Welcome to the Socialist Program. This is John Prysner, a producer of this show.

Coinciding with the 72nd anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended military hostilities during the Korean War,

a historic People's Summit for Korea took place in New York City between July 25th and 27th.

Brian Becker, host of the Socialist Program, was a guest on one of the plenary panels

entitled The Long Revolution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

In his presentation, Brian outlines the different stages of US-S. DPRK relations since the end of the Korean War.

He explains why the U.S. has refused so far to sign a peace treaty

and outlines the challenges for activists in the U.S. who are organizing to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula

and an end to the U.S. occupation of South Korea.

Thank you. I think those were really fascinating talks covering far different topics.

And if we had a day or two days or a week or longer to talk about the DPRK and its evolution since

1948 or since 1945, we would be able to exhaustively try to piece together a comprehensive

understanding of a complex social and political

organism. One of the problems that we face in the United States is the non-stop demonization

in caricaturing of the DPRK, so that if you say anything like,

let's end the Korean War and have a peace treaty, the U.S. government will say, well, look,

you're echoing DPRK talking points.

You must be an agent of the DPRK.

Are you registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent?

I'm not saying that sort of hyperbolicly.

That's actually what's happening right now.

Even this conference has been

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