getfiscal posted:someone i know made the point that representative institution are probably always oligarchic to some extent and mostly by design. i mean a few hundred delegates and officials are empowered to run much of the US government, i have no idea how that is ever supposed to represent the real beating pulse of the average worker. if china had a federal legislature of directly elected representatives in a liberal-democratic mode then major cities would have a few delegates each at most, how does the average person have real control over that in an ongoing way, let alone the overall scope of the government, it's just ideology at that point. which is why a lot of new left scholars in china don't care as much about democratic reforms in the sense that most western based groups call for, because what would it really mean. which is why i think that if you want to promote a sort of radical democracy you need to focus on real power of the workers in the neighbourhoods and workplaces and not like whoever the officials are.
r u becoming a chomskean anarcho syndicalist this year gotfiscal?
what a fuckin hellhole
getfiscal posted:sometimes the "pageantry" performs specific local ideological functions, or did historically, and isn't connected just to convincing foreign liberals or something like that. like in china one of the legislative bodies is like 30% Revolutionary Guomindang and not CCP, which has nothing to do with the reality of that bloc party, no one considers it a real independent party.
The reason is because it performs an ideological function as a link between the old republic and New China, suggesting that the patriotic sections of the Nationalist Party joined the revolution and that the Taiwanese government is filled with renegades. In recent times the Chinese government has tried to build links with the Taiwanese KMT through channels like this. There are several other "democratic" parties which are tiny and exist as links to the pre-1949 democratic movements in China, such as the overseas leagues that were influential in the early 20th Century, all of which are officially consultative and accept the hegemony of the CCP.
Korea keeps some democratic parties like this as part of a national front for similar reasons. DDR was like this, with parties in the National Front performing some function, such as a party that was primarily to cater to the rights of ex-Nazis.
Anyway it's not true that "authoritarian" countries generally don't have potemkin parties, it's almost the rule outside a handful of Islamic emirates/etc. Virtually all post-colonial African countries had single-party states which then assembled coalitions around themselves when they transitioned to official parliamentary democracy. Or Arab socialist parties where they tended to purge from above other socialist parties in national fronts as part of a strategy to integrate them into their blocs (which often worked). That's why, for example, the Iraqi Communist Party initially was seen as supporting the occupation of Iraq, because it was eager to participate in the new electoral bodies and build a base there, in a way that many other groups considered them collaborators, a position they took primarily because Hussein murdered large numbers of Communists.
this whole post is just American propaganda but turned on its head with "well that's a good thing." how come when Zizek does that it's a crime?
Edited by babyhueypnewton ()
Chinese KMT Revolutionary Committee holds national congress
Updated: 2012-12-13 04:25
BEIJING - The Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang (RCCK), one of China's eight non-communist parties, began its 12th national congress on Wednesday.
Zhang Dejiang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, delivered a congratulatory address to the RCCK to celebrate the opening of the congress on behalf of the CPC Central Committee.
The RCCK was praised in the address for "sailing in one boat with the CPC in the same direction" since its founding and for making contributions to China's revolution, construction and reform.
Meanwhile, the RCCK was urged to research and offer suggestions on topics including social management and the rule of law as many RCCK members are specialists in social and legal fields.
Conference delegates were also called on to promote cross-Strait exchanges and cooperation, capitalizing on their extensive reach to Taiwanese compatriots, in order to facilitate the peaceful reunification of the Chinese nation.
Zhou Tienong delivered a work report on behalf of the 11th central committee of the RCCK.
Zhou said the party should study and implement the spirit of the 18th CPC National Congress, carry on political consultation, democratic supervision and social services, and promote the reunification of China.
A new party central committee will be elected at the congress.
The RCCK was officially founded on January 1, 1948. It had 101,865 members by the end of June, 2012. It is organized into 30 provincial-level party committees, 267 municipal-level ones and 52 county-level ones.
