Smiling faces on a 15 second shot on American television of North Korea's top nuclear negotiator and vice president Kim Kye gwan as he deplaned at JFK aeroport on Sunday 25 July for preliminary talks with the US on breathing life into the on hold six party talks in Beijing. The US media have hardly given much space to the two day talks beginning today in New York.
After three years of pursuing a hard nosed, give no quarter stance on the matter of North Korea, oxen yoked to South Korea's Lee Myung bak's take no prisoner policy towards the DPRK, it is a legitimate question to ask 'is the US 'rolling back' on its own intransigeant policy on North Korea?'
A meeting of the minds of the two Koreas on the margins of the Asia Pacific countries in Indonesia during which the North and South agreed to talks, has forced the US to come around to discussions with Pyongyang? It certainly seems so.
Sanctions, withholding of food and fertilisers, joint military exercises with live ammunition along the NLL [Northern Limit Line] within spitting distance of North Korea's territorial water brought the two Koreas to an exchange of gunfire when the ROK shells fell into DPRK territory in November 2010, have not brought North Korea to its knees, let alone cry 'Uncle!', implode, or simply disappear as the US and South Korea longed hoped.
Short of war there is only out for the US and South Korea: renewed talks.
Secretary of state Hillary Clinton invited North Korea to New York for 'discussions' on its nuclear and rocket programmes, among other subjects. And yet her invitation lacked the smoothness of practised diplomacy; she sternly warned the DPRK the US wouldn't put up with its wiles, and called on it to 'behave itself' in the manner the US wanted. Clinton looks as though she is more concerned with 'moral nicety' than tackling more than 60 years of issues concerning the US and North Korea.
Who would have thought that with long dealings with the DPRK, the American diplomacy, policy, and its North Korean clerisy could still not manage to negotiate 'realistically' and 'without neglecting geophysical realities' and 'with attention to history'?
GuamDiary hopes that some light of a new dawn is shining on the talks.
Today's 'Financial Times of London' [29 July 2011] devotes a 300 word article on the joint talks. Written by two 'FT' reporters on Korea--Anna Fifield in New York and Christian Oliver in Seoul--it makes for interesting reading. The two rely on commentary from the US and South Korean perspective. Did not anyone try to elicit a comment from the DPRK Mission to the UN or Kim himself? Let's move on.
The 'FT' quotes US North Korean clerisy who in March 2010, agreed to a man, in a report issued under the aegis of the CRF {Council on Foreign Relations] on Korea, called for 'rolling back North Korea'. The reader's ear will hear the words of the bilious former senior diplomat, ex president of the New York Korea Society, and now a member of Madeleine Albright's think tank, Evans Revere, who spins like a weather vane on the US government's convoluted policy on North Korea. In fact, he was a cheer leader for the CFR's report calling for 'rolling back' the DPRK in the same Cold War terms reminiscent of Korean War.
Revere is looking for 'sincerity'. Why do American diplomats look for 'sincerity' and South Koreans for 'repentence' in negotiations among supposed equals? Such attitudes simply confuse and complicate and, above all, transgress the sound advice by that superb survivor Talleyrand 'surtout pas trop de zele'. And diplomats like Revere & co. are nothing but zealous and highly motivated by morality! We also hear the cautious observation of Asia Society's Scott Synder, the man who wrote the CFR report, advancing the obvious that the talks are part of an unacknowledged process. And then the 'kicker' that Clinton is willing to give North Korea another chance, based on an analysis by Victor Cha of the CSIS, as well as backer of the CFR report, that talking with Pyongyang will stay its hand on any provocative actions.
But will it stop hostile moves by Seoul and Washington? After all provocative moves during the last few years have come from the in your face yoked US and South Korean policy towards the North. Let's face it: this coordinated policy has meet the enemy and in the words of the immortal Pogo, 'it is us!'
