[SolarCross]

Just watched this film called propaganda made in North Korea and then given to a translator in South Korea by 'defectors'. Despite having little doubt that 'defectors' were actually DPRK agents and that the film probably was intended for a western audience rather than domestic consumption the translator did translate the film and release it on to youtube.
It is a very interesting and very hardhitting look at propaganda from the DPRK's perspective. Despite what you may think about the source of the film it has more than a little truth in its narrative. Warning to the sensitive - the documentary contains some pretty graphic footage of the consequences of warfare. So what do you think?

[michael3]

I saw it, and it does make more than a few good points about propaganda and the 'manufacturing of consent'. Even on Religion, there were a few uncomfortably true commentaries regarding the use of religion as propaganda in the capitalist world, even as I disregarded the dogmatic atheism (perhaps obligatory itself...) of the DPRK movie. It's unfortunate, the bias against Christianity in both Anarchist and Communist movements, for I think the thing the power elites of the world fear most is their union...

It is clear that there is a cadre of people in the DPRK who have no interest in transformation of their country into another consumerist/capitalist South Korea, that's for sure.

[SolarCross]

As you say the anti-faith meme is pretty rampant in socialist thought from anarchist to marxist and everything in between. It is pretty understandable from a european perspective as mother church so often aided and abetted (and profited from) the crimes of father state that it is pretty hard to reject the aristocratic or capitalist state without rejecting the church too. There have always been rogue priests and monks on the side of justice tho. Parallel with that European philosophy birthed a schism between intuition and reason, faith and science such that you could not use one without rejecting the other. The rebel socialist always pressed for a philosophical prop to his aims and obliged to choose between intuition and faith on one hand and science and reason on the other mostly chose the latter. It is a poor choice though. I think the socialist could use both. Really socialism in its aims is just secularised religion.

[michael3]

As you say the anti-faith meme is pretty rampant in socialist thought from anarchist to marxist and everything in between. It is pretty understandable from a european perspective as mother church so often aided and abetted (and profited from) the crimes of father state that it is pretty hard to reject the aristocratic or capitalist state without rejecting the church too. There have always been rogue priests and monks on the side of justice tho. Parallel with that European philosophy birthed a schism between intuition and reason, faith and science such that you could not use one without rejecting the other. The rebel socialist always pressed for a philosophical prop to his aims and obliged to choose between intuition and faith on one hand and science and reason on the other mostly chose the latter. It is a poor choice though. I think the socialist could use both. Really socialism in its aims is just secularised religion.

I agree with a great deal of what you've said, but find it interesting that I jumped into Anarchism/Socialism from an entirely religious/spiritual viewpoint; my study and following of Blaise Pascal and Jansenism and reflections upon the consequences of that thought upon political belief-I cannot sustain any faith in either Capitalism or the State if I conclude on a metaphysical level that all human Law is Usurpation and Equality of Goods is true Justice.

What remains is for me to examine the technical and rational aspects of these ideas, which is what i've begun. It's interesting that I had just viewed this DPRK Film after watching the Documentary; the 'Century of the Self' and reading about Edward Bernays....The Consumerist Religion is the prop of Capitalism today, not Christianity.