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Who will be the next Dear Leader?

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Sun, 2009-01-25 02:42

#1

Doug

Who will be the next Dear Leader?

Perhaps they should have North Korean Idol.

The eldest son of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il says he has "no interest" in succeeding his father, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reports.

"No one can say for sure and only father will decide," Kim Jong-nam told reporters in Beijing.

The comments come amid speculation as to who may succeed the elder Kim, who is rumoured to have suffered a stroke.

Kim Jong-nam reportedly added he had no information about reports his youngest brother Kim Jong-un would get the job.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7849205.stm

Sun, 2009-01-25 15:42

#2

Kindrid

Let's hope it will be Lee Myung-bak

Sun, 2009-01-25 16:49

#3

Webgear

I applied for the position last month; I am still waiting out for the third interview.

______________________________________________________________________________________________ We are like cloaks, one thinks of us only when it rains.

Sun, 2009-01-25 16:54

#4

oldgoat

Well I'm looking forward to some sort of leaders debate. I wonder if they'll allow a Green candidate to participate?

Sun, 2009-01-25 17:13

#5

Webgear

I am disappointed that axis of evil is getting smaller each week.

______________________________________________________________________________________________ We are like cloaks, one thinks of us only when it rains.

Sun, 2009-01-25 18:49

#6

Fidel

Kindrid wrote:

Let's hope it will be Lee Myung-bak

Let's not and say we did.

From last July:

Quote:

Tens of thousands of South Koreans—half a million according to organisers—defied threats of state repression and marched through Seoul on Saturday in a massive demonstration of opposition to the government of President Lee Myung-bak. The principal demand of the rally, reflected in banners, placards and chants, was “Lee Myung-bak out”.

The demonstration filled the streets for kilometres. It was peaceful and there were no reports of arrests. Following the violent clashes between demonstrators and police the previous Saturday, hundreds of Catholic priests and nuns, Protestant clerics and Buddhist monks placed themselves at the front of the march. Police commanders decided against using the 20,000 riot police present to disperse the rally, fearing that scenes of religious figures being beaten or tear gassed would only further inflame public opinion.

The religious groups and the parliamentary opposition parties—the Democratic Party and the Democratic Labor Party—also formed a human shield between the demonstrators and a barricade of police vehicles blocking access to Lee’s presidential offices

Apparently they shouldnt have fed them beef.

Sun, 2009-01-25 20:49

#7

Kindrid

Eating America beef is better than eating tree bark.

The issue that caused the protest is mindless protectionism. South Korean consumers get ripped with high food prices because of protectionist practices. Of course, the farm lobby in South Korea likes it that way.

Sun, 2009-01-25 20:56

#8

Kindrid

Time magazine has labled him "Hero of the Environment".

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1663317_1663319_1669884,00.html

Sun, 2009-01-25 21:01

#9

Doug

Kindrid wrote:

Let's hope it will be Lee Myung-bak

Probably not - even if the Kims and the North Korean military disappear tomorrow, reunification is years off. Korean reunification makes German reunification look cheap and easy.

Sun, 2009-01-25 21:10

Fidel

Kindrid wrote:

Eating America beef is better than eating tree bark.

The issue that caused the protest is mindless protectionism.

No, they really are afraid of diseased US beef. If you think the dregulated banking system on Wall Street is screwy now, then you probably shouldnt be buying USDA inspected beef or poultry from the US. It all started in maggie's Britain with neoliberal shinola for unregulated capitalism. After a mad cow scare in that country, a British MP told Chretien's people that feeding animal brains to cows for human consumption is not a real good idea. I wonder which food item will kill or make gravely ill some number of Canadians and have to be recalled next?

Sun, 2009-01-25 21:35

Slumberjack

Fidel wrote:
I wonder which food item will kill or make gravely ill some number of Canadians and have to be recalled next?

There's a lot to be said for a diet of cod tongues and dried caplin. If they mess with my Newfie steak though they'll pay, I swear it.

