Daily Kos Comes to Defense of North Korea; No Worse Than South Korea, USA
How nutty is the Daily Kos blog? Nutty enough to make an outraged defense of North Korea? Yes. On Wednesday afternoon, Niccolo Caldararo – an adjunct professor of anthropology at San Francisco State University – complained “The Western media wallows in the exotic and North Korea has been the clown of the 20th century, brought forward for comic relief now and then or pasted up as a ‘paper tiger,’ to scare voters before elections or as a distraction for other important news.”
To hear the professor tell it, the capitalist imperialists are licking their chops after the death of Kim Jong Il: “Let's face it, North Korea is ripe for capitalism, there are millions of potential workers who will work for near nothing. The hope is that the regime will crumble like the Soviet Union and give way to massive investment opportunities." He actually argues North Korea is “no less responsible toward its own citizens” than South Korea or America:
While North Korea may behave in a strange fashion at times, its political history is no less responsible toward its own citizens than the history of the South [Koreans], especially the recent history that was dominated in the 1960s to 1980s by dictatorial regimes that practiced torture and mass arrest. While we hear of starvation and torture in North Korea, these are far less well documented than the recent history of the South.
As for the nuclear weapons issue, we should also recall that the USA has been the only country to use nuclear weapons, and we used them on civilians. If the world is to be afraid of the use of these weapons by a renegade nation, one should look at the definition of the word in the context of the Bush Administration waging war in violation of international law and by the use of evidence it knew was tainted. We cannot expect a world of law and respect after such behavior.
As Cicero stated, "There can be no peace without justice." I do not question that North Korea has problems, but that we should view the actions of the present government in the context of history, not ignorance and fear.
Caldararo even argued that the brutal, famine-causing communist regime was really America's fault:
The specific kind of leadership and government North Korea has today is the result of its history, and especially its most recent history with America. We must consider that from the end of W.W.II until 1987 South Korea was a brutal dictatorship. Its prison camps and torture chambers were filled with not only political prisoners but also ethnic minorities and religious objectors, in fact, anyone who dared to challenge the injustice and corruption of the regime. All this time South Korea’s government had the full support of the USA. North Koreans remember this horror and base part of their posture to the USA on this history...
In a country with a history of being invaded by its neighbors, either China or Japan, North Koreans have certainly good reason to want to be isolated. But is this desire to be isolated a quality of the people of North Korea or is it just a feature of the North Korean Communist Party or its Central Committee? While everyone fears that North Korea is sort of a big Jim Jones cult gone mad, we have to recall that the people of North Korea saw the madness of the Japanese occupation and the atom bombs of the West on Japan.
When several commenters disagreed with Caldararo about North Korea, he suggested they were under-educated: "I love how people think they know what is happening in countries they have never even visited."
[Hat tip: Dominating Dentist]
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Comments
never visited
Submitted by Agnostic on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 12:36pm.
He is right - I never visited North Korea or the country that Caldararo is talking about so I shouldn't have an opinion.
Niccolo's assertions make perfect sense
Submitted by dr-go on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 1:38pm.
in his twilight zone. For him to arrive at these conclusions took much thought and reflection on the history of the Korean peninsula. Give the fellow a little credit and maybe a red star for trying to explain to the great unwashed the real reasons for North Korea's isolation.
Red Star?
Submitted by Agnostic on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 4:16pm.
Now that is funny!!
An adjunct "professor"
Submitted by JLin on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 12:46pm.
Who cares what the Kos Kooks think. They are drones of the public school system with absolutely no critical thinking skills. The comment about "capitalism" says it all. The simple musings of a simple mind. BTW: Don't use the term "capitalism" any longer please, it is the construct of Karl Marx designed to create the straw man enemy that Marxists must pummel at public display. Capitalism is no theory of economic practice, and the term itself is nonsense. Use the term "free enterprise" instead.
Capitalism is to free enterprise as "pharmaceuticalism" is to medicine.
Cover Girl
Submitted by miss911ninja on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 3:35pm.
