There is no limit to the slanders spewed by U.S. corporate media – from so-called journalists to filmmakers to comedians – against North Korea, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. “The racist and inaccurate discourse around the DPRK helps justify the almost daily military operations the US backs in South Korea.” The 60-year long propaganda campaign is “part and parcel of the US imperialist agenda to militarize the Asia Pacific.”

The corporate media is the mouthpiece of US imperialism. More specifically, the Hollywood arm of the corporate media is tasked with promoting the US-Western imperialist way of life as profitable “entertainment.” Seth Rogan’s new film fits snugly into this mold. In The Interview, Rogan and James Franco play CIA recruits assigned with the job of assassinating the current leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong-un. This overtly cruel and monstrous plot line should come as no surprise to anyone following US imperialism’s decades long war against Korea.

The Korean War is labeled a “forgotten war” by the US corporate media and political class. In reality, the US imperialist ruling class has done everything it can to erase the stain of the Korean War from popular memory. The US imperialist war on Korea formally began in 1950 after the US violated a temporary (three year) political agreement with the Soviet Union to peacefully divide Korea along the 38th parallel. Instead of abiding by the agreement, the US installed dictator Syngman Rhee in the South and armed it to the teeth at the tune of a half billion US dollars. Rhee used the funds to slaughter hundreds of thousands of guerrilla forces in the North. Despite this, Korean independence and socialist forces counter-attacked and liberated Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Washington, in a scramble to protect its interests in South East Asia from socialist construction and Chinese alliance, agreed to reserve 12 billion dollars for a land invasion in Korea.

During the invasion, the US dropped 420,000 bombs on the capital of the DPRK, Pyongyang. The bombing campaigns left large percentages of Northern Korea without homes or basic infrastructure. More than a million Koreans died. Despite heavy losses, the resistance of the Korean Peoples Army and the socialist Korean Workers Party forced the US into an armistice agreement in 1953. To this day, the US refuses to sign a peace treaty and maintains a militarized presence in the South, where 29,000 US ground troops are currently stationed. The US government also enforces economic sanctions on the DPRK. US sanctions exacerbated the DPRK’s food insecurity crisis in the early 90’s after the destabilization of the Soviet Union and socialist bloc cut off much of the nation’s access to international trade and finance.

US imperialism’s assault on Korea and the DPRK is not a “forgotten war”, but rather, a distorted one. The majority of people in the US obtain knowledge of the DPRK through the lens of the US imperialist corporate media. The Interview is just one of many Hollywood films that have dehumanized the DPRK’s leadership and socialist system in the interests of US empire. The 2004 film Team America: World Police portrayed Kim Jong-il as a literal cockroach whose insecurity fueled ambitions for world domination. In 2012 and 2013, the movies Red Dawn and Olympus Has Fallen each parroted Washington’s image of a militarist North Korea hell-bent on waging war on the US mainland.

To compliment these false and racist depictions of the DPRK, corporate journalism in the US repetitiously reports unverified instances of the DPRK repressing its own people and threatening the US with nuclear war. US imperial slander occurs so often that the fallacies only become more ridiculous. This recently took shape in the US media’s recent report of Kim Jong-un’s supposed mandate that the entire male population of the DPRK cut its hair in Un’s particular style. Of course, such slander never amounts to fact, but rather a politicized gossip partaken by the war-mongering imperialist ruling class and consumed by the rest of us.

Corporate media slander of the DPRK helps fulfill two key objectives for US imperialism. The racist and inaccurate discourse around the DPRK helps justify the almost daily military operations the US backs in South Korea. In contrast to Western media narrative, it is the US’s puppet state in South Korea that conducts regular military exercises, all of which directly or indirectly target the DPRK.  In addition to military destabilization, the US corporate media seeks to ideologically erase the heroic victories of Korean socialism. Despite being set ablaze by US bombs during the US invasion of 1950-53 and sanctioned from needed economic assets, the DPRK possesses a growing socialist economy. Housing, education, and healthcare are human rights provided to all. The food insecurity the DPRK experienced in the 90’s has been reduced mightily and the corporate media knows it, as evidenced by its recent avoidance of the issue as a talking point of DPRK demonization.