Saying this, North Korea has its own reasons that are plain as the nose on one's face in feeding its citizens, owing to the whims of mother nature who has been unnaturally cruel to its crops, lack of fertiliser embargoed by the South and US inspired sanctions, and the like. What makes the DPRK a critical player is its 'putative' nuclear arsenal and advanced rocketry programme. The Bush administrative utter stupidity, and opportunistic dealing with North Korea [an axis of evil nation, remember] shoved the DPRK into nuclear club, for the US offered Pyongyang no other option but ratcheting up the ante, and in doing so, turned a North Korea open to discussions into a feared dragon. In other words, Bush's ignorance and castle in Spain policy concerning North Korea lacked clarity but contained enough misdeeds of others with misplaced clarity that doomed it to failure. And the Obama administration hasn't done much better.
North Korea is no one's patsy. It has shown that it can deal with America's petty malice and stupidity, but in a way that may go so far as saving America's face. Kim Kye gwan knows the US team is going to deal with. To him, they are no strangers, and he is prepared to listen to the endless catalogue of DPRK's wrongs. He probably will counter with America's yet he is a more subtle negotiator who knows what wants, as he does know the holes in the US' position. He is here to get results but are the US team?
They better let their barriers fall for the US is in a terrible bind at home and with two failed wars in Asia and a frozen one in Korea.
You would think the US would want to lighten its load of a 61 year old war on its books? In any case, let's hope that both sides are on their good behaviour, without the US proceeding to 'enlighten' the DPRK on the ignorance of its ways. Too much is in the balance this time for letting an opportunity to slip!
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Jobs the Achilles foot of US economic recovery
Barack Obama addressed the nation last evening, to make his case for raising the US' debt level, bring in spending, and raise much needed revenues. He was quickly followed by John Boehner, speaker of the lower house of the US Congress to critique his president.
Obama did not mention jobs once. Boehner did but once the word left his mouth its vanished into the hot air of partisan rhetoric. The blame falls on Obama's shoulder for not addressing straightaway the problem of putting Americans back to work. The official unemployment rate has notched up to 9,2 percent, but the figure is at least double or perhaps higher.
The Republicans regained control of the house of representatives in the 2010 bi elections on a platform to create jobs. Once in control they cynically went for Obama's jugular to cut expenditures and feather more comfortably the beds of big business, to continue shifting the tax burden on a vanishing middle class and the working poor, and above all, to make a sitting president unelectable for a second term.
In a way, Boehner and his partner in the Senate Mitch McConnell sized Obama up properly: a vain man who has no idea of how to throw the gauntlet down to best his opponents. The so called big deal which the president and Boehner sort of worked out showed that Obama was further to the right than the House leader; furthermore Obama was willing to betray his base on social security, medicare, for example.
Love the Republicans for shooting themselves in the foot: owing to the tilt towards the reactionary right, exemplified by the Tea Party like a viper within its breast, Boehner walked out on any meeting of the minds with Obama. A line thereby was drawn in the sand.
So far, the markets have kept cool, but for how long? The US will default. It will a list of ill managed economies, notably Argentina. Ideology triumphs over 'liberal politics'. This crisis once again illustrates the fatal flaws of leadership in the White House.
Ideology is trumping commonsense. In a way, the US through its propensity to war, outsourcing of work abroad, and lack of will and ideas is crumbling from within.
Obama did not mention jobs once. Boehner did but once the word left his mouth its vanished into the hot air of partisan rhetoric. The blame falls on Obama's shoulder for not addressing straightaway the problem of putting Americans back to work. The official unemployment rate has notched up to 9,2 percent, but the figure is at least double or perhaps higher.
The Republicans regained control of the house of representatives in the 2010 bi elections on a platform to create jobs. Once in control they cynically went for Obama's jugular to cut expenditures and feather more comfortably the beds of big business, to continue shifting the tax burden on a vanishing middle class and the working poor, and above all, to make a sitting president unelectable for a second term.
