Korea: What if we just left?

[Occhidiangela]

Blade, my old reference sources on his father's profile were considerably better than print media. He is son of Kim Il Sung, but he is not Kim Il Sung. In his case, I have previously read in some American mags over the years, as well as the Economist, International Herald Tribune, and a variety of other sources that he has, like any number of strong men including his father, developed a Cult of Personality. When does eccentric become crazy? When did Saddam Hussein cross that line, or was he always just a street thug?

Beyond that, North Korean leadership has been, for some time now, in a bunker mentality. Your environment can shape you. His reputation before his father passed away was as a bit of a playboy, and to some Western critics, his actual ascension to leadership was a surprise: they did not think he was made of stern enough stuff to follow dear old dad into the family business. Looks like some of the other power brokers in NK either let him in or got moved aside. Don't know, and in any case, some reputable "observers" of a closed society got that one wrong. I am hardly an expert, and have huge gaps of understanding in NK political processes.

Does "Cult of Personality" make him crazy? Depends on your frame of reference. Castro is an egomaniac, but so what, it works.

I don't know how many people who know Kim Jong Il talk to Westerners. Finding credible info in Kim Jong Il is tricky: you have to weed out the hyperbole, image and hype from sparse amounts of facts.

Sort of like Bill Clinton or Brittany Spears, I suppose. :P Will the reall Willy please stand up? Well, I suppose it would near Brittany . . .

What he is not is he in in no way a "standard world leader." Standard approaches don't work with him. His situation, and I suspect his life experiences to date in a closed society, color his outlook and his world view.

PS: Blade, your "Wank the Yanks" slip is showing. As you well know, Jester is Canadian. :)

[Doc]

Oops I thought that was rather PG 13, considering what get's labeled as PG 13 these days. Become such a common habit I don't even think about it anymore. Please, edit it as you see fit. Damnable Southern expressions, cause many a social faux paux they will.

Perhaps that will be a good post some time. What is PG 13?

[Tiffany_Scott]

Sorry. I'll let the filter handle it next time... :/

(hope Tiffy didn't see that; she'll make me a drop a buck in "the cursy jar" again, and I really hate that)

[Occhidiangela]

The Hulk ripping apart giant dogs and the gore that comes with that.

PG 13 is Angelina Jolie in skintight suit, or in not much in the latest Lara Croft wankery.

PG 13 is Lord of the Rings and an Uruk Hai sliming out of the mud.

PG 13 includes a few swear words here and there. F___ tends not to come up, so that a movie like Dogma gets an R for too many "f's". :)

PG 13 is the heroine in Pirates of the Caribbean in a wet long tshirt/shift, and naught else, walking the plank while pirates lear at her circut breakers popping under the fabric.

PG 13 is whatever makes it under the "R" wire so that on opening day all of the hormonally imbalanced teenage girls and boys in America show up and spend Dad's money on Leonardo Di Crapio, Justing Dimmerlake, Angelina Headcase, or whatever jagov du jour is to be on screen.

As The Missus has concluded, PG-13 means she has to see it first so she can decide how close to the line it runs. :P

[Griselda]

I honestly couldn't say what is and is not allowed in a PG13 movie these days, but basically if you think you might have to type ! or * so that a word doesn't get filtered, you should probably not use that word. Even "dick" (I see it was used by Scott further down the thread) is frowned upon here- the only reason I took it off the filter list was so that people could talk about our Vice President! :ph34r:

This is a different standard than the one at another forum we both frequent, but it's also a different audience.

-Griselda

[Griselda]

What was Mrs. Occhi's decision on that one? The "walk the plank" scene up above doesn't sound too promising, though. :(

Gris Jr. would like to see it, mostly because she likes the ride with the same name, but so far I haven't taken her to see it.

-Griselda

[Jester]

"...and the commie dinosaurs who currently run China are pretty Napoleonesque in their own right..."

Well, they're a little more complex than Napoleon (pun unintended, I guess). They're more in the ancient tradition of the Confucian official, or the Imperial harem, eunuchs and all. But they're certainly dinosaurs. China is a dinosaur; it makes sense that it's always run by them.

But yeah, he's a film buff of enormous proportions. He has one of the world's largest private movie collections. That he can feel for a movie, yet fail to feel for anyone killed by his ridiculously brutal regime is just another way to demonstrate his psychopathy, in addition to his psychosis.

Jester

[Jester]

... megalomaniac, not really. It's the system that turns him into a megalomaniac by default, since anyone with that kind of Stalinist control appears to be God. They almost have to be, in order to keep the system working.

Psychopath? Almost certainly. Most dictators (the more cynical would say most politicians) are psychopaths. Anyone who lets so many people die while accumulating billions upon billions at their direct expense must obviously not have a great surplus of empathy.

