North Korea

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Nonc Hilaire
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North Korea

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Senior U.S. official says Obama administration was about to secure deal to transfer food aid to North Korea in return of the suspension of the country's controversial uranium enrichment program.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/internation ... m-1.402562
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Re: North Korea

Post by Carbizene »

Haaretz? if memory serves that is not the most reliable of sources.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Carbizene wrote:Haaretz? if memory serves that is not the most reliable of sources.
I find Haaretz one of the few honest Israeli sources left, but Reuters is also in the byline.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Doc »

Eric Schmidt’s daughter on North Korea visit: ‘It’s like The Truman Show, at country scale’

Google chairman Eric Schmidt attracted headlines recently for visiting North Korea, but he had been shy to talk about it. Today he finally opened up about the trip in a carefully worded Google+ post. His daughter had some interesting things to say too.

North Korea has a fraught relationship with the United States and many other countries around the world, so Schmidt’s visit with a delegation led by former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was an uncharacteristic development. North Korea hardly gives its citizens access to the Internet and censors what they know about the outside world. Schmidt said the delegation advocated for the country to open up the Internet, which would help its economy and citizens.

Schmidt writes:

There is a supervised Internet and a Korean Intranet. (It appeared supervised in that people were not able to use the internet without someone else watching them). There’s a private intranet that is linked with their universities. Again, it would be easy to connect these networks to the global Internet.

They also demonstrated their software and technology based on open source (mostly Linux) and it was obvious to us that access to the Internet and all of this was possible for the government, the military, and universities, but not for the general public.

As the world becomes increasingly connected, the North Korean decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world and their economic growth. It will make it harder for them to catch up economically.

We made that alternative very, very clear. Once the internet starts in any country, citizens in that country can certainly build on top of it, but the government has to do one thing: open up the Internet first. They have to make it possible for people to use the Internet, which the government of North Korea has not yet done. It is their choice now, and in my view, it’s time for them to start, or they will remain behind.

Funny enough, Schmidt’s daughter Sophie was also with the delegation and shared her own thoughts on the trip online. She was far more descriptive than her father about the strangeness of the place and in some the experiences the delegation had while visiting.

A few excerpts from her detailed blog post:

On the visit in general:

Our trip was a mixture of highly staged encounters, tightly-orchestrated viewings and what seemed like genuine human moments. We had zero interactions with non-state-approved North Koreans and were never far from our two minders (2, so one can mind the other). The longer I think about what we saw and heard, the less sure I am about what any of it actually meant.

Top takeaways from the trip:

1. Go to North Korea if you can. It is very, very strange.
2. If it is January, disregard the above. It is very, very cold.
3. Nothing I’d read or heard beforehand really prepared me for what we saw.

How North Korean citizens live:

Ordinary North Koreans live in a near-total information bubble, without any true frame of reference. I can’t think of any reaction to that except absolute sympathy. My understanding is that North Koreans are taught to believe they are lucky to be in North Korea, so why would they ever want to leave? They’re hostages in their own country, without any real consciousness of it. And the opacity of the country’s inner workings — down to the basics of its economy — further serves to reinforce the state’s control.

The best description we could come up with: it’s like The Truman Show, at country scale.

On likely being bugged:

We were told well ahead of time to assume that everything was bugged: phones, cars, rooms, meetings, restaurants and who knows what else. I looked for cameras in the room but came up short. But then, why bother with cameras when you have minders? After a day in frigid Pyongyang, I was just thankful it was warm.

On power dying on the subway:

In a fantastic bit of timing, as we exited the train, the station’s power cut out. The commuters around us immediately pulled out flashlights, which they presumably carry all the time. Can’t win ‘em all, minders.

On visiting the library at Kim Il Sung University (pictured above):

All this activity, all those monitors. Probably 90 desks in the room, all manned, with an identical scene one floor up.

One problem: No one was actually doing anything. A few scrolled or clicked, but the rest just stared. More disturbing: when our group walked in–a noisy bunch, with media in tow–not one of them looked up from their desks. Not a head turn, no eye contact, no reaction to stimuli. They might as well have been figurines.