In a way, Boehner and his partner in the Senate Mitch McConnell sized Obama up properly: a vain man who has no idea of how to throw the gauntlet down to best his opponents. The so called big deal which the president and Boehner sort of worked out showed that Obama was further to the right than the House leader; furthermore Obama was willing to betray his base on social security, medicare, for example.
Love the Republicans for shooting themselves in the foot: owing to the tilt towards the reactionary right, exemplified by the Tea Party like a viper within its breast, Boehner walked out on any meeting of the minds with Obama. A line thereby was drawn in the sand.
So far, the markets have kept cool, but for how long? The US will default. It will a list of ill managed economies, notably Argentina. Ideology triumphs over 'liberal politics'. This crisis once again illustrates the fatal flaws of leadership in the White House.
Ideology is trumping commonsense. In a way, the US through its propensity to war, outsourcing of work abroad, and lack of will and ideas is crumbling from within.
Monday, July 25, 2011
The DBS campaign spotlights TIAA-Cref
TIAA-Cref is, as its website tells us: a Fortune 100 AAA rated finance service and insurance company’ investing pension funds for a fee, and good returns. TIAA is also the object of pressure from the worldwide Boycotts Divestment Sanctions movement, to peacefully persuade TIAFF clients to stop helping Israeli occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, including building the long dividing wall and illegal Jewish colonization.
BDS.org has support by Jewish peace groups, even though the Israeli government tries to tar and feather it with the smear of ‘Islamic terrorism’. The organization is adept at adapting its message through song and dance, slogans and determination to shine the light of shame of, say, the following companies in TIAA-Cref portfolio: Northrop Grumman, Veolia, Caterpillar, Elbit Systems, and Motorola.
Protests spotlight the activities of these companies which they would best like kept under wraps. Consider Northrop supplies the Israeli occupiers with parts for helicopters, Hellfire missiles, etc. Veolia, a French company, exploits Palestinian natural resources for the sole use of illegal Jewish settlers and is building a light rail system for their exclusive use by connecting it to Israel proper. Caterpillar’s bulldozers have a long and notorious role in clear the ground of Palestinian houses and even killing peace protesters as it did in the case of Rachel Corey; the company also supplies armour plated bulldozers mounted with weapons for the ‘tsahal’ or Israel Defence Force, which US taxpayers money. Elbit Systems is an Israeli defence electronics manufacture whose equipment drones to the IDF and electronic surveillance and electronic systems to keep Palestinians under 24 hour control. And, finally, Motorola that has developed surveillance systems for illegal Jewish settlements and military bases on the West Bank.
BDS is in the movement for the long haul. You cannot gainsay it for lack of inventiveness and flexibility in bringing its message to the largest audience it can. So far as TIAA prepares for its annual meeting, it has managed to persuade 20.000 persons to sign a petition calling on TIAA’s investors to stop aiding and abetting illegal Israeli seizure of Palestinian land and providing the infrastructure of illegal Jewish settlements.
The boycott movement has also spotlighted products, such as cosmetics, soap, food, honey, and the like produced by illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
The BDS is a few years old but in spite of Israeli subterfuge, sabotage, deceit, and black propaganda, keeps growing and growing and growing. As the old song from the German Peasants War reminds us ‘thoughts and ideas are free’ and no weapons can kill them, nor can prison cells stop them.
BDS.org has support by Jewish peace groups, even though the Israeli government tries to tar and feather it with the smear of ‘Islamic terrorism’. The organization is adept at adapting its message through song and dance, slogans and determination to shine the light of shame of, say, the following companies in TIAA-Cref portfolio: Northrop Grumman, Veolia, Caterpillar, Elbit Systems, and Motorola.
