South Korea Vows ‘Enormous Retaliation’ After North’s Deadly Island Bombardment

Carol wrote:

Of course I will add, I really know nothing and am just speculating.

I love this statement. I think I will borrow it as part of my signature.
That is, if you don't mind, Carol.

hmmm, but then I'm not sure how to create a signature....


Sparks

Of course Sparks. Go ahead. When you go back to your profile page there is section that lets you do a signature line.

When World War 2 ended, World War 3 started.
They don't call it a World War but at any given moment in time since 1945, the world is at war.

And those who are so lucky to live in a place where the war hasn't reached their doorstep yet, are being kept in a constant state of fear.

It's the same old song over & over again.
'Were on a road to nowhere'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPQcnjlwtE4

But it's not as happy.

Or is it?

It's all in the mind.

Russian Missile Cruiser Peter the Great and it's attendant battle group including two Udaloy class antisubmarine destroyers will coordinate with two Venezuelan Sovremenny class destroyers in a simulated antisubmarine exercise off South Padre Island in the Gulf of Mexico 28 Sept 2010. The Russian embassy stresses that this is not a provocation.

This is insane. I feel like I've woken up on the set of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I went to a little after Thanksgiving soirée last night and most of the people that live in my vicinity are hard core conservatives, I live in a very rural community. Meaning they let Rush Bimbo and Shallow Sean Hannity do their thinking for them. Their general consensus was "lets go kick some Korean xXX". No one I talked to last night has ever been at the point of the spear. They're all chickenhawks bloviating the Neocon BS without ever once giving a single thought to what they're wishing for. I tried to explain to them that what they were clamoring for was pretty much what the above metaphor spells out. And how would they like that. You get the deer in the headlight stare from them when confronted with reality.

About a year ago I had one of them try to get me to go out and stump with them over Obama's Health Care bill. To these people he's the spawn of the Lucifer. I tend to agree somewhat, but the point is they think that George Bush is sent from God. While discussing the events surrounding 911 and confronting his recalcitrance to accepting anything but the official conspiracy theory, with building 7s demolition, he actually said to me; "even if what you're saying is true, I still wouldn't believe it"!

Edward L. Bernays was an absolute criminal genius!

Q

mudra wrote:South Korean defense minister resigns over deadly clash

25 November 2010

The BBC's Chris Hogg says North Korea is warning of more attacks

South Korea's defence minister has resigned amid criticism of his handling of North Korea's shelling of an island near their disputed maritime border.

President Lee Myung-bak will name Kim Tae-young's successor on Friday.

Tuesday's barrage left two South Korean civilians and two marines dead, and sent regional tensions soaring.

South Korea has increased troop numbers on Yeonpyeong and other nearby islands, and announced more rigorous rules of engagement for future incidents.

Mr Kim had been urged to step down by legislators from both governing and opposition parties over his handling of the shelling.

In his resignation statement, the minister said he took full responsibility.

South Korean officials described Tuesday's attack as "surprising and shocking".

"We couldn't have imagined they would carry out this kind of grave provocation," one senior government source told me.

The South Korean rules of engagement called for a sufficient but proportionate response to an attack from their northern neighbour. But that was not enough of a deterrent.

So now they have a simple message for Pyongyang - in the face of any kind of further provocation, however unimaginable, South Korea will now not hesitate to use "all kind of measures".

"If we give this signal to North Korea they will have to think for more time before they make their judgement [to launch a further attack]," the official said.

The new defensive posture should be more flexible and more unpredictable, but it could create extra risk that any future attack could more easily escalate into something far worse.
More powerful response

The government also said it was changing its rules of engagement to allow it to respond more forcefully to similar incidents. The old rules have been criticised as too passive.

The BBC's Chris Hogg in Seoul says the cabinet had decided that under the old rules of engagement there was too much emphasis on preventing a military incident escalating into something worse.

In future, the South would implement different levels of response, depending on whether the North attacked military or civilian targets, a presidential spokesman said.

A senior government official told the BBC that Seoul wanted to be more flexible in order to keep the North Koreans guessing as to their response.

The South Korean broadcaster, KBS, said the new rules called for the South to fire back "with shots two to three times more powerful than the enemy artillery".

North Korea meanwhile threatened further military action if the South continued on its "path of military provocation", the official KCNA news agency reported.

