Am I the only one who finds Korean boy bands to be super creepy?

As in really creepy?

Frankly, I find Korean girl bands to be pretty creepy also.  

The other day an issue of People was laying around and I thumbed through it and found an article on a Korean K Pop girl band.  Really creepy. They're obviously the Bubble Gum of their day in a decade people will look back on them laughingly, with their assembled personalities and westernized pink hair, etc.  Indeed, people will probably find them uncomfortable.

But the boy bands?  Really creepy.

September 28, 1920. Indicted.

On this day in 1920 the Black Sox scandal hit the Courts. 

In Korea, Ryu Gwansun, a female Korean protester, died from abuse and torture at the hands of the Japanese.

Ryu Gwansun (Yu Gwan-sun)

She remains a hero in Korea for her role in Korean independence.

And then there's the Communist Hermit Kingdom, was Lex Anteinternet: 第二帝国 (The Second Reich). China Channels Kaiser Wi...

Korean peninsula at night.

We just posted this:

Lex Anteinternet: 第二帝国 (The Second Reich). China Channels Kaiser Wi...: From the German reunification in 1870 up into World War One Germany, a continental power seeking to enter the colonial game just as the g...

But we should also note that as China pushed closer and closer to outright armed imperial aggression, it's tiny childish neighbor, the Communist monarchy of  North Korea, is outright acting with violence of a demonstrative sort.  It's blown up the structure where it met with its adult sibling to the south and its moving troops to the border.  And it now appears that Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un's not too pleasant sister, is in fact taking more of a role in the Marxist monarchy.

All of this is likely because North Korea isn't getting the attention it feels it deserves and, more significantly, that it likely needs as things are likely not going well there.  But its risky.

And it puts the West, and more particularly the United States, in an increasingly precarious position.

The US hasn't fought a deep war, that is a major toe to toe war, with a serious opponent since 1973.  Sure, we've fought various conflicts since then, any one of which is serious if you are in it, but they are all very minor in their scale, if not their length, compared to the last major war we fought, the Vietnam War.  The Vietnam War required an American military presence of 500,000 men on the ground in Indochina.  The Korean War, which was in reality fought only shortly prior to that, took 500,000 U.S. troops as well.  Both wars resulted in 50,000 US killed in action, with the Korean War taking a little under four years to achieve that total (in fairness, while the Vietnam War went from 1958 to 1975, in U.S. terms, most U.S. casualties were sustained from 1965 to 1970).

Since 1945 the US has relied on technology to counter its opponents and has been so successful at it that its made internal modifications to the nature of its military that really weaken its combat abilities in a toe to toe engagement.  We've been comfortable with that, and even ignored that we were doing that, as we have been convinced that no war like the Korean War will ever come again.  If we're wrong on that, we're really going to pay the price.

June 7, 1920. Prohibition Upheld, Probicity for Evil Commences, Koreans Prevail at Fengwudong (봉오동 전투)

On this day quixotic legal efforts to litigate against Prohibition came to an end when the Supreme Court upheld its validity.

Quite frankly, these efforts were doomed from the onset and fit into the category of pointless legal endeavors. A person has to wonder why they were even attempted given that they never had any chance of success. The 18th Amendment was clearly valid and, therefore, the Volstead Act clearly was as well.

The GOP Convention and its candidates were also engaged in some drama over who would be the nominee for the 1920 fall election.

One group that was happy about the Supreme Court's decision on Prohibition was the Kl Klux Klan, which was an ardent supporter of it as part of its nativist concepts that looked down on everyone other than white protestants.  On this day that organization started a publicity campaign organized by the Southern Publicity Association, an advertising agency founded by its leader, Edward Clarke, together with Mary Elizabeth Tyler. The two had previously organized the Daughters of America, a nativist group. The Southern Publicity Association would go on to have the Anti Saloon League as one of its clients, showing the strange alignment between nativist racism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism and prohibition in some quarters.

The campaign was a success and is credited with boosting the organizations fortunes at a time at which its trajectory appeared to be sending it into ultimate obscurity.  The KKK unfortunately benefited from the work done by the pair, whose changes to its structure resulted in a system which is still apparently used at least in part today.  Clarke and Tyler also benefited from their work personally.

The pair took in 80% of the KKK members initiation fees, making it a lucrative occupation for themselves. They invested the money in businesses that made Klan paraphernalia and in working together, they started working together on an illicit relationship that caused Clarke’s wife to sue for divorce for desertion. This was causing problems as early as 1919 when they were rousted out of bed by Atlanta police, charged with disorderly conduct, and fined for possessing whiskey in violation of the Volstead Act. Given the support of the KKK for both prohibition and the “purity” of white women, the hypocrisy is notable, but the news did not become widely known at that time. It would break in 1921 and bring about Clarke’s downfall in the KKK in 1923. That year Clarke fled the country do avoid charges of violating the Mann Act but he ultimately plead guilty to those charges. He was still alive in the 1940s and died in obscurity after that. Tyler, who had been married multiple times starting at age 14 or 15, would marry one more time and would die in 1924.

