Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (116773)	5/29/2005 9:05:28 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Respond to of 793914

Out of curiosity - do you think the people of Cuba or North Korea or even Iran get to manage their own affairs? This is only my opinion. It is not based on very much. I have never been to either Cuba or North Korea. I may have met one or two Cubans from Cuba, but I have never met anyone admitting to being from North Korea. All I know about these two places are from reading headlines in newspapers and seeing from whatever reporting they do on TV. Of course I don't believe everything I read and see on TV - but even taking everything with a grain of salt, this is my perception. Cubans seem a lot healthier and happier than North Koreans. I think of Cuban as somewhere Fidel Castro forced the Cuban people into a communist experiment - and I think the experiment is a failure. I don't see an exit strategy. I mean Castro loves baseball. Anyone who loves baseball can't be all that bad. North Korea is an entirely different story. I don't want to say that Kim (whatever his name is) is a sick person because that gives sick people a bad name. North Korea is a tragedy. First of all, I think this guy Kim was put in power by his father. I don't think he has the smarts or toughness to have taken over the country entirely by himself. My point here is that for him to stay in power, there has to be a fairly sizable structure that supports and enables him. There has to be a small army of political manipulators, propagandists, and intellectual enablers that help to keep this person in power. And, of course, there has to be a few fools that have been fooled by all the manipulators. But, for the most part, most people in North Korea suffer in some passive manner. For the most part people in North Korea are not that different from South Koreans, or Japanese, or Hawaiians, or us. They are just unfortunate in having been born into a crazy situation. Too bad. That is life. They are just unlucky. What can we do about it? We have to do what is best for us. We have to be smart about it. We have to take care of the situation without getting a lot of our own people (or our allies) killed. We shouldn't have to spend a lot of money to do it. We have to have our allies (and others) share this burden. There are smart ways to handle a bad situation and there are stupid ways to handle the situation.