freagle @ freagle @lemmygrad.ml

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3 yr. ago

One country, two systems

I wonder if this could be a path to Korean unification. If Russia and China both have trade relations with both Korea and occupied Korea, maybe there's a path to peaceful reunification

Well yeah, in that case I would imagine Japan realigning with China, which then encircles Korea. I doubt the DPRK wants to fight a civil war given how much suffering has already befallen the Korean people, it would be very difficult to justify even more suffering. More than likely SK will get pressured to push the last vestiges of the US military out in order to participate fully in regional cooperation, and that's the condition DPRK is looking for to begin pursuing peaceful reunification.

I don't think you know what a nation is. The Korean people are a nation - from the Latin root natus, they all share a common birth. However, there are two states, North Korea and South Korea. Both of them are internationally recognized states, meaning we currently have one nation (Korea) split between two states. The split between these states is entirely a construction of imperialism. The people in DPRK and the people in the occupied South do not constitute different nations nor is the 38th parallel a historical division within and among the Korean people that would constitute a meaningful boundary for their self-determination.

The Americans had no business being there at all nor demanding a partition of a nation of people. They did so as part of maintaining colonial occupation for the purpose of anti-conmunism both against the USSR and also against the emerging PLA in China. The US destroyed everything north of the 38th parallel to punish the portion of the Koreans who decided they would not allow their country to continue to be a colony. The USA bombed the countryside until pilots literally went on bombing runs and came back with full payloads because there were no more targets left to bomb. The USA used so much napalm that Koreans needed to live in caves.

The southern portion of the country (land) that was inhabited by the nation of Korea (people) was turned into a new state (South Korea) by the USA and purged of all people who would oppose them and their ideology. South Korea is ONLY separate because of an international legal fiction perpetrated by the US against the Korean people (the nation of Korea).

The leadership culture of the South was built entirely on subjugation to the US war machine. Leaders survived or failed or died based on their allegiance to the US military occupation. The transition from full occupation to what exists today is one of loosening the leash on a captive one inch at a time to confirm that the punishing dominance has had the desired effect - that effect being complete subjugation to the interests of the dominator.

You think the Korean people want US nukes on submarines in its waters? You think the Korean people want to have half of their homeland completely inaccessible to them? You think the Korean people want half of their people to be completely isolated from them? You think they like having the DMZ as an eternal reminder of the constant threat of readied lethal force directed at their own countrypersons?

One day, there will be one nation-state of Korea, and the division created by the imperialists will dissolve and the trauma of this period can begin to be integrated and healed by the Korean people, but it will not happen until the US loses its violent dominance over the Pacific region.

I feel like that would put the north in a hot conflict with the US pretty fast and China would not signal to the north that they would support.

That just means more US management though

You know I have been waiting for the eventual Japanese realignment with China and that I am always eager to see the latest developments. I cannot say the same for SK. What is the path for SK to shed the yoke of US occupation? Does it have to lose a civil war with the north before it can shed the yoke or does it have to shed the yoke before reunification is possible?

No. Korea, the nation, was occupied by Japan. It existed as an occupied nation. The USA, after nuking Japan, took over the Japanese colony on the Korean peninsula. The Korean people resisted the occupiers when they were Japanese, and again when they were American. The Russians supported the Korean people in their resistance of the occupying forces of the Americans. The Americans found all of the Koreans that were allied with their oppressors as their mode of survival and supported them in their reactionary defense against liberation. On doing so, the USA negotiated a partitioning of Korea with the USSR to avoid direct conflict between America and the USSR. That partitioning allowed the foreign occupation of Korea to continue.

South Korea is not a nation, it's a colonial state. They do not have sufficient sovereignty to voluntarily host their occupiers. The Korean people in South Korea are the result of separating out the Koreans who sought liberation and killing them in the north of the country - the people left were dominated or complicit. There's nothing voluntary about that.

The southern portion of the Korean peninsula would still exist as Korea with or without the USA. The difference would not be that it would or would not "exist at all" but rather whether it would exist as an occupied colony or as an independent nation-state.