Pyongyang has blamed Seoul for this week's incident on Yeonpyeong, insisting it did not fire first. The South was holding military exercises in the area at the time, and returned fire when the North's shells began to land.

North Korea: Timeline 2010

26 March: South Korean warship, Cheonan, sinks, killing 46 sailors

20 May: Panel says a North Korean torpedo sank the ship; Pyongyang denies involvement

July-September: South Korea and US hold military exercises; US places more sanctions on Pyongyang

29 September: North holds rare party congress seen as part of father-to-son succession move

29 October: Troops from North and South Korea exchange fire across the land border

12 November: North Korea shows US scientist new - undeclared - uranium enrichment facility


The North also accused the United States of stoking tensions - saying it helped draw up the "illegal" western maritime border between the two Koreas.

About 28,000 US troops are stationed in South Korea.
Naval exercises

The clash was one of the worst incidents between the two Koreas, who remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended without a peace treaty.

The US and South Korean militaries are to hold joint naval exercises, which will include US aircraft carrier USS George Washington, south of Yeonpyeong in the coming days.

The Chinese foreign ministry has expressed "concern" over the exercises.

"We oppose any act that undermines peace and stability on the peninsula," it said.

Beijing, Pyongyang's main ally, has been under pressure to use its influence to ease tensions.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who is in Moscow, earlier described the situation on the peninsula as "grim and complicated".

Mr Wen repeated his view that the six-party talks on the North's nuclear programme should be resumed as soon as possible, a position shared by Pyongyang.

South Korea, the US and Japan have said the negotiations should not restart until the North stops uranium enrichment work and apologises for its alleged torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, which killed 46 sailors.

A visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to South Korea, which had been due on Friday, has also been postponed. The delay was put down to "scheduling" issues.

read more about the old rules and the new rules : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11838750

Love Always
mudra

Thanks for the timetable ,
In your list you mention the 26 of march when the Cheonan sunk .
There is suspicion that it was a black flag operation for two reasons .
1) The remaining bits of the torpedo were not from N Korea .
2) At the time in Japan there was a huge debate about forcing the US military out of Okinawa .

Result : The incident with the Cheonan buried the Japanese demands to close Okinawa .

The last incident again sucks because it seem that somebody is playing N Korea like a fiddle .
The result of the provocation is that the US dollar has been gaining strength , while the Euro ,due to the Irish crisis , is under pressure , so it is possible that Koreans and Japanese investors seek the bogus refuge of the US dollars ..

Quote: They think that George Bush is sent from God.

What else can you expect from Texans Q. I get the same thing here about Obama from the Hawaiians. I give them a little dose of reality (hey, he was born in Kenya) and am viewed as the spawn of the devil by those who promoted him. How dare I hold up reality when they are so comfortably wrapped in their blankets of illusion.

Thank god there is the internet as many of us would have been hunted down as witches back in the days of Salem witch hunts. Nobody said rasing consciousness would be easy. They just didn't explain how difficult it would be in the interlife where we really understood what "difficult" meant.

I suspect more missiles will be launched possibly now and again after the new year prior to January 8th, the son's birthday. Hopefully this is a show of power and not much more.

Russian subs in the Gulf is something else again. I honestly don't think they are ready to invade the US.. with NK as a distraction and then China, as Russia's ally ready to back them up. It is a possibility - a very remote one for this particular time period. It has been foretold this will happen in Catholic prophecies but my sense is that Americans are too heavily armed right now for an event like this to occur at this time. Unfortunately, something I read in the works with Obama's approval is underway to alter that. Notice how he is undermining the constitution and civil rights line my line. This man is a menace to our nation, but so was George Bush (both of them).

I recall reading in one recent article that the euro would take a hit and there are funny things going on with the currency throughout various areas in Europe. I suspect this again is a manipulation toward a one world currency which wouldn't be such a bad idea if the people behind it weren't so verra, verra naughty. They canna be trusted. Certainly not in this lifetime.

About the Russian ships Carol, I agree. The Russians or the Chinese would never be insane enough to do something so provocative. I'm still not sure the missile fired within sight of sight of Avalon the largest community on Catalina was Chinese. The Psychopaths in Washington that are playing god here are a more likely suspect when one asks Qui Bono (Military Industrial Complex). The classic propaganda when preparing a nation for war is to demonize the enemy. This time it's the Chinese because they've refused to extend the limit on our credit card.