Protests spotlight the activities of these companies which they would best like kept under wraps. Consider Northrop supplies the Israeli occupiers with parts for helicopters, Hellfire missiles, etc. Veolia, a French company, exploits Palestinian natural resources for the sole use of illegal Jewish settlers and is building a light rail system for their exclusive use by connecting it to Israel proper. Caterpillar’s bulldozers have a long and notorious role in clear the ground of Palestinian houses and even killing peace protesters as it did in the case of Rachel Corey; the company also supplies armour plated bulldozers mounted with weapons for the ‘tsahal’ or Israel Defence Force, which US taxpayers money. Elbit Systems is an Israeli defence electronics manufacture whose equipment drones to the IDF and electronic surveillance and electronic systems to keep Palestinians under 24 hour control. And, finally, Motorola that has developed surveillance systems for illegal Jewish settlements and military bases on the West Bank.
BDS is in the movement for the long haul. You cannot gainsay it for lack of inventiveness and flexibility in bringing its message to the largest audience it can. So far as TIAA prepares for its annual meeting, it has managed to persuade 20.000 persons to sign a petition calling on TIAA’s investors to stop aiding and abetting illegal Israeli seizure of Palestinian land and providing the infrastructure of illegal Jewish settlements.
The boycott movement has also spotlighted products, such as cosmetics, soap, food, honey, and the like produced by illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
The BDS is a few years old but in spite of Israeli subterfuge, sabotage, deceit, and black propaganda, keeps growing and growing and growing. As the old song from the German Peasants War reminds us ‘thoughts and ideas are free’ and no weapons can kill them, nor can prison cells stop them.
Has the US a more nuanced approached to North Korea?
Lord love a duck: US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has never relaxed a muscle when it comes to confronting North Korea at a time when, once again, Pyongyang has called for reconvening six party talks in Beijing, in abeyance for the last few years, without preconditions.
A breakthrough of sorts has occurred during side discussions between North and South Korea at the ASEAN meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
ROK’s Lee Myung bak’s hard nosed policy can hardly go any further short of restarting a shooting war on the Korean peninsula. Its sanctions against the North has not brought it any closer to humbling Lee’s ‘nemesis’, Kim Jong il.
The North for its part will argue for resumption of food aid by its willingness to better discuss its nuclear and rocket programmes.
Pyongyang is willing to make ‘concessions’ but the South also has to bite the bullet, in order to restore a status quo ante of civility.
Will the US play the role of spoiler? It looks as though it might. Clinton pointing her stern school mistress finger at the DPRK has once more recited her rosary of sorrows in telling North Korea what it has to do.
You would think that after more than 65 years of elaborating policy against and towards the DPRK, she and her entourage at the department of state would have learnt some simple ground rules. And then again, she might have.
The walls of resistance thrown up by South Korea, Japan, and the US are showing signs of cracking. These three countries formed an anti North front by proposing terms which North Korea and China and Russia would find unacceptable to return to talks in Beijing.
Now that the ROK and DPRK have reached an understanding, Clinton has invited a top ranking official from the North to the US for ‘talks’. Clinton’s response is in line with Lee Myung bak’s approach. Since US policy towards North Korea is coordinated with the South’s, Washington had to go along.
Km Kye Gwan, North Korea’s first vice minister and former chief nuclear envoy, is no unknown quantity to US senior officials. He is scheduled to meet with senior US officials in New York.
The US has grown weary with dealing with North Korea, owing to its lack of patience in long drawn out talks that Pyongyang is skillful in pursuing. Although Clinton says the US will offer nor concede anything, her explanation is a smokescreen for what the Obama administration is willing to offer to restart talks in Beijing.
The US has come to a decision to offer food aid but at what price? If it expects an apology for the ‘Cheonan’ or the shelling of Pyeongyong, it might be disappointed. As it is, its approach yoked to Seoul’s and Tokyo’s has proved less than successful. North Korea feels it is time to ‘open’ talks, which is too tempting for the South and the US and Japan to ignore.
If there is a meeting of the minds, events towards the nuclear problem, food aid, and other issues might take off at a quicker pace than we would have thought possible a few months ago.
