Liveleak.com Rss Feed -

Classical Mix: The Rite of Appalachian Spring

joe prole — Sun, 19 May 2013 13:24:44 -0400

Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" meets Copland's "Appalachian Spring." (2 min.) ( More info )

A Clockwork Orange 1971 - Filming Location Tour 2011

Donegal — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:47:07 -0400

A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 darkly satirical science fiction film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. The film, which was made in England, concerns Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a charismatic, psychopathic delinquent whose pleasures are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and so-called 'ultra-violence. Locations : - Droogs attack the old tramp : southern underpass, between Trinity Road and Swandon Way, Wandsworth Road, London - Alex is walking home: it's Binsey Walk and Yarnton Way Bexley, London SE2 9UJ, UK. - Alex's Flat, 56 Stratfield Rd, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire WD6, UK -The 'Flat Block Marina' Binsey Walk on the Lake's western shore overlooked by the tower blocks of Yarnton Way. - Alex and the tramp revenge :Albert bridge, Chelsea Embankment at Oakley Street, SW3 - Ludovico Medical Facility: the campus of Brunel University in Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH - Main lobby entrance Alex'flat with broken elevator is supposed to be Tower D Lobby, Brunel University, Uxbridge -Lecture Center is the theater where Alex's eyes are pulled open and he is forced to watch the films as part of his treatment. Lecture Room E 302 - CatLady House : AKA manor lodge school Shenley, in Hertfordshire at Blackhorse Lane/rectory lane by the M25 motorway WD7 9BG -Alex leaps in attempt to commit suicide Edgwarebury Country Club, Barnet Lane, Elstree, England, WD6 3RE -Exterior road "HOME" Night: School Lane in Brickett Wood.

Israel's Act of War Against Syria-Madness or Cold Calculation?

KedarPL — Sun, 12 May 2013 21:10:32 -0400

by F. William Engdahl ( voltairenet.org ) http://www.voltairenet.org/article178470.html On May 3-4 the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) launched two successive aerial bombing strikes deep inside Syrian territory, reportedly against the Jamraya military research center near Damascus Airport. While Israeli spokesmen have been coy about admitting responsibility, the Obama Administration confirmed and endorsed the bombings in Syrian sovereign territory. By precepts of international law, Israel has committed acts of war against Syria, in violation of the UN Charter. The alleged justification for the Netanyahu regime, which seems to set another set of laws for itself as the norms of international law, was the claim that the strikes targeted a warehouse storing Iranian Fateh-110 "game changing" missiles in transit to the Lebanese Hezbollah. In January the IDF made a similar air strike to destroy a convoy of advanced air defense missiles en route to Hezbollah that would hinder Israel's ability to enter Lebanese airspace unharrassed. To grasp what is going on inside Tel Aviv a recent timeline helps. On April 27, before Israel embarked on action against Syria, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov forged a new Russian alliance with Hezbollah in Beirut. According to Debka.com , an online source with reported close ties to the Israeli intelligence community, "This was Putin's answer to Obama's direct appeal for a partnership in the effort to terminate the Syrian conflict. Obama's rejoinder was the green light he gave Israel to go for Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria." On April 30, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a public speech in which he for the first time indicated that his organization was ready to come to the active aid of Assad's Syrian regime in the fight against Al Qaeda and assorted foreign and domestic "opposition" to Assad's rule. Nasrallah also said charges that Syria used chemical sarin weapons were fabricated to justify foreign intervention. At the same time Iran called on the UN to investigate alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria. The next day, on May 1, President Barack Obama said the US is now ready to arm Syrian rebels and to increase efforts to topple Bashar al Assad. On May 3-4 the IDF bombing strikes took place. Then on May 6 the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria issued a statement that they had no evidence that the Syrian Government has used chemical weapons, sarin or other, against the rebel insurgents. Instead, the UN found evidence that the rebels had used sarin and tried to blame it on the regime. No small embarrassment for Washington and Tel Aviv which claimed otherwise.The Israeli bombings come coincidentally at a time when direct reports from within Syria indicate major recent successes of the Syrian Army in rolling back rebel held areas along the border to Lebanon. Until Israel or Washington are able to produce overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the weight of suspicion for the Israeli acts of war has to be not interdiction of potential "game changer" missiles to Hezbollah, but rather an attempt by Israel, with Washington backing, to prepare the climate of world opinion for a full-scale Libya-style NATO-IDF air campaign to obliterate Syria, as more than two years of surrogate arming and training of mercenaries and even Al Qaeda terrorists to wage a regime destruction in Syria appear to have failed. The Netanyahu aggressions are an ultra-high-risk gamble that could colossally backfire on Tel Aviv as well as Washington. The Shi'ite alliance of Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah in Lebanon is backed firmly by Putin's Russia with China supporting. The rebels are backed by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Washington and now Israel. Already Syria, Iran and Hezbollah have promised retaliation. The situation has the potentials for conflict out of control. Is anyone for the rule of international law, notions of just and unjust wars, classical diplomacy and basic human rights for a change?

Banking Mafia Exposed !!

