This Shit with North Korea is Getting More Than Just a Bit Scary.....

turk

turk
...also didn't vote for hillary before...wouldn't now still....didn't vote for trump either....and...i think it is absolutely ludicrous ...that i'm presented with only two ..."legitimate " choices...but I've said this...before....( I cannot envision a scenario where I vote for a democrat or republican ..for anything).
 
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howie105

Well-Known Member
I hope that lots of folks from the left and the right decide its better to work with each other then to stay locked into a dark toon world where little gets done and the bad shot callers get away with it.
 
howie105,

Baron23

Well-Known Member
I hope that lots of folks from the left and the right decide its better to work with each other then to stay locked into a dark toon world where little gets done and the bad shot callers get away with it.
What I would like to see....in our highly polarized society, is a couple of centrist candidates from the two major parties.

But it ain't happening. We got Trump and the rabid far right and the Democrats left wing (who now have relabeled themselves "progressives"...guess that sounds better than socialists) are embracing Warren and Sanders.

No one standing for the middle and I'm afraid that with these types of candidates we will only get more polarized.
 
Baron23,

howie105

Well-Known Member
What I would like to see....in our highly polarized society, is a couple of centrist candidates from the two major parties.

But it ain't happening. We got Trump and the rabid far right and the Democrats left wing (who now have relabeled themselves "progressives"...guess that sounds better than socialists) are embracing Warren and Sanders.

No one standing for the middle and I'm afraid that with these types of candidates we will only get more polarized.

Its almost like product branding with decades and generations of easily recognizable positions and rhetoric for folks to select from. Much easier then looking at an individual issue, actually thinking about implications and on occasion rejecting the big two presentations and being willing to compromise on issues. Just not how they sell the adversarial representation process.
 

florduh

Well-Known Member
Generally I don't vote. I agree that we are constantly presented with two awful choices. Given that I generally say "fuck you: none of the above."

However I did vote for Hillary, because I viewed Trump to be an existential threat.

That says nothing good about Hillary. If my choice was between Trump, and a citizen picked at random... I would've went with the rando.

Now, on North Korea... I became less worried when Trump casually mentioned invading Venezuela as well.

Now, he's tipped his hand... it's all bullshit. So I think we can sleep a little easier for now.
 

grokit

well-worn member
Two edit: three things:

1) the dprk offered to give up its nuclear weapons program entirely in 2016, and obama said no.

2) they have trillion$ in rare-earth minerals that they don't have the infrastructure to extract, much less export. North korea is literally sitting on a gold mine, and we want it just like we want russia's oil.

3) we're STILL AT WAR with north korea, at least officially.


What's new?
We have two infantile man-children with big-ass weapons, and they could take us all down with them.


There's no possible motive for us to give a shit about North Korea's economy.
Not their economy but our bloated one, needs their natural resources to maintain our consumption.


Nuclear weapons is one of the greatest facades ever conceived.
Tell that to the war crime victims of hiroshima and nagasaki.

:rip:


:sherlock:
 
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florduh

Well-Known Member
Tell that to the war crime victims of hiroshima and nagasaki.

That's not totally fair. The devastation these weapons would unleash wasn't fully known at the time. Since then, not a single nuke has been used in anger.

Additionally, deterrence works. Let NK have their nukes. They are useless.
 
florduh,

grokit

well-worn member
The devastation these weapons would unleash wasn't fully known at the time.
It was well-known to those that knew about the new mexico trinity nuclear tests, conducted in june 1945.

Trinity_Test_Fireball_16ms.jpg

Definitively a war crime, the bombs truman dropped on japan were the biggest weapons of mass destruction ever imagined or deployed against humanity (so far). This particular test explosion went 660' up in the air.

:mental:
 
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florduh

Well-Known Member
...nonsense...they knew exactly what devastation would be created....

I think the devastation and images from the reason were worse than imagined.

In any case I was just agreeing with the poster who called nukes, in 2017, a bit of a facade.

Everyone knows if you use them, it's suicide.
 
florduh,

florduh

Well-Known Member
It was well-known to everyone that knew about the trinity nuclear detonations in new mexico, june 1945.

Trinity_Test_Fireball_16ms.jpg

Definitively a war crime, the bombs truman dropped on japan were the biggest weapons of mass destruction ever deployed against humanity (so far). This particular test explosion went 660' up in the air.

:mental:

I agree they were a war crime. But once the world saw pictures of the victims, it sure dampened any enthusiasm for using them in the future.

I was just agreeing with @invertedisdead that in 2017 nukes are useless. If NK chose to use one in anger, they know it would result in their detruction.
...all due respect...that's very cavalier....not a subject I like to talk about....but lets not pretend....they didn't know....that's not helpful.

Relax. If it wasn't clear, I'm not excusing the US. I meant once the world at large saw the results of dropping nuclear weapons in anger, they weren't used ever again.
 
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florduh,

howie105

Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, what you are suggesting is what has been going on since 1953 when the Korean conflict ended.

My actual take is that NK is at best a Chinese proxy state, so if one wants actual changes you have to make a deal with China and that really hasn't happened over the decades and isn't happening yet.

During this time spent dancing with North Korea they have worked steadily towards becoming a nuclear state while promising to use these weapons against the United States.

In the 1940s they were inventing the nuclear wheel so there were limited numbers of players,. In 2017 you just acquire the expertise (lots of sources) and build your bomb. This armament option is just getting cheaper and thus more available but neither side of our political spectrum has or is proposing a solution which is one of the reasons we are here today.

I think he has been the first U.S. leader to try something different.

