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1. Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 09:43:29 UTC Hallå Kitteh

   • ∑ XahLee
   @xahlee It seems we agree on the facts, yet disagree on the conclusion.
   
   I've been to Wuhan and seen their museums of the revolution. It's crazy how they even glorify the Taiping Rebellion, the most deadly deadly domestic conflict ever, simply because it weakened the Qing state.
   
   That said, the historical museum in Taipei has some pretty uncritical views of the Generalissimo as well.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Friday, 23-Feb-2018 22:45:42 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee
     
     > selfish external forces, Russian and USA, particularly USA
     
     And yet, the people in ROC and ROC are glad that they don't live in the Soviet-originated states in PRC and DPRK.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Friday, 23-Feb-2018 22:54:42 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee If the ROC and ROK have any fascistic tendencies, it's because of their aggressive neighbors that tried to wipe them out in the 50s.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Friday, 23-Feb-2018 23:03:20 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee A lot of people are calling each other nazis these days. But even though ROK seems to be becoming more thought-policing lately, they're still a freer country now than in the 80s. Same with ROC, although I've heard fewer stories of repression from there than from ROK.
     
     Both nazis and commies are wrong. If they shoot me for marrying outside my race or for trying to run a business, I'm equally dead.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Friday, 23-Feb-2018 23:18:18 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee Russia and Islamists are helping nobody but themselves. China is helping the third world by investing, but are still careful to stay out of any overt military involvement, except for its aggressive maritime border policies.
     
     But if the US state wants to take more freedom from its people, whether from the right or from the left, there will be no outsider to step in and help, like the USA did for ROC and ROK. Nobody can outspend the US military, so it's futile.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 00:22:15 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee The split in the USA is nowhere near the level of the Cold War split in the world.
     
     I'm not an American, but if I were, or if I were a citizen of any of the other countries who fought for the UN troops in Korea, I would be happy that thanks to my country's contribution, millions of people were saved from decades of suffering. The situation in DPRK cannot be described in clear enough terms. It's a prison the size of a country.
     
     Even if we pretend that the ROK would have been equally bad until the 80s, that's still 2-3 decades of freedom to leave the country, access to food, access to modern technology, that South Koreans have had, and North Koreans have been denied.
     
     You talk as if splitting Korea was bad. If the alternative was a unified Juche Korea, I don't see have that alternative would have been even morally justified by these external parties.
     
     As for China, the differences are less drastic, especially today. The Chinese generally have access to food, education and modern comforts. But the millions who died in starvation and persecution did not have the luxury to say there is no right and wrong. And the over one million who fled to Hong Kong, preferring slums and the rule of triads to the alternative across the border, made their views on right and wrong clear. The regime on Taiwan, though repressive, corrupt and violent, still saw two million flee there for a better life.
     
     The external forces in China and Korea acted for their own purposes, of course. It was part of a global game of power. But I find it very hard to say that the splits were bad, if the alternative was the Americans leaving. It would have been better if both Soviets and Americans would have left the countries alone to develop on their own terms, but I don't see how "particularly the USA" split the countries. Mao and Kim received training and military support from Moscow, and it was their actions that created the splits.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 00:28:58 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee I think it would be good for the USA and for the world if the USA split in several pieces. But I don't see it happening any decade soon. When it does happen, I hope it's a slow and civil process, not a sudden flame of intense conflict.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 08:54:45 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee Yes. China has largely recovered from hell, whereas North Korea hasn't. Maybe the dynasty vs party rule has something to do with it. In North Korea the old guard dying off doesn't help, even for two generations. China started improving as soon as Mao went away.
     
     I don't know that I'm theorizing after the fact. The USA's reasons for engaging in Korea were partly that communism is dreadful, and it hasn't been proven wrong on that point.
     
     China is improving because Deng dismantled Communism As We Know It.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 09:00:30 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee And yet he moved to Taiwan and then the US. I'm not saying that the US didn't have its own motives, or that war and occupation isn't terrible, or that soldiers aren't liable for abuses they commit. But your perspective seems to leave the CPC blameless, when that is far from the case.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 09:25:14 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee No, because I don't see how that answers the question of whether Korea being split instead of a unified dictatorship is a bad thing.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 09:32:35 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee I just think it's possible to say that the same country can be guilty of invasion, oppression and genocide and still not being automatically wrong in everything it does.
     
     Killing and displacing the pre-existing nations in North America was horrible, but so was Kim's invasion of Korea, and Mao's invasion of China.
     
     I can even say this and *still* think that Dr. Sun wasn't necessarily right in revolting against the Qing and taking part in creating the state that Mao crushed.
   • ∑ XahLee (xahlee@noagendasocial.com)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 09:57:28 UTC ∑ XahLee

     in reply to

     @clacke
     taiping rebellion, the leader is brother of jesus.

     Taiping Rebellion Poem: Kill the Vicious and Keep the Righteous Poem
     http://wordyenglish.com/poem/taiping.html

     ^_^

     Hallå Kitteh repeated this.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 09:59:22 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee North Korea didn't have to attack South Korea. East Germany never attacked West Germany, and so there was no German War in the 1950s. It was the inability of the US side and the Soviet side to agree on the terms of a unified Korea that created the split. It was the politics of China and the Soviet Union that escalated the conflict.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 10:08:44 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • yukiame
     • ∑ XahLee
     @yukiame @xahlee The Allies were the British, the French, the US, the Soviet Union, China (ROC), and Australia, and ... etc. But the major actors, in particular in East Asia, were the US and the Soviet Union.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2018 10:10:47 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • ∑ XahLee
     @xahlee If we murder all the bad guys, only nice guys will be left! That logic has never failed.