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Dusty Baker 2 posted:Actually as a cold war history major, it's a valuable tool for me to see first-hand the situation in North Korea today. I am student-teaching a high school about the Korean war right now, and if I could see first-hand the situation there, be able to describe it more fully, the students might come away with a greater awareness of the situation and be far more inclined to donate money to help after a government collapse. It's not the same thing as visiting New Orleans post-Katrina and gawking at the destruction, it's a valid way to learn about another culture and see how they see the world, or at least try to. OK, with all that said, actual bright-eyed defectors have been sentenced to labor camps in recent memory. Taking one's chances as a western tourist in a period of potential instability in NK is a 9 on the scale of 1-"let's see what ISIS-held territory is really like!"
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Oct 12, 2014 05:21
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Dusty Baker 2 posted:I don't think North Korea is stupid enough to kidnap an American citizen and keep them. They tend to return them when the US gives them a stern look. I also long for the warm embrace of death. Sure, but the point is that's subject to at least minor negotiations under current conditions. This is the best case scenario for what constitutes a real possibility, and reading the current tea leaves, who knows if you'll face the best case under changing circumstances. I guess what I'm saying is that TCC should have you covered for that level of reckless disregard for your person.
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Oct 12, 2014 05:45
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Full Battle Rattle posted:That cane might be a symbol that the Kims are effectively out of power. It does seem like a stretch, but that assertion that a council wouldn't let Un make a fool of himself...well, after those incidents, he disappears, misses an extremely important function, and comes back using a cane. That's tinfoil hat territory, for sure, but the military can't really make a blatant play on Kim's life due to how intertwined the Kim bloodline is with the actual North Korean Government. Deposing a Kim by force could lead to a total breakdown. Instead, he steps out of line a couple of times, you show him who the REAL boss is, and you get these overtures out of the blue. So what happened, exactly? They broke his leg, and he got the message? He's been in charge of a particularly murderous apparatus for years. There's no way to leave him in "power" while seizing control unless you make him a eunuch and put him in an a Forbidden Palace-like structure. i.e., no way all Kim loyalists go over at once, and getting rid of them would involve a truly massive purge.
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Oct 15, 2014 04:50
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Historically, there has been no shortage of palace coups that claimed to act on behalf of the sovereign while keeping him under heavy guard.
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Mar 4, 2016 04:51
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I can't see why China would want to actually move in. They'd be much better off by creating a government that would listen to them for a change and which followed their model.
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Aug 20, 2016 19:23
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Kurtofan posted:That's extreme Isn't the bullshit to fact ratio in South Korean coverage of North Korea fairly high? The article just repeats what a single SK paper claims a single nameless source told them. Seems pretty thin.
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Aug 30, 2016 16:11
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Homework Explainer posted:bruce cumings Hadn't heard of this guy, then I read this review, now I have the book reserved at the local library, because it sounds really funny.
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Sep 5, 2016 05:09
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A nine year old being thrown into a labor camp for the supposed sins of his grandfather: not a ghastly tale of totalitarian repression.
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Sep 9, 2016 19:15
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Bishounen Bonanza posted:From a strictly utilitarian view, the moral thing to do is immediate war and regime change. The longer N.Korea maintains the status quo, the greater number of people that suffer in aggregate. Naive utility calculations like this formed part of the logic underlying the invasion of Iraq. Our experience there suggests that we should be very wary of this line of reasoning.
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Apr 30, 2017 04:02
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Burt Buckle posted:Yeah but the people of North Korea will probably be better off long term with a regime change. Were conditions in Iraq under Saddam as bad as conditions in North Korea under Kim? No. But the problem is the word "probably," because we don't really know what would probably happen. Recent efforts to depose entrenched regimes have invariably led to chaos and severe unforeseen consequences. Destabilizing East Asia the way we destabilized the Middle East is the sort of thing which could bring us appreciably closer to WWIII. Basically, we have no idea what we're doing, and our ethical calculations should reflect that.
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Apr 30, 2017 05:11
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I take back every unkind thing I've ever said about the North Korean regime. The DPRK is a most stable and harmonious country based on single hearted unity.
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Apr 30, 2017 17:26
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R. Guyovich posted:information on these companies' relationship with the dprk government is readily available outside wikipedia, from the companies themselves You can't travel independently in North Korea as a tourist, and are required to have government minders with you. How are you not getting this? The question was: fishmech posted:If the US government ran official tours of the country and banned you from attending any unofficial tours, would you trust them to show you any but the best looking parts of the US? So what's the answer?
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May 1, 2017 00:46
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R. Guyovich posted:the first part of your post isn't true and the second is premised on a flawed analogy, so i really don't have to answer it now do i I mean, there's a source for the first part already posted on this page, and all you have are your usual blind assertions, so...
