Eric Schmidt has done very well for himself as CEO of Google. In 2014 he received a $106 million bonus (in 2013 he only received $6 million) for heading Google's effort to collect personal data on Americans and others around the world, including the data mining of emails. Yet he ordered Google to stop cooperating with CNET reporters who had the audacity to investigate and publish some data on his private life. Google was fined in Germany for systematic, illegal collection of personal data while it was creating the Street View mapping service, though the fine, just under two hundred thousand dollars, was a pittance compared to Google's 2013 revenue of $55.5 billion (2014 revenue was $66 billion) and 2012 profit of $10.7 billion.
Schmidt and former Governor Bill Richardson visited North Korea in January 2013, with the latter having visited it a few times in the past. Google said nothing regarding the trip except to say that Schmidt was acting in a "personal" capacity. Senator John McCain tweeted: "Richardson and Schmidt arrive in North Korea today - Lenin used to call them 'useful idiots'."
Professor Charles Armstrong, director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University, did not believe the trip was meant to free Kenneth Bae who was freed in late 2014. "This is odd: it doesn't make sense for the chairman of Google to help rescue Americans from North Korea. Clearly, there has to be another agenda here that nobody is talking about," he said.
Schmidt knew exactly what he was doing. If he was able to convince Kim Jong-un to allow the Google Car to videotape the entire country, the millions of people vicariously visiting North Korea via Google Maps would translate to billions of dollars worth of Google Ads. Schmidt was gambling that Kim Jong-un and his toadies were not sophisticated enough to understand Google's business model. Also, the wireless transmissions copied by the Google Car would have been welcomed by Schmidt's pals at the NSA. Richardson, on the other hand, was probably just looking for another photo-op.
* * * * *
For years people have been saying that the DPRK is on the verge of collapse. They continue to say that because of what happened to the Soviet Union. It collapsed, so they believe it is only a matter of time before the same thing happens to North Korea. In truth, the Soviet Union collapsed only because Mikhail Gorbachev was unwilling to employ machine guns against his people, in contrast to his predecessors. CNN noted back in 1996 that "it's been ordinary citizens who bear the brunt of the food shortages. North Korea's army and party elite remain largely unaffected."
Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union, was in charge during the Great Famine when 5-6 million Russians died. Lenin was too busy consolidating his power to care. His successor, Stalin, was in charge during the Ukrainian Genocide when perhaps as many as 10 million people died. Stalin used food as a blunt instrument to force Ukraine to accept his policies. Kim Il-sung, who was in power mainly because of Stalin and Mao, was in charge during the beginning of North Korea's famine of 1994-8 when 2-4 million people died. North Korea's famine was a confluence of many factors: the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 which had been supporting the DPRK, the brutal rule of Kim Il-sung who via his policy of songbun forced everyone into categories of toadies and slaves, and Kim's incompetence and ego shown by his building of the tallest hotel at that time, the Ryugyong Hotel, a/k/a the Hotel of Doom, which is easily the most hideous skyscraper ever built.
Stalin became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin and ordered the assassination of rival Trotsky in 1940. Stalin stated in reference to comments of Lenin: "There are instances when the right to self-determination conflicts with another, higher right -- the right of the working class to consolidate its power. In such cases -- and one must be blunt -- the right of self-determination cannot and must not be an obstacle to the working class in exercising its dictatorship."
Soon after the Nazi invasion on June 22, 1941, Stalin retreated to his dacha after a mental breakdown. He said in despair: "Lenin founded our state and we've fucked it up." Nikita Khrushchev described him as a "bag of bones in a grey tunic." Vyacheslav Molotov (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Lavrenty Beria (NKVD chief), Kliment Voroshilov (People's Commissar for Defense), and Anastas Mikoyan (Minister of Foreign Trade) visited him at his dacha, with Stalin expecting them to arrest him. But they didn't because they were afraid of him. Molotov later said in his quasi-memoirs, Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics, that Stalin was "like a lamb" compared to Lenin.
Leonid Brezhnev was in power during the Prague Spring. His answer to Alexander Dubcek's abolition of censorship was the combating of "anti-socialist forces." The policy became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine. He announced in November 1968: "We cannot ignore the assertions, held in some places, that the actions of the five socialist countries run counter to the Marxist-Leninist principle of sovereignty and the rights of nations to self-determination. The groundlessness of such reasoning consists primarily in that it is based on an abstract, non-class approach to the question of sovereignty and the rights of nations to self-determination. The peoples of the socialist countries and communist parties certainly do have and should have freedom for determining the ways of advance of their respective countries. However, none of their decisions should damage either socialism in their country or the fundamental interests of other socialist countries, and the whole working class movement, which is working for socialism. This means that each communist party is responsible not only to its own people, but also to all the socialist countries, to the entire communist movement."