Excellent argument against the validity of the term "capitalism." To expand on it, we can think of other examples, like capitalism is to free enterprise as "argriculturalism" is to farming. Or as "cosmeticsism" is to Cover Girl.
Ahhh - the legendary,
Submitted by killa37 on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 4:51pm.
Ahhh - the legendary, elegant, clever, stylish, and ever-so-lovely Miss 911 Ninjie-Poo!!! Nice to see your cheery face around here!! Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka from the north shore of an outer island in Hawaii!!!
Oh, Killa!
Submitted by miss911ninja on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 6:36pm.
You're making me blush!
Ahhhhhhhhh, you know I love
Submitted by killa37 on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 8:23pm.
Ahhhhhhhhh, you know I love it when you blush!!!
Or as camouflage is to---
Submitted by matthewdean on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 6:33pm.
lib media coverage of Democratic politician's forays into any type of corruption or law breaking.
MD
Now there's an "ism!"
Submitted by miss911ninja on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 6:40pm.
"Camouflagism" is a term fit for that lib media coverage!
Savvyninja,
Submitted by upcountrywater on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 8:58pm.
My favorite ism
I did a winter solstice sunrise view at Haleakala summit today, some ice on the sidewalk.
Hay Killa how are things in Hā‘ena, I was there 3 days after Iniki hit, I want to visit again.
You Didn't Build That.
Upcountry
Submitted by miss911ninja on Fri, 12/23/2011 - 12:25am.
You must have posted "ISM" here before, because I remember seeing it. But it was SO worth another viewing, and has taken on new meaning since BHO's ramped-up demonization of "millionaires and billionaires." Amazing animation for its time, and the message rings true today: "Whenever anybody tries to pit one of us against the other through class warfare, race hatred, or religious intolerance, you know that person seeks to rob us of our freedom and destroy our very lives."
That IS the Obama/Holder administration!
And I, like you, live in a less-free state (WA) although I came from a most-free state, New Hampshire, where auto license plates actually say "Live Free Or Die."
Miss, It was my tag line for a while..
Submitted by upcountrywater on Fri, 12/23/2011 - 1:07am.
Time for it again.
Stay savvy.
You Didn't Build That.
He is actually
Submitted by Bob K on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 12:45pm.
an Adjunct Professor of Liberal Academic Douchebaggery it appears.
Perhaps he should go teach
Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 12:59pm.
Perhaps he should go teach there for a year or two, another leftist idiot who spout garbage from the safety and comfort of his tenured position at a US university.
He'd be the first to be shot.
Submitted by Annie Ashe Fields on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 1:12pm.
The NYT gets almost nothing right, but Nick Kristof got this right when describing life there this morning:
This young man (useful idiot) might want to read Kristof's column - In his first paragraph he states he's physically been there... Though that didn't do much for Walter Duranty back in the day, did it.
I doubt this fool even knows who Duranty is...
That's a tragedy.
For all of us.
-- One wonders if this kid's "Loudspeaker" is MSNBC... --
Did you say Ko's
Submitted by Name on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 1:07pm.
Or was this from a Ron Paul speech?
Please
Submitted by John21 on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 1:14pm.
This is a comment from a liberal loser, without even a vague idea of reality the proof
1. A far left liberal (total absence of reality)
2. A creature of the Daily Kos (No independent thought capability)
3. A dreamer from the land of Academia (nothing but unicorns and fairy dust)
4. A Professor from Anthropology (A do nothing career) from San Francisco
State University (third tier at best)(Probably the only place that would hire
this wackjob)
5. His argument is infantile and missing anything like facts (Grade F-)
6. A liberal (socialist) that believe that human rights mean nothing (Democrat)
7. A liberal (communist) that believes that freedom of choose is foolish (Far
Left Democrat)
I would rather have my children illiterate than to allow a douche bag like this indoctrinate them at my expense. I guess even scum need to make a living but not on my dime.
Prof. Apologist
Submitted by Galvanic on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 3:20pm.