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May 1, 2017 00:51
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R. Guyovich posted:being accompanied by guides isn't the same thing as having government minders, as the koryo guy says in his interview. other tour companies say the same thing. independent tourism is available for chinese nationals and for some reason isn't for the country the dprk is still technically at war with You know there's quite a lot of countries they're not at war with, right? Most of them, even.
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May 1, 2017 00:58
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HahaWikipedia posted:Though gambling is prohibited for North Korean citizens,[27] two casinos exist in North Korea for the Chinese tourist market - the Emperor Hotel & Casino in Rason[27] and the Pyongyang Casino in the Yanggakdo International Hotel in Pyongyang.[28] Anything to get that hard currency, I guess.
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May 1, 2017 01:08
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Guy Goodbody posted:What other countries require all tourists be accompanied by government-approved guides? And, in tandem with that, requires that your tour be restricted to a list of approved locations? edit: R. Guyovich posted:hmmm so independent companies run the tours, like i said. the existence of a tourism bureau in the government is the only factual aspect of this post R. Guyovich posted:everything is state owned there with few exceptions and it wouldn't make any sense for tourism to be one of those exceptions lol
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May 1, 2017 01:23
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Macau is Vegas, North Korea is a depressing Indian casino. Somehow the latter still get customers.
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May 1, 2017 02:42
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I'm not on board with the Potemkin village line of argument, but that does raise a question. Homework Explainer, is the North Korean Peace Village on the north side of the DMZ real?
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May 1, 2017 14:22
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Well, that's something. Leaving aside some of the more daring claims that have been made, the point is this: in a country where there's a literal list of places a foreigner is allowed to go, and where said foreigner must be accompanied by agents of the state whenever they go sightseeing, the idea that tourism gives one any particular insight into the reality of local life is laughable. You get stuff like the following: Dermot Hudson, of The Korean Friendship Association posted:JC: In relation to the last question, obviously the DPRK is portrayed in western media as a hostile and erratic government. This narrative is constructed with the help of half truths or blatant lies originating from elites in South Korea and Japan. In order to dispel some of these myths, could you describe how the government in the DPRK supports its citizens and what’re some of the benefits from the state that are visible in everyday life? Now, it'll be pretty interesting to see what comes out over time if true unrestricted tourism for Chinese nationals becomes a regular thing. Tacky-Ass Rococco fucked around with this message at 15:13 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 15:11
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Okay, but if the people that have been to north korea only have false information how do you have real information? By what source does your knowledge originate? Defector accounts, which are many and varied. They make fascinating reading, although how highly you rate them is up to you. People sympathetic to the DPRK regard them as having little value, being tainted with anti-communist bias and warped by a system which rewards more sensationalist accounts of life in NK with e.g. book deals and TV interviews. Which is fair enough, but as long as we're accounting for biases, surely we ought to treat reports from Westerners on state-run tours with at least as much skepticism?
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May 1, 2017 20:46
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Ardennes posted:Another thing I wanted to mention, North Koreans have a fair reason to dislike the US. I mean the Korea War and US bombing campaigns did in fact devastate the north, there is officially still a war going on (including occasional skirmishes), and North Korea is still under crippling sanctions. One reason why the propaganda of the Kims still works...is there a little bit of truth to it. I mean, if they want to dislike us, they can, and that's clearly what they've chosen. I think the example of Vietnam demonstrates that, if they had preferred, they could have had friendship over enmity. Even our insane grudge against Cuba has been slowly fading. But Kim Il-Sung clung to delusions of reuniting Korea under his rule until he died, and subsequent Kim dynasts have deliberately stoked hostility between our nations for their internal political benefit.
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May 2, 2017 19:34
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Ardennes posted:It is clear the Kims use the situation for their own internal legitimacy, but at the same thing, we still haven't given up our part to play as well. In a sense, everyone is happy with the status quo: the Kims get to sit on the throne, China retains their puppet, and the US had a rogue nation to shake its fist at. Purely as a side note, I feel like people should stop using the word "puppet" for "satellite." Quisling was a puppet: when his lips moved, it's because of Hitler's arm up his rear end. Most local dictators supported by imperial powers aren't mere toadies; they usually have a strong independent power base, and are frequently a huge nuisance for their patrons. Diem is a good example. Anyway, inasmuch as internal US politics make it difficult to impossible for us to make peace with the world's last Stalinist state and leave Korea to their own devices, I agree that we have our part to play. But I don't think it especially suits the interests of the American ruling class to have NK as "a rogue nation to shake its fist at," because more than anything else, the Korea situation actually demonstrates how humiliatingly impotent America really is. If we could make the entire situation quietly go away, that would be in the interests of all of the non-Sinophobic elements of the political establishment. So of the three principle parties involved, I think the US has the least free agency.
