I saw this image of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un earlier today on CNN:
The joy on these faces seems genuine. To think that an officer so forgot himself in that moment of celebration, he actually jumped onto the shoulders of the country’s all-powerful leader!
What they were celebrating was the successful test firing of a new rocket engine.
But what this picture reveals, the genuine joy on these faces, suggests something much worse: namely that North Korea’s leaders may truly believe their own propaganda. They may truly believe that governing via a totalitarian regime is the right thing to do. That sinking money into a gigantic but, in many ways, very backward military is the right thing to do. That pissing off the United States is the right thing to do.
And thus, self-fulfilling prophecies are born. North Korea may think that it is defending itself from US aggression. But they do not seem to realize that it is precisely their stance and their weapons program that make them a subject of US threats and sanctions.
And they especially don’t seem to realize that with a genuinely unhinged leadership in the White House, further provocation may achieve the exact opposite of what they want: Instead of being able to preserve the regime, they might see it come to an hasty end as Washington decides to intervene after all, leading to a tremendous loss of life no matter the outcome.
You really need to get over your Trumpophobia. :-) Trump is not crazy, he knows exactly what he’s doing, and what he’s doing is persuading *China* to replace Li’l Kim with someone a little more firmly in touch with reality.
Yes, Trump is sane and he knows exactly what he is doing. And as the immortal Jack London wrote, “There’s nothin’ in the rule o’ three. The almanac’s clean out. The world’s gone smash. There’s nothin’ regular an’ uniform no more. The multiplication table’s gone loco. Two is eight, nine is eleven, and two-times-six is eight hundred an’ forty-six–an’–an’ a half. Anything is everything, an’ nothing’s all, an’ twice all is cold-cream, milk-shakes, an’ calico horses. What ain’t is, an’ what isn’t has to be. The sun rises in the west, the moon’s a pay-streak, the stars is canned corn-beef, scurvy’s the blessin’ of God, him that dies kicks again, rocks floats, water’s gas, I ain’t me, you’re somebody else, an’ mebbe we’re twins if we ain’t hashed-brown potatoes fried in verdigris. Wake me up! Somebody! Oh! Wake me up!”