In other words, once countries accept Soviet communism, they will not be allowed to leave the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact.
During the Hungarian Uprising in 1956, Yuri Andropov watched Hungarian secret policemen being hung from lamp posts and vowed to never allow it to happen again. He became the head of the KGB just in time to crush the Prague Spring. It was during his reign as general secretary that Korean Air flight 007 was shot down and Ronald Reagan coined the phrase "evil empire." Andropov died in 1984 at age 69, but if his health had been better, he would have remained in power, able to crush the revolutions which started during Gorbachev's time in office.
In the first few months of 1987, Gorbachev, the first Soviet leader who did not serve in the Great Patriotic War, ordered that the jamming for BBC News, Voice of America, and Deutsche Welle radio transmissions cease.
Jack Matlock paraphrased Gorbachev circa 1987-8 in his book Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union: "Throughout our history, change has come from above. And it was always implemented by force. Now, I cannot use force or I will defeat the goal itself. You cannot impose democracy on people, you can only give them the possibility of exercising it. What we are trying to do is unprecedented. We have to turn Russian history upside down. We have to teach our people to rule themselves, something they have never been permitted to do throughout our history."
In July 1989 in Strasbourg, Gorbachev proclaimed: "The social and political order in some particular countries did change in the past, and it can change in the future as well. But this is exclusively a matter for the peoples themselves and of their choice. Any interference in internal affairs, any attempts to limit the sovereignty of states -- whether of friends and allies or anybody else -- are inadmissible."
Shortly before this speech, in May, Hungary started dismantling its border fence separating it from Austria. Hungary's government waited for a response from Gorbachev, and when there was no negative reaction, they dismantled it completely. In August, the residents of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania crossed their countries in a human chain called the Baltic Way. The residents of Plauen started the mass protests in Germany in October. The DDR planned to employ machine guns against protesters in Leipzig in October, but when that did not happen, the Monday Demonstrations became too large to control. The Berlin Wall fell shortly thereafter.
Matlock wrote that Gorbachev wished to return to a "true Leninism." David Remick wrote in his book Lenin's Tomb : The Last Days of the Soviet Empire that Gorbachev strove for socialism with a human face. Gorbachev was naive and did not fully comprehend that totalitarian countries are only held together by force. Reagan did not win the Cold War; Gorbachev allowed it to end peacefully.
Junior must be removed before the DPRK can enter the dustbin of history.
* * * * *
The bimbos in white, led by Gloria Steinem, visited the DPRK over the past few days. As is usual for communist apologists and groupies thereof, they only visited the capital city of Pyongyang, never venturing out to the labor camps where as many as 200,000 political prisoners are being held in deplorable conditions. They found time to visit Potemkin villages deemed essential by Kim Jong-un and his flunkies, with the birthplace of the original DPRK dictator, Kim Il-sung at the top of their agenda.
Perhaps they were attempting to echo a group of truly brave women in Cuba, the Ladies in White, but they appear to not understand that the Cuban women are struggling against communism, while the bimbos in white are supporting the North Korean version.
Before the trip, Steinem opined: "So it seems an obligation to point it out, especially since in my lifetime I have been told that the Soviet Union absolutely could not change without major bloodshed ... that the Berlin Wall would not fall as long as the Soviet Union existed."
In fact, that only happened because Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader to refuse to employ machine guns against his own people. If Putin had been allowed to follow Andropov, the USSR would still be with us.
Steinem continued her rants with: "[wars and apartheid] have ended because people talked to each other." In fact, WWII did not end because we talked to our misunderstood buddies Adolf and Hideki.
The useful idiots refused to criticize the DPRK's human rights abuses. In response to valid criticism of their visit, Steinem declared: "I'm so confident that once it is clear what we have experienced, these objections will go away."
The reality in North Korea is very different than in Steinem's airhead fantasies. Defecting is much more dangerous, and twice as expensive than before because Kim Jong-un has cracked down on people trying to leave the country. Some families who left the DPRK on his father's birthday were ordered back to the country, though they are of course ignoring the order, with Kim sending thugs to bring them back by force to make an example of them. People who assist defectors are threatened with execution. Three women who traded South Korean soap operas were executed because the DPRK knows that knowledge of the outside world could lead to dissent.
North Korea's crumbling health care system has resulted in counterfeit versions of medicine flooding local markets. Some children contracted tuberculous meningitis, but treatment is difficult enough for the elite, with poor children -- 75% of the population -- left to fend for themselves.
Overseas workers have been ordered to hide rights abuses, with a special action guide noting: "Particularly, when a foreign reporter or human rights activists tries to take a picture or film you, take the camera, camcorder or cell phone from them and smash it ... Do not kill [them], but inflict a blow or fracture until the person's body is physically damaged."
