Carl,
2 things. Last night, I found a little RSN article with a clip of an interview
with Joe Scarboro who was telling the audience in no uncertain terms that Trump
is obviously mad and that if we don't do something about it, he may very well
get us into that nuclear war with North Korea that we're talking about. It's
rather brave to say this on a TV show. I started reading the book about Trump's
insanity, and there are at least 3 introductions and forewords in which the
psychiatrists responsible for collecting the articles, are attempting to
justify writing the book. It's obvious that they were uneasy about editing this
thing.
My second point is that back in 1950 or whenever it was that the Korean War
started, I was just thirteen and all I ever heard was radio news. I don't think
we'd gotten our TV quite yet. And no one was talking about whether or not this
was justified. Everyone, including whatever passed for liberal or progressive
back then, was very much into the cold war and this Korean war was, for
Americans, a fight against the Russians and Chinese. The rightness of this war
is so imbedded in the American psyche that when I first questioned it on this
list a few years ago, my statements were treated with a kind of disbelieving
horror by some list members. I remember that I found a book about the origins
of the warNorth Korea/South Korea by John Feffer, on Bookshare , which actually
validated much of what I had surmised, and I told the list about it. There was
complete silence in response. By the way, Feffer's little novel, Splinterlands,
just came to BARD this week. It's a bit weird, not so easy to read, a dystopian
novel, with a point to make.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2017 10:14 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: US Hysteria Blooms in Wake of North Korean
Missile Splashdown
Miriam,
But even if true, would even an insane person send such a declaration of war,
when it absolutely meant the end of all North Koreans, including the Ruling
Class?
Getting behind our propaganda that declares North Korea to be plotting to
destroy us is difficult. I do find some fairly sane reports by people who have
actually been in North Korea, and report something quite different than Trump's
rattling sabers. The American Corporate Empire just hates to have its
authority challenged. Bad enough those pesky Cubans keep thumbing their noses
at us, and for a time Venezuela. No, the Empire must maintain its control over
its Pacific Colonies. I seriously believe that Donald Trump considers an all
out war on North Korea to be both a warning to other Pacific Rim Nations, and
as a fall back detraction for his personal failures.
But then, I'm the guy who said Hillary Clinton had the presidency in the bag.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/3/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
One interesting thing about this for me is that the Korean man whom
Dennis Bernstein always interviews on Flashpoints about this issue,
appeared to believe that the missile could actually reach the US with a
nuclear warhead.
At least, that's what I think I heard him say.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2017 1:00 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: US Hysteria Blooms in Wake of North
Korean Missile Splashdown
Donald Trump, Master of the Fake News.
Honest Donald's used Hysteria.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/2/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
US Hysteria Blooms in Wake of North Korean Missile Splashdown By
William Boardman, Reader Supported News
30 November 17
Suppose an opportunity for peace arrived - could the US see it?
The most dangerous thing about the North Korean missile launch is the
reaction of the unprincipled, under-informed, white identity
extremist sitting in the Oval Office. If there's a nuclear war coming
out of this manufactured "crisis," the buck will have stopped with
him. Not that President Trump doesn't have other fools egging him on
to risk global chaos and destruction in response to an imaginary,
inflated threat from an impoverished nation of 25 million people.
Sadly, this is not a surprising development after more than sixty
years of aggressive US behavior toward North Korea.
But first, what about that November 29 missile launch, widely and
dishonestly played as showing that that North Korea could hit any
point in the US, even Washington or Mar-a-Lago? That meme is a
speculative fear-tactic. In the fine print, none of the experts, not
even hawkish defense secretary General Jim Mattis, one of the last
supposed grown-ups in Trumplandia. The North Korean missile went
higher - roughly 2,800 miles - than any previous North Korean
missile, but it didn't go very far, about
600
miles, landing in the ocean short of Japan.
Based on this scant information, mostly provided by the North Korean
government, experts like David Wright of the Union of Concerned
Scientists extrapolated the missile's potential range from the actual
600 miles to an estimated 8,000 miles. This is not a scientific
measurement but a speculative conjecture based on science as well as
the unknown assumptions that the tested missile was carrying an
actual warhead. Wright allowed for the possibility that the missile's
high performance was because it carried a dummy warhead of almost
inconsequential weight. Wright concluded, according the New York
Times, that "the distance traveled, while impressive, does not
necessarily translate into a working intercontinental ballistic
missile that could deliver a thermonuclear warhead." That's something
of a non-threat threat lurking in a hypothetical future. For General
Mattis, the projected possible threat, free of historical or
strategic context, was all too real in his hyperbolic projection:
The bottom line is, it's a continued effort to build a threat - a
ballistic missile threat that endangers world peace, regional peace,
and certainly, the United States.