Clarke and Tyler are interesting examples of hypocrisy at the leadership level of organizations of the type they lead and remind contemporaries of the leadership of the Nazi Party which was similarly weird and in which individual leaders might not measure up to the “purity” and virility platforms which they based their propaganda on. Clarke and Tyler were clearly brilliant organizers and campaigners and were hugely successful in their efforts even while violating the “purity” tenants they were espousing, just as the circle of strange people surrounding Hitler saved the Nazi Party from fading into Weimar German obscurity based on similar concepts which they themselves were not the best examples of.

The mess of the Great War induced collapse of the Austro Hungarian Empire was evident again as the Treaty of Brno was signed naturalizing people of Austria and Czechoslovakia based upon the language that they spoke.  

On the same day, Battle of Fengwudong (Korean: 봉오동 전투; Hanja: 鳳梧洞戰鬪) was fought between Korean militias seeking independence of the Hermit Kingdom and the Japanese Army in Manchuria. While Korean independence would be a long time coming, and would be brought about due to World War Two, and imperfectly, the battle was a Korean victory.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Trouble in the Red Hermit Kingdo...

Last week I posed this:

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Trouble in the Red Hermit Kingdo...: We posted this a couple of days ago about Kim Jong-un, the Communist monarch of North Korea: Lex Anteinternet: Trouble in the Red Hermit K...

In it, I posted this theory:

COVID 19 is in North Korea and Kim Jong-un is terrified of getting it.  He's "self quarantining".

Now, Kim Jong-un has reappeared.

Hmmm. . . .

Trouble in the Red Hermit Kingdom

Kim I, the first Communist King of North Korea.

We've made some snarky comments about Kim Jong-un  here from time to time but most recently mentioned him in connection with the USS Roosevelt, noting that the Stalinist head of North Korea has a habit of creating global problems when the world is otherwise distracted, seemingly constantly wanting the spotlight on himself, and for the wrong reasons.

Well, that spotlight has been trying to focus recently, although not for anything that he's done, but for what he seems to be enduring.

You don't have to be a physician to look at photos of Kim and know that he's not a model of healthy living.  Now there are reports that the murderous dictator may have undergone serious surgery and may not be doing well.

Indeed, that he'd undergo surgery now, at a time at which Coronavirus is stalking the Korean Peninsula, suggests that this procedure wasn't planned.  It's likely an emergency.  And like a lot of emergency procedures, the outcomes are always a bit clouded prior to their known. Clouding the news on this one is that getting anything out of the news black hole that is North Korea is difficult.

So he may be pretty sick.

He might not be sick at all.

We really don't know.

What we also don't know is what happens in the Red Hermit Kingdom if he dies, or rather when he dies.

That North Korea is not a naturally Marxist state is evident from the fact that rule of the country is vested in the descendants of his grandfather, Kim Jon Il-sung.  That despicable Kim was a Soviet protege who arrived back in his own country after a prolonged absence as an essentially Soviet creation.  Indeed, his own command of the Korean language was horrible.  The USSR needed somebody, and Kim had Marxist street cred due to his support of the USSR as a Communist expat with service in the Communist cause in China and an early member of a Communist movement in Korea.  Upon his death in 1994 his position was inherited by his son, Kim Jong-il, setting the state for the ironic creation of a Communist monarchy.

Kim Jong-il ran the country from 1994 until his death, monarch style in 2011.  Upon his death his position was inherited by Kim Jong-un.

That positions are inherited in this fashion is telling.  As the old cliche would have it, blood is thicker than water and the North Korean Communist rulers are apparently so paranoid about passing the leadership baton on that they can only pass it on to their family members, much like monarchs of old did with their leadership, or like Mafia families have always done.  If there's some collective leadership, the thought must be, next thing you know you have Boris Yeltsin leading a charge on the palace.

Of course, the ultimate hypocrisy here would be that a "workers' state" would presumably be lead by workers, which in the antiquated economy of North Korea, shouldn't be too hard to find.  Instead power is completely vested in the hands of a family that not only inherits the position like monarchy, but lives like monarchs as well.  They don't call themselves kings, of course, but they are.

So who inherits the thrown if Kim Jong-un passes untimely passes on?

Nobody really knows but there's wide speculation that it would be his sister Kim Yo-jong.

Kim Jong-un does have children, although the country is so secretive that their number is unknown.  He was married sometime during the prior decade to Ri Sol-ju, about whom nearly nothing is known and whom is believed to be in her early 30s, making her slightly younger than her spouse.  The marriage appears to have been conducted hastily as his father appeared to be near death, once again recalling the habit of monarchy and the regimes need to have heirs.  The couple has had somewhere between one to three children, and it seems the first one was a boy.  Still, even at that, next to nothing, including his name, and if he remains alive, is known about him.  If he is alive, that boy would now be ten years old.  Too young to inherit the throne, at least without a regent.

