North Korea will eventually collapse like the Soviet Union even if it has nuclear weapons, a French scholar who has studied the reclusive country for many years said.
My bet is that it looks a lot more like Romania. That's fine as long as we get the video of Pudgy being stood against a wall and shot...
Pierre Rigoulot, the head of Institut d'Histoire Sociale, told Yonhap News Agency in Paris on Thursday that the key to handling Pyongyang's nuke standoff is centered on improving the country's human rights conditions.
He also stressed that it is critical for ordinary North Koreans to get more information about the outside world.
"The North will collapse from within just as the Soviet Union did," the historian and author of numerous books predicted. He emphasized that the international community and South Korea needs to pay closer attention to the country's human rights situation.
The reclusive country is frequently cited for its human rights abuses, although its leadership brushes off such allegations as fabrications made up by countries like the United States and South Korea to undermine the regime.
In regards to recent provocations like the detonation of a nuclear device on Sept. 9 and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, Rigoulot said there is no way to be certain that the North and its leader Kim Jong-un will not act irrationally down the road. He argued that the risks could go up if the country moves forward with its nuclear and missile programs.
The scholar said that while the world can condemn the North for its string of provocations and impose sanctions that can hurt ordinary people, it will not affect the regime's overall hold on power.
“The regime will not be affected because the North is a totalitarian state," he pointed out, adding that Pyongyang is using money that needs to go to food, medicine and transportation for the development of nuclear weapons.
He pointed out that workers sent abroad are bankrolling such endeavors.
In regards to sanctions, Rigoulot made clear that success or failure will depend on China's resolve, although he hinted that Beijing does not want North Korea to fail, because that would deprive it of a critical buffer zone with the United States.
Also potentially of resources. But both problems could be fixed: China and the U.S. could simply strike a deal.
The North Korean watcher said that while it may not be easy, he is certain that the North will eventually collapse, especially if more outside information gets into the country.
"Once ordinary North Koreans better understand the outside world, they will be able to make comparisons between their country and others," he said.
On the role of France and Europe in putting pressure on the North to give up its nuclear program, he said due to limited two-way trade, there is a limit to what countries here can do.
He then said France can ask China to do more to get the North to give up its nukes, and if Pyongyang persists, it can move with other European Union states to cut off formal diplomatic ties with the North.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/19/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
#1
Meaningless prediction all political systems collapse if just a matter of waiting.
#2
As far as I can tell, there isn't much there to collapse. The peasants are already subsistence farming with hand made tools, living without running water or electricity and starving every few years. What's going to happen that will make their lives so much worse that they rise up?
[Breitbart] An iconic American company, McDonald's, has quietly outsourced the jobs of 70 white-collar professionals in Ohio to foreign H-1B workers.
The H-1Bs outsourcing in the nation's heartland showcases the growing corporate effort to use foreign H-1B workers to cut workforces of American white-collar professionals, and it comes after companies have used waves of legal and illegal migrants to slash blue-collar jobs and wages in Ohio and around the country.
Also, the 70 Ohio jobs that McDonalds outsourced to lower wage foreign graduates are not Silicon Valley technology and software jobs -- they're white-collar accounting jobs performed by graduates from mainstream business schools. That outsourcing of mainstream business jobs spotlights the growing movement of foreign workers into all corners of the nation's white-collar professional economy.
White-collar outsourcing "is not just a Silicon Valley thing anymore, it is happening all over" the country, said Steve Camarota, head of research at the Center for Immigration Studies.
#5
This is one of those side effects of allowing ourselves to be turned into a society where we all magically pretend that there is no such thing as *right and wrong*.
[The Post] According to a new study from The Harvard Business School, the strong partisan government and the fact that Americans don’t trust political leaders as some of the reasons attributing to the slow growth in the economy.
"The U.S. political system was once the envy of many nations. Over the last two decades, however, it has become our greatest liability. Americans no longer trust their political leaders, and political polarization has increased dramatically. Americans are increasingly frustrated with the U.S. political system," according to the Harvard titled "Problems Unsolved and a Nation Divided."
The report also recommends that the best solution is to make sure the American economy s competitive with the rest of the world.
"U.S. competitiveness has been eroding since well before the Great Recession. America’s economic challenges are structural, not cyclical. The weak recovery reflects the erosion of competitiveness, as well as the inability to take the steps necessary to address growing U.S. weaknesses," writes the report.
This study just shows it is time for things to change. "The federal government has made no meaningful progress on the critical policy steps to restore U.S. competitiveness in the last decade or more," writes the report.
