The Rich Screw The Poor in Netflix's The Billion Dollar Code And Squid Game -

1.   Billion Dollar Code. 

It tells the story of two young, idealistic, naive German nerds in the early 90s who create a program that allows you to fly via your computer screen to any place on earth.  The story skips back and forth between the story of developing Terra View and the law suit against Google and Google Earth for appropriating their creation and violating their patent. 

I don't know how accurately the series portrays the real events, but even if it's not accurate

1. it's a good story with good characters
2. the general idea of super large corporations buying out, if not stealing, the work of others and thus taking out competition and creating huge Goliath corporations is what is happening in the world.  Just consider that over the years Google has acquired Blogger (the platform for this blog), and YouTube (where I post videos for this blog), 

Code is in German with subtitles, though I suspect you can listen to it all in English, but I didn't check. It's interesting and humbling hearing the attorneys for Terra View's creators switch back and forth between perfect German and perfect English.  

Another nice feature is that there are only four episodes.  And while they are listed in "Season 1" it essentially ended with S1E4.  

For those interested in how our economy favors the wealthy, definitely watch.  

2.  Squid Game

Netflix was pushing Squid Game and I reviewed the brief description and decided I could pass.  It sounded too violent.  But then I read a review about how it was Netflix's biggest hit ever.  So we watched Episode One. 

Way too violent.  

Then I read another review that talked about how it was a critique of capitalism, particularly in South Korea.  How people in debt are offered an opportunity to play a game and potentially win billions of won.  The players get picked up in vans, put to sleep, and driven to a secret island. 

We decided to give it another try.  What I've said above shouldn't spoil any of it for you. All that happened in the beginning of Episode One.  

But it is a very loose commentary on poverty and debt in South Korea which, along with Yuh-Jung Youn's Academy Award winning film Parasite, have revised my sense of how things are actually going for people in South Korea.  In this series - there are nine episodes in season one and enough loose ends that a second season is inevitable - there is lots of violence and a very clear contrast between the very rich and those who keep falling behind economically.  

I don't know that I would recommend Squid Game.  It's interesting, good film making with good visuals and good acting.  But there's also enough blood to fill a Blood Bank.  And some good twists and turns.  

Maybe Vietnam Is The Wrong War For Afghanistan Comparisons

 We keep hearing that Biden has ended the US's longest war.  Technically that's true, but also technically, the Korean War isn't over.  There's never been a peace treaty.  And the US has about 28,500 troops still in Korea, some 60 years after the active shooting war is over.  

There are 80,000 US troops stationed in Japan.  

And 35,000 more in Germany.

What's different about Germany, Japan, and Korea from Vietnam and Afghanistan?  First Germany and Japan.  Both were soundly defeated in WWII.  Germany was divided by the Soviet Union, the US, France, and England.  The Soviet Union, which controlled East Germany, was seen as the biggest threat to West Germany.  

Japan was also soundly defeated and ruled by the Allied forces, though effectively headed by General Douglas MacArthur.  A democratic Constitution for Japan was created under MacArthur's leadership.  Japan's two greatest adversaries were neighboring China and the Soviet Union.  Again, the US presence served as protection for the severely battered post-WWII Japan.  

South Korea was threatened by North Korea supported by the Chinese.  The US helped keep the North Koreans and their Chinese allies from taking over South Korea.  

In all three cases, the US was seen as a military protection from outside invasion - China in Korea's case, the Soviet Union and China in Japan's case, and the Soviet Union in West Germany's case.  

In contrast, both in Vietnam and Afghanistan, the US was supporting a government that was more aligned with foreign powers.  Vietnam had recently gotten rid of the French colonial rulers.  The US came in backing the Catholic French colonial Vietnamese against the indigenous Buddhist Vietnamese.  

In Afghanistan, again, the Kabul government was aligned with the US against Afghan groups - Taliban and local tribal leaders.  It's more complicated than that, of course, but basically the Muslim nation was fighting a basically Christian outside force.  

In both Vietnam and Afghanistan, there was outside support for the North Vietnamese and the Taliban, but it was to oust was was seen as an occupying force from the West.  

So in the cases of Vietnam and Afghanistan, the US military was fighting a war, far away from home, in a country they knew little or nothing about.  They didn't speak the language and needed interpreters or locals who spoke English to communicate.  They couldn't tell their friends from their enemies.  Their opponents were fighting for their homeland and to expel the invaders.  

Perhaps this is one of the key lessons we should have learned.  We can support countries that see us as allies against their fight against a feared enemy.  We oughtn't, otherwise, be outsiders picking a side in a civil war, especially in countries we (the average US citizen and the soldiers) know little or nothing about.  

And, of course, we should not assume that what happens us in the future will be exact matches to what happened in the past.  We must be careful to choose our models carefully and to weigh various factors.  

And the world has to figure out how to protect humans from their own ruthless rulers.  It's all very thorny and no one emerges unscathed.  

Blogger Changes, Afghanistan, North Korea's Security Threat

 Blogging Changes:  This notice started popping up when I've opened my blog posting page.  For those of you with an email subscription - blogger says there are 1,342  FeedBurner subscribers - after July 2021 you won't get your emails of new posts.  Here's the notice:

FollowByEmail widget (Feedburner) is going away 

You are receiving this information because your blog uses the FollowByEmail widget (Feedburner). 
Recently, the Feedburner team released a system update announcement , that the email subscription service will be discontinued in July 2021. 
After July 2021, your feed will still continue to work, but the automated emails to your subscribers will no longer be supported. If you’d like to continue sending emails, you can download your subscriber contacts. Learn how

I'm still trying to figure out how to move the email subscribers to a different automated email system.  Although it sounds like they are being helpful - "Learn how" for example - the links aren't really very intuitive.  

So, this is an alert.  I'm not concerned yet.  I have a couple of months to figure it out.  I'll let you know more later.  

