The North Korean System

ScottAdams blogged a very inspiring and creative solution to the Korean conflict crisis here.


How To Structure a Deal With North Korea

While it is thoughtful and reasonable, here is why it won't work. As a businessman, Scott doesn't have a rounded military experience to understand for international deal-making money isn't the end goal in most negotiations and for a powerful national organization real estate sits far lower on the list than strategic concerns. 

The smart media refers to North Korea as a regime - which literally means an authoritarian government.  It's important to understand why some words are different and why they matter.  Regime means something unique.   North Korea is a regime like an Italian mob is a mafia. Of course Italian American mobsters want to be known as businessmen, even if they are an "organized group using extortion and other criminal methods" - what businessman wouldn't want access to that kind of negotiation leverage? In either case, regime or mafia, there is a small group of powerful people operating by their own rules under a brutal code of conduct. While Scott comes up with some novel solutions that should work with reasonable people, this single factor is why Scott's novel deal conditions can't work; Scott's deal will make North Korea leadership look weak and lose face and that would undermine the "Kim Family System".

I like Scott Adams book, How to fail at almost everything and still win big, it's a good read for both enjoyment and to percolate some new ideas into your work ethos. In it, he explains one key money making technique is to have a system; a consistent pattern of doing things that ends up getting you ahead in life.

The Kim family set up post-war North Korea as a family-run brutal regime; ruling by fear of the evil Americans returning, and that the only salvation for the people is the mythically talented, and suspiciously mortal, Kim family.  You can tell it's a dictatorship because like every other regime they tell you they are democratic by putting "Democratic" and "People's"  in the nation's name ( Democratic People's Republic of Korea ) as if by telling you one thing negates the fact they act opposite.  But if you don't agree with them on this or any other point, they won't hesitate to unleash wild dogs or aim anti-aircraft guns at you. They even kill family members when it supports their goals - the family's not the peoples.

The Kim Family System - the system that keeps them in power and keeps them unkilled by the masses- is that only they can help North Korea defeat decadent Western enemies of South Korea, Japan, and the evil empire America. In return for their magnificence, the North Korean people must pledge absolute loyalty to the commands of the Kim family. Loyalty enforced by the dogs and guns aforementioned. Propaganda keeps up the pressure and the mythical abilities of the Kim family and their invincibility as the last salvation of the people. They restrict access to real information, control every aspect of life, and yes even restrict food supply to keep people from getting too happy and safe.  When the regime does fall, you will see the most angry hateful display of vengeance against any vestige of the regime. Those fat cats and autocrats that supported the Kim Family will be dragged through the streets worse than the most shameful displays from Somalia, and Iraq. For three generations, the people have suffered more at the hands of their benefactors than the enemy.

So long as the North Korea isn't attacked the Kim Family can keep claiming victory and keep ruling as they like. But in order for the scheme to be successful they need the real threat of impending war to keep doubters in check and resistance quelled. The Kim Family System won't survive peace, and prosperity. It's why they keep building nukes, it's why they run air raid drills, and it's why they shoot down US planes when they get the chance.  Grandfather and Father taught Kim Jong Un that the price of control is eternal savagery against their own people to protect the family legacy. To protect the Family System. In their minds, they are protecting the people from disaster - yet 60 years of no attack would make a reasonable person reconsider the utility of continuing this strategy. Secretly, the Kim Family System probably knows the US is occupied elsewhere but they can't let the threat disappear. Their safety depends on it.

My whole theory is backed up by Trump's bluff-blunder of extolling an "armada" approaching North Korean waters backed up by threatening talk, while the USS Carl Vinson was sailing in the wrong direction.  People who don't understand are focussing on the wrong events. Those working to make money off smearing Trump mocked him for his Mister Magoo-like precision in getting his facts wrong with a sprinkle of posturing silliness added for best effect. What makes my theory credible is that the Kim Family response to the armada was exactly as predicted if they operate like I claim; North Korea warned of a nuclear counter-strike against the United States if provoked. They held a big parade full of decoy missiles ( if you only have 20 nukes you don't put them all on display in one place you hide them in caves for a counter offensive). Then North Korea tried to launch a missile as a retaliation. It may have been defective or it may have been hacked, in any case that missile launch was symbolic. The Kim Family System gets to say, "See, we told you so, they are coming for your children - bravery comrades!", and continue to arm to defend the family interests.  North Korean newspapers sound more deluded than I could smear them:

“In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists’ invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes,” it said.

Sounds like someone else you may be familiar with threatening the "Mother of all battles"? How well did that go for him?


Trump's headfake - no matter what it's comical origin is - has exposed North Korea for what it really is - a REAL fascist regime in need of perpetual warmongering.