The Russian Cruiser story was just to get some attention and try to display the blatant hypocricy of our leadership.

Q

Understood. However, anyone really paying attention will realize the enemy is our own government and citizens who forgot to stay on top of the situation thinking the politicians elected would do their job and defend the constitution. Few do their job. Ron Paul and George Miller are two that do. Most do not and ANY elected official who has voted against ANYTHNING that undermines this nation's constitution should be sacked immediately and replaced via lottery. I'm personally sick of these popularity contests where unqualified candidates end up in office who are absolutely pathetic when it comes to making decisions to move this nation forward. We are now a third world nation and far worse off then third would nations who at least know how to live off of the land and grow their own food.

With respect to the missile launch of the California coast, Mercuriel still thinks it was an ET transport ship to the moon. I've no clue as to who. We just know "someone."

Gerald Celente summed it best when he said that "Politics is a reality show for ugly people". He also mentioned that these guys were probably the hall monitors in High School. Nobody like them then and nothing has changed.

Q

Chinese warns US not to hold wargames in what they consider their "Exclusive Economic Zone"

US has no plans to curtail them at this point. They plan to commence on Sunday but as of yet the exact location has not been disclosed.

China warns US not to hold wargames in it's exclusive economic zone:

http://www.infowars.com/china-warns-u-s-on-naval-exercises-as-north-korea-promises-retaliation/

Q

Hmm, well that news and if followed through on could certainly amp up the tension. But look at what the US is really doing? They have a history of going to war when finances are in the toilet. Let us hope this is not the beginning of something really, really nasty.

Seems like there should be a major false flag event to win the approval of the US population to come first.

I agree it could get nasty, and the poor economy certainly fits.

Micjer wrote:Seems like there should be a major false flag event to win the approval of the US population to come first.

I agree it could get nasty, and the poor economy certainly fits.

Yeah kinda like the Gulf of Tonkin. Only this time a Sunburn / Moskit slamming into the USS Washington at Mach 3. Or the claim that it did!

I smell another Illuminati sacrifice being prepared. Aircraft carriers are good only for intimidating two bit tyrannies like Saddam or Somalia. They are sitting ducks for any country with state of the art anti-ship weaponry.

Q

QueeQueg wrote:

I smell another Illuminati sacrifice being prepared. Aircraft carriers are good only for intimidating two bit tyrannies like Saddam or Somalia. They are sitting ducks for any country with state of the art anti-ship weaponry.

Q

They tend to save the biggies for special calender dates. The next big calender date is the winter solstice which just happens to be a very dangerous period for the planet this year given the moon and tides. Add a few solar flares and who knows what the planet will do on her own. And this does not begin to take into consideration HAARP or whatever else secret global weather war agendas are planned.

Q, the US secret black military has stuff no one can even imagine. They are 50 years plus ahead of anything that is currently known about. The US will fall flat on its face only if our own pirated secret space program wants it to fall flat on its face. And our government has Time Travel. That is always the ultimate fixer-upper. The problem with our black ops is the internal conflict between the white hats and the asshats. No one knows what is going on there and the security levels are daunting at best. One the report I read made my toes curl.

I found in my travels an Illuminati Calendar and the next window for sacrificial ritual could be anyday between the 16th to the 23rd of December. I must admit the 21st looks particularly bad but it may not necessarily be the choosen date

I have been following their calendar for some months and noticed that events tend to happen at the begining or at the end

Carol wrote:

QueeQueg wrote:

I smell another Illuminati sacrifice being prepared. Aircraft carriers are good only for intimidating two bit tyrannies like Saddam or Somalia. They are sitting ducks for any country with state of the art anti-ship weaponry.

Q

They tend to save the biggies for special calender dates. The next big calender date is the winter solstice which just happens to be a very dangerous period for the planet this year given the moon and tides. Add a few solar flares and who knows what the planet will do on her own. And this does not begin to take into consideration HAARP or whatever else secret global weather war agendas are planned.

Q, the US secret black military has stuff no one can even imagine. They are 50 years plus ahead of anything that is currently known about. The US will fall flat on its face only if our own pirated secret space program wants it to fall flat on its face. And our government has Time Travel. That is always the ultimate fixer-upper. The problem with our black ops is the internal conflict between the white hats and the asshats. No one knows what is going on there and the security levels are daunting at best. One the report I read made my toes curl.