That regent might be Kim Yo-jong, who is close to her brother.  She could rule until the oldest male in the line of the grandfather is ready to inherit the throne on his own.

Or she could simply take the throne, Saudi style, in the fashion of thrones passing to blood relatives but not necessarily to the next in line. Indeed, this was common for early Medieval monarchs.

But then so was the throne passing to others than the immediate family of the monarch.

All we can really tell for sure is that since 1945 the Communist Party has become incredibly insular and the ruling class works just like that of old style monarchies.  Marriages are almost always within the immediate power circle of real loyalist to the throne and close blood ties have come to exist in the ruling class.  None of the immediate blood relatives of Kim Jong-un will have married outside of the Communist noble circle and everyone at the helm has a deeply vested interest in maintaining the monarchical rule.

All of which means that the system is a house of cards at some point.  But nobody knows where that point really is.

Well of course, with all that's going on, Coronavirus in South Korea, China, Japan, Italy and the United States, Super Tuesday, a putative peace arrangement in Afghanistan and conflict between Syria and Turkey. . .

Kim Jong-Un would have his forces launch a bunch of missiles into the sea.

Russian missile launcher from Wikipedia. The North Korean ones are predictably similar to this.

It's like he just can't stand to be out of the headlines.

ZZ Top-La Grange Gayageum ver. by Luna

The White Stripes- Seven Nation Army Gayageum ver. by Luna

Bob Dylan-All along the watchtower Gayageum Luna ver.

Creedence Clearwater Revival-Have You Ever Seen The Rain Gayageum ver. b...

Random Geopolitical Observations.

1.  When a major power suggest to opposition forces in another country that they ought to engage in an uprising, it does them a disservice unless they're going to actually support the uprising.

This was the lesson of the Hungarian Revolution of 1958, and it's the lesson of Venezuela right now.

Prior to the 58 Hungarian uprising, we suggested that if an Eastern Bloc nation tried to throw off the Soviet shackles, we'd be there.

We weren't.

And we just suggested to the opposition in Venezuela that it ought to overthrow the strongman in power.

They tried, and we didn't do anything.

Maybe we should have done anything in Venezuela, and no doubt we couldn't do anything in Hungary. That's not the point.

The point is, that by acting like we'd show up, we made the opposition show up, and that does them no favors if they can't prevail.

2.  Not everything is the economy.

Over the weekend North Korea launched missiles into the sea east of the country.  This raises serious concerns over North Korea's willingness to bargain with us to denuclearize the peninsula.  President Trump, however, issued a statement that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, will come to the table as he understands the "great economic potential" that the country has that could be developed if they'd treat with us.

What makes us think that?

Societies that have fairly open economies or develop them think that way, but lots of countries don't. And no country full thinks that way.  Kim Jong Un surely knows that the most effective way of modernizing his country's economy would be to reunite the North with the South in a democratic government, which would effectively be opening the border and asking to come into the Republic of Korea, much like the DDR did with the BDR (East and West Germany) when communism collapsed there.

But it's not like Eric Honaker decided that was a nifty idea.

That will probably occur at some point, but will Kim Jong Un take North Korea there?  It seems unlikely.

3.  It's good to finish up on existing wars before getting into others.

Right now the U.S. Navy is demonstrating in the Indian Ocean in a move directed at Iran.

I'll be frank that I don't completely follow our current policy on Iran, but get it that the country isn't our friend and it sponsors groups we really don't like.

But we still have troops in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.  Now, all of those struggles do involve Iran in one way or another, and maybe that plays into this.  But at a time at which it seems like we'd like out of all of those places, is it really well thought out to be looking like we're willing to take on Iran?  I'm sure we could, but do we really want to do that?

March 1, 1919. The Saturday Evening Posts does what we do here, New Canteen on the docks in France, Protests in Korea, Remounts in northern Wyoming.

Hmmm. . . that article by Henry Watterson is what we do a lot of here. . . 

The Army Corps of Engineers built a new canteen on the docks for the Red Cross, to service soldiers and sailors in the task of transporting the Army home.   The Major General in the photograph is wearing a trench coat, an item newly introduced to the world by the British, and regulation riding boots.

 This appears to show a group of sailors in the canteen.

Inspired by Wilson's Fourteen Points, students in Korea presented a declaration of independence to the world demanding that the Japanese end their murky role in Korea.  The Japanese violently put it down.  Due to this event, this day is regarded as Korean Independence Day, although the goal, a free, united, Korea has never been obtained.

The Army was just entering the breeding of horses at this time, reflecting concern over the decline in the quality and number of remounts in the civilian market.  A Remount breeding program in fact got started near Sheridan (which is near Buffalo) after World War One, but it bread riding mounts, not draft mounts, in so far as I'm aware.