omniradar — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:15:42 -0400

These are the very people trying to take over Syria & Iran & then impose a central banking system. and the very ones who stole lb6 billion of gold from Libya, the biggest physical robbery ever carried out ! The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (hereinafter - the Committee) is closely associated with supranational organisations like the Bank for International Settlements in Basel (BIS), which is often called the <>, the <> of central banks or the <>. The Committee's office is situated in the BIS building. At the end of 1974, following the disequilibrium of international currencies and banking markets caused by the collapse of the Herstatt Bank in West Germany, the heads of central banks in the G10 countries established the Committee under the auspices of the BIS to develop common international rules with regard to banking supervision. The Committee formulates common standards for banking supervision and recommendations for their implementation, on the assumption that national authorised bodies (first and foremost central banks) will push them forwards in their own countries. With regard to G10, this is the group of countries that signed a general agreement on borrowing with the IMF in 1962 (Belgium, Great Britain, West Germany, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, the USA and Japan). Switzerland, which was not a member of the IMF, joined in 1964, but the name of the group remained as before. Representatives from Luxembourg were also included in the Basel Committee from the very beginning and, from 2001, the Committee has included representatives from Spain. At present, the Committee includes representatives from central banks and national authorities on banking supervision from 27 countries (the 13 countries already mentioned along with Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa and Turkey, which all joined the Committee in 2009). Over almost four decades of its activities, the Committee has published tens of documents on different areas of activity, including general issues on the organisation of supervision, capital adequacy, all kinds of risk, the corporate governance of lending and borrowing organisations and so on. The Committee's key area of activity is the definition of standards on capital adequacy for banks. All of the Committee's documentation is centred around an incredibly simple ratio: equity : a bank's capital = capital adequacy ratio. Kabbalists of the money world are looking for this ratio's magic number, which would guarantee the stability of the banking system. In fact, the Committee is seeking to legitimise what is a crime. In Europe, a system of so-called partial, or incomplete, coverage of obligations by banks as borrowing and lending organisations has already existed for a long time (at least since the 18th century). Figuratively speaking, this system allows banks to make money <>. For example, for every 1 dollar of lawful money that depositors place in a deposit account, banks are allowed to release 5 or 10 dollars of non-cash (credit) money by way of credit. This used to be called counterfeiting and was strictly punishable by law. Nowadays, it is called the <> or <> of banking, legalised by national laws, and in economic textbooks it is known as the <>. The principle of <> coverage (reservation) is <> by a supranational structure called the <>, which lends the principle an appearance of respectability. No cunning standards and formulae will remove the main effect of the <> coverage (reservation) of obligations - the banking crises. In the almost four decades that the Committee has existed, the world has been witness to a countless number of banking failures and crises. In order to prevent such problems, obligations need to be covered 100 percent, but then banks would be deprived of the opportunity to engage in their own <>. There is a strict taboo on the honest and frank discussion of <> reservation both in central banks and the Committee: they are trying to convince the public that it is possible to invent a <> for capital adequacy so that banks can continue to make money <> as before. This is outright deception. Basel I and Basel II - straws for the drowning Up to the end of 2012, two fundamental documents had been implemented by the Committee that defined the <> for capital adequacy and recommended that this formula be used by national authorities on banking supervision - Basel I and Basel II. The first of these came into existence in 1988 and had the very respectable name of the <> (Basel I). This agreement defined the minimum capital adequacy ratio as 8 percent, calculated as the ratio of equity (regulated by the supervisory authority) to risk weighted assets. Only credit risks are taken into account (although a bank's capital can be made up of investments as well as credits). In fact, the Committee gave the go-ahead for a financial-monetary orgy, respectfully called <> in economic textbooks. The markets began to <>, the <> began to burst and the real economy and ordinary people suffered the most. To date, more than 100 countries in the world adhere to the rules of Basel I, according to the official declaration. At the turn of the century, a new version of the standard began to be prepared called Basel II, which was to start in 2004. The new version contained extremely feeble attempts to take account of new banking risks (besides credit risks), especially in view of the rapid development of derivatives markets, the emergence of hedge funds and other institutional speculators, with which banks were extremely closely linked. At the height of implementing the new standard, the financial crisis of 2007-2009 broke out. It once again demonstrated that the Basel standards are no more than a fig leaf covering the tyranny of the world's usurers. Basel II was unable to cure the world's moneylenders of their greed, the global banking giant Lehman Brothers sank to the depths in front of everybody's eyes and, in order to save others, America was forced to spend upwards of three trillion dollars from the public purse, with Europe spending about the same. There were even attempts to prove that it was the implementation of Basel II that had caused the start of the financial crisis, since in order to make up for the lack of equity, banks decided to use extremely risky methods to attract capital and had to go as far as falsification and outright deception (accounting offences, the use of off-balance sheet transactions, etc.). During the financial crisis, the Committee began to spasmodically introduce changes and amendments to the Basel II standard. The features of Basel III At long last, a new document emerged called Basel III. Proposals for Basel III were approved at the G20 Summit in Seoul in November 2010. Participants at the Summit also approved the timeline for the phased implementation of the standard. 1 January 2013 was given as the start date. The new document is exceedingly complex and voluminous, numbering nearly 800 pages. I would like to draw your attention to the following features: 1. The timeline for implementing the standard stretches to 2018; in other words, the standard is not <>, it gives banks enough time for manoeuvre; 2. The bar for the capital adequacy ratio of banks was raised, but not so much that it would avoid new crises; 3. The role of the <> in the assessment of banks by supervisory authorities was increased; and 4. Within equity, a special role has been given to gold as a financial asset. In my opinion, the last feature is the most important; it is a high-quality innovation that distinguishes Basel III from Basel II. In previous Basel standards, only cash (which comes under the heading of <> in all countries) and government debt securities - Ministry of Finance and Treasury bonds - were regarded as high-quality equity. Moreover, this did not include all bonds, only those given the highest rating by leading international rating agencies. For a long time, the highest quality form of equity was considered to be US Treasury bonds. In other words, the banks in those countries that took part in Basel I and Basel II must have been helping Uncle Sam by purchasing US bonds and covering up the holes in the US budget, thereby supporting the US dollar and working against gold as the main rival to <>. <>: the partial rehabilitation of gold Before the 1970s, when the