Trump is in la la land when it comes to North Korea

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has continued to produce bomb fuel while in denuclearization talks with the United States and may have produced enough in the past year to add as many as seven nuclear weapons to its arsenal, according to a study released just weeks before a planned second summit between the North Korean leader and U.S. President Donald Trump, the report by Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation found.

"He said spent fuel generated from operation of the 5 megawatt reactor at its main nuclear plant at Yongbyon from 2016-18 appeared to have been reprocessed starting in May and would have produced an estimated 5-8 kg of weapons-grade plutonium.

"This combined with production of perhaps 150 kg of highly enriched uranium may have allowed North Korea to increase the number of weapons in its arsenal by between five and seven, the Stanford report said."

So went the results of Trump's first summit with Kim. There is no reason to believe that Trump will fare any better this month. No progress has been made toward denuclearization. There are no agreements to sign. Matters are only getting worse.

But, Trump will be able to change the subject. He has lost with his demands for a wall. He has lost support from his own party. The Mueller report will be out soon. The House is opening several investigations, including a look into the Trump family financial records.

 

What an incredibly foolish statement to make.

Your tendencies toward Russia and North Korea indicate communist sympathies. You say you are not a war monger. Does that mean you disagree with the defense of democracy? It seems so. You are more concerned about the welfare of communism.

 

Maybe you haven’t got the memo. Russia, hasn’t been a communist state since the system collapsed a long time ago. North Korea is committed in name only.

Next, I seriously recommend you educating yourself, before you get embarrassed again.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11905

 

So says some one who voted for Trump. In fact, Trump said almost the same thing in his SOTU speech. "If I had not been elected President of the United States, we would, right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea."

Wow! How is it we allowed these people to choose our President?

 

So you’re against preventing nuclear war with North Korea? Are you insane?

 

I knew you would say that. Putin is a communist. He is a former KGB colonel. "Russian President Vladimir Putin has compared Vladimir Lenin to a saint and declared that Soviet communist ideas come from the Bible."

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-says-communism-comes-bible-compares-lenin-saint-781328

Most of the Russian oligarchs are sympathetic to communism.

Russians can call themselves whatever they want, but Russia is run by communists.

 

No, they have capitalists economy. Russia is no longer communist. Try to catch up with the times, guy.

 

Lenin's New Economic Policy in 1921 was a re-introduction of a capitalist economy. A capitalist economy also exists within the People's Republic of China, since Deng, and this is a planned stage before its replacement by socialism. In North Korea they don't try such niceties. They just preside over the mass starvation of their people as happened in Russia and China in the good old days.

Try to read some history and to introduce nuance to your way of thinking...guy.

 

Lenin retreated from socialist policy, because the economy was on verge of collapse. This was a temporary pause, until the commies had consolidated complete power. Oligarchs run Russia now, you think they want communism back?
North Korea has been communist in same only since the passing of the first Kim.
Deng Xiaopin Knew Marxist economic theory was untenable, why do you think he opened up trade with the west as soon as the last of the remaining Maoist were oustered from power?

Marxism is still on the ash heap of history, we’re it rightfully belongs.
So before you go fill McCarthyism, Try using some common sense, guy.

 

What makes you think that what is happening in China isn't exactly the same as Lenin's New Economic Policy? Marxists always believe that capitalism is a stage of history that it is necessary to go through. The Chinese Communist Party absolutely believes this about the current stage of Chinese history. As for Maoists try reading about Xi Jinping, guy. They are back.

Russia has changed from a country run by oligarchs through their membership of the elite of the Communist Party to a state run by oligarchs through their membership of the gangster class. It is not communism, but in terms of how the free world should respond to it, it should not merit a very different response. Right-wingers often use "communist" as a term of abuse for anyone they disagree with. Funnily enough not now. Why would that be? A system that is as evil as communism (just weaker in terms of its threat to the West) is given a free pass by today's Right. Maybe it is "post-communist" but that is not very different from before (except the USSR was a superpower and Russia is not)

As for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, on what basis is that not communist? It has a strong totalitarian control of economic and political power.

Arguing that none of this is what Marx envisaged is possible (he once said in reponse to some of his followers "the one thing I am sure of is that I am not a Marxist"). But that is neither here nor there because then we are in the ultra left world of "socialism has never been tried". It has, and the result is backward Russia, stagnant China (until 1979) and barbaric world terrorist North Korea. Communism is how all these experiments end up, in tyranny and chaos.