There is something indescribably odd about a summit between the leaders of North Korea and the United States in Vietnam

Who won the Vietnam War?  Can of Saigon Gold Limited Edition Premium Lager brewed by Vietnam's largest brewery, owned by Thai ThaiBev.  This is from their Vietnamese language website, using English language, and some sort of stylized Oriental dragon.  At some point you have to suspect that the NVA really cashed in their chips at the American party favor table.  Maybe Donald Trump, who never had  the chance to try this breweries 1960s big item, "33 Beer", but if he wants to, it's still offered as "333 Beer".

Indeed, a lot of it is weird.

First of all, there's the odd budding friendship between the U.S. and Vietnam, and by Vietnam, we partially mean the government of Vietnam which we had hoped to keep coming to power in the first place and which we fought against for well over a decade.

And then we only got involved in Vietnam in the first place when the North Korean invasion of South Korea suddenly sparked out interests in trying to make sure that the French didn't go down the tubes in Indochina.

And the meeting is in Hanoi, which has been the seat of the Communist government of Vietnam since the French departed, but which now has a Victoria's Secret, which suggests that while we may have lost the war, we're winning the peace there.

Heck, Coca Cola Vietnam was recently voted one of the two most sustainable, i.e,. green, companies in Vietnam.  Coca Cola Vietnam?

Well, heck, what can we say about that.  The Communist government privatized its largest beer producer which was bought by ThaiBev.  It's big brand, among several, is Saigon Beer.  Not Ho Chi Minh City beer.

Anyhow, North Vietnam received more aid from Communist China than it did from the Soviet Union during the war, and up to 100,000 Chinese troops were in the north during the war, but immediately after the war the two Communist countries had a falling out and they've reverted to their default not liking each other at all, even though both are evolving away from real Communism into some sort of weird corporate capitalism pretty quickly.

And then there's Donald Trump, who had a deferment during the war after having attended a military prep school, now ending up in Vietnam, to meet Kim Jong-un, the Communist monarch of North Korea, who has never been in anyone's military but who attended private school in Switzerland, which is about as non Communist as you can get.

Kim Jong-un has gotten over his exposure to the West, apparently, even though in Stalinist Russia that would have resulted in a prison sentence, only to become the dictator of an inherited Stalinist theme park.  This is so much the case that he's going to the summit, or rather to the Vietnamese border, on an armored train.  Armored trains are something that haven't been real military technology since at least World War Two and are really something out of the Russian Civil War. They're absurd, but everything about North Korea is absurd.

January 21, 1919 Ireland declares independence and the Anglo Irish War commences; the deposed Korean Emperor dies.

The Casper paper, like most, lead with headlines about the German election held the prior day.  They were more than a bit optimistic about what that meant for Germany.  The momentous news about the Irish Dail, however, was also on the front page.

On this day in 1919, the Anglo Irish War commenced when the first Irish Dail, comprised of individuals elected to Parliament from Ireland standing on an independence ticket, assembled in Dublin.  The assembly was intended to simply express, and declare, Irish independence but on the same day the Irish Republican Army, acting independently, conducted an ambush on two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary at Soloheadbeg and the war was effectively started.  The Dail never officially declared war, although it termed the English presence to be an invasion, and of course the United Kingdom did not, regarding such acts as acts of rebellion.

The Dail did, however, declare independence, adopted a constitution and issued a proclamation intended to call upon the nations of the world to recognize Ireland as a state.

The declaration of independence, in Irish, read:

De bhrigh gur dual do mhuinntir na hÉireann bheith n-a saor náisiún.

Agus de bhrigh nár staon muintir na hÉireann riamh le seacht gcéad bliadhain ó dhiúltadh d'annsmacht Gall agus ó chur ina choinnibh go minic le neart airm.

Agus de bhrígh ná fuil de bhunadhas agus ná raibh riamh de bhunadhas le dlighe Shasana san tír seo acht foiréigean agus calaois, agus ná fuil de thaca leis ach sealbh lucht airm I n-aimhdheóin dearbhthola muinntire na hÉireann.

Agus de bhrigh go ndeárna Saor-Arm na hÉireann Saorstát Éireann d'fhorfhógairt I mBaile Átha Cliath Seachtmhain na Cásca 1916 ar son muinntire na hÉireann.

Agus de bhrigh go bhfuil muinntir na hireann lán-cheeaptha ar neamhspléadhchus iomlán do bhaint amach agus do chosaint dóibh fhéin d'fhonn leas an phobuil do chur chun cinn, an ceart d'athchur ar a bhonnaibh, an tsíothcháin I nirinn agus caradas le náisiúnaibh eile do chur I n-áirithe dhóibh féin agus féineachus náisiúan tsíothcháin I nirinn agus caradas le náisiúnaibh eile do chur I n-áirithe dhóibh féin agus féineachus náisiúnta do cheapadh go mbeidh toil na ndaoine mar bhunudhas leis agus cothrom cirt is caoitheamhlachta dá bhárr ag gach duine I nÉirinn.

