Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 55

Spanish vs Aztecs is a bad analogy they won because they unintendedly spread the diseases they carried but were immune to, also allying with some locals helped, if it were a direct confrontation the Aztecs would have easily destroyed Cortez, anyway I just wanted to share that info


But I agree that a tight economical siege of North Korea and nuclear defense is the way to go.

i just opened up this thread. Economic sanctions have historically had highly inhumane consequences. The US government tried sanctions on iraq in the 1990's, in order to 'punish' their old friend saddam, what actually happened is that it strengthened the regime and made the population dependent on the government. When those powerful people run the country, they are the ones who will get the food first. If the food runs out, the rest starve. That is exactly what happened, and 500,000 iraqi children, the weakest in society, died.

If people really want to be of assistance to the North Korean people, they should support internal democratic resistance within the country, if it exists.

On April 22 2017 00:39 Stroggoz wrote: i just opened up this thread. Economic sanctions have historically had highly inhumane consequences. The US government tried sanctions on iraq in the 1990's, in order to 'punish' their old friend saddam, what actually happened is that it strengthened the regime and made the population dependent on the government. When those powerful people run the country, they are the ones who will get the food first. If the food runs out, the rest starve. That is exactly what happened, and 500,000 iraqi children, the weakest in society, died. If people really want to be of assistance to the North Korean people, they should support internal democratic resistance within the country, if it exists.

You are absolutely right, with such strong control of the state sanctions would only crate mass starvation and not fuel a revolution, although I dont think there is any kind of democratic resistance to Kim, he just killed his brother just to be sure lol.

Probably the best course of action is actually free-trade, no sanctions and their slow exposure to the outside world (which will be harder to keep every day for the regime) is the only way the country will evolve, and obviously also build strong defenses.

Stroggoz you are correct if it were any other situation, however, this is not the case with NK, there would be no economic sanctions the same way there were economic sanctions for Iraq then or Russia now. NK is dependent on food supplies being directly sent to them. They cannot afford to lose international aid, there were also reports in the beginning of the year that it has been the worst drought in decades there for them, so their already low food production has hit rock bottom. There would be large portions of the population literally starving to death.

I don't see how you could support internal resistance, as from videos I've seen the resistance itself only helps people escape ( and thats still a REALLY low number ) and could probably be destroyed by the regime quite quickly. I don't see any other kind of analogy for their reign other than George Orwell's 1984.


P.S. I actually didn't know that the Spanish vs Aztecs would've developed differently. Do know smallpox basically won it in a matter of weeks, didn't know they stood a chance at all to begin with though.

yeah my impression is that north korea is basically a dictatorship so well executed (pun intended loLz) that it's hard to see how they can progress. Even when 10% of the population starved to death there were no signs of revolution. Whenever there's some new power bloc starting to rise, they get executed by anti aircraft guns. Control of information and historical narrative is complete. The army is so big that if every civilian adult male decided to revolt at the same time, I think they'd still actually be outnumbered, and most certainly outgunned. And they have booby trapped one of the more densely populated areas of the world, so that assassination would lead to somewhere between tens of thousands and like, a million, south koreans dying.

When people talk of sanctions against north korea they usually talk about sanctioning luxury goods though. Aside from considering it completely immoral to profit from the horrible oppression of the north korean people, none of the luxury goods would benefit the population anyway. I guess maybe they just funnel the would be luxury good money into arms race though, but either way I think that largely makes sense. But this situation is not something that can be easily solved, at all.

On April 22 2017 16:32 Spitfiree wrote: Stroggoz you are correct if it were any other situation, however, this is not the case with NK, there would be no economic sanctions the same way there were economic sanctions for Iraq then or Russia now. NK is dependent on food supplies being directly sent to them. They cannot afford to lose international aid, there were also reports in the beginning of the year that it has been the worst drought in decades there for them, so their already low food production has hit rock bottom. There would be large portions of the population literally starving to death. I don't see how you could support internal resistance, as from videos I've seen the resistance itself only helps people escape ( and thats still a REALLY low number ) and could probably be destroyed by the regime quite quickly. I don't see any other kind of analogy for their reign other than George Orwell's 1984. P.S. I actually didn't know that the Spanish vs Aztecs would've developed differently. Do know smallpox basically won it in a matter of weeks, didn't know they stood a chance at all to begin with though.

seems contradictory to me. they have a strong yoke over the public but they cant afford to lose food imports at the same time and we should still wage economic war? I think that if food imports were cutoff it could have inhumane consequences and you would need to be absolutely certain that it had some positive effect, which we cannot be sure of.

i'm not sure about what kind of internal democratic resistance their could be( which is why i said 'if it exists'), or even how strong the government is. Im just giving my outsider's perspective.

Drone im not sure how having a massive army makes a difference. The Tsar had a massive army as well, but it didn't save him. When most of your soldiers are poor, their isn't any reason for contentedness.

coups almost never happen without the army or a big part of the army joining the revolt, so the size of the army isnt that important, and its almost impossible to know for us whats really going on in N.K. however it seems that they do have a strong control for the time being.


