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Topic: China buys North Korea
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Hawkins
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3306
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posted 02 March 2006 11:50 PM
Every empire wants its own clien- state piraha.They are useful for causing problems and getting you caught up in war. And during peace time, you can exploit them for cheap labour. And for the Chinese, labour cheaper than their own is really good. [apparently i think climate = client] [ 02 March 2006: Message edited by: Hawkins ]
From: Burlington Ont | Registered: Nov 2002
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 04 March 2006 12:45 PM
Fidel, please. I'm going to seriously die laughing if you keep this up.As much as I like you and stuff, you have this odd obsession with Singapore, which is a repressed authoritarian's paradise even if it is "socialist" in character. North Korea's economy is so far in the crapper I have no idea how they'll be anything other than a permanent charity case for South Korea when unification ever happens. Running a country into the ground like Il Sung and Jong Il have done are are doing is just not sane, and unfortunately it means what little of North Korea's wealth there is has probably already been frittered away on those useless grandiose projects that never get completed while everybody in North Korea is equally poor. Look, the joke used to go that Communist countries were great at making the poverty shared absolutely equally, and unfortunately North Korea seems to epitomize this. Even the Eastern bloc countries were better off, especially East Germany where you could get "west" goods, but got the benefit of guaranteed housing and cars (albeit with huge waiting lists...) Vietnam has been slowly decontrolling its economy, but you don't see whizzbang reports about that country. The basic problem with capitalism is that it appeals to the human desire to see things happen very quickly, which is why we love seeing boom cycles. When the Asian tigers could report and see ten percent per year growth routinely, that got people excited even if any sane person could tell you that massive overinvestment and unrestrained capital flows would mess things up. By contrast, socialism and communism appear dull as dishwater, even if they guarantee greater security at the expense of the wild swings that appeal so to risk-takers.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 04 March 2006 01:14 PM
quote: you have this odd obsession with Singapore, which is a repressed authoritarian's paradise even if it is "socialist" in character
They have socialism as interpreted by Singaporean culture, Doc. See Ken Lay, D Kozlowski, John Roth or Ernie Ebbers pull their shenanigan's in Singapore. I don't think so. Doc, they can read and write in N. Korea. That alone puts them decades ahead of a majority of demo-capitalist nations mired in IMF debt and crappy health statistics. It should txlate to even more low wage jobs to Asia and not El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, the freest trading nation in the Carribe, or even the "right to work" states. What will all the low wage workers in the State think to that ?. ha ha quote: Look, the joke used to go that Communist countries were great at making the poverty shared absolutely equally, and unfortunately North Korea seems to epitomize this.
Doc, look at China. Not only is Walmart investing there, but IBM and INTEL have R&D labs there and building 12 MIT-style engineering U's. 6-10% growth for the last 21 years in a row and CHinese state demanding controlling interest or large min share in all foreign-owned business in CHina. Imagine Harper demanding the same from our oil and gas and toilet paper pirates. China and Singapore were fourth world crappy-holes in 1949 and 1965. Why China after decades of Mao "holding them back?" Why not any of a thousand other nations exporting food and cheap clothing to "the market" and still waiting for the economic longrun to kick in?.
quote: Vietnam has been slowly decontrolling its economy, but you don't see whizzbang reports about that country.
They're now a head and shoulders above so many under-performing 3rd world capitalist nations that haven't had to endure a ten thousand day war waged on their front doorsteps by imperialists. But they're coming of age, quicker than those nations just a few days drive from Texas and enjoying free trade and liberal doses of abject poverty. quote: The basic problem with capitalism is that it appeals to the human desire to see things happen very quickly, which is why we love seeing boom cycles.
That's CHina and the Asian Tigers that have followed IMF-Washington consensus the least. Remember, Russia, Latin America and Africa were held by the IMF's hand for years, and look where they are now. blah-dull-greyer and defaulting on debt payments.
quote: When the Asian tigers could report and see ten percent per year growth routinely, that got people excited even if any sane person could tell you that massive overinvestment and unrestrained capital flows would mess things up.
So the capitalists turned around and over-invested massively in US markets and messed things up. So? It only demonstrated that capitalism can't work when investors act in herd-like mentality. -bleeting- And the investor class don wanna play ball with optimism everywhere around the world at once and playing one economy off against another. It's a system based more on grey-dull pessimism than anyone wants to admit. Doc, capitalism may be sexy now while we still have trees, some clean water and dirty air to chew on, but socialism is the future. [ 04 March 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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swallow
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2659
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posted 04 March 2006 10:34 PM
Fidel, Singpaore dictator Lee Kuan Yew came to power in alliance with the British government (headed by The Queen!) and the feudal Malay rulers. It did so using brutal arrests of communists, suspected communists, trade union leaders and members of the Socialist Front, a highly respectable democratic party, all in the interests of protecting a British miltiary base for the US-led SEATO alliance. This is not even in dispute, you can read it in Lee Kuan Yew's autobiogrpahy The Singapore Story. Papa Kim and Baby Kim took a prosperous industrial country, and turned it into a land of mass arrests, extrajudicial executions, and famine. Their brutality against members of the democratic left is notorious. It's a tragedy, really, because Papa Kim was a genuine popular hero back in the 1940s -- far more so than the colloborators and fascists who ran South Korea back then. But South Korea's democratic leftists managed to win power. North Korea's democratic leftists, not so much, sadly.