For the past decade, the Democrats have had control and consistently have block proposals that would encourage economic growth and competitiveness.
Investors.com points out eight plans to encourage an economic boost that were rejected by democrats including: to simplify the corporate tax code and lower the statutory rate, to move to a territorial tax system like all other leading nations, and to simplify and streamline regulation.
The Obama administration has stumped the growth of the nation, by not enacting any kind of corporate tax reform, by adding even more regulatory restrictions to businesses and by doubling the national debt.
Clinton will just be an extension of Obama, while Trump’s economic plan mimics what both The Harvard Business School report and the past proposals above recommend to fix the economy.
#3
"The federal government has made no meaningful progress on the critical policy steps to restore U.S. competitiveness in the last decade or more." That's not a fluke, that's the plan.
The rackets and swindles unleashed in our futile quest to keep up appearances have disabled the financial operating system that the regime depends on. It’s all an illusion sustained by accounting fraud to conceal promises that won’t be kept. All the mighty efforts of central bank authorities to borrow “wealth” from the future in the form of “money” — to “paper over” the absence of growth — will not conceal the impossibility of paying that borrowed money back. The future’s revenge for these empty promises will be the disclosure that the supposed wealth is not really there — especially as represented in currencies, stock shares, bonds, and other ephemeral “instruments” designed to be storage vehicles for wealth. The stocks are not worth what they pretend. The bonds will never be paid off. The currencies will not store value. How did this happen? Slowly, then all at once.
#8
This is because of the rise of the political Left;
True Raj but I think you're off on the date by about 100 years. The rise of the left started with Woodrow Wilson and became entrenched with FDR. It grew slowly after that. There were the policies of LBJ then the total conversion of the Demos with the likes of "Clean Gene" McCarthy and George McGovern completed the cleansing of any moderate or conservatives from the party.
Jimmuh made it worse and then Clinton put it on steroids.
#9
"The weak recovery reflects the erosion of competitiveness"
In an era when the public sector is four times larger than it was two generations ago and the average public employee makes more than the average private one (30% more in CA) it has nothing to do with competitiveness.
The weak recovery is a purposeful thing done by the Democrats who want to keep the private sector weak and the public strong because they can then bribe public employees with large salaries for easy anxiety-free jobs in exchange for undying loyalty at the voting booth.
If the private economy were to recover and become robust, people would leave public employment and vote against big government. The Dems aren't about to let that happen.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/19/2016 16:10 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Wow. Impressed, sort of. Blind squirrel and all that jazz.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
09/19/2016 19:15 Comments ||
Top||
[Unz Review] Since Donald Trump said that if Vladimir Putin praises him, he would return the compliment, Republican outrage has not abated.
Arriving on Capitol Hill to repair ties between Trump and party elites, Gov. Mike Pence was taken straight to the woodshed.
John McCain told Pence that Putin was a "thug and a butcher," and Trump’s embrace of him intolerable.
Said Lindsey Graham: "Vladimir Putin is a thug, a dictator...who has his opposition killed in the streets," and Trump’s views bring to mind Munich.
Putin is an "authoritarian thug," added "Little Marco" Rubio.
What causes the Republican Party to lose it whenever the name of Vladimir Putin is raised?
Putin is no Stalin, whom FDR and Harry Truman called "Good old Joe" and "Uncle Joe." Unlike Nikita Khrushchev, he never drowned a Hungarian Revolution in blood. He did crush the Chechen secession. But what did he do there that General Sherman did not do to Atlanta when Georgia seceded from Mr. Lincoln’s Union?
Putin supported the U.S. in Afghanistan, backed our nuclear deal with Iran and signed on to John Kerry’s plan have us ensure a cease fire in Syria and go hunting together for ISIS and al-Qaida terrorists.
Still, Putin committed "aggression" in Ukraine, we are told.
But was that really aggression, or reflexive strategic reaction?
We helped dump over a pro-Putin democratically elected regime in Kiev, and Putin acted to secure his Black Sea naval base by re-annexing Crimea, a peninsula that has belonged to Russia from Catherine the Great to Khrushchev. Great powers do such things.
When the Castros pulled Cuba out of America’s orbit, did we not decide to keep Guantanamo, and dismiss Havana’s protests?
Moscow did indeed support secessionist pro-Russia rebels in East Ukraine.
But did not the U.S. launch a 78-day bombing campaign on tiny Serbia to effect a secession of its cradle province of Kosovo?