Sophie also posted photos from the trip on Picasa.
Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/20/eric- ... GheiG5r.99
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Re: North Korea

Post by Ibrahim »

I've seen and read material from people who have been to North Korea, and my "take away" is that one should absolutely not go to North Korea, unless you like watching people act out some Kafkaesque nightmare at implied gunpoint for your personal amusement. "Oooh, a nearly unprecedented brainwashed police state concealing mass hunger and repression! Lets go gawk at the poor creatures!"

When that regime falls and they reunify with the South under a flawed but non-insane form of government, then go and visit North Korea and spread some Ugly (North)American tourist dollars around.

That's my take, anyway.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Zack Morris »

VICE went to North Korea and produced a pretty great documentary about just how weird it was. Highly recommended viewing.

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Re: North Korea

Post by Ibrahim »

Zack Morris wrote:VICE went to North Korea and produced a pretty great documentary about just how weird it was. Highly recommended viewing.

24R8JObNNQ4
Saw this. Good documentary, but don't you just feel bad for all the people putting on their show for the Western journalist? Then home for hot water soup and maybe a beating if the stage managers don't think they smiled enough.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Doc »

Thanks Zack that really was great.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Doc »

Ibrahim wrote:
Zack Morris wrote:VICE went to North Korea and produced a pretty great documentary about just how weird it was. Highly recommended viewing.


Saw this. Good documentary, but don't you just feel bad for all the people putting on their show for the Western journalist? Then home for hot water soup and maybe a beating if the stage managers don't think they smiled enough.
.

I would guess that being part of the show means extra gruel.

The other thing that struck me was how much all the marching looked like Stalin era posters. I have been in some pretty strange places and situations in my life. But a trip to NK would probably top them all if I could just stay out of jail. I doubt I could stop myself from trying to teach the folk is the Karaoke bar for example some songs that might not go over too well.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Zack Morris »

Doc wrote: The other thing that struck me was how much all the marching looked like Stalin era posters. I have been in some pretty strange places and situations in my life. But a trip to NK would probably top them all if I could just stay out of jail. I doubt I could stop myself from trying to teach the folk is the Karaoke bar for example some songs that might not go over too well.
They had 'Anarchy in the UK' on those karaoke machines and the guards were willing to get tipsy so maybe you'd be okay :) One of the weirder things about North Korea is the way the ruling regime has constructed a narrative of victimhood so that ordinary Koreans there probably do believe, to some extent, that the outside world is to blame for their suffering. If the regime collapses in our lifetime, it'll be fascinating to finally learn the whole, unfiltered truth.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Ibrahim »

Zack Morris wrote:One of the weirder things about North Korea is the way the ruling regime has constructed a narrative of victimhood so that ordinary Koreans there probably do believe, to some extent, that the outside world is to blame for their suffering. If the regime collapses in our lifetime, it'll be fascinating to finally learn the whole, unfiltered truth.

I'm told that various Internet devices (satellite based or leeching off of the South Korean wireless networks somehow) are the hot contraband item smuggled in from China, and people are increasingly aware of their situation. That's just step one, obviously, but its better than nothing.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Zack Morris »

This arguably belongs in the China thread but what the heck...

China may block Korean unification, says US report
A recent report by US Senate Republican staff members warns that China, because of its deepening economic ties with North Korea as well as its ancient claims on Korean land, could attempt to "manage, and conceivably block" an eventual unification between the two Koreas, if ever the Kim family falls from power in Pyongyang.

The report was released last month with little fanfare, but North Korea watchers say it gives voice to an increasingly popular but still-sensitive sentiment: that China will ultimately try to prevent the South from absorbing the North, the long-assumed post-collapse scenario.

Such a situation is well down the road, experts say, but it resonates at a time when China is being aggressive elsewhere in the region, staking claim to much of the South China Sea and to islands administered by Japan.

China might act with similar aggression in North Korea, the report argues, to "safeguard its own commercial assets, and to assert its right to preserve the northern part of the peninsula within China's sphere of influence".

The report was written primarily by Keith Luse, an east Asia specialist who worked as an aide for the recently defeated Republican senator Dick Lugar, who had been a member of the Senate committee on foreign relations with a long-standing interest in North Korea. The minority staff report, Luse said in an email, was written to inform committee members – including John Kerry, nominated by Barack Obama as the next secretary of state – "to not expect an East-West Germany repeat situation" regarding unification between the Koreas.

