It would be hard to imagine a more brutal and dangerous regime then that in North Korea. Raving optimists will hope that this family dynasty will suddenly convert to democracy and the rule of law. I don’t think so. I desperately hope I can be proved wrong but I doubt it. And yet if China and Russia would abandon their policy of ‘no regime change’ it would be possible to bring some hope to the poor people of North Korea.
Around the world dictatorships are crumbling, despite popular images, the world is becoming a more peaceful place. Future generations will wonder why we allowed North Korea to continue on its tragic path – the answer will be ‘because China and Russia propped it up.’
A bit of democracy in the UK would be welcome too.
An end to unelected making laws for a start.
Then everyone getting a vote in laws as well.
However, in the interim its going tits up because of the debts run up by politicians and kept secret.
Just why hasn’t the lords investigated why pensions are off balance sheet items?
Ah yes, because they don’t have to be paid. Since the debt is so large, that means they won’t be paid.
Why is it that worldwide, including the various ranks of both the British nation-state and individual governance-Britons, the responsible parties to such precarious populations, resources, distribution, educational-progress, health, and governance tasks,
literally wastefully traipse along insisting on themselves drawing multiple human-livings from the Common Purse – of money, lifesupports, luxuries, and Time –
whilst refusing to work cooperatively Method III-wise for the recognition of every one’s* essential lifeplace and workplace Needs and for the best possible & affordable means of meeting each and all of those Needs ?
Method III is so basic, and so essential even to some military strategic and tactical thinking, that one can only refer accessible leaders/advocates to neglected but vitally rudimentary mutual and individual companion education workbooks as
“Effort” by Laban & Lawrence;
“Awareness Through Movement” by Feldenkrais
wherein the inescapably essential qualifying core know-how has to be
“the individual human-being’s enablement and self-enablement to be continually achieving an holistic balance between (1) every function of body, emotion, mind, environmental-integration, and of spirit, in the lifeplace; and between (2) every jobskill in the workplace”**.
Why is it always so evidently impossible for you-at-the-governance-top to maintain yourselves holistically healthy and fit-for-purpose, and to cause similar other governance & power holders and wielders to be likewise maintained ?
It appears evident that none of you are devoting even one of those excess multiple human livings you are drawing from the Common Purse to getting and keeping yourself up-to-health & fitness-for-purpose levels, as being greatly more important and urgent than the sharing of artificial-luxuries on-high;
isn’t this all so,
for your current North Korea and Myanmar situations;
as well as for Middle East troubles, European troubles,
and for the $$$Trouble between the Driver nations USA and China;
and for the destructively insidious ‘Economic Expertises’ that are gutting the Living Earth to the tune of two Eartthsworth now and three Earthsworth by 2050 ?
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.* every one’s as well as everyones’ .
.** “milesjsd’s loosely descriptive-synopsis”
“dictatorships are crumbling, despite popular images, the world is becoming a more peaceful place”
Dictatorships can be quite peaceful surely, to all appearances.
It is our current theory that
only democracies can provide the peace of MIND,that many of us like to enjoy, whenever possible.
Given the possibility of education, and even a modicum of health for everybody, it is the best theory to hold!
It must be a question of example. Domineering starts at the hearth and in the home, regardless of government or leader. It is certainly not a question of Wisdom or philosophy, for democracy of the modern variety throws up some awful foolish leaders.
South American of southern Atlantic seaboard
countries evidently think the latter about our leaders today by blockading their ports to “Falkland” flag ships.
Perhaps Lord Soley thinks that some fools are good at keeping peace, which may be so.
Lord Soley,
There is lttle evidence as to whether regimes crumbling just now will lead to any kind of peace. The process in progress is neither full-fledged civil war nor is it peaceful.
I was some time ago pondering the way neighbouring countries will try to avoid supporting measures that could lead to the collapse of a despotic regime.
They understandably are terrified of the flood of refugees and most lack any ability to absorb or support them.
The collapsing regime will take time to install not just a democracy, but more importantly, the independent judiciary and institutions without which any democracy will fail.
Actually, better to have a non-democratic transitional government setting up the institutions before trying democracy in a populace who have never experienced such a thing.
Anyway – back to the neighbours.
It struck me that one way of putting “soft pressure” on despotic regimes is to have a multinational force of relief agencies ready and waiting to deploy to the surrounding countries with aid, tents, food etc.