It seems to me that there are more than one group that posess either the same or rival post nuclear superweaponry. And then there are the watchers so to speak, who have a horse in this race as well. It's all pretty hard to sort out, but one thing is for certain; There are forces that would like to cut the human population radically and they're out of control. And while advanced technically they have not matured spiritually enough to be trusted with it. So I'm kind of feeling like they will fall back on their old maxim: Out of chaos there is order. Things seem to be getting pretty darn chaotic to me.

Q

Expats recalled as North Korea prepares for war

By Shaun Walker in Moscow

Saturday, 27 November 2010

A mass exodus of North Korean workers from the Far East of Russia is under way, according to reports coming out of the region. As the two Koreas edged towards the brink of war this week, it appears that the workers in Russia have been called back to aid potential military operations.

Vladnews agency, based in Vladivostok, reported that North Korean workers had left the town of Nakhodka en masse shortly after the escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula earlier this week. "Traders have left the kiosks and markets, workers have abandoned building sites, and North Korean secret service employees working in the region have joined them and left," the agency reported.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/expats-recalled-as-north-korea-prepares-for-war-2145018.html

Love Always
mudra

China tells America : turn around the USS George Washington
SNIP
"China has warned against military activity near its coastline ahead of U.S.-Korea naval exercises, according to Reuters.
China's Foreign Ministry said in an online posting that naval exercises risks starting a war: "We oppose any military act by any party conducted in China's exclusive economic zone without approval."
END snip
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-us-korea-war-drill-2010-11#ixzz16Tfp5Soh

This is naked US provocation . Of course it could be used to manufacture a false flag . Imagine a US Navy boat gets sunk mysteriously near the " economic zone " and China or North Korea get accused of it . We are dealing with a desperate government in Washington ....

This doesn't look good.


11/27/10 Breaking 3hours ago---USS George Washington ---warships will remain out of N.Korea’s missile range, but on the West Sea for the first time

Quote

Joint South Korea-U.S. drills with the USS George Washington in the West Sea will be held from Sunday to Wednesday. North Korea has promised retaliation if both countries hold the drills in the West Sea.

South Korea and the United States have stated that the drills are routine and defensive in nature, but with the drills being held in the middle of the West Sea for the first time, they strongly take on the character of a show of force against North Korea.

“A U.S. carrier has come to the West Sea area before, but that was in the southern part of the West Sea,” said a military official on Friday. “This is the first time a drill will be held further north, in the waters near the islands of Taean, South Chungcheong Province.”

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/0200000001.html

Top Chinese official makes abrupt visit to S. Korea amid tension over N. Korean attack 11-27 N. Korea accuses U.S. of prompting its attack on S. Korea

SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Yonhap) -- A top Chinese official made a previously unannounced visit to South Korea on Saturday and held talks with Seoul's Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, an official said, amid high tensions over North Korea's deadly artillery strike on a South Korean island earlier this week.

Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who traveled together with Beijing's chief nuclear negotiator Wu Dawei, discussed Tuesday's attack and six-nation talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs during a dinner meeting with Kim, the foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity


"BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Saturday discussed the latest situation on the Korean Peninsula in phone calls with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and Japanese foreign minister Seiji Maehara.

The discussions follow an artillery exchange between South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in waters off the west coast of the divided peninsula on Tuesday.

During the conversations, Yang said safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula served the common interests of concerned parties."

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-11/27/c_13625022.htm


45% South Koreans support ‘strong response’ against North Korea

Over 40 percent of South Koreans want their government to show a ‘strong response’ against North Korea, in the aftermath of an artillery clash with the North earlier this week that resulted in four fatal South Korean casualties.

In a poll, conducted by Realmeter, an opinion survey organization based in Seoul, 45 percent of respondents said they wanted the South Korean government to show a stern response to North Korea “even if it would escalate arms clash with North Korea,” Donga Ilbo, a local daily, said Saturday.[/b]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/11/116_77059.html


Japan Cabinet put on alert over North Korea

All members of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet were on alert Saturday for developments in North Korea as South Korea and the U.S. prepared to start a four-day military drill Sunday in the Yellow Sea.

