Looks like smiling is frowned up in all the photos.
How do you photograph one of the most secretive countries in the world?
For Charlie Crane the answer was simple, photograph what they want you to see. If there is no possibility of getting underneath the surface then the answer was to photograph the surface itself. This series is taken from a larger body of work in Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea.
Although not commonly thought of as a holiday destination all these photographs have been taken at tourist sites throughout the city.
checking out some u-tube vids they sure seem to have the traffic problem solved. rarely any cars on the road. when you do see traffic it’s like one car on a superhighway. now, that’s nirvana.
in stark contrast to what we see in the Pyongyang shoot, check out this photo shoot (from the same website) in the USA.
http://goo.gl/P51uz
#35 Progressives are socialist lite, opting for non violent methods hoping to bring about through non violent change.
The same unsound premise is found in all socialist permutations, and it always results in tyranny to some degree.
As socialist theory proves itself unsound those in charge blame themselves and the people for the failure, and seek to “make it work” via varying degrees of tyranny.
Wealth is not static, a single “pie” requiring the confiscation of wealth from the rich so the poor can have more.
If it were static, where did all the wealth come from that exists today?
If we distributed the wealth Europe’s Medieval Kings to all alive in Europe today it might be a few dollars per person, and they all would be in extreme “N. Korean” poverty.
When Steve Jobs created Apple computer, he created wealth, made many billionaires, millionaires, and middle class, without taking one penny from the poor. A true socialist cannot acknowledge that, he sees Steve Jobs as a robber whose wealth must have been gained unfairly, by exploiting someone.
By taking the wealth of people like Steve Jobs away, wealth creation is destroyed. Then there is only a single pie of wealth, and its getting smaller every day. Eventually total poverty for all is achieved, as the pie is consumed…hence N Korea and Cuba, and formerly Russia and China…
Progressives are socialist lite, they are what socialists start out as…but as time proves their wealth redistribution failed to work, they become true socialists, tyrannical trying to make the people work harder as they believe the system needs, to succeed.
I see N Korea as the logical end of progressivism, the natural result of a wealth creating philosophy that has at its core, theft of property. It is from the pit of hell just as socialism is, disguised as something more benign than found in N Korea…but in reality its N Korea emergent, in its earlier stages.
I see N Korea as the logical end of progressivism, the natural result of a wealth creating philosophy that has at its core, theft of property.
That is, “wealth destroying” philosophy.
Taking wealth from those who would increase it, and giving it those who only consume it, is the certain path to poverty.
Obama’s redistribution of wealth from the people to Government and Unions didn’t work…taking wealth from those who increase it…is the stupidity of Socialism…
Unfortunately the attraction of socialism is undeniable…the promise of a better world, compelling.
History refutes it however, it has wealth creation (capitalism) lifting all boats, as in a rising tide.
Better than slicing up one pie, is teaching people to bake their own pies…then all eat more.
#44 You need a double tap
#45 Spoken like a true progressive evolving into a stalinista.
Progressives MUST squelch free speech, their policies never work, and they must spin reality to blame others…
But its elementary socialism cannot work…
Divide the pie to all, its then consumed leaving nothing.
Teach people to grow food, bake pies, then there is always more to consume.
Your metaphor is as lacking as your grasp of what socialism is, Mr. TEAD
This was poorly stated:
Divide the pie to all, its then consumed leaving nothing [as happened in N Korea etc]
Teach people to grow food, bake pies, then there is always more to consume.
This last should read:
LET FREEDOM RING, the people should not be prevented from accumulating the wealth necessary to buy seed and machinery to grow food, THEN everyone will have the materials needed to bake pies, and we all will benefit, even those who cannot bake the pies themselves..
Freedom wins out over central planning every time its tried.
TEAD, please seek help.
In #32, Taxed Enough Already Dude said: few societies would tolerate the suffering this long…its unique in history.
Sadly, it is not unique. It was the norm until the end of the second world war. (Only a little older than I am.)
In # 36 BubbaRay said: Yeah, but isn’t that how Algore and all his ultra greeny friends want us to live?
Nope. Al Gore wants ro enrich himself and his friends by selling us a way out of these war for oil.
Is that more noble?
I doubt it, but the alternative is more-and-more war for less-and-less oil.
Ultimately, setting oil on fire instead of using it is not sustainable.
Taxed Enough Already Dude. You said, “Unfortunately the attraction of socialism is undeniable…the promise of a better world, compelling.”
But, in all honesty, the way you are presenting your neo-liberal thoughts (i.e. Maximum Capitalism, minimum government intervention) do not make your position attractive at all. :-/
In various posts, Taxed Enough Already Dude has once again proved that he doesn’t speak our language.
Its is useless to try to maintain civil social intercourse with someone who doesn’t use words with clear denotation properly.
TEAD figures that “Everybody uses word X to mean X, but I think I’ll use it to mean Y instead. And then I’ll criticize them that aren’t using the word properly*”
Might as well argue that the sun shines green, despite the fact that green is defined as 530nm, while what reaches our eyes is primarily light at 600nm.