The US desperately needs to maintain hegemony in the region by keeping Korea divided and disallowing the DPRK to expand political influence in the region through national unity. China’s rise in the east has counterbalanced US imperial power with a more powerful economic system. The destabilization of the DPRK is part and parcel of the US imperialist agenda to militarize the Asia Pacific in an attempt to slow down inevitable crisis and collapse. Corporate media depictions of the DPRK need to be placed within the context of US imperial decline. One of the challenges for the left in this period is to fight the US’s racist narrative of the DPRK, not only for the sake of the Korean people but also for all people struggling to dig the final grave for US imperialism.

Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street (Herzen Street from 1920 to 1993) is a street in the Central Administrative District of Moscow. It passes from Manezhnaya Square to Kudrinskaya Square, and lies between Tverskaya Street and Vozdvizhenka, parallel to them. The numbering of houses begins from Manezhnaya Square. In 1920, in connection with the 50th anniversary of the death of the writer and revolutionary democrat Alexander Herzen, it was renamed as Herzen Street. In 1993, the historical name was returned to the street. In 1997, the main part of the buildings of the street from the Nikitsky Gate Square to the Garden Ring was included in the Povarskaya-Bolshaya Nikitskaya protected area.

Grover Carr Furr III (born April 3, 1944) is an American professor of Medieval English literature at Montclair State University, best known for his books on Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. He has published many books on this subject.

The death of Mikhail Gorbachev has led to a great unfolding of information in the international press. In several headlines he is highlighted as the last Soviet leader; strictly speaking, he was not, since he led the final stage of capitalist restoration in the former USSR, an aspect totally contrary to Sovietism.

Gorbachev assumed the functions of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, CPSU, in March 1985 and shortly thereafter was named President of the USSR. It was a time when economic, political, social and moral problems took on great dimensions in that country. In the 1970s, the growth rate of national income fell by more than 50% and in the early 1980s it almost reached zero. Corruption could not be stopped; there was talk of a “second economy” to designate what is known as the “black market,” in which officials at the highest level of the State and leaders of the party were involved. The health system was practically in ruins; housing was overcrowded; the rates of alcoholism in the population were high; people’s life expectancy was reduced and mortality was on the rise. There were many more problems.

The bases of capitalism resurfaced in the former USSR with the coup d’état carried out by Nikita Khrushchev and his clique in 1956, after the death of Joseph Stalin (1953). Over the years, the successes achieved by socialism in all fields while Lenin and Stalin were at the head of the state were undermined and capitalist laws and forms of production were imposed. So much so that Leonid Brezhnev (who succeeded Khrushchev) said that “no one lives on their salary alone,” referring to the existence of the “black market” and the social strata that depended on private economic activity for their income.

Gorbachev, when he assumed the leadership of the party and state, obviously did not present himself as an open promoter of capitalist re-establishment; he said that his purpose was to establish an “efficient, productive and democratic socialism,” and thus led to the disintegration of the USSR.

The economic and political reforms that brought the anti-socialist process initiated by revisionism four decades earlier to the highest point, were made official in July 1987. A year earlier they were approved at a Party congress, but as early as 1984, in a speech to the ideological working group of the Central Committee of the Party, Gorbachev raised the need for an information opening (glasnost) and the restructuring of the economic system (perestroika).

Gorbachev’s plan sought to establish a capitalist market economy, eliminate control over state enterprises, which could now determine what to produce, how much to produce and the prices in the market based on consumer demands; a new law on cooperatives restored private ownership to companies in services, manufactures and sectors linked to foreign trade; foreign trade was liberalized. This led to deindustrialization and the privatization of state-owned enterprises. In 1994, when the USSR no longer existed, 70% of the assets in Russia came from the private sector.

Hand in hand with the pro-capitalist reforms was glasnost (transparency), which supposedly had the purpose of democratizing information, but in reality it was a means to open the floodgates to an open and furious anti-communist propaganda, driven by the most degenerate and pro-restoration sectors. The historical distortion of the process of building socialism in the USSR was one of the targets and, particularly, the unfounded attacks against Stalin were accentuated.