Agus de bhrigh go ndeárna muinntir na hÉireann, agus sinn I mbéal ré nuadha de stair an domhain, feidhm a bhaint as an Olltoghadh, Mí na Modlag, 1918, chun a dhearbhughadh de bhreis adhbhalmhóir gur toil leó bheith díleas do Shaorstát Éireann.

Ar an adhbhar son deinimídne .i.na teachtaí atá toghtha ag muinntir na hÉireann agus sinn I nDáil Chomhairle I dteannta a chéile, bunughadh Saorstáit d'áth-dheimhniughadh I n-ainm náisiún na hÉireann agus sinn féin do chur fá gheasaibh an deimhniughadh so do chur I bhfeidhm ar gach slighe ar ár gcumas.

Órduighmíd ná fuil de chomhacht ag éinne ach amháin ag na Teachtaíbh toghtha ag muinntir na hÉireann dlighthe dhéanamh gur dual do mhuinntir na hÉireann géilleadh dhóibh, agus ná fuil de pháirliment ann go mbeidh an náisiún umhal do ach amháin Dáil Éireann.

Dearbhuighmíd ná fuilingeóchaimíd go bráth an cumhangcas atá dá dhéanamh ag an annsmacht Ghallda ar ár gceart náisiúnta agus éilighmíd ar chamthaí na Sasanach imtheacht ar fad as ár dtír.

Ilighimíd ar gach saornáisiún ar domhan neamhspleádhchus na hÉireann d'admháil agus fógraimíd gurab éigean ár neamhspleádhchus chun síothcháin a chur I n-áirithe do'n domhan.

I n-ainm muinntire na hÉireann cuirimíd ár gcinneamhaint fé chomairce Dhia an Uile-Chomhacht do chuir misneach agus buan-tseasamhacht n-ár sinnsear chun leanamhaint leó go treun les na céadta bliadhain gcoinnibh tíoránachta gan truagh gan taise: agus de bhrigh gur móide an neart an ceart a bheith againn san troid d'fhágadar mar oighreacht againn, aithchuingimiíd ar Dhia A bheannacht do bhronnadh orainn I gcóir an treasa deiridh den chomhrac go bfhuilmid fé gheasaibh leanmhaint do go dtí go mbainfeam amach an tsaoirse.

In English:

Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people:

And Whereas for seven hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation:

And Whereas English rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people:
And Whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Republican Army acting on behalf of the Irish people:

And Whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to insure peace at home and goodwill with all nations and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen:

And Whereas at the threshold of a new era in history the Irish electorate has in the General Election of December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic:

Now, therefore, we, the elected Representatives of the ancient Irish people in National Parliament assembled, do, in the name of the Irish nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command:

We ordain that the elected Representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance:

We solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison:

We claim for our national independence the recognition and support of every free nation in the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a condition precedent to international peace hereafter:

In the name of the Irish people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of a ruthless tyranny, and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to us, we ask His divine blessing on this the last stage of the struggle we have pledged ourselves to carry through to Freedom.

The short constitution, which was the constitution for the Dail, rather than the country, read:

Article 1

All legislative powers shall be vested in Dail Eireann, composing of Deputies, elected by the Irish people from the existing Irish Parliamentary constituencies.

Article 2

(a) All executive powers shall be vested in the members, for the time being, of the Ministry.

(b) The Ministry shall consist of a President of the Ministry, elected by Dail Eireann, and four Executive Officers, viz.;

A Secretary of Finance

A Secretary of Home Affairs

A Secretary of Foreign Affairs

A Secretary of National Defence

each of whom the President shall nominate and have power to dismiss.

(c) Every member of the Ministry shall be a member of Dail Eireann, and shall at all times be responsible to the Dail.

(d) At the first meeting of Dail Eireann after their nomination by the President, the names of the Executive Officers shall be separately submitted to Dail Eireann for approval.

(e) The appointment of the President shall date from his election, and the appointment of each Executive Officer from the date of the approval by the Dail of his nomination.

(f) The Ministry or any member thereof may at any time be removed by vote of the Dail upon motion for that specific purpose, provided that at least seven days notice in writing of that motion shall have been given.

Article 3

A Chairman elected annually by the Dail, and in his absence a Deputy Chairman so elected, shall preside at all meetings of Dail Eireann. Only members of the Dail shall be eligible for these offices. In case of the absence of the Chairman and Deputy Chairman the Dail shall fill the vacancies or elect a temporary Chairman.

Article 4

All monies required by the Ministry shall be obtained on vote of the Dail. The Ministry shall be responsible to the Dail for all monies so obtained, and shall present properly audited accounts for the expenditure of the same -twice yearly- in the months of May and November. The audit shall be conducted by an Auditor or Auditors appointed by the Dail. No member of the Dail shall be eligible for such appointment.

Article 5

This Constitution is provisional and is liable to alteration upon seven days written notice of motion for that specific purpose.

This is a translation of course.  The Irish text, which can be translated slightly differently (apparently. . . I don't speak Irish Gaelic) is as follows:

AN CHEUD ALT.