The RCCK membership consists of those related to the Kuomintang Party, those who have historical connections with the RCCK, people in Taiwan, and law professionals, among others.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-12/13/content_16012035.htm
getfiscal posted:hoxha's reasoning being that parties represent classes and it didn't logically make sense to include bourgeois parties in a socialist legislature.
that was stalins line too which is why I say I'm a small s Stalinist
no one considers it a real independent party.
pure propaganda
all of which are officially consultative and accept the hegemony of the CCP.
that they accept the hegemony of the CCP means literally nothing. the republicans have accepted the hegemony of Obama and the democrats but this does not mean they are "consultative" or not independent. you are just using weasel words to give the appearance that parliamentary democracy in socialist countries is radically different. however you're then saying this is a good thing, exactly as Zizek does.
Korea keeps some democratic parties like this as part of a national front for similar reasons.
the whole point of this thread is this is not true and is propaganda. we can have a discussion of the merits of North Korea's coalition politics and whether it is necessary for a socialist system but we need to have basic facts correct first. the basic facts are that the parties that are part of the government coalition with the WPK are not potemkin parties, this idea is insanity and relies on a theatrical production for the whole world's benefit.
Anyway it's not true that "authoritarian" countries generally don't have potemkin parties, it's almost the rule outside a handful of Islamic emirates/etc. Virtually all post-colonial African countries had single-party states which then assembled coalitions around themselves when they transitioned to official parliamentary democracy. Or Arab socialist parties where they tended to purge from above other socialist parties in national fronts as part of a strategy to integrate them into their blocs (which often worked). That's why, for example, the Iraqi Communist Party initially was seen as supporting the occupation of Iraq, because it was eager to participate in the new electoral bodies and build a base there, in a way that many other groups considered them collaborators, a position they took primarily because Hussein murdered large numbers of Communists.
your examples don't support your statement, in fact they support the opposite conclusion. maybe I missed something because there's such a disconnect between the idea of potemkin parties and the coalition politics of post-occupation Iraq which elevated minor parties to extreme importance precisely because of the lack of political stability (the kind of stability that would be needed to have a facade of politics).
getfiscal posted:mao seemed more right that if china continued on a 'normal' path though that it would easily restore capitalism because of the enormous power of the world market and bureaucratic tendencies, which is why he had to launch things like rural communes. even if everyone agreed (including mao) that it was a partial disaster.
Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette.
getfiscal posted:well i mean what part is wrong? the idea that democratic parties in china don't have the right to contradict the CCP is the official line, it's not an unspoken rule it is an explicit rule which is consistent with the people's democratic dictatorship. and in germany it was the loosening of bloc parties which was a significant step in the process of its collapse (they formed part of the basis of the bloc that ended the independence of east germany). one of enver hoxha's criticisms of this situation was that democratic parties should necessarily correspond to the democratic phase of the revolution and had no logical place in the dictatorship of the proletariat under socialism (USSR didn't have legacy bloc parties of note).
this is not what you said before, this is just a basic overview of democratic centralism which has no bearing on whether the parties in many socialist countries are "potemkin parties", whether the theater of politics has an "ideological" function, whether these parties had no independence and that "everyone knows this", nor whether the idea of a potemkin party even makes sense. you then use weasel words (for example calling the KMT 'consultative' to imply that they are not independent when in reality they are part of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference-basically using the word consultative in its technical meaning here and then switching it with the colloquial meaning) to make a series of gross generalizations. your claims about North Korea are based on absolutely nothing so I no longer have trust that you are accurately representing dozens of African countries, China, Iraq, etc.
getfiscal posted:Well you're just factually wrong, Baby Huey, and you're making arguments that aren't even made in China. Like you're developing a fantasy which has no relation to even what the official position of the CCP is. I didn't even say it was "good" or "bad", I just said that's the official position and what happened in real life. If you think the GMD should be allowed to run in multiparty parliamentary elections rather than through a system of negotiated allocation then you should argue for that, but it's not what exists.
again this is a matter of weasel words. what does 'independent' mean here? what does 'consultative' mean? what does 'ideological' mean in relation to 'political'? you started out defending the thesis that potemkin parties exist and are present in socialist countries so you cannot say that you are using these words in a technical sense since you are posting in a thread which is precisely about how these concepts are used for propaganda against North Korea based on literal no evidence.