Should We Get Out Of Afghanistan?  This is not something I've delved into deeply.  They're my thoughts based on generally following the news plus reading more deeply on various other world events, including the Vietnam war.  Below are links to what others are arguing.  I didn't read those until after I wrote my own thoughts out.

Arguments for getting out:

1.  We've been there 20 years and it's our longest war so far and staying longer doesn't promise conditions will improve

2.  First the British, then the Russians got bogged down in Afghanistan.  Both, particularly Russia, are geographically much closer but eventually saw their wars in Afghanistan as unwindable.  We should recognize that there are some things we simply can't do.

3.  Like Vietnam, we are supporting a corrupt government against a dedicated local army.  Much of the corruption is created by the billions of dollars in aid and equipment the US sends to Afghanistan.

4.  Voice of America reports some 241,000 people have been killed in the Afghan war.  (I'm assuming the site is actually Voice of America, but I'm not sure.)  So our presence hasn't been terrific for the Afghan people anyway.  

4.  There are humanitarian horror zones in a number of countries around the world - Burma, Yemen, for example - but we aren't arguing to intervene there.

5.  There are other security issues that will be compromised because of our military commitment in Afghanistan.  

Arguments for staying:

1.  Terrible things are likely to happen when we leave.  

2.  The status of women in Afghanistan will be worsened by our departure.  

Sunk costs refer to the money (or other resources) one has already spent on a particularly project.  Psychologically, once we started something, we want to finish it, to regain those loses.  It's a bad reason to stay.  Yes, terrible things are likely to happen when we leave, but terrible things have happened regularly to the Afghan people throughout the time we've been there.  And the costs to the US in dollars and in the mental and physical health of the soldiers who have been there is staggering.

Sometimes you have to take the least bad option.  For the US, that seems to be leaving Afghanistan. For the women of Afghanistan, it's not looking rosy.  

Vox staying for leaving

Vox case for staying

Brookings:  The Decision to Withdraw fromAfghanistan is the Right One

Lawfare Blog:  The Logic of Staying in Afghanistan and the Logic of Getting Out

On Kim Jung Il's Threat In Response to Biden

There was a short news blurb in the Anchorage Daily News today:

"North Korea on Sunday warned that the United States will face 'a very grave situation' and alleged that President Joe Biden 'made a big blunder' in his recent speech by calling the North a security threat."

Actually, it seems like North Korea confirmed Biden's assessment of the threat.   

Green Grass In December, Parasite, Broken Glass

This is not what our front yard normally looks like in December.  And it was covered with snow a few days ago.  But then it got into the 40s.

OK, we've often had bits of warm weather once or twice in winter, but we've had record warm months just about every month this year.

Trump calls Climate Change a hoax.  Note that he also calls the impeachment a hoax.


I also managed to fix a faucet that had been causing a drip.

And last night we skipped the film festival to see the movie Parasite.  They'd been showing the trailer at the Bear Tooth during the festival and people were saying it was really good.  It was playing here just for three nights and I decided this was the best night to miss the festival films.  

Director Bong Joon-ho's Parasite won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year.  Bong's Snowpiercer was one of the early Netflix films we saw that convinced us to stick with Netflix.  All I'll say is that Parasite is a dark movie about rich and poor in Korea.  And the preview that we saw several times waiting for film festival movies, was always worth watching and didn't really give anything away. That's all I'll say for now because I think people should see it for themselves.  

And in line with the theme of economic inequality, when we got out to the car, J found the passenger side window had been smashed in.    911 told me to call 311 and they told me to report online.  

I went back into the Bear Tooth to tell them and they said they'd check the security cameras.  Meanwhile outside J saw another woman who's window had also been smashed.  

Here's what it looked like when we got it home after a chilly ride.  From what we can tell, nothing was actually taken.  J had a cloth shopping back on the seat, but nothing was in it.  The quarters for parking meters weren't touched.  The garage door opener was there.  The timer light plug and the book I'd just bought were all there.   I think they probably couldn't figure out how to unlock the door on that old Subaru.

State Farm and Speedy Glass were quick and efficient and J's waiting for the new window already.  But whether this is a homeless issue or a drug issue or just petty theft, it's a symptom of our economic inequalities and our lack of good, effective schooling and and physical and mental health care.

Back to the film festival tonight.

Learning The News By Seeing Who Visits What Post On My Blog

A post on the Earth Null School has suddenly started getting lots of hits from people in Korea.  So I decided to see if I could figure out why.

Earth Null School has a dynamic map of the world showing wind, currents, air,  among other things. [Click on EARTH in lower left to get options.]  So I went to the site and looked around.  You can see the hurricane headed toward Hawaii.  And then I spun the globe, so to speak, and saw two more little swirling balls - one off Japan and one headed to Korea.

Japan is the island with the orange weather pattern.  And to the left of that is a yellow ball at the southern tip of Korea.  If you go to the Earth Null School page, all these wind patterns are moving.

Accu-weather says:

"After grazing southern Japan, Severe Tropical Storm Soulik is on track to sweep across the Korean Peninsula through Friday.
As AccuWeather predicted, Soulik reached the equivalent of a Category 3 major hurricane in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific basins at its peak. Soulik has since weakened to a severe tropical storm."

And here's a Washington Post story on all three storms - Hawaii, Korea, and Japan.

"Three tropical cyclones are lined up in the Pacific Ocean, and one, Hurricane Lane, may hit Hawaii in a few days. The other two, Typhoons Soulik and Cimaron, will crash into east Asia, directly affecting South Korea and Japan later this week.
All three storms contain winds of at least 74 mph, indicating hurricane strength (typhoons and hurricanes are the same kind of storm, but have different names depending on the section of ocean they traverse). Typhoons Soulik and Cimaron are on a collision course with the Asian continent, and effects from torrential rain, strong winds, and dangerous surf appear unavoidable"

 I'm assuming that as Koreans are preparing for some weather, the word got out that you could see it coming toward them at Earth Null School and google offered them my old post.  That's purely speculation.  