Sun, 2009-01-25 22:30

Fidel

Doug wrote:
Kindrid wrote:

Let's hope it will be Lee Myung-bak

Probably not - even if the Kims and the North Korean military disappear tomorrow, reunification is years off. Korean reunification makes German reunification look cheap and easy.

Yes, the idea is to keep the barbarians divided and conquered. There was a CitiGroup report delivered to Bush's administration a few years ago about North Korea. It said that N. Korea is about about where China was in the 1980's with industrialisation - and about where China was in 1990 wrt monetary reforms.

Russians struck a deal with S. Korea to deliver electrical power and routed through North Korea, and electrifying expansion there as well. S. Korea is buying a some number of manufactured products from the North pots and pans requiring low tech for now. But North Korea's fairly well educated population is said to give it much potential to become another Asian tiger economy. A unified Korea would be an economic force to be reckoned with.

I think the US considers the Asia-Pacific rim countries to represent a threat economically. Japan, Taiwan, S Korea, China and Russia are now cooperating with trade and infrastructure expansions. That general region of the world is now the largest generator of capital wealth in the world. In 1980, the US was the lone economic superpower.

Tue, 2009-01-27 13:23

It's Me D

Lee Myung-bak is a scumbag... here's another article (about the same vintage as the Time article linked above):

Lee Myung-bak's candidacy and canal plan

Excerpts:

Quote:
Lee has been manouvering his way towards the presidency since before he was elected as mayor of Seoul in 2002; he essentially used that position as a stepping stone to the presidency. Cheonggyecheon was meant to seem environmentally friendly (and hey, Time bought it) and it was supposed to be done in 2 years in order to show people that he was a 'can-do' leader, much like Park Chung-hee (I'm not the only person who thinks so - though in the last photo he looks more like a thinner Kim Jong-il - and in some of these photos he reminds me of the paintings of Kim Il-sung's 'on the spot guidance'). What wasn't often mentioned was that was essentially the starting point of the redevelopment of large swaths of the city center; in fact, the SNU professor who came up with the idea of uncovering Cheonggyecheon was, when he became assistant mayor, arrested for taking bribes to raise height restrictions in the Cheonggyecheon area, something that should symbolize the entire project. Lee went on to finish the stream successfully and it was eventually named the best 'product' of 2005. It cost 380 billion won.

That man-made stream's a real achievement to be sure, and Time in their wisdom were able to see the environmental value to a man-made stream which uses enough electricity to power 3,000 households just to simulate a stream! Anyone here remember when streams not powered by electricity existed in nature all on their own?

Cheonggyecheon

(Cheonggyecheon - Day)

And thats not all the great Lee Myung-bak intends to do for the environment! Check this out: Grand Korean Waterway

Fri, 2009-01-30 08:23

It's Me D

I figured this would be a good thread for DPRK news...

North Korea Cancels Pacts with South - Al Jazeera

Quote:
North Korea has said it is cancelling all political and military agreements with South Korea in a further sign of deteriorating relations between the countries.

Quote:
"The confrontation between the North and the South in the political and military fields has been put to such extremes that inter-Korean relations have reached the brink of a war," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea as saying.

Quote:
The North's statement also criticised the government of Lee Myung-bak, the South Korean president, for "ruthlessly scrapping" pacts reached at summits in 2000 and 2007.

Quote:
Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor at Korea University told the Associated Press the latest comments had three main aims - to pressure the South Korean president, scare the United States and to drum up political support at home. "The North probably believes that this type of thing is the most effective way of getting the upper hand with the US ahead of negotiations by raising tension," he said. "What is worrying is that the possibility of a military clash is rising."

Fri, 2009-01-30 10:40

Fidel

It's Me D wrote:

Lee Myung-bak is a scumbag... here's another article (about the same vintage as the Time article linked above):

Lee Myung-bak's candidacy and canal plan

Ya that's pretty wasteful. Meanwhile we are made to feel repulsed on cue provided by news journalists reporting on North Korean parades with tumbling acts and big show flower displays. How dare they look happy on camera. It's propaganda, we are told.

Fri, 2009-01-30 10:42

Caissa

I had a chance to go to North Korea in the early 90s. I kick myself now for not having availed myself of the opportunity.