From: fast-tracked for excommunication | Registered: May 2002
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 05 March 2006 12:38 AM
quote: Originally posted by swallow: This is not even in dispute, you can read it in Lee Kuan Yew's autobiogrpahy The Singapore Story.
You're so full of it your eyes are brown. Singapore gained independence during Britain's labour party rein of 1965 headed by socialist prime minister, Harold Wilson. Never mind Liz and Phil because I'm sure that royalty and British aristocrats didn't appreciate labour party handing independence to India either. quote: Mr. Lee's socialist roots run deep. A Cambridge-educated lawyer labour union negotiator, he built People's Action Party on union support. He proudly describes his membership Socialist Internationale his relationship with British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who repeatedly convinced Labour Party colleagues delay Britain's pullout Singapore on basis Mr. Lee's socialism. "Lee Kuan Yew [is] good left-wing and democratic socialist any room," he quotes Mr. Wilson telling Parliamentary Labour Party meeting in 1966. "His social record, housing program, for example, defies challenge anything has been done in the most advanced social democratic communities."
Singapore's socialist miracle
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 05 March 2006 03:37 AM
Fidel, leftists in the past have been wilfully blind to the excesses of regimes that are "socialist" in name only. I'm reminded of the way Stalin's reign of terror in the 1930s was overlooked by far too many people with any number of lamebrain excuses at the time.I agree with you that socialism is the proper economic model, but the fact remains that I am bound by the basic requirement to be honest about my observations, and that includes stating that based on what I've seen and heard about Singapore, I would not want to live there. Sweden would be more preferable, thank you. You can have socialism without authoritarianism and it is to your discredit that you wilfully overlook this trait among the Cuban, Singaporean and North Korean governments in your desire to prove that capitalism is not, in the long run, a stable economic system as currently constituted.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 05 March 2006 08:50 AM
quote: Originally posted by DrConway: Fidel, leftists in the past have been wilfully blind to the excesses of regimes that are "socialist" in name only. I'm reminded of the way Stalin's reign of terror in the 1930s was overlooked by far too many people with any number of lamebrain excuses at the time.
Once again, I've never excused or said that Stalin's forced famines were justified, thanks very much. quote: I agree with you that socialism is the proper economic model, but the fact remains that I am bound by the basic requirement to be honest about my observations, and that includes stating that based on what I've seen and heard about Singapore, I would not want to live there.
Fair enough. I was never holding Singapore up as a model for ideal socialism. But the facts speak for themselves wrt how Singapore tranformed itself from fourth world nation in 1965 to first world nation today. That's not a common occurence among nations subscribing to IMF-Washington consensus today, Doc. I thought you of all people would notice the glaring differences between Singapore's rise to economic powerhouse-dom and say ... IMF foster children: Thailand, Argentina, Russia and several African nations still hanging on to the promise of an economic longrun. quote:
Sweden would be more preferable, thank you.
Yes, Sweden is in a class by itself in more ways than one. They've also never had to cleanup after a world war with significant loss of its population. quote: You can have socialism without authoritarianism and it is to your discredit that you wilfully overlook this trait among the Cuban, Singaporean and North Korean governments in your desire to prove that capitalism is not, in the long run, a stable economic system as currently constituted.
No, I don't agree with capital punishment in Singapore. But I do wonder about a culture in that part of the world that practices barbaric justice on the one hand, and then is capable of social democracy on the other. And in Cuba, I don't agree with the way human rights of gays have been violated in the past. They are attempting change as we speak, by what I understand. Chauvenism was engrained at some point in Spanish culture. And it has no place in a true socialist society. Again, I wasn't saying that everyone's happy with the situation in North Korea. They've experienced chronic hunger and illegal blocking of humanitarian aid. I hope Kim steps down in the near future after the country begins to reform its economy. I was merely pointing out that pointing out that they can read and write to a greater extent than several Central American nations waiting for the economic longrun to kick in. It was a very innocent comment on my part, I thought.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 05 March 2006 12:46 PM
Good old "socialist" Harold Wilson: quote: In 1967 he reimposed the health prescription charges he’d abolished. In 1968 he sanctioned another, even more racist, immigration act to keep out persecuted Asians from East Africa. In 1969 he proposed to ban unofficial strikes, the first plan for anti-union laws since the war. Throughout all this he supported the barbaric US invasion of Vietnam with a passion which inspired the US president Johnson to describe him as ‘another Churchill’.Fighting my way through the mountains of guff which have greeted the death of Harold Wilson, I detect one consistent theme. This is the amazing view that Harold Wilson went ‘too fast’, that he was ‘too ambitious’, that he set out to achieve a reform programme which simply wasn’t possible. This theme quickly fades into another: that the Labour leaders of today have ‘learned the lessons of the Wilson period’ and will not make the same mistake. Blair, we are told by everyone, to tumultuous and unanimous applause, will not aim anything like as high as poor old idealist Harold did. As a result, new Labour will, it is widely predicted, last longer than Wilson did. All this makes a grotesque mockery of what really happened in the 1960s and 1970s and what socialists felt about Wilson at the time. The universal feeling on the left – all sections of the left indeed, including many principled people on the Labour right – was that Wilson moved not too fast, but too slowly; that his stand was not too principled, but wholly unprincipled; that he was not ‘too robust’ with capitalists, judges and senior civil servants but too obsequious to them; and that his central failing was not his idealism but his pragmatism.
