Re: [Marxism] Long Live the North Korean Nuclear Program!

[nada <dwaltersMIA@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think this is the very typical totally un-nuanced Joaquin at his worst.

One can put out the "Long Lives!" you want, it has no meaning hardly has 
a political impact, except at the most existential level.

I think Joaquin has it quite wrong. It's not a question of a "deny the 
right of Third World countries" to nuclear weapons. I think most can 
agree here (not all) that that right is one of sovereignty, especially 
when no one questions the right of China or Russia (actual neighbors of 
N. Korea) or the U.S. on it's Pacific Fleet have nuclear weapons. For me 
this is not the issue.

The question is that given the partly self-inflicted economic mess N. 
Korea has been in since 1991, including the starvation, maybe, of 100s 
of thousands of it's citizens, it's opens up the question just what the 
hell the N. Korean gov't is thinking.

The people there are staving. There is virtually no energy production. 
Their lives suck. In fact, if you look at the way Cuba handled it's 
post-Soviet "Special Period" and the way the DPRK handled theirs' the 
latter looks more like the gangsters that run Burma than a progressive 
social response to the crisis.

Instead of developing their productive forces, the DPRK has actually 
*acted* like they are at war, and has *underdeveloped* it's economy. 
Instead of plowing who knows how much into food and industrial 
development, they have done *just the opposite*. Joaquin's rant provides 
nothing in terms of analysis as to the predicament that he DPRK finds 
itself.

So the gov't thinks it a 'wise' move to more toward development of 
nuclear weapons even if the US could and would destroy *them as a 
people* if they chose to. I think, from very far afield, that what the 
DPRK has done is to heighten tensions and possible cause a war, 
something that is *not justified* since the threats against them are at 
BEST, rhetorical marshmallows. Imperialism has demonstrated it is very 
happy to let the north Korean state simply collapse in on itself in it's 
own good time.

To use an analogy...I for one defend the idea, historically accurate, 
that Kuwait is Iraq's 19th province. But I totally condemn Hussein's 
attempt to take it back because it was OBVIOUSLY STUPID and the results 
are there for all to see. The same is true with the DPRK's "right to 
nuclear weapons". The right, when exercised, is a provocation the world 
AND Korea could do with out.

David

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