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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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Earlier I would have said a situation where the US even attempted to meet with the leader of North Korea was massively unlikely. We live in strange times.
Which one do you think Trump would've wanted more, the pony of the commeterative coin?
Would that it were so simple.
I'm completely indifferent to the peace process since we're status quo ante and no one is killing each other anyway. Denying Trump a propaganda victory is more important.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Disasturbator
> Boots have been on the ground in South Korea for 50 years.
I mean actually troops actually engaging North Koran's troops in ground assaults,
New theme music also a box
The pony would have to be made of gold and alive like something Handsome Jack would own.
Given there are actual concentration camps in North Korea that work people to death, I find propaganda against Trump far less important. Peace with North Korea would be the first step to opening it up and giving badly needed relief as well as human rights.
edited 24th May '18 8:31:49 AM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Of course Trump isn't classy enough to name it Butt Stallion.
edited 24th May '18 8:31:50 AM by sgamer82
x6 A peace summit and a military engagement are two very different things.
A peace summit with a North Korean leader was certainly surprising, but not that implausible. A direct military conflict between NK and the US is, and remains, far outside the realm of plausibility. For that to even be considered the situation would have to deteriorate exponentially from where we are now.
edited 24th May '18 8:32:16 AM by archonspeaks
They should have sent a poet.
Oh, bother.
It's easier to be completely indifferent since none of us who knew anything about Trump or Kim Jong Un ever believed there was a chance in hell of actual peace, summit or no. And there's certainly no way Trump would have done anything for the people in North Korea's gulags. Shit, I wouldn't have been surprised if any "deal" Trump would have made would have required the USA to pretend the gulags weren't even a thing. It's not like Trump gives a shit about these people if he even knows they exist.
Given that, the status quo being maintained, Trump denied a Nobel, and North Korea's tunnels to their testing site collapsed? Yeah, I'll take it.
edited 24th May '18 8:39:42 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised
Would that it were so simple.
Human rights and the closure of gulags were never on the table. Do you really believe having normalized relations with the US is dependent on respecting human rights? A peace deal would have probably entrenched Kim even further, and given his regime legitimacy vis-a-vis a status quo where he has almost none. Thinking that that entrenchment, that legitimization, would be accompanied by NK opening up and becoming a more humane nation is extraordinarily naive.
edited 24th May '18 8:52:06 AM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Peace will not ensure that the North becomes less of a Stalinist nightmare for its population. It could move things in a better direction, but its more likely that Kim will keep starving dissidents and testing WM Ds on disabled children.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Somewhat backtracking, but re:Cancelled Summit Letter, dear Lord, is that what Trump's signature is? It's literally just a zig-zaggy line that looks nothing like his name.
Oh, bother.
Most signatures I've seen are pretty sloppy...but yeah, that one is just...ugh. But again, what else did we expect from Trump?
Disgusted, but not surprised
Queen of Good Things, Honest
This whole ordeal is due to both parties being stubborn shits. But hey, they wanted all the credit, now they can take all blame.
"NK: We'll give up nukes when you remove your troops."
"US: no"
"NK: Then we're going to leave. With the nukes."
"US: k bye"
And we're back to square one.
The real question is what President Moon will be doing next.
Eeyup. It's because, for all his touting of his "deal-making" skills, Trump has no idea what the words "fair negotiating" even mean. As previously noted, Trump's a bully, and he carries that into his "deals".
Trump doesn't know how to negotiate on an even playing field. He just sees himself as The Boss and everyone else as people who need to appeal to him for his favor. This is a major hindrance in this kind of negotiation. Trump wasn't approaching this as two sides working out an agreement. He was approaching it as if discussing North Korea's Terms of Surrender.
The difference between, "This is what you want and this is what we want, so let's work out what needs to happen," versus, "This is what we want. Give it to us and the war ends. Period."
As soon as Kim caught whiff of that, the deal was off. John Bolton didn't help when he suggested that Libya, a state in which their dictator was dragged naked into the streets and stabbed to death seven years ago, would be a good model to follow with North Korea. But that was just symptomatic. Fact was, Trump's idea of a negotiation was never going to be something Kim would accept.
edited 24th May '18 9:07:42 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Don't forget that Kim's negotiation style is the same unproductive style that Trump uses. It's basically the old unstoppable force/immovable object paradox, neither of them were really negotiating so much as listing demands and waiting for a chance to walk away.
Oh, bother.
This must be the ultimate Yank the Dog's Chain moment for Moon.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Trump tweets this morning. And unsuprisingly, they are completely untrue.
Clapper has now admitted that there was Spying in my campaign. Large dollars were paid to the Spy, far beyond normal. Starting to look like one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. SPYGATE - a terrible thing!
James Clapper has said that he believes that foriegn meddling absolutely had an effect on the outcome of the election, but that's something completely different.
edited 24th May '18 9:23:29 AM by megaeliz
Anyone who thinks Trump was going to somehow open up North Korea and make Kim close the gulags is kidding themselves. Relations with China have been normalized since the 70s, and China's still a Communist dictatorship. Why would North Korea be any different?
My sentiments precisely.
Oh Christ this is not going to end well.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Oh, bother.
Make sense of Trump's chicken scratchings? Okay...
"Wah wah Kim Jong Un was mean to me and Bolton and wouldn't give me everything I want! Screw you I'm going to take my ball and go home! And my nukes are way bigger!"
Disgusted, but not surprised
.... I never thought I would see the day that the actions of the United States made North Korea seem reasonable.
._.;
I mean, they are on a hotstreak, what with making Iran and China look reasonable, so why not go for the trifecta?
Sigh...
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Trump's threatening 25% tariffs on all imported cars to the US, something that would certainly spark a trade war and scuttle NAFTA. On the same national security BS excuse that Congress needs to repeal ASAP.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-cars-tariffs-1.4675820
I really hope that Ottawa and Mexico City are ready to Alpha Strike the US agricultural market if this goes through, its the only way Trump's enablers will be brought to heel at this point. And if they aren't...well the US can't be allowed to benefit from the destruction of partner economies, so retaliation is a moral imperative as well (in addition to salvaging anything you can).
Same goes for those steel tariffs if the exemption expires.
edited 24th May '18 3:18:09 PM by Rationalinsanity
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
In case anyone's wondering about the "national security" case for car tariffs, Trump is calling for a section 232 investigation [1] into imported cars. That means the Do D will be getting involved, so one can only hope this will somehow backfire. The Do D hasn't been super cooperative with Trump, and their investigative offices aren't known for excessive partisan spin.
Cape Malleum Majorem
Roughly a third of US-brand cars aren't even made in the US anymore, and a third of foreign-brand cars are made here in the US. For someone who (allegedly) has a degree in economics, Trump doesn't know Jack Shit about the modern global economy.
But don't confuse him with facts, he made up his mind twenty years ago.
edited 24th May '18 3:47:20 PM by pwiegle
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.