North Korea is a tyrannical, backward mess, and suddenly I’m made to feel like their country is the sane one compared to our commander-in-chief. Here’s the full text of North Korea’s reaction to Trump’s UN speech.
The speech made by the U.S. president in his maiden address on the U.N. arena in the prevailing serious circumstances, in which the situation on the Korean Peninsula has been rendered tense as never before and is inching closer to a touch-and-go state, is arousing worldwide concern.
Shaping the general idea of what he would say, I expected he would make stereotyped, prepared remarks a little different from what he used to utter in his office on the spur of the moment as he had to speak on the world’s biggest official diplomatic stage.
But, far from making remarks of any persuasive power that can be viewed to be helpful to defusing tension, he made unprecedented rude nonsense one has never heard from any of his predecessors.
A frightened dog barks louder.
I’d like to advise Trump to exercise prudence in selecting words and to be considerate of whom he speaks to when making a speech in front of the world.
The mentally deranged behavior of the U.S. president openly expressing on the U.N. arena the unethical will to “totally destroy” a sovereign state, beyond the boundary of threats of regime change or overturn of social system, makes even those with normal thinking faculty think about discretion and composure.
His remarks remind me of such words as “political layman” and “political heretic” which were in vogue in reference to Trump during his presidential election campaign.
After taking office Trump has rendered the world restless through threats and blackmail against all countries in the world. He is unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country, and he is surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician.
His remarks which described the U.S. option through straightforward expression of his will have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last.
Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy the D.P.R.K. [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea], we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.
Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say.
As a man representing the D.P.R.K. and on behalf of the dignity and honor of my state and people and on my own, I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the U.S. pay dearly for his speech calling for totally destroying the D.P.R.K.
This is not a rhetorical expression loved by Trump.
I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his tongue.
Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation.
I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.
Our madman is egging their madman on. As the country with the greater power, it is our responsibility to cool this war of words down…and our president is incapable of normal, rational diplomacy. People will die over these words at this rate.
No kidding. I grew up under the shadow of nuclear war, and at 59 years old, I’m more concerned and scared then I was back then. It was really nice, the doomsday clock being pushed so far back during Pres. Obama’s tenure; not it’s terrifying how close we are to midnight.
Considering how Trump has the vocabulary of a fourth grader, he’ll first need somebody to explain what some of these words mean. He already has a team of people who select “look how good and popular Trump is” stories for him, to keep his mood in check. Perhaps they can give him the most favourable definitions of those words, or just outright lie about the meaning of some of them, to pacify Trump. And they’ll have quite a few words to build their dictionary-for-Trump with.
Kim is not a madman. He’s a murderous tyrannical asshole, but he’s a rational murderous tyrannical asshole. Despite the cartoonish bellicosity, NK’s nuclear program is and has always been a rational approach to ensure survival of the state.
I fear that Trump really is willing to kill 20, 30, even 40 million people (North and South Korea, Japan, China, the United States) just because he is scared shitless of looking weak in his own eyes or the eyes of his most rabid followers.
Should hair furor order a “preemptive” strike on N.Korea — presumably nuclear — one can hope that in the relevant USAnnihilate!Annihilate!Annihilate! chain-of-destruction there are one or more analogies to the late Lt Col Stanislav Petrov, “the man who saved the world”. As the Grauniad put it (my added emphasis), “it’s not just discipline that keeps nuclear weapons under control. Judgment and well-timed insubordination have sometimes saved us, too.”
Weirdness upon weirdness. While Donald’s vocabulary remains childlike, North Korea is using words (“dotard”) that are sending English-speaking journalists scrambling for their dictionaries.
Wow! The most rational and thought out political expression I have heard since Trump took office came from Kim Jong Un! Who would have thunk it.
Well, I hate Trump as much as anyone (and yes I know that that is a very high level!) But, Kim is attacking a straw man. Trump didn’t threaten to destroy NK GRATUITOUSLY, only in response to an attack by NK on USA or one of our allies, and, he likely meant a NUCLEAR attack. This is not different, or not VERY different, from the basic assumption of mutually-assured destruction which kept the Cold War cold for four decades.
