• yermaw@sh.itjust.works
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    9 hours ago

    Dont murder me for being an uncultured swine, but this is the first time im seeing that bridge in the bottom image and I am in love with the style.

  • Glide@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Not bothering to cover up your crimes isn’t the flex you seen to think it is.

    • monkeyjoe@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Hexbear certainly thinks it is. They’re trying to lock these comments. Their crimes are good.

  • TheLunatickle@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    Well none of these cunts needed Epstein to provide them Children to rape, they just order their sycophants and cronies to organise it.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      It must be so easy to be an anti-communist; you can just make up whatever baseless nonsense you like and expect people to believe you.

      It’s also very in character for a westerner: even when presented with actual evidence of your own leaders’ crimes, you’re still more obsessed with the fictional crimes of your enemies.

      • TheLunatickle@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        Don’t know why I’m bothering to reply to a .ml, I am anti dictator not anti communist and if you don’t know the difference your education has failed you.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          Whatever, doesn’t change the fact that you’re just making up baseless nonsense and expecting people to believe it because of ingrained western chauvanism.

    • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      probably, recently some kremlin links were found. Epstein was basically a way for countries to outsource blackmail efforts, so … 🤷

      I guess china , iran and NK have their own , homegrown, artisanal blackmail systems in place.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      Per your link:

      The Kippumjo (Korean: 기쁨조; translated as Pleasure Squad, Pleasure Brigade, or Pleasure Group), sometimes spelled Kippeumjo (also Gippumjo or Gippeumjo), is an unconfirmed collection of groups of approximately 2,000 women and girls reportedly maintained by the leader of North Korea for the purpose of providing entertainment, including that of a sexual nature, for high-ranking Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) officials and their families, as well as, occasionally, distinguished guests.

      The problem with reporting on the DPRK is that information is extremely limited on what is actually going on there, at least in the English language (much can be read in Korean, Mandarin, Russian, and even Spanish). Most reports come from defectors, and said defectors are notoriously dubious in their accounts, something the WikiPedia page on Media Coverage of North Korea spells out quite clearly. These defectors are also held in confined cells for around 6 months before being released to the public in the ROK, in… unkind conditions, and pressured into divulging information. Additionally, defectors are paid for giving testemonials, and these testimonials are paid more the more severe they are. From the Wiki page:

      Felix Abt, a Swiss businessman who lived in the DPRK, argues that defectors are inherently biased. He says that 70 percent of defectors in South Korea are unemployed, and selling sensationalist stories is a way for them to make a living.

      Side note: there is a great documentary on the treatment of DPRK defectors titled Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul, which interviews DPRK defectors and laywers legally defending them, if you’re curious. I also recommend My Brothers and Sisters in the North, a documentary made by a journalist from the Republic of Korea that was stripped of her citizenship for making this documentary humanizing the people in the DPRK.

      Because of these issues, there is a long history of what we consider legitimate news sources of reporting and then walking back stories. Even the famous “120 dogs” execution ended up to have been a fabrication originating in a Chinese satirical column, reported entirely seriously and later walked back by some news outlets. The famous “unicorn lair” story ended up being a misunderstanding:

      In fact, the report is a propaganda piece likely geared at shoring up the rule of Kim Jong Eun, North Korea’s young and relatively new leader, said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of Korean studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Most likely, North Koreans don’t take the report literally, Lee told LiveScience.

      “It’s more symbolic,” Lee said, adding, “My take is North Koreans don’t believe all of that, but they bring certain symbolic value to celebrating your own identify, maybe even notions of cultural exceptionalism and superiority. It boosts morale.”

      These aren’t tabloids, these are mainstream news sources. NBC News reported the 120 dogs story. Same with USA Today. The frequently reported concept of “state-mandated haircut styles”, as an example, also ended up being bogus sensationalism. People have made entire videos going over this long-running sensationalist misinformation, why it exists, and debunking some of the more absurd articles. As for Radio Free Asia, it is US-government founded and funded. There is good reason to be skeptical of reports sourced entirely from RFA about geopolitical enemies of the US Empire.