I don't see this as a different approach to the situation as as much as a change in volume of the presentation. After the Korean war both sides dug in and threatened to destroy the opposition. The trappings now are different and hotter but the lack of a viable working policy with China on the issue is still the major problem, IMO.

PS: Nice to have this conversation with you.
 

grokit

well-worn member
People commit suicide all the time, sometimes in large groups. What would stop a country with nothing to lose, especially one with arguably insane leadership, from sacrificing itself in a battle against what they perceive as an existential battle against us hegemony? Plus... we've never been able to negotiate a peace treaty with them, ever. We're still officially at war with these fuckers, all we have is an armistice.

I sincerely hope we don't decide to 'help' the north koreans, in the same way we've 'helped' libya & syria.

:disgust:
 
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florduh

Well-Known Member
People commit suicide all the time, sometimes in large groups. What would stop a country with nothing to lose, especially one with arguably insane leadership, from sacrificing itself in a battle against what they perceive as an existential battle against us hegemony? Plus... we've never been able to negotiate a peace treaty with them, ever. So we're still officially at war with these fuckers, all we have is an armistice.

:disgust:

While NK does look crazy from our perspective, there's no evidence to suggest they are suicidal. The entire purpose of the Kim regime's nuclear program is survival. He doesn't want to end up like Saddam, Ghaddadi, or any of the other dictators the US has overthrown.

I guess anything is possible, but there's no reason to think Kim would trade the end of his reign and the destruction of his people for MAYBE nuking one US city.

So Kim ever using his nukes is a remote possibility.

Now if we decide to take military action against NK you are virtually guaranteeing the death of up to 25 million South Koreans and 100,000 American civilians living in range of NK artillery.

That's just in the first 15 minutes of hostilities breaking out.

Not worth it.
 
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Silver420Surfer

Downward spiral
If Kim let US corporate interests rape his country the way other "puppets" have in other countries, would NKorea even be on anyone's radar? Look, this cat is really horrible, no doubt, I am not a Kim supporter or sympathizer. But the US has dealt with and supported leaders as bad, or worse, all in the name of Corporate America. How many dictators have we propped up thru history(and not far back history, recent as well)?

The gov't/corporations go to war for monetary/natural resource reasons, then get the people at home all worked up for sympathy(Look at how Kim treats his people, Iran treats women like dogs, Operation Iragi Freedom, etc.) THE US IS NOT GOING TO WAR TO HELP ANYONE, but themselves and the corporate entities who control our gov't. It's not to help poor citizens of other countries, its not to be the good guys. But they try to make us all get worked up and behind their false motives. I blame none of this on our soldiers themselves, or have any ill will towards those who serve.

For so much injustice in the world...IF the USA is the great liberator, why do we only concern ourselves in the injustices that benefit us financially? Call it what it really is, power grabs and greed.

BUT, if the US is honest...it kinda makes it hard to get young people into their armies, which they need to keep up this pillaging and plundering in the name of FREEDumb.

Talk to your recent vets of service, i know thru my cannabis activism i have met tons of disillusioned folks, who realize how much their gov't cares about them after they return home from service. One only need to look at the VA hosptials to see what the gov't thinks of these young men and women. Pump em full of pills and send em home, making them wait forever for shitty care, and just outright neglect.

As someone who has an aversion to authority, I can see why other countries or leaders don't want to bow down to the US.
 

grokit

well-worn member
...I don't believe in nuclear weapons... Chernobyl and Fukishima are examples of real nuclear disasters. Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a firebombing...
I've been trying to get my head around this perspective of yours, as it makes enough sense to me that I think it must be grounded in reality somewhere. Could it be the difference between a nuclear weapon, and a thermonuclear weapon? The difference between the two is basically the difference between what used to be known as the 'a-bomb', and the 'h-bomb'. We didn't test a full-scale (10.9 megatons) thermonuclear weapon until 1952, in the pacific ocean. We subsequently dumped 30 megatons there early in the cold war, then in the late 1970's the runit concrete dome was built on that island to deposit radioactive soil and debris.

Humans have inhabited the enewetak atoll since about 1,000 B.C... Since 1956, the usa has paid over $759 million to marshall islanders as compensation for their exposure to the usa's nuclear testing, and as of 2012 the remaining trusts from the settlement continue to pay out about $15,000 per family each year.

In the small mountain town where I attended high school, there were quite a few micronesians living there and attending the local community college. Now I know why, it's because we bombed their future.

tumblr_inline_nqyoloqxYT1qdxo33_1280.jpg

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pacific-radioactive-waste

Humans seem totally fucked in so many ways these days, it's like we're a self-extinguishing species :2c:

No wonder this kind of meme got so much traction last year:

41nwRbzVcnL.jpg

fc,550x550,white.u2.jpg

v461l.jpg

:mental::disgust:


:myday:
 
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lwien

Well-Known Member
The bottom line to all this is that Kim will never give up his nukes 'cause he truly believes that his governments survival depends on them. If he was faced with an imminent attack from the US, he would do what Japan did before the US nuked them................he'd give us the big......Fuck you and would rather go down with the ship then give up his nukes.

So him giving up his nukes is not an option so we're left with two choices. Contain him or destroy him.

This would be an interesting poll. A poll not about what we should do but a poll on what you think Trump will do:

Contain him.
Destroy him. (and I can't help but think about all those poor people in Korea, both in the north and the south if it ever came to this even if it just stays conventional.)
 

vapirtoo

Well-Known Member
I was all about a massive pre-emptive strike to destroy Kim's nuclear weapons, but then China said they would step in and help Kim!? WTF?
Even without China's help the North could really damage South Korea, so we have to continue sitting on our thumbs.
I and everyone else have no clue what Trump will do with this problem.
 
vapirtoo,
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