I cannot wait to see the photos of Steinem's gang gathered around an anti-aircraft gun imitating their role model, Jane Fonda in North Vietnam.
Originally posted in 2013-15 and updated in 2015.
Schmidt and former Governor Bill Richardson visited North Korea in January 2013, with the latter having visited it a few times in the past. Google said nothing regarding the trip except to say that Schmidt was acting in a "personal" capacity. Senator John McCain tweeted: "Richardson and Schmidt arrive in North Korea today - Lenin used to call them 'useful idiots'."
Professor Charles Armstrong, director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University, did not believe the trip was meant to free Kenneth Bae who was freed in late 2014. "This is odd: it doesn't make sense for the chairman of Google to help rescue Americans from North Korea. Clearly, there has to be another agenda here that nobody is talking about," he said.
Schmidt knew exactly what he was doing. If he was able to convince Kim Jong-un to allow the Google Car to videotape the entire country, the millions of people vicariously visiting North Korea via Google Maps would translate to billions of dollars worth of Google Ads. Schmidt was gambling that Kim Jong-un and his toadies were not sophisticated enough to understand Google's business model. Also, the wireless transmissions copied by the Google Car would have been welcomed by Schmidt's pals at the NSA. Richardson, on the other hand, was probably just looking for another photo-op.
* * * * *
For years people have been saying that the DPRK is on the verge of collapse. They continue to say that because of what happened to the Soviet Union. It collapsed, so they believe it is only a matter of time before the same thing happens to North Korea. In truth, the Soviet Union collapsed only because Mikhail Gorbachev was unwilling to employ machine guns against his people, in contrast to his predecessors. CNN noted back in 1996 that "it's been ordinary citizens who bear the brunt of the food shortages. North Korea's army and party elite remain largely unaffected."
Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union, was in charge during the Great Famine when 5-6 million Russians died. Lenin was too busy consolidating his power to care. His successor, Stalin, was in charge during the Ukrainian Genocide when perhaps as many as 10 million people died. Stalin used food as a blunt instrument to force Ukraine to accept his policies. Kim Il-sung, who was in power mainly because of Stalin and Mao, was in charge during the beginning of North Korea's famine of 1994-8 when 2-4 million people died. North Korea's famine was a confluence of many factors: the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 which had been supporting the DPRK, the brutal rule of Kim Il-sung who via his policy of songbun forced everyone into categories of toadies and slaves, and Kim's incompetence and ego shown by his building of the tallest hotel at that time, the Ryugyong Hotel, a/k/a the Hotel of Doom, which is easily the most hideous skyscraper ever built.
Stalin became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin and ordered the assassination of rival Trotsky in 1940. Stalin stated in reference to comments of Lenin: "There are instances when the right to self-determination conflicts with another, higher right -- the right of the working class to consolidate its power. In such cases -- and one must be blunt -- the right of self-determination cannot and must not be an obstacle to the working class in exercising its dictatorship."
Soon after the Nazi invasion on June 22, 1941, Stalin retreated to his dacha after a mental breakdown. He said in despair: "Lenin founded our state and we've fucked it up." Nikita Khrushchev described him as a "bag of bones in a grey tunic." Vyacheslav Molotov (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Lavrenty Beria (NKVD chief), Kliment Voroshilov (People's Commissar for Defense), and Anastas Mikoyan (Minister of Foreign Trade) visited him at his dacha, with Stalin expecting them to arrest him. But they didn't because they were afraid of him. Molotov later said in his quasi-memoirs, Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics, that Stalin was "like a lamb" compared to Lenin.
Leonid Brezhnev was in power during the Prague Spring. His answer to Alexander Dubcek's abolition of censorship was the combating of "anti-socialist forces." The policy became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine. He announced in November 1968: "We cannot ignore the assertions, held in some places, that the actions of the five socialist countries run counter to the Marxist-Leninist principle of sovereignty and the rights of nations to self-determination. The groundlessness of such reasoning consists primarily in that it is based on an abstract, non-class approach to the question of sovereignty and the rights of nations to self-determination. The peoples of the socialist countries and communist parties certainly do have and should have freedom for determining the ways of advance of their respective countries. However, none of their decisions should damage either socialism in their country or the fundamental interests of other socialist countries, and the whole working class movement, which is working for socialism. This means that each communist party is responsible not only to its own people, but also to all the socialist countries, to the entire communist movement."
In other words, once countries accept Soviet communism, they will not be allowed to leave the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact.
