Board 8 > So is this Korea stuff worth getting excited about?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I mean, I know if this is genuine, we should be excited.

But how does a change of heart happen so quickly like that? We have relatively recent evidence of Kim being his usual irrational and dangerous self.

I want the peace, I just dont know if I buy it.
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Yes

All hail Trump!
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Its something to be tentatively hopeful for, definitely.
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It takes a madman to dethrone a madman
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It's a shame Trump supporters can't stop talking about this, and all they talk about regarding it is Trump. It's the sign of derangement. Not the sign of people actually interested in the possible peace in Korea.
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v_charon posted...

It's a shame Trump supporters can't stop talking about this, and all they talk about regarding it is Trump. It's the sign of derangement. Not the sign of people actually interested in the possible peace in Korea.

I mean... it was 100% Trump... so there is that....
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There have been low key talks between SK and NK for awhile now, and we saw them cooperating at the Olympic Winter Games. So it could be real diplomacy happening.

I don't think the US or the rest of the world is really having a big impact here. It seems between them. I'm not sure why anybody thinks Trump is the cause of this. The extent of that relationship is just Kim Jong Un and Trump ranting at eachother....

Who knows if NK is genuinely keeping up their end of the bargain though.
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I think a combination of their nuclear facilities collapsing onto themselves, China saying "yeah, this shit is getting ridiculous", Edit: plus the peace talks between the North and South vis a vis the olympics, and Trump being a crazy enough dude to turn the DPRK into a wasteland deserve credit.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Its something to be tentatively hopeful for, definitely.

Or as I was going to say "ish"
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The Koreas have done this dance before. I'm glad they're talking, and you're always hoping that maybe this time it'll work, but there aren't any guarantees.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I think a combination of their nuclear facilities collapsing onto themselves, China saying "yeah, this shit is getting ridiculous", Edit: plus the peace talks between the North and South vis a vis the olympics, and Trump being a crazy enough dude to turn the DPRK into a wasteland deserve credit.

Yup

There's credit to be given on many different sides, not just Trump, not just Moon Jae-In (although let's be honest he's probably the biggest part), and not just China. It's all of them

I'm very excited about all of this because it's a massive deal. But, I'm as cautious as anyone else. So maybe the answer you're looking for is yes be excited but don't be too surprised if it falls through or if Kim Jong Un hasn't actually had the change of heart that he's currently showing.
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I think excitement is a strong word but the short answer is that "yes, this is a good thing."
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Even if they have peace there is no guarantee that Kim will stop committing horrific crimes against his own people. The man is pure evil.
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I'm positive about it. Hell, if it goes somewhere, I'm definitely willing to say Trump did a good thing.

Though NK remains pretty awful even if you take away the threat of nuclear war, so that's not ideal.
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Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, expect something in the middle.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

v_charon posted...

It's a shame Trump supporters can't stop talking about this, and all they talk about regarding it is Trump. It's the sign of derangement. Not the sign of people actually interested in the possible peace in Korea.

Even CNN and MSNBC are reporting Trump got negotiations going. There's a difference between not liking someone and being completely delusional.

Not for a lot of libs... (not all)
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Now if Trump can fix the situation in Gaza, I'll call him the greatest president ever
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DeepsPraw posted...

Now if Trump can fix the situation in Gaza, I'll call him the greatest president ever

It's coming.
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EmDubyaSee posted...

UltimaterializerX posted...

v_charon posted...

It's a shame Trump supporters can't stop talking about this, and all they talk about regarding it is Trump. It's the sign of derangement. Not the sign of people actually interested in the possible peace in Korea.

Even CNN and MSNBC are reporting Trump got negotiations going. There's a difference between not liking someone and being completely delusional.

Not for a lot of libs... (not all)

I would like to thank you both for immediately proving their point.
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lol yeah totally not proving their point.
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INCEPTlON posted...

But how does a change of heart happen so quickly like that?

There is no change of heart on NK's side. At least since the beginning of Un's rule, he has been focused on developing nuclear power so he had bargaining chips with SK and the US. That's it.

The only things that have changed now are that NK feels like they have enough barganing chips to make an actual deal, and SK/US (Trump) are actually willing to acknowledge NK's power and make a deal. You could imagine that NK had enough nuclear power to make a deal a couple years ago, but Obama wasn't interested in that at all. That's why SK credits Trump for this development.

But the problem is that the US doesn't give a shit about peace between NK and SK. They only care about controlling NK, which would obviously lead to massive strategic advantages for the US vs China and such. But NK specifically wants a good deal that isn't just becoming another proto-colony of the US like SK, so there's a very high chance the deal will blow up when the US actually gets involved in the meeting.

