Hyundai pays tribute to Kim Jong-Il. What's next, tribute to Hitler?

Oh My GOD! The head of South Korean car-producing giant Hyundai arrived officially in North Korea to pay last tribute and mourn the deceased butcher and terrorist Kim Jong-Il!! Just pinch me, I can't believe I am not asleep! Of course everyone remembers from the history books how British, French in American corporations in the 1930s with full clout and support of their respective governments vied for the honor and privilege of taking and serving large industrial orders from Hitler's Nazi Germany(more often than not those were military-related orders), but what you can see now is something completely surrealistic: to put a proper analogy to this Hyundai official visit one should imagine something like Ford visiting Germany (with the permission and full support of the US Government too) AFTER the end of the second world war in order to PAY tribute to the dead Hitler with the aim of promoting national economic interests... My foot! Even the best satirists and comedians in the 21th century cannot think up in their wildest imaginings plots which could be even closely comparable to the political realities in terms of the bottomless abyss of cynicism and immorality of things done by governments of so called developed countries all around the world without a blink.
By the way,  I don't believe for a minute that South Korea government is really interested in the collapse of N Korean regime & in unification of the split nation, and such visits like this one of Hyundai just confirms me all the more in this disbelief. In many ways South Korean state does its best to preserve the status quo in North Korea, that's the anti-human weak regime, for as long as possible. If there was really political will to destroy this awful formation and unite the split nation - thousands of families - I honestly believe it would have been done LOOOOOOONG AGO without too much difficulty too. But the short-term interest of every incoming government is much higher that the lives of their brothers on the other side of the border and the tragedy of the split nation. No one wants to take this responsibility but, instead, everyone among the politicians wants to have a comfortable enemy nearby to lessen their responsibility for truly important things and hype their role as a defender of people from that enemy... - a form of state terrorism, so to speak, where people pays authorities for their own fears supported by these authorities.
If there were a real interest in coping with N Korean regime, there are a lots of good things and guaranties that South Korea could offer to those political 'clowns' in exchange for a fast reform or even revolutionary reform dismantling this extremely weak formation in matter of years. But that's not what South Korea government is concerned with, and its Western Allies (who love spouting about democratic values so much) for that matter.

Why the US doesn't apologize for its recent killing of Pakistani troops

Now I very often hear questions like 'why doesn't Obama apologize for killing Pakistani troops' etc. It needs some sort of short clarification. 
The question 'why Obama doesn't apologize' is basically incorrect, just because within the American state system of coordinates the value of people lives beyond its borders is ZERO in the general case - it was so, it is so and it will be so in the foreseeable future.
A much more relevant question is 'why should he apologize?'. But not the other way around just because the modern state-nations structurally are not in the habit of apologizing, and the bigger a state the less desire it has to apologize for anything. They, if you like, are intrinsically immoral. That's how the modern (as a matter of fact very obsolete) state models work (even the so called democracies): what's done by state has the benefit of presumption of being morally right - not the other way around. The value of lives and national dignity of OTHER nations in the eyes of the US are no more than a PIECE of SHIT pardon my French  - that's how things are, were and will be in the foreseeable future. I am not very happy to remind about this unfortunate reality, but that's the way it is. Only AMERICAN PEOPLE can sometimes FORCE the US semi-democratic state to recognize something or apologize, but even in those rare cases it takes sometimes decades and thousands of lives. Moreover because there are no real democratic mechanism of control by the American people of what their state is up to BEYOND national borders, the probability that Americans will force their state to apologize to some fellow human creatures in some other part of the world is ABSOLUTE ZERO. 
You may as well ask why the US don't want to apologize to Japan for nuclear bombing of its civilians in WW2, or why Israel isn't in a hurry to apologize to Palestinians for the criminal blockade and occupation, or why Russian state is in no mood to apologize to the Chechen people... or why Turkey doesn't think of apologizing to the Armenians etc etc. That's the essence of the antique 'state-nations' - even 'semi-democratic' ones amongst them. The prestige and the presumption of the morality and justifiability of what is done by a state, especially beyond its borders, is granted at a fundamental level. Such things as Nuremberg process or recognition of the massacre of Polish elites by the Soviets and such like is a HISTORICAL and very very RARE EXCEPTION, caused by a very very specific set of circumstances and overwhelming proof of the scale of the crimes. So the question is, in my view, absolutely INCORRECT. To pin one's hopes on some miracle in this sense is also unreasonable because Obama, with all due respect, is not Vaclav Havel and can never have been one - Vaclav Havel is phenomenon that is impossible in usual, steady political conditions, kind of ' a freak of nature' bound with transitional revolutionary processes.
One can with the same vain hope expect Obama to apologize to own nation on the behalf of the state for thousands upon thousands of American girls and boys uniform KILLED in the Iraqi war (an tens of thousands more mutilated for life) which was started under the 100% false excuses and grounds from the first. It is not a matter of who is president - Obama is the best imaginable president for the US for my taste, but it is a matter of the antique political SYSTEM, of its intrinsically immoral core, which is based not on pursuing fairness and justice in the context of the absolute universal value of human life, but on the primacy of 'state national interests' and the state presumption of innocence and good intentions. Hence the state FORCE defines what is moral, not the other way around. So the question is not about Obama, the question is about the structure of the US state and the continuity of state interests. Only HUGE pressure and a very specific set of external circumstances could FORCE American government to give an apology to Pakistani nation of to anyone else for that matter.
A MUCH more relevant question in my humble opinion is that HOW DARE the US in the person of its president even MENTION some kind of moral grounds and make ANY kind of moral judgements about other parts of the worlds in which it has its interests and presence (including military one). I can perfectly understand why the US state treat any other nation and people beyond its border as historical manure in deed without even bothering to reliably hide or cover the fact, but how can it be at the same time so BRAZEN as to EVER allude to some kind of MORAL grounds - that's what is completely beyond me! How can the US in those circumstances seriously believe that there is still something left of their moral authority and image - that's a real puzzle.