People can mock Trump for a rookie mistake, but young people today forget it was Eisenhower's bluff - the stated threat to use nuclear weapons in North Korea to prevent any more casualties in the Korean War, that probably started the Kim Family System down the dead-end path they are on now. The old people that could remind them are playing Canasta in retirement homes. Few Koreans even remember that time so they shouldn't be so quick to judgement. Americans have had their back for 60+ years.

The best course of action for Trump is to let China try to handle the problem - to save face - and if and when that fails do one of two things: tactical strike to kill Kim Jong Un and/or impose 50% tariffs on Chinese goods UNTIL North Korea dismantles their nuclear arms and program. He could even give China the choice of which they want. Let them fail and then pointedly act because time is running out.  If the Kim Family System ever gets threatened internally they won't hesitate to distract their own people by sending them to annihilation in a war. But in a regime no one can act without approval of the boss, otherwise they turn the dogs and guns on you. While Kim Jong Un's men claim they would carry out his dying orders I doubt that, they live in a world where lying to the boss is how you survive. Few Americans have lived in a post-Communist regime as I did for six months - they don't understand that under Communism it's Orwellian double think that keeps their sanity. North Korea and North Korean leadership especially doesn't want a war either as they would end up losing everything they have. As with most strongmen Kim's family has killed all potential rivals so the moment he is dead, like Tito, North Korea will descend into a political vaccuum, infighting, and maybe civil war.

Even if they believe that America wants a war they are in precarious times. Fresh in the mind of the struggle victor would be how he got his job. And the old boss just pissed off China by not cooperating, maybe China won't answer the call to arms.  As far as I can tell Premier Xi Jin Ping is a smart leader, that plays in favour of a decisive move after all real diplomatic means are exhausted and leaves him to return the insult at the end to North Korea. How likely could North Korea beat South Korea? Even they know they wouldn't last long with all the nuclear missiles incoming.

The way to solve this Gordian knot is with the sword, after the pen.

At 11:07PM, #DonaldTrump became weaponized

I watched the Fox News "Townhall" for #DonaldTrump hosted by Sean Hannity yesterday, and at 11:07 the candidate became weaponized.

What I say was a raw raw cheer show organized by obviously biased interests - letting people speak exactly how long their scripted responses were timed to last, I saw flags and freedom and all the stuff that appeals to emotions. I saw modified policies that made more sense and seemed more reasonable. And it was all aimed at Clinton.

And then I saw the most shocking, most eventual, galvanized, weaponized, worst thing of all: a reasonable-sounding Trump. Of course the transformation has been coming a long time, but he's now weaponized - his calm and demeanor attached to real facts about Clintons now make his effective range far greater and his denial-piercing attacks unstoppable against Clinton.

Clinton supporters are like fickle friends, they are going to hold their noses and vote in fear of Trump. +Dilbert Scott Adams is voting Clinton for his safety. But if she wavers too much or gets a political body blow they may just sit on the sidelines rather than vote. They will think their position will ride out 4 years.

Trump supporters are like rabid dogs. They won't just get in your face and yell at you to vote they might try to use your hand to vote for their guy if they could.

I predicted before +Dilbert Scott Adams that Trump would win. But what I see now makes it more likely he won't just win, he's going to paste her into a dark smoking spot on the carpet.

Here are the factors behind this prediction:

1. Trump listened to angry voters and adopted their causes.
2. Trump is malleable yet acceptable to Christian Conservatives. He is malleable and that also appeals to Centrists who just want results.
3. Trump was all over the map and people didn't care.
4. The fact Trump is more idealogically Democratic makes him less scary and more acceptable to people that just want jobs. Democrats may think they are winning but Clinton is more odious to right wingers than Trump is to left wingers. Polls are off ( see below).
5. Trump's elliptical and plain speaking teflon-coated him against media salvos.
6. Both Trump and Clinton are accomplished liars - that's a wash with most voters.
7. Trump's got angry on his side.
8. Trump has hidden voters - lots of people won't tell a pollster but they are voting for him. 
9. Trump has new voters - the previous polls and number don't account for this and any poll of 1000 people is meaningless because they don't account for skewed reality, and those pollsters are lying.
10. The DNC has been lying about their primaries numbers.  Go back to Iowa, go back to the first state before the hysteria and before things got serious. The DNC and RNC reported the same numbers. And yet look at social media, look at rallies, and look at how many more voters turned up for Trump. It's impossible they rallied the same number, it's unlikely they had that many people when Trump had not even won one state. He was a phantom threat no one took seriously, remember?  When the DNC went second, they lied- they ginned their numbers - to make them even with Trump. They are so lost now they are lying as much to themselves as the public.    Big mistake.
11. To my surprise, the Clinton team went straight into buying and using TV commercials right after the conventions. Why? Because they are seeing numbers far far worse than what's reported. Because they wanted to shape the conversation and define their opponent. They thought it would work - they used the right strategy and right messaging. All executed perfectly.  And - and this gets better - all that money is moving the needle zero. Why? Because it can't make a dent. Clinton needs to be ahead so far she can survive a mistake in the debates. But that's not appeared. That money didn't buy her a chance.