A Kerry spokesman said neither Kerry nor his staff would comment on the report, adding that the senator has declined all interviews since his nomination.

The tight connection between China and North Korea represents a major policy challenge both for the Obama administration and for the incoming government in South Korea. Conceivably, both Washington and Seoul could try to try to re-engage with Pyongyang, but neither finds that palatable. Washington failed to influence North Korea's behaviour during previous periods of one-on-one and multinational talks. South Korean president-elect Park Geun-hye, a conservative, says she won't reinstate major projects with the North unless the family-run police state dismantles its nuclear weapons. The North says it never will.

Outside analysts see no clear sign of instability in North Korea, under third-generation leader Kim Jong-un. But the report lays out how China might respond if North Korea is teetering or collapsing. China could send its own troops into North Korea to prevent a mass exodus of refugees, the report says, citing conversations between Chinese officials and Senate staff. China might also try to use a protracted UN process to determine which nation – China or South Korea – has legitimate authority over the North.

"Anybody who is a serious analyst can't discount this as a plausible scenario," said Victor Cha, the Korea chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, referring to the general argument of the report.

From a US perspective, Cha said, the greatest concern is how poorly prepared other countries are to deal with – and co-operate during – a crisis in North Korea. Beijing has no interest in planning with Washington and Seoul, thinking such talks too sensitive. And Seoul worries that such talks would cause tensions with Beijing to spike.

Beyond that, the US and China have pursued far different priorities with the North in recent years. Washington wants denuclearisation. Beijing wants influence. Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the report provides "an interesting effort to correct Washington's tendency to view the [North Korea] issue primarily with a denuclearisation focus without considering geostrategy".

China now accounts for 70% of North Korea's trade, filling a void that opened several years ago when Seoul, under a new conservative government, drew a harder line with the North and drastically cut back on its economic co-operation. Scholars now commonly describe North Korea as a Chinese vassal state – though they note that the North, famous for its propaganda emphasising self-reliance, bristles at its dependence on Beijing.

In recent years, China has pumped billions in investment into the North, building up its roads and ports, helping the North in several special economic zones, and importing North Korea's considerable reserve of natural resources and rare earths.

Luse's report shows the danger of this: China has made a "tributary province" of the North, while South Korea has ceded ground. Still, others point out that China's growing investment in the North also presents a potential upside for the region, if ever the North loosens tight state control over its economy and allows greater freedom for its people.

Chinese government officials issue frequent calls for stability on the Korean peninsula, and for the sake of maintaining that stability, they've tried to block additional and tighter international sanctions during the past three years after North Korean military strikes and long-range rocket launches. That protection, coupled with the economic investment, acts essentially as a Chinese-led bailout for the North Korean government, allowing it to survive after earlier sanctions were imposed in 2006 and 2009.

Some Chinese experts note that a unified Korean peninsula – democratic, under a government in Seoul – represents an even greater form of stability.

"A peaceful Korean peninsula is in line with China's national interest," said Zhang Liangui, a professor of international strategic research at the Party School of the China Communist Party Central Committee, who noted that a unified Korea would allow for even deeper Chinese investment.

But he added that within China, opinion on how to handle the Korean peninsula is sharply divided. "One misunderstanding of the US is that they think of China as a whole," its leaders in agreement on everything.

The Senate report devotes an extensive section to China's relatively recent assertion of old territorial claims and says that China "may be seeking to lay the groundwork for possible future territorial claims on the Korean peninsula".

One state-sponsored research project mentioned in the report, published in 2003, makes the controversial case that an ancient kingdom operating more than 1,300 years ago on the Korean peninsula was under Chinese control. Another major Chinese atlas says that Chinese territory once descended across the western side of the Korean peninsula, toward the southern tip.
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Zack Morris wrote:This arguably belongs in the China thread but what the heck...

China may block Korean unification, says US report
A recent report by US Senate Republican staff members warns that China, because of its deepening economic ties with North Korea as well as its ancient claims on Korean land, could attempt to "manage, and conceivably block" an eventual unification between the two Koreas, if ever the Kim family falls from power in Pyongyang.