Sat, 2009-01-31 22:59

Ken Burch

Here's my nominee for the next Deer Leader:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly

Sun, 2009-02-01 00:32

Kindrid

Quote:
Meanwhile we are made to feel repulsed on cue provided by news journalists reporting on North Korean parades with tumbling acts and big show flower displays. How dare they look happy on camera. It's propaganda, we are told.

You do realize if anyone in North Korea voices any opposition they are sent with their families to concentration camps where they can be executed or worked to death?

Sun, 2009-02-01 00:37

Kindrid

Quote:
Ya that's pretty wasteful

At least South korea has the money to waste. It is not like 3 million South Koreans have starved to death

The point is not Lee Myung-bak but rather I hope the president of Sout Korea become the leader of all Korea just like Helmut Kohl became leader of all of Germany after the DDR extinct.

Sun, 2009-02-01 00:56

Ken Burch

In East Germany, the people were revolting(rightly)against Stalinism, not the idea of socialism itself. Helmut Kohl, Reagan's favorite walking bratwurst, ignored the fact that the East German protest movement was a left movement, showed no respect for the leftists who had organized the resistance to Stalinism(as they had in 1953), and then made everything even worse by insisting on forcing the former DDR to switch to all-out "market values", and by insisting on proclaiming that the fall of the wall meant that "socialism had failed". The people of Eastern Europe were, in effect, punished by "the West" for the courage they showed in standing up to their oppressors. They had the right to live on their own terms, they should never have been forced to surrender to the Western bankers and give up their dignity. It was the completely unjustified harshness of that transition that did what should have been impossible:

1)Keep the old East European communist parties politically alive(voting for them was the only way to vote against austerity, even though they themselves agreed to keep the austerity going);

2)Turn a lot of Eastern Europeans and Russians against the idea of democracy, by associating it forever in their minds with hardship and desperation.

It was simply to be expected that figures like Putin and the East European far right parties would emerge to build support by "avenging the shame". For some reason, everyone in the western establishment forgot how things got started in Germany in the 20's.

___________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly

Sun, 2009-02-01 02:05

Kindrid

Quote:
Despite the many problems, there have been some signs of economic improvement since thereunification. For instance, nominal household income per capita greatly increased (48 percent increase)
in the East from 1990-1993, while real household income per capita in the West stayed virtually the same over the same period. Average salaries increased 74 percent in the East from 1990-1993, but only
18 percent from 1988-1993 in the West. These facts give good reason for Easterners to be more satisfied than Westerners with the reunification and its economic effects.

http://www.lehigh.edu/~incntr/publications/perspectives/v16/adams.pdf

Sounds like things have improved a lot for East Germans since the fall of Communism.

Sun, 2009-02-01 02:10

Sven

Sven's picture

How about installing the omnipresent Rabble Sockpuppet as the next Dear Leader?

_______________________________________

[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

Sun, 2009-02-01 06:07

Fidel

Ken Burch wrote:

In East Germany, the people were revolting(rightly)against Stalinism, not the idea of socialism itself. Helmut Kohl, Reagan's favorite walking bratwurst, ignored the fact that the East German protest movement was a left movement, showed no respect for the leftists who had organized the resistance to Stalinism(as they had in 1953), and then made everything even worse by insisting on forcing the former DDR to switch to all-out "market values", and by insisting on proclaiming that the fall of the wall meant that "socialism had failed".

Yes, [url=http://www.nber.org/digest/apr06/w11700.html][color=red]Mathew Davis[/color][/url] wrote:

Quote:
"After being reunited with West Germany, most East Germans have retained a decidedly Communist view of what the government should do in terms of providing a social safety net and redistributing wealth from rich to poor."

According to Davis and in so many words, years of "Marxist indoctrination" in East Germany represented a hurdle to creating mindless robots for capitalists to exploit. The transformation should take two or three generations of capitalist re-education to spin them the other way 180 degrees, or perhaps a few 720's for good measure.