So here comes weaponized Trump.

While Clinton seems to think she's been smarter, calling Trump a racist and  unstable instead of driving home issues that's about to change.  The problem is that off-handed divisiveness plays to the same people that are in denial of reality, they think those arguments are making a dent. Are they?

Clinton has set herself up for total failure: her campaign made this about how capable she is: she's the most experienced, more venerable, more grandmotherly, more nuanced candidate than Trump. They have framed Trump as not capable.

But if anything goes wrong, if she makes one mistake then she can't make that bar she just set for herself.

If riots continue, if the stock market crashes, if the terrorists attack on US soil her capability is tied right to the Obama White House. If she stumbles her words or - god forbid - refuses to answer those same straight questions about her corruption, her emails, her servers, etc. in a debate he will catch her in a lie and she will be done.

Her bar of credibility is set way, way high. Trump's bar is set at he reads from a teleprompter and stays on message. The right wing party of Canada (Conservatives) tried this in the last election and lost handily to a non-capable guy that showed up with his tie on straight. This strategy is not going to win you anything if you frame yourself as fully capable like that, but if your opponent exceeds the non compos mentis bar you've made the argument for him.

What if Trump looks like a reasonable manager? What then? You don't think Trump who's managed lots of workers for many years can't show up and look respectable for a 1 hour debate?

And worse, worse is that Clinton is an amoral liar that avoids all reasonable questions about her corruption; her standard response is it's all part of a smear campaign from the right. She and Bill have been besmirched for their many tireless deeds of the poor and downtrodden. She has been persecuted, not that's she's done wrong. This might play to her voters, but will it play to reasonable centrist voters?  NO. The electorate is far larger and more mainstream than either the GOP or the DNC.

Look at Clinton Foundation tax returns they spend more on travel than they do on charities. It's not going to take long to expose her corruption. She hasn't held a news conference because she can't handle the questions. The drip drip drip water torture of corruption is going to start spilling out. What exactly does she think those debates are going to be?

In sum, Clinton is going to lose and lose big. There is only one way to stop Trump now, and that's if enough people switch from Hillary to Governor Gary Johnson and maybe that will stop the tide of misfortune that comes next.

A Sociopath as President

So I've been AWOL from blogging as I explore Twitter as another media outlet one can use/abuse/misuse your time with. I find it hilarious that people follow you/ unfollow you based on one -often too short - 144 character idea. It is a demonstration of the fatuousness and shallow wisdom of the average person that can hear one unfavourable idea, not chew it over for the real deeper meaning, and reflect on the reality within which that idea was presented, and thus reject the speaker outright. When I read other people's ideas, the last thing I am is dismissive.  If you are that shallow, I can assure you any great thoughts you think you have are no deeper than a kiddie wading pool.

“Great minds think alike, small minds rarely differ”

On Twitter, as here, I have posited from a state of objectivity towards US presidential candidates my views on both Hillary Clinton@HillaryClinton and Donald J Drumpf /@realDonaldTrump . In each of them, I see a looming disaster for the rest of us on the planet. That disaster comes from the very nature of their sociopathy and their personal pre-emption to others' needs. They have no problem lying to get what they want, and they will sleep well at night whether they succeed or not. That is concerning.

If you want to understand what I find so alarming about both major candidates, read this

Andrew Newton's :Sociopaths – Ten Tell Tale Signs

and tell me if they aren't worrying.  I predicted Trump would win before +Dilbert Scott Adams  because I saw how effectively Trump cleaved workers from the status quo Democrats. He did his research- or had research done by smarter people - that exploited the FoxNewsTruthiness angst.

Even stalwart leftists like Michael Moore now see the writing on the wall:

Clinton has lost and doesn't even realize it. She is sleepwalking into disaster; assuming her massive self-worth is so redeeming that most dumb bastards will agree with her.

The main problems I see with Trump are: he is a thin-skinned reactionary that has been sheltered from real performance disaster by wilful better people so much that he overestimates his own worth. Trump would start a war he didn't prepare for and he wouldn't suffer the indignity of failure. Therein lies hubris.  Remember the fever to war in Iraq, remember the buyer's remorse and the disaster afterwards. Hysteria feels great, the consequences not so much. Many Trump supporters will rue the day.