[ 05 March 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 05 March 2006 02:21 PM
Back on topic:I object to the assumption here that North Korea is entirely the author of its own misfortune. Such a position reflects an ignorance of the enormous effect of hostile actions against NK from the United States and its allies, as well as the effect of the loss of many of its traditional trading partners. I have taken some quotes from an excellent background article by Gregory Elich. North Korea was pressured by American threats of war into signing an agreement in Geneva on October 21, 1994, known as the Agreed Framework. Korea agreed to freeze the development of its domestic nuclear power program in exchange for a U.S. agreement to "undertake to make arrangements for the provision" to North Korea of a light water reactor (LWR) project by a target date of 2003. quote: As an interim measure, while the light water reactors were under construction the United States was obligated to supply North Korea annually with half a million tons of "heavy oil for heating and electricity production." The oil shipments were intended to serve as partial compensation to North Korea for being forced to abandon efforts to meet its energy needs....The delivery of heavy oil to North Korea was indeed the sole provision of the Agreed Framework honored by the U.S.
U.S. oil shipments, however, "accounted for only two percent of North Korea’s total energy and 8 percent of its fuel supply, [although] South Korean sources place the percentage of energy supply higher, at 15 percent," says Elich quote: Since the agreement had essentially forced North Korea to put economic recovery on hold until completion of the light water reactors, the U.S. could ensure that the North Korean economy would remain hobbled as long as it delayed construction. Another unfortunate aspect of the agreement for North Korea was that its graphite-moderated reactors could rely on its sizable natural deposits of uranium, whereas light water reactors would have to depend on the import of nuclear fuel from hostile Western nations that could shut off the supply at any time.
Thereafter the U.S. dragged its feet while North Korea suffered desperate energy shortages due to the loss of oil shipments from the defunct Soviet Union and the economic sanctions imposed by the U.S.: quote: The demise of the Soviet Union and the loss of trading partners in Eastern Europe had a devastating impact on North Korea, which saw its economy contract by 30 percent in the five years following 1991. Lacking any reserves of oil or natural gas, North Korea must rely entirely on imports. While the Soviet Union had furnished North Korea with oil at subsidized rates, post-Soviet Russia would supply oil only at commercial market rates. By 1993, fuel imported from Russia stood at only 10 percent of its level three years earlier, and that amount continued to shrink. Because of sanctions, North Korea’s lack of access to credit and foreign exchange meant that it could no longer import sufficient quantities of oil. By 1996, total oil imports had plunged to only 40 percent of the 1990 level. Maintenance of North Korea’s rapidly aging electrical infrastructure required spare parts that could no longer be obtained at subsidized prices. Worse yet, sanctions meant that purchasing spare parts was difficult at best and often impossible at any price. The energy shortage had a rippling effect throughout the economy, causing factories and manufacturing plants to shut down. By 2000, the various sectors of industrial output stood at 11 to 30 percent of their 1990 levels. In the six years following 1990, road freight fell 70 percent and rail by 60 percent, placing further burdens on the manufacturing sector. North Korea has substantial deposits of coal and this resource provided over two thirds of its energy in the early 1990s. Unfortunately, many mines were forced to shut down because of floods later in the decade, as well as due to a shortage of spare parts and electricity to power mining equipment and lights. Out of 62 major power plants, 20 are thermal, primarily based on coal, while the remaining 42 are hydroelectric plants. Flood damage and droughts reduced the level of electrical power generated at hydroelectric plants in 1996 to only 38 percent of the 1990 level. By the end of the 1990s the total supply of commercial energy in the DPRK had plunged by as much as two-thirds. Clearly, the addition of nuclear power to the energy mix was an urgent task; one that North Korea was forced to abandon in 1994 under threat of war by the United States.
The Agreed Framework had also called for a "move toward full normalization of political and economic relations" between the US and NK. Nevertheless, the US continued its policy of hostility, provocation, covert operations, and sanctions against Korea. In December, 2002, the US stopped its deliveries of heavy oil to NK, timed to coincide with the onset of winter and the maximum hardship that would result. quote: U.S. sanctions had brought the North Korean economy to its knees, forcing plants to close and production to grind to a halt. Without the light water reactors it had been promised by 2003 and constrained by sanctions, there was no possibility for North Korea to produce the energy that it needed. Black outs are a frequent occurrence in North Korea, and the entire nation is blanketed in darkness at night. Throughout the winter, buildings managed with little or no heat. "It is a vicious downward cycle," pointed out Timothy Savage of the Nautilus Institute. "Everything that North Korea has is decrepit, and they don’t have the electricity to make spare parts to fix it. This is not like rural Africa. North Korea was completely electrified. It is not like they were never part of the modern world. They were kicked out of the modern world."