The only chance of actual peace between NK and SK is for the US to largely demilitarize SK (plus whatever presence remains must cooperate with China), which has a literally 0% chance of happening, unless Trump is ACTUALLY afraid of NK's nuclear power. In which case Un's initial strategy from the very beginning was undeniably effective.
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The country is turning on leftists by...voting Hillary more than Trump in the popular vote, by a margin that makes any claims of "illegal votes" look like bitter crybabies who can't handle the fact that they're unpopular and won due to an unbalanced system.

The country is turning on leftists by...voting in mass numbers for Democrats in pretty much every election since Trump won the presidency?
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His point was that you can only credit Trump, ignoring nuance and the complexity of the situation.

And Im still waiting for a Trumpers response to the fact that the Obama administration essentially made peace with Iran, in a deal that every nation on Earth said was as good as it gets, but for some reason Trump is blowing it up.
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I mean this exact same thing happened in 2007 and nothing came of it.
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Also you will see in the next few months how little Americans actually want NK/SK peace. How much we, for whatever reason, NEED Korea to be "ours" and filled with 10000s of troops. It would the first and by far the boldest anti-establishment move Trump could ever pull. Literally every side of American politics would hate it (Obama's policy was steadfastly anti-Korean after all).

You think MWC and Ulti are gonna be praising Trump for pulling troops out of SK as part of an NK denuclearization deal? The minute that happens they will be scouring wikipedia for the worst korean slurs to add to their hourly vocabulary. They won't even remember that they ever hated anyone with dark skin. The amount of rage the media machine will be able to generate from that will be generation defining.
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foolm0r0n posted...

You think MWC and Ulti are gonna be praising Trump for pulling troops out of SK as part of an NK denuclearization deal? The minute that happens they will be scouring wikipedia for the worst korean slurs to add to their hourly vocabulary. They won't even remember that they ever hated anyone with dark skin. The amount of rage the media machine will be able to generate from that will be generation defining.

North Korea's leadership hasn't exactly engendered a lot of trust, and a lot of people including me wouldn't want to leave them an opening to attack South Korea with their still considerable conventional weaponry. Considering that the South has developed into a technological and manufacturing powerhouse, I wouldn't want to see that happen.

The end result I'd like to see from this is North Korea eventually becoming a normalized state where the US no longer needs to maintain a presence to protect the South. That will likely take decades and be an incredibly painful process.

Uglyface2 posted...

The end result I'd like to see from this is North Korea eventually becoming a normalized state where the US no longer needs to maintain a presence to protect the South. That will likely take decades and be an incredibly painful process.

But you refuse to allow the steps it takes to get there to happen. The decades and pain have happened already. How many more decades and pain will it take?
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The pain is still taking place in North Korea. The government is not run by nice people. It's not like you can flip a switch by having the US presence removed.

Yes and I am asking how many more decades do you think we need to stay in the status quo before things get better? Another 7?
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I don't know. It's something that South Korea will have to play by ear. The US shouldn't stay there forever, but they probably won't be leaving soon.

It's worth being a little optimistic about. Not worth taking it for granted that anything beyond token gestures comes out of it.
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Uglyface2 posted...

I don't know. It's something that South Korea will have to play by ear. The US shouldn't stay there forever, but they probably won't be leaving soon.

Yup. As long as you realize you and the many others with a similar mindset are slowing things down.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Okay I like the dude but Gaza isn't fixable.

The funny thing is that I heard a pretty plausible way he could fix Gaza back when he was president elect.

Basically all he has to do is threaten to take away the massive amounts of money the US gives to Israel and there's decent odds Israel will blink and back down.

Most presidents have been reluctant to do this, cause the moment you threaten funding to Israel you get called an anti-semite. If any president is not going to give a fuck about being called an anti-semite, it's Trump.

That said, so far he's been pretty much bowing to whatever Israel wants, so I'm not holding my breath on that one.

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On North Korea...I think Trump deserves some part of the credit, but the bulk of the credit here has to go to Moon Jae-in. Moon Jae-in campaigned on opening up diplomatic channels with the North. He set up the sharaed Olympic team stuff before America was even giving lip service to peace talks with North Korea. He was the one who greeted Kim at the DMZ. From what I understand this is the first time ever that the leader of North Korea has set foot in South Korea, so that's pretty big.

But credit where credit is due, Trump's current moves do seem helpful. He already has a meeting with Kim scheduled. He's praising the moves that Moon Jae-in has taken.

That said, this is still the relatively easy part. North Korea has started peace talks before, long enough to get sanctions lifted, only to restart hostilities and their nuclear program. The challenge for Moon Jae-in (and Trump) is figuring out how to stop history from repeating itself, how to not get tricked by Kim into lowering sanctions when Kim may have no intention of keeping his end of the bargain.
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metroid composite posted...

The funny thing is that I heard a pretty plausible way he could fix Gaza back when he was president elect.

