Liberation (9/3/23)

This week on CounterSpin: The White House has announced it’s extending the ban on people using US passports to go to North Korea. Corporate media seem to find it of little interest; who wants to go to North Korea? Which fairly reflects media’s disinterest in the tens of thousands of Korean Americans who might want to visit family in North Korea, along with their overarching, active disinterest in telling the story of the Korean peninsula in anything other than static, cartoonish terms—North Korea is a murderous dictatorship; South Korea is a client state, lucky for our support—terms that conveniently sidestep the US’s historic and ongoing role in the crisis.

Amanda Yee is a writer and organizer, and an editor of Liberation News. We’ll talk with her about the role the travel ban plays in a bigger picture.

Transcript: ‘Propaganda Against North Korea and the Travel Ban Go Hand in Hand’

We reference hidden history in that conversation. CounterSpin got some deeper understanding on that a couple years back from Hyun Lee, US national organizer for Women Cross DMZ, part of the coalition Korea Peace Now!. We’ll hear a little from that today as well.

Transcript: ‘Washington Has Been Asking the Wrong Question on North Korea’