The U.S. cut off food aid to NK through the World Food Program in 2003, to ratchet up the pressure on Korea to surrender to US demands for unrestricted access to its territory and economy. quote: The United States had violated every single provision of the Agreed Framework and was clearly aiming to freeze and starve the DPRK into submission. While work on the light water reactors officially continued, it was obvious to all that the West had no intention of allowing the project to reach completion. Already on October 24, 2002 the European Union Parliament voted to cancel its contribution of $20 million to the project for 2003, and the U.S. lobbied other members of KEDO to shut down construction of the reactors. "It is extremely unlikely that both light water reactors will be produced," noted Robert Einhorn of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Nobody will announce the actual pulling of the plug because that would only encourage a North Korean provocation in response."
It is clear that North Korea's desperate plight is in large part due to circumstances beyond the control of its government and its people. The fact that it has survived at all is an amazing accomplishment.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 05 March 2006 02:46 PM
Graphite reactors aren't a good idea to begin with. The void coefficient is positive, and it's this feedback mechanism that partly contributed to Chernobyl blowing up.Water-moderated reactors have a negative void coefficient, which is a self-regulating feedback mechanism that improves reactor safety. That having been said, there is no technical reason why North Korea can't build light water reactors unless the technological base isn't there in the first place. [ 05 March 2006: Message edited by: DrConway ]
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 05 March 2006 03:18 PM
quote: Originally posted by DrConway: Graphite reactors aren't a good idea to begin with. The void coefficient is positive, and it's this feedback mechanism that partly contributed to Chernobyl blowing up.Water-moderated reactors have a negative void coefficient, which is a self-regulating feedback mechanism that improves reactor safety. That having been said, there is no technical reason why North Korea can't build light water reactors unless the technological base isn't there in the first place.
Thanks for the info on reactor technology.Maybe you missed the part where North Korea agreed to freeze the development of its domestic nuclear power program, which involved Chernobyl-type graphite technology. They were supposed to get technology in return from the USA for a water-moderated system. They never got it. If they had the technology for it in the first place they wouldn't have to rely on the USA for it. Maybe you also missed the point that light-water technology would put Korea at the mercy of Western fuel-suppliers. It's hardly fair to criticize Korea for its technological backwardness when it has been prevented by others from acquiring the technology it needs.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 05 March 2006 04:38 PM
There's no technical reason they can't enrich uranium themselves for light-water reactors. It's not bloody magic ju-ju, Spector. The tricky part is the zirconium cladding for the fuel pellets, but the Iranians have solved that problem, too.The Russians have technology to enrich uranium, and certainly the Iranians are capable of doing it, so unless the Americans did something really diabolical, which I doubt, then what's likely happened is that the US simply took advantage of the ignorance a lot of people have about the exact nature of nuclear power and plant construction, and I highly doubt North Korea's universities are top-notch when it comes to nuclear science (which, admittedly, doesn't rate much attendance even in Canadian schools. My nuclear science classes never had more than 10 people in them, and I've done the entire program plus extra quantum mechanics courses). [ 05 March 2006: Message edited by: DrConway ]
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 05 March 2006 05:28 PM
quote: Originally posted by DrConway: The tricky part is the zirconium cladding for the fuel pellets, but the Iranians have solved that problem, too.
Yup, and now they're being threatened with annihilation by the USA for their efforts, thank you very much.The Koreans have been hit over the head with the US allegation, in last year's "6-party talks" that they have been enriching uranium; the Koreans have denied it, because it would of course be a violation of the moratorium they agreed to back in 1992, but who could blame them if it were true? As the Non-Proliferation Treaty says, it is the "inalienable right of all the parties to the treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination." The US wants to deny North Korea's right to a civilian nuclear program, ludicrously arguing that North Korea can get all the energy it needs through electric transmission lines from ... (wait for it)...South Korea! They are only willing to allow compliant client states like India to have nuclear technology, while denying the right of uppity states like Iran and North Korea to do likewise. To suggest that the Koreans had some kind of simple technological fix available for their energy crisis that they failed to use is the height of arrogance, and ignores the whole political and economic context that severely limits their options.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 06 March 2006 01:13 AM
quote: Originally posted by Cueball:
They were absolutely fine with handing India over. It was time. The empire was over. Everybody knew it.