A breakthrough of sorts has occurred during side discussions between North and South Korea at the ASEAN meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
ROK’s Lee Myung bak’s hard nosed policy can hardly go any further short of restarting a shooting war on the Korean peninsula. Its sanctions against the North has not brought it any closer to humbling Lee’s ‘nemesis’, Kim Jong il.
The North for its part will argue for resumption of food aid by its willingness to better discuss its nuclear and rocket programmes.
Pyongyang is willing to make ‘concessions’ but the South also has to bite the bullet, in order to restore a status quo ante of civility.
Will the US play the role of spoiler? It looks as though it might. Clinton pointing her stern school mistress finger at the DPRK has once more recited her rosary of sorrows in telling North Korea what it has to do.
You would think that after more than 65 years of elaborating policy against and towards the DPRK, she and her entourage at the department of state would have learnt some simple ground rules. And then again, she might have.
The walls of resistance thrown up by South Korea, Japan, and the US are showing signs of cracking. These three countries formed an anti North front by proposing terms which North Korea and China and Russia would find unacceptable to return to talks in Beijing.
Now that the ROK and DPRK have reached an understanding, Clinton has invited a top ranking official from the North to the US for ‘talks’. Clinton’s response is in line with Lee Myung bak’s approach. Since US policy towards North Korea is coordinated with the South’s, Washington had to go along.
Km Kye Gwan, North Korea’s first vice minister and former chief nuclear envoy, is no unknown quantity to US senior officials. He is scheduled to meet with senior US officials in New York.
The US has grown weary with dealing with North Korea, owing to its lack of patience in long drawn out talks that Pyongyang is skillful in pursuing. Although Clinton says the US will offer nor concede anything, her explanation is a smokescreen for what the Obama administration is willing to offer to restart talks in Beijing.
The US has come to a decision to offer food aid but at what price? If it expects an apology for the ‘Cheonan’ or the shelling of Pyeongyong, it might be disappointed. As it is, its approach yoked to Seoul’s and Tokyo’s has proved less than successful. North Korea feels it is time to ‘open’ talks, which is too tempting for the South and the US and Japan to ignore.
If there is a meeting of the minds, events towards the nuclear problem, food aid, and other issues might take off at a quicker pace than we would have thought possible a few months ago.
Timber! James Murdoch's fall from grace
Labour MP Tom Watson has referred James Murdoch’s case to Scotland Yard for false testimony before the House of Commons select committee looking into the News Corp’s telephone hacking scandal.
Not to put a fine point on it, Murdoch is ‘damaged goods’. His smooth performance before the MPs is an example of studied guileness, bluster, and MBA cant. The lenses of his eyeglasses magnified his wide opened eyes as he slalomed around the questions asked. Seated behind him was the recently hired Joel Klein, the man who prepped him and wrote the script from which he read from.
Klein fresh from trying to reform New York City’s schools in favour of charter schools, much favoured by Wall Street, has been tapped by Rupert Murdoch to carry out an ‘in house’ investigation of the ‘criminality’ endemic within News Corp, in pursuit of sensationalism in his media empire—print and television—and the profits it brings.
Klein comes with a CV which makes corporate boards’ eyes grow large and mouths water: he is the man that made Microsoft say ‘Uncle!’. The man who has the task of cleaning up Murdoch’s Augean stables is a take no prisoners ‘reformer’. However, we have to wonder how ‘independent’ he truly is. Consider that the law firm he engaged to represent News Corp is his wife’s!
James Murdoch has managed to fend off calls for him to step down as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting. Yet day to day management is left to a surrogate in senior management. Already the shuttering of the very profitable ‘The News of the World’ and the huge amounts of money spent to buy off people who brought lawsuits against the Sunday weekly. The breaking scandal, which in many ways mirrors Watergate, has nipped in the bud the Murdochs from grabbing 100 percent control of SBS by gobbling up a remaining 61 percent escaping their control.