But what's most troubling about him is that he seems to suffer from Spanish Monarch Syndrome ™, where the outside world doesn't apply to him. He doesn't so much rule a country as sit on a throne, oblivious to the fact that the edicts he issues affect real people. He's smart, but totally without focus, and not in any amicable kind of way. His tastes are bizarre, his ambitions are a strange combination of the irrelevant and the ludicrously far reaching.

Saddam made sense to me. I maintain he's only a psychopath, not psychotic. His eccentricities were mostly brutal, not strange. Kim seems to be cut from different cloth, and that makes him vastly more dangerous.

Jester

[WarBlade]

Finding credible info in Kim Jong Il is tricky: you have to weed out the hyperbole, image and hype from sparse amounts of facts.

I noticed. There seem to be two extremes evident in the small amount of information I read trough earlier; one refering to the man as "Dr Evil" (in a James Bond reference) and the other praising his abilty as a dark horse stepping up to the task of leadership in a hostile global political scene and succeeding. Ferreting out the middle ground between a mud slinging match of adjectives and so forth proved to be a rather nose-wrinkling experience.

Sort of like Bill Clinton or Brittany Spears, I suppose. :P  Will the reall Willy please stand up?  Well, I suppose it would near Brittany . . .

Interestingly, I managed to track down a USA Today source (since such was mentioned) and instantly saw a parallel with other sensationalist media. It came across in roughly the same light as Dodi and Diana scandals etc. ie audience must be really bored for this rubbish.

What he is not is he in in no way a "standard world leader."  Standard approaches don't work with him.

Yep. B) No argument there.

[Feryar]

edit: changed my mind. I'm not getting into this discussion.

[WarBlade]

Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I read such things as "Let's keep this PG 13". That's a filmterature censorship standard that exists in one part of the world, based on cultural hangups (or lack thereof) that is frequently out of step with other countries. And yet an international community comes together and tries to fall into some semblance of 'good taste' as dictated by one host party. It's hard work when the dictates one attempts to adhere to are significantly different from you own cultural norms . . .

As an example of some differences, I have sat and watched a film on television in Denmark that quite innocently had full frontal nudity from both male and female cast members. It was in a 3 pm time slot on national television. On an international scale this would be considered a very liberal view towards nudity.

Violence has different levels of acceptability depending on who you ask. American made games seem to describe a level of cultural acceptance for violent content viewable by a young age group that is far in excess of what I'm used to here in New Zealand. I don't know what the rating for LoD is elsewhere, but here it's a red lable R16, meaning it should not be sold to persons under the age of 16. England displayed an interesting example of censorship in Fellowship of the Ring where some people reported a second or two of footage was cut from the theatrical release (Aragorn/Lurtz fight) to preserve a lower rating. Then there was the incident with the American release of Carmaggedon . . . Yeah, changing the blood from red to green for that lower rating will preserve the moral fibre of the youth of today while they get extra points by reversing over Aunty Dawn for the third time . . . err. :unsure:

:blink:

Offensive Language is an intriguing subject. 'Swear words' in various languages differ from culture to culture based on various societies' hangups. Like for those of us speaking English swearing leans towards sexual references, reproductive organs, and bodily deposits (mostly a carry over from Victorian times), which many these days find more humourous than offensive. Should I choose to colourfully swear at people in Danish I'd be associating them with Satan and so forth, because the old verbalized societal hangups are based on a biblical foundation. You devil you. :lol:

PG 13?

*shrugs*

Whatever that means.

[Feryar]

I think "South Park - The Movie" delivers a nice kick to american censorship.

However, I think this board benefits from keeping profanity away from the posts. Not because I think it hurts anyones minds or something, but because it is totally unnesessary to use those words when you are having a discussion with someone. If I hit my finger with a hammer, I'll dig up one from my dictionary, but when having a written discussion it's uncalled for in my opinion.

So is namecalling btw.

My conclusion: I think censorship is silly in general, but useful on forums.

[pakman]

I think that Kim is a heck of a lot scarier than Saddam or Osama. He is not afraid to use his weapons, I think. The only reason he isn't, is because of the DMZ. With 1.2 million in uniform, he could easily take Korea (duh) and maybe evne think of expanding. However I don't think it will happen anytime soon, but it is something that will have to be dealt with. Too bad my Korean friend from high school doesn't know about this forum, I'm sure he'd have some answers....

[Doc]

I know a Korean family. They came here and opened a "chinese" place that I like to go and eat at. (Please note, down South, any Asian food is called chinese, just like all soda is called coke, don't ask why.) I like eating there because they respect my demands for total privacy, and have a small little nook where they keep a private booth for folk just like me. They make a wonderful vego platter, but it gives me horrible gas. Good food though.

They "escaped" from Korea, from The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. (Is that better Griselda) Might be a hunch, but since we are on very friendly terms, if I got them to spend a moment with me and chewed their ears, I bet they would have a lot to say. Of course, even broaching that subject might be considered rude, will have to tread carefully.