Indeed, pre-emptively deploying such resources along the borders of such a country could be as potent a threat to the regime as tanks and soldiers.
If the regime knows that it has lost the support of the neighbours, because they now have the necessary facilities to deal with the expected refugees – some reform minded dissidents within government might see the opportunity, and take it.
We could accelerate the collapse of regimes with nothing more potent than tents and first aid kits.
Wouldn’t that be novel.
“internet has become the Che Guevara of the 21st century in the Arab Spring uprisings.”
A telling remark from somebody close to Clinton, which is so certainly true, with greater intensity still during 2011, but what of these two countries Myan Mar and north Korea?
Are they un-netted, non computerized, without webs, or do they enjoy dialects of language, and tribal customs, which prevent closer community with other parts of the world, except possibly China?
The Persian/Pakistan Pashto (Taliba) are one thing, with their own very,very particular culture; are these peoples the same, and entirely different?
Whereas the Estonians used mobile phones for
e-democracy purposes in 2000, other countries are very fearful of using it at all, because of the revolutionary implications, revealed by
Iranian facebook revolution, and the Arab Spring.
Yet the web could be a very democratic tool, and not just for demos.
Ian.
You make an interesting point. A few years ago there was a major natural disater off the coast of Myanmar and they refused to allow entry for French and US relief ships. I think that if India, China and Thailand had insisted then they would have been allowed in and many lives saved.
Perhaps Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) was right – it is too early to tell. He was of course talking of the effects of the French Revolution, but we cannot jump to conclusions as to what may emerge from the death of the Dearest Leader. Maybe the young man now supposedly at the wheel will actually be directed by a subtle mix of military and civilian minds, with a dash of input from a fast changing China. I think Lord Soley is wrong to tar China with espousing a policy of ‘no regime change’; all the signs are that China is changing its regime apace, but it is not the Chinese way to admit this. So too possibly for North Korea. Outwardly noisily hostile to South Korea and the whole world, but inwardly there might emerge some signs of subtle movement. After all, look at South East Asia – is Vietname now the Vietnam of Ho Chi Minh? The West should eschew heavy-handed preaching.
“the answer will be ‘because China and Russia propped it up.”
As always since Hiroshima, Strategy is always Indirect in international relations and diplomacy. It is the very first golden rule.
It was so, in the Iraq war too;
WMD where?…
in Iran, as they may well soon be.
The Russians and Iranians merely delayed their activities on account of the Iraq war. (Don’t get me wrong; some Russians are amongst my best friends, but business is business).
What people seem to miss in this quest to find the best ideal to live under, Capitalism or Socialism, is that the Leaders are really only an envelop of difference betwixt them.
Our Western democracies have leaders which are not really any better at running the show than the ‘Dear Leader’ of the North Koreans.
The people we have had, over the last 30 years or more at least, were keen supporters of Gaddafi, Mubarak and Saddam Hussein, until they decided to bump them off. Their usefulness having ebbed.
Additionally, all we had once believed our ‘beloved’ country didn’t indulge in or condone, torture and the like, and that we only supported and stayed commited to allies who had a sense of morality, said to be akin to our own. This has dissipated over the years, as we cling to anyone who has enough clout or money to pay us off. So much for the principles of the British ruling classes.
Then we have to take into account, that whilst we believe in our vote and that it is held honestly, once the team who are chosen by us find themselves in ‘power’ what do they do with it?
They dine with bankers and press oligarchs. Who send their Lobbyists to sort out the details of what it is they want from them, once their bellies are fill. Not only that, we are now finding our Police officials and Tax men too are in that pot a stewing with them.
And we, the voter are on the losing end every time.
Now is there any real difference to the man being mourned so exuberantly today, in the State we so despise?
“is that the Leaders are really only an envelop of difference betwixt them.”
There are certain types who seek power the world over eh? So many books must have been written on the psychology of power, Crick being one.
Perhaps two pyramids are better than one, or even three.
” once the team who are chosen by us find themselves in ‘power’ ”
If you take the last three “leaders”,
Gordon Brown found himself to be a “servant” of the people, by sticking to those concepts of service and work, known as PWE, protestant work ethic. He was unashamed to acknowledge (to Blair)that he wanted to be PM, to have a go, and did.
Blair made it quite clear that he was in the business of leadership, and did.
Cameron is an ambitious member of the oligarchy himself, and endeavours to “lead”.