Liberals are and always were very clear on their hostility to communism. We now watch as the Right defends Russia and North Korea and the Left suddenly discover how bad these places really are.

 

Trump was mistsken

Hillsry or jeb would have given the little rodent in north korea his usual payoff for not beating them up

So there would have been no war as long as china was allowed to dominate all of asia

Which any swamp rat-approved president would have agreed to

 

I’m not expert in Marxist theory, but where does hereditary rule fit in that mix? Doesn’t that directly fly in the face of communist doctrine? Do yourself a favor, and look up Juche. That’s the ideology originally cooked up by the first Kim. Sure, there’s some Marxist-Leninist platitudes incorporate, but all it really does is to justify North Korea’s iron fisted rule over its own people. Most scholars describe it as ethnic Korean nationalism.

Maybe you look up Marxist stage theory.
Capitalism is stage four, and communism is the ending stage. You seem to be claiming that if ending stage fails to materialize, it’s some how Marxist to revert back capitalism to save communism. That’s nonsense. When you have to revert back to the very economic system that is antithetical to your goal, your goal untenable. So your interpretation of economic reforms is way off the mark.


Your accusation of “the right” defending regimes like Russia, and North Korea is nonsensical as well. There are three types of right wingers on this board. There’s folks who are going to defend Trump, and his agenda. There’s the those on the right who are still stuck in the Cold War mentality, and there’s the Pat Buchanan right, which is pretty vocal about their opposition to foreign involvement, and military intervention. The very same military intervention that some on the left have seem to adopt all of a sudden.


Personally, it took being deployed to Iraq to change allot of my views. I see what Russia, and North Korea for what they are. I’m under no impression that they aren’t adversaries to the US. Accusing people like me of having sympathy for either is childish at best, and very disturbing at worst.
What is about diplomacy that you so called “liberals” are so all of a suddenly against. You’re aware that dealing with your enemy is kinda necessary, right?


I don’t know nothing about your politics, or motives. Don’t really care. But, there’s a disturbing trend happening that I’ve noticed about your fellow so called liberals. I get it that you’re opposed to everything trump, and some on the left are so opposed to to him so much, that they’re willing to abandon most of their principles that defined them liberals in the first place.

 

I know about Juche (well not in detail but as much as you put here). If there was a perfect communist doctrine to measure every communist system against then there would be no communism since the Paris commune. All communism degenerates into nationalism because there is no world revolution. In China this is known as "socialism with Chinese characteristics". This also happened in the USSR. The Kim dynasty is just an extension of the Cult of the Individual which again started in the USSR with Lenin and then Stalin. If there is any essence of Marxism Leninism (Marxism is more a way of analysing history and economics) it is the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange and a command economy. Plus the degeneration of the State into an authoritarian Republic. In North Korea this is the reality. In Russia we just have the second stage (not Marxist any more but as much of a threat to freedom as when it was) which I call post-communist. In China... I think we will discuss that next.

Capitalism was seen as a progressive force to sweep away feudalism. This is what you are missing. Some of Marx's language in describing capitalism is electric.

How's that as a description for your global elites? That's where Marx is brilliant - he wrote that in the 1860s! It goes on extensively to describe the progressive nature of capitalism compared to the old feudal societies of landlord and serf. This "bourgeois revolution" had by no means happened everywhere. But it was only this bourgeois revolution that would develop society to the stage when it was ready for socialism.

Marx was not someone who argued by emotion, nor values. He thought he was conducting a scientific analysis of how society would develop. It is brilliant, but deeply flawed. But within there are clever insights. But reality was the problem for Marx.

Marx thought that socialism would come about first in the most advanced capitalist countries, Great Britain (where he wrote most of his stuff) or Germany (he was German) being the prime candidates or possibly the United States (the most revolutionary capitalist state). This was also important because the proletariat in these countries would have reached a level of political maturity due to existence bourgeois democracy. The problem was that the two most significant socialist revolutions in the twentieth century were in Russia, which had a tiny capitalist class and was dominated by feudal landowners and the peasantry and China, which was even more backward and solidly still in a feudal epoch with virtually no capitalism. Neither of these societies had working class traditions of political participation (except for a very short time in Russia in the early twentieth century). Marxism had to develop and adapt to get out of that one. But Marx was long dead by then. So you get Marxism Leninism in the USSR, Maoism in China, the Kuche system in Korea, an Albanian version under Hoxha, a Yugoslave version under Tito, another in Cuba, and then the weird Bolivarian one under Chavez. All these are variants, some would say distortions, of Marxism. All are different. All have failed.

