiots from their own stupidity is one of the government's duties.

'@CorruptUser' "Protecting idiots from their own stupidity is one of the government's duties. "
Good argument against government from Darwinian perspective.

@CorruptUser No, it really isn't.

@Dan Well technically, the US and North Korea are still at war, since only an armistice was ever signed and not a peace treaty. So yes, they can legally prevent citizens from travelling to a nation they're at war with.

@txag70 "I know America has its problems but how is this a controversial position? "

some (not all) european liberals often unironically compare the US to North Korea or Saudi Arabia

delusional behavior isn't restricted to trump voters

@txag70 I very recently used to agree with you but I read an article which changed my mind about it. There were a couple of reasons why I changed my mind, but the biggest reason is that it allows Americans to see North Koreans as real people and vice versa. One of the best ways to counteract the propaganda the North Korean government puts out about America is to introduce North Koreans to Americans.

The article is here: http://www.cracked.com/blog/i-heard-lot-crazy-things-about-north-korea-so-i-went_p2/

@WeirderThanWeird Huh. So cracked does real journalism now? I thought they were a comedy outlet.

@Zentalon #9663854
1) North Korea's official ideology is Juche, which is a branch of communism. Though after the fall of the soviet union they dropped references to marxism-leninism, and eventually as recently as 2009 dropped references to communism, they retained references to socialism as that is one of the core foundations of Juche.

2) There's definitely no instance of communism where there's a large surplus of anything else than starvation and ribs that show through skin. The statement that "Communism is Were everyone can have anything they want with in a reasonable limit" has to be the most naïve, delusional and childlike thing I've ever heard. Maybe ask someone who lived under communism if he could have everything he wanted because everything was so plentiful, smh. Before you embarrass yourself again, maybe think a little before making absurd statements.

@Finn123
Please, refrain yourself from showing your brainwashing and ignorance in the future.

@Finn123
Pretty much

http://babalublog.com/wpr/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/imotd-traditional-cuban-food.jpg

http://lewisvilletexan.com/xoops/uploads/img51623c325956d.jpg

@Jonas_Hrafnagil

Your first link is very uniformed and just crude propaganda.

While Cuba is certainly not a democracy and has a lot of problems - starvation or lack of food has never been a real problem as the Cuban regime has always prioritized feeding, clothing, housing, educating and keeping it's population healthy.

Cuba has - unlike many other so called communist dictatorships - never prioritized the armed forces or the building of monuments glorifying their leaders or any such nonsense above the needs of it's citizens.

Just as all countries calling themselves capitalist haven't produced the same results, all countries called communist haven't either.

@Nisse_Hult

Oh Nisse, you know I was being a funny man, but I guess you are still butthurt because of our last argument about your white knighting.

"Uninformed"
Basically, you can't take humor got it. Gotta shelter and cuddle you sensitive people. But let me lecture a bit. This picture is actually very accurate, at least to Cold War standards. Things have improved a lot in Cuba and I would contribute that mostly to Obama's willingness to open some form of trade with them again and lifting sanctions (since after the USSR fell, Cuba stopped receiving their desperately needed money).

It depends on what you classify as starvation. While I would not attribute starvation as much, I would say that their stores being empty of any food was a very common eyesight.

"Cuba has - unlike many... [snip]"
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/210/119/9b3.png

I have seen the Oliver Stone documentary on Castro and his Cuba and I would say that my Marxist History Teacher actually managed to convince me that Castro was not that much horrible after all (the main problem was with Che). But in the end, he aint no saint, despite his limited successes.

Also, thanks to Vice, I've seen that Cuba is also taking a bit of a lead in medical researches.

Countries that call themselves communists don't all present the same end results, but they all show the same results in the beginning. All have gone different paths though, to the point of even abandoning communism (China being the most prime example of that, Vietnam to a certain extent).


I would be a bit more careful if I were you, passing around the word "uninformed", because it just comes off that you are the one who is uninformed of people actually having a more open mind to things than judging everything based on a meme ;)

You gotta learn to sometimes be more cool around other people, relax and enjoy life ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBIJYXXNp7k

'@Jonas'_Hrafnagil meh, Cuba didn't have famine only because they've managed to survive on rationing and imports long enough to privatize farming. Also it is one of those places where not growing any food requires effort.

