Tag Archives: Kim Jong-Un

“You Lie” vs Not Clapping

Joe Wilson, a U.S. congressman from South Carolina, showed his disagreement with a speech by President Obama in 2009 by yelling “you lie” in the middle of it. He was not tried for treason. So far as I know, although some disliked his interruption (for which he later apologized), no one even suggested treason.

According to the United States Constitution (Article 3, Section 3), “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

How does a refusal to clap for President Trump’s State of the Union speech fit with the Constitution’s definition of treason?

Trump apparently didn’t come right out and say non clappers were treasonous, but he implied it. He used his “somebody” shield, as he often does. “Somebody” suggested treason, Trump said. He answered his alter somebody: “Why not?”

Some nations appear to have a low bar for treason. I’m not sure about North Korean law, but it probably doesn’t matter, since the leader, Kim Jong-un, appears to be the law. One certainly might expect death, with or without a trial, if they openly withheld clapping during one of his speeches.

President Trump appears to admire Kim, saying, “I can tell you this, a lot of people don’t like when I say it, but he was a young man of 26 or 27 when he took over from his father, when his father died. He is dealing with obviously very tough people, in particular the generals and others. And at a very young age he was able to assume power. A lot of people I am sure tried to take that power away. Whether it was his uncle or anybody else and he was able to do it, so obviously he is a pretty smart cookie.”

North Korea—are we there yet?

Dr. Strangelove Rides Again

Each anniversary of the day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (and later another on Nagasaki) in August, 1945, news media display images of the aftermath. The blasted landscapes, devoid of humans, have always sobered us. Other images of burn victims and sufferers from radiation sickness increase our horror.

This year, those images haunt us even more, as a small dictatorship revives the fear of nuclear annihilation. Ironically, North Korea lies not far from those unfortunate Japanese cities, the only ones to suffer from nuclear weapons.

It seems absurd. Those of us who remember fears of a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War may also remember the movie Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a black comedy starring Peter Sellers, dealing with those fears.

We also remember the joy that erupted when the Cold War, we thought, ended. The United States and the Soviet Union signed a treaty and actually began dismantling some of their nuclear arsenals.

Whatever faults the two superpowers committed during the Cold War were redeemed by one fact: Though both had nuclear weapons, neither used them.

Was it the fear of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)? Perhaps, but through it all, people of differing political persuasions and forms of government worked and hoped for the abolishment of this Dr. Strangelove kind of weapon.

Now, like a sudden resurrection of our Cold War nightmare, we fear the madness of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. Unfortunately, our current president appears to enjoy some of Kim’s tactics, the two trading insults like leaders of adolescent street gangs.

In the background, almost on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the United Nations Security Council passed a bill calling for sanctions against North Korea. The fact that the fifteen members of the council voted unanimously for the measure indicates the seriousness of North Korea’s threat.

We can only hope for the success of this slow but less deadly way to rid the world of Kim’s weapons.