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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Just another malcontent posting grievances. Life is great there...just ask Dennis Rodman.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 5, 2017 - 10:14am PT
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Salty dog! There are a lot of suffering people around the world. Hard to go on living well without some sort of defenses. Where to draw the line for personal survival against the sea of grief, versus what personal responsibilities to take? What personal actions really make a difference versus which are worthless hand-wringing?
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Incoming!
I love how she says North Korea is a terrible country since there is only one channel on TV, and no internet. That would crush the souls of most people who post on here.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Nutagain, maybe you already read this Atlantic piece by Mark Bowden?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-worst-problem-on-earth/528717/
I thought it was good, informative. Food for thought in these trumpian times.
re: Acceptance
"Every option the United States has for dealing with North Korea is bad. But accepting it as a nuclear power may be the least bad."
Cut yourself some slack. Our ancestors didn't evolve to "take in" the entire world and all its goings-on incl all its problems all the time every day let alone every hour via social media. I know you know this, it's just worth remembering from time to time.
...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Yeon-mi
Park Yeon-mi
"Park rose to global prominence after she delivered a speech at the One Young World 2014 Summit in Dublin, Ireland — an annual summit that gathers young people from around the world to develop solutions to global problems.[3] Her speech, about her experience escaping from North Korea, received 50 million views in two days on YouTube and social media, with a current total of more than 80 million."
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 5, 2017 - 10:34am PT
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Her father dies and her mother raped in front of her while escaping, people executed for making an international phone call, multiple generations of families jailed for expressing doubt about the government, and never reading or seeing stories of love, just about support for the present administration? That stuff jumped out at me more than the one TV channel. I guess we all have our own ways of expressing grief and accepting things that we don't seem to have the power to change. Being vulnerable to honestly express our feelings and sharing awareness of injustice is better than doing nothing in my opinion. Being hard in the face of injustice and moving on just empowers its spread in the world. Having empathy and spreading awareness develops the soil in which seeds of resistance and change can grow. That is something, and it personally costs us little.
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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NutAgain!, it does not sound like you are going to be booking a ski vacation there anytime soon, though I've read there is fairly exceptional untracked backcountry powder.
https://www.skimag.com/ski-resort-life/great-pleasure-project
On a serious note, I've spent some time with North Koreans when I lived in Mainland China. They were in a strange position, knowing about the reality of the outside world, yet having to submit and obey their government, as they had relatives still within the DPRK.
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Hubbard
climber
San Diego
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In WW2 Russia dismantled all the factories they could and moved the machinery one thousand miles by train and rebuilt them and started pumping out tanks from behind the Ural mountains where they were safe from the German advance. They did this in about six months time. They won the war by this decision.
The main threat from North Korea is the artillery attack they could launch on Seoul the capital of South Korea. Remove this target and they have very little leverage. North Korea has about three weeks of fuel to drive their tanks around. After that they are stuck in the mud.
As impractical as it may sound, one solution is to do as the Russians did. Move the capital Seoul to the southern end of the peninsula, well out of artillery range and rebuild. Evacuate the people and as much capital as possible then launch our own attack and crush the punk North. Sounds crazy but the Russians did it and it worked. The Russians had no choice. It was act or perish. Everyone now is twiddling their thumbs and kicking the can in hope that the problem will go away: it won't. Just a thought based on the study of history.
It would be easier to assassinate Kim and maybe that will happen.
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dirtbag
climber
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There are no good options, except as posted above, acceptance (and hope for a regime change) is the least bad.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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The Prediction is:
That Trump will need Russia's help to take care of North Korea,
and to get their help we will have to lift the sanctions and give back the Russian embassies and compounds in DC
But of course this is only because Trump owes Russia big time
and Russia want those sanctions lifted by Trump
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Russia? Really? Why would they give a hoot? Oh, sure, they'd probably see
some refugees trying to get to Vladivostok. The operative word is 'trying'.
But they'd be laughing their asses off in the Kremlin.
This whole thang depends on China putting on their big boy pants and acting
like a real world power. They could put a stop to this in weeks if they
wanted to. If it goes south, so to speak, it will cost them plenty, unless
they just mow down the millions of refugees who will flood the border.
As for the vaunted artillery barrage which would 'level' Seoul a few hundred
cruise missiles would wipe out most of that threat really quickly. When
those N Korean troops see real shock and awe they will defect so fast it'll
make yer heads spin.
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Yury
Mountain climber
T.O.
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NutAgain!
Her father dies and her mother raped in front of her while escaping, people executed for making an international phone call, multiple generations of families jailed for expressing doubt about the government, and never reading or seeing stories of love ... The life in North Korea is tough. I do not question this.
However I noticed a red flag in the above list.
How exactly was able a person to make an international call in a system that was designed to prevent such occurences?
It seems like a pure fantasy.
As a result it's plausible that some other "facts" in the above list were also invented.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Russia, China: N Korea missile test 'unacceptable'
Putin, Xi urge "comprehensive resolution" to Korean Peninsula issue as UN Security Council calls emergency meeting.
Russia and China have called for a simultaneous freeze on North Korean nuclear and missile tests and military exercises by the United States and South Korea.
The positions were announced in a joint document issued after a meeting between leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in the Russian capital of Moscow on Tuesday, in which they also condemned Pyongyang's latest missile test as "unacceptable" and urged against "any statements or actions that could lead to an increase in tensions".
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/07/russia-china-korea-missile-test-unacceptable-170704145934120.html
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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...unless
they just mow down the millions of refugees who will flood the border.
It's not like they haven't done it before.
Sometimes I think the Chinese see the Korea situation as being to their advantage. While everyone's eyes are on Korea, the Chinese are taking over the Asian Pacific. Diversion tactics?
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Hubbard
climber
San Diego
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A lot of NK artillery has been worked on for fifty years of bunkering. Blast door opens, gun fires, blast door closes. Cruise missiles would get only a percentage. The guns can keep firing for days or weeks. We might need the cruise missiles for other important chores. Heavily bunkered guns are not easy to move. People on the other hand can just walk away. We are talking about a war after all. The Western powers could do their thing. We crushed Japan and Germany. We occupied them fully and look at the result: two of the best countries on the planet. America has been playing smash and run ever since WW2. Too scared to do the real job. That is just the way it is. It would be best if everyone just smiled and got along... I'm not seeing it. Russia crushes their people. No thanks. Live like the Chinese ? Forget it, they are not free. Islamic countries? Woman's oppression is complete in those countries. That is not the future. The West is flawed and one foot out of three is built on sh#t but we are a far cry better than the others where two out of the three legs is built on... Radical problems require radical solutions. Radical solutions start out as crazy ideas. Not everything can be solved by hugs.
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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Have a clandestine operative(Chinese, Russian, or 'merican) take out KJU, problem solved.
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