Gorbachev defined perestroika as a revolution within the revolution, aimed at achieving more socialism and more democracy; in reality it was a counter-revolution within the counter-revolution. The economic and social problems deepened, the USSR fell into political chaos, the demands of the workers and the people were lit up on all sides, and some Soviet republics demanded to secede.

On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev broadcast a live message on television, announcing his resignation from the presidency of the Republic. It was a formality; in fact he had no control over the situation in the country; days earlier the Washington Post called him the leader of a kingdom in the air.

The international bourgeoisie loudly applauded what Gorbachev did. None other than George Bush Sr. said that “the revolutionary transformation of a totalitarian dictatorship and the liberation of its people from its suffocating embrace” had taken place. If the most powerful imperialist head of state on the planet said that, it is because Gorbachev’s services to world capitalism were enormous.

Yesterday (Friday Jan. 6th 2017) around 1pm, the Department of National Intelligence released their declassified report (PDF) on the Russian hacking story or the Russian “influence” story that has been taking shape here in the States surrounding Hillary Clinton’s crash and burn presidential campaign of 2016.

At about the same time, a man got off a plane in Florida and took a gun from his checked bag and opened fire on people in the baggage claim area of an airport, emptying 3 clips before lying down on the ground and waiting to be arrested. That man claimed earlier that the CIA had been trying to force him to watch “ISIS” videos.

Each and every page of the declassified report contains in the top header an official disclaimer of sorts which reads:

“This report is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment; its conclusions are identical to those in the highly classified assessment but this version does not include the full supporting information on key elements of the influence campaign.”

Key here is the fact that the report contains no facts. None. Zip. Zilch. No evidence reported in the report whatsoever.

Also key is the word “assessment” and in the beginning of the declassified report, they take the time to explain that term:

“When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as “we assess” or “we judge,” they are conveying an analytic assessment or judgment. Some analytic judgments are based directly on collected information; others rest on previous judgments, which serve as building blocks in rigorous analysis“

“(O)thers rest on previous judgments”. Got that? No evidence reported in this report and they tell you right off the bat that in all likelihood, this “assessment” is based on “previous” assessment, which as we all know, were bullshit. “Grizzly steppe” anyone?

Buried deep in various articles about the release we find a little rational thought on this release. That of course is buried under tons of regurgitated, unsubstantiated accusations leveled at Vladamir Putin, Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks.

The report contains scant information on attribution
That may not be enough for some critics, who have been publicly calling on the intelligence community to release more information explaining how it linked hacking operations to Russia” The Verge

“Some critics” may not find their baseless accusations to be “enough” to jump on the New McCarthyism bandwagon. How unfortunate. But apparently the Verge doesn’t mind Megaphoning Mockingbird fake news:

“The report also publicly names Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks.com, two sources of stolen information released to the public, as Russian operatives working on behalf of the country’s military intelligence unit, the GRU.” The Verge

This “intelligence” report is not a report. If you produced something like this in high school for your final essay in your political science class, you would be given an “F” because it is baseless and throws around completely unsubstantiated, antagonist accusations without a single shred of evidence to support any of it.

Not only that, but it’s apparent foundation is the lies and deception that has come before it. Talk about building a castle in a swamp.

Yet, the media is out there right now, on both sides of the artificial divide, reporting on this bloated Red Scare propaganda effort as if it is the gold standard in U.S. intelligence efforts.

Unfortunately, it is. And that says a lot about our “intel” services today.

Hillary Clinton lost to the most unpopular presidential candidate in U.S. history because she was a corrupt war-mongering fake leftist running on a base of fear-mongering and lies. Her career of corruption lost her the election, not Vladamir Putin.

She stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders, a FACT that was exposed by the DNC LEAK (not “hack”)

She had the general election won after that ridiculous video of Trump talking about “grabbing women by the pussy” came out and yet she still managed to lose when the Director of the FBI announced they had found a laptop in the possession of Anthony Weiner that had all her erased emails still on it. That’s when she finally lost.

Are we to believe James Comey is also a Russian agent?

The reality is, this disinformation campaign is being run for two reasons: to keep the new cold war of the New McCarthyism alive and well and … to exonerate the establishment’s candidate, Hillary Clinton, of the crimes she committed which were exposed during her campaign.

