North Korea

[Wymsey]

So, Trump and Kim Jong-Un are set to meet in Singapore on Tuesday..

 

The media will believe after a few handshakes that all will be well between them etc, until they both go away and NK launch another rocket and tensions heighten again..

The impersonators/lookalikes have started it already..

Edited 9 June 2018 by Wymeswold fox

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, Wymeswold fox said:

So, Trump and Kim Jong-Un are set to meet in Singapore on Tuesday..

 

The media will believe after a few handshakes that all will be well between them etc, until they both go away and NK launch another rocket and tensions heighten again..

I guess we shall see. It's very easy to be cynical about the whole thing given the amount of false dawns over the years, but right now the Norks seem to have no reason to be belligerent unless provoked, seeing as they're getting almost everything they want wrt recognition, attention and validation.

[Wymsey]

The meeting might include the 'survival of the fittest'..

Kim arrives in Singapore.

[ithuriel]

Trump will have Kim replaced by a look a like CIA operative and Walmarts will start to appear in North Korea 

[Carl the Llama]

15 minutes ago, Wymeswold fox said:

The meeting might include the 'survival of the fittest'..

Kim arrives in Singapore.

I think you mean fattest

[Buce]

 

A man with a dodgy hairstyle, who is a serious threat to world peace, and reviled by civilised nations.

 

And the Korean guy isn't much better.

[bovril]

Half and half scarves available? 

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

On ‎10‎/‎06‎/‎2018 at 10:31, Buce said:

 

A man with a dodgy hairstyle, who is a serious threat to world peace, and reviled by civilised nations.

 

And the Korean guy isn't much better.

Yes. 

[leicsmac]

https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-long-suppressed-korean-war-report-on-u-s-use-of-biological-weapons-released-at-last-20d83f5cee54

 

Fascinating.

[Countryfox]

5 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-long-suppressed-korean-war-report-on-u-s-use-of-biological-weapons-released-at-last-20d83f5cee54

 

Fascinating.

 

Too long for me ...  whats the gist of it ??

[leicsmac]

15 minutes ago, Countryfox said:

 

Too long for me ...  whats the gist of it ??

That the US may have used biological weapons during the Korean War, but up until now they've been able to muddy the waters enough (through forcing recantations of witness testimony and destroying the paper trail) that it can't be conclusively proven.

 

This article focuses a lot in a report from a British investigator at the time which had been recently declassified and discovered and is quite damning.

Edited 20 June 2018 by leicsmac

[Countryfox]

3 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

That the US may have used biological weapons during the Korean War, but up until now they've been able to muddy the waters enough (through forcing recantations of witness testimony and destroying the paper trail) that it can't be conclusively proven.

 

This article focuses a lot in a report from a British investigator at the time which had been recently declassified and discovered and is quite damning.

 

 

Ta.   Wouldn't put it past them.

[Wymsey]

The closeness between the two countries didn't last long, then..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44751283

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

When does North Korea hold it's "Gay Pride" march?

 

[Dr The Singh]

5 minutes ago, DANGEROUS TIGER said:

When does North Korea hold it's "Gay Pride" march?

 

Why you asking us, you was one of the VIP guest, and why is this even relevant?

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

2 minutes ago, Dr The Singh said:

Why you asking us, you was one of the VIP guest, and why is this even relevant?

It was supposed to be tongue in cheek humour, taking a poke at North Korea.

[Dr The Singh]

Just now, DANGEROUS TIGER said:

It was supposed to be tongue in cheek humour, taking a poke at North Korea.

Good to see you have a sense of humour DT

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

On ‎07‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 18:30, Dr The Singh said:

Good to see you have a sense of humour DT

Yes, it's running round inside me, and it's too hot to chase.  

[Wymsey]

What a weird country. If some of the country's residents had the freedom to defect to the South without risk of getting shot etc, am adamant most would go for sure.. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45417037

 

At least they weren't showing off their latest weaponry this time..

[leicsmac]

2 hours ago, Wymeswold fox said:

What a weird country. If some of the country's residents had the freedom to defect to the South without risk of getting shot etc, am adamant most would go for sure.. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45417037

 

At least they weren't showing off their latest weaponry this time..

As it's been said before, it's like someone took a look at Orwells 1984 and said "let's have some of that in real life over here..."

 

Of course, what it has done has demonstrated how such a dystopia wouldn't really work all along without other places propping it up.

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45569924

 

More good news. Here's hoping that it happens and that it's the road to further progress. Oddly enough, I think relinking the railway line is the most symbolic victory to come out of this agreement.

[Sampson]

On 10/09/2018 at 01:29, leicsmac said:

As it's been said before, it's like someone took a look at Orwells 1984 and said "let's have some of that in real life over here..."

 

Of course, what it has done has demonstrated how such a dystopia wouldn't really work all along without other places propping it up.