Basically all he has to do is threaten to take away the massive amounts of money the US gives to Israel and there's decent odds Israel will blink and back down.

Most presidents have been reluctant to do this, cause the moment you threaten funding to Israel you get called an anti-semite. If any president is not going to give a fuck about being called an anti-semite, it's Trump.

That said, so far he's been pretty much bowing to whatever Israel wants, so I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Spoiler Israel isn't the problem
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Nanis23 posted...

Spoiler Israel isn't the problem

Of course not, Israel is barely a sovereign state. That's why she explained it's the US who needs to take action there. If you don't like that then make your government stop being so deeply beholden to the US.
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foolm0r0n posted...

There is no change of heart on NK's side. At least since the beginning of Un's rule, he has been focused on developing nuclear power so he had bargaining chips with SK and the US. That's it.

How is it that foolmo is literally the only person who understands this.

Everything that is happening is happening because North Korea hatched an effective plan for extracting concessions from the US and SK and now he's trying to collect. I am not gonna sit her and call the guy shrewd but he's going to get a whole lot of what he wants which is going to solidify his tenuous political position in NK.
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Eddv posted...

foolm0r0n posted...

There is no change of heart on NK's side. At least since the beginning of Un's rule, he has been focused on developing nuclear power so he had bargaining chips with SK and the US. That's it.

How is it that foolmo is literally the only person who understands this.

Everything that is happening is happening because North Korea hatched an effective plan for extracting concessions from the US and SK and now he's trying to collect. I am not gonna sit her and call the guy shrewd but he's going to get a whole lot of what he wants which is going to solidify his tenuous political position in NK.

When you hate America so much you'd rather credit Un than your own President (which mind you everyone else is crediting)
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Eddv posted...

I am not gonna sit her and call the guy shrewd but he's going to get a whole lot of what he wants which is going to solidify his tenuous political position in NK.

Well he won't, probably. He thinks he will because Trump said some fluffy things to him and Moon that makes them think the US is changing their stance. But when Trump realizes what a "Korea peace deal" actually entails, it's not gonna happen.
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EmDubyaSee posted...

When you hate America so much you'd rather credit Un than your own President (which mind you everyone else is crediting)

When you hate America so much you will stop critically thinking (the most American act anyone can possibly do) just because you happen to agree with the mainstream media
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This is gonna come as a surprise to you, MWC but as a 60+ year old conflict theres a lot of nuance and long term scheming at play here that predates both Trump and Un and as such its not super appropriate to pass out credit.

foolm0r0n posted...

Eddv posted...

I am not gonna sit her and call the guy shrewd but he's going to get a whole lot of what he wants which is going to solidify his tenuous political position in NK.

Well he won't, probably. He thinks he will because Trump said some fluffy things to him and Moon that makes them think the US is changing their stance. But when Trump realizes what a "Korea peace deal" actually entails, it's not gonna happen.

I think he stands to gain formal independence (a mostly symbolic move that will help him a lot at home) and some alleviation of sanctions on the China side before it all turns to shit
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so thirsty for credit everyone and the media's already diving into the masturbation phase before anything's actually been settled seriously

Kim Jong-un's got such an amazing opportunity to cash in here
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foolm0r0n posted...

EmDubyaSee posted...

When you hate America so much you'd rather credit Un than your own President (which mind you everyone else is crediting)

When you hate America so much you will stop critically thinking (the most American act anyone can possibly do) just because you happen to agree with the mainstream media

Imagine if you will if you had a mortal enemy, one of which was evil and a proven liar, had even gone so far as to doctor evidence against you before on stuff....

And you did something amazing, and everyone knew it, and it was so overwhelmingly obvious that even this Lying evil son of a bitch has no choice but to commend you for it. There would be no critical thinking needed anymore, you did something amazing

If there was ANYWAY, even lying or doctoring shit in which they could put down Trump or not give him credit here the fake news network would.... even they can't.

It was Trump. You're delusional
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Tyrant does something vaguely non-tyrantish.

People sing his praises.
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CelesMyUserName posted...

so thirsty for credit everyone and the media's already diving into the masturbation phase before anything's actually been settled seriously

Kim Jong-un's got such an amazing opportunity to cash in here

Yes ironically North Koreas biggest problem is supposed to be that they only have one thing the US wants so its all a matter of what they can get for it.

Trump has backed himself into a corner where now he NEEDS to deliver on this because he already claimed it was a done deal which only strengthens Uns hand.

Foolmo is right though. This is doomed to failure because what North Korea wants (the US to demilitarize the South) is never gonna happen. Its just a matter of what can get done before talks break down on that point.
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of course the trump worshipers are already going "OMG THIS IS AMAZING." what a ridiculous overreaction.

good for trump that he got the negotiations going, but let's wait and see if this actually leads to anything.
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