HIID economists working for Yeltsin's people in the 1990's noticed the same things in Russia were true, more or less. It was necessary for Russians to be totally reliant on the new market system while the new oligarchs made off with Russian resources and state assets for a song. It was the largest occurrence of Marxian primitive accumulation since British era enclosure. Life savings of Russians represented "pesky overhang" according to Jeffry Sachs, and something had to be done about it. So Russians' life savings were wiped out with radical free market ideology for lifting Soviet price controls and income subsidies. Catastroika was the result for 60 million or more Russians.

Good post, Ken.

Sun, 2009-02-01 06:35

Kindrid

The problem with your theory is that Germany has a very decent social safety net. There was not a single advantage in living in the DDR over West Germany. Even the unemployed in West Germany had a higher standard of living than most working people in the DDR.

Sun, 2009-02-01 08:58

Fidel

Kindrid wrote:

The problem with your theory is that Germany has a very decent social safety net. There was not a single advantage in living in the DDR over West Germany. Even the unemployed in West Germany had a higher standard of living than most working people in the DDR.

Germans themselves had a tendency to lean to the left politically in the last century. Same with Japan. There were several socialist and communist parties poised for election in the 1930's. Western world industrialists and banking elite propped up NSDAP. And then after the war, massive amounts of aid was flown into Germany to build it up as a frontline state and showcase for capitalism. Russia itself suffered massive loss of life and destruction after Hitler's war of annihilation against the Soviet Union.

The Soviets commandeered the resources of Eastern Europe and Manchuria in the rebuilding of Russia, and that had devastating consequences for East Germany's economy for sure. That is how the whole thing got started after WW I, when British economist JM Keynes said to western bankers that extracting such harsh war reparations from Germany would have dire economic and social consequences for ordinary Germans. They were printing money to pay war reparations after Germany's industrial base of the Rhine was occupied by French troops. They had no other way to repay war debts without any way to generate wealth. Germans were returning home from visits to Stalin's Russia and telling fellow Germans of a bustling economy there. This appealed to Germans who were tired of seeing dirty faces on children across Germany.

There were no such efforts to make showcases of capitalism in thirdworld capitalist countries. Most all of Latin America, for instance, remained repressive capitalist shitholes for cheap labour and human rights violations comitted on a far worse level than occurred in East Germany. And NATO basically reconstructed Himmler's SS to run the spy ops out of West Germany. There were stay behind armies setup all over Europe which turned into rightwing terrorist groups whose purpose was to instill in their citizens a fear of communism.

Sun, 2009-02-01 09:16

Kindrid

Your theories are again invalid because the DDR had four decades to recover from WW II. There were no signs of improvement or at least going in the right direction.

Many former Nazis also took jobs with the Communist government including the secret police. The tactics remained the same just the uniforms and flags changed. West Germany had no choice to use former Nazis because there would not have been the qualified manpower to run the government if you excluded everyone that had Nazi ties. The difference is that the West German reformed and produced a nation with a sterling human rights record. In the East oppression remained. There is nothing the US does to keeps Latin America poor. Your cheap labor conspiracy is also invalid because trade with wealthier nations are always more profitable than with poor nations. Having a wealthier Latin America provides a better market for goods. Plus, where are the statements and transcripts for this conspiracy? Such a conspiracy would involve thousand of individuals working with dozens of administrations. Somebody would have told by now. Basically, you are spewing out dependency theory that is considered a joke.

Sun, 2009-02-01 15:44

Fidel

Kindrid wrote:

Your theories are again invalid because the DDR had four decades to recover from WW II. There were no signs of improvement or at least going in the right direction.

I think you are arguing with yourself. I never said that East Germans were materially better off than those in the West. Capeche? In fact, West German economy enjoyed an artificial boost in the years immediately following WW II. Radio Free Europe piped-in no end to the propaganda describing wealth and prosperity in the western world. And they believed it. There were people who came from Russia and Eastern Europe because they were told everyone in the west owned mansions and lived like millionaires. And after arriving here they realized it was propaganda. This is well documented.