1984 was largely based on Stalinism as it was written at the time when Stalin was arguably the most powerful man alive and Orwell had written a scathing attack on the Soviet backstabbing in the Spanish civil war in "Homage to Catalonia", in which he fought on the side supposedly backed by the Soviet Union and he was very much a huge proponent of the Soviet Union prior to the Spanish Civil War. 

 

But anyway, all the stuff about centralised government propaganda about keeping things in constant confusion, the cult of personality ("Uncle Joe" as he was known), people's lives being wiped from existence, people having show trials, and even the rat based torture was just lifted out straight out of Stalin's reign, which was probably much worse and controlling even than modern day North Korea - let's not forget this is a regime where gas vans used to go out and murder anyone indiscrimenetly if they fell out of line or that his officials themselves were even murdered if their daily "purge list" didn't have enough murdered names on it.

 

Not only was it self-sustaining, many intellectuals at the time even continued to continue it a force for good even when this stuff game out - people like Jean-paul Satre and Pablo Picasso continued to venerate Stalin, decades after he himself had died and everything about his regime had come out.

 

One of the most poigninant things Orwell wrote in Homage to Catalonia and the point about Ingsoc (the English Socialist Party) was though even though Orwell was a Socialist himself, he recognised during the Spanish civil war, he had become too much of an idealogue that he backed Stalin even when it was clear he was a tyrannical, evil dictator, just because he'd become too attached to ideology he would follow anything that fell under that, just as plenty of public intellectuals continued to do.

 

But yeah, don't be so sure this couldn't work on a larger scale if a government had the chance and controlled a larger proportion of the world, that's exactly what Stalin managed in the Warsaw Pact and his puppetjng of Eastern Europe in the post--war, post-Yalta period between 1944-48 when 1984 was being written and what it was largely inspired by and North Korea and the Kim family were a puppet of Stalin and installed by him, so it's no surprise they continue his legacy which everyone else has thankfully abandoned.

Edited 19 September 2018 by Sampson

[leicsmac]

7 hours ago, Sampson said:

1984 was largely based on Stalinism as it was written at the time when Stalin was arguably the most powerful man alive and Orwell had written a scathing attack on the Soviet backstabbing in the Spanish civil war in "Homage to Catalonia", in which he fought on the side supposedly backed by the Soviet Union and he was very much a huge proponent of the Soviet Union prior to the Spanish Civil War. 

 

But anyway, all the stuff about centralised government propaganda about keeping things in constant confusion, the cult of personality ("Uncle Joe" as he was known), people's lives being wiped from existence, people having show trials, and even the rat based torture was just lifted out straight out of Stalin's reign, which was probably much worse and controlling even than modern day North Korea - let's not forget this is a regime where gas vans used to go out and murder anyone indiscrimenetly if they fell out of line or that his officials themselves were even murdered if their daily "purge list" didn't have enough murdered names on it.

 

Not only was it self-sustaining, many intellectuals at the time even continued to continue it a force for good even when this stuff game out - people like Jean-paul Satre and Pablo Picasso continued to venerate Stalin, decades after he himself had died and everything about his regime had come out.

 

One of the most poigninant things Orwell wrote in Homage to Catalonia and the point about Ingsoc (the English Socialist Party) was though even though Orwell was a Socialist himself, he recognised during the Spanish civil war, he had become too much of an idealogue that he backed Stalin even when it was clear he was a tyrannical, evil dictator, just because he'd become too attached to ideology he would follow anything that fell under that, just as plenty of public intellectuals continued to do.

 

But yeah, don't be so sure this couldn't work on a larger scale if a government had the chance and controlled a larger proportion of the world, that's exactly what Stalin managed in the Warsaw Pact and his puppetjng of Eastern Europe in the post--war, post-Yalta period between 1944-48 when 1984 was being written and what it was largely inspired by and North Korea and the Kim family were a puppet of Stalin and installed by him, so it's no surprise they continue his legacy which everyone else has thankfully abandoned.

Yeah, the idea is classically Stalinist - so that is where Orwell got the idea for 1984, do you think?

 

I still disagree that it's self-sustaining for any length of time though - Stalin had a vast array of resources to work from and what he set up lasted about 50 years with token support from other places, what the Norks have in place now has lasted for longer but they've been reliant on the Soviet Russians (and more recently the Chinese) to provide support to stop them collapsing for some time.

 

I wonder if the attitude is shifting there because they know this and that what they have going on is going to fall out from under their feet sometime soon unless proper changes are made?

Edited 20 September 2018 by leicsmac

[Wymsey]

Seems very much like a publicity stunt from both sides, rather than actual 'progress' in terms of what they're meant to be there for (ie. Nuclear disarmament etc).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-47381718

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47431309

 

A positive step.