      Sadly, some people end up using outlandish media stories as an “acceptable outlet” for racism. By accepting uncritically narratives about “barbaric Koreans” pushing trains, eating rats, etc, it serves as a “get out of jail free” card for racists to freely agree with narratives devoid of real evidence.

      It’s important to recognize that a large part of why the DPRK appears to be insular is because of UN-imposed sanctions, helmed by the US Empire. It is difficult to get accurate information on the DPRK, but not impossible; Russia, China, and Cuba all have frequent interactions and student exchanges, trade such as in the Rason special economic zone, etc, and there are videos released onto the broader internet from this.

      In fact, many citizens who flee the DPRK actually seek to return, and are denied by the ROK. Even BBC is reporting on a high-profile case where a 95 year old veteran wishes to be buried in his homeland, sparking protests by pro-reunification activists in the ROK to help him go home in his final years.

      Finally, it’s more unlikely than ever that the DPRK will collapse. The economy was estimated by the Bank of Korea (an ROK bank) to have grown by 3.7% in 2024, thanks to increased trade with Russia. The harshest period for the DPRK, the Arduous March, was in the 90s, and the government did not collapse then. That was the era of mass statvation thanks to the dissolution of the USSR and horrible weather disaster that made the already difficult agricultural climate of northern Korea even worse. Nowadays food is far more stable and the economy is growing, collapse is highly unlikely.

      What I think is more likely is that these trends will continue. As the US Empire’s influence wanes, the DPRK will increase trade and interaction with the world, increasing accurate information and helping grow their economy, perhaps even enabling some form of reunification with the ROK. The US Empire leaving the peninsula is the number 1 most important task for reunification, so this is increasingly likely as the US Empire becomes untenable.

      Nodutdol, an anti-imperialist group of Korean expats, released a toolkit on better understanding the situation in Korea. This is more like homework, though.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          7 hours ago

          What do you mean by that? I live in the US, what could I possibly do to support the DPRK? And what does that have to do with the legitimacy of what I said, and the fact that there’s no credible evidence of Kippumjo?

          • cepelinas@sopuli.xyz
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            7 hours ago

            It is just that there are lots of tankies on lemmy.ml and they worship Russia, China and the DPRK to an unimaginable degree where if you critize any of their actions they start ragequitting I asked mainly out of curiuosity. Sorry for bothering.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              6 hours ago

              That isn’t the case, though. Communists don’t worship the Russian Federation, PRC, or the DPRK, and often do criticize them. The difference, is that communist critique is usually better informed both from a theoretical perspective, as we understand communist theory and history better, and from a practical perspective due to this study.

              My comment was quite literally defending the DPRK against allegations of maintaining a pedophile sex ring for state officials, on the basis of said allegations being baseless and extraordinary evidence of the propaganda industry against the DPRK. This is often framed as dogmatic, uncritical support, or “worship” as you call it, but as we can both see I spent a good deal of time researching the topic of propaganda on the DPRK, its place in the world, and what it’s actually like. Thus, by many standards, this makes me a “tankie,” though I disagree with the notion that my analysis is dogmatic, unjustified, or otherwise akin to “worship.”

              As a communist in the US, I can say I want to lift sanctions, and for the US Empire to leave Korea alone. I can say that the DPRK is extremely misunderstood in the west, and explain how and why. I can even organize in real life to help facilitate both. That’s the practical limit of what “support” I could ever hope to do, even if I did worship the DPRK. I simply have an extremely limited amount of influence on a country all the way on the opposite side of the world.

    • fort_burp@feddit.nlOP
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      2 days ago

      Newly released files have revealed that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor spent considerable time with Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, according to emails from convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

      That’s not what “being in the Epstein files” means.

        • fort_burp@feddit.nlOP
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          8 hours ago

          No, “being in the Epstein files”, as a turn of phrase, means you rape kids.

          • FishFace@piefed.social
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            8 hours ago

            Well using it that way is fucking dumb.

            Conspiracists peddle the idea that “being in the Epstein files” means you rape kids, except they mean it literally. So between it being far from the literal meaning of the phrase, and it being how some people seriously misunderstand the situation, it makes it better to use some other phrase.