The one thing they have in common is that they all like the money for the job. It is surely very hard work indeed, although what they make of it,to the way of most people a thankless task! Money may be the thanking, and that is something.
You can surely not buy peace of mind after starting a war, whatever your life time wages may be.
I see Earl Atlee is in the government, so the sins of the fathers may not be visited on their children for so very long at all, in spite of the fate of Ghaddafi’s son, for the time being.
Ours being one of the largest mega cities in the world, we tend to do things differently.
Perhaps the myth of the lust for power is only a myth, and that some people find themselves in it, quite by chance! Old Harold Macmillan must be the best example of that.
He was the last man standing in the 1st world war, quite by chance, so somebody asked him to be PM, and he did. Lord Boothby enjoyed it, ie Macmillan being PM.
The bloke in North Korea has been set up by the Chinese to threaten others ,in a way that they can not do. Why should the Chinese bother threatening, but why should the North Koreans, NOT?!!
The cinematographic staging is something else all together.
Attlee with two “T”s please, I hate seeing this name frequently mis-spelt. I imagine Clem would turn in his grave to see his successor standing at the despatch box as a Tory. Indeed, a modest man with much to be modest about.
“He was the last man standing in the 1st world war, quite by chance, so somebody asked him to be PM.” That is not, even remotely, why Macmillan became prime minister. He understood how the Conservative Party needed, in order to survive, to appeal across a broad spectrum of society, by recognising – if not fulfilling – the aspirations of society at large. Not all his Conservative successors grasped this. Alas!
Would The United Kingdom be one of those countries “wanting to bring some hope to the poor people of North Korea” once both China and Russia have allowed such through ‘regime change’ ?
It may be archaic, but still to be weened in one respect, that Britain would be but a small pot calling a big kettle black:
I mean, we have to be clear, charitable & self-corrigible, about our British vacuumous ‘worship’ of, and spiritless-‘sacrificing’ of acres of perfectly created and innocent flowers onto hot motorway tarmacs to, the Late Lady Diana who, whatever her good points nevertheless unwittingly was sent out to cost ten times more than would have ten fully qualified nurses and doctors for tackling the much wider range of collaterally-maimed innocent children and adults in foreign western-causative or -involved war-torn and third/fourth-world nations, than did the hapless ex-Princess.
‘Though minorly-comparable to the even greater-hapless North Korean People’s almost genericly-insane “national-grieving” over the ‘death of’ their ‘Great Leader’ (but “Most Brutal Tyrant”),
the abrogation of Britain’s citizenry-soul and spirit to heroine-worship suddenly looks like a few adolescently-passionate fan-mail letters,
in stark contrast with the spine-chilling spectacle of “dutiful” top-to-bottom ultra-extreme public “grieving”, by the wealthy and privileged select Establishment & the million upon million of lesser “poor North Korean people”, alike.
North Koreans suddenly look like insanely-huddled millions of “kamakazis”,
not unlike the USSR’s droves of their own women and children that some history alleges Soviet Russia sent in unarmed and on foot against the German Nazi dug-in machinegun and artillery fire, on their western front in order to quicker expel Hitler from Russian soil,
nor unlike the 10-to-1 foot-soldiers that China sent bayonet-charging to outnumber allied defenders, in the 1950-1953 war started by North Korea’s invasion of South Korea.
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This does raise the lurking political and ‘social’ spectre, resulting from research into “Effective Democratic Numbers”, where it was found that 2000 citizens is the maximum number of people above which an egalitarian-democracy increasingly fails to work effectively;
thus all the Nation-States of the world, including our ‘leading democratic’ ones Britain, USA, France, and Others, are possibly unawarely and helplessly too top-heavy with similar if lesser “exploitation of The People”, with potential “mass hysteria”, “mass martyrdom”, “ethnic-‘cleansing’; “auto-genocide” –
and onwards down any of variously evil slippery-slopes into “the fires of Hell” –
or in this case the “thermonuclear fires” of a possibly newly extended axis-of-evil that Bush said was just three, but now appears to be stretching to include at least China and Russia into the bargain.
Interesting comparison of Hera worship of Princess Di and the leader of North Korea, very discreetly put too, and only too true.
There are things about monarchy, which defy executive presidencies, and vice versa!
In the end Saddam did not know which uniform to wear, his civvies, or his military number ones. Kardazic of S-C may serve longer for having worn his military gear at the wrong time, but a military dictator president, who wore his military gear much of the time, and caught between USA and China, must have wet his pants quite often, nor have been entirely aware of his puppet status.