Klein may not be able to fully protect the younger Murdoch as more and more details come to light. No one thought that the break in of the US Democratic party headquarters would lead to the resignation of Richard Nixon; well, the younger Murdoch’s days are numbered. Even if he manages to hang on to the father’s skirt tails, he is damaged goods, and the noxious odour that envelops him is something which makes institutional investors antsy since his presence affects a good return on a dollar invested.
In the end, James Murdoch is destined to depart under a dark cloud, as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, completing a design of subterfuge, deception, and, emphatic denial becomes clearer and clearer. The scandal surrounding the Murdoch empire has had an immediate healthy effect: the spell of the wizard of Oz Rupert Murdoch is broken. Wounded like a bull elephant, he has become an easier, yet not less dangerous target, to fell.
If anything, Rupert’s and James Murdoch’s appearance before the panel in the House of Commons, shows that the magic is gone: gone, too, is the image of cultivating ‘harmlessness’ and no forethought of malice and greed. Gone, too, is the idea of a benevolent pursuit of profits and influence at whatever the cost.
Not to put a fine point on it, Murdoch is ‘damaged goods’. His smooth performance before the MPs is an example of studied guileness, bluster, and MBA cant. The lenses of his eyeglasses magnified his wide opened eyes as he slalomed around the questions asked. Seated behind him was the recently hired Joel Klein, the man who prepped him and wrote the script from which he read from.
Klein fresh from trying to reform New York City’s schools in favour of charter schools, much favoured by Wall Street, has been tapped by Rupert Murdoch to carry out an ‘in house’ investigation of the ‘criminality’ endemic within News Corp, in pursuit of sensationalism in his media empire—print and television—and the profits it brings.
Klein comes with a CV which makes corporate boards’ eyes grow large and mouths water: he is the man that made Microsoft say ‘Uncle!’. The man who has the task of cleaning up Murdoch’s Augean stables is a take no prisoners ‘reformer’. However, we have to wonder how ‘independent’ he truly is. Consider that the law firm he engaged to represent News Corp is his wife’s!
James Murdoch has managed to fend off calls for him to step down as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting. Yet day to day management is left to a surrogate in senior management. Already the shuttering of the very profitable ‘The News of the World’ and the huge amounts of money spent to buy off people who brought lawsuits against the Sunday weekly. The breaking scandal, which in many ways mirrors Watergate, has nipped in the bud the Murdochs from grabbing 100 percent control of SBS by gobbling up a remaining 61 percent escaping their control.
Klein may not be able to fully protect the younger Murdoch as more and more details come to light. No one thought that the break in of the US Democratic party headquarters would lead to the resignation of Richard Nixon; well, the younger Murdoch’s days are numbered. Even if he manages to hang on to the father’s skirt tails, he is damaged goods, and the noxious odour that envelops him is something which makes institutional investors antsy since his presence affects a good return on a dollar invested.
In the end, James Murdoch is destined to depart under a dark cloud, as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, completing a design of subterfuge, deception, and, emphatic denial becomes clearer and clearer. The scandal surrounding the Murdoch empire has had an immediate healthy effect: the spell of the wizard of Oz Rupert Murdoch is broken. Wounded like a bull elephant, he has become an easier, yet not less dangerous target, to fell.
If anything, Rupert’s and James Murdoch’s appearance before the panel in the House of Commons, shows that the magic is gone: gone, too, is the image of cultivating ‘harmlessness’ and no forethought of malice and greed. Gone, too, is the idea of a benevolent pursuit of profits and influence at whatever the cost.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Roil, moil, bubble and trouble for the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang ROK?
After the announcement weeks ago that the International Olympic Committee awarded South Korea the 2018 Winter Games to be held in Pyeongchang mountainous district on the country's east coast, trouble is brewing. Banished from memories of the fanfare and the outsized bragging of the Lee Myung bak government. In the place of joy and allegria comes the fear that North Korea is trying to muscle in on the South's moment of triumph.