Bretton-Woods currency system existed in the world and there were not yet any <> standards, everything was different. Banks were principally valued in terms of the amount of gold in their equity. The more gold there was relative to the total amount of capital and the total amount of assets, the safer the bank was believed to be. It was all simple, clear and logical. However, those good old times came to an end with the collapse of the gold standard and the IMF's decision to carry out a full and final demonetisation of gold. Gold was demoted to a run-of-the-mill exchange commodity like oil, wheat or coffee. As a last resort, banks could use gold as an investment medium, but the metal stopped being regarded as a valuable financial asset. Up to now, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has stored the gold in its <>, so to speak. On the whole, the rules of the game were such that there was no benefit in banks hoarding their gold. At best, bankers regarded the yellow metal with the eyes of speculators buying and selling gold to make short-term profits. Basel III has raised the status of gold dramatically. New rules have been provided to transfer gold to a bank's tier 1 capital at 100 percent of its value. Banks now have the opportunity to replace their paper assets (primarily US Treasury bonds) with gold. Experts have calculated that such a practice will create additional demand for the precious metal to the extent of at least 1700 tonnes. There have been even higher estimations of up to 3000 tonnes. A number of experts believe that the development of Basel III was carried out with powerful lobbying from the Rothschilds, who have an interest in restoring the monetary status of gold in the world. For the last two centuries, the Rothschilds have had control over the main gold reserves, been involved in the extraction of gold and are <> in the precious metals market. In September 2012, before the Basel Committee's new standard had even come into force, the heads of one of the world's largest banks, Deutsche Bank AG, which falls within the Rothschilds' sphere of influence, made a public statement that gold had again been transformed from a commodity into money. The statement caused a painful reaction on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, first and foremost in the US Federal Reserve System. The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, once again issued a standard statement that gold was far from the best type of money. It is not difficult to see that Basel III is a blow to the US dollar and the American economy. America's reaction was sufficiently prompt and harsh. At the end of last year, America's monetary and financial regulators (the Federal Reserve system, the Deposit Insurance Agency and the Office of the Comptroller of Currency) reported that they had been sent a petition by leading American banks stating that the new Basel standards were crippling for lending and borrowing organisations. After this, the Federal Reserve System and other US financial regulators went to the Committee and announced that the introduction of Basel III in America was being postponed, and no date for transition to the new standard was given. At this point, European banks started to feel anxious, believing that if they began the transition to the new standard, they would find themselves uncompetitive in comparison with American banks. Therefore, they also refused to shift to Basel -III. So who exactly has embraced Basel III since 1 January 2013? The list is not very long, with a total of 11 countries in all: Australia, Hong Kong, Canada, China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, Switzerland, South Africa and Japan. It is also possible to add India here, which announced it would be joining Basel III from 1 April 2013. It is remarkable that the list contains just four countries from the <> zone: Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Japan. Turkey's absence from the list is mysterious. The country actively encourages the wide use of gold in banking operations, and the proportion of gold in the equity and assets of Turkey's banks compared with other countries is high. In reality, the Turkish banking sector is completely ready to implement the Basel III standards. As the London newspaper the Financial Times observed, the policy of the governor of the Central Bank of Turkey, Erdem Basci, has yielded impressive results for Turkish banks: they have attracted 8.3 billion US dollars in new deposits through gold programmes over the last 12 months and are now able to channel these resources into lending. One can observe that nearly all the leading gold producers are on the list given above: China, South Africa, Canada and Australia. A number of the countries on the list are leading importers of gold (China, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia and India). China, which has been included on the list of <> leaders, has long been hinting at the possibility of transforming the Yuan into a gold standard. Switzerland, meanwhile, is pushing forward a project to introduce a parallel currency within the country in the form of a gold franc. <>: banks' U-turn on gold The implementation of the new Basel rules could lead to a radical change in the positions of individual countries' banks in the global financial system. To begin with, it is expected that the positions of Chinese banks will become stronger, bearing in mind that for several years in succession, China has ranked first in the world in terms of the volume of gold both extracted and imported. The positions of those banks that bravely embraced Basel III will also become stronger, since the price of gold over the last 12 years has shown an unprecedentedly high growth rate - an average of 17 percent per year. In 2012, a troy ounce of gold cost 1700 dollars. According to many gold traders, meanwhile, the <> (<>) value of metal is at a level of no less than 5000 dollars. Whoever managed to get on the <> by buying low-cost tickets will be much more likely to find themselves on the global financial Olympus tomorrow. Even those banks that have still not entered the zone of Basel III activities understand that their future depends on how quickly they will be able to turn towards gold. IMF and World Gold Council statistics do not give a clear picture of gold purchases by the entire banking sector. However, there are statistics for the purchase and sale activities of central banks in the gold market. Following the collapse of the Bretton-Woods currency system, central banks across the world sold more gold than they bought for more than three decades. After the recently concluded financial crisis, the situation changed dramatically. In 2011, net purchases of gold by the world's central banks amounted to 457 tonnes. This is more than 10 percent of the total demand for precious metals on the world market (4400 tonnes). During the 15 years preceding the crisis, meanwhile, net purchases totalled an average of 400 tonnes per year. Thus, the central banks made a sharp about turn and started to purchase gold in the kinds of volumes that had not been observed since the 1960s. Last year was a record year in terms of the amount of net purchases of gold by the world's central banks since 1964. According to preliminary data released by the World Gold Council, a new record will also be set in 2012: the net purchase of gold by the world's central banks rose to 536 tonnes. With regard to commercial banks, before the introduction of the Basel III standard they only saw gold as a way to increase their own profits through speculation and/or investment, but they had no incentive to establish their own considerable reserves of precious metals. I think their attitude to gold is going to change in 2013, they will buy it for themselves with a view to improving the sustainability of their business and attracting clients. The validation of the Basel III standards in a number of countries in 2013 is a serious indication that gold has returned to the world of money. We are not yet talking about the classical gold standard, of course, whereby banks are able to freely exchange paper money for metal. But metal may become more widely used to cover banks' liabilities and be a financial asset of the <>. Who knows, maybe in the future, when banks have accumulated enough gold, the issue of the reinstatement of the gold standard will be put back on the agenda...