Comparing the Joint Statements of Trump and Kim Jong Un and of Nixon and Chou Enlai

I keep hearing about the statement from Singapore saying little or nothing, so I thought I'd read it and put it up here for people to see.  Then I thought it would be useful to get some sort of benchmark to compare it to.  So I found the Shanghai Communique released after Nixon's visit to China in 1972.

Some things to think about when reading through these two documents:
1.  The basic purpose of Nixon's visit was to simply start a dialogue with the most populous nation in the world after decades of the US denying the existence of China and supporting Taiwan instead.   Trump's visit had some similarities because the US and North Korea had no diplomatic relations for decades either.  However, in the present case, Trump was visiting a pariah nation and there was growing concern about North Korea's nuclear weapons. Trump's goal to 'denuclearize' the Korean Peninsula.
2.  In the current statement, the names of the two leaders are in the title.  In the 1972 statement, they are not.  Probably not a big deal, but still telling.
3.  In both statements there are a lot of vague commitments with no actual specific steps or deadlines.  In the Singapore statement, the most specific commitment is that North Korea "commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."  A further specific commitment is to return identified remains of POW's and MIA's.
The Shanghai agreement goes through many more issues including Vietnam (the US was still fighting there at the time), peace between India and China in Jammu and Kashmir, peace in Korea,  and China and the US commit to a one China policy and the US will withdraw military bases from Taiwan. This was a huge concession on the part of Nixon radically changing US policy on China. There is also mention of cultural exchanges.
4.  The Singapore statement includes a bit of self-aggrandizement when it mentions "a first, historic summit"   and later, "Having acknowledged that the U.S.-DPRK summit — the first in history — was an epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future . . "  (emphasis added)  The Shanghai statement has no such language.

Nixon went to the most populous country in the world - opening relations that both saw as beneficial for trade and for peace in Asia and the world.  Trump went to one of the poorest nations with a population of 25 million (the 52nd largest in the world).  Trump went to denuclearize North Korea.  And the statement shows commitment to that goal.  As much as the Shanghai Communique shows commitment to any of their goals.  Though in the Shanghai case, the two countries met, if not quite as equals, then as two of the most powerful nations on earth.  And without any clear agenda items (such as the denuclearization goal) other than to establish contact and begin to regularize relations.

Singapore Statement

Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit
President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a first, historic summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018.
President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un conducted a comprehensive, in-depth, and sincere exchange of opinions on the issues related to the establishment of new U.S.-DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Convinced that the establishment of new U.S.-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:
1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new U.S.-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
2. The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
Having acknowledged that the U.S.-DPRK summit — the first in history — was an epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un commit to implement the stipulations in this joint statement fully and expeditiously. The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-up negotiations, led by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the U.S.-DPRK summit.
President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new U.S.-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.
(Signed)
DONALD J. TRUMP
President of the United States of America
KIM JONG UN
Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
June 12, 2018
Sentosa Island
Singapore

And here's the Shanghai Communique (as best as I can tell) issued jointly by China and the US after Nixon's visit in 1972.  