I dont think giving any aid is good, free trade, treat them commercially as any country, they can buy/sell goods normally, but they should not receive aid from countries they are military opposed to, if they starve... they starve by their own hand.


Anyone with half a heart would want to free their people, but history has thought us over and over and over that meddling in their shit isnt a good idea, its their country and its their revolution to fight.

There's no such thing as free trade in the real world, it's just something that economists theorize about. But in the real world, it doesn't exist as the imbalances of powers gets to decide who gets free trade and who doesn't. powerful countries always protect themselves from free trade unless they are so far ahead that they don't have to, while poor countries have it imposed on them. If North Korea would be opened to free trade, the rich countries would be cheating-they protect their own industries heavily. So it would only be fair if the rich countries adopted free trade as well.

western nations are ultra aggressive in their foreign policy, far more so than these stalinist type governments like north korea. So it makes perfect sense for north korea and iran to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent to military aggression and subjugation. Actually, lenin and stalin, who were monstrous dictators, you may argue that they were right to industrialize their country quickly as a deterrent to foreign aggression, as it saved them (barely) from nazi occupation during ww2.

It is really the west who are the aggressors here. They have north korea surrounded by military bases, both in south korea and Japan. If the US didn't want korea to build nuclear weapons they could offer some kind of deal-i'll get rid of nuclear weapons if you get rid of yours. and tone down the aggression and the whole 'pivot to asia' business that was initiated by obama. it's not inconceivable that north korea could accept such an agreement, as stalin offered a similar agreement to the US during the cold war, which the US flatly rejected. But if the US was open to sane nuclear policy, something positive may be achieved.

The US owes a lot north korea for the serious damage and war crimes they committed during the korean war. Not to the regime but to the people. Here's a quote from Douglas McArthur's memoirs about how they even considered dropping many atomic bombs on china/nk.

"I would have dropped between thirty and fifty atomic bombs…strung across the neck of Manchuria…and spread behind us – from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea- a belt of radioactive cobalt. It has an active life of between 60 and 120 years."

That was the level of savagery that the American government almost went to during that war. Not to mention supporting a remarkably violent dictatorship in south korea.

Anyway, i've spent too much time wasted on lp, so im off lol.

On April 22 2017 19:24 Stroggoz wrote: Show nested quote + On April 22 2017 16:32 Spitfiree wrote: Stroggoz you are correct if it were any other situation, however, this is not the case with NK, there would be no economic sanctions the same way there were economic sanctions for Iraq then or Russia now. NK is dependent on food supplies being directly sent to them. They cannot afford to lose international aid, there were also reports in the beginning of the year that it has been the worst drought in decades there for them, so their already low food production has hit rock bottom. There would be large portions of the population literally starving to death. I don't see how you could support internal resistance, as from videos I've seen the resistance itself only helps people escape ( and thats still a REALLY low number ) and could probably be destroyed by the regime quite quickly. I don't see any other kind of analogy for their reign other than George Orwell's 1984. P.S. I actually didn't know that the Spanish vs Aztecs would've developed differently. Do know smallpox basically won it in a matter of weeks, didn't know they stood a chance at all to begin with though. seems contradictory to me. they have a strong yoke over the public but they cant afford to lose food imports at the same time and we should still wage economic war? I think that if food imports were cutoff it could have inhumane consequences and you would need to be absolutely certain that it had some positive effect, which we cannot be sure of. i'm not sure about what kind of internal democratic resistance their could be( which is why i said 'if it exists'), or even how strong the government is. Im just giving my outsider's perspective. Drone im not sure how having a massive army makes a difference. The Tsar had a massive army as well, but it didn't save him. When most of your soldiers are poor, their isn't any reason for contentedness.

Yeah I guess it's true that any modern coup comes with army support. It's more along the lines of the chance of a grassroots based revolt seems completely unlikely, it has to come from an alternative powerful and influential figure. But it seems like the Kim Jong Un regime is so paranoid that any sign of any person starting to consolidate any amount of power results in that person's public and brutal execution. So the top people, the ones who could theoretically have the ability to orchestrate a revolution, they're dis-incentivized because the 'maintain current perks and privileges' looks more attractive than the 20/80 (obviously I just made up these numbers) shot of 'get more power, perks and privileges or be executed' deal.

An old brood war buddy who has worked as a reasonably high up military person in south korea stated about the issue that

its fairly widely accepted as a parameter that the PRC, if backed into a corner where they don't want the DPRK to exist in its current form, can probably be bought off with the top 100km of the DPRK placed under its control, no US troops north of the 38th parallel. Maybe not exactly that but something along those lines. The PRC has 50x the trade with the ROK as it does with the DPRK. And more trade with the ROK than the US has with the ROK. There is a shift going on, and the more they are economically tied to the ROK, and the more independence from the US the ROK shows, the more they think about the DPRK 'going away.

He doesn't normally voice his opinion on stuff he doesn't know really well.
From that I get that China is indeed the key to the solution, but it's contingent on the US no longer being that influential over south korea. China does not want a unified Korea as long as this unified Korea would be under American rather than Chinese influence.

