All my life I've been fascinated by the Iron Curtain countries and the underground movements there. The Slavs, Poles, Czeks, all those -anians had a serious tough streak and refused to forfeit to hegemony. But that was in Europe and Eurasia. Asian countries seem to have taken a different approach to it.
In China, where the Chinese are as big an export as the objects rolling off their production lines, the Asian fatalism, maybe evolving from Confucian doctrines, has produced at least a few generations of unquestioning followers. Don't mention Reagan and the followers of that philosophy of excess in excess in all matters superficial. We know there's at least two generations lost to floats and derivatives and hedges. They're both dehumanizing, but the grandeur promised under the Reagan regime is different from the Chinese version. In China, you'd have to be Chinese, would still be Chinese, and then you'd creep more than swagger.
Now consider the cartoon empire of North Korea. Central control, central government, centrally directed affections and hopes captured the attention of some bloc at some time, and now they're apparently all living in an alternate universe, a gigantic hippie commune full of possibly starving people all looking within their country for salvation and looking outside for the roots of famine, isolation and ... maybe those are the only roots they have.
In Japan, they live on an island made of volcanos, just a bit to the East of the really big storms, but right at the edge of a really big ocean. They accept it. Earthquakes, traffic, high prices, tsunami, it's just the way it is. The government goes forward, and the people continue doing whatever they do. Fatalism apparently works to create a basically stable society.
If North Korea thinks that two hippie journalists will block the big Wheel of Life from rolling, they're crazy. If they think there are no crazies at the button looking at Korean missile launches and nuclear tests and sabre rattling with mortal fascination, they're crazy. If they're crazy, they're also crazy. And if it is a monolith, then it is a crazy monolith.
They survive by threats, by appeals to our common sense of decency, and by a very sane and pragmatic approach that follows up psychotic episodes with seemingly sensible demands- energy, food, and we have to act like we like them.
Fuck 'em. If the populace, with their All-Kimmie Muzak radios, is willing to fight to keep the regime in control of them, then we'd probably have to concede at some point that to take custody of their people and resettle them would be more trouble than it's worth. Air and sea travel in that part of the world is good enough, we don't have to drive through North Korea to get to China, Japan, Singapore or any of the other real countries out there.
Can't do the same to South Korea. They're apparently crazy too, but in a forward-looking way. They are our ALLIES. We were part of the movement that brought democracy and communism to the rim of the USSR and its satellites, and I like them. I live in Amish country, and I'm perfectly fine with its semi-integrated edges overlapping the edges of my life. I promise I won't drive deep into an Amish neighborhood, forcing my attentions on them. I'd let the Branch Davidians kill themselves. I'd do the same to NKorea if they weren't so bellicose, belligerent and incompetent.
I think it should be different this time, and that if the pressure applied results in a swinging fist from the shadows behind Kimmie-poo it should be met with irresistible force, lots of falling objects, and very possibly a significant nuclear accident. The North Korean people don't deserve to be destroyed <i>per se</i>, but the entire idea was a bad one, only useful to put space between 1950s China and the South.
Maybe they don't deserve or want Freedom, but I want to raze the home of the basket case in the neighborhood of some of my friends. We should push hard for Cuban ties now, then flatten North Korea from the air by August.
