http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/countries/korea/korea021507.htmlReaders will recall that immediately after Korea detonated a nuclear weapon four months ago, the imperialist press was full of threats to starve the northern Koreans this winter.
Is a threat to not feed a foreign country the same as a threat to starve a foreign country?
"If South Korea resumes its annual shipments of 500,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of fertilizer, their value — estimated at 300 billion won, or $320 million — would rival that of the 1 million tons of fuel oil the North was promised under the six-nation deal in return for first shutting its main nuclear complex south of Pyongyang, then allowing United Nations inspectors into the zone and finally disabling the facility."(6)
If North Korean nuclear activities are not a threat, then why is South Korea willing to export hundreds of thousands of tons of rice and fertilizer without actually receiving anything in return?
My main question is this: surely when there are famines in North Korea, it is the poor and unprivileged who starve. What is the leftist angle on supporting a government that allows the poor and unprivileged to starve? Perhaps we are to believe that all of the privileged elite in North Korea are manual laborers who automatically deserve their privileges on the grounds that they are not involved in any kind of managerial functions? Seriously, what is the logic here?