getfiscal posted:well i think most of the "evidence" in defence of north korea in this thread is transparently stupid and is based on reading official ideological documents at face value, i didn't spend any time arguing about that because it's like arguing about scientology or anarcho-capitalism. and then someone added the idea that potemkin parties don't exist in most "dictatorships" because they have no function. so i said they often do exist and often do have a specific ideological function connected to the history of the government. they might have some trivial level of autonomy as any institution has to have to exist in reality, that doesn't make it useful to defend as a real democratic institution.
glad that's out in the open then.
getfiscal posted:well i think most of the "evidence" in defence of north korea in this thread is transparently stupid and is based on reading official ideological documents at face value, i didn't spend any time arguing about that because it's like arguing about scientology or anarcho-capitalism.
getfiscal posted:well i think most of the "evidence" in defence of north korea in this thread is transparently stupid and is based on reading official ideological documents at face value,
What post are you referring to?
RBC posted:If any of u really want to put your money where ur mouth is, u could easily defect to north korea
I just go wherever the agency tells me to, Rebecca.
tears posted:place looks alright to me, they certainly got their educational priorities right
Caption that with something about Korean children attending mandatory preschool courses about the importance of North Korea's fundamental and universal right of all citizens to keep and bear arms preparing for their first firearm safety training and let it out into the wild at some of the american right wing whacko gun lover sites and see if/how they squirm
getfiscal posted:I'm not going to debate about it because I have no advanced psychiatric training.
well that's convenient
Ufuk_Surekli posted:"I'm a socialist, and yes I definitely get down with unaccountable tyranny and sham governments, so what" is not what people need to hear right now. taking that position is practically an act of sabotage
That is 100% your position, though, not mine. If you go to a Korean friendship website and copy-paste ideological statements about the government as proof that Korea is a well-functioning democracy then you are just a stupid person, it's just accidental that you claim to be a communist and not one of the many libertarians on the Internet who quote the second amendment as if it's a profound statement about how morality works or something. I'm not saying I support the DPRK's system, or the USA's system, I think both are defective and need to be replaced with direct popular power. I won't be able to convince you that doesn't operate in the DPRK for the same reason I can't convince Scientologists that e-meters don't measure engrams in the body, you have no relation to logic.
aerdil posted:donald do u think believing most western media is complicit in propaganda against the dprk to be on par with or even more of a symptom of mental illness than believing socialism to be a viable economic system
I think socialism is a viable economic system, which is why it's unfortunate places like China abandoned it for capitalism.
getfiscal posted:If you go to a Korean friendship website and copy-paste ideological statements about the government as proof that Korea is a well-functioning democracy then you are just a stupid person,
Can you please link me to the post where someone does this?
Ufuk_Surekli posted:le_nelson_mandela_face posted:maybe she wouldnt but somehow people can dislike dictatorships without being racist
DPRK isn't a dictatorship, this isn't even a moral judgement or something you're just mistaken
unless (and I think this is the case) you've broadened the meaning of "dictatorship" to mean "country I don't like/don't understand"
how is the notion of the DPRK being a dictatorship reconcilable with basic facts about its political system, with widely available knowledge about its electoral, parliamentary and executive processes, which have been posted again and again in the various Korea threads
did the population of the DPRK "dictate" a bunch of delegates to the SPA by universal suffrage/dictatorballot, and did the SPA then "dictatorially" elect Pak Pong Ju as "dictator of government" for 5 years, and Kim Yong Nam as "other dictator who dictates over the Presidium of the dictatorial SPA (subject to dictatorial recall by that organisation, and also for 5 years)"
I think the reason people might run the risk of mistaking your novel application of the concept of dictatorship for xenophobic chauvanism, is that you seem to inconsistently use the newly-expanded dictatorship definition on certain countries but not others, even when the processes are comparably democratic in both
Word salad.
aerdil posted:please stop trolling d-man, what did we do to deserve this
You know I think you're cool, and roseweird is great, and babyhuey will figure things out. That Ufuk guy I don't know yet but seems like a rube.
I actually barely know anything about North Korea. I just know I'm being told insane, weird, racist, lies about it for some reason, and I just cannot help but be curious.
I find it extremely hard to believe that North Koreans are people who are devoid of normal emotions, and tattle on each other for portions of rice. I don't want to believe that. It sounds really fucking racist.