See also on the close themes:
'A letter to a friend: don't have illusions, there are no good governments'
Some extra about the moral political crisis in the Western semi-democracies  
How to avoid ridiculously 'freak' wars like in Iraq and Afghanistan in future?!
Yes, Bradley Manning and Assange deserve the Nobel prize possibly more than Obama does!
America refused to teach Arabs democracy, then Arabs will teach the US democracy!

ECB starts printing money big time: nightmares come true!

The European Central Bank said it injected a record 489.19 billion euros (US$641bil) into eurozone banks in its first-ever three-year refinancing operation.
Sounds really apocalyptic but at the same time prosaic and predetermined. One can only imagine the dialog that took place between Angela Merkel and Sarkozy, it could have been something like this:

MERKEL: I am not sure... I do have some bad feelings and premonitions about unconditionally subjugating the one and only healthy donor-type economy in eurozone - Germany - to the parasitic majority of the whole company.. Don't think I am too scrupulous, but it looks a bit alarming in terms of possible historic responsibility...
SARKOZY: Oh, my dear Angela, come on, we live only once. Let's do the usual thing we in democratish countries always do in such situations - borrow from our children and grandchildren and postpone the big crash for several years... Even if it means a total collapse of the EU, this will not happen tomorrow and all those journalists and publicists, never mind our lot - politicians - will be saying that you just 'made a mistake' but you tried your hardest to save the whole thing... Nobody can accuse us of a CRIME we are protected by the 'half-democracy'. We just make sometimes mistakes... Nothing criminal... Lets live in the present - in this day - you and me have only a few years left in office... Let's not over-complicate things.

