Bedulge

if you are claiming the present Korean society does not deserve harsh criticism.

Criticize all you want. But do so with facts, not with lies. There are factual problems in SK like sexism, homophobia, corruption, poor enforcement of labor laws and more. Saying that shanty towns are common is a lie.

The only person who would say that SK "lacked even the most basic fundamentals of human dignity." quite frankly sounds like a privledged first worlder who does not understand how bad things can really get, and what a society that lacks human dignity really looks like. A society that is disgusting and lacking in human dignity looks like S Korea in 1960, or Alabama in 1860. Not like S Korea in 2024.

Homelessness in the US is pretty high. A country having lower homelessness than the US is an extremely low bar.

It is VASTLY lower to be clear. 1.7 out of 10k, vs 19.5 out out of 10k in America

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_homeless_population

1.7 out of 10,000, obv that number should be zero, but does it sound like it's true to say that 'many people' can't afford housing and that slums from the 1960s are still around and are numerous? Or does it sound like a distortion made to make it seem like SK consists of acres and acres of shanty towns like Rio?

I compare with the US bc most of us here live in the US and I dind't want to bother with finding the exact stat bc I was getting ready for bed when I wrote that.

The dictatorship is still easily, easily within living memory,

OP is obv using that line to make it sound like SK is still basically a dictatorship. It's a distortion of the facts at best, outright lie at worst.

It is not conservative. And yes I am a socialist.

They achieved real advances in human rights and human dignity in Korea. Work remains for them to do to move the country further along, but to talk like OP is talking here is basically to say that they accomplished nothing and that is simply false. I think spreading falsehoods and saying that leftist activists in SK have achieved nothing is disrespectful.

That country was one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world in the 60s with some of the lowest living standards in the world. They have archived a lot

first ever activity on this account

I've had this account since literally the first week this website was created, I just haven't been active for a long time. Part of the reason why tbh is that I dislike how many people on here like to tell distortions about Korea.

language right out of chosun ilbo

Where? Do you see me ranting and raving about how we need to bomb the North? Or do you see me stating facts about Korea which you yourself know to be true, like that the photo on the right is from the 60s or 70s .(which you tacitly admit is a lie bc you didn't mention it) have But ur right ig, prob Chosun Ilbo would in fact say that this photo is from decades ago, just like I did, and just like anyone else who has been to SK would say.

first of all, ive visited seoul in 2007

Ok, so you know that the photo on the right is from decades ago and that slums are not actually 'common' and you are in fact deliberately lying. Fantastic.

and saw the misery of gulyongma-eul with my own two eyes. ive seen that the bagkaseu halmeoni are in fact a real thing.

You should be glad to hear that half the population has since been relocated

https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220926000213

and ive noticed the inescapable presence of western evangelical churches and other similar monuments of neocolonialism. even in more "economically fortunate" areas of the city most people did not seem happy.

I'm gonna ask you to not bring up irrelevant points, please. Yea there are a lot of churches and yes quite a number of people are unhappy due to capitalist alienation, problems with sexism and toxic work culture etc. That has nothing to do with the false facts, exaggerations and misrepresentations in your post here.

but what i saw there was an incredibly sick and disgusting society that lacked even the most basic fundamentals of human dignity.

Really? free health care, fantastic public safety, complete lack of food insecurity, universal literacy + HS education, extremely low rates of homelessness, and some of the best urban design and public transportation in the planet. None of that has anything to do with dignity?

you also for some reason decided to point out that the colonial masters you bootlick have an even higher rate of homelessness than your "country".

I'm not Korean to be clear, I just speak Korean + lived there. 'even higher' lol. One of the things westerners often comment on when going to SK is how you basically do not see homeless anywhere outside of a couple places like Seoul Station. Very, very, very few people are homeless, many live in poor quality housing like goshiwons or ban-jiha (the half basements, like seen in Bong Joon Ho's parasite) but they are not homeless and slums are not common.

you then proceed to claim that the suicide rate in the rok has been falling recently. this is a lie: according to the world health organization and the korean national statistical office, the number of suicides in south korea since your supposed democratization in 1988

(a great "democracy" that allows for people like bag-geun-hye or yunseog-yeol to be president and for jaebeols to control domestic policy)

You have to keep bringing up irrelevant facts bc you know you are lying. Anyway President Park was forced out of office once her crimes became public knowledge. There are many many many problems in SK, but that is the system working as it is supposed to. The South Korean people are extremely proud of having forced her out of office. and for good reason.

Notice how I skipped past your line about how there is corruption in SK? there is in fact an issue with corruption in SK, so I didn't comment on that or call it a lie, because I have intellectual honesty and I like to tell the truth.

2010s: The average annual number of suicides was around 13,000-15,000.

I assume you know math well enough to know that the 2010s was ten years ago, and that I said the rates have been dropping (slowly, not fast enough) for ten years. The early 2010s was the peak.

furthermore you somehow manage to accuse me of minimizing the accomplishments of the 1988 revolution. this is an absurd fucking accusation that you invented out of thin air while somehow wanting to accuse me of being dishonest. on the contrary!

People who want to defend North Korea like yourself are constantly telling distortions and exaggerations about South Korea to make it look worse than it really is, to make the North look better by comparison. Defend North Korea on it's own merits, please, and with out telling lies about SK.

Yes I think it's disrespectful of their accomplishments and their sacrifices to say that the society they fought and died to create is "sick", "disgusting" and lacking "even the most basic fundamentals of human dignity." That is a fucking lie and you know it. Those people fucking died to get health care, they fucking died to get cops to stop carrying guns and to stop shooting protestors, they fucking died to get habeas corpus rights, they fucking died to get the right to criticize their government. The created a society where homelessness is low and nearly everyone has access to food, health care, education, and fair trials. There's a lot of work left to be done there, but to tell these blatant lies is very low of you.

They built that society out of their own blood and you are calling it disgusting. It literally disgusts me to see you say this shit, and if you said these bullshit lies about literally any other country in Asia, you'd get called an anti-Asian racist and for good fucking reason. But when its SK, you feel free to lie as much as you want.

EDIT: btw I really think it says something of your mindset here that you thought I was a Korean talking about my own home country, which I obviously would know more about than you, and you still felt free to insult me and condescend to me. Do you talk to other POC like that?

I lived in Seoul and I speak nearly fluent Korean

Photo on the right seems to be from like the 60s or 70s. Seoul does not look like that today, not even close. So that is a blatant lie number 1.

"many people too poor to afford housing' homelessness is lower in SK than in the US by a HUGE amount. So that is blatant lie number 2.

'slums like this are common' Absolutely not. There's only a couple remaining slums, and they don't look like the one in the photo there bc again, that photo is from like 60 years ago. There small number of slums (there's like 3) that still exist are currently being removed and the residents rehoused. So there is blatant lie number 3

'kill themselves by the millions' suicide rate is high but not that high and has been falling for over 10 years. Exaggeration

'only recently began to liberalize' 1988 is recent to you? That'd be blatant lie number 4, and to be honest it's quite disrespectful to the many south Koreans who struggled against the dictatorship for you to minimize their accomplishment like that

'the famous "no lights"-photo' there isn't a "the famous 'no lights' photo" there's many of them and its because NK often doesn't have fuel to keep the power running 24/7 due to sanctions so they practice energy rationing and shut down the power at night. blatant lie number 5

I'm not gonna get into your stuff on the left hand column abt the DPRK but suffice it to say, none of what you wrote there is known for certain to be true because of how tight the flow of information out of that land is.

Did you make this image? why do you feel the need to lie? Or do you just not know what you are talking about?