Russia was literally invaded three times and lost millions upon millions of lives because the border with Ukraine is indefensible. That's why Napoleon invaded Russia through it. It's why the Third Reich invaded Russia through it. And it's why Russia's national security requires Ukraine to be a neutral country that NATO is not operational in. What NATO was doing in Ukraine absolutely justifies Russia's actions. NATO simulated an invasion of Kaliningrad with Ukraine. It flew B-52s in exercises in Ukraine. It was literally building and exercising it's logistics chain to establish nuclear first-strike capabilities. That's been clear since the early 90s when Clinton duplicitously told Russia Ukraine would remain neutral while asking his own generals to draft a plan to include Ukraine in NATO. This is literally the definition of Russian national security. Ukraine needed to remain neutral and establishing a nuclear transnational military presence unaccountable to any sovereign nation or any nation's people with an ambition of nuclear first strike capabilities lead by the USA that explicitly and publicly reserves the right for a nuclear first strike is exactly the opposite of remaining neutral.

This is why we need understand imperialism in the Leninists sense and not in the liberal sense.

The US transfered almost the same amount of material as the entire Russian military budget each year of the conflict.

The point was correct but poorly stated. It's not the problem of NATO at its border. It's the problem of NATO at the border with Ukraine specifically. That is the border Russia has been invaded over 3 times. Napoleon invaded Russia through that border and that's considered one of the bloodiest campaigns ever. The Third Reich also invaded Russia through that border. So Russia, appropriately, does not want a transnational nuclear military, a military without any democratic accountability, a military originally staffed with former Nazi officers by the USA, a military that trained specifically to counter and invaded Russia, a military that ran Operation Gladio... Russia appropriately doesn't want that military to be developing its logistics, recon, fortifications, and nuclear capabilities on the border that Russia cannot effectively defend without massive and constant mobilization.

But the USA believes Russia is just going to have to deal with being under constant threat of invasion and nuclear strikes. That's why Clinton said, all the way back in the early 90s, that Ukraine would remain neutral - in public. And then immediately after in private asked his generals to draft plans for getting Ukraine into NATO.

Rogue nations? You mean the ones that flagrantly violate international law when they bomb the shit out of countries and then bring in their corporate elite to rebuild it for profit?

This is interesting. Are they treating Schmidt like the nerd in school? This is supposed to be the time of tech bro ascendence. Does he have beef with Thiel?

Which is amazing considering the military budget of the DPRK is smaller than the budget for the NYPD

This is death cult shit

Good news coming out of Europe!

Are you OK? The US oligarchs were operating gambling, drug, and human trafficking operations in Cuba under Batista. The US is the right wing garbage. The gusanos who left Cuba were their business partners, employees, customers, and collaborators.

Don't talk about deporting people for their politics until you fix your politics first.

All Russia has to do (and by Russia, I mean specifically Putin and the KGB) is compromise our President

The KGB hasn't existed since 1991.

And no, compromising our president is NOT the only thing that a foreign actor would have to do. They would have to outmaneuver the entirety of the CIA working to prevent EXACTLY that situation from ever occurring. They would have to somehow stop the CIA from stopping such an agent at every possible step of the way over the past 12 years. You are living in a magical sitcom fantasy land where the bad guys are trying to get the McGuffin and if they do - GAME OVER, MAN. That's not how reality works.

It’s quite interesting how many pro-Russian decisions and talking points that are coming out of Trump’s mouth.

It is interesting. It's almost as if US policy has shifted its position regarding Russia and the president is aligned with that policy.

how much ‘influence’ we have (which is dwindling every day since Trump has alienated our allies and made us an absolute mockery on the world stage)

You have no idea how influence works, do you. Sure, Trump is a laughing stock. You still can't buy oil from OPEC without USD. Most nations still have billions of dollars in the US economy, and particular in US bonds. Most nations operate under USA-favorable conditions dictated by treaties with USA back with credible threats. US intelligence still operates the 5 Eyes, still runs the terrorist networks all over the world, still educates and trains the world's most deadly death squads. Yes, Trump is a laughing stock and the USA still dominates the globe and EVERY SINGLE NATIONAL LEADER has to consider the USA when choosing their words and their actions.

The size of our military, the amount of money we have or how much ‘influence’ we have - none of it matters if Putin has control of Trump

Pure young adult novel fantasy writing. It's just so incorrect and all the evidence of history shows how incorrect it is. You just can't imagine any other way that US foreign policy would suddenly change and desire an alliance with Russia the only thing you can come up with is a paper doll fantasy.