Such political "bubbles" always end up popping. In the past 30-40 years you could see the same thing repeating over and over again - here in the Balkans ( Russia vs USA ), the Middle East ( Russia vs USA ) and its surely going to happen at some point with NK vs SK ( China vs USA this time ). The external forces push the internal forces up to an edge where a war breaks off. There are always "simple" solutions, however that would mean one of the global players would have to forfeit their influence.... there was no reason for the war in Kosovo, nor pushing Yugoslavia to disband, nor the Gulf War, nor the wars in the mid east afterward and so on. Its just a bunch of assholes playing for power, cause otherwise other assholes would get it and push it GTO wise

What's the take on Coulter cancelling her speech because of a "credible terrorist threat"

BS to raise her profile, or real threat?

goodbye 9th circuit court of appeals

On April 23 2017 07:55 Stroggoz wrote: There's no such thing as free trade in the real world, it's just something that economists theorize about. But in the real world, it doesn't exist as the imbalances of powers gets to decide who gets free trade and who doesn't. powerful countries always protect themselves from free trade unless they are so far ahead that they don't have to, while poor countries have it imposed on them. If North Korea would be opened to free trade, the rich countries would be cheating-they protect their own industries heavily. So it would only be fair if the rich countries adopted free trade as well. western nations are ultra aggressive in their foreign policy, far more so than these stalinist type governments like north korea. So it makes perfect sense for north korea and iran to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent to military aggression and subjugation. Actually, lenin and stalin, who were monstrous dictators, you may argue that they were right to industrialize their country quickly as a deterrent to foreign aggression, as it saved them (barely) from nazi occupation during ww2. It is really the west who are the aggressors here. They have north korea surrounded by military bases, both in south korea and Japan. If the US didn't want korea to build nuclear weapons they could offer some kind of deal-i'll get rid of nuclear weapons if you get rid of yours. and tone down the aggression and the whole 'pivot to asia' business that was initiated by obama. it's not inconceivable that north korea could accept such an agreement, as stalin offered a similar agreement to the US during the cold war, which the US flatly rejected. But if the US was open to sane nuclear policy, something positive may be achieved. The US owes a lot north korea for the serious damage and war crimes they committed during the korean war. Not to the regime but to the people. Here's a quote from Douglas McArthur's memoirs about how they even considered dropping many atomic bombs on china/nk. "I would have dropped between thirty and fifty atomic bombs…strung across the neck of Manchuria…and spread behind us – from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea- a belt of radioactive cobalt. It has an active life of between 60 and 120 years." That was the level of savagery that the American government almost went to during that war. Not to mention supporting a remarkably violent dictatorship in south korea. Anyway, i've spent too much time wasted on lp, so im off lol.

I agree with every word, when I said free trade I mean being open commercially to North Korea just as any country, giving opportunities for profit to other countries but mostly a chance to North Korea to improve its economical situation that usually follows slowly with social development too.

I argued in that past that I think countries like Iran should develop nuclear weapons,l sure its scary to have theocracies with such armament but its a reality that an invasion from the US is a constant threat to these countries, so they should be able to defend themselves and its obviously hypocritical to ask for them to not pursue nuclear weapons when the US holds so many.

We should be asking for a worldwide nuclear disarmament not just for countries we deem unstable and weak

On April 27 2017 00:09 nolan wrote: What's the take on Coulter cancelling her speech because of a "credible terrorist threat" BS to raise her profile, or real threat?

Berkley cancelled her speech because she is a speaking from the right... so she insisted on doing her speech regardless paying security fee whatever and now it gets cancelled because of a terrorist threat I dont think we need Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.

Actually if it were a real terrorist threat it would be from Anti-Fa... which would declare them a terrorist cell, so unless you see the idiots in black masks being shipped to Guantanamo Bay you can tell for sure it was bullshit

I love this show

The FBI investigates Clinton and it's Comey the shill's fault she lost the election

Trump fires Comey and the FBI is the #1 bastion of American democracy

Believing Comey was fired because of mishandling the Clinton email investigation is more gullible than believing Trump when he says he can break up the 9th circuit court of appeals. We've had a steady stream of hot garbage for Trump's first 100 days and its just going on and on...

Senate Judiciary implies that Comey told him as Trump said that he was not under investigation fwiw

“Shortly after Director Comey briefed us, I tweeted that he should be transparent. I said he should tell the public what he told Senator Feinstein and me about whether the FBI is or is not investigating the President.”

and to me its pretty crazy that many media pundits are calling Trump traitor when there hasnt been published the slightest shred of evidence between Trump and Russia, in fact Wikileaks just published info that points that it was all a strategy fom day 1 from Podesta

On May 11 2017 16:15 NMcNasty wrote: Believing Comey was fired because of mishandling the Clinton email investigation

no

believing shit flinging liberal hacks are hysterically inconsistent

On May 12 2017 02:57 Santafairy wrote: Show nested quote + On May 11 2017 16:15 NMcNasty wrote: Believing Comey was fired because of mishandling the Clinton email investigation no believing shit flinging liberal hacks are hysterically inconsistent

what's your take on this Santafairy, why was Comey fired and in such a manner?