Instead of a comprehensive reform of the financial capitalism and democratization of the EU, they decided to do what almost all observers and analysts expected them to do in the end (you don't need an Oxford degree to make such predictions in the modern 'decomposed' Western political world): they 'leveraged' an already existentially dangerous structural problem. Instead of 'germanization' - okay, if somebody don't like this term, let them have Finlandization or Scandinavization - of those pseudo-democratic, American type oligarchic pluto-klepto-cratic neighbors like Italy or Greece - parasitic in essence (by no means do I blame the victimized people of those countries, rather the system and the state), they on the contrary bend down the heart of the European economy - Germany - to the dictates of its ill - now quite possibly terminally ill - members. They decided to treat the economic drug dependence with additional unending mega-shots of 'the financial heroin' - just to postpone the debts of the southern countries by loaning times more money at the expense of increasing the debts even more - to a fatal extent. And, mind you my dear reader, all those people in power KNOW what they do and all the consequences, which in my humble opinion, makes the difference between a mistake and a crime.
You also don't have to be Adam Smith now to understand that the huge economic problems of Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain etc, possibly even France, are to do with structural problems of those economies, with the structural problems of their political models (especially in countries like Italy and Greece) and structural problems in the format of the eurozone - both political and economic. Those countries are in essence oligarchic plutocracies (which mistakenly considered by some credulous people to be democracies), where there's a continuity of interests of successive governments, which themselves in essence are nothing more than an appendage of the powerful rich group(s) - a kind of lackey, or doorman at the doors or the club, the owners of which never have been the peoples of those countries. Of course every new government in Greece borrowed as much as possible using state bonds just to stay in power and satisfy the ever-increasing appetites of their master - wealthy 'elites'. Now, when the situation came to a head in such countries as Greece where the minimum supply of liquidity is coming to an end (the state and banks just don't have a minimal amount of money to sustain the basic economic mechanisms, after all those huge loaned money just drained in the private pocket of the wealthy 10% of the population), they decided to pump an additional amount of this 'heroin' DIRECTLY through the bank system, and institutionalize this approach via change of the ECB role to a KIND OF Fed. Reserve of the US (which Germany resisted so long but unsuccessfully in the end). That means in essence printing money, and indirectly using taxpayers' (predominantly German taxpayer's) money for covering the losses of the banks which are too big to fail (mainly German and French banks financed the Greek banks directly or via government and now the insurance company called 'taxpayers all over the Europe' must cover this megatheft for free - see http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/11/greece-will-fail-without-euro-just.html). Immediately and unsurprisingly the banks on the first day of the auction grabbed almost 500 bln euros (!!) from ECB, and this is only a start. Looks like a 'safety shot' in the head of the economic union of Europe.
The second problem is the same old problem, which, in my view, from the very start of the EU became a time bomb for the very EU: the total absence of democracy in the very foundation of the EU (never mind eurozone), and, hence, legitimacy (http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/01/few-words-about-eu-good-idea-but-in.html). The use of Central Banks in itself for printing money and pumping liquidity into the banking system is not necessarily bad at all times, but the problem is that within democratic national systems, e.g. in the case of the USA, Japan, England etc, the emission and REDISTRIBUTION of money supply has legitimacy with the people (at least nominal), and the people, at least nominally, have the power to influence the policymakers directly (through local and general elections), influencing through them what can be an UNJUST and unbalanced redistribution of money and credit power in the national economy - there is at least on paper a democratic feedback and a place for the people in this pact between the state institutions. But nothing of this sort do you have in the EU - The Soviet Union of European Governments and Functionaries. Germans are 120% sure that the actions of the ECB are aimed at stealing their purchasing power and the value of their savings (which is 120% true too) just to save the foreign fat cats (who give nothing instead) and their own fat cats (in the form of their bankrupt banks).
And there's nothing that Germans can do about this within the EU bureaucracy's rules and so called 'laws' (a union which is in essence a form of usurpation of national sovereign powers and democracy, because it is not democratic in itself). This leads the whole system directly to a political crisis of an immense scale. But European 'leaders' just continue - knowingly so - to inject the 'heroin' into the poisoned bloodstream of the system, robe their taxpayers without saying a WORD about the critical situation with democracy and legitimacy of this whole rosy house named 'EU' (I am really amazed by the fact they call themselves 'leaders' since in my simple mind, leaders are exemplified for instance by some Roman generals or Emperors who to heighten the moral and hope of their armies get ahead of everybody else and demonstratively risk their life to start a crucial attack and fundamentally change the course of the fight. The image of the miserable self-interested and cynical RATS, whose only task is getting rid of all kind of responsibilities, staying in power  as long as possible thanks to political prostitution and appearing even before their own public only in the presence of heavy security and behind the bullet-prof glass of their tank-like automobiles, doesn't easily fit into my old fashioned conception of leaders).