I doubt very much that wealthy colonialists living in India were fine with it. They enjoyed and sometimes relied on military protection. Traders lived like royalty with dozens of servants. Military personel also lived very well in India. India was the jewel of the empire for a long time. Clement Atlee's labour government handed India its independence as support for empire waned. It's hard to say how the Queen and Phil felt about it because it was Atlee's decision. ETA: In 1941, Churchill tried to entice FDR to join the war against Hitler. FDR gave the usual American self-interested solution: lend-lease, which would represent about one percent of British defense capability at the time. Further talks centred around Britain loosening trade rules in the colonies to corporate America's favour. Churchill consulted the aristocracy in Britain and then replied to FDR with, "No." It took some time for FDR to realize what a threat to North America a fascist Europe might be. [ 07 March 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 09 October 2006 10:37 AM
quote: The agreement on general principles reached at the six party talks on nuclear disarmament in September of last year obligated the U.S. to begin normalizing relations with North Korea. Instead, it chose to impose additional economic sanctions, ostensibly because of counterfeiting. First the Bush Administration pressured a Macao bank to close North Korean accounts, despite protestations by the bank that its financial dealings with North Korea were legitimate and commercial. Then it followed by imposing sanctions against eight North Korean import and export firms. Seeing the result of actions taken against the bank in Macao, other banks dealing with North Korea severed relations after receiving warnings from the U.S. Treasury Department. “The impact is severe,” observed Nigel Cowie, general manager of the Daedong Credit Bank. “I can’t speak for what everybody was doing, but I can say that in our case, a lot of legitimate business has been hurt.” The sanctions, said U.S. Treasury Department Under Secretary Stuart Levy, placed “heavy pressure” on North Korea, and had a “snowballing…avalanche effect.” Under the circumstances, North Korea’s continued adherence to a moratorium on missile testing was beginning to appear decidedly one-sided.
Gregory Elich
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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M. Spector
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Babbler # 8273
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posted 11 November 2006 10:50 AM
For an excellent background to the current conflict with North Korea, and a leftist debunking of the many myths spread by the MSM, read this article:Understanding North Korea quote: North Korea is a country that is alternately reviled and ridiculed. Its leader, Kim Jong-il, is demonized by the right and -- with the exception of Guevara in 1965 and many of his current admirers -- mocked by the left. Kim is declared to be insane, though no one can say what evidence backs this diagnosis up. It’s just that everyone says he is, so he must be. If Kim had Che’s smoldering good looks he may have become a leftist icon, leader of “the one remaining, self-proclaimed top-to-bottom alternative to neo-liberalism and globalization,” as Korea expert Bruce Cumings puts it. Instead, the chubby Kim has become a caricature, a Dr. Evil with a bad haircut and ill-fitting clothes. The country he leads, as befits such a sinister character, is said to be a danger to international peace and security, bent on provoking a nuclear war. And it’s claimed that years of economic mismanagement have reduced north Korea to an economic basket-case and that its citizens, prisoners at best, are starved and repressed by a merciless dictator. While many people can recite the anti-north Korea catechism – garrison state, hermit kingdom, international pariah – they’ll admit that what they know about the country, apart from the comic book caricatures dished up by the media, is fuzzy and vague. But this has always been so. As early as 1949, Anna Louise Strong could write that “there is little public knowledge about the country and most of the headlines distort rather than reveal the facts.” Cumings dismisses US press reports on north Korea as “uninformative, unreliable, often sensationalized” and as deceiving, not educational. One of the reasons the headlines distort, even today, especially today, can be summed up in a syllogism. World War II, as it was waged in the Pacific, was in large part a struggle between the dominant economic interests of the United States and the dominant economic interests of Japan for control of the Pacific, including the Korean peninsula. Japan had occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945, until it was driven out by the Korean resistance, one of whose principal figures was north Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, and the entry of the Soviet Union into the Pacific war. After Tokyo’s surrender, the US tried to assert control over Japan’s former colonial possessions, including Korea. Kim’s guerilla state upset those plans. The corporate rich and hereditary capitalist families that dominate both US foreign policy and the mass media recognize north Korea to be a threat to their interests. The DPRK condones neither free trade, free enterprise nor free entry of US capital. Were it allowed to thrive, it would provide a counter-example to US-enforced neo-liberalism, a model other countries might follow, a model revolutionaries, like Che, have found inspiration in. The headlines deceive, rather than educate, because north Korea is against the interests of those who shape them. .... Would Che be inspired by the north Korea of today, an impoverished country that struggles with food scarcity? Probably. What have changed are the circumstances, not the reasons to be inspired. The projects north Korea has set for itself – sovereignty, equality, socialism – have become vastly more difficult, more painful, more daunting to achieve in the face of the void left by the counter-revolution that swept the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and China’s breakneck sprint down the capitalist road. Would Che have soured on north Korea, because the adversity it faces has grown tenfold? I doubt it. A revolutionary, it’s said, recognizes it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. North Korea has never lived on its knees. I think Che would have liked that.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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John K
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posted 11 November 2006 11:35 AM
quote: It is clear that North Korea's desperate plight is in large part due to circumstances beyond the control of its government and its people. The fact that it has survived at all is an amazing accomplishment.
