Trump Takes a Very Short Hike Into North Korea, Gets Shit On By Democrats

     Has Donald Trump displayed presidential gravitas by walking into North Korea, shaking hands with Kim Jong-un, and speaking with him in a country deemed a U.S. adversary for sixty-nine years?
     Since the Democratic presidential candidates debated on MSNBC last week, we the people supposedly want to hear what those worthies have to say about their president's gesture towards Kim and the North Korean people generally.
     Former Vice President Joseph Biden, affected I think by a lousy debate performance last Thursday, had his spokesman write that "[Trump] yet again fawned over Kim Jong-un...Trump's coddling of dictators at the expense of American national security and interests is one of the most dangerous ways he's diminishing us on the world stage and subverting our values as a nation."
     Donald Trump, dictator coddler.
     Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter coddled the Shah of Iran, a dictator.  There are many other examples, including the Clintons' friendship with Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.  Dictator coddling is fine with American political elites as long as it conforms to a list of acceptable dictators aiding American imperial foreign policy.
     Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, acting out her role as the homey midwest candidate, Coen Brothers movie accent included, said, "We want to see a denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, a reduction in these missiles but it's not as easy as just going and, you know, bringing a hot dish over the fence to the dictator next door."
     First, she indicates she wants North Korea to denuclearize, something Gaddafi did in giving up his nuclear weapons program, thus condemning his country and himself to ruin.  It's unsettling when a woman who fits a "normal mom" archetype advocates destabilizing a nation and killing thousands or millions of people.  She contradicts herself in the same sentence by qualifying "denuclearization" with "reduction in these missiles..."  The first word means no missiles in North Korea.  The next phrase means less missiles, but they will still have missiles.  Trump, sloppy speaker that he is, has opponents wanting his job who are also unclear when they talk.
     Hey, has anyone in mainstream news suggested that Trump "coddles" Kim because he wants him as a future ally against the People's Republic of China?  It's something to consider, anyway.
     Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont agrees with me about the president's visit, saying he has no problem with Trump stepping into North Korea, but "I don't want it simply to be a photo opportunity, the whole world's media was attracted there."
     A U.S. president being the first to step onto North Korean territory is, by itself, news, meriting the making of images for it is historic.  Was the Japanese surrender in 1945 on board the battleship USS Missouri a photo opportunity?  Yes, and it was many other things, too, like this Kim-Trump summit.
     Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts tweeted, "Our President shouldn't be squandering American influence on photo ops and exchanging love letters with a ruthless dictator.  Instead, we should be dealing with North Korea through principled diplomacy that promotes US security, defends our allies, and upholds human rights."
     I don't know how she came up with the "love letters" idea.  Trump has written tweets praising Kim Jong-un as well as tweets insulting him.  It's obvious by now to anyone who understands basic psychology that if someone in the public sphere says or writes praiseworthy sentiments about Donald Trump, he will like you.  He will like you and say nice (on the surface at least) things about you even after you have ripped into him, as long as you've later taken a different tack by praising him.  A man beset from many angles likes to have allies and surrogates willing to defend him and hit back with their own cannon fire on behalf of the man they represent.  Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, formerly Trump's enemy, has been his ally and often his mouthpiece.  Even Jeb Bush, humiliated by Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, nonetheless agrees with the president's policies, adding that he "prays for him daily."
     Fuck off, Jeb.
     Elizabeth Warren, good at understanding finance, Wall Street's ruthless impact on the American worker, has typical establishment Democrat beliefs regarding U.S. foreign policy.  Will a presidential "photo op" in North Korea actually squander "American influence..."?  Squander means to waste, suggests a lost opportunity.  Opportunity to do what?  Continue to treat North Korea like a dropped plastic bag of dog shit for another sixty-nine years?
     Trump's trip to North Korea provided honor to that nation and its leader.  Yes, Kim Jong-un is a dictator.  Calling him "ruthless," as so many do, is tautological.  Was Barack Obama not ruthless when he drone-bombed civilians in Yemen?  Was Bill Clinton not ruthless when he purposely withheld medicines from Iraqi children, causing half a million of them to die?  Kim Jong-un may be a horrible bastard but his crimes, limited mostly to his own country, are dwarfed by those of American leaders.  If Kim ran a country of 300 million plus people, had the biggest and most powerful military in the world, many thousands of nuclear weapons, and a guiding belief he had the right and duty to dominate the rest of the world, he'd be just like the United States of America.
     Instead of visiting with Kim Jong-un in North Korea for a short time, Elizabeth Warren suggests, "we should be dealing with North Korea through principled diplomacy that promotes US security, defends our allies, and upholds human rights."
     What is "principled diplomacy"?  Not meeting with Kim Jong-un?  Also, is Warren concerned about "US security" to the extent her American chauvinism blinds her to realizing that this nation is a fortress bristling with weapons and enough psychopathic politicians and generals to dissuade other nations, if not al-Qaeda in 2001, from attacking "the Homeland."?
     She finishes with the oft-repeated concern for human rights, a subject her own party has a horrendous record defending, witness the numerous Democrats who voted to attack Afghanistan and Iraq, the Democrats encouraging or doing nothing about the excesses of the surveillance state.
     It's a problem I have with her party, of course: they suck.  They're not legitimate opponents to the Republicans, who also suck.  As an independent thinker, therefore, I will not condemn Donald Trump for meeting with Kim Jong-un on the latter's home concrete.  I condemn Trump for his establishment and strengthening of for-profit concentration camps along the U.S.-Mexico border.  I condemn Trump for his continuation of the 2001-present War, his mass annihilation of civilians (following in the footsteps of numerous presidents of both parties), his persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning for telling the truth about U.S. war crimes.  I condemn him for his support of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as those countries destroy the Yemeni people.  I condemn him for his support of the Israeli government as it punishes and kills Palestinians.  I condemn him for his anti-regulatory policies in favor of polluting industries.  I condemn him for his attempts to overthrow Maduro of Venezuela, his ongoing attempts at starting a war with Iran.
     If he is impeached it won't be for anything violent in his actions, but for alleged obstruction of justice activities referenced in the Mueller Report.  Al Capone in 1929 ordered the St. Valentine's Day massacre of seven men from a rival gang, went to prison later on for income tax evasion, not for killing people.
     It's the sick fuck nature of a country controlled by sociopathic predatory capitalists.

                                                                            Vic Neptune