Well the suggestion that Korea host a joint North South team comes not with urgency from Pyongyang but from Seoul itself.
Now, according to the gatekeeper of South Korea's ideological and political purity Donald Kirk, that suggestion will take close to centre stage in the next two presidential elections.
The very thought of easing the taut relations between North and South that Lee himself has created by his draconian 'Drang nach Norden' policies which almost brought about a shooting war, is abhorrent to Kirk.
A strong supporter of Lee, he shudders that the Grand National Party which came back to power in 2008, will probably have as its standard bearer Park Geun hye, daughter of dictator Park Chung hee [whose memory has become the object of nostalgia and reputation is getting a wholesale re evaluation] favours lowering the temperature of attacks on North Korea.
Lee's four years in power have not been all wine and roses; it looks as though South Koreans have grown weary with his in your face style of governing. A lull in tensions is very much on the agenda.
Park is not the only one pushing for a joint North South presence at the 2018 winter games. Other political parties like the Democratic Party see the value in presenting a common front in Pyeongchang. So, the call is beyond partisanship, it seems.
The idea of a North South team is not new, and we have seen it in other Olympic and Football World Games.
Nevertheless the very idea of a 'united' Korean effort sends shivers down Kirk's spine. GuamDiary suggests if you can afford the high price of his book, 'Korea betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and sunshine' to see where this unreconstructed Cold Warrior is coming from. As a US citizen he has donned the cloak of knowing what is best for South Korea better than South Koreans themselves.
For him, the weakening of Lee's aggressive, short of war policy towards the DPRK is fraught with dangers. It may very well bring back a modified 'Sunshine Policy', which Kirk has never shied away from damning. What imperial arrogance!
He may think that he knows what is best for South Koreans, yet he misses by a wide margin the existential pride Koreans North or South have for the land of Korea. So 'Korea' as an ideal takes pride of place in this instance over political differences, in a competitive international sports venue.
Well the suggestion that Korea host a joint North South team comes not with urgency from Pyongyang but from Seoul itself.
Now, according to the gatekeeper of South Korea's ideological and political purity Donald Kirk, that suggestion will take close to centre stage in the next two presidential elections.
The very thought of easing the taut relations between North and South that Lee himself has created by his draconian 'Drang nach Norden' policies which almost brought about a shooting war, is abhorrent to Kirk.
A strong supporter of Lee, he shudders that the Grand National Party which came back to power in 2008, will probably have as its standard bearer Park Geun hye, daughter of dictator Park Chung hee [whose memory has become the object of nostalgia and reputation is getting a wholesale re evaluation] favours lowering the temperature of attacks on North Korea.
Lee's four years in power have not been all wine and roses; it looks as though South Koreans have grown weary with his in your face style of governing. A lull in tensions is very much on the agenda.
Park is not the only one pushing for a joint North South presence at the 2018 winter games. Other political parties like the Democratic Party see the value in presenting a common front in Pyeongchang. So, the call is beyond partisanship, it seems.
The idea of a North South team is not new, and we have seen it in other Olympic and Football World Games.
Nevertheless the very idea of a 'united' Korean effort sends shivers down Kirk's spine. GuamDiary suggests if you can afford the high price of his book, 'Korea betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and sunshine' to see where this unreconstructed Cold Warrior is coming from. As a US citizen he has donned the cloak of knowing what is best for South Korea better than South Koreans themselves.
For him, the weakening of Lee's aggressive, short of war policy towards the DPRK is fraught with dangers. It may very well bring back a modified 'Sunshine Policy', which Kirk has never shied away from damning. What imperial arrogance!