Government Lab Reveals It Has Operated Quantum Internet for Over Two Years

plokiju — Tue, 07 May 2013 22:47:32 -0400

A quantum internet capable of sending perfectly secure messages has been running at Los Alamos National Labs for the last two and a half years, say researchers One of the dreams for security experts is the creation of a quantum internet that allows perfectly secure communication based on the powerful laws of quantum mechanics. The basic idea here is that the act of measuring a quantum object, such as a photon, always changes it. So any attempt to eavesdrop on a quantum message cannot fail to leave telltale signs of snooping that the receiver can detect. That allows anybody to send a "one-time pad" over a quantum network which can then be used for secure communication using conventional classical communication. That sets things up nicely for perfectly secure messaging known as quantum cryptography and this is actually a fairly straightforward technique for any half decent quantum optics lab. Indeed, a company called ID Quantique sells an off-the-shelf system that has begun to attract banks and other organisations interested in perfect security. These systems have an important limitation, however. The current generation of quantum cryptography systems are point-to-point connections over a single length of fibre, So they can send secure messages from A to B but cannot route this information onwards to C, D, E or F. That's because the act of routing a message means reading the part of it that indicates where it has to be routed. And this inevitably changes it, at least with conventional routers. This makes a quantum internet impossible with today's technology Various teams are racing to develop quantum routers that will fix this problem by steering quantum messages without destroying them. We looked at one of the first last year. But the truth is that these devices are still some way from commercial reality. Today, Richard Hughes and pals at Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico reveal an alternative quantum internet, which they say they've been running for two and half years. Their approach is to create a quantum network based around a hub and spoke-type network. All messages get routed from any point in the network to another via this central hub. This is not the first time this kind of approach has been tried. The idea is that messages to the hub rely on the usual level of quantum security. However, once at the hub, they are converted to conventional classical bits and then reconverted into quantum bits to be sent on the second leg of their journey. So as long as the hub is secure, then the network should also be secure. The problem with this approach is scalability. As the number of links to the hub increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to handle all the possible connections that can be made between one point in the network and another. Hughes and co say they've solved this with their unique approach which equips each node in the network with quantum transmitters-i.e., lasers-but not with photon detectors which are expensive and bulky. Only the hub is capable of receiving a quantum message (although all nodes can send and receiving conventional messages in the normal way). That may sound limiting but it still allows each node to send a one-time pad to the hub which it then uses to communicate securely over a classical link. The hub can then route this message to another node using another one time pad that it has set up with this second node. So the entire network is secure, provided that the central hub is also secure. The big advantage of this system is that it makes the technology required at each node extremely simple-essentially little more than a laser. In fact, Los Alamos has already designed and built plug-and-play type modules that are about the size of a box of matches. "Our next-generation will be an order of magnitude smaller in each linear dimension," they say. Their ultimate goal is to have one of these modules built in to almost any device connected to a fibre optic network, such as set top TV boxes, home computers and so on, to allow perfectly secure messaging. Having run this system now for over two years, Los Alamos are now highly confident in its efficacy. Of course, the network can never be more secure than the hub at the middle of it and this is an important limitation of this approach. By contrast, a pure quantum internet should allow perfectly secure communication from any point in the network to any other. Another is that this approach will become obsolete as soon as quantum routers become commercially viable. So the question for any investors is whether they can get their money back in the time before then. The odds are that they won't have to wait long to find out. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/514581/government-lab-reveals-quantum-internet-operated-continuously-for-over-two-years/

Chris Kelly, half of 1990s Kris Kross rap duo, dead at 34

Jukamatuka — Thu, 02 May 2013 02:46:32 -0400

dats wiggedy wack yo Kriss Kross' Chris Kelly and Chris Smith reunited in February for a 20th anniversary concert for So So Def Records. Chris Kelly, one-half of the 1990s rap duo Kris Kross, died Wednesday at an Atlanta hospital after he was found unresponsive at his home. He was 34. How Kelly died isn't known, and the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office said an autopsy is planned for Thursday. Kelly, together with Chris Smith, shot to stardom in 1992 with "Jump," which spent eight weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100. The duo opened for Michael Jackson that year on his Dangerous World Tour. And their penchant for wearing their clothes backward were, at least for a time, widely emulated. "I'm wearing my clothes to work backwards tomorrow," Michael Skolnik, editor in chief of the hip hop site Global Grind said, when he learned of the death. Leslie Tookes, a CNN project coordinator, lived next door to Kelly. Like others, she too was saddened by his untimely death. "We often heard him playing classical music and the piano," Tookes said. "He was a low-key type of person who was very talented and courteous, friendly and wonderful to our 5-year-old twins. "Indeed, gone too soon." Discovered at a mal l Kelly and Smith were 13-year-olds when they were discovered in 1991 at an Atlanta mall by producer Jermaine Dupri. Going by the stage name Mac Daddy (with Smith known as Daddy Mac), the pair followed up their smash "Jump" with the single "Warm It Up." Together, the songs pushed their debut album, "Totally Krossed Out," to multiplatinum status. Next came 1993's "Da Bomb. "But the album failed to find the following of the duo's debut, in large part because the boys had hit puberty and they were marketed with a tougher image. Their career never again reached the heights of their debut, but they continued to make music. In 1996, the duo released the album "Young, Rich and Dangerous." The pair reunited for one night in February for a 20th anniversary party for Dupri's So So Def label. Rapper Da Brat, who also performed that night, wrote about Kelly's death, " REST IN PEACE TO MY LIL BRO CHRIS KELLY OF KRIS KROSS. Dam wasn't we JUST at rehearsal and doin a So So Def20 show?"

Julian Bream - Recuerdos de la Alhambra

Donegal — Wed, 01 May 2013 23:00:20 -0400

Recuerdos de la Alhambra (Memories of the Alhambra) is a classical guitar piece composed in 1896 by Spanish composer and guitarist Francisco T'arrega. The piece showcases the challenging guitar technique known as tremolo, wherein a single melody note is plucked repeatedly by the ring, middle and index fingers in such rapid succession that the result is an illusion of one long sustained tone. The thumb plays a counter-melody on the bass between melodic attacks. Many who hear this piece initially in a non-live setting can mistake it for a duet rather than a challenging solo effort. The A-section of the piece is written in a minor key, and the B-section is written in the major key of the same root (more specifically, A-minor and A-major). This gives the song a melancholy feel in the beginning, and then it resolves to an uplifting feel.