In all likelihood, the original emails released by Guccifer and published by Wikileaks came from our own intelligence services. Wikileaks is, after all, a psyop conducted by them.

And in case anyone forgot, the slow drip, drip, drip of emails released during the entirety of the general election process were coming from the FBI… not Guccifer 2.0, not DCLeaks and not Vladamir Putin.

Are we to assume the FBI is also an agent for the Kremlin?

This is the most ridiculous historical rewrite I have witnessed from our government in quite sometime and I have to wonder about the shooting down here in Florida that just happened to take place an hour before the release of this baseless drivel being spoon fed to willing apologists in the corporate media.

Not only was it released on a Friday afternoon in order to kill it in the news cycle… but it also just HAPPENED to coincide with YET ANOTHER mass casualty event featuring a guy with ABSOLUTELY NO MOTIVE and one this time who says he had been receiving messages from the CIA to watch “ISIS” propaganda videos.

CIA? Mentioned in his story? And the CIA “intelligence” report… all on the same day?

Makes you think, doesn’t it? Or… does it? It’s pretty damn obvious and takes a highly “educated” form of journalist to miss it.

Desembarco del Granma National Park, with its uplifted marine terraces and associated ongoing development of karst topography and features, represents a globally significant example of geomorphologic and physiographic features and ongoing geological processes. The area, which is situated in and around Cabo Cruz in south-east Cuba, includes spectacular terraces and cliffs, as well as some of the most pristine and impressive coastal cliffs bordering the western Atlantic.

Brief Synthesis

Desembarco del Granma National Park (DGNP) is situated in the Southwestern tip of Cuba, and more specifically in the municipalities of Niquero and Pilon in Granma Province. The property lies within the tectonically active zone between the Caribbean and the North American Plate and conserves the limestone terraces of Cabo Cruz at the western end of the Sierra Maestra Mountains. A series of these elevated terraces extends from 180 meters below to 360 meters above sea level. The total surface area is 32,576 ha, of which 26,180 ha are terrestrial and 6,396 ha marine area, respectively, with a terrestrial buffer zone of 9,287 ha.

The marine limestone terraces were formed by tectonic uplift and sea level fluctuations triggered by past climate change. Their number and height is as remarkable as their good conservation status. The little-disturbed landscape – and seascape – offers a wide spectrum of karst phenomena, such as giant sinkholes, cliffs, canyons and caves.

Criterion (vii): The terraces of Cabo Cruz form a singular coastal landscape in Cuba and are the world’s largest and best preserved coastal limestone terrace system. The imposing and nearly pristine coastal cliffs bordering the Western Atlantic are both a remarkable natural phenomenon and a stunningly beautiful sight. Jointly with the diverse, mostly native vegetation, the cliffs form an extraordinary visual ensemble of forms, contours, color and texture within a spectacular coastal setting.

Criterion (viii): The uplifted marine terraces of DGNP, and the continuing development of karst topography and features, are a globally significant illustration of geomorphologic and physiographic features and ongoing geological processes. DGNP displays a rare relief formed by the combination of tectonic movements in the still active contact zone between two tectonic plates and the effects of past sea level change in response to climate fluctuations. The karst forms include escarpments, cliffs, cave systems, river canyons and large sinkholes known as dolines in most diverse sizes and shapes.

Integrity

The boundaries of DGNP encompass the intact limestone terraces system both on land and in the sea. The property thereby contains a full array of associated geological phenomena and features. It also provides for the conservation of valuable plant and animal species, both terrestrial and marine, some of which are restricted to the property in their global distribution. The design of the marine and coastal portion comprises the coral reef of Cabo Cruz, as well as sea grass beds and mangroves. The legislative framework assures a prominent position for national parks in Cuba and a high degree of protection.

Despite the overall naturalness of the property there are localized impacts of past logging in the semi-deciduous forests north of the highest terraces, which occurred between around 1940 and 1980. These areas have since left to recover naturally. An old forest road, quarries used prior to inscription and small abandoned agricultural plots are all likewise in the process of recovery.