My last tribute to a giant of a man - Vaclav Havel

I am sending my last tribute to the great man Vaclav Havel of the world, great politician and artist, who died today.
Unfortunately now the presence of such GIANTS in politics in the West is absolutely ruled out. The coming of Vaclav Havel into politics could become possible only and only thanks to the realities of the Cold War and the Soviet Occupation. Viewed against the background of such persons like Vaclav, today's political bedbugs in Europe, which dare to call themselves 'leaders', would really seem pathetic Lilliputs.
My heart goes out to the Czechs and those who really understand the human dimensions of Vaclav Havel and his contribution not only to the Czech Republic but to the world.
Thank you Vaclav for all you did, for your ideas and ideals, for your words and deeds.

Arab peoples must get rid of ALL illusions about the West's intentions

Arab peoples must get rid of ALL illusions about the West's intentions: Western powers have NEVER EVER wanted to promote a genuine democracy in the Middle East. They historically either financed dictators (like in Egypt or in Yemen) or created 'sham' democracies (like in Iraq or Bahrain) which in reality under the 'democratic gravy' are kleptocratic oligarchies (clan based or capital based), which steal from and cripple their own nations. The West is not only disinterested in real strong democracy in the Middle East, but does everything in its power to prevent it: WEAK Arab-speaking world is GOOD Arab-speaking world, at least in the view of the US. If Arabs want true democracy, they MUST build it themselves, and they'd better not step on the same 'mine' as India or Eastern European countries, who decided to build American type of capitalism (http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/08/note-about-india-disparity-and.html). American type of capitalism is incompatible with true democracy, cos capital has always more votes than people. Do learn from Finland and Sweden, which are not only much more socially and morally just societies but also are an order of magnitude more democratic than the US (practical control over what the state is up to and the independence of government from lobbying power of capital is incomparably better and unadulterated in Scandinavia which in part explains why the quality of life of the general public there is significantly better now than that in the US). Don't forget, the buzz word of 'democratic capitalism' is a malicious demagogic myth for the undereducated people.
See also on this topic:
http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/03/america-refused-to-teach-arabs.html
http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-did-west-start-war-against-gaddafi.html
http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/03/bahrain-just-another-litmus-test-to.html
http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/03/some-extra-about-moral-political-crisis.html

Canada exits Kyoto: oil prostitution has its modest price

Yeess, here I would reluctantly agree with you, my critical justice-seeking reader: Canada is a very active and progressive contributor to the global warming... though it doesn't mean that Canada is a region that feels the most of the consequences of this phenomenon in its 'most warming' manifestations, I am afraid...
Unfortunately Canada (of course here by Canada I mean only and only Canadian STATE), among many different types of 'political and economic prostitution' it has traditionally practiced, has lately taken to OIL prostitution and she's done it so energetically, enthusiastically and in earnest that has almost instantly overtaken her big southern brother in terms of the intensity of state's jolly fellatio - figuratively speaking - of the tar-smelling member of the oil corporations... American oil corporations... What the hell does Canada need this Kyoto protocol for if it digs up Alberta's tar sands (and all of Alberta with it) by the hands of the US oil companies for the good of American ecology and interests of American people?! Maybe for some crazy countries and regions like Germany. Japan. Korea etc, who go by leaps and bounds into the 21th century, developing green post-oil economy, it is important to have some green-house gas protocols, but of course not for Canada which has by right deserved to be exempt from this duty by her stubborn and triumphant march into the 20th century... even though her big southern brother's lately faltered a bit in his assurance on this front... Canada can sometimes remind a time machine.

Iran's nuclear weapon is inevitable: Israel must thank the US!