The historical perspective does not allow either China to occupy N Korea or N Korea to declare itself for multiparty democracy, so it will be more of the same.
Is there anything that could change that scenario?
US air bases have been substituted for the dead SEATO treaty. They needed nothing more than air bases in ASEAN.
“Last US troops leave Iraq!” as boldly proclaimed a few weeks ago.
Yes and the US air bases in the country, which were not there previously, again thanks to history, firmly in place, three or four of them. They started on building them within a few days of the declaration of war in March
2003.
Plus c’est la meme chose in ASEAN.
The Hitlerian filmography of the country, of goose stepping military parades may be little more than film.
Twm,
There are a number of stories involved in this single story. First Kim Jong Un is clearly less dependent on his own ego and power-lust for his position than his grandfather Kim Il Song. Kim Il Song is more comparable to Moamar Khadaffi (or any other spelling of the Late Libyan premiere), Saddam Hussein or others like the Balkan leaders. Like them he also had more claim to the merit and Charisma of the self made man. The North Koreans had already made some efforts to bring some trappings of traditional Korean royalty into the credentials of Kim Jong Il and now it will be easier to do that with the third if they wish to do so. North Korea is a country which spends much of its budget and rhetoric opposing two countries — the United States and Japan. However, it is also a country that to a remarkable degree has foreign relations with only three countries Russia, China and South Korea. Relations with Cuba, Vietnam and others are very tenuous and kept in a derived position.
North Korea has a high level of state controlled homicide and confinement but is not entirely cut off from its ideals of connection to the people. they cannot survive a break with Russia and China neither of whom are really willing to give up their buffer zone against the US led alliance of South Korea, Japan and the Philippines which still exists while larger groups grow weak.
Both Russia and China are willing to weaken North Korea in many ways to keep it committed to its role. On the other hand they also support a country which is not without art and culture, industry and agriculture. The expense of vast underground architecture, military output, intelligence services and police control slow and starve an economy that is not entirely dead. The lack of light at night is partly due to the fact that the entire country is a fortified air-raid shelter. North Koreans abduct people of all races to train as sleeper spies, they have surgery done on linguisitic experts who assume false identities abroad and they are living with the presumption they they cannot escape their role in a hostile configuration between all but one of the world’s greatest power blocks (the British European power block). They are completely committed to the project of survival and they also have a deeply racial and cultural ideology that has nothing to do with Marxism. They are more committed to racial segregation and national survival than to derivative Leninist Maoism.
“Clem would turn in his grave to see his successor standing at the despatch box as a Tory”
They say there was something of the Tory about him.
“He was the last man standing in the 1st world war, quite by chance, so somebody asked him to be PM.” That is not, even remotely, why Macmillan became prime minister”
Remotely it is. There must have been somebody else left standing, at least one other. The generation of the 1890s was annihilated.(Harold Macmillan 10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986)
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2173750
You mean all the war dead were really permanent emigrants, whereas Harold Macmillan (bhds)liked it here??!!
I see your point.
Those born after 1901 were treated as gods, extremely rare beings, male.
Let’s not talk about graves, nor worms nor epitaphs!
This year saw the highest birth rate in the UK since 1946. Now that is GOOD news!
You might say that North Korea is a country exploited by imperialist China, and does not have the opportunity to join a local cartel of states, for mutual advantage.
That cartel of states would be the South East Asian organisation.(ASEAN)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Southeast_Asian_Nations.
Historically SEATO was the military defense organization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia_Treaty_Organization.
There are better ways of organizing US cultural hegemony in the world today.
The victims of all this are surely the North Koreans themselves, who act as a buffer state between the US dominated ASEAN and the Chinese supranational state, in considering both the USA and China as supranational organizations themselves themselves.
ASEAN is not considered to be a “deliberative” supranational organisation, and US foreign policy would be far too complicated if it were,vis a vis China, however many millions of Military personnel they have in the US armed forces.
Any one else reminded of a minor public-leader’s gravestone which reads “Doctor, I told you I was il” ?
I have heard from scholastic sources that such psycho-logical ironies or coincidences do occur.
Surely the unusually dramatic national grieving scores diagnosticakky as some sort of mass hysteria ?
I mean, the whole nation appears to “il” -“boss-identified”, doesn’t It ?