@Jonas_Hrafnagil

And guys, please don't downvote Nisse here, this is just aimed at me.

@Jonas_Hrafnagil

You posted a completely false piece of propaganda and when confronted about that claim it was all a joke. Well, that's what people shooting their mouth of today does when they get caught. I guess you don't know any better - you've seen people offer that excuse your whole life and probably think that's acceptable.

I'm however old enough to remember when that transparent lie wasn't accepted as an excuse.
Neither was pretending to be "joking" about serious issues, posting infantile memes or talking about "butthurt" viewed as a serious response in a serious discussion.
But that's all part of the internet cultures infantilization of modern discourse, unfortunately.

Regarding "butthurt" I guess you're the one experiencing that sensation, as I never even remembered that discussion until you brought it up (and only vaguely remember it now).
I've had hundreds of discussions on here - it's not like I remember them after they're concluded. Especially not when they are inconsequential.

Regarding the substantive point, again then: No, the picture is in no way "actually very accurate, at least to Cold War standards" as you claim. That's once again completely wrong. Cubans didn't starve during the Cold War.

Neither is this quote by you correct:
"Things have improved a lot in Cuba and I would contribute that mostly to Obama's willingness to open some form of trade with them again and lifting sanctions (since after the USSR fell, Cuba stopped receiving their desperately needed money)."

What actually happened in Cuba was that since the US inflicted an illegal embargo against the nation in the 60's they have not been able to conduct meaningful trade relations with most of the world since.
That left basically only the Warsaw-pact countries open for trade with Cuba and as a consequence that's how their entire economy was developed.

They grew cash crops like sugar, tobacco, coffee and bananas for the Warsaw-pact which countries can't grow those crops themselves because of the climate they have - and they in turn received oil, fertilizer and finished machinery parts.

Now when the Warsaw-pact and Soviet Union collapsed that of course meant that Cubas international trade and as a consequence their economical basis collapsed as well - because the US embargo meant that they simply couldn't trade with any other nations.

So for a time in the 90's the Cuban economy did suffer badly and they had to transform their whole economy to be almost completely self sufficient.

But unlike North Korea this has never been a choice by Cuba. Their entire dependency on the Warsaw-pact and current reliance on self sufficiency has always been the result of the illegal US embargo.

Or in other words - Cubas situation during and after the Cold War has never been a result of their own choosing or their governing ideology, but by the embargo put on them by the US.

Obama choosing to opening up contact with Cuba was clearly the right thing to do, but it's not in any way like Cubans where starving until he did so.

Instead Cuba had through 50 years showed they could handle anything the US could throw at them and still survive no matter what.

What Obama understood was that like North Koreas voluntarily chosen isolation, Cubas forced isolation in effect only preserved the Cuban dictatorship - so the US policy towards Cuba was clearly counter productive to US interests, not to mention unfair to the Cuban people.

If you're truly interested in Cuba you should read up on the beginnings of the modern Cuba under Castro. It's a text book example of what US intelligence calls "blowback" - how the unintended consequences of US policy towards Cuba ended up turning the country into a Soviet ally.

Cuba was never allowed to develop independently by the US - that's why Cuba looks the way it does today.

Am I the only who thinks that this comic is quite sad, despite the happy ending?

@herocheese no, I, too, had a lip wibble at that last frame. Fingers crossed for a change in the future.

@dracuella Just the overall mood of this comic was quite sad and dark.

@herocheese There's really nothing about North Korea that isn't quite sad.

@herocheese

No, I felt it too. Because it really is very sad. :-(

Especially if you've seen some interviews online of North Korean defectors.

They're just ordinary people who's had the terrible misfortune to be born as slaves to a disgusting tyrant regime. :-(

Well that was cute and sad at the same time. I thought those were dark hands holding the hood, then seeing she used her hands to climb the walls and put the letter in the mailbox...that was her hair! >_<

It is a very sad und unfortunate case that unlike Germany Korea hasn't been able to reunify itself yet. While here, fewer and fewer people remember a time when there was no unity or sovereignty, over there only the oldest people seem to have experienced a time when Koreans have been one people and one nation. Unlike here however, both states weren't completely isolated to each other like North and South Korea. Here, West Germans could see friends and families, before in 1989 they bravely walked on the streets to protest against a communist system that denied its people basis human rights. What happened was its downfall, that only few believed was possible in such a speedy manner after 40 years of division.