The report was released last month with little fanfare, but North Korea watchers say it gives voice to an increasingly popular but still-sensitive sentiment: that China will ultimately try to prevent the South from absorbing the North, the long-assumed post-collapse scenario.

Such a situation is well down the road, experts say, but it resonates at a time when China is being aggressive elsewhere in the region, staking claim to much of the South China Sea and to islands administered by Japan.

China might act with similar aggression in North Korea, the report argues, to "safeguard its own commercial assets, and to assert its right to preserve the northern part of the peninsula within China's sphere of influence".

The report was written primarily by Keith Luse, an east Asia specialist who worked as an aide for the recently defeated Republican senator Dick Lugar, who had been a member of the Senate committee on foreign relations with a long-standing interest in North Korea. The minority staff report, Luse said in an email, was written to inform committee members – including John Kerry, nominated by Barack Obama as the next secretary of state – "to not expect an East-West Germany repeat situation" regarding unification between the Koreas.

A Kerry spokesman said neither Kerry nor his staff would comment on the report, adding that the senator has declined all interviews since his nomination.

The tight connection between China and North Korea represents a major policy challenge both for the Obama administration and for the incoming government in South Korea. Conceivably, both Washington and Seoul could try to try to re-engage with Pyongyang, but neither finds that palatable. Washington failed to influence North Korea's behaviour during previous periods of one-on-one and multinational talks. South Korean president-elect Park Geun-hye, a conservative, says she won't reinstate major projects with the North unless the family-run police state dismantles its nuclear weapons. The North says it never will.

Outside analysts see no clear sign of instability in North Korea, under third-generation leader Kim Jong-un. But the report lays out how China might respond if North Korea is teetering or collapsing. China could send its own troops into North Korea to prevent a mass exodus of refugees, the report says, citing conversations between Chinese officials and Senate staff. China might also try to use a protracted UN process to determine which nation – China or South Korea – has legitimate authority over the North.

"Anybody who is a serious analyst can't discount this as a plausible scenario," said Victor Cha, the Korea chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, referring to the general argument of the report.

From a US perspective, Cha said, the greatest concern is how poorly prepared other countries are to deal with – and co-operate during – a crisis in North Korea. Beijing has no interest in planning with Washington and Seoul, thinking such talks too sensitive. And Seoul worries that such talks would cause tensions with Beijing to spike.

Beyond that, the US and China have pursued far different priorities with the North in recent years. Washington wants denuclearisation. Beijing wants influence. Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the report provides "an interesting effort to correct Washington's tendency to view the [North Korea] issue primarily with a denuclearisation focus without considering geostrategy".

China now accounts for 70% of North Korea's trade, filling a void that opened several years ago when Seoul, under a new conservative government, drew a harder line with the North and drastically cut back on its economic co-operation. Scholars now commonly describe North Korea as a Chinese vassal state – though they note that the North, famous for its propaganda emphasising self-reliance, bristles at its dependence on Beijing.

In recent years, China has pumped billions in investment into the North, building up its roads and ports, helping the North in several special economic zones, and importing North Korea's considerable reserve of natural resources and rare earths.

Luse's report shows the danger of this: China has made a "tributary province" of the North, while South Korea has ceded ground. Still, others point out that China's growing investment in the North also presents a potential upside for the region, if ever the North loosens tight state control over its economy and allows greater freedom for its people.

Chinese government officials issue frequent calls for stability on the Korean peninsula, and for the sake of maintaining that stability, they've tried to block additional and tighter international sanctions during the past three years after North Korean military strikes and long-range rocket launches. That protection, coupled with the economic investment, acts essentially as a Chinese-led bailout for the North Korean government, allowing it to survive after earlier sanctions were imposed in 2006 and 2009.

Some Chinese experts note that a unified Korean peninsula – democratic, under a government in Seoul – represents an even greater form of stability.

"A peaceful Korean peninsula is in line with China's national interest," said Zhang Liangui, a professor of international strategic research at the Party School of the China Communist Party Central Committee, who noted that a unified Korea would allow for even deeper Chinese investment.

But he added that within China, opinion on how to handle the Korean peninsula is sharply divided. "One misunderstanding of the US is that they think of China as a whole," its leaders in agreement on everything.

