Don’t you dare besmirch the sanctity of that great institution! That’s just what the bad people want!

@SpookyGenderCommunist@hexbear.net that was a really well written comment.

Thank you very much!

If I can chime in on your question, I think it has a lot to do with orientalism, like you said. But I think there’s a language barrier component as well, people in the US can speak Spanish more readily than Korean.

And I think it’s a matter of Korea having been so violently ripped in half, while Cuba isn’t. Similarly, the part of Korea that makes up the DPRK is all mountainous and rich in mineral resources, but lacks a lot of abundant farmland, meanwhile Cuba has farmland in spades.

I once wrote a paper about this for a class comparing the political economies of Cuba and Venezuela, but I still think it works if you slot in the DPRK. A country with resources that largely come from the ground is going to develop a more centralized bureaucracy around those resources, since imperial powers will want access to them. You can’t easily diversify your economy, so you have to defend and make use of what you have.

A mainly agricultural exporter, as Cuba historically was, can diversify easily, because you can just plant different things in the ground. Similarily, while the US might be pissed that it lost its sugar colony, and reprimand Cuba for stepping out of line, it can get sugar elsewhere. It can imperialize a different nation rich in agricultural land.

So Cuba is more free to diversify its economy, and be more self sustaining, because it can grow food for its people, and not have to centralize power quite as severely, as a result. The Special Period, for instance is full of examples of innovative, decentralized, urban agriculture and permacultural experiments.

The Arduous March, meanwhile, was a time of general food scarcity, and rationing. The DPRK is forced to make due with minimal agricultural land, and heavy sanctions mean it can’t take proper advantage of its unique mineral resources. The few that its able to make use of need to be more vociferously defended, in the face of imperialism.

The language barrier is surely a major factor. Spanish is a much more widely-spoken language in the US compared to Korean, and the DPRK’s one longtime ally, the PRC, of course speaks Chinese, so they are much easier to slander than one Spanish speaking nation among many that it maintains good relationships with.

Also, not to fully repeat our comrade, the ongoing existence of the RoK, which has cause to endlessly vilify specifically the DPRK, is observably connected to western propaganda about it.

North Korea is one of the 3 most bombed places in the world. The Korea peninsula was occupied by the brutal Japanese and then the US nuked Japan and took over for them and the brutality was continued.

Cuba was a settler state of Europeans with black slaves. The indigenous Tainos were almost entirely absent for the revolution, mostly because they were trying to survive. Cuba has all the trappings of a European country and all the guilt of a slave society.

They are massively different states.

There is a limit to tolerance and patience though. If they ask for answers and we give them answers, and they respond with “I don’t like those answers, give me answers that agree with my preconceived notions.” over and over and over again, there’s not really anything we can do. This isn’t a person actually seeking answers, this is a bad faith actor trying to wreck shit by “just asking questions.”

It’s why I attempted to answer in good faith, and give an actual explanation. They came back later and ultimately agreed with my assessment. Dunking on libs has its place, but it ought to be once they’ve shown themselves to be bad faith actors and not just someone working through a lifetime of propaganda.

lol no they are anything but genuine. They have terminal bas faith Reddit debatebro brain.

They’re currently trying to harass me in DMs, lol.

Yeah. Call them a buganoid.