[Unz Report] If you strapped Bill Clinton to a polygraph (or some lie detector that can’t be fooled by the Clintons)--I suspect he, too, might confess to a preference for Vladimir Putin over Barack Obama.
Mr. Clinton had been appropriately scathing, in 2008, about Obama’s mythical status in the media. A "fairy tale," he called the current president.
However, his wife and her supporters on The Hill and in media have ruled that any remotely realistic utterance about the Russian president--such as that he’s a strong leader who’s popular with his people and acts in their interests--puts you outside the camp of the saints.
Mrs. Clinton is making it a habit to tell Americans what to say and how to think if they want to qualify as ... Americans.
In particular, Hillary’s AltRight screed, best described on Twitter as the Control-Alt-Delete speech, focused on Mrs. Clinton’s crusade against deviationists. Provided by a twitter handle called "Hillary’s PR Team," here’s a distillation of the interminable smear against Trump and his supporters, peddled as "substantive" by the moron media:
[Unz Review] How does evidence against something, become evidence for that very same something?
Plain evidence against the good health of Hillary Clinton has become, with the aid of the malfunctioning media, evidence for her stamina. "She has the constitution of a boar," said a defender on Fox New, following Mrs. Clinton’s very pubic collapse at the 2016, 9/11 memorial.
"She powered through it all," parroted the rest.
"Pneumonia blows over like the flu" was the consensus on MSNBC, as they collected affidavit after affidavit from their reporters to swear to how humid, crowded and uncomfortable it was for Hillary on that fateful, New-York day.
"Probably nothing," said that no-good neurologist Sanjay Gupta, at CNN, mere hours before the news of Clinton’s pneumonia broke.
How does a display of faltering health from Hillary become a reason to doubt the stamina of a man, Donald Trump, who’s like The Incredible Hulk?
Like magic, Trump materializes at multiple events a day, hops from Mexico to Louisiana, and seems to be having fun while at it. "Give me more," his whole countenance seems to scream.
Then there’s the sexism angle (where, in the YouTube video that accompanies this short text, the writer is forced to reach for some "Dutch Courage"): How is it that we hold a female presidential candidate with pneumonia to a different standard than a male presidential candidate without pneumonia?
[Breitbart] It wasn't just the well-heeled donors at the Cipriani Club who laughed and applauded when Hillary called half of Trump's supporters a "basket of deplorables" -- "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic."
Her campaign advisers also thought it was a killer line. This wasn't an off-the-cuff remark captured on a bartender's cellphone. We know that because: (1) nothing is ever off-the-cuff with Hillary; (2) it was part of her scripted remarks, and (3) she's used it before.
Nor did anyone in the media mind one little bit. They've been calling Trump's supporters racists for more than a year now. Calling other people "racist" is the media's favorite thing to do.
Whenever the left talks about "racism," it has nothing to do with what’s good or bad for black people. It's just another event in the Fabulous White People competition, where black people are the chips.
There was a period in this country when racism was a big problem. Unfortunately, when it mattered, liberals were on the wrong side. Only when the principal danger facing most black Americans was that they'd be patronized to death, did liberals start seeing "racism" everywhere.
Sad people with meaningless lives were suddenly empowered to condemn other people. I beat you in blacks yesterday; I'm going to beat you in women today. This is what makes them feel superior to other people, especially other white people. It's not about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.; it's just a self-actualization movement for people with emotional issues.
#3
Ann, you would get an answer of Zero if she were honest but then again when has she ever been honest? She is getting too much boodle from Muslim nations--the old pay-for-play game on steroids.
#3 Ann, you would [not] get an answer of Zero if she were honest but then again when has she ever been honest? She is getting too much boodle from Muslim nations--the old pay-for-play game on steroids.
Posted by: Barbara ||
09/19/2016 11:07 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Something tells me Hillary has never read "How to Win Friends and Influence People"
What surprises me about Hillary - she's married to arguably the best politician of his generation, and it is painfully obvious she hasn't learned a god damned thing from him.
#10
...she's married to arguably the best politician of his generation.
That's only because we somehow convinced ourselves that we're too "sophisticated" to understand the basics of *right and wrong*. He abused women for virtually the entirety of his time in power, and yet we couldn't bother to point out "No, not EVERYBODY cheats on their wife, and CERTAINLY NOT with somebody whose job counts on you not complaining about their performance."
If all of us on the "right" side can't bother to stand up for what we believe, then what's the fricking point of all of this?