Beidh iomlán comhachta chun dlighthe dheunamh ag Dáil Éireann agus isé bheidh san Dáil ná teachtaí toghtha ag muintir na hÉireann ó sna dáilcheanntair atá san tír fé láthair.

AN DARA hALT.

1. Beidh iomlán comhachta gnímh éan tráth aca so a bheidh I bhfeadhmannus san Aireacht an tráth soin.
2. Isé bheidh san Aireacht ná Príomh-aireach, toghtha ag Dáil Éireann, agus ceathrar Aireach eile, eadhon:

Aireach Airgid.

Aireach Gnóthaí Dúthchais.

Aireach Gnóthaí Coigcríoch.

Aireach Cosanta

Isé an Príomh-Aireach ainmneochaidh an ceathrar Aireach eile, agus beidh de chomhacht aige iad do chur as feadhmannus.
3. Is éigean do gach Aireach bheith n-a Theachta san Dáil agus beidh sé freagarthach I gcomhnuidhe don Dáil.
4. Is éigean ainmneacha na nAireach do chur fé bhrághaid na Dála ag an gceud thionól taréis don Phríomh-Aireach a n-ainmniughadh, I gcóir a ndeimhnighthe.
5. Beidh an príomh-Aireach I bhfeadhmannus chomh luath is a thoghfar é, agus beidh na hAirigh eile I bhfeadhmannus chomh luath agus a dheimhneóchaidh an Dáil a n-ainmneacha.
6. Is féidir don Dáil an Aireacht nó éan duine desna hAirigh do chur as feadhmhannus le neart bhótaí má chuirtear foláramh rúin fé scríbhinn d'éan toisc chuige sin isteach seacht lá roimh ré.

AN TRÍOMHADH ALT.

Ceann Comhairle toghtha ag an Dáil I naghaidh na bliadhna, nó Ceann Ionaid toghtha I naghaidh na bliadhna, muna mbíonn an Ceann Comhailre I láthair, a bheidh I gceannas gach tionóil den Dáil. Ní bheidh I gceannas infheadhma I gcóir na n-ionad so acht Teachtaí de'n Dáil. Má bhíonn an Ceann Comhairle agus an Ceann Ionaid as láthair, ceapfaidh an Dáil lucht ionaid nó toghfaidh siad Ceann Comhairle sealadach.

AN CEATHRAMHADH ALT.

Gheobhaidh an tAireach pé airgead bheidh uaidh de bhárr bhóta na Dála. Beidh an tAireach freagarthach don Dáil san airgead a gheobhfar mar sin agus leagfaidh sé cúntaisí mionscrúduighthe ar chaitheamh an airgid fé bhrághaid na Dála dhá uair sa bhliadhain - um Shamhain is um Bealtaine. Scrúdaidhe nó Scrúdaidhthe toghtha ag an Dáil a dheunfaidh an mionscrúdadh. Ní féidir éin Teachta den Dáil do thoghadh mar Scrúdaidhe.

AN CÚIGMHADH ALT.

Bunreacht sealadach é seo agus is féidir é d'atharughadh ach foláramh fé scríbhinn do thabhairt d'éan toisc chuige sin, seacht lá roimh ré.

The text of the Dail's Message to the Free Nations of the World read:

To the Nations of the World—Greeting

The Nation of Ireland having proclaimed her national independence, calls, through her elected representatives in Parliament assembled in the Irish Capital on January 21, 1919, upon every free nation to support the Irish Republic by recognising Ireland's national status and her right to its vindication at the Peace Congress.

Naturally, the race, the language, the customs and traditions of Ireland are radically distinct from the English. Ireland is one of the most ancient nations in Europe, and she has preserved her national integrity, vigorous and intact, through seven centuries of foreign oppression; she has never relinquished her national rights, and throughout the long era of English usurpation she has in every generation defiantly proclaimed her inalienable right of nationhood down to her last glorious resort to arms in 1916.

Internationally, Ireland is the gateway to the Atlantic; Ireland is the last outpost of Europe towards the West; Ireland is the point upon which great trade routes between East and West converge; her independence is demanded by the Freedom of the Seas; her great harbours must be open to all nations, instead of being the monopoly of England. To-day these harbours are empty and idle solely because English policy is determined to retain Ireland as a barren bulwark for English aggrandisement, and the unique geographical position of this island, far from being a benefit and safeguard to Europe and America, is subjected to the purposes of England's policy of world domination.

Ireland to-day reasserts her historic nationhood the more confidently before the new world emerging from the war, because she believes in freedom and justice as the fundamental principles of international law; because she believes in a frank co-operation between the peoples for equal rights against the vested privileges of ancient tyrannies; because the permanent peace of Europe can never be secured by perpetuating military dominion for the profit of empire but only by establishing the control of government in every land upon the basis of the free will of a free people, and the existing state of war, between Ireland and England, can never be ended until Ireland is definitely evacuated by the armed forces of England.