203. Joint Statement Following Discussions With Leaders of the People’s Republic of China1Shanghai, February 27, 1972.President Richard Nixon of the United States of America visited the People’s Republic of China at the invitation of Premier Chou Enlai of the People’s Republic of China from February 21 to February 28, 1972. Accompanying the President were Mrs. Nixon, U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers, Assistant to the President Dr. Henry Kissinger, and other American officials.
President Nixon met with Chairman Mao Tse-tung of the Communist Party of China on February 21. The two leaders had a serious and frank exchange of views on Sino-U.S. relations and world affairs.
During the visit, extensive, earnest, and frank discussions were held between President Nixon and Premier Chou En-lai on the normalization of relations between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China, as well as on other matters of interest to both sides. In addition, Secretary of State William Rogers and Foreign Minister Chi P’eng-fei held talks in the same spirit.
President Nixon and his party visited Peking and viewed cultural, industrial and agricultural sites, and they also toured Hangchow and Shanghai where, continuing discussions with Chinese leaders, they viewed similar places of interest.
The leaders of the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America found it beneficial to have this opportunity, after so many years without contact, to present candidly to one another their views on a variety of issues. They reviewed the international situation in which important changes and great upheavals are taking place and expounded their respective positions and attitudes.
The U.S. side stated: Peace in Asia and peace in the world requires efforts both to reduce immediate tensions and to eliminate the basic causes of conflict. The United States will work for a just and secure peace: just, because it fulfills the aspirations of peoples and nations for freedom and progress; secure, because it removes the danger of foreign aggression. The United States supports individual freedom and social progress for all the peoples of the world, free of outside pressure or intervention. The United States believes that the effort to [Page 813]reduce tensions is served by improving communication between countries that have different ideologies so as to lessen the risks of confrontation through accident, miscalculation or misunderstanding. Countries should treat each other with mutual respect and be willing to compete peacefully, letting performance be the ultimate judge. No country should claim infallibility and each country should be prepared to re-examine its own attitudes for the common good. The United States stressed that the peoples of Indochina should be allowed to determine their destiny without outside intervention; its constant primary objective has been a negotiated solution; the eight-point proposal put forward by the Republic of Vietnam and the United States on January 27, 1972 represents a basis for the attainment of that objective; in the absence of a negotiated settlement the United States envisages the ultimate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the region consistent with the aim of self-determination for each country of Indochina. The United States will maintain its close ties with and support for the Republic of Korea; the United States will support efforts of the Republic of Korea to seek a relaxation of tension and increased communication in the Korean peninsula. The United States places the highest value on its friendly relations with Japan; it will continue to develop the existing close bonds. Consistent with the United Nations Security Council Resolution of December 21, 1971, the United States favors the continuation of the ceasefire between India and Pakistan and the withdrawal of all military forces to within their own territories and to their own sides of the ceasefire line in Jammu and Kashmir; the United States supports the right of the peoples of South Asia to shape their own future in peace, free of military threat, and without having the area become the subject of great power rivalry.
The Chinese side stated: Wherever there is oppression, there is resistance. Countries want independence, nations want liberation and the people want revolution—this has become the irresistible trend of history. All nations, big or small, should be equal; big nations should not bully the small and strong nations should not bully the weak. China will never be a superpower and it opposes hegemony and power politics of any kind. The Chinese side stated that it firmly supports the struggles of all the oppressed people and nations for freedom and liberation and that the people of all countries have the right to choose their social systems according to their own wishes and the right to safeguard the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of their own countries and oppose foreign aggression, interference, control and subversion. All foreign troops should be withdrawn to their own countries.
The Chinese side expressed its firm support to the peoples of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in their efforts for the attainment of their [Page 814]goal and its firm support to the seven-point proposal of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam and the elaboration of February this year on the two key problems in the proposal, and to the Joint Declaration of the Summit Conference of the Indochinese Peoples. It firmly supports the eight-point program for the peaceful unification of Korea put forward by the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on April 12, 1971, and the stand for the abolition of the “U.N. Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea.” It firmly opposes the revival and outward expansion of Japanese militarism and firmly supports the Japanese people’s desire to build an independent, democratic, peaceful and neutral Japan. It firmly maintains that India and Pakistan should, in accordance with the United Nations resolutions on the India-Pakistan question, immediately withdraw all their forces to their respective territories and to their own sides of the ceasefire line in Jammu and Kashmir and firmly supports the Pakistan Government and people in their struggle to preserve their independence and sovereignty and the people of Jammu and Kashmir in their struggle for the right of self-determination.
There are essential differences between China and the United States in their social systems and foreign policies. However, the two sides agreed that countries, regardless of their social systems, should conduct their relations on the principles of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, nonaggression against other states, noninterference in the internal affairs of other states, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. International disputes should be settled on this basis, without resorting to the use or threat of force. The United States and the People’s Republic of China are prepared to apply these principles to their mutual relations.
With these principles of international relations in mind the two sides stated that:
—progress toward the normalization of relations between China and the United States is in the interests of all countries;
—both wish to reduce the danger of international military conflict;
—neither should seek hegemony in the Asia–Pacific region and each is opposed to efforts by any other country or group of countries to establish such hegemony; and
—neither is prepared to negotiate on behalf of any third party or to enter into agreements or understandings with the other directed at other states.
Both sides are of the view that it would be against the interests of the peoples of the world for any major country to collude with another against other countries, or for major countries to divide up the world into spheres of interest.
[Page 815]
The two sides reviewed the long-standing serious disputes between China and the United States. The Chinese side reaffirmed its position: The Taiwan question is the crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations between China and the United States; the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China; Taiwan is a province of China which has long been returned to the motherland; the liberation of Taiwan is China’s internal affair in which no other country has the right to interfere; and all U.S. forces and military installations must be withdrawn from Taiwan. The Chinese Government firmly opposes any activities which aim at the creation of “one China, one Taiwan,” “one China, two governments,” “two Chinas,” and “independent Taiwan” or advocate that “the status of Taiwan remains to be determined.”
The U.S. side declared: The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan. In the meantime, it will progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes.
The two sides agreed that it is desirable to broaden the understanding between the two peoples. To this end, they discussed specific areas in such fields as science, technology, culture, sports and journalism, in which people-to-people contacts and exchanges would be mutually beneficial. Each side undertakes to facilitate the further development of such contacts and exchanges.
Both sides view bilateral trade as another area from which mutual benefit can be derived, and agreed that economic relations based on equality and mutual benefit are in the interest of the people of the two countries. They agree to facilitate the progressive development of trade between their two countries.
The two sides agreed that they will stay in contact through various channels, including the sending of a senior U.S. representative to Peking from time to time for concrete consultations to further the normalization of relations between the two countries and continue to exchange views on issues of common interest.
The two sides expressed the hope that the gains achieved during this visit would open up new prospects for the relations between the two countries. They believe that the normalization of relations between the two countries is not only in the interest of the Chinese and American peoples but also contributes to the relaxation of tension in Asia and the world.
[Page 816]
President Nixon, Mrs. Nixon and the American party expressed their appreciation for the gracious hospitality shown them by the Government and people of the People’s Republic of China.2
Source: Public Papers: Nixon, 1972, pp. 376–379. Commonly known as the Shanghai Communiqué.↩
A Note following the text of the communiqué reads: “The joint statement was released at Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. On the same day, the White House released a statement by Press Secretary Ronald L. Ziegler and the transcript of a news briefing on the joint statement. Participants in the news briefing were Henry A. Kissinger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and Marshall Green, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. The statement and the transcript are printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 8, pp. 480 and 476).” On February 14, the White House released a statement by Ziegler on further relaxation of trade with the People’s Republic of China. The statement is printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 8, p. 438). On February 21 the White House released a statement and transcript of a news briefing by Ziegler on the President’s meeting with Chairman Mao Tse-tung. The statement is ibid., p. 466.↩
CHINA, 1969–1972

Optimistically, one could argue that Trump understood Kim as he understood the white working class in the US.  He saw them as having a strong need for respect from others.  A need that Trump himself seems to have.  If he's right on this, perhaps being on equal footing the president of the United States will give him what he needs to stop his nuclear weapon program.  It's possible.  But as all but the most ardent Trump fans have been saying, there are no timetables, not concrete steps, no discussions of how to verify. It would be great if things progressed as Trump sees things.  I'd be willing to acknowledge Trump did a great thing, if it works out.  But there's a lot that can go wrong, not the least is Trump's twitter addiction.  Some one night stands become more than that.  But in most cases the glow fades quickly.