[UnderstandingTheThreat] Finally, we are currently observing the Marxist/Socialist Movement in the U.S. working directly with the Islamic Movement at the ground and strategic levels. Both have publicly declared their support for one another, they are both receiving funding from hard-left Marxists/socialists (eg George Soros) and foreign powers, and both are openly pushing for confrontation with and the overthrow of the U.S. government.
The Islamic Movement in the United States is deeply embedded in the U.S. decision-making process, has thousands of organizations and allies, possesses a logistics train of fuel and supplies, conducts weapons training programs, has access to U.S. intelligence systems, is well funded (primarily by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc), has strategic plans for North America (An Explanatory Memorandum) and has a plan to implement the strategy (Implementation Manual) which they are following.
The U.S. response is to say "Islam is a religion of peace" and work with the very Muslim leaders who are driving this hostile network.
Victory is not possible with this recipe.
Each year there are between 70 and 120 new Islamic non-profits being created in America, most of which appear to be working directly in line with the Muslim Brotherhood’s plan to wage civilization jihad until "Zero Hour" when the war goes hot.
Until then, they continue to prep the battlefield because they are really at war with us, and they are following sharia ‐ core Islamic doctrine ‐ as their blueprint for what they are doing.
#6
This has been a subliminal driving force for the 165,000,000 firearms owners who have stockpiled an estimated 14-17 trillion cartridges mostly over the last 8 years. Even if they get their full compliment of 4,000,000 Jihadis (as per Osama Bin Laden's planning) they will be outnumbered 40 to 1. Half of the old geezers like me are saying "bring it on". As in the middle east the Muslim's will "spray and pray" while full of heroin and meth whereas the American riflemen will check the wind adjust their sights for distance and windage and carefully squeeze one off. They also haven't seen the damage a 270 or 30-06 with a soft point bullet does to a human. The AR-15 is the present day musket with around 20 million ready to go. Last but not least every American who takes to the field should carry a bag of choriezos to put in the dead Jihadis mouths to send the Jihadis to hell. They don't obey the rules of war and neither will we.
#9
And if the progression is via "salami tactics," where is the threshold for revolt? I'm not hearing news of anything that sounds remotely like a violent popular resistance--quite the contrary.
Posted by: james ||
09/19/2016 22:11 Comments ||
Top||
#10
And if the progression is via "salami tactics," where is the threshold for revolt? I'm not hearing news of anything that sounds remotely like a violent popular resistance--quite the contrary.
Telling the truth isn't popular (yet). Suggesting the right corrective actions isn't popular either, even in places where you might otherwise suspect it would gain traction.
#11
They'll look at all those guns and the smart ones will surmise that they don't have a enough to 'give the last full measure of devotion' beyond stuffing the ballot box. Then they'll talk of seceding, to which we should support predicated upon a county and county vote, trying to keep at best those who want to stay (see - West Virginia, 1863). They can be their own little city states who quickly find out they can't 'take' water, food, and power from others anymore or impose their urban fantasy world upon others.
[Breitbart] Pope Francis has urged Europeans to take in more refugees, asserting that the best way to combat terrorism is by warmly welcoming migrants and helping them integrate into the "European context."
In a meeting with hundreds of alumni of Jesuit schools in the Vatican on Saturday, Francis told his hearers that authentic hospitality "is our greatest security against hateful acts of terrorism."
With your help, the Pope said, "the Church will be able to respond more fully to the human tragedy of refugees through acts of mercy that promote their integration into the European context and beyond."
#4
Ah, come on, the church couldn't figure out how to keep plague refuges out of the towns and villages which killed a third of the European population.
[Unz Review] Hillary Clinton’s "deplorable" speech has yet again raised the issue of whether countless white Americans are "racists." Of course, given the term's inherently fuzzy quality, who can authoritatively say for sure? But, imprecision acknowledged, it is important to scrutinize how the liberal media elite has expertly twisted racism to demonize millions of whites who (correctly) reject the "racist" label. Far more is involved than playing semantic games - controlling the meaning of "white racism" is a huge prize in today political environment.
Moving along to the bottom line:
Why do liberals pursue this discussion-killing strategy? Let me suggest that demonizing whites in general and Trump supporters in particular with white racism cheap shots is the paramount value in today’s political conflict. It certainly outshines holding frank discussion that might accomplish something tangible. Going one step further, I suspect that the Milbank and company must know this awkward, unspeakable reality‐ nearly all black pathologies are self-inflicted‐but having repeatedly defined "racism" as anything that blacks find disrespectable, reversing course is no longer an option. There certainly are no personal costs for continued dishonesty and few blacks complain that avoiding racial offensiveness is a recipe for stagnation. Bashing whites as racist has become an all too easy way of making a living regardless of the consequences.