The Senate report devotes an extensive section to China's relatively recent assertion of old territorial claims and says that China "may be seeking to lay the groundwork for possible future territorial claims on the Korean peninsula".

One state-sponsored research project mentioned in the report, published in 2003, makes the controversial case that an ancient kingdom operating more than 1,300 years ago on the Korean peninsula was under Chinese control. Another major Chinese atlas says that Chinese territory once descended across the western side of the Korean peninsula, toward the southern tip.
Thank You Very Much for your post, Zack.

From what I have heard the younger generation of South Koreans is losing interest in re-unification........ Would be many time more expensive than what West Germany had to do to unify with East Germany.............

And IMVHO the Chinese might rule China better that than the Devilish Kim Il family does......

North Koreans seek to flee to China and are even willing to marry ancient ;) Chinese peasant farmers in an effort to stay in China where at least there is some food to eat even if it is not always safe :twisted: :roll: ...

Just hoping the Dragons are welling to leave the South Koreans alone..............
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Re: North Korea

Post by Endovelico »

Some of you seem to believe that democracy is the natural, desired state of affairs in a human community. It isn't. The natural state of affairs for humans - as for chimps or gorillas - is dictatorship, with the more powerful beasts assuming command. Chimps and gorillas do it for the common good, humans not so much. But what most of us would love is a dictatorship in which the dictator would take good care of us, albeit at the cost of submission. Most of us do not want to bother about elections, discussions, participation. We just want to have a job, enough food to eat, some entertainment, and peace and quiet. Trouble for North Koreans is not dictatorship, is the fact that there isn't enough food or entertainment. Of course, once there is enough food and entertainment there will be people who want to share in the decision making process, but they will always be a minority. That's the real reason why so many people do not bother to vote and prefer to put up with whatever government happens to be appointed. Hopefully, some thousands of years in the future, people will really want to have democracy and work towards achieving it...
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Re: North Korea

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Zack Morris wrote:
Doc wrote: The other thing that struck me was how much all the marching looked like Stalin era posters. I have been in some pretty strange places and situations in my life. But a trip to NK would probably top them all if I could just stay out of jail. I doubt I could stop myself from trying to teach the folk is the Karaoke bar for example some songs that might not go over too well.
They had 'Anarchy in the UK' on those karaoke machines and the guards were willing to get tipsy so maybe you'd be okay :) One of the weirder things about North Korea is the way the ruling regime has constructed a narrative of victimhood so that ordinary Koreans there probably do believe, to some extent, that the outside world is to blame for their suffering. If the regime collapses in our lifetime, it'll be fascinating to finally learn the whole, unfiltered truth.
The people there believe so much that many of those that get to South Korea still believe year after that all the problems in the world are due to US imperial aggression. They can't bring themselves to accept how complete the lies they were told in the North were.
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Chaos Monkey Chiefs and Varying Costs of Submission.........

Post by monster_gardener »

Endovelico wrote:Some of you seem to believe that democracy is the natural, desired state of affairs in a human community. It isn't. The natural state of affairs for humans - as for chimps or gorillas - is dictatorship, with the more powerful beasts assuming command. Chimps and gorillas do it for the common good, humans not so much. But what most of us would love is a dictatorship in which the dictator would take good care of us, albeit at the cost of submission. Most of us do not want to bother about elections, discussions, participation. We just want to have a job, enough food to eat, some entertainment, and peace and quiet. Trouble for North Koreans is not dictatorship, is the fact that there isn't enough food or entertainment. Of course, once there is enough food and entertainment there will be people who want to share in the decision making process, but they will always be a minority. That's the real reason why so many people do not bother to vote and prefer to put up with whatever government happens to be appointed. Hopefully, some thousands of years in the future, people will really want to have democracy and work towards achieving it...

Thank You Very Much for your post, Endo.
The natural state of affairs for humans - as for chimps or gorillas - is dictatorship, with the more powerful beasts assuming command.
Not quite....... Chiefs maybe........

Not just power........ Wisdom is often better...........

Probably a group of Elders too.... Not a dictator who can do anything he or she wants to do as in North Korea..........

And rambunctious young bloods itching to prove themselves worthy of being an elders or chiefs.....

Or just out for themselves............

Chimps and gorillas do it for the common good,
IMVHO Not so much....