But looking at the two documents, I'd say that the China one has more detail on a wider range of topics and is more diplomatic in its language, but there aren't any more specifics about the next steps and no deadlines.  That peace on the Korean peninsula they both supported, well, it's 35 years later and we've been in one of the tensest periods in decades.

Is Trump Walking Into Kim's Trap?

Some folks keep suspending reality and hoping that maybe Trump can pull this off.  He'll know, he's said, in the first  minute, whether he and Kim will click.

“Within the first minute, I’ll know. My touch, my feel — that’s what I do,” 

That reminds me of Bush's assessment of Putin:

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country." 

I understand how people often connect on some sort of physical/psychic level instantly.  But people don't always admit to how wrong some of those first impressions were.  Many psychopaths are pretty good at dissembling.  Ted Bundy was said to have been charming, before he raped, mutilated, and killed his victims (at least 30.)

We know that Putin has charmed Trump already, or has enough on him to get Trump to wreak havoc with Western unity, a plot that can only strengthens Putin's hand in dealing with Europe and the rest of the world.

An LA Times story offers some history lessons on summits:

"But Kennedy’s most consequential summit, which came just months into his presidency, was an unmitigated disaster, according to historians.
Despite careful preparation, the young president did not heed the warnings of advisors familiar with his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, whom he met in Vienna in June 1961. Kennedy’s attempts to establish a friendly rapport, which experts had cautioned him against, came across as weakness.
After the summit, he knew immediately he’d blown it, as did William Lloyd Stearman, a national security aide who traveled with Kennedy to Vienna.
'It was Al Capone meets Little Boy Blue,” Stearman said last week. “Kennedy was not used to dealing with a thug like Khrushchev. And the Cuban missile crisis can be traced back to Khrushchev’s feeling that Kennedy was weak.'”

Of course, this means that Khrushchev's take on Kennedy was wrong as well.  

The Times article says later:

“This [Trump] is a neophyte who has given every indication that he does not like to do his homework, and the cost could end up being very great,” said presidential historian Michael Beschloss. “We’ve never seen a president who wears as such a badge of honor that he won’t prepare. There’s no president in American history that has done that, and certainly not on a summit as important as this.

I'm sure Trump supporters love this stuff.  They voted for Trump to thumb his nose at the 'elite' (how is a billionaire not a member of the elite?) and to do it his way.  The article goes on further to compare Trump to Nixon and his negotiations with China.  

And while Trump says he doesn't need to do homework for the summit, another LA Times article argues that the North Koreans have been preparing for this meeting a long time.  

"Kim and a team of advisors who have followed U.S. politics for decades have been studying Trump since before the 2016 presidential election, hanging on to statements he made as a candidate, such as his now-famous offer at a rally in Atlanta in 2016 to sit down with Kim over a hamburger.
“Maybe nobody else was paying attention, but the North Koreans listened to every word,” said Leon V. Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council.
Since then, each move has been carefully coordinated, including sending Kim’s attractive kid sister (North Korea’s “Ivanka,” the media has called her) in the delegation to the Winter Olympics in South Korea, and the enormous white envelope that North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol handed Trump at a White House meeting on June 1.
'Trump’s psychology is pretty obvious to just about every leader in the world. He doesn’t like to be criticized. He loves to be stroked. He’s interested in the bold stroke, especially if he’s at the center of it,' Sigal said. 'And that gave the North Koreans the sense that this was somebody they could work with.'”

Trump probably has a lot more experience dealing with thugs than Kennedy had.  As many have noted, he and Kim have a lot of similar characteristics.  But I'm pretty sure Kim is focused on the substantive stuff much more than Trump.  For one thing, just meeting with Trump will be a huge victory for Kim. Such a meeting IS substantive for Kim.  No other US president has deigned to meet with a North Korean leader.  But it's a concession for Trump, even though he will take full advantage of what great television it will make.

But Trump wants 'denuclearization' and Kim wants relief from sanctions.  Denuclearization doesn't happen overnight, but relief from sanctions could.  Kim could promise all sorts of things over time, and then not deliver.  Trump could call it a victory.  And probably will no matter what happens.  Trump, in his own press releases, always makes the greatest deals in world history  But, barring things blowing up in Trump's first minute assessment of Kim, we probably won't know for at least a year or two if Kim follows up on his promises.

Or Trump may not even care.  Giving Kim what he wants may be just what Putin ordered Trump to do.  Russia does border North Korea - to take one more dive that hurts the US and helps Putin's long-term geo-political power.  But Trump will paper over whatever the outcome and call it a great victory, just as he's done with Climate Change, Brexit, his tariffs, etc.  all of which would seem to be great victories for Putin.

It's in Kim's and Trump's interests to be able to declare these talks successful.  And both will want that to be how the summit is framed.

I would be more than happy forTrump to seriously ease tensions in the Korean Peninsula, but in a way that doesn't give away the farm.  Some have argued that Kim wants not only the removal of economic sanctions, but also the removal of US troops from South Korea.  And then he can unite the peninsula under his rule.  As China takes over a greater part of the waters of Southeast Asia, in ten or fifteen years, the US wouldn't be able to stop such a takeover.  Particularly if US troops leave South Korea.  

We'll see.

Once again, this weekend has proven how well Trump plays the media and makes sure his antics are in the headlines every day, distracting from all the damage his administration is doing while they can.  

We Should Praise The President, When Praise Is Due

If Trump ever meets with Kim Jong Un and they work out a plan that denuclearizes the Korean peninsula, the folks on the Left ought to give Trump credit.

I played with this thought as we moved toward the summit in Singapore. Then Trump's cancellation seemed to reinforce my hesitation.  I ended up writing about how it seemed to me that Trump really only cares about policy if he thinks it will burnish his image, his brand, his fortunes, his sexual reputation.  (Note, he's one of the few, if not the only high profile male who's been accused of sexual predation but hasn't apologized, resigned, or been indicted.)