So as the communist states were not Britain Germany France or the USA there had to be some amendments. Nationalism is consistent across all variants, probably because these countries were at their inceptions besieged by the rest of the world. But also the inadequacy of these countries capitalist platforms has meant that it is perfectly in the Marxist tradition to embrace industrial development using market forces. I am not going to search for the sources but the Chinese Communist Party today justifies the market (whilst its 100 million+ members continue to read turgid Marxist-Maoist theory), based on this tenet of Marxism. The Chinese characteristics of this system is the oversight of this process to control any excesses, by a nationalist Communist Party. This will be a necessary pre-stage for capitalism.

You see Marxism is more about a journey than a goal. The goal is the withering away of the state and a society without any government at all because man, liberated from the alienation and de-humanization brought about by class antagonism, is now capable of living a life where self interest and the interests of society are magically harmonised. It is not surprising that with such a goal the preparations and stages that are necessary for this, require some careful work. It might seem like nonsense (because it is). But its clever nonsense and this gives a method to the madness, as the expression goes.

It is irony and not serious. I don't want to put words in your mouth particularly as we are now having a serious discussion. But de facto that is what is happening. I think this is entirely due to Trump populism. But one thing I do believe is that the Right observe a democratic centralist rule. This is a rule from Leninist parties whereby (in theory) there is free discussion and then once a decision has been reached, everyone comes together on it. For example you now get lots of conservatives here saying that they were in the Buchanan camp (as you put it) for example, and against all the Bush wars. I don't remember a lot of that. If they were against them they kept quiet. Similarly it seems (PF is a good example) that conservatives are loathe to criticise Trump on anything. It's pretty clear to me that the US and others were adopting a tough policy to North Korea, Russia and China, which is now being reversed. This is despite (quite unsurprisingly) the West's security agencies continuing to identify these three nations as threats to national security. I think Kim was in big trouble two years ago. I live in Hong Kong where there were many reports then as to how his regime was set to implode. Since Trump bigger him up (a t the same time as he trashed democratic allies), we hear none of that any more. Trump has effectively already saved the North Korean regime.

You may ask why I suggest that Trump is soft on China. He is involved in a Trade War, yes. In my view this is but a deal. What is important is what kind of deal and not just celebrating any old thing. I think Trump will get concessions on IP protection and an opening up of the Chinese market to foreign firms. I think there will be a relaxation of tariffs. And I think he will cease to challenge China militarily in the Asia Pacific region , ceding Asia to China. So this will betray those who he has promised jobs to in America. And it will be a major strategic setback for the free world.

Most stuff on here is culture war stuff. I'm happy to have a discussion without that. I'm impressed with your experience and judgment here. Of course diplomacy is important. But what we are seeing with Trump is show over substance. What exactly has he achieved, apart from strengthening the domestic position of Kim in North Korea?

Well I think I pointed this out - the hypocrisy of the Left.

I'm a liberal who has supported all US/Allied wars in the past thirty years and I have put these arguments to my compatriots (I am British) who do not really like to hear them! I think Trump will get concessions in China. But you see I think Trump is no conservative. He is a deeply troubled narcissist whose whole life has been geared around feeding his ego - hence the constant flipping in his views. One of the things that is driving him is that the New York elite wouldn't let a vulgar slob (as they saw it) like him in their club (so sad...that he even wanted to join it). He will have his revenge. he is driven by insecurity and a constant need to prove himself. A rally is much more important to him than anything else because he craves the adulation.

When I see that, and I see how very, very few conservatives will stand up and be counted in pointing this out (unsurprisingly some neocons are the exception), it makes me conclude that this whole political tradition is deeply rotten to the core. And that is not a good thing in a democracy. It makes me despair. I was never a conservative, but to see the collapse of integrity, reason and judgement of conservatives who live in free and open societies, fills me with despair. What happened before was we just changed coach every now and again. We still always supported the team.

I personally thought it was important to disagree with liberals who were against both Bush presidents on foreign policy. Although I thought that GWBs first term was a disaster (being unfolded by Cheney and Rumsfeld) I recognised that his second term (with Condi Rice as SoS) was very effective. I said so.