In true Marxist dogma, the professor alibis North Korea's isolation and brutality as a defense against the evil US and South Korean capitalist regimes seeking to prey on it and it vast pool of cheap labor.
In a country with a history of being invaded by its neighbors, either China or Japan, North Koreans have certainly good reason to want to be isolated.
Uh, professor, didn't we forget North Korea's invasion of South Korea in June 1950? Nothing isolationist about that. Even the UN recognized that as pure, unabashed aggression.
But is this desire to be isolated a quality of the people of North Korea or is it just a feature of the North Korean Communist Party or its Central Committee? While everyone fears that North Korea is sort of a big Jim Jones cult gone mad, we have to recall that the people of North Korea saw the madness of the Japanese occupation and the atom bombs of the West on Japan.
So, this professor of anthropology attributes the cult of the North to the US atomic bombing of Japan in '45? How does he explain JAPAN -- the country we dropped the A-bombs on? They are neither isolated nor paranoid, and they do not have a totalitarian state. In fact, it was our victory over Japan which ended the cult of the Emperor, and brought about a better standard of living for all Japanese.
This guy is pure nuts.
Want to see the difference ?
Submitted by creekrat on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 1:31pm.
Google Korea at night !! Maybe they should get some electric ??
saving a pristine society
Submitted by MidAmerica on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 1:31pm.
For the Leftists North Korea is a pure society unpolluted with capitalism and that other great evil against humanity.... Christianity.
Nor do they bear the burden
Submitted by dzejk113 on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 1:53pm.
Nor do they bear the burden of free thought, the party elites do their thinking for them, kinda like how the leftist elites here would like to do all our thinking for us.
What?
Submitted by NVRAT on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 1:59pm.
The Daily KOS...what the hell is that, some kind of a fart in the wind?
Has Boy Barry weighed in on
Submitted by killa37 on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 2:13pm.
Has Boy Barry weighed in on L'il Kim's demise??? It's been a few days now..............I'm sure he can tear himself away from the phone (calling Congress and telling them to make him look good on this smoke-and-mirrors unemployment insurance bill) and whatever else he's doing - now that Moooooooooochie and the kids are away - and give some public condolances to the Kim family and the pristine citizens of that great Democratic country. I know Jimmah Cahtah just sent his own regrets over to the chubby new successor.
In fact, this might be an opportune time for Barry to apologize to North Korea for the way we've been treating them - maybe have a beer summit with Chub L'il Kim, give them a few zillion dollars and a bunch of new weapons and nuclear technology (following in der Schlickmeister's lead) - and then have North Korea return a portion of it as a campaign donation - and then proclaim that North Korea has always been one of the worlds leading freedom-loving nations, in much the same way that the USA has always been one of the largest moooooooooooooooslem nations on this planet.
There are no bright lights in
Submitted by Jack Bauer on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 2:13pm.
There are no bright lights in North Korea -- just like the Daily Kos
Kos Jong Mentally-Il:
I'm so Ronery
So ronery
So ronery and sadry arone
There's no one
Just me onry
Sitting on my rittle throne
I work rearry hard and make up get prans
but, nobody listens, no one understands
Seems rike no one takes me serirousry
And so, I'm ronery
A rittle ronery
Poor rittle me
There's no one I can rerate to
Feewr rike a biwd in a cage
It's kinda siwry
but, not reawry
because, it's fiwring my body with rage
I'm the smartest, most crever,
most physicawry fit
but, nobody erse seems to rearrize it
When I can the worrd maybe they'rr notice me
And untiwr then, I'wr be ronery
Yeaaaaah, a rittle ronery
Poor rittle me...
All of the above Mr Obama? --- How about ALL OF THE BELOW, instead.
How about we take up a collection
Submitted by TheHistorian on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 2:24pm.
for one way tickets, one for the Professor, and one for Markos? Of course, NOT Business Class; they would eschew any such CAPITALISTIC touches. In fact, I would prefer to ship both of them in the same dog kennel in the baggage hold like the mutts that they are.
Anybody else willing to contribute? I figure about 10,000 of us at a buck apiece, and we could get rid of these two boils on the American nether regions.