Cabinet members have been ordered by Kan to stay in Tokyo until Wednesday and be at their ministry offices within an hour in the event of a crisis.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20101127x1.html


War Alert : North Korean Military Increasing Activity

Yonhap quoting informed South Korean government source saying North Korea's 8th naval squadron increasing activity, keeping coastal artillery in firing mode.


N. Korea accuses U.S. of prompting its attack on S. Korea

North Korea on Saturday blamed the United States for its artillery attack on a South Korean island this week, accusing the U.S. of bringing on the confrontation between the divided Koreas to use it as an excuse to increase its military presence in the region.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2010/11/27/0200000000AEN20101127003000320.HTML


Diplomats try to head off hostilities in Koreas
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- Diplomats worked to ease tensions in the Koreas on Saturday after North Korea warned of unpredictable "consequences" if the United States fulfills its vow of deploying an aircraft carrier to the Yellow Sea for joint military maneuvers with South Korea.

China's foreign minister spoke with his Russian, U.S., and Japanese counterparts, and a Chinese representative visited Seoul as envoys underscored the need to lower the temperature in the longtime flash-point region, days after four South Koreans died when North Korea shelled Yeonpyeong Island.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/27/koreas.crisis/index.html?hpt=T1

US and South Korea push ahead with war games
Nov 27, 8:46 AM (ET)

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20101127/D9JOGN600.html

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea (AP) - The United States and South Korea prepared for war games Sunday as South Koreans demanded vengeance over a deadly North Korean artillery bombardment that has raised fears of more clashes between the bitter rivals.

The North, meanwhile, worked to justify one of the worst attacks on South Korean territory since the 1950-53 Korean War. Four South Koreans, including two civilians, died after the North rained artillery on the small Yellow Sea island of Yeonpyeong, which is home to both fishing communities and military bases.

North Korea said civilians were used as a "human shield" around artillery positions and lashed out at what it called a "propaganda campaign" against Pyongyang.

It claimed the United States orchestrated last Tuesday's clash so that it could stage joint naval exercises in the Yellow Sea with the South that include a U.S. nuclear powered supercarrier - enraging the North and making neighboring China uneasy.

Over 40 percent of South Koreans want their government to show a ‘strong response’ against North Korea, in the aftermath of an artillery clash with the North earlier this week that resulted in four fatal South Korean casualties.

Shows the slant of the media.

Wouldn't this be better if it read 60% of South Koreans appose a strong response.


Isn't it supposed to be majority rules?

note i post the below story last April 1st, at Avalon2 ~ i thought then > what in the world happened to North Korea ?
Today, i read the following news report "South Korea buries marines killed by N Korea attack" i thought to myself, what other nations government is capable of acting and reacting in this manner > towards its own people and economic well being? i realized sadly, for a brief moment ~ the only country i could think of was my own > the United States of America.


This month, North Korea reportedly executed the Korean Workers' Party's economic policy director, Pak Nam Gi, for being a "bourgeois infiltrator" who ruined the country's economy. Upon his 2005 appointment to the position, a post akin to a finance minister, Pak had allegedly vowed to put an end to the "capitalist fantasy." But the 77-year-old technocrat's disastrous currency-reform program, launched Nov. 30, 2009, ended up damaging something very real: the informal market economy that today provides for most North Koreans' sustenance. The "reform" chopped two zeros off the currency, gave citizens only a brief window to exchange their wealth, and capped the amount of old bills that North Koreans could trade in at roughly $40.

More... So complete was the resulting economic chaos that it precipitated an unprecedented outpouring of civil disobedience. And though the sporadic protests appear to have been relatively small and uncoordinated, the reported prominence of octogenarian war veterans among the protesters was enough to unnerve the government. The fiasco was obviously self-inflicted and visibly inconsistent with the regime's tendency to attribute all ills that befall the country to foreign "hostile forces." Pyongyang bumped up the limit for currency exchanges and in February made a historically unparalleled apology to the public delivered by Pak and Premier Kim Yong Il. And because leader Kim Jong Il's favorite son and rumored successor, Kim Jong Un, was associated with the policy, someone had to pay. Pak was the scapegoat.

