**Written by Doug Powers Yes, 2012 has arrived. I’ll type softly for anybody who ushered out 2011 a little too aggressively . After we spend today getting used to the arrival of 2012 (I love that “new year” smell) it’ll be time to batten down the hatches for what promises to be an interesting, fun, turbulent and important year loaded with primaries, conventions, Supreme Court rulings on Arizona’s immigration law and Obamacare, presidential debates and of course the general election in November. I’m going to a family party today at my sister’s where I’ll be watching the Lions try to beat the Packers in Green Bay for the first time in 20 years . For anybody in a newsy mood today, here are a few possible topics for discussion: –The Des Moines Register released the results of their final poll prior to the Iowa Caucuses on Tuesday: Romney 24, Paul 22, Santorum 15. –President Obama signed the defense bill yesterday, balks at terrorism provisions. –Gore-mobiles recalled . –Kim Jong Il’s son has threatened South Korea already. The UN and Jimmy Carter are of course expected to recommend that South Korea respond by unconditionally surrendering. –Instructions on how to remove your Obama bumper sticker . Happy new year all! **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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First Day of 2012 Open Thread & Aspirin-Swapping Roundtable
AP – The Obama administration is sending its top diplomat for Asia to China, South Korea and Japan next week to confer with officials there about developments in North Korea after the death of Kim Jong Il and U.S. rapprochement with Myanmar.
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Top US envoy to visit Asia after Kim Jong Il death
(AP)
AP – The Obama administration’s cautious response to the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il reflects unease and uncertainty about the leadership transition in the reclusive country that has confounded U.S. presidents since Harry S. Truman.
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Analysis: Caution mutes US response to NKorea
(AP)
Well, I was waiting to see something like this. The U.S. leftists are falling in behind the Communist Party of Canada in support of the Kim regime in totalitarian North Korea — and publishing their pro-communist agitprop at the anti-Semitic hate blog Daily Kos. See NewsBusters, ” Daily Kos Comes to Defense of North Korea; No Worse Than South Korea, USA .” Following the link takes us to the diary at Daily Kos, ” North Korea & Hysteria, Madness .” I love this passage: We have to realize that much of what is written about North Korea is for popular digestion regarding potential invasion. Let’s face it, North Korea is ripe for capitalism, there are millions of potential workers who will work for near nothing. The hope is that the regime will crumble like the Soviet Union and give way to massive investment opportunities. Right. Millions of potential skeletons, but check the post. I can see where Professor Caldararo is coming from. He cites some political science literature on Cold War international politics, and he places North Korea in the framework of a besieged state surrounded by hostile powers. This is something of a realist take, but realism has been perverted by the academic left to demonize Israel as a detriment to U.S. security interests. This Caldararo piece is another application of such abstract analysis in furtherance of the far-left agenda. In particular, this piece is noteworthy for its extreme moral equivalence between North and South Korea, and thus their respective patron systems, communism and capitalism. But while Caldararo is quick to point out the authoritarian politics of the South Korean state, he omits that today Seoul is a democratic regime and perhaps the most successful developing economy in the world today. He also leaves out the enormous human rights abuses and North Korea’s threats to international security and regional order, such as state-sponsored terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Inconvenient facts, I guess. In any case, see Doug Bandow at American Spectator , ” Otherworldly Defense of North Korea “: There is much to complain about South Korea under military rule. But, in case the professor didn’t notice, the South Koreans escaped repression and achieved freedom. It turns out that nasty dictator Park Chung-hee (and he was nasty!) followed economic policies which allowed his people to avoid famine and escape poverty. And dictator Chun Doo-hwan responded to mass protests by holding an election. Silly fellow. He was later convicted and originally sentenced to death for his crimes. His successor, a former general and ally named Roh Tae-woo, allowed another election in which former dissident Kim Young-sam was elected. Roh also later was convicted and sentenced to prison. These guys were amateurs compared to the Kims. See what I mean? But this is the progressive left for you. “No enemies on the left,” and all that. It’s the evil U.S. imperial system that’s the real problem, to hear it from these idiots. And of course, the hate trolls of the progressive fever swamps won’t be inundating the administration at San Francisco State with demands that this guy be fired. No, that’s reserved especially for people who dare to indicate a believe in God and moral decency. It’s pretty messed up. But this is just one more example of the upside-down world we live in where good and decency are deemed as evil and real evil is championed as the saving grace of humanity.
