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This week on CounterSpin: The White House has announced it’s extending the ban on people using US passports to go to North Korea. Corporate media seem to find it of little interest; who wants to go to North Korea? Which fairly reflects media’s disinterest in the tens of thousands of Korean Americans who might want to visit family in North Korea, along with their overarching, active disinterest in telling the story of the Korean peninsula in anything other than static, cartoonish terms—North Korea is a murderous dictatorship; South Korea is a client state, lucky for our support—terms that conveniently sidestep the US’s historic and ongoing role in the crisis.
Amanda Yee is a writer and organizer, and an editor of Liberation News. We’ll talk with her about the role the travel ban plays in a bigger picture.
Transcript: ‘Propaganda Against North Korea and the Travel Ban Go Hand in Hand’
We reference hidden history in that conversation. CounterSpin got some deeper understanding on that a couple years back from Hyun Lee, US national organizer for Women Cross DMZ, part of the coalition Korea Peace Now!. We’ll hear a little from that today as well.
Transcript: ‘Washington Has Been Asking the Wrong Question on North Korea’
Interesting. Frankly it’s both somewhat funny and yet a scary topic as the man-child leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un announced, just yesterday, its first operational “Tactical Nuclear Attack Submarine” and assigned it to the fleet that patrols the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan.
The launching ceremony coincides with the 75th anniversary of its founding day this coming Saturday with plans of Kim traveling to Russia this month to meet Vladimir Putin to discuss additional weapons supplies to Moscow.
Add China and its leader Xi to mix and this has become a very tough neighborhood for everyone to just get along.
Thank you for a voice of sanity [and reality] on history and DPRK [North Korea}. We were fortunate to visit DPRK for 10 days through Global Exchange, prior to the travel ban. What an eye-opener, including our own delving into the history of Korea….the first Vietnam!! So many parallels. Even “progressives” are appalling ignorant of the history of Korea……So and North. Keep up the good work. And I will be donating!
Super illuminatingly informative interviews with Hyun Lee & Amanda Lee!
I had no idea: Americans could travel to northern Korea prior to 2017; That only an armistice, instead of a peace treaty, exists between US & Korea.
More on this critical topic, please!
Meanwhile … Kim, the 3rd generation family dictator, according to multiple South Korea media outlets is aboard his personal bulletproof train which left Pyongyang early Monday on route toward Russia for his first overseas trip in more than four years.
Kim “will meet and have a talk with Comrade Putin,” North Korea’s state media said. I sure would love to be a fly on the wall in that meeting LOL.