He may think that he knows what is best for South Koreans, yet he misses by a wide margin the existential pride Koreans North or South have for the land of Korea. So 'Korea' as an ideal takes pride of place in this instance over political differences, in a competitive international sports venue.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Alfred E Murdoch says What me worry, I am not responsible
We substituted K. Rupert Murdoch's surname for that of 'Mad Magazine's' iconic non worrier Alfred E. Newman.
Anyone watching yesterday's questioning the media mogul and heir apparent son James would have tasted the bitter cup of tea of falsehoods the Murdoch's served up.
Consider here was a Rupert hale and hearty at 80 at his 'dacha' in Sun Valley with his personal trainer hardly a fortnight before he flew off to London to 'handle' the scandal that was shaking his media empire.
Look at a frail, at times, confused 80 year old man who knew nothing, assumed no blame for wrongs done, until his 'amour propre' tore off his trashy act of humility...humble he was like Dickens' Uriah Heep, some might say!, and off went the lamb's fleece: voila the man we always knew as a hands on, hard nosed publisher who took no enemies and cast fear into the hearts of movers and shakers, say, in the UK and US and Australia.
If anything he was practising the studied pose of Enron top executives: blind neglect.
It was too late for fawning and humbleness and other home spun virtues: the questioning in the House of Commons had shown that the emperor was naked.
As for James Murdoch, he was as smooth as he was clueless.
The scandal is not going away...it is spreading like a cancer out of control like the way Nixon's Watergate did. A family empire won't survive him. David Cameron will fall as so will his party.
Journalism of the kind practised by the 'Guardian' and 'The New York Times' is seeing its finest moment in a long while. Some talking heads on the 'NYT' have come to the aid and defence of Rupert Murdoch: Roger Cohen and indirectly John Burns who see in Rupert a man who saved 'journalism' but at what cost?, we ask. Even the convicted felon and fellow newspaper mogul Conrad Lord Black in an opinion piece in the 'Financial Times of London' held his nose in criticising the founder of News Corporation, for the harm he and his style had wroth on the profession and the trail of lies and broken lives and reputation that Murdoch's pursuit of slime has brought yea this half century.
Yes, Alfred E. Murdoch, little wonder you do not worry!
Anyone watching yesterday's questioning the media mogul and heir apparent son James would have tasted the bitter cup of tea of falsehoods the Murdoch's served up.
Consider here was a Rupert hale and hearty at 80 at his 'dacha' in Sun Valley with his personal trainer hardly a fortnight before he flew off to London to 'handle' the scandal that was shaking his media empire.
Look at a frail, at times, confused 80 year old man who knew nothing, assumed no blame for wrongs done, until his 'amour propre' tore off his trashy act of humility...humble he was like Dickens' Uriah Heep, some might say!, and off went the lamb's fleece: voila the man we always knew as a hands on, hard nosed publisher who took no enemies and cast fear into the hearts of movers and shakers, say, in the UK and US and Australia.
If anything he was practising the studied pose of Enron top executives: blind neglect.
It was too late for fawning and humbleness and other home spun virtues: the questioning in the House of Commons had shown that the emperor was naked.
As for James Murdoch, he was as smooth as he was clueless.
The scandal is not going away...it is spreading like a cancer out of control like the way Nixon's Watergate did. A family empire won't survive him. David Cameron will fall as so will his party.
Journalism of the kind practised by the 'Guardian' and 'The New York Times' is seeing its finest moment in a long while. Some talking heads on the 'NYT' have come to the aid and defence of Rupert Murdoch: Roger Cohen and indirectly John Burns who see in Rupert a man who saved 'journalism' but at what cost?, we ask. Even the convicted felon and fellow newspaper mogul Conrad Lord Black in an opinion piece in the 'Financial Times of London' held his nose in criticising the founder of News Corporation, for the harm he and his style had wroth on the profession and the trail of lies and broken lives and reputation that Murdoch's pursuit of slime has brought yea this half century.
Yes, Alfred E. Murdoch, little wonder you do not worry!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)