The Mindset of North Korean Elites. An article by GARY LEUPP

waterlawman — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:04:10 -0400

I'm only reproducing this for the readers of LiveLeak. This is not my work. I thought it would be compelling reading for LiveLeaker's. Gary Leupp wrote this he is Professor of History at Tufts University, and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Religion. April 16, 2013 What's Really Going On? The Mindset of North Korean Elites by GARY LEUPP On March 27 Kim Jong-un, the "Dear Respected Marshal" and leader the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, severed the last military hotline between North and South. Three days later he announced that the DPRK was renouncing the armistice agreement of 1953 and "entering the state of war." On April 2 he announced the reactivation of a plutonium reactor closed in 2007, and the closure of Kaesong Industrial Park the next day. (Pyongyang bravely declared that it receives "few economic benefits from the zone," where 53,000 North Koreans work for 123 South Korean companies, "while the South side largely benefits from it.") On April 4 U.S. intelligence reported movement of a medium-range missile to an eastern location for possible testing. The next day British and Russian diplomats reported that their missions in Pyongyang had been encouraged to evacuate family members. Two weeks have gone by. Pyongyang is reportedly calm, and there are some reports that-after some rather provocative moves-the Pentagon seems to have canceled or postponed some actions, perhaps to defuse the situation. (A nuclear-capable B-2 flew in from Missouri March 28 and dropped "inert ordinance" while nuclear-capable B-52s participated in "routine" drills and a destroyer and sea-based radar platform approached the North Korean coast.) Meanwhile the press reports that the U.S. has ruled out hitting missiles on the launch pad without evidence of plans to attack the U.S.-surely a small comfort. Everyone seems to agree that, since the North Koreans do not seem anywhere near to having deliverable nuclear warheads-and if they did they'd realize their use would surely doom themselves and tens of thousands of others-it's extremely unlikely that all the rhetoric and dramatic moves will truly lead to war. But how to explain them? One must imagine that Kim Jong-il and his courtiers are not the South Park cartoon characters created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. They are in fact "rational." Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's Secretary of State, met at length with Kim Jong-il in 2002 and pronounced him both "rational" and "pragmatic" (as well as "charming"). The reverends Billy and Franklin Graham, who have preached in North Korea and are seen by the Foreign Ministry as "friends of Korea" have also averred that the Kims are rational. (Yes, I agree that Albright and the evangelicals are themselves no models of rationality or morality. My point is just that the DPRK leaders are no nuttier than the global ruling-class norm.) Those in Kim's circle are well educated, can access the international media, and despite North Korea's reputation for "isolation" (Korea was called "the hermit kingdom" long before its division in 1945) well aware of the outside world. Dynasty founder Kim Il-song left Korea for Manchuria at age eight and didn't return to 1945. Kim Jong-un, now 29 or 30, apparently spent seven of his formative years enrolled first in the International School near Bern, Switzerland, from around age 10 to 14, and then the nearby Liebefeld Steinh"olzli from age 14 to 17. (He later obtained a degree in physics from Kim Il-song University.) His slightly older brother Jong-chul studied in Switzerland as well. His oldest (half-) brother Jong-nam (b. 1981) visited Tokyo from at least 1995. (Caught entering Japan on a forged passport in 2001, he embarrassed his father Kim Jong-il, was removed from his heir apparent position and now spends much of his time in Macao.) Indeed quite a few descendents of dynasty founder Kim have spent long periods outside the DPRK. Kim Il-song's second oldest son (after Jong-il) has been ambassador to Poland since the 1980s and his two children grew up in Warsaw. Kim Il-song's daughter Kim Kyong-chin has been living in Vienna over twenty years as wife of the DPRK ambassador to Austria. Another daughter, Kim Kyong-hui, studied in Moscow 1968-69. Her own daughter, Jong-un's cousin, studied in Paris (and as we will see, died there). Clearly the elite is aware of the realities of global capitalism, and aware that the U.S., however crisis-ridden its system may be, remains a hyper-power, the world's greatest purveyor of violence. It has over 7000 nukes in its arsenal. DPRK leaders also grasps the magnitude of the changes in China, where a "communist" party with fraternal ties to the DPRK's ruling Korean Workers Party has maintained its hold on power while overseeing the restoration of capitalism (and coping with the stormy social consequences). Kim's advisors presumably realize that without international relief and Chinese goodwill, the DPRK would become so destitute that social explosions would be inevitable. They know that actions seen as provocative by both the U.S. and China could result in sanctions producing mass suffering. One doubts that many in this stratum would welcome war. But then, who knows? All the commentators state that little is known about the North Korean leadership. What do we (outsiders in general) really know about how they think? The Songbun System First of all we must assume that having grown up under the songbun status system, they accept it or do not overtly challenge it. This system, little known to people outside the DPRK, places people in one of 51 categories based on songbun (background "components"). These categories were announced by the Great Leader Kim Il-song in 1957 and subsequently elaborated in party documents. The first group consists of "friendly" (or "core" forces). These as of 1957 consisted of the peasant and working classes, Party members, veterans of the wars against the Japanese and U.S., revolutionary intellectuals, etc. Kim estimated these at 25% of the population. Meanwhile "hostile" or "enemy" forces, such as former landlords and entrepreneurs, Christian missionaries, shamans, collaborators with the Japanese, etc. were about 20% of the people. The remaining 55% (including, for example) "former small venders" were "neutral" or "wavering." These are not all economic class categories but include "Chinese Koreans who returned from China to Korea in the 1950s," "Buddhists and people observing Buddhist rituals," etc. Status assignment, made at birth, has usually determined one's eligibility for education, employment, location, housing, food rations, access to electricity, and rights to purchase certain goods such as television sets. But some argue that the recent collapse of the state distribution system, rise of the black market and access to Chinese-made electronics and social media have reduced the importance of songbun . It should go without saying that this system of privilege by hereditary status has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism, which has in fact long been replaced with "the Juche Idea" in official DPRK propaganda as the ideology of state. There is no