Ketoprofen
Defence Forces
Ketoprofen - The Proletariat Coalition
Posts: 1,883
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Post by Ketoprofen on Oct 31, 2005 13:25:29 GMT
From what I've read, North Korea's leader, Kim-Il Sung, managed to play off the Russians against the Chinese and secured financial support from both and yet not acting as either party's puppet.
However, I would say that the current system in North Korea is far from what one could call "socialist" in any sense of the word. A lot of impressive advances where made up to the 1980's, but it all went to hell after 1990 and NK is now, at least to me, nothing more but than a 1984 state.
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Post by Star City on Oct 31, 2005 14:14:03 GMT
What advances were made in the 80s, apart from kidnapping Japanese citizens and brainwashing them?
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Ketoprofen
Defence Forces
Ketoprofen - The Proletariat Coalition
Posts: 1,883
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Post by Ketoprofen on Nov 1, 2005 9:53:38 GMT
As a Swede - and therefore member of the only country in the West to have have good diplomatic relations with North Korea - my POV might be a bit biased. For the record, we used to regularly get NK propaganda in several newspapers with a picture of the "Great Leader" taking up several pages and posting his speeches and latest advice given "on-the-spot" to farmers in province X. Costed a fortune - turns out the propaganda distribution in Western countries were financed by the income generated by the black market the NK embassy was supervising Sure you must have heard of it. I know quite a lot of people, my father included ( he heads the Primature's Foreign Affairs Section ) who have been in North Korea or worked with it since the formal establishment of diplomatic relations. Materially speaking, NK was doing much better than in the South, the industry was collectivised as was the agriculture - the country was nearly self-sufficient industrially and agriculturally speaking. As usual, competent party cadres who opposed Kim Il Sung were ousted, Kim-Il Sung was more interested in consolidating his own power, refusal to renew the leadership or reform the system despite the hardshipts etc..etc..which eventually led to a de facto collapse of the system in the beginning of the 1990's as the USSR collapsed. Even NK defectors admit that life in NK was very pleasant as compared to the South, in the beginning and were very satisfied. For some wicked reason though, some of them still hold Kim-Jong Il in very high esteem and hail him as the Son of the Sun So, I would say it was off on a good start but as you can see today, it's really nothing more but a textbook example of a self-serving completely isolated totalitarian state.
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Post by Star City on Nov 1, 2005 15:22:25 GMT
...and also monarchial (father > son). I've read Jong-Il is supposedly preparing one of his sons for power
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Post by The Red Factions on Nov 2, 2005 0:54:34 GMT
This really calls for another thread - since we're not really talking about wether "War is Desirable" or not but rather discussing North Korea.
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Post by Star City on Nov 2, 2005 13:42:57 GMT
I was going to say that last night. Let's discuss who'll make this new thread
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Post by Revolutionary Masses on Nov 2, 2005 14:44:27 GMT
Created......back to is war desirable.
On more lines from china, does it have a valid claim over Thaiwan in the opinion of the board.
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Post by Star City on Nov 2, 2005 15:22:00 GMT
Yes, in the same way the UK continues to hold onto the Falklands - history. Of course, the opinions of the people living on Taiwan differ from those on the Falklands.
Maybe the PRC needs to start looking at it realistically, there's no way the ROC is going to reunite whilst the CCP is in power, but they can't stay like this forever (because nations can't recognise both or either one goes in a huff).
Conclusion: Meh.
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Post by The Red Factions on Nov 5, 2005 1:02:07 GMT
In the United Nations, Taipei's is not recognised as a legitimate government in favor of Beijing's regime. The United States formally recognise the People's Republic of China and have severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan. All the signs acknowledge that Taiwan is not independant and gives credit to the Beijing's description of Taiwan as a "rebel province" yet the international community condemns signs where the PRC is affirming it's willingness to put back under it's rule one of it's acknowledged and recognised province.
Do you think a war-scenario is realistic? China's People's Congress passed a law authorising the Administrative Council to attack and invade Taiwan in the event that it would break away "for good" from the PRC. But will it really? How would the US and the international community react to this - being heavily dependant on China's economically speaking?
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Post by small green plants on Nov 5, 2005 7:38:33 GMT
I still maintain that war is not a thing to be desired. Remove all the political, religious. and nationalist propaganda delivered by the ruling elite of the day and turn to the ordinary people. They most certainly do not harbour a deep ingrained hatred of another people/culture, most likely will never have had contact with their so called "enemies" and the only thing they know about these peoples are what their government, religious clerics etc constantly drum into them. The last thing on their minds will be taking up arms against these "monsters". Then after all the very public arguments have taken place by the power crazed egotists, they find themselves having to risk their lives to support these very same warmongers. An odd thing is how basic laws can be manipulated to support such ideals. If I went out today armed with a rifle and shot a complete stranger I would most certainly be incarcerated (and rightly so) by the same people who, if they declare war will actually give me a rifle and tell me to go and shoot as many strangers as I can. They will then (assuming I survive the ordeal) pin a small lump of metal and some ribbons on me and declare me a hero... Murder is murder whether state sanctioned or not.
How many children of members of the Nixon government conveniently has something better to do that be drafted? Kuwait, Afghanistan. Iraq? I doubt there would/will be many family members of any western government official serving anywhere near a danger zone. Oh it's fine for the ordinary people to lay down their lives to support the dogma of he ones who create the problem in the first place, this proves you are patriotic (tribal?)
Islamic terrorists? Without the hate filled preaching of certain "clerics" would followers of an intrinsically peaceful religion blow themselves to bits to further the cause of Allah? Do these same preachers practice what they preach? No, as with all the warmongers they keep well away from putting themselves at personal risk.
During the so called "cold war" when nuclear protectin bunkers were being built to protect the elite from their follies, what were the rest of us given? Hmm the incredibly useful Proect and Survive manual. Drop on the floor behind a door with you windows taped up and you may survive the blast that vaporises you house and kills with gamma rays, heat, blast, radiation and fallout over a massive area. Yeah, right.
War is the brother of mistruth and rumour.
Not glorious and definitely not desirable
Count me out!
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Post by Revolutionary Masses on Nov 6, 2005 20:54:15 GMT
Its interesting how the US has cut ties with taiwan and is yet the sole reason why china has been unable to re-clain the island supplying it with arms and placing a large naval force next to the island. A scenario for war could only be china's invasion of Taiwan, there is not the capability for it to go the other way.
War is indeed not desirable but it stems through difference of opinion and as long as that is maintained we will still have wars. I empathise with the idea that those at the top are always spared and this should not be especially with class and financial divides. However the leaders cannot enter a war on the front line as if they were killed it would cause massive damage to the command of the struggle, planning and political leaders should be kept out of the line of fire, as well as those nessasary to the war effort.
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Post by Star City on Nov 6, 2005 21:19:43 GMT
If the PRC did invade Taiwan, it would need to be far more advanced that it is now, but it would need to do moderately well to avoid the US resorting to tactical nukes and maybe escalating to strategic. Catch-22
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Post by Revolutionary Masses on Nov 6, 2005 23:10:23 GMT
I think the numbers of chinease troops intersperesed with the tech they have been buying from russia and the local supply situation would push the favour towards the PRP. What it needs is a larger Littorial warfare fleet to get its troops on the island and to keep them their.
Interesting insert, I personally dont think it would escalate to nuclear, its happened before and hasnt and china can now fill the russian "communist" void to support itself strategically. There to much to lose over so little for nuclear war.
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