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Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

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Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#181

Post by ellyagg »

zedshaw wrote: post #131
jacoblyles wrote: post #97

It's interesting to see reddit's America-hatred spread here. We can't condemn atrocities anywhere in the world without first holding America up as a paragon of all that is evil. The failure to recognize the good in America, indeed the many ways in which it still leads the world, and see the difference between a free country with perhaps too-strict sentencing guidelines and one which enslaves and kills its people for…

Having actually worked for the penal system collecting and analyzing statistics on prisoner abuses and policy enforcement, I can easily tell you that you are wrong (assuming your confusing deconstructionist prose means what I think it means). In general, Europe has some of the best prisons, and some of the worst prisons. France, Italy, Turkey, and Russia have horrendous prisons where in many cases prisoners don't sur…

It's so frustrating and terrible to see the situation in NK trivialized by comparing the US's prison systems unfavorably to it. No initiative, no activism, no outcry can be raised because its wind is immediately sucked out by foolish people screaming moral equivalence. How do you think refugees from these gulags would feel to hear you compare the average US prison inmate's experience to their own? Do you acknowledge that some concentration camps can be objectively and morally worse than others?

Are there bad prisons in the US? No doubt. Is the average US inmate experience anything like what is the RULE in these gulags? No. Does the scale between the two matter? Yes. Do the crimes (sometimes "crimes") and due process issues matter? Yes. Can we go on and on with specific, provable differences which make the NK citizen's experience far more horrifying? Yes.

Problems with the prison system in the US belong in their OWN THREAD, where they don't distract from THIS PROBLEM. The fact that some folks feel the overwhelming urge to bring them up here speaks a lot about what they think is important: Scoring points against the US. The US prison system is not relevant to the NK prison system. This isn't a game. NK doesn't get to pick out worst case practices from the US to justify its sweeping unchecked abuses. And it certainly doesn't deserve the aid of willing amateur PR people on random internet message boards.

NK is the same country that quietly let millions of its people starve while it spent a large fraction of its total wealth trying to build the tallest hotel in the world! That's the philosophy and those are the priorities of the organization behind these gulags. But you're telling me the REAL story here is the US prison system?

But this is why NK gets to go merrily about its way starving and torturing its citizens.

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#183

Post by bluekeybox »

guelo wrote: post #176
bluekeybox wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a particular sentiment (I call it politics of resentment) that aims to portray anyone who is in power as evil, disregarding the question of whether a power change would really be productive. Those in power (whether good or bad) unavoidably have to play a power game to maintain said power, and the politics of resentment will always try to portray any such game as being played for an evil/unjust/immoral purpos…

Real tldr: trust our dear leader, nothing to see here, move along.

It is okay (and good!) to criticize power but there has to be a good reason other than resentment, otherwise you just fall into the trap of sounding like a bitter guy who lost at life and has nothing better to do than to externalize his failure at the current status quo.

I grew up in a former communist country. There, if you were a critical thinker with a strong personality striving for your own economic well-being, you would generally end up labeled as the enemy of the state. The modern capitalist economy tends to reward such people, yet some still feel resentment (hint: in any system, egalitarian or not, there will be those who feel resentment).

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#184

Post by sliverstorm »

amackera wrote: post #90
ck2 wrote: post #4

If they still made the sears catalog I'd suggest the key to starting a peoples' revolt in North Korea would be to airdrop hundreds of thousands of catalogs across the country. Even without understanding the language, just looking at all the goods would make people start wondering why they are being made to suffer so.

How about just dropping food?

This has been demonstrated in the past to nurture dependance and a sense of entitlement towards the free food.

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#185

Post by fauigerzigerk »

zedshaw wrote: post #131
jacoblyles wrote: post #97

It's interesting to see reddit's America-hatred spread here. We can't condemn atrocities anywhere in the world without first holding America up as a paragon of all that is evil. The failure to recognize the good in America, indeed the many ways in which it still leads the world, and see the difference between a free country with perhaps too-strict sentencing guidelines and one which enslaves and kills its people for…

Having actually worked for the penal system collecting and analyzing statistics on prisoner abuses and policy enforcement, I can easily tell you that you are wrong (assuming your confusing deconstructionist prose means what I think it means). In general, Europe has some of the best prisons, and some of the worst prisons. France, Italy, Turkey, and Russia have horrendous prisons where in many cases prisoners don't sur…

One additional piece of information seems important though. The US has a prison population of 756 per 100,000 inhabitants. France has 85 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. (that's according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison#Population_statistics)

Of course that says nothing about how bad the prisons are. But it probably does say something about the quality of the justice system as a whole.

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#186

Post by lshepstone »

zedshaw wrote: post #131
jacoblyles wrote: post #97

It's interesting to see reddit's America-hatred spread here. We can't condemn atrocities anywhere in the world without first holding America up as a paragon of all that is evil. The failure to recognize the good in America, indeed the many ways in which it still leads the world, and see the difference between a free country with perhaps too-strict sentencing guidelines and one which enslaves and kills its people for…

Having actually worked for the penal system collecting and analyzing statistics on prisoner abuses and policy enforcement, I can easily tell you that you are wrong (assuming your confusing deconstructionist prose means what I think it means). In general, Europe has some of the best prisons, and some of the worst prisons. France, Italy, Turkey, and Russia have horrendous prisons where in many cases prisoners don't sur…

Speaking as a South African, you do not want to go to prison there. People try to avoid it at all costs. Corruption is rife, and reports have surfaced of guards selling sexual access to prisoners amongst other unpleasant activities.

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#188

Post by rdtsc »

callmeed wrote: post #8
ck2 wrote: post #4

If they still made the sears catalog I'd suggest the key to starting a peoples' revolt in North Korea would be to airdrop hundreds of thousands of catalogs across the country. Even without understanding the language, just looking at all the goods would make people start wondering why they are being made to suffer so.

How about SkyMall catalogs instead? They're already on the planes ;)

Oh no! They'll find out everything they learned about greedy Western capitalist societies is true then...

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#189

Post by zinkem »

uuilly wrote: post #73
muhfuhkuh wrote: post #9

"I can admire China’s growth in infrastructure and technology, it’s pursuit to compete on a global scale, but what good is all that growth if it allows these crimes to go on next door?" I admire America's prominence in infrastructure and technology, it's continuing domination on a global scale, but what good is all that power when over 40,000 people and rising are murdered because of a drug war for which they are com…

Making a concentration camp is intentional. Allowing a drug war to proliferate is neglect. Intent matters in criminal sentencing and it matters here.

What do you call it when the CIA participates in the drug trafficking, is that acting with neglect or intent?

Re: Satellite Images of North Korea Prison Camps Find 200,000 Living as Slaves

#190

Post by Wickk »

sedachv wrote: post #178
jhamburger wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that a lot of those people belong in prison. I mean release the pot dealer serving 25-to-life, fine...but you'll still be left with a lot of 'real' criminals out there. And sure there are a lot of unique systemic failures in America that led to this situation, but they can't all be fixed by a few shifts in gov't policy.

"The problem is that a lot of those people belong in prison." Why do you think the situation is different in North Korea?

You have got to be kidding me.
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