Talking about policy triumphs is difficult because it takes a while to determine if something actually was a good thing or not.  The 1991 first war against Iraq that pushed them out of Kuwait seems to have worked.  But Jr.'s attack on Iraq a decade later seems to be a total disaster.  We were supposedly going in because of weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be non-existent.  (Just as LBJ's premise for entering the Vietnam war was fabricated.)  We were supposedly avenging the 3000 deaths in the World Trade Center attacks.  There have been about 200,000 Iraqi civilian deaths to date.  Saddam Hussein was NOT a man to admire, but like Tito in Yugoslavia, he maintained peace among different ethnic groups in Iraq.   More importantly for some, Saddam's Iraq was a major force for keeping Iran in check.

I'm not defending Saddam here.  There would have been many civilian deaths had he stayed in power.  And one could argue that the young men he sacrificed in wars against Iran, had been civilians before they were forced into the military.  But it didn't need to be the United States' problem.  Our desire to help oppressed people is laudable (when that isn't simply an excuse to help US corporations access raw materials like oil).  But sometimes if someone is drowning, jumping in after them only results in the rescuer drowning as well as the original victim.

The Arab spring seemed like a loosening of harsh rule in various countries.  But when we look at Libya and Syria and Egypt now, the end results aren't all that good.

So, lauding Trump for arranging a meeting with Kim Jong Un seemed premature at best.  After all, any of our presidents could have met with Kim or his father.  Meeting with them is NOT a victory for the US, but it IS a victory for North Korea.  A victory for the US depends on what the US gets in return for giving the head of North Korea equal footing with the president of the United States.

Is there a chance, as Trump now hints post cancellation, that the meeting might actually happen?  The one attribute Trump has that past presidents didn't which could give him an edge, is that he's just as volatile, outrageous, and unpredictable as Kim Jong Un.  Perhaps even more so.  Thus, there's a chance that they actually understand each other.  But don't hold your breath.

Kim went to a German language high school in Switzerland.  He went to school with people from a variety of countries.  And he and his country have been focused on the US for all his life, while I'm not sure Trump could have found Korea on a map before he was president.  (May not be able to now.)  I suspect that despite appearances, Kim is far better prepared to deal with the US than vice-versa.

Furthermore, Trump reverses himself so often, that one has to be cautious.  What seems good  (or possibly promising) right now could be reversed by a tweet in an hour.  So praising our president for anything is a risky business.  Time will tell if he ever does something that improves the United States or the world.  So far, there is infinitely more damage being done than we can keep track of.  That too will take time to sort out.  (Yes, I can go through a list of things that I see as damaging, but it seems evident to me and others.  Those who are skeptical aren't likely to be persuaded by a list. But we could go into it more if you leave serious comments.)

So, Where Should Trump And Kim Meet?

The obvious first choices are Pyongyang and Washington DC.  But that would require one to come to the other, to meet on the other's home turf.  Let's back up and set some key criteria for determining the location?

Criterion 1 - they should meet on relatively neutral ground.
Criterion 2 - each should travel roughly the same distance
Criterion 3 - Security, both need to feel safe

These seem to be the biggies.  I would guess only #3 is a deal breaker.  If one side gives in on one criterion then they need to gain on another, or on what comes out of the talks.  So Pyongyang and DC are not totally out of the question, but if Trump goes to North Korea, Kim would have to agree to close down his nuclear weapons.  That would be my condition at least.  If Kim came to DC, he'd have  to at least to go to an NBA game. But security might be an issue like it was for Kruschev when we was denied a visit to Disneyland in 1959.

So where else might they meet?

There's Switzerland - a neutral country of sorts - where Kim went to school.

Anchorage is almost half-way between Pyongyang and DC - a little closer to Korea, but part of the US.  By mid to late May the leaves will be back on the trees.  And there's a small but visible (South) Korean population.

Or out on a ship in the North Pacific in international waters?  Whose ship?  FDR met Churchill on a ship of Newfoundland in August 1941.  But that was a secret meeting - FDR told the press he was going on a short fishing trip.  Churchill had to brave German u-boats to get there.  Security was important, but it was a meeting of close allies.  It was not a highly publicized meeting like this one will be.

Beijing would be happy to host, I'm sure.  The US leans on China to deal with its neighbor.  It could work, but then Xi would get some of the glory.  Probably not.

And then there's Moscow.  Putin could just tell Trump directly what he wanted him to do.  And Russia borders North Korea too.  And Trump could bask in Putin's macho image.

Seoul?  They were the messenger to Trump about the invitation.  But security and other issues would seem to be a big hurdle.

When President Johnson agreed to peace talks with the North Vietnamese, location took a while to settle:

Geneva, where the 1954 talks had been held that resulted in the division of Vietnam into North and South. Hanoi rejected this on the grounds that it had ‘unhappy memories’. It then suggested Phnom Penh. This was rejected by Washington. Instead, the US offered 5 other capitals in Southeast and South Asia, including New Delhi, which was favoured by Saigon. Hanoi rejected these options and proposed Warsaw, which the US also rejected. The US then countered by proposing 9 capitals all of which were again rejected. Ultimately, after weeks of bargaining, Paris was chosen as the site to hold preliminary talks (officially referred to as ‘official conversations’ to avoid being confused with ‘negotiations’). 

Then came the question of who would be invited, and then there was the battle over the shape of the table:

These discussions, which began in November 1968, were centred on questions about the shape of the conference table, how many tables there should be, and how they would be placed. These discussions became known as the ‘battle of the tables’ and would last ten weeks until mid-January 1969 as fighting continued to rage and Richard Nixon won the presidential election. From the start, it was recognized that a triangular table (with the North Vietnamese/NLF combined but the US and South Vietnamese separate) would be a non-starter as it would imply that the Communist side was outnumbered two-to-one.  [These two quotes came from Defense In Depth]

I can sympathize with Trump wanting to get past all these seemingly petty details of status and appearance, but it's March 11 now, and the proposed meeting is in May, so they don't have time to dawdle on such things.   Can the 'Mentally deranged U.S. dotard' and the 'little rocket man' get over their past insults to resolve all these details that quickly?