While recognized on the World Heritage List primarily for its landscape beauty and geology, DGNP also hosts noteworthy biodiversity values. More than 500 plant species have been recorded in what may still be an incomplete inventory. Around sixty percent of the known plants are endemic. Twelve species are only to be found within the DGNP making the property one of the centres of floral endemism within Cuba. The documentation of terrestrial fauna includes 13 mammals, 110 birds, 44 reptiles and seven amphibians. The degree of endemism for reptiles and amphibians is in the range of a remarkable 90 %. The marine areas are home to coral formations while mangrove stands are found along the shores.

Within DGNP there are noteworthy archaeological sites, including ceremonial caves and squares of the original indigenous inhabitants. Numerous sites containing petroglyphs, pictographs and artifacts left by Taina potters, and even pre-agrarian, pre-pottery making cultures, are spread across the property. In the more recent history, in 1956, the ship “Granma” embarked here after its journey from Mexico, starting a chain of events which changed the history of the country. The ship gave the province, the property and the national park its name.

The very existence of the national park, explicitly designed to exclude any man-made changes to the terraces and the landscape, is a sound basis for the maintenance of the geological and aesthetic values of DGNP. The biodiversity values, however, require active attention in the face of anticipated climate change, existing and possible further introductions of alien invasive species, feral animals and possible future pressure from visitation. In the case of the relatively small marine area it is clear that the integrity of the reefs and seegrass beds and its associated species will also depend on the management of fisheries and waste management outside of the property.

Protection and management requirements

DGNP is a unit of the National Protected Areas System of the Republic of Cuba. Building upon much earlier conservation efforts going back at least into the 1970s, DGNP was granted the status of National Park in 1986 by Ministerial Resolution. It became the first national park in Cuba’s conservation history. Originally covering a smaller area, it was later extended to encompass what is today the World Heritage property. For as long as the strong conservation status remains in place the most significant threats to the site, including inhabitants and staff, may well be natural disasters, such as hurricanes and sea floods.

The entire property is owned by the government, represented by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA). DGNP is managed by the National Enterprise for Flora and Fauna Protection (ENPFF), which operates under the auspices of the CITMA and is administered by the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI). Besides applicable protected areas legislation, the Law on Environment, the Decree-Law on Forest Heritage and Wild Fauna and specific stipulations related to Environmental Impact Assessments form the crucial legislative framework.

Since the establishment of the national park management is based on periodic five-year plans, which are implemented through annual operating plans. The latter define operational programmes and projects. The main objectives are the conservation of the maintenance of the integrity of DGNP, cooperation with communities adjacent to and within the property, and the promotion of responsible forms of tourism allowing visitation, recreation and education without compromising the conservation values.

In order to enforce applicable legislation and to achieve the conservation objectives, DGNP has trained technical, administrative and ranger staff. There is one head office located in Belic and four secondary centres distributed across the park, as well as a boat for marine patrolling. Funding needs to be ensured permanently to secure positions and to cover operational costs.

The focus of management is put on conservation, public use and ecosystem restoration in forested areas which have been affected by past logging and agriculture. Local resource use within the property occurs mostly in the marine areas, in particular by residents of the fishing community of Cabo Cruz, which is situated within DGNP. Fishing and extraction of other marine resources by local and external users requires monitoring to keep harvesting levels in line with productivity.

Alien invasive species pose a particular threat, as is well-known from island settings. Some woody species are reported to be an obstacle to natural regeneration of degraded forest areas. While management addresses this through an active nursery and reforestation program, eventually the reduction and, if possible, eradication should be sought. In terms of invasive animal species, including specimen of feral livestock, the situation appears to be manageable due to the extreme environmental conditions, the rugged relief and the property’s and naturalness all of which jointly discourage colonization by invasives. Still, invasive species require monitoring and, if needed, management responses.

There is little doubt that the tourism potential of DGNP exceeds the current use. While this constitutes an opportunity for future funding it also implies very real risks to DGNP, for example in terms of infrastructure, disturbance and waste management. 

I love this moment! 🤣 In fact, this was from around 6 months BEFORE the film came out, but the reaction of Rich Evans is very telling! particularly given how the film turned out. I’ve not even seen Batman Versus Superman: Dawn of Justice, nor The Justice League, but obviously the prior works of Chris Terrio sent shock waves through the Red Letter Media camp! 🙃