North Korea

rational enough for you and your army if there's not much food around

except in china (site of the worst starvation in human history) and north korea, at some point yall hand waving psychologists are gonna have to grapple w/the fact that n korea has been a country for like 60 years, something yr average lunatic would have a hard time managing xp

i think icey is right; the 'irrationality' is thrown out there, sometimes, to say, there's nothing we can do, the whole country is nuts, bombs away already.

but there is a big question as to how deep into the populace and how fanatical the support of the Kims goes. it could be most of the country is very clear-eyed about who is causing their misery. or it could be there really are huge swathes of true believers who'd rather die than join the South. it kinda depends on which other despotism you want to compare it to.

they've extended the Mao/Stalin model farther/longer than either managed. Agree that the real miracle has been the transition of power from one ruler to the next, with no real attendant change in policy. Highly unusual. they're kind of in uncharted territory in that respect

xp

read this interview w/a n korean escapee teen girl who went across a froze river into china and she was clear that at least where she was from in the western part of the country people hate the government pretty much but they just got them so locked down that any sort of uprising feels pretty impossible - they snatch people up and throw them in work camps at the drop of hat, control commerce tightly etc - and as is typical in these situations the leadership is protected by a relatively large favored elite - now obvs that anecdotal but its consistent w/what other refugees say and you makes sense

but also these regimes fall apart from an outsiders pov at seemingly random times - it kind of feels like just looking at it how long can this bizarre anachronism exist in the world today - that may just be lack of imagination speaking tho

maybe un will just say fuck it and hand his problems over to his friends in the south, thatd be nice

but also these regimes fall apart from an outsiders pov at seemingly random times - it kind of feels like just looking at it how long can this bizarre anachronism exist in the world today - that may just be lack of imagination speaking tho

^^^that's definitely how I feel about it. it's kind of some cruel miracle that the regime has lasted this long, they've run with this schtick longer and farther than anyone ever has. it's bizarre.

xp

The schtick is slowly losing its grip internally, if Barbara Demick's recent book is to be believed. The famine seems to have dulled much (but not all obv) of the blind GL/DL adulation.

x-post The country is pretty irrational, isn't it? Unlike, say, Iran, whose wants, needs and desires can be frustrating but are pretty clear, and whose positions are pretty well understood, N. Korea is an enigma. Leave 'em alone? They don't like that. Give them what they want? They like that, as long as you realize they want more. Engage? They break off talks. Suggest talks? They require good faith actions (but don't expect any in return). I mean really, everything we do for N. Korea we essentially do just to keep some semblance of talks going. Meanwhile. N. Korea does whatever it wants. What's unclear about N. Korea is either a) it really thinks it's in danger of invasion or b) it's just cynically using that alleged threat as a pretense for aggressive bargaining. But you've got to figure N. Korea could get a lot more out of cooperation than it does from total obstinence, without losing a bit of autonomy. Again, look at Iran, hardly pushovers. There are any number of despotic regimes that do what they want, yet aren't quite so isolated. How exactly does N. Korea benefit from its behavior? That is, what can it get by behaving the way it does that it probably couldn't get by some other less antagonistic means?

just cause you dont know what theyre doing doesnt mean they dont know what theyre doing

what can it get by behaving the way it does that it probably couldn't get by some other less antagonistic means?

yeah this is the yardstick I'm measuring them by

by that measure most if not all countries are insane

I don't know about that

Most if not all countries don't let their people starve en masse to strengthen a bargaining position.

My point is that N. Korea can still stay plenty inscrutable, unpredictable, mysterious, whatever, toning things down a few notches from where it stands now.

and my point is pretty much every country could stand to tone it down a notch or two, people be aggressive and are hard to reason w/if its working out for them

pretty sure this is all fallout from them not getting out of the group stage in south africa

x-post But again, most countries do not allow their people to starve. Though I'm not sure who is worse on this front, Kim or Mugabe. At least North Koreans gets top-notch security out of the deal!

I feel like Mugabe's as bad as it gets in pretty much every way but I'll cop to knowing a lot less about NK

josh i really have no idea what you are arguing except that n korea has let its people starve and most countries dont do that, if thats all youre saying then yes i agree n korea has let its people starve and most countries dont do that

Most countries also have free public health care.