Recalling an incident when a group of chimps ganged together and beat and killed some other chimps.....

To no apparent common good for the species... Dung happens for Chimps as well as for their 98% Chimp Chaos Monkey Human Cousins...... ;) :roll:

Very sad story remembering that one of the survivors tried to tend one of the mortally wounded chimps as she slowly died...............

albeit at the cost of submission.
That is the kicker......

What is the cost of submission...........

Tipping your hat/Saluting the Chief as he passes

Or letting him/her have all the good food, raping your mate or children and generally making life hell..............


Lots of human chaos monkey's have trouble even tipping the hat... Recalling Rome when the idea that the Emperor was a "god" was a joke but some people had trouble with it


And some of the Chiefs are not satisfied unless the hat tipping is sincere... Recalling Iberia where not working on Saturday was dangerous even if you went to Mass on Sunday.


And too many Chiefs want too much of the food etc......

there will be people who want to share in the decision making process, but they will always be a minority.
The important minority......... The energetic ones who produce change..............

Even if their decision is only to sneak across the border and marry a Chinese Dragon Farmer and maybe send some money or food back with a Chinese Dragon on business in the Cold Hell known as North Korea......

Such decisions can make the other North Korean Chaos Monkeys uppity..........
Last edited by monster_gardener on Thu Jan 24, 2013 6:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Alexis »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Senior U.S. official says Obama administration was about to secure deal to transfer food aid to North Korea in return of the suspension of the country's controversial uranium enrichment program.
Yes it was a good one 10/ 15 years ago.

However the best jokes do get old when repeated.

My advice: give the food, or do not give it. But don't bother pretending something will be obtained in exchange, especially not with regard to Nork nuclear program.
Will be more honest saying it's a gift, as it is.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Ibrahim »

Endovelico wrote:Some of you seem to believe that democracy is the natural, desired state of affairs in a human community. It isn't. The natural state of affairs for humans - as for chimps or gorillas - is dictatorship, with the more powerful beasts assuming command. Chimps and gorillas do it for the common good, humans not so much. But what most of us would love is a dictatorship in which the dictator would take good care of us, albeit at the cost of submission. Most of us do not want to bother about elections, discussions, participation. We just want to have a job, enough food to eat, some entertainment, and peace and quiet. Trouble for North Koreans is not dictatorship, is the fact that there isn't enough food or entertainment. Of course, once there is enough food and entertainment there will be people who want to share in the decision making process, but they will always be a minority. That's the real reason why so many people do not bother to vote and prefer to put up with whatever government happens to be appointed. Hopefully, some thousands of years in the future, people will really want to have democracy and work towards achieving it...
I've never agreed with this view, and almost all historical forms of government, though far from modern democracy in terms of popular consent, still inherently contained some degree of the consent of the governed, and that this has always been a part of human society. Plato, Hobbes, Burke, Kant, Freud, they all have their explanations for this, but I only observe that it seems to exist at all times in history. Political improvements have typically consisted of increasing the number of people who act as a check on the leader (from handful of henchmen to aristocracy to all landowners to all freemen to everyone).

Dictatorships of the Stalinist police-state kind are a modern invention, and rely on a number of technological innovations to create such a high level of physical control, surveillance, and indoctrination. They are bizarre and unprecedented creations, of which North Korea is the most bizarre example.
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Re: North Korea

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North Korea Issues Blunt New Threat to United States
By DAVID E. SANGER and CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: January 24, 2013 6 Comments

WASHINGTON — A blunt and explicit threat from North Korea Thursday that its missile and nuclear programs would “target” the United States in a “new phase of the anti-U.S. struggle” revives a challenge the White House had tried unsuccessfully to contain for the past four years, as it focused on winding down two wars and focusing on Iran.

The statement from the North Korean National Defense Commission, the country’s highest military body, was considerably more specific than past warnings from the country, and explicitly ruled out any talks over “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula, which has been the objective of on-again, off-again talks with Pyongyang for two decades.

“We do not hide that a variety of satellites and long-range rockets which will be launched by the DPRK one after another and a nuclear test of higher level,” the statement said, “will target against the U.S., the sworn enemy of the Korean people.” As in the past, the statement also suggested North Korea viewed its weapons programs as a “deterrence” against attack.