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Niccolo Caldararo, Lecturer in Anthropology, San Francisco State, Hails North Korea as ‘Ripe for Capitalism’
The diligent crew at NewsBusters has uncovered an outrageous post by the left-wing blog “Daily Kos” asserting that North Korea is in fact no worse than South Korea or even the United States. The article, entitled “North Korea & Hysteria, Madness,” written by Niccolo Caldararo – an adjunct professor of anthropology at San Francisco State University – complains that “the Western media wallows in the exotic and North Korea has been the clown of the 20th century.” He goes on to claim that North Korea is merely “brought forward for comic relief now and then or pasted up as a ‘paper tiger,’ to scare voters before elections or as a distraction for other important news.” NewsBusters’ Tim Graham writes that, to hear the professor tell it, the capitalist imperialists are licking their chops after the death of Kim Jong Il: “Let’s face it, North Korea is ripe for capitalism, there are millions of potential workers who will work for near nothing. The hope is that the regime will crumble like the Soviet Union and give way to massive investment opportunities.” Arguing that North Korea is “no less responsible toward its own citizens” than South Korea or America, Caldararo writes: While North Korea may behave in a strange fashion at times, its political history is no less responsible toward its own citizens than the history of the South [Koreans], especially the recent history that was dominated in the 1960s to 1980s by dictatorial regimes that practiced torture and mass arrest. While we hear of starvation and torture in North Korea, these are far less well documented than the recent history of the South. As for the nuclear weapons issue, we should also recall that the USA has been the only country to use nuclear weapons, and we used them on civilians. If the world is to be afraid of the use of these weapons by a renegade nation, one should look at the definition of the word in the context of the Bush Administration waging war in violation of international law and by the use of evidence it knew was tainted. We cannot expect a world of law and respect after such behavior. The professor believes that “ignorance and fear” is what drives judgement of North Korean action and even went on to quote Cicero, stating, “There can be no peace without justice.” Caldararo also argued that the communist regime was actually brought on by America: The specific kind of leadership and government North Korea has today is the result of its history, and especially its most recent history with America. We must consider that from the end of W.W.II until 1987 South Korea was a brutal dictatorship. Its prison camps and torture chambers were filled with not only political prisoners but also ethnic minorities and religious objectors, in fact, anyone who dared to challenge the injustice and corruption of the regime. All this time South Korea’s government had the full support of the USA. North Koreans remember this horror and base part of their posture to the USA on this history… NewsBusters points out that when several commenters disagreed with Caldararo about his stance on North Korea, the professor arrogantly dismissed them as uneducated: “I love how people think they know what is happening in countries they have never even visited.”
It’s a question on the minds of many: What explains the almost macabre outpouring of grief at the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il? Well, see New York Times , ” North Korea’s Tears: A Blend of Cult, Culture and Coercion “: SEOUL, South Korea — Among countless mourners at a public square in North Korea, the kneeling middle-aged man in an off-white windbreaker stands out. The state broadcaster’s camera zooms in as he wails, rocking back and forth with clenched fists, his grief punctuated by the white puffs of his breath visible in the cold of the capital, Pyongyang. The camera lingers a few seconds too long on this perfect mourner. A couple of rows away, two teenaged boys stand motionless, seemingly uncertain about how to behave. They look toward the man — perhaps even at the camera beyond him — then briefly away, before also dropping to their knees to weep. A day after North Korea announced the death of its longtime ruler, Kim Jong-il, televised video and photographs distributed by the reclusive state on Tuesday showed scenes of mass hysteria and grief among citizens and soldiers across the capital. The images, many of them carefully selected by the state Korean Central News Agency, appeared to be part of an official campaign to build support for Mr. Kim’s successor, his third son, Kim Jong-un. In his first public appearance since his father’s death, Kim Jong-un visited the mausoleum in Pyongyang where Kim Jong-il’s body lay in state, covered with a red blanket. The coffin was surrounded by white chrysanthemums and Kimjongilia, a flower named after the deceased leader. Kim Jong-un was accompanied by a group of senior party and military officials, giving the outside world a hint about whom he might be relying on as he seeks to consolidate control over a dynasty that has controlled North Korea since it was founded by his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, whose death in 1994 led to even greater outpouring of public mourning. Contrived as they might look to Western eyes, the wild expressions of grief at funerals — the convulsive sobbing, fist pounding and body-shaking bawling — are an accepted part of Korean Confucian culture, and can be witnessed at the funerals of the famous and the not famous alike in South Korea. But in the North, the culture of mourning has been magnified by a cult of personality in which the country’s leader is considered every North Korean’s father. More at the link .
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A Blend of Cult and Coercion in North Korea
Here’s what’s important in the financial world this morning: Europe : The sovereign debt forest fire moved to Hungary, the debt of which was downgraded to junk status by Moody’s. Other factors were even more important as the fate of the EU becomes more difficult. Portugal’s debt was cut to junk by rating agency Fitch. Portugal has been out of the news recently as attention has focused on Italy and Spain. But, a failure of Portugal would pressure eurozone rescue funds nearly as much as Greece did. The two countries have similar GDPs. Whatever hope the capital markets had that the European Central Bank loans, or its purchase of sovereign debt on the open market, would improve regional financials has been dashed by the central bank’s unwillingness to act. U.S. : The “Black Friday” shopping weekend got off to a good start. Experts believe foot traffic will pick up sharply this year, compared to last. Lines at large big box and department stores were long as stores opened at midnight. India: India has opened its retail market to foreign companies. Firms such as Walmart can now own 100 percent of large store chains. However, India has local retail operations that have been established for decades. Walmart has a mixed history in overseas markets. It has done well in Mexico and China. It has failed in Germany and South Korea and struggled in Japan. It may find its big box, high discount formula is poorly suited to India as well. Apple : Yet another study has been released that shows Apple’s strength in the wireless market. Research firm Gfk reports that 84 percent of iPhone users would pick the smartphone as a replacement for their current model. Phones based on the Google Android operating system have less loyal owners. Only 60 percent of current owners would be buyers of the smartphones with the same OS again. The Gfk data reinforces recent studies which show that most of the profits in the smartphone industry are generated by Apple. Other new research reported that Apple apps make developers much more money than Google apps do. ( 24/7 Wall St. /The Blaze)
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Morning Market Roundup: Apple Customer Loyalty, Walmart in India
AP – President Barack Obama signed off Friday on the first three — and possibly last — free trade agreements of his administration, deals with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama that could be worth billions to American exporters and create tens of thousands of jobs.
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Obama signs 3 trade deals, biggest since NAFTA
(AP)
ContributorNetwork – President Obama visited Detroit on Friday, bringing with him South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak. The duo was in the city to promote the U.S.-South Korea trade agreement, which passed both chambers of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday.
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Obama and South Korea’s President Lee Visit Detroit
(ContributorNetwork)