And as it turns out now, the "new" liberal capitalism is collapsing just as the old one did in North America after about the same length of time as it took to collapse by 1929. The cold war era promise for endless growth and prosperity was a colossal lie. "This" what we have in the west, or at least what we led everyone to believe we have, will not be exported to the capitalist thirdworld, because we would strip resources bare in nothing flat and choke on the pollution.

Quote:
Many former Nazis also took jobs with the Communist government including the secret police. The tactics remained the same just the uniforms and flags changed. West Germany had no choice to use former Nazis because there would not have been the qualified manpower to run the government if you excluded everyone that had Nazi ties. The difference is that the West German reformed and produced a nation with a sterling human rights record.

Now that's a load of baloney I've never read before. The Soviets and Israelis actively searched for(hunted actually) former Nazis around the world and demanded their extradition from the US and Canada, two countries which provided sanctuary for thousands of Nazi war criminals and their European collaborators.The last places in the world former Nazis wanted to to flee to after the war were the Soviet Union and Israel where they would probably have faced an uncerimonious execution.

Operation Gladio: CIA Network of "Stay Behind" Secret Armies

Gladio - death plan for democracy

Sun, 2009-02-01 22:58

Kindrid

Quote:

The former East Germany's feared Stasi secret police set Nazi officers to work as spies and protected them from prosecution, according to a new book that belies the official anti-fascist stance of the communist regime.

[/QUOTE]

Quote:

Nazis blackmailed into working for communists

But the book claims that high-profile convictions covered up a more cynical reality -- instead of serving sentences they were blackmailed into working for the ubiquitous Stasi, which had more operatives per member of the population than any other spy network in the communist bloc.

"The Stasi deliberately and systematically recruited Nazi criminals, sometimes those who orchestrated massacres, as informers and agents both in the east and the west," Leide said.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1760980,00.html

Sun, 2009-02-01 23:00

Papal Bull

After the war the NAZI were like god damned collectibles for the victors. You had to catch them all. They had the expertise of that country. What would be the point in killing your war spoils?

And I would really like to see proof otherwise that the DDR did not make attempts to reintegrate former NAZI servicemen into their intel and policing system.

Sun, 2009-02-01 23:08

Kindrid

BTW, most economists and historians agree that the effects of the Marshal Plan have been exaggerated and Western Europe was well on its way to economic recovery before the plan was implemented. Aid to Western Europe ended in 1953 due to the costs of the Korean War. West German success came as a result of the free market and hard work of the German people.

Sure, there was a tiny minority of returnees to the Eastern block but the vast majority that escaped was grateful to have escaped. How many escapees from the Communist system returned? Maybe 1 percent?

Sun, 2009-02-01 23:31

Papal Bull

Regardless, this thread drift should end.

I remember reading an Atimes article basically stating that the only way to know what is going in NK is when they feel like announcing it. I'll be following this one with interest, particularly as NK ended a recent non-aggression agreement. Kim must feel sidelined by the other newsmakers of the world.

Sun, 2009-02-01 23:42

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Frustrated Mess's picture

I have submitted a resxume on behalf of Fidel. As a strength I listed anti-capitalist, anti-American hyperbole.

Sun, 2009-02-01 23:44

Papal Bull

Not to mention that he is babble's favourite fantasy writer!

I'm sure he and Kim Jong-Il could collaborate on an awesome film.

Mon, 2009-02-02 10:33

Fidel

Kindrid wrote:
The former East Germany's feared Stasi secret police set Nazi officers to work as spies and protected them from prosecution, according to a new book that belies the official anti-fascist stance of the communist regime.

So they made life hell for 35 Nazis. And we can imagine the Soviets' sense of surprise when they realized their WW II allies were recruiting Hitler's SS to spy on them and providing safe passage and sanctuary to thousands of war criminals. One former volunteer of the waffen SS told a 60 minutes reporter that the only credentials he needed to produce to as proof that he was as an honest to goodness anti-communist, and for safe passage to Canada, was to simply brandish his SS tattoos to British and Canadian immigration officials. Ottawa welcomed some 2000 former Ukrainian waffen SS alone with an open arms policy. Meanwhile in years leading up to and during the war, Canada and US closed our doors to European Jews seeking refuge.