pretense to either classlessness or strategy for the attainment of a classless society; the existence of privileged strata is taken for granted. Maybe the idea is that the hostile groups will either gradually wither away due to the discrimination they face or at least be denied the ability to inbreed with the "core." The system deeply impacts the minds of many. For example, an effort to promote a cult around Kim Jong-un's mother Ko Young-hee has apparently been stymied by her songbun . Born in Japan in 1952, in Osaka where there is a large ethnic Korean population, she moved with her family to North Korea at age nine. Koreans born in Japan hold low status. It does not help that a younger sister defected to the U.S. There are some in the elite who would have liked to prevent the circulation last year of the documentary "The Mother of Great Military-first Korea," in which Ko is shown as a loving wife and doting mother comparable to Kim Jong-suk, glorious spouse and comrade to Kim Il-song. Parents are often deeply opposed to marriages with families of inferior songbun , partly because they know that any grandchildren born to offspring "marrying down" will suffer disadvantages. One prominent example: Jang Kum-song-the daughter of Kim Kyong-hui, the sister of Kim Il-song mentioned above, and her husband, Gen. Jang Sung-taek-died at age 29 in Paris in 2006. Educated in Europe, she wished to marry a North Korean man but her parents opposed the union due to the songbun gap. She committed suicide by drug overdose, a child of extraordinary privilege perhaps protesting the unfairness of the system that had coddled her so far. (Her first cousin Jong-un was around 23 at the time. One wonders when he became aware of this, and what he thought. There are rumors that his own marriage to Ri Sol-ju-who studied music in China-was opposed by his father Jong-il and concealed before his death.) Kum-song's mother Kyong-hui had studied in Moscow in 1968-9 alongside her boyfriend Jang; although the Kim family had reportedly opposed their relationship, they married in 1972. (It appears obvious that the songbun system produces ongoing conflicts within the elite, especially within families.) As a director of the International Liaison Department of the ruling party she promoted relations with Singapore and Thailand in the 1970s. She's accumulated posts in industrial management and the military. She's been described as a "personal aide" to Jung-un and has been present with her husband at meetings with Chinese diplomats. (It's been reported that Kyong-hui has missed meetings due to depression, which would not be surprising given how and why her daughter died seven years ago.) Jong-un's uncle by marriage, Gen. Jang, held top party positions from the 1980s but disappeared from November 2004, probably for criticizing economic policy. His wife dropped from view too. But in March 2006 he resurfaced in the entourage of his brother-in-law Kim Jong-il then travelling in China. Apparently someone thought him indispensible to the management of the DPRK's relationship with the PRC. Now he and Aunt Kyong-hui are regarded as Jong-un's closest advisors. Everybody living within the songbun system must understand that they belong to a status group which determines their options in life. They realize furthermore that their fates rest on decisions made by faceless generals in line with the Songun ("military first") policy announced in 1995. Rare among self-pronounced "socialist" states, North Korea places military authority ahead of party authority. China's Mao Zedong once declared "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," but added that "...the Party the gun, the gun must never be allowed to command the Party." In North Korea it is just the reverse. The army-led only by men of highest status, with an interest in maintaining it-eclipses the party. Wherever the young Kim goes, or at least wherever he is photographed, he's surrounded by grim uniformed men at least twice his age. Their material interests are a driving factor in policy. The Kims have kept these brass (relatively) fat and happy with imported whiskey and luxury cars, yachts and jewelry, and all-night parties with the Leader. The people around Kim Jong-un affecting current policy, including the handling of this current standoff with the U.S. and the South, realize that the masses of North Koreans do not have access to much of the information available to themselves. (According to one industry source, only 6% of households have television sets.) Most quite likely believe what the mass media, education system and ubiquitous propaganda organs teach: that Kim Il-song, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un are a line of geniuses who, with their boundless energy and through their ceaseless inspection tours, are personally responsible for all the DPRK's comforts and accomplishments. Surely most of the "core" believes that, although there must be a stratum that knows better and is quietly cynical (the alternative being suicide); and much of the "wavering" may believe too. We should not assume that people blame all hardships on the system or the Kims; quite likely, many feel a variety of religious reverence for the Kims that impedes their ability to analyze their situation. Even some of the "enemies" (if they survived the famine of 1994-98, estimated to have taken between several hundred thousand and two million lives) might accept the system, love the leader and believe what his government says. Believing this, the elite thinks it can do pretty much what it wants to do. Kimilsongism, Shinto, and Neo-Confucianism North Korea, as I've argued before, should be understood as a religious state . I do not mean one in which Marxism-Leninism has ossified into a type of state religion, as it did in the Soviet Union; Marxism-Leninism really has little to do with it. Mainstream journalists refer to it misleadingly as "Stalinist," and surely Kim Il-song emulated Stalin in forging a personality cult with omnipresent self-glorifying posters, statues etc. But while Stalin-whatever else you can say of him-took Marxism-Leninism seriously, the Kims have pretty much tossed it out. The official ideology of the DPRK is "Kimilsongism-Kimjongilism" (formerly just "Kimilsongism"), based on the (vague, infinitely flexible) Juche concept that officially supplanted Marxism-Leninism in 1972. The 1998 and 2009 versions of the DPRK Constitution make no reference to Marxism whatsoever although they refer to " Juche- based" socialism which is something quite different. The North Koreans wouldn't argue otherwise. The study of Marxist theory is not encouraged in North Korea. It's not even possible for most. A Russian scholar wrote in 1995, "the works by Marx, Engels, and Lenin are not only excluded from the standard curriculum, but are generally forbidden for lay readers. Almost all the classical works of Marxism-Leninism, as well as foreign works on the Marxist philosophy are kept in special depositories, along with other kinds of subversive literature. Such works are accessible only to specialists with special permits." How could any real Marxist believe what DPRK school children are taught? They're told that the Kim family originated on Mt. Paektu, a mountain held sacred to Koreans and Manchurians for 2000 years, the place of origin of both