It may prove that the statement was another outburst by an insecure, starving country; North Korea has often threatened to strike the “heart” of the United States, and a popular propaganda poster there shows a missile hitting what looks like Capitol Hill.

But the difference now is that the country has just completed a successful long-range rocket test that showed for the first time that its goal of designing a weapon that could hit the United States could be within reach in the next several years.

In recent weeks American intelligence officials have become concerned that the country’s new and untested leader, Kim Jong-un, may have decided that confrontation with the West could prove a more successful strategy to retaining power than a new attempt at economic reform. Instead, he appears to be following in the path of his grandfather and his father, both of whom pressed for greater nuclear and missile capability.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/world ... .html?_r=0

I guess NK has given up on launching "test missiles" into space.
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Cannibalism in North Korea... Safer to Live with a Dragon...

Post by monster_gardener »

Thank you VERY Much for maintaining the Forum, Admins Typhoon and Ymix.

Numerous reports from North Korea indicate that starving residents of the isolated regime, where famine is an all-too-regular occurrence, may now be resorting to cannibalism.

One report from the British newspaper The Sunday Times stated that a man was put to death by firing squad after officials discovered he had killed and cooked two of his own children.

http://www.livescience.com/26677-north- ... alism.html

Sad...

Tempted to say that the Norks were already mind numbed Zombies and that now they had acquired Zombie tastes in food..........

But similar happened in Ancient Israel during a horrible siege of Jerusalem............

At least the King of Judah for all his faults cared about his people and was moved to do something about it..........

Apparently unlike the current Kim Il devil in charge of the Cold Hell of North Korea........

South Koreans are sending them food........

MAYBE we Uz should too....... As Alexis says........ Gratis........

But we should stamp American flags on every piece of food and packaging........ ;)

And maybe use old newspapers as the packaging....... just the pictures..... especially the advertisements might have a good effect........ ;) :twisted:

Like what happens in Cuba because they can receive Uz TV broadcasts..... especially the commercials........

Don't want to do what Herbert Hoover did in Soviet Russia and enable the Communist Commissar Devils by helping their victims.......


Normally I am against China throwing its weight against its neighbors but IMVHO North Korea MIGHT be a place which would be better off as a province of China.....

Than run by Kim ILL Devils from Hell...........

Just like the Cambodians were better off under the aegis of the foreign valiant Vietnamese than under the genocidal rule of the native Pol Pot demons........

North Koreans seem to agree........ Young North Korean maidens try to escape to China......... Even if they have to marry a Dragon ;) :twisted: :lol: :roll: to stay there.......

Better & Safer to live with a elderly Dragon than a cannibalistic Zombie...... :shock:
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Re: North Korea

Post by Typhoon »

BBC | Possible 3rd nuclear test in N Korea

M5.1 - 23km ENE of Sungjibaegam, North Korea

People may be starving to death in N Korea, even resorting to cannabilism in desperation, but the nuke tests must go on . . .
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Re: North Korea

Post by Ibrahim »

Not to be flippant about this, but its been the same story for 20 years. 60 years if you aren't specific to nuclear weapons.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Senior U.S. official says Obama administration was about to secure deal to transfer food aid to North Korea in return of the suspension of the country's controversial uranium enrichment program.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/internation ... m-1.402562
That worked out real well.
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Re: North Korea

Post by Endovelico »

The issue is a simple one: just let North Koreans rule their country as they wish and deal with them as one deals with any other country. Soon we would see North Korea becoming a less closed society, and there might even be an end to nuclear testing. But if one increases the isolation of North Korea, soon they will have the means of nuking Los Angeles...
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Norks want to also Rule South Korea

Post by monster_gardener »

Endovelico wrote:The issue is a simple one: just let North Koreans rule their country as they wish and deal with them as one deals with any other country. Soon we would see North Korea becoming a less closed society, and there might even be an end to nuclear testing. But if one increases the isolation of North Korea, soon they will have the means of nuking Los Angeles...
Thank You Very Much for your post, Endo.
The issue is a simple one: just let North Koreans rule their country as they wish
One problem to start with............

The evil Kim Il family ruling North Korea considers South Korea to be their country and wants to rule it too.............
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