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Everyone%20Else/images/kim-jong-il-smiling.jpg

health care? yeah ill give you some health care

n korea still hilarious^

I liked Hitchens' term about North Korea's government: a necrocracy.

x-post I wasn't making an argument. It's just that every time someone said "North Korea is crazy!" you'd say something like "well, lots of countries are crazy." "North Korea is aggressive!" "Well, lots of countries are aggressive." I was trying to demonstrate one way that North Korea is not like other countries, and how its behavior reflects the mindset of a nation that would willfully let its own people starve. That is to say, irrational to the extent that its extreme purported self-preservation has been perverted into a sow form of self-destruction. Not a lot of countries like that (save Zimbabwe, but Zimbabwe does not make military threats).

(Ha, that should be "slow form of self-destruction." Though I imagine the lack of sows in N. Korea hasn't helped the food issue.)

Part of studying history, and exercising the right judgment, I think, is recognizing when examples don't follow the predicted norms of behavior or patterns. North Korea is one.

josh i really have no idea what you are arguing except that n korea has let its people starve and most countries dont do that, if thats all youre saying then yes i agree n korea has let its people starve and most countries dont do that

― ice cr?m, Tuesday, November 23, 2010 11:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

off the top of my head:

ussr
china
north korea

idk if that sounds neocon, just saying

josh countries are different in lots of ways

but otherwise it seems like any escalation between the two would result in a swift decimation of NK's forces

Srsly? In a North vs. South scenario ppl think these guys, who could (in fact probably have been) eat dirt to stay alive

http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2009/03/13/1225699/420384-north-korean-soldiers.jpg

are going to beaten by these dudes, who look like they're out of a fruity playstation (PS1 at that) game

http://img.hani.co.kr/imgdb/resize/2006/0926/1159250331_03591928_20060926.JPG

Shit, gbx, I'm pretty sure this will mean little to you, but we are all making decisions about how we regard NK, and those decisions do make a difference in a situation like this. Americans were predisposed to hate commies in 1963, and N. Vietnam was full of commies. We were predisposed to hate Saddam. We're now becoming more and more predisposed to hate on Muslims generally. NK is still in the nasty commies camp. Etc.

Like if the West weren't so predisposed to hatin' commies, we'd all be living in fuckin' Stalinist love harems by now. : )

N. Korea is an enigma. Leave 'em alone? They don't like that. Give them what they want? They like that, as long as you realize they want more. Engage? They break off talks. Suggest talks? They require good faith actions (but don't expect any in return). I mean really, everything we do for N. Korea we essentially do just to keep some semblance of talks going. Meanwhile. N. Korea does whatever it wants.

If you replace 'N. Korea' with 'Apple' and 'we' with the name of any other company the entire passage still works.

man you really hate those dudes

fair enough too

Are you suggesting we should invade Apple?

y

If you guys really wanna feel good about this whole situation, take a few minutes to read the comments beneath the CNN article.

NYT:

President Obama and South Korea’s president agreed to hold joint military exercises as they struggled to keep a North Korean provocation from escalating into war.

Hmm... interesting logic.

NYT follow-up article full of all sorts of Dr. Strangelove LOLs:

As diplomatic responses to the incident were being drafted in Washington, Seoul, Beijing and other capitals, the American and South Korean militaries announced Wednesday that an aircraft carrier strike group would lead a four-day exercise in the western sea beginning on Sunday. The strike group is led by the United States carrier George Washington.

Mr. Breen called it “foolishness.”

“The whole idea is just to give them the bird,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/world/asia/25kim.html?_r=1

can't believe shakey mo collier just nuked n korea

nukey mo collier

guys, this is going to be the funniest world war

oh my aching, irradiated sides

someone drag my knee back over here, I need to slap it

America's Funniest Police Actions

Meanwhile, breaking news from the Central News Agency of the DPRK:

Pyongyang, November 23 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il provided field guidance to the newly built Soy Sauce Shop at the Ryongsong Foodstuff Factory.

After being briefed on the technical features of the newly built shop, he went round various places including the processes equipped with cutting-edge facilities for producing soy sauce, processed salt, powdered meat and ham to learn in detail about its construction and production there.

It is a great success that the workers of the factory and soldier- builders have successfully built the modern shop as big as a food processing factory in a short span of time, he noted, expressing great satisfaction over the construction of a model shop which can represent the era of Songun.

http://www.hockeydrunk.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/kim_jong_ok.jpg

we should call north korea's bluff and send kanye in as our new diplomatic envoy

you wanna act all crazy, we'll show you crazy

― tween-justin-bieber-riot-of-09-pandemonium-arrests-terror+tweeting (Edward III), Wednesday, November 24, 2010 6:22 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I can't find it now coz I is travelling for work but there's a brilliant photo blog of Kim Jong-il posing in warehouses with various food products.

(by 'posing' I mean 'standing awkwardly and detachedly clutching/surveying')