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I think its because of the Friends of Cuba movement at the time. The red scare during the Korean War was super aggressive. McCarthyism was born in this era and the agitation against support for N.Korea was intense.
With McCarthyism drying up and allowing citizens to express these views with less consequence, it allowed for better left agitation.
The Korean war was also super fucked up. Some historians believe it qualifies as a Genocide. The massacres committed by and under the supervision of the US were incredibly fucked. To allow for even a whisper of agitation for removing sanctions from N.Korea would mean allowing those conversations to come up. The natural conclusion of agitating for an open N.Korea means highlighting the countless noncombatants executed by the South Korean colonial police under the direct supervision of the US. It requires discussing the fact that 80% of all shelters in the north were obliterated.
There is a reason its called the "forgotten war".
There hasn't been as much concentrated propaganda against Cuba in recent years comparatively. There used to be a lot more when it was more an imminent threat to ruling interests in the US.
US agencies probably feel that Cuba is pretty "solved", and they don't need to worry about it unless people actually put any effort into organising about it. The UN condemning them every year is not something they particularly care about, so they just let it ride.
Why is propaganda affecting people so much? Why can't people see it's lies? That's what I really want to know
Some part indoctrination with some part apathy, wrapped in self-aggrandisement.
People are raised into the propaganda obviously, and that plays a role but I think it is exacerbated by the fact that people often have no real desire to look into if it's true or not. That is the more insidious element. Anyone who actually put two minutes of thought into the claim that Koreans push trains to work everyday would realise it can't possibly be true, but they don't put those two minutes in. If they think about it at all, they just go "Oh, North Korea is so crazy, look at them. lol". They'd much rather have a crazy mystery country to meme about AND to consider themselves better than. They get to feel superior while pretending to be empathetic to an oppressed people.
A lot of liberals are very eager to feel superior to a marginalized people while simultaneously pretending like they care. Propaganda that feeds into that is unlikely to be questioned because they actively want it to be true.
I can't speak for people broadly, but if I compare to how I was before I had the views I have now? Honestly, a lot of it is pure erasure. The alternative never even gets seen. It wasn't like for much of my life, I was presented with two views with equal airtime, rabid imperialism/colonialism and anti-imperialist communism, and I had to choose which one made more sense. It was more like I was largely presented with one view, which was some amalgamation of western supremacy, white supremacy, and binary good/evil view of the world, where the west was honorable and doing its best against the barbarian hordes of bad ideologies. I didn't necessarily have it presented in those explicit terms because that would sound too blatantly racist for liberalism's sanitizing delivery of a worldview, but that's probably how I'd put it looking back on it now.
There's a really good essay on Red Sails which discusses this in some detail.
https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
The tldr as well as a short answer to your question is that the propaganda may be seen through, or at least suspected as exaggerated in some way, but it doesn't matter because it matches up with a person's real and perceived material interests.
Cuba is next door to the US and predominately speaks spanish. Spanish is a language in use by millions in the US and Europe. Ergo: No language barrier, double checking smears against Cuba for validty is rather easy.
The DPRK is far from the US and Europe. Next door are Occupied Korea (which has a vested interest and tradition of smearing free Korea) and Japan (parely apologetic about its coloial past). Furthermore, Koreans usually speak korean, korean is spoken by almost no one in the US or Europe and if, the speaker is, thanks to far reaching sanctions on the north, aligned to the south. Korean also has its own writing system. Thus the language barrier is as high as it can get between humans. Sanctioned to hell and back (can't enter most countries), far away (on the other side of the earth for US/Europe) and unique writing system + unique language => No presence in imperialist countries and barely and chance to get some. => slander stands virtually unopposed => fuck-all support
Because people believe the propaganda because they have less exposure to the reality (and DPRK dares to have nuclear weapons to prevent invasion and conquest)
Cuba had imported nuclear weapon ~~fun~~ [from] Soviets after the illegal bay of pig invasion for self-defense. It is just that the US government at that time managed to negotiated a withdrawal of nuclear weapon after they learn from the failure of the invasion. The possession of nuclear weapon would not ~~a~~ [be] a cause for the greater slander against North Korea.
I don't know, but my gut says better propaganda
I think the fact that many countries are mad about the DPRK having nukes probably plays a role. Also the sanctions against the DPRK have not been as effective and they haven't been in full force for as long and I would guess that has an effect. Lastly Cuba is culturally western and majority white I would not be surprised at all if that has a significant effect on how sympathetic people in the west are towards them.
Also yeah as others have said so much more propaganda.