And just for the record, let me put Mar-a-Lago on the list.  It defies my criteria, but it wouldn't surprise me.


This Won't Be Nixon's Trip To China

I remember being in the car during the summer of 1971 a winding road along a river somewhere in Idaho, when we heard on the radio that Nixon was going to China.  Perhaps Trump remembers that too and how Nixon got so much glory from that.  But this is not the same.  China was the most populous country in the world and through a rabid anti-communism combined with support for the nationalist Chinese who had had to flee to Taiwan, the US had spent years pretending that Taiwan was China and the mainland didn't really exist.  Or at best was a temporarily runaway province of Taiwan.  Nixon's move, preceded by months of negotiations by the adept if ethically-flawed Henry Kissinger, was really bringing the US to a reality its leaders had ignored for decades.

This meeting with Kim Jong Un is something entirely different.  First, and foremost, it's a distraction from all the political hornets swarming around the White House.  There's a certain part of me that agrees with Trump, that the State Department is often so full of itself*, it can't do things simply because, 'well, we just don't do that.  We have to go by protocol.'  But the career people at the State Department have done their homework and understand the implications of what they say and do.  No matter how cautiously.  Trump still thinks this is some simple business deal where he can sit down and work things out over a meal.  He'll use his great ability to read people to decide what to do - and that won't happen until the middle of the meeting.  (Of course, that's said with the long list of people who have left their positions in the Trump administration in mind.)


*I'm biased here.  Back in 1970, when I was slowly making my way home from Peace Corps Thailand, the package of materials that came with the news that I'd passed the Foreign Service written exam, caught up with me while I was visiting a friend in Uganda.  I went to the embassy in Kampala to talk to someone about what life in the foreign service was like.  He spent the whole time telling me about all the servants I would have and the protocol of calling cards and who comes and goes first at official parties.  That, and the idea of having to officially defend the US military in Vietnam, led me to skip the next step in the process - the interview.  I know that the State Department has changed over the years, but I do believe a bit of the upper crust proper way of doing things still persists.

Trump Threatens To Kill (At Least) 25.3 Million People

[Note to Readers:  This was meant to be a short response to Trump's comment at the UN this morning about destroying North Korea.  But as I read the whole speech, (which you can read here) I realized that there was a lot more to it than just that comment.  Though that comment certainly stands out.  Analyzing the whole talk is worthwhile.  My initial reaction is: 

• There are a lot of worthwhile aspirational ideals
• There are lots of contradictions between those ideals in some places and what he says in other places.
• There is nothing particularly thoughtful or detailed.  
• There are some parts that might be revealing of how Trump thinks about the world (though I suspect he tends to 'feel' rather than 'think')

When I tried to find some factual reference for the consequences of the US attacking North Korea, I found a long New Yorker article dated yesterday by Evan Osnos who was in North Korea in August.  The article itself offers a lot of context for North Korea's behavior, for our (mis)interpretations or them and theirs of us.  

So I'm going to stick to the comment on destroying North Korea in this post, recommend the New Yorker  article to readers, and maybe be able to review the speech and the article in separate posts.]

Post starts here:

Trump doesn't exactly say he's ready to kill 25.3 million people.  I doubt he has any idea of the population of North Korea or has visualized what his threat would mean. Here's what he actually said:

"The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary. That’s what the United Nations is all about; that’s what the United Nations is for. Let’s see how they do."

There are SO MANY different angles one could (and should) address this.  I'm just going to look at the implications of "totally destroying North Korea."  

1.  North Korea had 25.37 million people in 2016.  But experts argue that an attack on North Korea cannot be undertaken without North Korea also attacking South Korea, whose population was estimated to be 51 million in 2016.  

From a long New Yorker article by Evan Osnos, dated September 18, 2017: 

"The Obama Administration studied the potential costs and benefits of a preventive war intended to destroy North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Its conclusion, according to Rice, in the Times, was that it would be “lunacy,” resulting in “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of casualties.” North Korea likely would retaliate with an attack on Seoul. The North has positioned thousands of artillery cannons and rocket launchers in range of the South Korean capital, which has a population of ten million, and other densely populated areas. (Despite domestic pressure to avoid confrontation, South Korea’s President, Moon Jae-in, has accepted the installation of an American missile-defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or thaad.)
Some two hundred thousand Americans live in South Korea. (Forty thousand U.S. military personnel are stationed in Japan, which would also be vulnerable.) A 2012 study of the risks of a North Korean attack on Seoul, by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, estimates that sixty-five thousand civilians would die on the first day, and tens of thousands more in the days that followed. If Kim used his stockpiles of sarin gas and biological weapons, the toll would reach the millions. U.S. and South Korean forces could eventually overwhelm the North Korean military, but, by any measure, the conflict would yield one of the worst mass killings in the modern age."

Were Trump to really attempt to 'totally destroy North Korea' he would find himself moved high onto the top ten list of the world's mass murderers - along with Stalin, Hitler, and Mao.

There are many ways one can look at this statement.

• Is it just bluster?  
• What kind of language is appropriate in the UN?  
• How will the UN members react?
• How will North Korea react?
• Does Trump's behavior give license to others to act badly?

All of these could be discussed seriously.

• Are there times when bluster is appropriate and inappropriate.  One could argue that Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump might have a lot of similarities and thus can understand each other's bluster.  But that's open to a lot of debate.  
• One could argue that the UN is overly stuffy and people say what's polite and never confront serious issues and thus some bluster is needed to shake the place up.  I think that might be true on some issues, but frank talk does not equal bluster.  
• Maybe, as the rest of the paragraph suggests, this 'totally destroy' language is simply to provoke the UN to do its job of ensuring peace.  