This isn't General Mattis prematurely overreacting to just one
unevaluated missile test. General Mattis engages in the standard
military operating procedure of threat-inflation on a regular basis,
which does not distinguish him from two generations of other official
military and executive branch fearmongers scaring us with apparent
North Korean intentions, even while driving those intentions with
real, constant American threatening. As General Mattis put it in late
October:
North Korea has accelerated the threat that it poses to its neighbors
and the world through its illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear
weapons programs.. I cannot imagine a condition under which the
United States would accept North Korea as a nuclear power..
He said, "unnecessary." He must know that's absurdly Orwellian. The
United States and North Korea have been in a state of war since 1950.
The armistice of 1953 suspended the fighting but did not end the war.
From then until now, North Korean sovereignty has been irrelevant to
American leaders. So here we are, with North Korea already a nuclear
power and the US refusing to accept a new reality, never mind US
responsibility for creating that new reality through decades of open
bellicosity. The times called the most recent missile launch "a bold
act of defiance against President Trump," which is a laughably
unaware acceptance of the American assumption that it has any right
to any authority over another sovereign state.
American denial of the North Korean perspective is the driving force
in this largely artificial confrontation. North Korea has already
been overrun by American forces once in living memory, in a war with
largely unexamined American atrocities (we've propagandized their
atrocities to a fare thee well). Overrun by Americans, only to be
counter-overrun by the Chinese, North Koreans might well want to be
left alone. The US and its allies, especially South Korea and Japan,
have maintained unrelenting hostility to North Korea, whose best
friend is an unreliable China. Why wouldn't North Korea want a
nuclear deterrent? Deterrence is the American justification for a
nuclear arsenal that dwarfs all others but the Russians'.
But American leaders insist on calling North Korea a threat. North
Korea was a threat in 1950. and that turned out very badly for them.
Today, North Korea is a credible threat to no one except perhaps its
own people. A North Korean attack on anyone would be met with
overwhelming force up to and possibly including nuclear obliteration.
North Korea is in check, and any honest observer knows that. Some
even say so. Defense Dept. spokesman Colonel Robert Manning, in
striking contrast to his shrill boss General Mattis, said:
We are working with our interagency partners on a more detailed
assessment of the launch.. the missile launch from North Korea did
not pose a threat to North America, our territories or our allies..
We remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies from any attack
or provocation.
That is so rational and basic that it should hardly need saying. We
don't live in a time when basic and rational get much attention.
American arrogance and paranoia toward North Korea are longstanding,
untreated pathologies that continue to worsen. As our Trump tweeted
in early October, with his usual fact-free, threatening bombast:
Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea
for
25
years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid ... hasn't
worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S.
negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!
Our Trump coyly avoided saying what he thought that one thing was,
but his Secretary of State still says, "Diplomatic options remain
viable and open for now." Not that anyone pays much attention to Rex
Tillerson these days as he guts the State Dept. of effective,
experienced personnel. Much greater play goes to the crazy ranters
who are already blaming the victims if it turns out we have to attack
them (sounds like domestic violence, doesn't it?). Case in point is
Lindsey Graham, who plays a deranged Republican Senator from South
Carolina,
saying:
If we have to go to war to stop this, we will. If there's a war with
North Korea it will be because North Korea brought it on itself, and
we're headed to a war if things don't change.
Or as the battering husband puts it: "She just wouldn't listen to me!"
Echoing the blame-the-victim mantra, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
(famous for saying "women don't care about contraception") told the
UN Security Council the missile launch was an act of "aggression"
with serious potential
consequences:
. make no mistake the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed..
The dictator of North Korea made a decision yesterday that brings us
closer to war, not farther from it. We have never sought war with
North Korea and still today we do not seek it.
But they just won't listen!
In North Korea, after the missile launch, leader Kim Jong Un said
that his country has "finally realized the great historic cause of
completing the state nuclear force." A nuclear deterrent, in other
words. This may or may not be entirely true. But they may or may not
be beside the point. As writers in Japan Times note, this missile
launch and its accompanying official statements could be an olive branch:
[North Korea] then said its pursuit of the "strategic weapon" had
been intended to "defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of
the country from the U.S. imperialists' nuclear blackmail policy,"
and emphasized that it would "not pose any threat to any country and
region as long as the interests of the DPRK (the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea) are not infringed upon.. The DPRK will make every
possible effort to serve the noble purpose of defending peace and
stability of the world."
Does it matter whether this is true as long as everyone acts like
it's true?
Our Trump has a random relationship with truth, and his spokeswoman
says it doesn't matter whether his racist tweets are real or fake
news. So what we have here is an excellent opportunity for the
mocker-in-chief of his Asian allies to seize the opportunity to make
white identity extremism great again
and- oh, never mind.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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