This needs updating to a more current venacular:
Yeah, you could get more colorful, but diplomacy requires restraint.
The North Korean regime is utterly murderous and vile, and they have been threatening the US and others since at least 2013.
@ 3 What a Maroon, living up to the ‘nym
+1. Exactly.
“Kim is not a madman”. He seems to have a considerably better grasp of reality than most American “foreign affairs advisors” let alone Trump.
I thought that, overall, the North Korean response was rather restrained and, probably, mirrored that of just about any head of state/government.
Roll together the explicit threats against Iran, Venezuela and Cuba plus a general rejection of international law and it is clear that Trump is declaring the USA under administration to be the rogue state in the world.
On a lighter note, while searching on the Internet for recipes for silken tofu, I somehow stumbled across a report (HuffPuff?) saying that the most searched-for word on the Internet since Kim’s response was ” dotard”.
#8 handsomemrtoad
The explicit statements by Trump can be read as only an action in ‘response’ to North Korea. However, the speech by Trump in the setting of the UN carried an implicit reading that is much more dangerous meant to instill greater fear.
The difference with Trump is the bellicosity of the speech and the fact that no one is sure of where Trump wishes to lead with respect to NK. How does Trump’s speech at the UN further US interests or does it make the situation worse? It appears to be making it worse. Do you trust Trump to have a plan on how to leverage this speech to get what the US is after? I don’t.
To: #12 whywhywhy:
Yes, I agree with much of what you say. I’m only pointing out that Kim’s response was to something different from what Trump actually said. A “straw-man” argument, which is a cheap debating trick which high-school debate-club members are supposed to learn to avoid during the first week of school.
(Also, Kim said: “A frightened dog barks louder”. He should know. He has likely eaten his share of recently-killed dogs, and heard them bark just before being killed and cooked.)
Oh, fuck you.
@13:
Kim is absolutely right. Frightened dogs make as much racket as possible, because they are chickenshits, and hope a potential threat goes away. Non-frightened dogs don’t make much noise, don’t need to do so.
It’s a good thing you’re at Pharyngula, because if you were over at Affinity, I’d ban your bigoted, stupid fucking ass so fast you’d get whiplash. You’re a right good fit with Pres. Pinchpork.
@6 – Tabby
Seriously? Journalists have to look up ‘dotard’?
“‘Gibbets and crows!’ he (Saruman) hissed, and they shuddered at the hideous change. ‘Dotard! What is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among the dogs? ”
Everyone I know learned that word years ago from Tolkien.
The sites a Generalissimo Google search finds are not massively reliable — which is a Big Warning Sign — but there are reports “[N.Korea] has started a massive promotion campaign and has termed dog meat as a ‘superfood'” (August-2016), North and South Korea divided over age-old practice of eating dog meat […]. That IBTimes treat-with-caution article cites the (S.Korean) Korea Times, NK promotes dog meat (English), whose reliability is unknown-to-me. I’ve not checked the other sites the search found, as the ones I recognise are of known poor reliability; hence, I would not be surprised if the reported claim is the product of an “echo chamber”.
The dubious claim does not reflect on Kim’s experiences or personal tastes.
To: #176 Gwynnyd:
RE: “Everyone I know learned that word [‘dotard’] years ago from Tolkien.”
And from CS Lewis, who uses it in PRINCE CASPIAN (the second of the NARNIA books):
The line is spoken by Miraz the usurper, in response to his treacherous seconds-in-command Glozelle and Sopespian, who are using reverse-psychology, goading him into accepting Peter’s challenge of single-combat, in hope that he’ll get killed and leave them in charge, by advising him that it’s too dangerous, implying that they think he’s a coward (“dastard” means “coward”, as in “dastardly”) and suggesting that he use his age as an excuse to refuse the challenge.
To #14 Tabby Lavalamp, #15 Caine, and #17 blf:
From The Manchurian Candidate (1962):
From Beat the Devil (1953):
Gwynnyd @16
Some did. Don’t forget, not everyone has read Tolkien. I haven’t.
“Dotard” is much older than Tolkien, from the Online Etymology Dictionary:
And dote — “to be feeble-minded from age” — is even older, with origins in Middle Low German doten (“be foolish”).