From the outside, the apology looks like a watershed moment for one of the world's most repressive regimes. Yet understanding how North Koreans actually assess these events is enormously difficult. In highly repressive states like North Korea, people engage in what social scientists call "preference falsification," or, more colloquially, "keeping your head down" -- suppressing the outward expression of their true feelings in favor of maintaining a facade of support. But two recent large-scale surveys of North Korean refugees conducted in China and South Korea suggest that privately held assessments of the regime are indeed highly negative. The surveys, of which I am a co-author, paint a picture of an atomized society where trust is scant and collective action negligible.

With the refugees having voted with their feet, it would of course be surprising if they did not hold the regime in low regard. But when we controlled for observable characteristics such as age, gender, occupation, and even life experiences such as receipt of food aid or arrest and detention, the refugees' views do not appear too different from our best statistical projection of those of the remaining resident population. In short, the surveys offer a unique glimpse into the Hermit Kingdom.

The roots of discontent with the economic situation date back to the 1990s, when a famine killed between 600,000 and 1 million people -- about 3 to 5 percent of the population. The once centrally planned North Korean economy marketized when the country's payment and food distribution system collapsed, but the regime was never comfortable with the resulting loss of control. Suddenly, new paths to wealth, status, and potential political influence opened as merchants of food, household items, radios, and even services such as bicycle repair began to appear. Perhaps out of fear, envy, or ideological antipathy, the regime has periodically tried to stamp out the market -- hence November's reckless currency reform.

The surveys' results suggest that the regime's discomfort might be well founded. Countries such as North Korea, where people routinely hide their true opinions, are prone to sudden, explosive political mobilizations like the ones that swept Eastern and Central Europe in the late 1980s. Those mobilizations happen when nascent expressions of discontent cascade -- each person who sticks their head above the parapet encourages another to do the same. And in North Korea, the market appears to be just such a semiautonomous zone of social communication (and potentially political organizing) beyond the state's reach.

Meanwhile, the state monopoly over information that once kept North Koreans in the dark about the true nature of their situation is fast crumbling, a victim to economic integration with China, improved telecommunications, and the erosion of control conferred by the socialist economic system. The survey responses depict a society that is increasingly bold about consuming foreign news at the same time that it becomes increasingly available.

In response to the threat of dissent, the regime has tightened its grip, for example by criminalizing economic activity not directly sanctioned by the central authorities. Significant numbers of North Koreans are detained in low-level penal facilities where abuse is ubiquitous. The vast majority receive no trials or formal legal proceedings before incarceration. The penal system is increasingly used as an instrument not only for intimidating traders and entrepreneurs but also for extortion, as officials extract bribes from market participants understandably eager to avoid being imprisoned. Employment in the establishment institutions of the party and state is increasingly sought -- not out of patriotism but because such positions provide a platform for economic predation on the general public.

These practices, however, might be backfiring if the goal is to keep the country's population quiet. The state's actions are widely regarded as unjust and appear to be contributing to the politicization of the country's people. Consumption of foreign news, participation in the market economy, and contact with the police (especially the political police) are associated with holding dissenting views -- and the tendency, however muted, to communicate them to one's peers. The currency reform disaster adds an exclamation point to trends that were already well under way.

That said, it is a large leap from privately held views to effective collective action. And without any civil society institutions to speak of, North Koreans might be incapable of channeling mass discontent into effective political action. There are no trade unions such as Solidarity in Poland, no churches to play the role that the Roman Catholic Church did in the "people power" revolution in the Philippines, and no forum of intellectuals such as the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia.

So what are the lessons for North Korea's current rulers and their authoritarian counterparts elsewhere? Pervasive repression, ruthlessly applied, appears to work -- at least up to a point. However, viewed through the prism of veteran analyst Edward Luttwak's infamous formulation that dictators should set the marginal cost of repression equal to the marginal rent extracted from the population, it appears that the North Korean leadership has been overdoing it on repression for more than two generations. Having thoroughly degraded the society, the leadership is now devouring its own.

Original story link;
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/03/30/theyre_not_brainwashed_theyre_just_miserable?page=full [i]

Hello Everyone. I know it has been a while. But I had to come here to be with you before a possible next war sets in. When I saw the attack on South Korea on the news on Tuesday, I was convinced that this was the start of something. So far, it looks like they have kept the peace. But the war games do not help the situation much. I am keeping an eye on things in the media, twitter, and other sources. It is good to be here on the forum.