Trump, who has wasted no time in replacing the heads of government agencies with those loyal to his agenda

You do realize that the reason the CIA has a dozen different classifications for information is so that no single person or group ever has 100% of the information required? The agency is organized to survived the constant change of president. It couldn't serve its function otherwise. So yes, Trump has chosen a cabinet of "loyalists". Do you think all of those people are compromised by Russia? Or do you think that they all believe they can get more power if they turn the USA into a vassal of a smaller nation? Or do you think every single one of them is stupid?

By the by, how did Trump find all these loyalists? What did he offer them and how did they meet? Did Trump's real estate dealings and golf outings put him in touch with these people? Or is there just a huge pool of power brokers out there just waiting to take the world's richest and most powerful country and try to gain more money and power by subjugating such a country to a smaller, weaker, poorer country?

It's very easy to dismantle your fantasy by considering that other people also have agency and aspirations and asking yourself why anyone would be loyal to Trump if Trump is acting out of complete desperation because he's been compromised and if his choices lead to a worse outcome for the business community and the intelligence community, both of which are communities who assassinate people for far less urgent reasons on a regular basis.

You’re wrong. Or you’re a propagandist. Either way, time will tell.

Ah yes. Your analysis is so thorough. Also, the only people who could possibly disagree with you are paid to disagree with you by a nation with far less money and far smaller intelligence capabilities and far less globally effective operations than the one in your home country. Classic.

That's utterly ridiculous, see my reply here: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7141540/6029073

Essentially, Trump doesn't have that kind of power. I don't mean legally, I mean socially. The business community in the USA is organized well enough to take out presidents. Let's not forget that as early as the 1930s there was consciousness among veterans that the military was used to further business interests. Let's not forget that the CIA was founded by the Dulles brothers to advance US business interests abroad. Let's not forget that when FDR was trying to implement the New Deal the rich of the USA organized a criminal conspiracy to coup the US and install a dictator.

Let's also not forget that the US military intelligence community has been organized against Russia for the last 80 years. Everything it does is informed by it's early foundations as an anti-Russia movement. They know more about Russia than Russia knows about the USA. US military intelligence also didn't suffer a complete and utter rupture like Russia's did when the USSR was dismantled. The USA got access Russian internal documents during that time, the Russia received no such boon to its intelligence.

In short, the USA is the more powerful of the two countries by every single measure, and both countries are fully aware of this. Not only that, but the elite of the USA are capable of stopping any Russian agent from slowing down their gravy train. They were willing to coup FDR just for helping the working class. There's no way the Russophobes in power in the USA would allow a Russian agent to take the reigns. They've had AMPLE opportunities to neutralize the threat. They've done so much killing, so much maiming, so much disappearing for much smaller stakes. Why do you think know that the stakes are the highest they could be they just won't do anything about it?

Further, the billionaires have every reason NOT to become a vassal state of Russia. It affords them absolutely no benefit and makes things far far worse for them. The USA has a strong currency, stronger economy, more money, greater access to markets, better trading terms, more military power, more global domination, more tax revenue, more colonies, more slave laborers, essentially more of everything (except the ability to produce effective weapons, I guess). No power bloc in America benefits from subjugating themselves to Russia.

No. The real answer is just too emotionally difficult for you. You've grown up in a Russophobic culture. We played video games where they replaced the Germans with Russians as the primary enemy. We've been socialized to believe Russia is terribad and dank evil. But the geopolitical situation is not good for the USA and the camp that believed they could defeat both Russia and China has been shown to be incorrect. So now, the situation is that the USA needs an alliance with Russia in the hopes of peeling Russia out of BRICS, away from its alliance with China, and eventually have Russia's support in fighting against China. So Trump is the figurehead put in place to shift American policy towards an alliance with Russia.

And you and every other American, with so much indoctrinated Russophobia, can't imagine that the same people who told you Russia was evil are now seeking an alliance with Russia. The only way you can square that circle is to believe Trump is some "great man" who can single-handedly overcome the most powerful institutions in the history of world because a bunch of overtly racist morons voted the wrong way.

You're going to have to face the reality that the US government's policy regarding Russia has changed and that, like all presidents since WW2, Trump is the outward face of that policy.