The main problems I see with Hillary Clinton; she is a self-important amoral liar more obsessed with self-image so much that the taint of failure will be obliterated along with the poor hapless victims in the way. The cost to others may be incalculable but she is certain she won't bear it. Clinton supporters are blinded to what they accept along with the candidate. Clinton would use a war to avoid admitting she made a mistake. How the Clintons conned the Left I will never understand.

I can't help it, this is what I see when Clinton speaks:

Neither is a bright hope for change.

After many months, I would much rather see https://twitter.com/GovGaryJohnson @GovGaryJohnson as the president because I think he has the right mix of policies and sanity that won't make a bad situation worse. The USA needs to be a stabilizing force and not a destabilizer. 

Back to my main thesis;  I need to make clear that doesn't mean in total I don't agree with the idea of a sociopath being the president.  That's right, because I've lived in the real world long enough to know the job of a societal leader is to be willing to make choices no sane human being can make because the decision requires what is in the best interest of a wider need, the need of a people. Human emotions are the enemy of tough decisions. Sociopaths are free from that empathy that might distract and defeat a people.

I will give you an example I've used before of a president I admire greatly. I will introduce him by reputation first and then by name.
Here is an excerpt from his wikipedia page:

_____________'s main goals in office were to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits. In the first year of his presidency, he threatened the use of nuclear weapons in an effort to conclude the Korean War; his New Look policy of nuclear deterrence prioritized inexpensive nuclear weapons while reducing funding for conventional military forces. He ordered coups in Iran and Guatemala. _____________ gave major aid to help France in Vietnam. He gave strong financial support to the new nation of South Vietnam. Congress agreed to his request in 1955 for the Formosa Resolution, which obliged the U.S. to militarily support the pro-Western Republic of China in Taiwan and continue the isolation of the People's Republic of China.

It seems from first glance this was a bloodthirsty sort of man, a Dracula, willing to inflict the severest indignity upon defeated foes, that he would annihilate groups of men in a nuclear explosion as a "cheaper" way to avoid casualties. Intimidating enemies with assured destruction like hanging the severed heads and mutilated bodies as a warning to their kin of what horrors one finds when they enter this foreign dukedom. This leader seems a narcissistic despot, a Hitler-like vanity, slaying foes for the sake of his new Reich.


Take away the name from the strategy, history, and accomplishments and to any sane person it would appear the man at the centre (given that in 1955 a woman president was unthinkable) is true tyrannical villainy. I doubt you realized he warned people he was prepared to use nuclear weapons, but back in that day it was not seen as abhorrent conduct but a means to saving many soldiers' lives, and he was dedicated to that end with all he had done in WWII.

Eisenhower

I do not claim to know whether or not Eisenhower was a sociopathic type personality. I doubt it. I would extrapolate that as a soldier that knew and endured and regretted many unspeakable tragedies in pursuit of total victory in WWII Europe, he was made to act in this manner. He learned what wins in war. I like to think it was for him, like most soldiers, the pragmatism of utility hard learned in battle that makes one act as if incapable - to the outside world - of feeling for those that sacrifice. And those vanquished. A man capable of ordering good people to their death without concern and without regret. Order them to sacrifice one does in pursuit of society's goals. That cannot be indistinguishable - by deed alone - from any other single-minded sociopath.

And while Clinton and Trump have all the psychological traits that might make them practical stand-ins for the job, does anyone think they will be as great as an Eisenhower?

The fundamental difference between these two and Eisenhower comes down to a simple factor: Eisenhower was not in it for anything other than serving the people. His people. His stubborn ruthlessness in war was driven by his singular main purpose; to defeat enemies of American interests no matter what the cost.

But if either Trump or Clinton cannot rise to the level of an Eisenhower, then should you risk handing them the keys to the kingdom? Think of all the other ways they might wreak havoc amongst their own people?

The sane choice this election is https://twitter.com/GovGaryJohnson @GovGaryJohnson.

Scott Adam's Outragism is the new outrage

Scott Adam's has a really good post about the manufactured outrage syndrome that is sweeping the world. 

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109482303301/outragists-are-the-new-awful

People are getting very accustomed to the recognition and popularity that comes with becoming upset over nothing.  Perhaps it's a narcissism outbreak, perhaps it's a consequence of the new social media attention.  The fact is, when everyone is connected anyone can contact many and perpetuate all sorts of nonsense.  Even poorly written blogs.

My word for the same phenomenon was "emotionalism".  People hearing something that vaguely offends their sensibilities and then they turn off their thinking portion of brain function and launch right into emotional attack mode, spinning arguments, warping quotes, and most unfortunately manufacturing rage.