Taxed Enough Already Dude reminds me of somebody I use to know who was in love with the sound of his own voice and would argue, (because he loved to argue, to him every conversation had to have screaming and fisticuffs,) that “the Soviet Union is the best place in the world for Jews,” and other indefensible positions. (I am glad I never introduced him to a co-worker at Canadian National Railroad in the early eighties because [name witheld] would have kicked him a new ass-hole. She was jewish, and she had been Russian, [she spent almost 20 years trying to emigrate. She eventually made it but it took her forever because she had worked on their nuclear armement program in the 50s.])
*) It reminds of The Argument clinic by Monty Python.
#52 Lots of deadly things are attractive, and all of us want to believe we are important…that we make a difference…
Hence the lunacy of turning down a thermostat…to save the planet… its absurd, but compelling, because we all want to believe we matter.
We only matter to God, otherwise we are irrelevant.
If you can’t extrapolate from more pies for all>>>a better life for all, my detailing it won’t convince.
The pilgrims illustrate the principle, as long as they were socialist, they starved. When they incorporated the principle of private property and allowed workers keep the fruit of their labors, they had so much abundance they invited the Indians over for Turkey, and had celebration.
if our founding doesn’t do it for you, I doubt anything I say will.
#50 I can’t recall an entire country suffering that level of deprivation for so long…generations!
I don’t believe the Russians ever got close, even the Chinese must have had it somewhat better.
They are eating bark and grass they are so hungry.
Cubans are middle class by comparison.
They are trapped in a progressive cult just as bad as any religious cult…I truly fell sorry for them and support Rev Graham’s efforts to help them.
#54
The main problems I see with your arguments is not so much that your position is wrong per se (because it does have some validity to it) but the way you deliver it.
It seems to be a pattern that you either semantically substitute concepts or setup a strawman in order to validate your neo-liberal perspective. Either of these argumentative methods are not only fallacy but it also casts a bad light to your original principle that you defend.
The fact is, there is no perfect market in the world, because there is always a problem with the collective action problem, in which some minimal government intervention is necessary. Else, if we take your take of neo-liberalism (which, many neo-liberalists would disagree with your conception), then we end up in Anarchy. Under Anarchy, especially the intellectual work by Hobbes, contracts, which are the main crux of the free market principle, are not possible, because people simply cannot trust either to fulfill the claims.
My point is this. “Progressivism” and Communism/Socialism have a commonality insofar as they have the component of “redistribution”. However, the origin of those ideas as well as their relations to the idea of Capitalism is completely different. If you want to consider Progressivism as the same concept as Communism/Socialism, then you might as well consider Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism as equivalent religions. You see the problem here?
Unlike others, I am keeping a benefit of a doubt of you.
/Cheers!
#56 Your objections are Irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent, as I am not the issue, nor are my arguments, as the truth is dependent upon neither.
Nor am I advocating anarchy.
Given you concede validity of the free market and its delivery of real benefits to the people, particular wealth creation, one must wonder why the ad hominem response.
AND I reject your charge of straw men, produce examples please.
The idea of a “perfect market” was never hinted at by me, nor anarchy.
Anarchy is to the right of what the Founders envisioned, tyranny to the left…I advocate we return to what the Founders set up. They were NOT in the middle, they were much closer to anarchy than tyranny, but its not anarchy they founded, but a Republic.
I a business man, and see the detrimental effects of Government regulation everywhere.
Its absurd the very people destroying wealth creation blame the capitalist system for its demise. As few in society think critically, I think it a worthy enterprise I object and utilize analogy, and “substitute semantics” to bring the opposing side, into view.
Like that woman who berated the shopkeeper because her cigarettes cost $5 a pack…she blamed capitalism, the shop keepers greed in particular.
But the helpless shopkeeper is innocent, his margin of profit shockingly small, rather the fault lay with those progressives whom this woman supported wholeheartedly, who via the tax code, offer incentives for “acceptable behavior” and punish “unacceptable (to them) behavior.
The tyranny of the do gooders were this woman’s enemy, not the shopkeeper, not capitalism…but she would never realize that, it requires awareness of reality, real thought.
You can argue this analogy is a semantic substitute, but its not my purpose here to be Friedman and I certainly not qualified to be him. You want that level of proof for the free market, get his books or Thomas Sowell…very readable.
>Progressivism as the same concept as Communism/Socialism
Nowadays the Capitalist cry is: “Nationalize what you like; municipalize all you can; turn the courts of justice into courts martial and your parliaments and corporations into boards of directors with your most popular mob orators in the chair, provided the rent, the interest, and the profits come to us as before, and the proletariat still gets nothing but its keep.”
This is the great corruption of Socialism which threatens us at present. It calls itself Fascism in Italy, National Socialism (Nazi for short) in Germany, New Deal in the United States, and is clever enough to remain nameless in England; but everywhere it means the same thing: Socialist production and Unsocialist distribution. So far, out of the frying pan into the fire.
LOL TEAD, I a business man, and see the detrimental effects of Government regulation everywhere.…
Sounds like somebody need to drop a few of Mothers Little Helpers.
You know why I’m writing this don’t you.
Capitalism is redistribution of wealth as well as getting the better end of a bargain is the goal of both parties. Some are more successful at a disproportionate exchange than others. On the whole, its easiest to think the excesses average out to “fair” but the average hides all kinds of excesses.
tdkayo==what is this “benefit” you talk of?