Bush is not a Nazi, so stop saying that he is

IBM and the Holocaust

General Motors and the Nazis

GM, Ford, and the Nazis

The Hitler Project

Quote:

The 1942 U.S. government investigative report said that Bush's Nazi-front bank was an interlocking concern with the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steel Works Corporation or German Steel Trust) led by Fritz Thyssen and his two brothers. After the war, Congressional investigators probed the Thyssen interests, Union Banking Corp. and related Nazi units. The investigation showed that the Vereinigte Stahlwerke had produced the following approximate proportions of total German national output:

50.8% of Nazi Germany's pig iron
41.4% of Nazi Germany's universal plate
36.0% of Nazi Germany's heavy plate
38.5% of Nazi Germany's galvanized sheet
45.5% of Nazi Germany's pipes and tubes
22.1% of Nazi Germany's wire
35.0% of Nazi Germany's explosives.@s8

Prescott Bush became vice president of W.A. Harriman & Co. in 1926. That same year, a friend of Harriman and Bush set up a giant new organization for their client Fritz Thyssen, prime sponsor of politician Adolf Hitler. The new German Steel Trust, Germany's largest industrial corporation, was organized in 1926 by Wall Street banker Clarence Dillon. Dillon was the old comrade of Prescott Bush's father Sam Bush from the `` Merchants of Death '' bureau in World War I.

“Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951” - Federal Documents

The CIA and Nazi war criminals

Quote:

Gehlen worked with many secret fascist organizations, including:

Stepan Bandera's "B Faction," Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

Romania's Iron Guard

the Ustashe of Yugoslavia

the Vanagis of Latvia

Vlasov's "Army" in Russia.

Growth of Gehlen Org

The Gehlen Org initially included Gehlen's immediate staff of about 350 agents. Hundreds of German army and SS officers were released from internment camps to join his headquarters in Germany's Spessart Mountains.

When the staff grew to 3,000, the Org moved to a compound near Pullach, south of Munich. It operated under the innocent name, South German Industrial Development Organization. By the early-1950s, the organization employed up to 4,000 intelligence specialists in Germany (mainly former army and SS officers) and more than 4,000 undercover agents who were active throughout the Soviet-bloc.

Under Operation Sunrise, some 5,000 anti-communist East Europeans and Russians were trained in Germany in 1946, under the command of General Sikes and SS General Burckhardt. They supported insurgencies in areas such as Ukraine, which were not suppressed by the Soviets until 1956

sieg heil!! Sieg Heil!! SIEG HEIL!!!

===

An Antidote to disinformation about North Korea

U.S. Forced North Korea's Hand

Quote:

North Korea has lived longer under the shadow of nuclear threat than any other nation, from the Korean War, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur had to be restrained from his plan to drop "between 30 and 50 atomic bombs" and lay a belt of radioactive cobalt across the neck of the Korean peninsula, through the long Cold War, when the United States introduced nuclear artillery, mines, and missiles into South Korea to intimidate the non-nuclear North. After the Cold War, rehearsals continued for a long-range nuclear bombing strike against North Korean targets. After facing for half a century the threat of extermination, it would be surprising if North Korea did not now show signs of neurosis.

There's a reason why communist countries turned inward during the cold war. It was the constant threat of nuclear incineration from the west.

Mon, 2009-02-02 11:47

Papal Bull

Simultaneously the west committed massive imperialistic atrocities in the post-50s due solely to the threat of communist nuclear annihilation.

Blaming the west for the fact that communism was a shitty form of repressive government that killed millions is stupid. In fact, it is just as stupid as the statement I made prefacing this post.

Quote:
Cumings pays careful attention to the weather and crop disasters of the 1990s. North Korea experienced record-breaking floods (1995 and 1996) followed by an equally severe drought and famine (1997). The author believes that the food shortage problem “has provided little evidence of a collapse of state power, except for breakdowns at the local level.”