peoples, according to their mythologies. (According to an ancient myth, the Korean nation of Choson was founded by the son of a bear who had been transformed into a woman by Hwanung, ruler of a divine city on Mt. Paektu, and a tiger. It rather reminds me of the Japanese Shinto myth in which the grandson of the Sun Goddess descends from heaven to Mt. Takachiho in Kyushu and begets two sons. One of these married the daughter of the Sea God, who turned out to be a dragon. She gave birth to the first emperor of Japan before slinking away back into the sea. Thus the Japanese imperial family also descended from heaven, and became human.) North Korean school children are now told that the Kims descended from heaven to the top of Mt. Paektu, where they were transformed into human beings. What sort of historical materialist could accept the story that Kim Il-song during the 1940s, fighting Japanese in Manchuria, could cut down trees with his enormous sword as though he were slicing through tofu? Or believe the official biography of Kim Jong-il, beginning with his birth in a humble log cabin on this sacred Mt. Paektu? (He was in fact born in Vyatskoye, a Russian fishing village on the Amur River. His father, then a captain in the Soviet Red Army, had served in the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army in Manchuria from 1935 to 1940. He was a member of the Chinese Communist Party at this time, had been educated in Chinese from age eight and reportedly spoke Korean with some difficulty at this time.) What sort of Marxist can believe that when the Dear Leader was born, a double rainbow appeared over the mountain peak, a new star rose in the heavens, and a swallow descended, heralding the early arrival of spring? Or believe that once when he visited Panmunjom, a fog descended to protect him from South Korean snipers, but when he was out of danger, the mist dramatically lifted and glorious red sunlight shone all around him? Or take seriously the report that he shot 11 holes-in-one to achieve an unprecedented 38-under-par game on a regulation 18-hole golf course, on his very first try at golf? Or accept the somber statement in the DPRK media, on the day of Kim Jong-il's death: "When the Great Marshal died, thousands of cranes descended from heaven to fetch him. The birds couldn't take him because they saw that North Koreans cried and screamed and pummeled their chests, pulled their hair and pounded the ground"? Such attributions of supernatural powers, the suggestion that Heaven endorses the Kims, are just the beginning of North Korean religiosity. If the regime has integrated aspects of native mythology to the Kim cult, it has also drawn upon neo-Confucianism, the dominant ideology in Korea from the late fourteenth century. It formed, as historian James B., Palais states, "the basis not only of the educational curriculum and the civil service examination system, but also of ritual practice, family organization and ethical values" in the country. Confucianism is rooted in the values of filial piety and respect for ancestors, which are viewed as essential for the workings of a harmonious state under rulers who've received the Mandate of Heaven. If children obey their (presumably virtuous) parents, subjects-properly educated and knowing their assigned place in a fixed class system (gentry, peasants, artisans, merchants)-will obey the ruler. But the ruler must also be virtuous. If the ruler behaves badly, or is perceived as lacking virtue, there will be disorder, signaling that Heaven has withdrawn its mandate. That's the gist of this essentially conservative philosophy, which Mao Zedong (to cite the example of a serious, philosophically inclined Marxist-Leninist) found inherently reactionary. (Indeed, Mao endorsed a campaign to "criticize Confucius" in the last few years of his life.) Karl Marx was a family man and dutiful son and I doubt would object to filial piety in principle. But he would certainly take exception to the conflation of filial loyalty and loyalty to a ruling family. What could be less Marxist than the practice of hereditary kingship? But here perhaps is where the elder Kim's innovative "brilliance" shines through. During the Sino-Soviet split in the 1950s, Kim Il-song came to advocate "the Juche Idea ." This vague concept (sometimes translated "self-reliance") originally seemed to connote DPRK political independence vis-`a-vis the quarreling PRC and USSR. But it has in practice meant the creation of a national belief system that freely combines some socialist values (violated in practice) with many elements of the native tradition. Kim advocated, for example, that women dress in the traditional chima-jeogori . (This is rather like Japanese officials urging women to wear the kimono rather than more comfortable modern dress.) His son Jong-il reiterated in 1986 that brides should, due to "traditional custom and national sentiment of the Koreans" to dress in that outfit. Jong-il also urged all Koreans to observe the traditional observances of the Chongmyong holiday (April 6). These include dressing "in turf" and mowing the grass around the graves, and preparing special dishes including "cakes cooked with newly harvested grains." (The DPRK media reprinted his statement for this month's holiday, noting "it is one of the Koreans' manners to visit ancestral graves to pay tribute to the memory of their ancestors on the day. Leader Kim Jong Il in his lifetime had paid deep attention to carrying forward the traditional manners among the people in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.") It is all about filial piety and reverence for ancestors, positively justified as "traditional manners." Shouldn't one revere the ancestors of the leader too? Chinese and Soviet observers alike once looked askance at all of this, but both were obliged to accept this quasi-Marxist/neo-Confucian hybrid as an ally-a member of an imagined "socialist camp." One can say the strategy worked. Kim's grandson reigns in great comfort, after all, the revered heir of beloved forbears. China and Russia remain basically friendly. The Land of the Morning Calm indeed seems calm. The Mandate of Heaven The Great Leader apparently thought that to be thoroughly, independently Korean , the DPRK needed to draw upon its neo-Confucian heritage. This didn't mean reviving the reverence for Confucius himself, which had occurred as temples like the Hamhung Confucian temple in Hamgyongnamdo destroyed like most other monuments by U.S. bombing. The official position on Confucianism remains that announced in 1982: "Confucianism is a religion which believed in 'Heaven' and theologised the feudal kingdom...Like other religions... Confucianism was used as an ideological tool of the feudal ruling class since it arrived in Korea and had a poisonous impact on the People's ideology, psychology and ethics as well as on economic culture and technological development." But it did mean embracing and exploiting old concepts. It meant replacing the old neo-Confucian four-class system with fixed songbun categories, with "revolutionary intellectuals" at the top replacing the old yangban scholar-gentry, and former capitalists and miscellaneous miscreants at the bottom replacing the merchant class disparaged in Confucian thought. It meant replacing the monarchy toppled by the Japanese