Here’s the full statement straight from DPRK media itself:

Pyongyang, August 20 (KCNA) – Kim Yo Jong, department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, released the following press statement “Poor plight of Seoul unable to play a war game it liked very much” on August 20:

Ulji Freedom Shield, a large-scale rehearsal for an aggressive war being conducted by the U.S. and the ROK in the ROK, was given a frosty reception right after its kick-off.

Trump issued a sudden order to reduce the scale of the drill. This has placed Seoul in a poor plight of discontinuing the “war game” it liked very much.

It will be something like the first “trouble” to the ROK, unprecedented in the history of U.S.-ROK joint military exercises, in the context that it has never seen the scale of a war game reduced to become coreless right after its kick-off with no prior discussion.

The ROK cannot let out a single word of protest at the GIs leaving without any mutual coordination at the U.S. chief executive’s unilateral order. This is the inevitable fate of the puppet army, whose right to command has been left in the hands of the U.S., and the true situation of the ROK, whose security has been placed at stake due to a reduction of the joint military drill and who brags about its “enough capability for self-defence” despite its defence and security being under the care of outsiders.

The plight of the ROK, which is compelled to stop the “war game” it liked very much, is showing the structure of the relation between master and servant called the “U.S.-ROK blood alliance” of which it has boasted.

As recognized generally, this unforeseen consequence is an evident disaster brought by the unrealistic and anachronistic security outlook pursued by the ROK authorities who have ceaselessly repeated unnecessary attempts to reverse the regional mechanical structure controlled by a nuclear-armed nation, blinded by their firm belief in the U.S. master.

The ROK has reaped what it sowed.

The ROK authorities are hyping it as an “occasion for new phase and good opportunity for a change in relations” to cover up their poor plight, which is nothing but a lame excuse.

Lee Jae Myung curried favor with the U.S. in public by uttering shameful words that he pays “respects” for Trump’s “decisive rollback decision” and it was a “decision from deep consideration” and then talked about “independent national defence” and “independent buildup of military capabilities” to prepare for the “worst scenario”. Such double-dealing behaviour vividly proves uneasiness and impatience of the ROK.

The world witnesses that the U.S. security aids are no longer free of charge.

The whole territory of the ROK would be insufficient to curry favour with the cruel master.

What about deeply considering its position of complete subordination and finding a way of existence on this occasion?

Seoul should be aware of the unavoidable fate of the “puppet”. -0-

They won’t and the US knows it, they’re just playing good cop bad cop once again

It’s the same story with every single social media platform. All of them optimized their content towards what gives the most engagement, which is politics. So every single app out there is doing political content now, and as we all know the average person is merely reacting to headlines without much deeper understanding of the issues at hand. It makes for a total mess and imo it’s very important to curate the content you’re seeing every day. I still use Reddit but I unsubscribed from the major toxic subs like /r/worldnews, /r/politics and /r/europe. I’m subscribed to explicitly left wing political subs but even then it can be a mess.

Doesn’t surprise me unfortunately, powerlifting tends to attract lots of rightwingers.

I used to be like you a few years ago.Then I started looking into the history of the DPRK more. I learned about the Korean war, how the US killed around 20% of the North Korean population. The orders were to shoot anything that moves, combatant or not. Every building, dam or other piece of infrastructure still standing up was to be bombed. Is it any wonder a highly militarized society grew out of these circumstances, one that will do whatever it takes to not suffer another genocide?

Also, did you know the word ‘brainwashing’ has first been invented during the Korean war to describe American soldiers that had been in North Korean captivity? Many were treated quite well and even received education on American imperialism and communism, and when released they started telling everyone how the Americans were actually the bad ones and how communism really is the way forward for the world. Before that, American media had been running a campaign telling everyone North Korean communists were slaughtering American captives by the thousands, so obviously they had to pretend that those released American soldiers weren’t acting out of their free will and they had to blame it on some advanced ‘Asian mind control’ and they invented the term ‘brainwashing’. You can look that up if you don’t believe me, just search ‘brainwashing’ on Wikipedia, it’s right on top of the page.

There’s a lot more that I could say but I’ll leave it at that. I don’t think the DPRK is that particularly great or a country I’d like to live in, but it’s too simplistic to just paint them as this anomaly in world history, this country that turned into an evil dictatorship overnight for no reason.

If you’re interested, I would recommend the book ‘Everyday life in the North Korean revolution’. It’s a study of how regular North Koreans experienced the revolution right after liberation from Japanese occupation, how everyone was zealously working on building a new communal society as an alternative to capitalism.

I have many leftist friends, most are anarchists though. I’m slowly introducing them to more Marxist concepts and about their own anticommunist indoctrination. Hopefully eventually we’ll all be highly educated Marxist-Leninists.

Photos -> Immich Documents -> Seafile Gmail -> Proton Mail Android -> GrapheneOS Google -> Kagi

I have my own mini PC on which I host most stuff myself, using Tailscale to connect to it from outside. So my only subscriptions are Kagi and my VPN provider, in total 15 USD per month.