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May 2, 2017 21:24
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Fojar38 posted:Everyone knows that when the chips are down the US has the advantage. The whole objective is to avoid that scenario. The only thing that makes the topic of NK interesting at the moment is the fact that Donald Trump might be crazy or stupid enough to call their bluff. Under normal circumstances, so long as they keep to their own kingdom, we'll always fold when the chips are down. War against another nuclear power is only something that could ever make sense in a case of absolute necessity.
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May 2, 2017 21:39
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Nucken Futz posted:Oh Boy . Fojar38 posted:DPRK apologists believe that authoritarian autocracy is a legitimate, even preferable, form of governance and so don't see why naked aggression on the part of such countries is such a big deal and don't believe such aggression needs to be stopped, so yes, they genuinely believe that the UN stopping the North Korean invasion of South Korea was wrong. Since when is Ardennes an apologist for North Korea? Since, uh, never, as near as I can tell from a quick glance at his post history itt.
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May 3, 2017 03:52
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Guy Goodbody posted:I guess the argument is that North Korea wasn't really invading, they were liberating the south from the yoke of the US so the country could be unified under the yoke of the Kims I think that's a fair argument, inasmuch as I wouldn't object to that argument if you shifted the context to Vietnam. Having taken their shot and failed, though, it's a bit rich for their defenders to complain about the devastation that arose from a war of choice that they started, especially seventy years later.
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May 3, 2017 04:55
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Peel posted:A unified soviet-aligned Korea would at least have benefited from not needing to be so much of a garrison state. Less external threat can mean more internal surplus and less internal repression. This presupposes that there was ever a need to be anything like the garrison state that it was. We know that Kim Il-Sung held on to hopes of reunification through conquest through at least the end of the '60s. This provides a more concrete explanation for Prussianesque military focus of North Korea than amorphous fears of American perfidy.
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May 3, 2017 17:19
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Fishmech, do you also also regard Ho Chi Minh's decision to fight for reunification as unjustifiable? If not, what causes the distinction?
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May 3, 2017 19:23
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R. Guyovich posted:
In what sense is the DPRK the heir of the PRK?
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May 4, 2017 21:04
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R. Guyovich posted:the dprk is obviously very different than its predecessor but has a greater claim to its legacy, whatever you think of its current incarnation What legacy?
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May 4, 2017 21:19
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OXBALLS DOT COM posted:Hmm sounds real similar to the attack on kim jong nam hmmmm No it doesn't, did you read the article or the text of the allegations? The assassin was supposedly going to set off a biochemical bomb that would release an agent that would kill its target over 6-12 months. Which I am stealing for my James Bond fanfic.
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May 5, 2017 17:01
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The only reason I have to reject that theory out of hand is that it involves way too much subtlety and cunning for the CIA.
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May 6, 2017 23:33
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Uncle Jam posted:The north has allowed mild market reforms though? Have there been actual reforms at the legal/institutional level, or has the regime mostly just been turning a blind eye to an increasingly large gray market? My impression was the latter.
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May 9, 2017 22:44
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Uncle Jam posted:Yes absolutely. That's interesting. Who owns these corporations?
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May 10, 2017 15:30
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Uncle Jam posted:Well, the state still does, but there will be multiple corporations competing to supply the same product sometimes. You can retrieve the named of presidents sometimes but any more information is difficult. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the idea of state-owned corporations that are taxed at a fixed percentage on their profits. Doesn't all the profit belong to the state? Anyways, good stuff. Deng said "to get rich is glorious," and it sounds like NK is trying out "to make the state rich is glorious." Massive corruption is pretty much guaranteed under a system like that, but inasmuch as that leads to a diffusion of power, it's probably to the good.
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May 10, 2017 18:58
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OXBALLS DOT COM posted:Just because it's owned by the state doesn't mean everything goes into one big bank account. I was speaking in terms of North Korea specifically, but actually, it's often the case that state agencies that run a revenue surplus put the money directly into the general fund.
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May 11, 2017 01:27
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Is THAAD something potentially useful that came out of the Bush-era missile defense boondoggle, or does it have different origins?
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May 15, 2017 06:56
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R. Guyovich posted:i trust him on the matter more than you How much trust do you have for North Korean defectors?
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Jun 11, 2017 16:13
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Fiction posted:Do people think they really did whatever to happened to him as a "warning" or something, though? It must have been some sort of freak occasion spurred by negligence because isn't it pretty rare for them to actually hurt prisoners, especially that badly? Western prisoners, at least.
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Jun 23, 2017 18:32
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Dapper_Swindler posted:i read/heard somewhere that it was drugs they used. probaly some Truth serum bullshit. they probaly overdosed him and it hosed his brain super bad. This sort of groundless speculation is actually making me sympathize with R Guy, which is a fate worse than death.
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Jun 23, 2017 19:55
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Uncle Jam posted:Going by what happens in that district this incident is only going to make those kinds of kids want to head over there even more. If there were a way to make this happen without giving North Korea hard currency and bargaining chips, I think it would be an ideal result.
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Jun 26, 2017 03:38
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