in 1910 with a new one claiming both ideological correctness and heavenly approval. If what emerged struck and continues to strike most Marxists as simply very bizarre, the North Koreans can defiantly proclaim: "These are our national, independent customs, and nobody else's business!" Korea is, however, very much China's business. The PRC and DPRK are, as the unpleasant Chinese expression goes, "as close as the lips and teeth." They are profoundly linked by history from Neolithic times, a shared written language (Chinese) for over 1000 years, Confucian culture, an 880 mile border, and the shared experience of fighting U.S. imperialism during the Korean War (1950-53). There are two and a half million Koreans in China. From China's point of view, North Korea is a buffer against Russia, Japan and South Korea. The modern Chinese may not have expected that Korean rulers would, like kings in the past, seek Beijing's approval when naming heirs apparent. But this happened with Jong-il in the early 1990s and with Jong-un in 2011. It's a version of the old confirmation of legitimacy sought from the Chinese emperors, themselves in possession of the Mandate of Heaven. (The Chinese leaders are in an awkward spot. Last November a delegation from the PRC delivered a letter to Jung-un from President Xi Jinping demanding that he not launch a ballistic missile. He did anyway, no doubt realizing that China's ability to pressure the DPRK is limited by Chinese fears of catastrophe in the event of a halt in aid and trade. Beijing hopes to nudge North Korea towards its own brand of state capitalism, which it thinks will contribute to stability in the region-although the Chinese regime itself faces mounting discontent-and facilitate eventual reunification. It has to maintain friendship with this former tributary kingdom.) Kim Il-song deftly arranged his own succession, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for the president of a republic to pass power on to his son. Jong-il less deftly and more hastily arranged the transfer of power to Jong-un. In both instances, Heaven played a role or at least was invoked. One of Jong-il's monikers was "the Heavenly-Descended General." Kim Il-song, whose motto was "believing in the people as in heaven," wrote a poem in 1991 on the occasion of his beloved son's 50th birthday: "Heaven and earth shake with the resounding cheers of all the people united in praising him." And as Jung-un took the throne, as mentioned above, the sacred cranes (symbols of longevity in East Asia) descended from Heaven to transport his father thence. The image of the sun has been important in this religification. Where does that come from, if not from the next-door Land of the Rising Sun? Korea was colonized from 1910 to 1945 by Japan, with its native myth of the Sun Goddess. State Shinto was promoted among the (partly resistant) Korean population during that period, who like the Japanese were taught that the Japanese emperors were descended from the goddess. Kim Il-song was surely exposed to this notion during his first eight years. Thus it isn't all that strange that the Kim cult similarly links the Great Leader with the sun. The DPRK Constitution states, "The great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung is the sun of the nation and the lodestar of the reunification of the fatherland." A monumental artwork called "the Figure of the Sun" erected to mark the 100-day memorial service for Kim in 1994, adorns a hill overlooking Pyongyang. April 15, the Great Leader's birthday and the main North Korean holiday, is called the "Day of Sun." Immediately after Il-song's death in 1994, villages and towns throughout the nation began to construct Towers of Eternal Life, the main one rising 93 meters over Kim's mausoleum in Pyongyang. The Great Leader's son took power, declining to assume the title of President. The Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea restricts that title forever to the Great Leader, whom the Dear Leader has proclaimed, "will always be with us." In 1997 the DPRK adopted a new calendar, in which the first year of Juche corresponds to Kim's birth year, 1912. Is it not obvious that Kimilsungism is a religious cult? And that it must condition the thinking even of many who silently doubt it? What They're Thinking So we have two control systems operating together: the songbun and a religious thought-control system. When young Jong-un sits down with Auntie Kyong-hui and Uncle Sung-taek, he and they and anyone else in the room realize that they preside over a very well-controlled privilege- and status-based society, in which the most discontented are the weakest, the most kept out of sight, and probably not an important threat; and where despite the hardships caused by famine and human stupidity, there remains a large class of people who dress well enough, eat adequately, have comfortable housing, and find some leisure time to enjoy sports and culture. (I recommend, by the way, surfing youtube for examples of televised popular entertainment in the DPRK, some of which will likely surprise you. Kim Jong-un seems partial to the all-female sixteen member electronic music group, the Moranbong Band. It was just launched last July. Their repertoire ranges from the patriotic, Kim-cult material you'd expect, to themes of the Disney movie "Beauty and the Beast" and "Gonna Fly Now" from "Rocky," to western classical pieces such as Mozart's Symphony no. 40 and P. Mauriat's Minuetto. They debuted last July with a concert extravaganza attended by Kim. He is clearly is a big fan and patron of the group. Having just emerged months after his coronation, it surely reflects his tastes These include a version of the DPRK anthem that begins with wistful violin and cello strings and erupts precisely midway through with the soaring strains of an electric guitar backed by drumbeat. Watch it here on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McBUm8YxHMs or visit the band's Facebook page Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan ; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan ; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900 . He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion , (AK Press). He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu Federal law allows citizens to reproduce, distribute or exhibit portions of copyright motion pictures, video tapes, or video disks under certain circumstances without authorization of the copyright holder. This infringement of copyright is called fair use and is allowed for purposes of criticism, news reporting, teaching and parody.

Milton Friedman on Classical Liberalism

star53 — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:26:32 -0400

What once was known as classical Liberalism..was hijacked by progressive liberal communist..in an attempt to conceal their agenda until their membership grew in numbers. via CPUSA website.

The classical cat performance

ljfriel2 — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 08:24:41 -0400

cats in sync..!

Jeff loomis - Requiem for the living.

PeopleEqualsShit — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 02:45:59 -0400

Amazing skills.

Iranian jesus playing Tanboor (Classic Persian music)

Darius20190 — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:21:02 -0400

Sounds amazing.