North Korea, China and other concerns

Before turning to Asia, let me remind you that efforts to spark a US-Iran war continue apace, with the (squeaker) re-election if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump's saber rattling at the Persian militias. There are so many reasons for certain forces to want this distraction, whose only conceivable net-winner would be ring-master Vladimir Putin. Again, I urge folks to be familiar with the terms "Tonkin Incident," "Gleiwitz Incident," and Reichstag Fire." Know them, even if you figure I am a kook.

==  The North Korean Potemkin façade ==

Having waited a while after the absurd sham-meeting between a .U.S. president with a murderous communist tyrant, in another communist state -- a debriefing without a single U.S. official present -- before launching into this "emperor has no clothes" jeremiad.

I find it astonishing almost everyone accepts the potemkin farce-facade of North Korean autonomy from China, without ever pondering - even briefly, in passing - the obvious alternative. Well, it’s my job to consider “unconventional plausibilities” so mull over this one.

As recently as 1958, China had half a million troops on the Korean peninsula. Kim Il Sung was entirely their creature. So, bBy what logic does everyone assume they'd let go of such control, even when most troops were withdrawn? History shows innumerable ways that a ruthless empire can keep reins on a puppet regime, right next door. How does this alternative not merit primacy, under Occam's Razor?

Now consider the elephant question. How could North Korea develop – simultaneously – compact H-Bombs and triggers plus ICBM delivery systems, while its people starve and luxury goods pout into the Pyongyang elites? Do not yatter about Iranian complicity or ex-Soviet techies-for-hire. Not only is it all implausible, but it takes a special kind of delusion to imagine the PRC leaders would let it happen, a crazed, murderous clan stockpiling nukes practically next door to Beijing, without some pretty tight nooses and leashes.

Suppose – just as a mind-teaser – that I’m right and the conventional notion of NK autonomy is a put-up job. From Beijing's perspective, there are no disadvantages to this farce. They get a finger puppet who can be used to poke us in the eye at any time, or serve as "bad cop," while the PRC maintains "who me?" deniability. A few NK-delivered EMP pulses over North America could cripple our economy, while our fierce retaliation would be limited to an expendable peninsula downwind from anything Beijing cares about, but upwind from Japan and California. And note that deniability war is exactly what Putin expertly wages against Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and the entire west. 

Okay, I may be crazy. But I am paid to poke at the edges of pat assumptions. Moreover, for this scenario not to be at least on your horizon, considered as a plausibility, is far crazier.

== And on to China ==

China published a report on the United States that “exposes human rights violations.” As reported by Bill Bishop at Sinocism, these include: severe infringement on citizens' civil rights, the prevalence of money politics, rising income inequality, worsening racial discrimination, and growing threats against children, women and immigrants, as well as rights violations caused by unilateral America First policies." At surface, it is a blatant propaganda response to Congressionally mandated (since Jimmy Carter) U.S. reports on human rights violations around the world. And while it’s ludicrous to compare, it certainly is our way to welcome the corrective influence of criticism. Zero sum minds cannot comprehend that positive-sum strength.

This matter is actually fantastically important on a practical level. We need to recall that agents in Col. Vladimir Putin’s KGB had advantages in attempting to undermine America, e.g. being able to operate and move freely about our open society. During the overtly Marxist era, they also tried to use western self-critical guilt-trip mentalities to suborn the U.S. left into assisting them - something that absolutely never worked on any large or middle scale. 

In fact the U.S. labor movement, while “socialist” in a Canadian sort of way, was also the most vigorously anti-communist force in American life. This relentless failure to win via the left forced the Kremlin to consider alternatives. They always had good fortune with western plutocratic families like the Kochs and Trumps. An idea began to simmer.

Consider their problem. The KGB etc. had damn good spycraft, but it was always hampered by a fatal flaw… defections.  On occasion a major agent or official would jump the fence, bringing along troves of information that devastated Kremlin plans. Putin and others studied this flaw, and realized it was based upon three conditions, the West’s ability to offer:

1. Safety - often via new identities in a secure relocation program.

2. Good prospects - new employment and a chance to live the dream.

3. The moral high ground. A sense that, for all our faults, we were at least trying to keep a higher ratio of good to bad actions than past empires. A reputation for correcting flaws and moving forward, amid some degree of good intentions.

Now consider carefully. All three of these defection lures have been systematically wrecked by Putin’s New KGB, as defectors are systematically hunted down and killed, without much interference.

Moreover you can see the context for China’s human rights report, now. Though it does far less to rob our moral high ground than any single day or hour of the Trump Administration.

All of it — China’s assertive diplomacy, Putin’s machinations and Trump’s spectacularly deliberate demolition of American alliances and prestige — have had effects. As Bishop points out: “The U.S. approval rating for 2018 stands at 31%, only a 1% increase from the "new record low" seen during the first year of Donald Trump's presidency, per Gallup. 2018 also marks the first time that the global approval rating of Russia — currently at 30% — has been on equal ground with the U.S.”

At long last, look at how this all fits with what has happened since we supposedly “won the Cold War.” All communist or socialist symbols and creeds have been dropped and Soviet state companies were converted into zaibatsus owned by cartels of oligarchs — most of them Lenin-raised former commissars(!) — who now schmooze with billionaires in the west. The KGB has converted to mafia styles, allowing it to adapt western criminal practices to evade our accountability systems and laws. Putin is resurrecting czarist symbolism and protocols and thus winning over royal tyrants like the Saudis.

Where western socialists had been almost impossible to suborn, the same cannot be said of world billionaires, despots and organized crime (e.g. casino moguls), all of whom now share the very same agenda — to wreck enlightenment accountability systems.

Did anyone see BLAST FROM THE PAST? At the end, Christopher Walken's character shakes his head, upon hearing the "Politburo just gave up one day.” 

He sighs and comments only: "You've got to hand it to them." 

Never was a film more prophetic!

==  Don’t Eat, Don ==

We’ve all seen reasons to oppose any further Trump private meetings with communist or ex-communist or mafia foreign leaders. First, nothing good ever came of it — at all, even slightly — and they stink of being blatant de-briefing sessions, issuing fresh orders to Putin’s agent. Indeed, the House should present the Senate with a simple bill requiring any such meetings to be in the presence of State and Intel officials, and dare Mitch McConnell to oppose it! 

But there’s an added reason now, why Two Scoops should give up this filthy habit. Self-preservation.

He still views himself (delusionally) as a mighty Adonis. But Putin sees damaged goods and an asset turning into a liability, serving to unify the Union side of this civil war that Vlad cleverly helped Rupert to re-ignite. There comes a point where the mafia dons start thinking of cement overshoes… about how much more useful their raving “asset” would be, as a martyr. 

Close your eyes and think about it. The field day that silky-smooth President Pence would have, both reassuring and luring-back some of the officer corps, while riling 33% of Americans into confederate fury over martyred dear-leader Trump.

Fer crying out loud Donald, when you are alone with these tyrant pals DON’T EAT ANYTHING! Yes, you imagine it is only liberals and western-civilization types and smartypants who have it in for you, and that the despots are your pals. But remember how rapacious you were, in business, and consider that you may have outlasted your usefulness to your best pals.

 (God bless the U.S. Secret Service! Which -- noteworthy in recent news, is suffering morale problems for... reasons.)

Now consider how stupid this plausible scenario actually makes Don AND the dons. He won’t be careful, thinking he’s still valuable to them. And they won’t consider the long range, lethal consequences. One fact in particular should worry any sane, thoughtful person who cares for future generations...

... that there is nothing Mike Pence prays for, daily, more fervently than - absolutely literally - the End of the World.