Not sure if I myself first encountered the word in Tolkien or in someplace else. But like others, I am a bit surprised it might not be that widely known. Having said that, I did not know there was a English word “dote” with the above-cited definition.
Toad: their senses of humor are fine. Your gratuitous invocation of a racist trope just wasn’t funny. Ya dumb shit.
….and now I feel a bit like PZ.
Tentacles flailing widely as teh evil cat plots the next move?
Some people seems to be missing the point. In reply to any action from DPRK, Trump will order the country destroyed. That doesn’t sound a little deranged to anyone? A bit out of proportion? Tens of millions of lives gone? That’s going to be Japanese, Chinese, and South Korean too.
To #22: Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y
RE: “Racist trope”
Really? Eating dog-meat is a cultural practice, not a race-trait. So my comment is like calling a Catholic a “mackerel-snapper”, or a Frenchman a “cheese-eating surrender-monkey”. Even the word “Eskimo” may (or may not, it’s not settled) be derived from a phrase meaning “someone who eats raw meat”.
It has been sounding to me that what we have here is too frightened dogs barking at each other.
Kim has a much more realistic reason to fear the U.S. and the west in general and maybe even fear those closer to home because there is no way to deny that he and North Korea have been living under direct threat for some time.
The U.S. is under a considerable less extreme threat there is no way in hell the North Koreans can hope to do more than destroy 2 or three places at best before they are probably obliterated and they know that as do we (or at least should know that)
The problem is really the worst for China because they fear a “domino effect” if the north should be “lost” they do not want another pro-western democracy on their border they already are having trouble with Korean migrants as it is. They are very much dependent on western trade and conflict any conflict threatens that as well.
Trump has political problems as well that have been discussed as well as his own personal problems of having to appear as “the best, the great” to all and having no experience outside of being a promoter and pitchman.
there is no plan in evidence that I have heard anyone mention of though and what ever plan there is completely resides in his bald head.
uncle frogy
#21. The same root explains the term “dotty”.
I recall reading a parody of THE WIZARD OF OZ in which, when the party first meets the Wizard in his throne room (he’s hidden behind a curtain), the Wizard asks who they are, and the Scarecrow says “I’m a scarecrow, this is the Tin Woodsman, the Cowardly Lion, and our companion, Little Dottie”. The Wizard replies “I think you’re ALL a little dotty!”
#25:
Well, maybe. Trump may have meant that he’d destroy NK in response to any NUCLEAR attack by NK. Trump should clarify what he meant, which might be difficult for him, as he may not know what he meant.
UPDATE TO #26:
And of course, Flanders and Swann fearlessly taunted rival peoples based on their diets, criticizing Scotsmen for eating salty porridge, and also southern Europeans:
handsomemrtoad,
Put that shovel down and back away slowwwwwly.
handsomemrtoad @30: The first rule of holes applies here. Stop digging. You dropped a racist turd in the middle of the conversation, and got called out on it. Accept it. Own it.
@handsomemrtoad: Just because a stereotype has some sort of basis in reality doesn’t mean invoking it isn’t indicative of prejudice. And you clearly invoked the stereotype as an insult, which, since it’s a stereotype about all Koreans, means you insulted all Koreans, not just Kim Jong-Un.
If you absolutely must make a “Koreans eat dogs” joke, you should at the very least be sure that it’s a really fucking funny one. And not a lame, overwrought clunker like yours.
“Lesser of two evils.”
@26 racistmrtoad
Pretending ignorance about what racism is is not a good defense against having your racist outburst called out. Nothing is, really, so suck it up and apologize, or be known as a local voice of racist Asian-baiting and thereby not credible.
How delightfully Harris-esque.
“Discriminating against muslims isn’t racist, it’s based off of religion! The fact that this overwhelmingly affects people of color is completely beside the point!”
… makes even those with normal thinking faculty think about discretion and composure.
I doubt KJU’s statement comes across so awkwardly in Korean.
Anybody know where we might find a less hasty, and perhaps annotated, translation?
Well toadster I thought it was almost funny, but the responses I find sinister. Highly trained pavlovian pixel-police. How sterilising. In like proportion less will hurt them. That’s twa dogs to digest.