For these among other reasons, Ireland—resolutely and irrevocably determined at the dawn of the promised era of self-determination and liberty that she will suffer foreign dominion no longer—calls upon every free nation to uphold her national claim to complete independence as an Irish Republic against the arrogant pretensions of England founded in fraud and sustained only by an overwhelming military occupation, and demands to be confronted publicly with England at the Congress of the Nations, that the civilised world having judged between English wrong and Irish right may guarantee to Ireland its permanent support for the maintenance of her national independence.

Of interest, the message to the free nations of the world specifically referenced the "Peace Congress", i.e., the Paris Peace Conference.  Put in this context, the declaration and the message were calling upon the democratic nations of the world to put their values to the test, which presented a difficult argument for the British in particular in some ways, as the point could hardly be ignored or rejected.

This sort of problem was one that was going to reoccur again and again for those gathered in Paris.  While various European nations (but not the Irish) would be able to advance their claims for independence from ancient empires, overseas colonies of European nations wouldn't find seats at the table. There were quite a few that would have liked to have had them, and some did better than others.  Be that as it may, European nations weren't acting like the Age of Empire was over, even though the sun was clearly setting on that age.

As for Ireland, the Irish question would launch the United Kingdom into a war that had many unseemly and dirty features on both sides and which came immediately after the Great War, in which Irish troops had fought heroically for the United Kingdom. The entire situation was murky in the extreme in that the Irish themselves never gave their unqualified backing to independence in-spite of having seated a pro independence majority for the English Parliament which was clearly going to pursue full independence.  As recently as 1916 such moves had clearly not received the support of the majority of Irish sympathies and even in 1919 it was entirely clear exactly what the Irish electorate wanted, as the results of the subsequent war and peace negotiations would demonstrate. The English, for their part, proved to be less yielding than might have been imagined for one reason or another, all of which suggests that the Irish and the English were grasping, for the most part, for some ground between home rule and independence, with dominion status ultimately agreed upon for at time.

Even at that, this story in some ways has failed to fully play out.  The Irish, undoubtedly a separate people with a separate but nearby homeland, had, as the Dail's declaration pointed out, endured 700 years of English occupation.  But they had in turn been very heavily influenced by the English during that period, as their cousins the Scots had been.  In some ways their national character came to be defined by steadfastly not being English in whatever they could refuse to be English in.  Their early independence would see the new nation overemphasize that in numerous ways that came back to haunt the country later, and then when it achieved economic power in later years it came to loose much of its identity in the rush to gain what it perceived it had lost to the extent that Ireland today is a rather poor reflection of what it once was, now being a nation that's much less Irish and much more one of the United Kingdom's angry teenage children, with a parent that's not concerned that much about the child that moved out of the house.

Speaking of the rise and fall of Empires and trying to wrest free from them, Korea's only real modern Emperor, out of power, died on this day in 1919.

Elsewhere, Gojong of Korea (고종; 高宗;), the Emperor Gwangmu, Korea's First Emperor (광무제; 光武帝;) died under mysterious circumstances that are still somewhat debated, although at age 66 he was not at an age where death and failure to detect its arrival were really uncommon by any means.

He had abdicated in 1910 due to Japan absorbing Korea into its empire following the Russo Japanese War.  Gojong had declared an empire in the first place to attempt to separate Korea from Chinese influence, but the result was ultimately unsuccessful as his nation ended up being absorbed into the expanding Japanese Empire, which resulted in his abdication.

There was really nothing that Korea could do about this itself and there was nobody the Koreans could turn to.  The fate of small Asian nations sandwiched between the rising Japanese Empire, Russia and China was not one that any western nation was going to bother taking up, and the only anti colonial power in the region was the United States, which had no association with Korea of any kind at that point in history.  The great Korean tragedy was about to begin.

Deal? What deal?

It may be just me, but I can't see where President Trump obtained any real deal in Singapore at all.

Promises, yeah well. . . Clinton and Obama had promises too.

A note. You can't declare the Korean War to be over unless. . .

you acknowledge it was a war in the first place.

Sounds silly, I know.  But wars only occur between sovereign states.

If the Korean Conflict, its official name, can be declared "over", it has to have been declared to begin, and that would require acknowledging that it was a war between two sovereign states.

Which has never been the case for North or South Korea.

Because if that's acknowledged, then the concept that there's one Korea is effectively over.  There would be two sovereign entities, each with a right to exist, in perpetuity. 

Sure, two sovereigns can unite.  But a unification would note be the official presumption. 

And changing that is a major change, should it occur.

War Warning

ROK M38A1 with recoiless rifle, 1987.

Senator Lindsay Graham, while maintaining his independence, has pretty clearly become the Trump Administrations voice from the Senate.

Which makes it really notable that last week Graham, in a news interview, flat out stated that the United States is heading towards military action against North Korea.