Nonsense. Was it beyond the control of the North Korean regime to massively misallocate scarce resources by building the world's largest hotel (still unfinished), the world's largest stadium (for a one-off celebration), a knock-off of the Arc de Triumphe (only bigger), maintaining the world's fourth largest standing army, and the list goes on? The regime's survival is rooted in its xenophobic leadership and severe repression of its people. I have no idea what Che would have made of the regime were he still alive, but I'm quite sure I know what George Orwell would call it. [ 11 November 2006: Message edited by: John K ]
From: Edmonton | Registered: Nov 2002
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 11 November 2006 01:56 PM
North Korea is a mostly mountainous country about the size of the U.S. state of Mississippi. They don't enjoy a lot of lush, arable land like Kansas, California, Idaho, PEI or Okanagen-Ottawa Valleys. The percentage of farming land in NK is about 14-16 percent, but it's a small 14 percent in comparison to what land we're allowing private enterprise to exploit in the west and Latin America in ensuring people can afford to drink coffee and eat bananas in rich countries.N.K. has turned inward since Kim Jong Il because of a large U.S. military presence in S. Korea representing a menace in the region. The South Koreans themselves fear U.S. military presence in their country more than they do the North. Cold war psychopaths have threatened non-nuclear N.K. with nuclear incineration on several occasions since harry truman. As with Cuba, the U.S. has waged a cold war embargo on N.Korea for several decades, and at times, the U.S. has blocked humanitarian aid destined for N. Korea as they have with Cuba, illegally according to the UN. North Korea isn't as isolated as it once was. According to the Washington Post, Russia, China and other countries in North-Eastern Asia are trading with NK. And this is what's agitating political hawks in the west. The goal of U.S. imperialists from Truman and the psychopaths to Reagan and Zbignew Brezinski has been to keep the barbarian hordes divided and conquered. It seems the barbarians are no longer divided in what is now by far the largest capital resource region of the world, N. Eastern Asia. [ 11 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Fidel
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posted 11 November 2006 05:00 PM
quote: Originally posted by John K: Fidel, the percentage of arable land might have had some correlation with economic prosperity back in the Middle Ages, but has almost no bearing in a modern economy.
Sure, and big agribusiness and farmers in the States are the most heavily subsidized agricultural base in the world. But as I was saying, N.K. has relied on its own agricultural food supplies more than usual. Do you actually believe that N.K. and Cuba have never desired to trade freely with other countries ?. Anyway, the Washington Post says N.K. isn't as isolated as the infoganda machine in the west lets on is the case in that region of the world possessing a third of the world's capital. N.K. will more easily transform itself into an Asian tiger economy than 95 percent of the democratic capitalist third world is able to outside of two generations from now. quote: Japan has an even lower percentage of arable land, but - unlike North Korea - has a prosperous, technologically advanced economy.
Japan has three times the land mass and a slightly smaller percentage of arable land. But Japan does have more usable farmland by comparison. Half of Japan lies farther south than the entire Korean peninsula, known for its inclement weather patterns and typhoons, and Japan does have more than four times the population. However, Japan was essentially an under-developed agrarian economy itself at the end of WWII. Like Germany after WWII, Japan was provided with massive amounts of aid and MFN status to prevent them from pursuing socialist tendencies. Germany was a flashpoint for the spread of communism at a time when capitalism was on its ass in the 1930's and was essentially saved from itself by socialist ideas that exist and are still in place today around the western world. So much for an invisible hand. So was Korea, and so were China and Taiwan pretty much third and fourth world basket cases at the end of WWII. Those countries did not become Asian tiger economies by opening up their under-developed agrarian ecomomies to cheap exports from the States and Europe in the beginning as the IMF and Washington have forced Haiti to do as was mentioned in the other thread discussing HDI. What those countries did do was allow their own farmers to sell their products in domestic markets - invest in health care, education and infrastructure to varying degrees. That's essentially what the U.S.-backed contras fought so hard against in Nicaragua, and so where is Nicaragua today after 16 fucking years of neo-Liberalism going nowhere fast ?. quote: Regrettably, a capitalist economy can dovetail quite nicely with political authoritarianism like China and Singapore before it have shown. Not that this is a state of affairs you likely spend too much time losing sleep over.
Yes, Singapore is another country that did not follow IMF prescriptions or Washington consensus for Liberal democracy from 1965 to 1990. And it shows with their consistent placing in the top five most competitive economies in the world. Singapore was ruled by social democrat Lee Kwan Yew for 25 years in laying the groundwork for that country's economic success. The countries that have followed IMF/WB prescriptions for economic austerity to a tee should be showcases for neo-Liberal democracy, like Thailand, India, Argentina and a few more not worth mentioning.