The BBC says there is “an English statement carried by [N.Korean] state news agency KCNA”. The KCNA Watch site (link is to VoA) has an English-language statement, which I presume is KCNA’s.
“Free speech!” says the white man, defending racism. Film at 11.
#36 Vivec
RE: “Discriminating against muslims isn’t racist, it’s based off of religion! The fact that this overwhelmingly affects people of color is completely beside the point!”
You say that sarcastically, but the reasoning is valid.
#35. Abbeycadabra
RE: “Asian-baiting”
Do Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indians, Pakistanis, or Indonesians eat dogs?
To #31. What a Maroon, living up to the ‘nym
RE: “Put that shovel down and back away slowwwwwly.”
LOL
This comes to mind
@handsomemrtoad
The dog-eating stereotype is in fact often applied to anyone that looks “Asian”, yes. As to pretending that you don’t know what people mean by “Asian” in this context by including Indians and Pakistanis in your list, see abbeycadabra @35.
@42
Yes, no, no, yes, no and yes.*
There is also a culture of dog meat consumption in Vietnam and the Phillipines (though it is illegal in the latter, it still happens). And apparently (same source as the other info above) there is some evidence of dog consumption in Switzerland, so you can file that tidbit away in your mind until you have a need to insult Swiss farmers. I’m sure it happens elsewhere too, just in small enough numbers not to draw the attention of wider society. So yes, I’d say Asian race-baiting is a polite way of describing your actions.
Of course, I am appalled by the practise of eating dogs, especially since it is not usually done as a necessity due to food hardship, but actually viewed as a delicacy in most places where it is eaten. And before anyone accuses me of living in a glass house (and that I am simply enculturated to abhor the killing and consumption of dogs, as Hindus are enculturated to abhor the killing and consumption of cows), I don’t eat a lot of meat from other species of animal, and have been gradually lowering my meat consumption. I don’t think I could actually go 100% vegetarian, and I’m pretty sure I like chicken too much to give it up altogether, but I’ve already cut my beef consumption by more than 75%, pig consumption by 50% and even chicken consumption by about 30% over the last few years. And I could see eating more seafood which is arguably a more ethical protein (except maybe cephalopods though I’ve eaten octopi and squid maybe a combined 10 times in my life so it’s not an issue). So I get there are problems with raising and eating meat of any kind – dog meat pisses me off almost the most though (second to endangered species consumption) because dogs contribute so much to human well-being in so many ways. Dogs have been helping humans out for thousands of years. Eating them (or otherwise abusing them) feels like a betrayal.
Oh, and I too first heard the word “dotard” when I read Tolkien. Good word. Ought to use it more. It is somewhat surprising that it’s so obscure to so many people, but then vocabulary constantly changes, and good old words like dotard fall away (a pity, but language evolves). I do think more people should read Tolkien though – if nothing else, this episode proves that his following is smaller than I thought it was (or that people’s memory is lacking, or both).
*https://www.indy100.com/article/a-brief-list-of-countries-which-eat-dog-meat-the-most–bkSW_v654Z
A fuller list is Dog meat (for human consumption) by region. Some of the cited incidents are one-offs.
blf @ # 39 – Thanks for those links!
It looks like the quoted statement comes from NK’s own translators, who apparently lack familiarity with contemporary spoken English – even of the broadcast variety (or they wouldn’t have used a word that the BBC, among others, felt necessary to explain).
And, ftr, I for one recognized “dotard” immediately – a clear sign that I am in my dotage.
#48 Pierce R. Butler
RE: “And, ftr, I for one recognized “dotard” immediately – a clear sign that I am in my dotage.”
I think a clearer sign will be when you start FAILING TO recognize words. That’s what happened with my step-father late in his journey into dementia.
#44: Zeppelin
RE: “As to pretending that you don’t know what people mean by “Asian” in this context by including Indians and Pakistanis in your list, see abbeycadabra @35.”
Well, I spent some time near San Francisco where there are so many different types of Asians with their own sub-communities and neighborhoods that I don’t lump them together into yellows vs browns as most Americans do.
