South Korea was literally run by fascist collaborators and the USA which was (and still is) borderline fascist and definitely collaborating with Nazis and Japanese.

the Ukraine only has a small amount of Nazis. one of the problems with liberals is they dont really read. Ive been steadfast that I dont buy into the whole idea that Ukraine was full of Nazis. they absolutely have an order of magnitude more than most countries. and way more than the MSM has reported since exactly Feb of this year. I know this bc well, I read the NYT and WAPO and NPR and those outlets spent the last decade plus talking about how many Nazi and far right extremists functioned in Ukraine and esp in military or paramilitary units.

but even if they were full of Nazis that doesnt justify an invasion. and really Ive never tried to justify it. why would a far left ANTIFA tankie leftist (Im being ironical here just in case) support one of the most authoritarian and repressive and economically stratified countries on the planet?

my whole point has been that the USA has done everything in its power to facilitate this conflict and is extremely happy that it occurred. my whole point is that Putin bad AND USA bad.

I dont know why Putin invaded. I certainly dont buy his argument that he was going after "Nazis". and I certainly dont by the USA MSM argument that he is trying to do genocide on Ukranians bc hes Hitler 2.0 type megolomaniac that wants to create new Russian Empire.

I didnt think he would attack Ukraine but not out of any sort of admiration for his humanity or ideology, only bc it seemed really ****ing dumb. it seems to have been.

since the invasion, we already have a liberal hero (Fiona Hill) confirming that a peace deal was scuttled by the West already. so again, this confirms that the West (AKA the USA) wants this war as much as Putin if not more.

Bruce Cumings' wife was also born and raised in Korea.

Also, South Korea today is a democracy where anti-American sentiment is perfectly mainstream and even dominant in academia. It's also important to understand that Cumings is specifically famous for being revisionist historian. Korean War is a fairly fringe topic in the West, so it's difficult to be a renowned scholar without actually being out there, which means fame is inversely correlated with having representative, consensus views.

His work speaks for itself. If, like me, you're not going to bother to read it, you sound like a complete clown when you dismiss it just because of your bias and because you need to dismiss it to help your argument. This is exactly why you have such a poor reputation here.

I would not be surprised if Cummings is glowed up.

revisionism for history is meaningless. ofc there will be different ideas as more info becomes available. would you call Soviet scholars who gained access to the archives revisionist?

Again, I know you haven't really thought about these types of things, but you simply cannot have a well-functioning government with strong democratic norms in a war-torn, impoverished country such as South Korea circa 1945. It doesn't matter a whole lot who is charge, some form of authoritarianism with tons of corruption is what you're going to get, however it's sold to people. This is of course partially why communism didn't even come close to work in many countries. Even Karl Marx talked about the stages of development.

So it's somewhat irrelevant whether you consider the leaders of South or North Korea freedom fighters or fascist collaborators. And most people aren't driven by ideology but personal expediency anyway. You should reflect on why so-called fascist collaborators in charge of South Korea still led the country eventually to economic prosperity, while North Korea has turned into a hereditary, personalist dictatorship that is extremely impoverished to boot.

It's also important to understand that "Japanese collaborators" in the broad sense refer to just about anyone who was highly educated - Korea had been occupied by Japan since 1910, so either you're working with the Japanese, or you're a rebel / outsider - other than the few who went overseas, often to the US, in which case I guess they are "Imperialist reactionaries."

Sure, but Cumings didn't provide any relevant new facts - his main contribution here is just re-interpreting everything in the best possible light for those he's sympathetic to, i.e. the Kim regime.

Also, my understanding is that Cumings was famous for basically being an apologist for North Korea, but he had very little actual influence, other than on ideologues. As far as I can tell, no notable scholar extended his interpretation in any meaningful sense and the general praise for his work doesn't seem to come from anyone who actually researches in this field, but rather those who agree with his general anti-americanism, but work in different fields.

I dunno, what about in China? or even in *gasp North Korea?

they didnt tho. South Korea did not become prosperous for generations whereas North Korea had a much higher standard of living decades. do you think the South Korean factory workers that toiled in horrid conditions from their teenage years onward during the 70s-90s cared that things got better decades later?

regardless, I wont make any excuses for present day North Korea.

as for the the whole "reflection" thing, well I am gonna ask you to make your point directly. it seems to me that you are saying that any sort of socialist endeavor will end up that way but I dont want to put words in your mouth. nor do I want to write up a few succint paragraphs if that isnt your meaning.

I don't understand your point here - you're trying to say that China and North Korea represent some kind of triumph for communism? I don't like the word fascism because I think most people use the word incorrectly, but the ruling ideology in both China and North Korea is a form of nationalist-socialism.

Generations? 90s? They weren't even close by the 90s. South Korea's standards of living likely passed North Korea's sometime in the 60's or 70's, though we certainly don't have precise economic data to be sure whether this was more like 1963 or something like 1975. Though certainly within 25 years of the ceasefire, in reality probably more like 15 years.

And yes if I were a young person that toiled in terrible conditions, I would care that my children get to live in a better world that I did. That would have been the motivation to work hard in terrible conditions in the first place.

Nope, not what I'm saying here, the point is about your labels don't matter and things that don't matter aren't part of reality.

Again, labels aside, your takes here that you are attributing to Cumings are demonstrably wrong and this isn't really disputed by any reasonable person anymore. In other words, Cumings is largely famous for having contrarian, revisionist takes, that have turned out to be wrong. There really isn't much more that needs to be said about this.

Members of the army learning how to shoot seem like a legitimate military target to me.

It certainly looks like the West attempted to scuttle it but they only made a case for ending negotiations. The Ukrainians weren't forced, as far as we know. As already mentioned, there was the additional factor of the discovery of mass graves and torture that may have played a roll in whether they thought it was appropriate to negotiate at that moment. There's no reason to believe the Ukrainians didn't decide on their own after weighing all factors. The West may have been happy that a deal was scuttled but, as far as we know, they didn't force or mislead the Ukrainians. Even if the outcome was favorable to Western interests, I don't think you have enough information to lay the blame at their doorstep or deny Ukraine agency.

It's always amusing to see people debate the merits of academic work on this forum. With the possible exception of candybar, I'd be very surprised if anyone in this thread has read Bruce Cumings's work on the Korean War or the work of that other guy who was mentioned. I certainly haven't.

He's written a bunch of books. After listening to Blowback, I read his latest book.

If you are familiar with his work, then carry on by all means. I am not.

These aren’t academic works. They are written for public consumption.