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South Korea has given up on talking to the North
(www.economist.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Don't even know why that was even an option, anyway. NK isn't ever going to cooperate with its "enemies" and will just continue to indoctrinate its population with propaganda.
The only solution is a military invasion of NK. Always has been.
Worked out so well last time, right?
The DPRK has nuclear weapons
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of China have a treaty going back to 1961 which in Article II clearly states that: "The Contracting Parties undertake jointly to adopt all measures to prevent aggression against either of the Contracting Parties by any state. In the event of one of the Contracting Parties being subjected to the armed attack by any state or several states jointly and thus being involved in a state of war, the other Contracting Party shall immediately render military and other assistance by all means at its disposal."
Aggression on them is aggression on China, good luck! 😄
The US always could have not disrupted the planned elections and installed a military dictatorship that kept a lot of the Japanese colonial officers around and started mass killing Koreans. Then the democratic korea wouldn't have had to try to liberate their country.
Could've, would've, should've. The US has had a long and sordid history of downright fucked-up foreign policy decisions.
But, bitching about it doesn't really change the current situation. NK has a dictatorship with a enough military power that it still requires a decent army to overrun. Kim isn't going to listen to any diplomacy, except when he can trick some diplomat to give him more power or image-building. At best, China might be able to cut off its funding and topple Kim's little empire, but China has no interest in that.
Oh yes, definitely that doesn't happen in any of those "civilized" western countries right? Nobody making up things like "North Koreans have no word for love" or "We push trains to work every day".
Many of which were Korean slaves.
Edit: lol what a comment to downvote
That, uhhh, has to do with the current topic how?
They have nukes, my lemon. This has never be the solution.
Okay seriously guys! Who let John Bolton join lemmy?
Jesus. And people think I exaggerate when I call the West a death cult
Well yes, you are definitely exaggerating if you are suggesting that half the planet is a 'death cult'. Maybe if you want to say that the foreign policy establishment in certain countries is, then it would be a more reasonable statement.
I don't think that "the West" is even a useful term.
I think you overestimate your importance, try 14% of the planet instead.
This is unrelated to the very poignant graphic but I like your username
I love weird infographic maps. Wonder why the areas have been chosen to be portrayed that way. There's more border control between EU and USA than EU and LATAM.
Western world is a weird concept anyway. All the different blues in wikipedia's map are closer to a global community and a common culture than the map above.
Even Africa and India are more connected to the rest of the world, maybe only some of those Asian countries, heavily authoritarian either by religion or just totalitarianism, are the exception
... Look at the map again.
You're right, sorry about that! It does! I removed my comment.
Do you like the Imperial North better?
Maybe "The US and its allies"?
I mean Japan is typically included as part of The West, and it is to the east of China. Cuba is in the western hemisphere, but it is Marxist-Leninist. I don't think directional terms of the globe make as much sense in the 21st century as they did in the premodern world.
The term "The West" is not to mean something geographical but rather countries that value the Western culture. That's why the US, Australia, New Zealand and even more notably Israel, Japan and South Korea are fitted into that category. Even though none of these countries are European they all follow along with western traditions or have been westernised in some way or another. If you look at maps of policy decision taking and such (there is even a community dedicated for this in Reddit and I think also here called /alwaysthesamemap) you will see how most of the time "The International Community" is the set of Europe plus the aforementioned countries.
That is also why the term "Global South" doesn't really need to be taken literally since for example colonised States such as Hawai'i, or imperialized countries such as Mexico or certain parts of northern Africa are technically above the equator. It is more a symbolic allegorical representation of the people on top (the ruling classes) and the ones below (the oppressed masses).
Lol, news flash. Western white people are not half the planet. Never have been. They are a significant minority.
You don't get to decide if the West is a useful term. You have to listen to the global majority on that. And they demonstrate it's utility by using it.
The foreign policy establishment is tiny. There are millions of people screaming at their TVs, lynching black people, shooting protestors, buying guns, watching and producing military propaganda movies, watching and producing TV shows about hero white people killing Asiatic hordes, celebrating the European genocide against indigenous people, calling water protectors terrorists, baying for the blood of Iranians, Russians, Chinese... Millions who thinks dropping nukes on population centers was the best course of action. That vacation in Vietnam and marvel at how backwards they are and don't think Kissinger is that bad.
It's not like you and your family and friends and countrymen are just normal people who weren't raised for 20 years on genocidal indoctrination by your parents, grandparents, teachers, books, TVs, movies, politicians, historians, memorials, and religions. You just don't think you were.
It's not the foreign policy establishment. It's the entire European project for the last 600 years. You don't get out of it by just saying "it's only the power elite". If the US had a popular revolt, I guarantee you that it would result in major mass killings of the marginalized, because despite your fantasy, the majority of Americans are part of the death cult.
I would argue that we are, as a planetary civilization, almost past the point where a war of that sort is even possible.
On the other hand, if China were to ever shun NK, I would bet that their government would likely collapse in less than a decade.
Sadly, China has a ton of reasons to want to prevent that, one of the bigger ones being the border with NK where many, many refugees would try to cross into China.
I could however see, someday, China agreeing to a massive backroom deal on a scale that would be unprecedented:
China abruptly works to ensure a complete collapse of the NK government, without any NK nuclear weapons either coming into play or any NK nuclear weapons going missing (except to China itself, if it wants them).
