Yep, excellent write-up! Korea, in general, has not had a “normal” year of development for well over a century and a half. From colonization to war to the present split, Korea’s conditions have been extremely tumultuous. Throughout all of it, though, has been a strong history of radicalism and resistance. Japan had a much more “normal” course of development, as it gained a head-start on industrialization and maintained it with colonization of the surrounding areas.

Yep! Lots of quirky bits like that that make sense when analyzing the development of the ROK.

The biggest eye-opener seems to be telling people that Sansung sells insurance, has luxury hotels like the Silla, etc. The ROK is a bit more “naked” in that sense, contradictions are more out in the open. Watching the Samsung Lions play the Lotte Giants, instead of the Yankees against the Dodgers, for example, puts it up in your face a bit more. However, you’re absolutely right that the US’ own megacorps are the ones at the top, and it isn’t just “big tech.”

Yep, though Japan’s own imperial history gives it a qualitatively different character to the ROK, which has largely been the history of a colonized country turned imperial vassal. The ROK still has domestic mass manufacturing, though it largely keeps it through suppressing wages. At least, that’s my present understanding. The ROK still has extreme anti-communism, but a stronger union movement, which of course isn’t sufficient but does signify a more millitant working class. The ROK in general is a pot constantly on the verge of boiling over, including in the social sphere with rising feminist movements.

Yep! I tend to do that more when talking about 재벌 IRL, as for many Statesians they don’t really know about them at all. One thing they all seem to understand immediately is that Samsung, LG, Hyundai, etc. are massive in the ROK and that the families at the top are thus the real rulers of the ROK. Also serves as a nice springboard to talk about where they came from, ie collaborators with the US and former Japanese colonialist government.

Yep, Japan has no working class movement and is thus entirely controlled by the far-right.

Japan oscillates between far-right politics exclusively, the working class has little organizing and struggle going on and the state is thoroughly controlled by private intetests. The Republic of Korea may be an example of a capitalist dictatorship controlled by 3 companies in a trench-coat, but has active labor struggles and a history of millitant unions, at least.

Platforms like Voat have disgustingly promoted fascist ideologies in the name of “free speech”, but that doesn’t excuse leading members of Lemmygrad, Hexbear, and Lemmy.ml from their persistent history of supporting Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, supporting Chinese totalitarianism (not even true communism) over Taiwanese democracy, and disgusting transphobia.

1. These 3 instances support the people of Donetsk and Luhansk, which is the standard communist position globally.
2. The PRC is a socialist country, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes control the state. At a democratic level, local elections are direct, while higher levels are elected by lower rungs. At the top, constant opinion gathering and polling occurs, gathering public opinion, driving gradual change. This system is better elaborated on in Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Taiwan, on the other hand, is largely controlled by capitalists, and despite their claims of being the rightful rulers of all of China, almost no countries recognize it over the PRC.

I don’t know what you mean by “true” communism.

3. All 3 of those instances are some of the most trans-positive and friendly instances on Lemmy. The views of Nutomic do not represent the views of the average user, this is confirmed by anyone spending any time in any of the 3 instances you listed. Communists are pro-LGBTQIA+.

For the sake of Lemmy’s growth, it’s problematic that join-lemmy.org (as an official platform) features Hexbear, Lemmygrad, and Lemmy.ml so prominently. While I dislike Reddit enough to have not tossed away Lemmy as a whole for its tankies and instead blocked those instances, featuring and recommending the use of extremist instances hurts Lemmy’s image (and Piefed and Mbin by association) in the eyes of potential users.

Speak for yourself, the fact that Lemmy offers leftist and communist instances is a big draw for a lot of users, myself included. They are prominent due to their size and activity, and recommending them for those who want them is good for growth. Further, for those that prefer not to be on leftist/communist instances, it’s good that the communists have a place to go to, rather than joining, say, Lemmy.world, which would be a poor fit and result in far more friction.

Yep.

It’s really just theater, both uphold the interests of capital.

Oh duh, should’ve realized!

Pretty sure both parties are genocidal imperialists.

One party?

Centrism, as in what? The center of the Statesian political parties? Then yes, considering both parties are right-wing. The center of two arbitrary points? Depends on the points. “Centrism” is inherently an irrational way to describe political views, being in the center of two points adds no value. If someone says we should kill everyone with glasses, and someone else says we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t kill half of the people with glasses. What centrism does in practice is give people cover to obfuscate their actual views, it isn’t a position by itself.

Fair enough.

The solution is working class organizing, with well-trained and disciplined people’s millitias. Pacifism gets people killed, as does adventurism. The only way out of the death spiral is revolution.

It’s a sarcastic reference to communists correctly pointing out that the deaths on June 4th, 1989 were in and around Beijing, not on Tian’anmen square itself. It’s a comment intentionally undermining how communists are dispelling Red Scare mythos.

Yes, there’s a chance he’d still be alive today if he did so, and there’d be at least one fewer fascist.

My favorite part so far was Noam Chomsky telling Epstein that “Venezuela isn’t real socialism,” lmao.

Chomsky’s always been terrible.