I would note that Kim Jong Un might rather like the nickname "Rocket Man."  From the New Yorker  article:

"On an embankment near a major intersection, workers in gray coveralls were installing an enormous red sign that praised the 'immortal achievements of the esteemed Supreme Leader, comrade Kim Jong Un, who built the nuclear state of Juche, the leader in rocket power!'”

Go read the New Yorker article, it's got much more meat than I can add here.  

Turntable's Working Right Again Thanks To Old Fashioned Craftsman

The turntable is old.  From the sixties, and it had a serious problem:  the arm didn't lift high enough when the record was finished and it scratched its way back.  The only way I could safely listen to a record was to be careful to catch the arm when the record was done.  You know I'm going to miss my cue now and then.

I'm listing to Aftermath as I write this thanks to Jan Ok Han who runs Sunset Service out of his house.  I got his name from Obsession Records a while ago and I finally called him a couple of weeks ago.  He repairs electronic equipment, like turntables, and he also teaches guitar.  When I dropped the turntable off we had a wide-ranging conversation that included a history lesson on Korea and Japan and information on classical guitar in Anchorage.  That's what I meant in the title about old-fashioned techie.  

There are folks at Best Buy or the Apple store who will take time to talk to you about your computer or camera, but Mr. Han is really an artist who takes great interest in and care of items he works on.  He explained to me in detail what he was going to do and today, what he did.  No giant corporation is tracking data in this transaction.  This is an interaction of love (of what he's doing) and trust between the customer and the  craftsman.  There's both the time and interest for there to be a human interaction rather than just a commercial one.  

Here he's showing me his own guitar which he repaired.  He was showing me how the finish where he repaired the hole wasn't perfect.  It was hard to tell.  He doesn't repair guitars for others now.  This one took too long to do for a customer he said.  

David Oistrahk is playing Prokofiev now.  It reminds me of an incredible concert I went to in Florence the year I was a student in Germany.  Oistrakh was magnificent.  There was a standing ovation at the end, but most of the people left.  There were maybe 40 people left in the audience, yet he played another encore.  It was one of those concert experiences when you leave your body and fly with the music.  

Thanks Han for the pleasure of meeting you, for fixing my turntable, and reconnecting me with Oistrahk right now.  

Should Anchorage People Move To Avoid N. Korean Atomic Bomb?

It's hard for most people to imagine how close Anchorage is to Korea.  When Korean Air flew non-stop, we could get to Seoul in about seven hours.   Flying over the pole works.  We got to Paris last summer in about ten hours (not counting the time on the ground in Iceland).  That's about how long it would take to fly to New York if there were non-stop flights.

It helps to see these distances on a polar map.  Don't mind my messy lines.

Original Polar Map from Winwaed blog

Pyongyang to Anchorage = 3564 air miles
Pyongyang to Honolulu = 4597 air miles
Pyongyang to San Francisco - 5597 miles


Does my title question strike you as alarmist?  I'm sure that a lot of people in Houston are asking themselves if they should have heeded warnings, warnings that said climate change was making more forceful storms and that Houston's development in open areas needed to drain water in a flood plain would result in disastrous floods.

With the news this weekend of a much larger nuclear weapon than previously tested in North Korea, I think it's reasonable to ask this question about staying or moving.  So let's look at the key questions:

1.  Can and will North Korea build a bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching Anchorage in the next year or two?  It's looking increasingly possible.

2.  If they can, would they use them to target the US?  Americans have a highly distorted view of the world.  In our minds, its ok to have troops and ships and planes stationed all over the world, yet we got crazy when the Russians tried to put missiles into Cuba in 1962.  Other countries also don't like 'enemy' troops so close by.  We've had troops in South Korea since we fought North Korea in the 1950s.  Of course the North feels threatened.  We like to joke about how crazy the North Korean leadership is (and it's certainly unique in the world today), but according to a Heritage  Index of 2017 US Military Strength the US has

"some 54,000 military personnel Department of Defense civilian employees in Japan" and  "maintains some 28,500 troops in Korea." 

Yet any attack on the US by North Korea, let alone a nuclear attack, would be suicide.  But if they thought we were attacking them, I don't doubt that they would attack us - if they could - as well as the much more populated nearby South Korean target.  That 'mutual assured destruction' was supposed to be the deterrent during the Cold War.

3.  If they could and they would, would Anchorage be the target?  Hawaii probably has much more appeal.  There are more people in Honolulu and a large US military presence.  When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the US military presence in Alaska was tiny in comparison.  Seattle and San Francisco and Los Angeles are much better targets.  But Anchorage is closer.
Today Anchorage has a joint army/air force military base with a combined population of about 11,600.   The US tests anti-ballistic missiles from Kodiak, Alaska against potential attacks from North Korea which would make a tempting target as well.
The most compelling reason, in my mind, to attack Anchorage is that it is the closest US target, meaning the US defenses would have less time to respond.

4.  What could stop them?

• Chinese and Russian influence on North Korea
• Economic sanctions - these could make it impossible to complete their weapons, or it could just make them more desperate.
• Conducting ourselves less threateningly - if Pyongyang thinks a US attack is imminent, if we could find a way to convince the that's not the case, it might work.  But if preparing for a US attack is simply a way to keep the North Korean population afraid of war and supportive of the government, it won't.  
• Anti-ballistic missiles maybe.  They seem to have a spotty record with targets they knew were coming.  

So, is it time to look at real estate outside of Anchorage?  I'm sure few Alaskans are going to move at this point because of North Korea.  While Alaska did have a monster earthquake in 1964, relatively few people died and most people here now, weren't here then.  We feel safe.    Just as the people of Houston did a few months ago. Moving means disrupting our lives. But if the odds of an attack seem low, the odds of surviving a successful attack would be nil.  Only a tiny fraction of the people in Houston died.  That wouldn't be the case here.