Why do the Washington-based IMF and Chicago School of Economics preach to the democratic capitalist third world what did not work for the U.S. and was never implemented in the U.S after the end of laissez-faire capitalism?. In fact it was New Deal socialism which picked that country off its economic knees from the 1930's to 1960's. And just to be sure laissez-faire capitalism doesn't work, Milton Friedman and los Chicago boys tried it on again in Chile from 1973 to 1985. Unemployment skyrocketed and national debt soared, and freed of the dead hand of government bureaucracy, the Chilean economy surged ahead into bankruptcy and depression according to the Greg Palast web article. If capitalism alone was a prescription for economic success, then why are Haiti and Nicaragua still the poorest countries in the western hemisphere after all the advice and tutelage they've received from the U.S. ?. Why isn't East Timor an Asian Tiger, and why are several million East Indian's still experiencing chronic hunger and dying of the capitalist economic long run each and every year like clockwork while that country exports food to "the market" ?. China was behind India in almost every social category and economic measure in 1949. By 1976, infant mortality in China was better than what India's rate is today. Adult longevity in China was doubled by the same year under Mao. John, why isn't cash crop capitalism working for several hundred million chronically hungry people around the democratic capitalist third world ?. I don't think you give these matters any thought whatsoever, otherwise you wouldn't be having to shovel as hard in that last post. [ 11 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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BetterRed
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posted 12 November 2006 04:46 PM
quote:
The regime's survival is rooted in its xenophobic leadership and severe repression of its people. I have no idea what Che would have made of the regime were he still alive, but I'm quite sure I know what George Orwell would call it.
Repression, militarism, isolation and virulent xenophobia were all hallmarks of another Asian "communist" state. Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge. They managed to kill off 1/5 of its people and, somehow invade all of its neighbours, in only 4 years. But they are far from communism,as is NK. On a ideologic analysis, they come up more as fascists or hardcore Maoists, because of complete rejection of industrial society, and of other Marxist countries. I would think that North Korea is more in Khmer rouge mold of marxism. I.e, its perversion. But its nice to note,how the murder of 2 million people and other crimes, didnt stop the US from supporting Pol Pot in the 80's.(and before that). As long as they fought Vietnam/USSR, who cares if theyre genocidal butchers?
From: They change the course of history, everyday ppl like you and me | Registered: Jan 2006
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Fidel
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posted 12 November 2006 09:55 PM
Yes-Yes!, the Reagan regime refused to condemn Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge for several years after the middle class revolution went awry. History books printed in Texas make little mention of the fact that CIA and Green Berets aided and abetted the Khmer Rouge. Uncle Sam was even guiltier than Pol Pot.The doctor and the madman bombed Cambodia to smithereens and dropped millions of gallons of defoliant everywhere, and people wonder why they had difficulties growing food after that. The North Korean "regime" is evil incarnate. We must fear them for leaving large building projects unfinished. Like it's never happened here before. Glory be to the bomb and the holy fallout. [ 12 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 12 November 2006 10:39 PM
quote: Maybe the CPC will be able to convince North Korea that, based on its own recent experience, it's not all that hard to be both economically active and viciously tyrannical.
Yep, after all, that's the legacy of capitalist economics everywhere, including China, US, etc., as well as closer to home, North Korea's neighbour, South Korea. In this case, it's becoming the big state capitalist thug helping out the little state capitalist thug who up until now has been so insecure and paranoid, he feared any serious foreign trade would undermine his kingdom--and, yes, it can best be described as a kingdom, since that's exactly what the state capitalist monopoly system has produced for the Sung/Jung dynasty. Here's a piece on the NK state and economy: [URL] http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=205 [/URL] quote: North Korea's problems are entirely the fault of its regime. They have chosen to isolate themselves from the international community and to focus on military needs and luxury goods for their elites rather than on the humanitarian needs of the masses.
Largely true--another classic feature of corporate capitalist monopolies, although I wouldn't say it's entirely the regime's fault (although most of it is), since, despite all its isolationist paranoia, it too can't escape the monolithic power of the global capitalist banking system (which has a legacy of destroying economies everywhere). [URL] http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/96-0706a.htm [/URL] [URL] http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Nov01/0,4670,KoreasNuclear,00.html [/URL] [URL] http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/09/03/ap/congress.spending/ [/URL]
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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Fidel
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posted 12 November 2006 10:51 PM
There are splitters, and then there are lumpers. S.A. is a lumper. Apparently the whole world is capitalist no matter what.Hey S.A., you need not use the UBB [URL] tag at all if you don't intend to re-name the link to something smaller or more explanatory. For instance, you can use the URL insert button beneath the edit window and insert your web link that way. A 2nd window will pop up asking you for an informative title and producing something like this: My Link to Stale USian article on N.K. [ 12 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 12 November 2006 11:02 PM
quote: There are splitters, and then there are lumpers. S.A. is a lumper. Hey S.A., you need not use the UBB [URL] tag at all if you don't intend to re-name the link to something smaller or more explanatory. For instance, you can use the URL insert button beneath the edit window and insert your web link that way. A 2nd window will pop up asking you for an informative title and producing something like this: My Link to Stale USian article on N.K.
Tried this repeatedly. For some reason it won't work for me. Another strange thing is that for some reason, it won't let me post graphics here. Other sites accept my computer commands, as you point out, with no problem. But here they don't work. (It's likely related to the fact that most people here seem to experience side scroll problems, whereas I don't them on my screen hardly at all).