But I am not an American so I may be untainted by the culture war (although it can draw anyone in). I am just a lover of America, a frequent visitor, and as a member of the global elite someone who has done a lot of business for and with American companies. And American foreign policy impacts the lives of everyone.

 

"Don't even try to compare my dislike of Obama's policies to the insane obsessive hate expressed by the Never Trumpers." Why? If I say white, you say black.
"That is so over the top, any attachment to objective reality is nonexistent." THAT is simply an opinion to avoid making an argument. To quote the president "lame".

 

Did Republicans and the media drag President Obama through the coals every single day of his Presidency? Have I ever called for Obama to be jailed, or impeached for Treason?

Did the media spend 90% of it's time reporting negative stories about President Obama?

That isn't the stuff of my opinion. That is fact. To suggest President Trump is getting the same treatment as President Obama is the epitome of lame.

 

No, Trump is not treated the same as Obama. Obama has class, Trump has none. Trump is just an outright liar and borderline insane, Obama is a politician, and a good one. Obama didn't put conmen, liars and just plain idiots onto his Cabinet. One news outlet (the most watched....unfortunately) spent 100% of it's time on negative stories about Obama.

 

Thank you for your rational, unbiased and objective opinion. It helped to prove my point.

 

And that point would be what? You were trying to say that a biased opinion can't make an argument that can prove a point wrong. That's not true...at all.

 

Thank you. He is mistaken about a lot of things.

 

With Trump's second summit with Kim coming at the end of this month, this is the real issue.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has continued to produce bomb fuel while in denuclearization talks with the United States and may have produced enough in the past year to add as many as seven nuclear weapons to its arsenal, according to a study released just weeks before a planned second summit between the North Korean leader and U.S. President Donald Trump, the report by Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation found.

"He said spent fuel generated from operation of the 5 megawatt reactor at its main nuclear plant at Yongbyon from 2016-18 appeared to have been reprocessed starting in May and would have produced an estimated 5-8 kg of weapons-grade plutonium.

"This combined with production of perhaps 150 kg of highly enriched uranium may have allowed North Korea to increase the number of weapons in its arsenal by between five and seven, the Stanford report said."

So went the results of Trump's first summit with Kim. There is no reason to believe that Trump will fare any better this month. No progress has been made toward denuclearization. There are no agreements to sign. Matters are only getting worse.

But, Trump will be able to change the subject. He has lost with his demands for a wall. He has lost support from his own party. The Mueller report will be out soon. The House is opening several investigations, including a look into the Trump family financial records.

 

Same old Communist guys are running Russia today and they have all the money.. The average Russian is impoverished and living in squalor. Putin is one of the richest men in the world.

 

Yes, his is an abject failure.

Obama never declared victory. Trump did.

And no previous US President ever stooped to putting a tin pot dictator on the world stage the way Trump did.

Obama never had people in Tokyo and Soeul hiding in bomb shelter in fear of the nuclear attack the Kim and Trump were bellowing at one another about. Previous US president had more sense than to indulge in petty bluster wars like that.

As with Trump's government shutdown, the collateral damage was considerable, particularly to the United States' standing in the world and its relations with its two most important Asian allies.

Oh, and since Kim rope a doped Trump in Singapore, the sanctions against North Korea have sprung open holes , not that least because Trump declared victory and moved on to the next shiny meme to peddle to his fans.

Oh, and Obama would never have cancelled joint operations or make deals on behalf of our allies, or undermine diplomatic understandings without consulting our allies.

I doubt that Trump even cares about the actual outcome of any discussions he has with Kim. He obviously didn't the last time.

But Trump is about to go down in flames on his ridiculous "wall" and his unnecessary and destructive government shutdown, so he needs a show.

 

Trump got the remains of 55 US soldiers back.

Obama never did.

Guess that doesn't matter to you.

That is a real thing for real families you know but all you care about are impressions, not actual work being done.

Sad.

 

Was that a joke? Kim returned the bones of soldiers killed 65 years ago. A bit late don't you think? There is still 5,000 remaining, and it will take several years to identify the bones.

Do you consider this progress toward denuclearization? It is truly amazing that you think this is progress, but that's alright. Trump thinks it is progress, too.

 

You know what’s insane, is trying the same thing again, and exp

i appreciate the time, and effort you took for this very substantive response. Well done.