And SK along with a good chunk of the Western world agrees to immediately conduct one of the largest humanitarian missions in history, to ensure that nobody is fleeing NK into China unless they have tons of assets and they want to avoid repercussions for their actions.
There are, sadly, a lot of reasons why China wouldn't want the western powers capable of pulling that off to have control of territory that close to China though.
SK would be their safest bet, but SK doesn't have the resources to pull of that kind of a humanitarian effort.
And the chances that someone like the US wouldn't take the chance to plop a military base in what is currently NK seems awfully slim.
Your perspective being shared by bloodthirsty us officials is why the drpk has and is justified in having nukes
If you don't wan't to be invaded, don't give your enemies a convenient and completely morally justifiable reason to do so.
Bloodthirsty imperialist, keep fantasizing about them being helpless so they could be invaded.
What are these completely moral justifiable reasons you speak of?
The government there starves and enslaves its entire population.
???????
Least bloodthirsty lib
No war but class war. Death to all forms of government.
Without government, who's going to stop armed gangs from killing you and taking all of your property?
You seem to be under the belief that human beings are incapable of managing themselves and we need hirearchies that "know better" to rule over us
No, I'm under the belief that there are groups of bad people that the rest of us need protection from.
I'm also under the belief that I live in a democracy, in which we the people choose our leaders. If the government does something bad, it's because we put someone bad into power. The blame lies with us, not some distant, faceless, unelected hierarchy.
Don't believe me? Listen to Republican rhetoric some time. Decode the dog whistles. You'll find that they've been doing precisely what they've been saying they'd do: ban abortion, make life hell for immigrants, give money to the rich, dismantle democracy, and so on. None of their actions are surprising. There is no deep state conspiracy here, just politicians doing what they were elected to do.
First of all, protection from bad groups is very important. But I don't believe it should be provided to us by people that would do anything to harm you as long as it's profitable and they can get away with it (that's also inherently a bad group)
If you were under a democracy basic human rights like the freedom of movement, housing, healthcare and autonomy of one's body would never be QUESTIONED. Even assuming you democratically elected the republican party so they could do that (the americans elected the democrats in 2020, in case you've forgotten) it's inherently undemocratic to take away your human rights, even if it was voted on.
If you were under a democracy the policies that the government approves wouldn't be the ones lobbied by the rich. That's what we call "corruption"
Also, it's funny you mention abortion, considering it was the supreme court that overturned Roe v Wade. I'm not sure about you but the supreme court doesn't look like the most democratic institution to me.
Then who will protect us? Who, but the government, can hope to have more manpower and firepower than organized crime?
That's a bit of a paradox of democracy, isn't it? Does democracy give the people the power to vote away their power to vote? You would say no, but then does that not imply there is some greater power than the will of the people? For there to be a greater power than the will of the people doesn't sound very democratic.
You forget, they do so with the tacit approval of the voters who keep voting for them after they do so. Members of Congress who sell America out to the highest bidder often do so for decades, not just one term.
It is also the Supreme Court that instituted the right to abortion in the first place. Roe v. Wade is the name of a Supreme Court case.
Congress should have codified the right to an abortion, and would have if not for people electing enough Republicans and DINOs to block such a bill.
In the USA (and most places, honestly) all your options are lobbied by rich, there is no alternative in your great democracy. It's rich people that hate gays, women, immigrants and workers or rich people that hate workers. I wouldn't call that democracy, personally. And I also don't think that those people lobbied by the rich, people that couldn't give less of a crap about us, should be the ones in charge of protecting us. There are more people in the world than monsters, there is more love in the world than hate. Humanity loves the earth and everyone on it, we have the power to create a society based on love and respect we have for eachother. A better world is possible, don't let these inhumane beings let you believe otherwise.
As you said, you could call my definiton of democracy a paradox, that is a valid argument. But I'd like to say that's slightly more democratic than having rich people run around and do whatever they want with the fruits of OUR labour, destroying the planet for fun and the endless accumulation of fake tokens to the point where a human can not even comprehend that big of a number, and then blaming US for the state the planet is in.
Society has existed before the state and will exist after the state.
Spare me this nonsense. Only one party is in favor of outlawing abortion, not both.
Doubtful. Very doubtful, given how many Americans don't vote Democratic.
This from the one trying to help the Republicans turn America into a brutal theocracy by discouraging people from voting Democratic.
History does not support this claim. Every society has had leadership of some kind. I'm aware of exactly zero libertarian utopias.
Government is the only thing protecting you from the rich and powerful.
well the government is doing a pretty bad job at that considering it is run by the rich and poweful
Anarkiddies have and are fighting on the frontlines. Only issue is, it's hard to remain anarchist when the people you've allied with are trying to execute you (26 July movement, for example)
There are examples of anarchists fighting by themselves, most notably the Free Territory of Ukraine (for the most part, though it did fight alongside the red army on multiple occasions) there's also the AANES which isn't inherently anarchist but does have a lot of it's libertarian characteristics, there's the zapatistas which you could argue that they are anarchists and I'd say they're definitely fighting alone, and of course Revolutionary Catalonia, which created a (functional?) society while still facing the much stronger fascists to the west and a lot of internal repercussion from republicans/marxists.
This is also ignoring the fact that most anarchists would rather fight for a lesser evil when possible instead of sitting around doing nothing.