Dennis Prager
Five grand each??? Hell, I
Submitted by killa37 on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 2:48pm.
Five grand each??? Hell, I could go surfing down in Indonesia for a month, eat well, catch a lot of waves, have some other fun, stop off in Singapore on the way back and have some more fun, come back home, and STILL have some money in my pocket!!
I say we put them in the bilge of some rusted out cargo ship - preferable one that will have to sail past Somolia, so that they might get hijacked by pirates - and then they can try and tell these nice young entrepunuers just who they are and why they are important.
The big bucks need to be shelled out for the last 25 miles.
Submitted by upcountrywater on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 3:30pm.
No matter Our National Hero Carter will rescue them on our dime.Gawd He sure loves that place.
Democrat Presidents run from these leaders, the guys ,that actually FREE countries..
Vaclav Havel NEW YORK -- The world’s greatest shortage is not of oil, clean water, or food, but of moral leadership.
With a commitment to truth -- scientific, ethical, and personal -- a society can overcome the many crises of poverty, disease, hunger, and instability that confront us. Yet power abhors truth, and battles it relentlessly. So let us pause to express gratitude to Vaclav Havel, who died this month, for enabling a generation to gain the chance to live in truth. Havel was a pivotal leader of the revolutionary movements that culminated in freedom in Eastern Europe and the end, 20 years ago this month, of the Soviet Union.
Havel’s plays, essays, and letters described the moral struggle of living honestly under Eastern Europe’s Communist dictatorships. He risked everything to live in truth, as he called it -- honest to himself and heroically honest to the authoritarian power that repressed his society and crushed the freedoms of hundreds of millions.
You Didn't Build That.
I never visited manmade global warming either...
Submitted by dmacleo on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 3:27pm.
but I have an opinion on it (fake) and state it often.
M. Mann has never visited it either, but he's allowed to state his opinion?
Professor of..... in San Fran.
that is all you needed to read.
Maybe he should see this:
Submitted by ahusser on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 4:44pm.
In fact all dictator loving leftoids should see this:
INSIDE NORTH KOREA by National Geographic. ( I was unable to link the complete show which exists. This is the same show but segmented in 5 parts) The North is Like South Korea my you know what. This place called North Korea has out Stalined Stalin and now has a hereditary dictatorship replete with their own Gulag and an extreme cult of personality. You need to check out their 'free' healthcare system. This is a worker's paradise hell hole.
"Somehow, I told you so, just doesn't quite say it." Will Smith in 'I, Robot.'
Spoken like a true social(ist) "scientist" whackademic!
Submitted by drsamherman on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 10:26pm.
And he probably thinks Qaddafi was just "misunderstood" and Mao "centrist".
East meets West
Submitted by MidAmerica on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 11:01pm.
If you travel West far enough you eventually end up coming from the East to where you started.
Many people start their education ignorant of many things and then travel so far into endless education that they end up back where they started... ignorant again.
Maybe the following dKos comment to the N Korea essay will be
Submitted by Jer on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 11:10pm.
reason for optimism:
Conservatives are right about some things
For instance, that the moral relativism of the Left can be pretty nauseating.
While North Korea may behave in a strange fashion at times, its political history is no less responsible toward its own citizens than the history of the South, especially the recent history that was dominated in the 1960s to 1980s by dictatorial regimes that practiced torture and mass arrest.
If the worst and most repressive moment of the South Korean regime, back in Kwangju in 1980, took place every week in North Korea, we could legitimately say that the two regimes were more or less "responsible towards [their] own citizens." And yes, if we had a Kent State every minute of every day or every year in this country, you could say the same about the US vs. North Korea. But South Korean didn't have a Kwangju every day, and the comparison is hideous both empirically and morally.
North Korea is a completely criminal regime whose leaders should be executed (or locked up for life, if that's your thing), and it should be united with the South entirely under the South's political and economic system.
Jer
And then again...
Submitted by Jer on Fri, 12/23/2011 - 1:02am.
maybe not.
Jer