Graham left no room for doubt at all.  He did not equivocate.  If North Korea doesn't give up its nuclear weapons and the ability to make them, we are going to attack them.

Maybe it's blustering to get North Korean back to the table on American terms.  But it didn't sound like it, and I doubt that it is.

That doesn't make a war with North Korea, or rather a resumption of the Korean Conflict, inevitable.  But when things get started it takes two sides to stop them and only one to start them.  

And Graham, it might be noted, said this issue, North Korean nuclear weapons, will be resolved this term of office.

If its a bluff. . . .it's quite the bluff.

Which is perhaps why the North and South Korean heads of state met yesterday.

Stay nervously tuned.

Has Kim Jong-un been reading my blog?

Or perhaps the Chinese?

Something's up, that's for sure.

And whatever it is, may be good.

Yesterday Kim Jong-un met with South Korean president Moon Jae-in and declared that North Korea would cease developing nuclear weapons,* would work towards demilitarization and, essentially, that the armed conflict between North and South Korea was over.  He stepped in to South Korea as a guest.  Moon stepped into North Korea the same way.

All of which is a big deal, and that last item, the apparent end of a state of conflict (it's technically not a war as that would require recognition of North Korea's government as legitimate) is particularly a big deal.  That would amount to a declaration that a nearly seventy year long effort to conquer South Korea by armed force and unite it under the red banner was over.  That doesn't mean that either state has declared that its giving up on the concept of a united Korean peninsula, but it sort of points in that direction in a way, maybe.

So what's up?

That's nearly impossible to say, but here on this blog we've long speculated that the communist leadership in the north would collapse in some fashion, with that fashion probably being a Chinese backed coup.  We've also speculated that the Chinese might warn Kim Jong-un to cool it prior to that time, or even order him to work towards a peaceful reunification of the peninsula based upon the Finlandization of the country, in a reunited form, under a democratic leadership with American withdrawal from the country. . . something we'd likely agree to in that context.  And there's any number of close variants to this scenario that could occur.

And Kim was recently in China.

Hmmm. . . .

I wonder what was said at those meetings?

Stay tuned for further developments. . . . 

____________________________________________________________________________________

*On their program, there's been recent rumors that a catastrophic tunnel collapse may have set it back quite a ways. Those were rumors, but the other day the Stars and Stripes was running it as an established fact.

If that occurred, there'd be a real question of how it occurred.  Simple accident?  Very well could be.  U.S. clandestine action?  Also possible.  Chinese clandestine action?  Perhaps even more probable.  Maybe Kim is wondering what the cause of this was himself.  Maybe the Chinese suggested a cause. . irrespective of whether they were the source of the it or knew themselves.

Some major 1968 events we already missed.

 USS Pueblo.

This blog won't become the This Day In 1968 Blog, like it threatened to become for 1915, 16, 17, and 18.

But it is 50 years ago, and it was quite a year, as already noted.  We may, therefore, take note of some things that occurred during it.

Here's what we already missed:

January 4:  Mattel introduced Hot Wheels.

I, and every boy I knew, loved those little cars.

Shoot, I still do.

January 5:  Alexander Dubcek chosen as the leader of the Czech Communist party, ushering in the Prague Spring.

This seemed to usher in some hope that Communism in Eastern Europe would evolve into Democratic Socialism, something, it would would soon show, that the USSR was not prepared to accept.

January 21.  The Battle of Khe Sanh, a diversion of for the Tet Offensive, commences.

The battle was one of the few real sieges of the American war in Vietnam.  The Marine Corps defended the base valiantly, supplied from the air by the United States Air Force.  In April the siege ended when the U.S. Army reestablished ground connection with the base.  While an American victory of a sort, the fact that the NVA was capable of laying an American force to siege, would be a factor in the change in the public's mind on the war.   And, we started to look like the French, in a way, with there being shades of Dien Bien Phu.

January 22:  Rowan & Martin's Laugh In debuts. 

Funny, and irreverent, and featuring a mild form of the exist humor that characterized a lot of American humor at the time, it was hugely popular.

January 23. The USS Pueblo taken.

As if there wasn't enough grim news, the seizure of an American vessel, and the poor performance of the Navy's officer corps as it happened, made the Americans look anemic and caused concern that the Korean War was about to revive.

The ship is still held by North Korea.

January 30.  The Tet Offensive launched.

We'd win the battle, but the public's mind was lost by the fact that the NVA and VC could launch such a major offensive after years of war.  A desperate gamble on their part, it proved to be a gamble that would pay off.

January 31:  The US embassy in Saigon attacked by the Viet Cong.

Part of the Tet Offensive, of course.

February 1:  Viet Cong terrorist Nguyễn Văn Lém is executed by Nguyễn Ngọc Loan,  South Vietnamese National Police Chief.   The famous photograph by photographer Eddie Adams would go on to be a factor in the turn of American opinion against the war, but Adams regretted taking it and in fact held Nguyễn Ngọc Loan in high regard.

All that and 1968 was just a month old.