If the people of Korea, especially North Korea, stand up against this system like many East Germans did, if the communication between the two states gets revived again, there might be a chance of reunification. It won't be cheap, it definitely won't be easy or fast (as more and more young South Koreans seem to lose connection to their northern compatriots), but it in the end I believe it will be the case that will be best for all Koreans. The investments in East Germany (to put its economy to the level of the west) were and still are big, but they are worth it for the sake of the reunified state's economy and its people. It is never too late to hope for a future without barb wires and a still existing formal war declaration between the two states. It never is.

'@DerJulian' https://www.svoboda.org/a/2130076.html
Google translate that interview, see if anything has changed since time of it's publication.

There is no way to compare Koreas to divided Germany.

@comrade_Comrade I know, the situation between the two German states in 1989 and the one between the two Korean states today becomes harder and harder to compare with each other every year. The circumstances were different back then. Way less war-like, no rocket launch test, no real isolation and the two systems are more like the opposite of each other (with different allies, societies and so on). A reunification will get more difficult as time progresses it seems.

By the way: You gave me an article from the webiste "svoboda.org". Is that connected to the far-right party "Svoboda" from Ukraine?

'@DerJulian' main problem is that more than two generations have changed since separation of Koreas. By now it's two different people, highly nationalistic too. Vast difference in GDP per capita, economic development and mindset regarding economic activity means that integration will be very disadvantageous to all of South Korea and upper and middle classes in North Korea. Despite abundance of rhetoric in favor of unification, the only group that in fact supports it is lower classes in North Korea who expect that their standard of living will be elevated to that of South Koreans. Any hope for relatively non-traumatic reunification requires such radical transformation of North Korean economy and society that it is unlikely to happen in near future. I'd say we'll see colony on Mars well before that.

No, svoboda.org belongs to this organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty
Andrey Lankov has a lot of experience with both Koreas, anything he writes (like his blog at http://tttkkk.livejournal.com/) is definitely worth reading.
I don't think that translations of his articles or interviews are available anywhere, so google translate is your best option even if it will butcher half of the text.

@DerJulian East Germany had a much better standard of living than North Korea though. Sure, it wasn't great, but East Germany did better during the cold war than most other communist countries.

Rebuilding a post-dictatorship North Korea would take an incomprehensible toll on the South.

@DerJulian Thank you. I hope we can reunify, one day as well. I hope to see reunification before... well, in my life, at least.

@DerJulian South Korea is saying Germany is a bad exampel, and they don´t want that sort of money grave! I don´t know how to make a reunion cheap, naturaly someone will have to pay more than the other, everywhere! OK its a lot more money in the Korean case!

@DerJulian If there was a Korean reunification, I have a feeling it would be like one of the one-sided unifications where a region didn't want unification but was conquered and whose culture was suppressed in favor of the conquering countries culture, and that region had no autonomy.

>Accuses people of rotting their brain
>Defends Cuba and thinks Norway's immgration policies are neo-fascist

This made me think of the time that I spent half a year living in Vienna. One day, I was talking to my sister on the subway, when an old man walk up and asked us if we were Americans. When we admitted the fact, he thanked us for saving him from the Soviets and walked off.

...is Sister North Korea crushing on Sister Norway?

I sense a ship.

And not just a little one, a big-ass ship.

Believe it or not, but we have a Danish-North Korean friendship association here. However, none of our other socialist movements want anything to do with them, which kinda says everything.

@EricTheRedAndWhite Same here in Finland, actually. People mostly think those guys are not quite right in the head.

@EricTheRedAndWhite

What did Denmark do to them?

I know you meant North Korea. It's really quite sad.

I understand the idea of the comic, but the way it's portrayed is so sad

@Yereri Yes because North Korea is usually such a happy place

@InDeathWeReturn no need to be sarcastic. Most comics on this site are funny and portray life in a very positive light even on the hardest situations. That's why is so sad to me to see this one in particular.