[Drasca]

That didn't come out right. No bets until Kim is as dead as a doorknob, I swear! No thoughts on actually using a compactor to make a doorknob. Oops. I'll openly admit I don't know much about Kim, only what passes by the family and friends gossip vine rooted in relatives in the area (S. Korea, Northeastern China, Japan, Russia etc). Knowing a little history, I wouldn't make any bets until the leader is dead and see how the government reacts.

Will another leader rise? :ph34r:
--will he be similarly xenophobic or progressive toward contact?
Will the old administration "drop dead"? Slowly as they face mortality new leaders with slightly different views arise, or will the old government be reborn in the indoctrinated?

This is one strange fish. :blink:

If the US just left with no notice (there'd still be US forces in Japan) the following would happen in this order:

1) Jaws drop. :P
2) Tanks roll, not tanks of metal, but bits and bytes and digital sprites. N. Korea challenges S. Korea to games of pirated Starcraft. The tournament becomes inconclusive as the evil terrorist known as Legion Against Gaming (l.a.g.) disrupts intercontinental play.
3) Special consideration across borders is allowed for mixed N. & S. Korean joint military manuever to lay down communications lines and hunt down the terrorist group L.A.G. and bring the latest pirated movies across borders.
4) Though heavily censored, loopsholes come through and the latest skin flick is in every available N. Korean hacker computer-- which is not as many one would think.


Off-topic Non-sequitor:
Wow have I neglected these forums. Griselda has a Hello-Kitty with leather succubus bat wings and a Cthulu / Dr. Zoidburg (Futurama) mouth/beard/tentacles. Where'd that come from? :D

[Bun-Bun]

N. Korea challenges S. Korea to games of pirated Starcraft. The tournament becomes inconclusive as the evil terrorist known as Legion Against Gaming (l.a.g.) disrupts intercontinental play.

That leads to a pacifist strategy for crushing the government of North Korea. Drop thousands, no, millions of laptops loaded with StarCraft and Lineage on every population center in North Korea. You'd have to drop a lot of Wi-Fi hotspot routers with satellite transponders ... but think of the chaos when every North Korean drops whatever they're doing and starts gaming!

</rtongue in cheek>

If only there was a way to get Internet-connected computers into North Korea. Tyranny thrives on information control. If the North Korean people had more sources of information, KJI wouldn't last a year. OK, he'd last a little longer if they only got Fox News. :)

Griselda has a Hello-Kitty with leather succubus bat wings and a Cthulu / Dr. Zoidburg (Futurama) mouth/beard/tentacles.

I love Hello Cthulhu! And it's not just because I have a plush Cthulhu on my desk.

[yangman]

*Flips through own weblog for entry*

Ahh, here it is.

I saw on TV a little over two weeks ago a documentary-ish thing talking about the sexual liberty in Denmark.
To paraphrase, there are no rules.

There exists no laws (or so the tube told me) that regulate who can aquire pornography, what is in them, or where they can be aquired. Although some politicians are concerned about too much sexual exposure for children, the only thing the program covered was how newsstands were required to remove the adult magazines above children's eye-level.

Japan is fairly liberal when it comes to pronography as well, and there is almost no need to censor swearing. Although offensive language exist, they are no not as simple as a single word since most of them are thrown around casually by most people. It's not frowned upon to, say, have a f-word joke where a character exlaims "fax you!" in a kid's "manga magazine". (this is real by the way, and said character was corrected by another)

[Brista]

hormonally imbalanced teenage girls and boys in America

Now there's a cultural contrast - in Britain they just rent the adult stuff discretely ;)

Back on topic, the idea of demonising someone for "Cult of Personality" rather intrigues me. Surely that is the system in the West too? It is certainly how the Conservatives won elections in the 80s and how Labour wins them now, speaking from a British perspective

Is the same not true in America? Or would people not care who was President as long as they supported his or her manifesto? Surely people vote for the person more than the policies

Coming back to the main question of what would happen if the US removed its forces I think the main effect would be this:

save your taxpayers' money

As others have noted there is no opportunity for North Korea to be successful in invading South Korea unless the political climate changes. If they did invade then the Americans would return, most likely with UN support.

So it doesn't really matter if those 37,000 troops are in Seoul or Dakota

They are based in Korea as a result of a historical circumstance.

Of course if China were to again support North Korea as it did in the fifties then the situation changes completely. It seems to me unlikely that the current Chinese leadership would be interested in such a military adventure, although I'm no expert

So removing the troops, imo, presents zero risk unless a major power were to ally with the North. In the current state of world politics I can't imagine any country would so willingly take on America, particularly since America's international image is bullish, aggressive and unforgiving

[goldfish]

&nbsp; PG 13 is the heroine in Pirates of the Caribbean in a wet long tshirt/shift, and naught else, walking the plank while pirates lear at her circut breakers popping under the fabric.

*adds POTC to list of movies to watch.*

:D

[Occhidiangela]

Been on vacation.

Mrs Occhi gave Pirates a nod, and she enjoyed it as well, even though she found the skeletons a bit over the top.