I am less than happy about Iran's nuclear program in the form it is now, BUT, unfortunately, as a rational man, I have to recognize the overwhelming probability that now nobody can prevent Iran from developing the enrichment process and getting all the ingredients to built its own nuclear explosive device. In my mind it's almost a forgone conclusion, though, I hasten to add, that it's not necessarily the main goal of the Iranian regime to construct an actual bomb. The main thing for them is to reach and demonstrate the absolute ability to built the bomb at will.
Also I have no doubts at all that the turning point in Iran's nuclear program and the huge window of opportunity Iran used for playing this card were created by Bush's government policy and actions (no matter deliberately or not), that's the US. After America got quite predictably bogged down into the unprecedentedly ugly, immoral and stupid war in Iraq while continuing to stay in Afghanistan (for reasons unknown too), there were no more factors left that could restrain Iran from going nuclear. This was rationally absolutely predictable and almost inevitable, and, in my view, therefore, the whole responsibility for any Iran's successes on this front must be FULLY placed on the US. In this sense Israel may say many many 'thanks' to its big friend for this 'help'. Furthermore, the very coming into power of radical Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could have been impossible without this 'performance' given by Bush on the Middle East stage. As is well known, before Ahmadinejad at the helm of Iran stood quite a moderate and incomparably more friendly and cultured Mohammad Khatami (who, by the way, mothballed the nuclear project). Of course the invasion of Iraq radicalized the Iranian society, giving such guys like Ahmadinejad a very good chance - a result, which cannot have been unpredicted (at least as a big possibility) by the White House.
Anyway, for now the technical and scientific potential of Iran at this stage of development and zero levers of the West to out pressure, in my mind, make Iran's becoming a nuclear state almost the inevitability. So one will have to live with that and build relations accordingly. All this fuss about Iran's threat to Israel or the US and, even more ridiculously, to Europe is, I am afraid, again is nothing more than a piece of very cheap, 20th century low standard demagoguery and propaganda.
Oh completely forgot, about DIPLOMATIC ways of preventing Iran from going nuclear and denuclearization of the Middle East : of course, it stands to reason and goes without saying, that Middle East should not have been nuclearized in the first place. In the 21th century, I hope, it is ridiculous even for a school boy to think that all those soulful, dear and 'highly moral' talks about preventing nuclear arms spread in the Middle East are just a kind of trite joke if in one package with it you don't discuss Israel with its illegal 200 nukes and one of the most powerful armies in the world (nonetheless additionally reinforced in the form of alliance by the most powerful army in the world - the US).
On the other hand, any strikes and military aggression against Iran will bring a chance that that country would be further radicalized and consider seriously using its technology for producing a real bomb. All those actions, be it on the part of Israel or the US, would mean really putting at (created) risk many people and many lives, and the responsibility for all the consequences of such, in my opinion CRIMINAL, gambling, would lie with those powers (that would start this harmful almost anti-humane, game).
That being said, there may be serious possibility to solve the 'nuclear' problem in theory: if - just assume for the sake of argument - the US gets serious about discussing Israel's nuclear arsenal and its denuclearization in the broad context together with Iran and all other countries in the Middle East. Such talk would be really an honest and adult attempt to start on the road to peace. But some 'inner voice' tells me (I hope it lies) that, though this fair and practicable way is obvious and workable, neither the US nor Israel will follow it in the foreseeable future, and the 20th century standard warmongering rhetoric will go on, further spoiling the international reputation and image of the US http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/03/some-extra-about-moral-political-crisis.html (you can't say anything about Israel's international reputation, if of course you don't place it alongside countries like Russia http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/09/israel-stays-on-in-20th-century-not.html).
In the meantime arguably the most dangerous nuclear country Pakistan - most dangerous not only of Israel, but for the whole of the world -remains among the friends and allies of America - America with whose tacit agreement, if not direct protection, Pakistan made this very nuclear weapon. Never ever did I hear that Israel tried at least to put some pressure on America in relation to its friendship with Pakistan. O no! Israel itself weaponizes Pakistan with great success. Don't tell me after that about Israeli and American governments caring about their peoples... Give me a break! Hah... the world and America's 'spoiled teenager' Israel would be by orders of magnitude more safe if America swapped around Pakistan and Iran, making the latter its strategic friend, and turning Pakistan into the 'bogeyman'. At least Iran has a sound control over all its territory, over its weapon arsenal and don't sponsor directly terrorists (which is such a characteristic feature of Pakistani governmental agencies). Iran in terms of its soundness and safety in comparison with America's beloved Pakistan can be seen as Belgium in comparison with Serbia in the times of Milosevic's rule.