During the Hungarian Uprising in 1956, Yuri Andropov watched Hungarian secret policemen being hung from lamp posts and vowed to never allow it to happen again. He became the head of the KGB just in time to crush the Prague Spring. It was during his reign as general secretary that Korean Air flight 007 was shot down and Ronald Reagan coined the phrase "evil empire." Andropov died in 1984 at age 69, but if his health had been better, he would have remained in power, able to crush the revolutions which started during Gorbachev's time in office.
In the first few months of 1987, Gorbachev, the first Soviet leader who did not serve in the Great Patriotic War, ordered that the jamming for BBC News, Voice of America, and Deutsche Welle radio transmissions cease.
Jack Matlock paraphrased Gorbachev circa 1987-8 in his book Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union: "Throughout our history, change has come from above. And it was always implemented by force. Now, I cannot use force or I will defeat the goal itself. You cannot impose democracy on people, you can only give them the possibility of exercising it. What we are trying to do is unprecedented. We have to turn Russian history upside down. We have to teach our people to rule themselves, something they have never been permitted to do throughout our history."
In July 1989 in Strasbourg, Gorbachev proclaimed: "The social and political order in some particular countries did change in the past, and it can change in the future as well. But this is exclusively a matter for the peoples themselves and of their choice. Any interference in internal affairs, any attempts to limit the sovereignty of states -- whether of friends and allies or anybody else -- are inadmissible."
Shortly before this speech, in May, Hungary started dismantling its border fence separating it from Austria. Hungary's government waited for a response from Gorbachev, and when there was no negative reaction, they dismantled it completely. In August, the residents of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania crossed their countries in a human chain called the Baltic Way. The residents of Plauen started the mass protests in Germany in October. The DDR planned to employ machine guns against protesters in Leipzig in October, but when that did not happen, the Monday Demonstrations became too large to control. The Berlin Wall fell shortly thereafter.
Matlock wrote that Gorbachev wished to return to a "true Leninism." David Remick wrote in his book Lenin's Tomb : The Last Days of the Soviet Empire that Gorbachev strove for socialism with a human face. Gorbachev was naive and did not fully comprehend that totalitarian countries are only held together by force. Reagan did not win the Cold War; Gorbachev allowed it to end peacefully.
Junior must be removed before the DPRK can enter the dustbin of history.
* * * * *
The bimbos in white, led by Gloria Steinem, visited the DPRK over the past few days. As is usual for communist apologists and groupies thereof, they only visited the capital city of Pyongyang, never venturing out to the labor camps where as many as 200,000 political prisoners are being held in deplorable conditions. They found time to visit Potemkin villages deemed essential by Kim Jong-un and his flunkies, with the birthplace of the original DPRK dictator, Kim Il-sung at the top of their agenda.
Perhaps they were attempting to echo a group of truly brave women in Cuba, the Ladies in White, but they appear to not understand that the Cuban women are struggling against communism, while the bimbos in white are supporting the North Korean version.
Before the trip, Steinem opined: "So it seems an obligation to point it out, especially since in my lifetime I have been told that the Soviet Union absolutely could not change without major bloodshed ... that the Berlin Wall would not fall as long as the Soviet Union existed."
In fact, that only happened because Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader to refuse to employ machine guns against his own people. If Putin had been allowed to follow Andropov, the USSR would still be with us.
Steinem continued her rants with: "[wars and apartheid] have ended because people talked to each other." In fact, WWII did not end because we talked to our misunderstood buddies Adolf and Hideki.
The useful idiots refused to criticize the DPRK's human rights abuses. In response to valid criticism of their visit, Steinem declared: "I'm so confident that once it is clear what we have experienced, these objections will go away."
The reality in North Korea is very different than in Steinem's airhead fantasies. Defecting is much more dangerous, and twice as expensive than before because Kim Jong-un has cracked down on people trying to leave the country. Some families who left the DPRK on his father's birthday were ordered back to the country, though they are of course ignoring the order, with Kim sending thugs to bring them back by force to make an example of them. People who assist defectors are threatened with execution. Three women who traded South Korean soap operas were executed because the DPRK knows that knowledge of the outside world could lead to dissent.
North Korea's crumbling health care system has resulted in counterfeit versions of medicine flooding local markets. Some children contracted tuberculous meningitis, but treatment is difficult enough for the elite, with poor children -- 75% of the population -- left to fend for themselves.
Overseas workers have been ordered to hide rights abuses, with a special action guide noting: "Particularly, when a foreign reporter or human rights activists tries to take a picture or film you, take the camera, camcorder or cell phone from them and smash it ... Do not kill [them], but inflict a blow or fracture until the person's body is physically damaged."
I cannot wait to see the photos of Steinem's gang gathered around an anti-aircraft gun imitating their role model, Jane Fonda in North Vietnam.
Originally posted in 2013-15 and updated in 2015.