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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Fidel
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posted 12 November 2006 11:11 PM
The graphics should be straightforward, just insert http://www.hoodaleedala.jpg directly inbetween img tags. Try no spaces(spacebar) inserted anywhere and packed tight as a drum. Even manually the way you do it should work. I suspect that when it doesn't work, the UBB interpreter may be balking at the total length of your URL address, in which case sidescroll happens and nobody can click the link unless re-copying and pasting it into the address box themsleeves. You can shorten it up by going to this web site and creating a proxy address and using that instead: http://www.tinyurl.comIf that no work, then I feel sorry for youooooo quote: (It's likely related to the fact that most people here seem to experience side scroll problems, whereas I don't them on my screen hardly at all).
On machines running Windows, something called the graphics device interface deep-deep inside Windows OS handles all of the display tasks "independently" of what hardware/monitor is being used ... in most cases.I suspect there may be hardware exceptions, but don't quote me on that. It should work, comrade commissar [ 12 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Fidel
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Babbler # 5594
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posted 13 November 2006 10:27 PM
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. North Korea is likely to be the next Asian Tiger economy. There are dozens of nations around the democratic capitalist third world that have had ample time to achieve something meaningful in economic terms but haven't done so and aren't likely to anytime soon while following Washington consensus for economic reform. And it's because hundreds of millions in the democratic capitalist third world not only don't have access to health care and education, in very many cases they can't access clean drinking water. Do poor African countries need cell phones first, or do they need something even more basic than that ?. The Next Asian Tiger - Sydney quote: The best guess of Western intelligence agencies is that North Korea has about half-a-dozen nuclear weapons but, as yet, lacks the ballistic missile technology to shoot them straight. The other North Korea is described in a Citigroup economic report, which South Korean officials handed to US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson last month on the sidelines of the IMF's annual general meeting in Singapore.It describes state-owned enterprises which are free to chase profits and award merit-based pay. It shows Pyongyang's black markets for food and foreign exchange to be converging with its official markets. It surveys no likely internal trigger for regime collapse. Amazingly, it concludes: "North Korea's economic reforms are probably broadly comparable to those in China in the mid- to late-1980s. In some areas, such as foreign exchange rate policy, North Korea is probably already beyond the China of the early 1990s. Actual progress in economic reforms has been way beyond our expectations."
I think what Koreans want and need most is unification, just like there needs to be a united Africa and a united Latin America, remember Che. And I imagine this is why we hear so much venom expressed toward and about North Korea, from politicized politicos to whackos on internet forums who get their news from the infoganda machine and who likely couldn't finger the DPRK on a globe of the earth without blowin smoke out their ears first. Workers World quote: It should be kept in mind that the population of South Korea is almost twice that of the north, which has a harsher climate than the south. Myanmar's population, 45 million, is about the same as South Korea.Gross national product: South Korea ranked 11th in the world at $485 billion. Myanmar ranked 58th at $55.7 billion. North Korea ranked 64th at $22 billion. However, many goods and services in North Korea, like health care, education and housing, are virtually free. Percentage of income spent on housing: Myanmar ranked 87th at 10%, South Korea 140th at 4.1%, North Korea 164th at .8%.
Jeez, how many homeless Canadians and Americans would be glad to spend just 0.8 percent of income to get them and theirs off our major city streets in January? - or even just to have a regular income ?. And WTH is Myanmar doing besides exporting drugs and jailing leftists ?. I think it's safe to say that Myanmar will not be transforming itself into an Asian Tiger economy anytime soon. [ 13 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Fidel
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posted 14 November 2006 01:06 PM
quote: Originally posted by John K: Jeez Fidel, so Myanmar is now the benchmark against which you measure North Korea, just like Haiti is the benchmark against which you measure Cuba?You really have to learn to aim higher.
Haiti is the "freest trading nation in the Carribe" according to Washington. And Myanmar is another repressive right-wing hell hole going nowhere fast. But this thread isn't about Washington consensus or its less than inspiring results from Russia to Thailand and East Timor to Haiti, Argentina and Chile. It's about the Asian tigers which have pretty much ignored IMF and World Bank policies for econonic austerity around the democratic capitalist third world. The Chinese are telling Kim Jong Il that they can have market-style industrialism and still control the economy to a large degree. Apparently Kim was impressed after viewing China's "special economic zones" and capitalism on a leash. The hawks can't point anywhere in the world where their policies for unbridled capitalism having succeeded in picking a desperately poor nation off its knees to prosperity, not even in the U.S. itself post-1929. Unbridled capitalism in the former USSR seemed simple enough. They decided that a new billionaire class of investors was needed and state "monopolies" breaking up. One commentator from the west said they didn't realize what ruthless motherfuckers Russian oligarchs would turn out to be. Russia is still recovering from perestroika over 16 years later. China has avoided that tragic fate by maintaining a strong hand in all enterprise carried out in China today. Former world bankers themselves have quit the Bank in order to criticize Washington consensus policies and describing them as amounting to little more than colonialism. [ 14 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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