Hm, I wonder how much of that had to do with the military first strategy? No break down of state power? For all the mention of NAZIs in this thread, why, the NAZI state didn't start breaking down til' the Allies were on the door steps of the 12-Year Reich.

Additionally, where do Mr. Cumings sources come from, beyond a few anecdotal mentions in that review?

Mon, 2009-02-02 13:47

Fidel

Papal Bull wrote:

Hm, I wonder how much of that had to do with the military first strategy? No break down of state power? For all the mention of NAZIs in this thread, why, the NAZI state didn't start breaking down til' the Allies were on the door steps of the 12-Year Reich.

That is patently false, and an egregious error of historical record.

The allies were busy with the "sideshow in the Mediterranean" Youre talking about the western democracies which chose not to intervene when Franco's fascists overthrew a democratically elected government in Spain. Nay, GM, Ford, and Studebaker actually sent thousands of trucks and jeeps to aid Franco in overthrowing Spanish democracy, as did Hitler and Mussolini help out the old bastard Franco.

Stalin pleaded with western leaders for over two years to provide a second front against the Nazis. And then it happened. Suddenly the tables were turned on fascist invaders at Stalingrad and Leningrad as the Red Army and partisanis fought back.

Stalin then pleaded no more. At a secret backdoor meeting with the two allied leaders, Stalin pounded his fist on the table and demanded," I want a second front against these bastards!"

Tue, 2009-02-03 01:05

Kindrid

The reasons the floods caused so much damage in North Korea and not South Korea is that the North Korean deforested their nation to such an extent out of a need for fuel. The rainwater could not be absorbed by the soil.

The Western Allies had to build up before they could make the D-day landing. It is not like the allies were not pulling their weight until Stalin demanded change. Also, the US helped the USSR with large amounts of aid that the Soviets have always down played its importance.

I don’t understand the significance of Prescott Bush. He was not the US government. The US government at the time was giving large amounts of aid to the UK at that time.

Besides, the Western Allies brought freedom and liberation while the Soviets brought nothing but more oppression.

Tue, 2009-02-03 09:01

Fidel

Kindrid wrote:

The reasons the floods caused so much damage in North Korea and not South Korea is that the North Korean deforested their nation to such an extent out of a need for fuel. The rainwater could not be absorbed by the soil.

It's a matter of geography really. 80 percent of the country is mountainous, and most of the best arable farmland they do have tends to be low lying flatlands near the sea and vulnerable to typhoons. They've lost a lot of soil from highlands washed to lower levels where silt and sand are deposited on farmlands and wreaking havoc with crops there. It's a country about the size of the state of Mississippi, and they lack enough land free of frost for double cropping.

What Koreans want and need is unification. But US military occupation has remained the largest threat to peace in that region of the world throughout the cold war to now.

Quote:
The Western Allies had to build up before they could make the D-day landing. It is not like the allies were not pulling their weight until Stalin demanded change. Also, the US helped the USSR with large amounts of aid that the Soviets have always down played its importance.

The US did help out with aid, but historians say it was largely insignificant for the Soviets who relied on their own weapons and munitions during the most critical years of the war. T-34's and "Stalin's organs" were weapons that won the war of annihilation against the Nazis more than anything we sent them.

Quote:
I don’t understand the significance of Prescott Bush. He was not the US government. The US government at the time was giving large amounts of aid to the UK at that time.

Prescott Bush, Henry Ford. Standard Oil of NJ, IBM, INCO etc all helped build the Nazi war machine. The US ambassador to Germany in 1938 said it was embarrassing to see so many US captains of industry tripping over one another in Berlin while an economic recovery in the US was lagging.

Quote:
Besides, the Western Allies brought freedom and liberation while the Soviets brought nothing but more oppression.

The US didnt join the war in Europe until late 1942. They didnt join the previous war in Europe until late in the second half. Many Americans were eager to join the fight against fascism, and their leaders couldnt hold them back any longer. But the allied leaders werent so concerned about Europe until it became evident that the Red Army was capable of liberating Europe by themselves. When the Nazis attacked Russia, Roosevelt and Churchill fully believed that the Nazis would occupy the Kremlin in about six weeks' time.