#1
Of course, given the term’s [white racism] inherently fuzzy quality, who can authoritatively say for sure?
Well, Mr. Weissberg, I'll help you with this. First, you might obtain a copy of the Democrat talking points. If you watch the MSM cable networks, they all work off the same talking points so you don't have to watch all of them just any one of them. Secondly, Brent Bozell and the Media Research Center (they monitor assaults against conservatives in the media) can be of assistance to you. Thirdly, you can go over to the Southern Poverty Law Center; they define all white moderates and conservatives as white racists. Fourthly, you can listen to Shrillary (if you can stand it--akin to listening someone run their finger nails across a blackboard). Fifthly, you can check out the groups the IRS has targeted. This ought to get you started.
H/t Jerry Pournelle
There is constant argument on how to eliminate the huge problem we have with illegal immigrants in this country. This post stems from a comment on made on a Daily Caller article. You want to end illegal immigration? There are five simple steps to do so:
1. One year manadatory jail term and $10,000.00 fine for each illegal worker who is found in your employment.
2. Revoke business license for 1 year for each illegal worker who is found in your employ
3. On third violation...sieze all property owned by that company...
4. Eliminate the "anchor baby" citizenship loophole...by stating that those children born to parents who are here illegally do not have citizenship.
5. Eliminate ALL federal funding to municipalities and counties that are "santuary" areas. (If you don't wish to enforce federal laws...then you don't get federal dollars.).
Those five simple steps would eliminate any and all incentives for hiring illegal workers.
#4
5. Eliminate ALL federal funding to municipalities and counties that are "santuary" areas. (If you don't wish to enforce federal laws...then you don't get federal dollars.).
That won't happen with the current Administration--they actively aid and abet such non-compliance with Federal LAW. It also won't happen with our (alleged) "opposition" party who has no principles and nothing to indicate that they are interested in anything other than re-election.
That makes the (alleged) "opposition" party just as guilty as the party in power.
But hey! I bet Britney Spears, or Lady Gaga, or Miley Cyrus, or whoever this weeks whore is, did something stupid this week.
[PatriotChronicle] Republican Gov. Paul LePage recently began enforcing Maine’s volunteer and work requirements for food stamp SNAP recipients to keep their benefits. The end result was more than 9,000 non-disabled adults getting dropped from the program.
The rules prevent adults who are not disabled and do not have dependents from receiving food stamps for more than three months, unless they work at least 20 hours a week, participate in a work-training program, or meet volunteer guidelines for 24 hours out of the month. Any one of those three getting met will not result in the loss of their SNAP food benefits.
Let me emphasize. The least difficult of those three, is fulfilling an approved volunteer work load of just 24 hours out of an entire month. The hardest, is doing at least 20 hours of on the job work per week. Hey, only volunteering 24 hours per month is a seriously good deal to receive hundreds of dollars of free food. The average SNAP monthly benefit is approximately $477.88 per month for a four person household size. In most cases it’s even more. For 24 hours of volunteering, that’s making about $19.91 per hour. Nice!
#3
Maine has a problem.Atkisson has more to air on the pressure on states that have no say in who is coming to live there. Gov. LePage is more innovative than most.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[The Post] According to a new study from The Harvard Business School, the strong partisan government and the fact that Americans don’t trust political leaders as some of the reasons attributing to the slow growth in the economy. 
By Walter Russell Mead
[Breitbart] Pope Francis has urged Europeans to take in more refugees, asserting that the best way to combat terrorism is by warmly welcoming migrants and helping them integrate into the "European context."
[Unz Review] Hillary Clinton’s "deplorable" speech has yet again raised the issue of whether countless white Americans are "racists." Of course, given the term's inherently fuzzy quality, who can authoritatively say for sure? But, imprecision acknowledged, it is important to scrutinize how the liberal media elite has expertly twisted racism to demonize millions of whites who (correctly) reject the "racist" label. Far more is involved than playing semantic games - controlling the meaning of "white racism" is a huge prize in today political environment.
[PatriotChronicle] Republican Gov. Paul LePage recently began enforcing Maine’s volunteer and work requirements for food stamp SNAP recipients to keep their benefits. The end result was more than 9,000 non-disabled adults getting dropped from the program.