Am I the only one who didn’t find the word dotard to sound archaic and unusual in this context? My father sometimes calls himself a doddering old dotard when he feels the need for self-deprecation.
Mind you, a student did once ask me what the word “reprobate” means, and my first response was “you know, someone who ought to be reproved. a… a,,, a malefactor!”. I’m not exactly your go-to guy for awareness of modern linguistic idiom…
cartomancer @51:
No, i thought it was deliberately chosen in an attempt to strike a contrast with Dump’s bumbling, inarticulate speeches.
@#1, Caine
“So far back”? Under Obama, the doomsday clock was never pushed back beyond 6 minutes to midnight (it was 7 until 2002, to give you some context), and was actually pushed forward during his second term in part because Obama insisted on spending $1 trillion on more nuclear weapons, and specifically wanted to make the new ones “tactical” (i.e. usable in warfare rather than as a MAD deterrent). I know Democratic tribalists are in denial over the fact that their party’s leadership is made up of right-of-center warmongers and bought-and-paid-for corporate shills, but I would have thought you would at least notice an external detail like that.
On that note, incidentally: if Trump uses nukes and does not actually set off World War III, he will get off scot-free, and the lack of punishment will be directly traceable to the precedents set by Obama and Hillary Clinton. Obama refused to have Bush prosecuted for Iraq* — which, like refusing to prosecute Nixon, set the precedent that Presidents are effectively above the law, but this time even if millions die as a result — and destroyed the government of Libya even though Congress explicitly voted not to invade, and was not prosecuted for doing that. The argument — and it was said in reports at the time that Hillary Clinton was the one who came up with it — was that the 2001 AUMF Against Terrorism permitted a sitting president to declare a foreign government to be “terrorists” and invade without reference to Congress, and when Hillary Clinton’s signature is found to be on Trump’s defense, I hope it finally wakes voters up to what sort of monsters we have on both sides of the aisle.
This has always been the argument against shitty, right-of-center Democrats-in-name-only like the Clintons: they undermine the ability of the party to actually act as a corrective to the excesses of the Republicans by setting precedents that such behavior is okay. But since the party membership has basically lost its ability to hold an ethical stance and will blindly support anybody, no matter how vile, as long as they have the magic “D” after their name, we keep getting these useless worthless excuses for human beings, time after time.
*Incidentally: the Constitution says that treaties entered into by the U.S. have the same legal weight as the Constitution itself, and the treaties we signed at the end of World War II say that anybody who protects a war criminal is as guilty of war crimes as the actual criminal. If you believe that Bush and Cheney deserve a war crimes trial, then it follows that Obama must have one as well for refusing to prosecute them. (That, of course, is ignoring the fact the the stated casus belli for Libya has been shown to have been an outright lie, which means that both Obama and Hillary Clinton — who put together the presentations on her own — would be worthy of war crimes trials on their own merits as well.) Any candidate who promised to turn them all over to a tribunal would immediately get my vote, on those grounds alone.
@handsomemrtoad
Ah, so you do know that people meant the socially constructed “racial” category of “Asian” as imagined by Americans, not anyone from the region of the world known as “Asia”, and were being deliberately obtuse. Presumably in an attempt to somehow paint the commenters who referred to said category as The Real Racists.
@The Vicar
I’d wager every postwar US president has been a war criminal by the standards of consistently applied international law (and, more realistically, by the standards that get applied to you after you lose a war or if the US want to invade you). Every president of my lifetime has been, certainly.
@41
If whether or not something primarily negatively affects people of color doesn’t impact how racist said policy is, I think your definition of racism is useless.
Let me guess, you also think that aggressive immigration and drug law enforcement isnt racist because, hey, it affects some white people too, right?
The most ethical protein, of course, being humans who just sit there with their mouths hanging open for 10 seconds or so after the light turns green.
I suggest consuming The Vicar’s stupid fucking hobby horse he (I infer) is always riding, for a fiber supplement.
I hope I’m not adding oil to the fire, but from what I’ve heard about how many N.Korean common people have starved and the ongoing food shortage and the predilection of the more prosperous to get the lion’s share of whatever good food is going around, I wouldn’t think they would have much of a problem with stray dogs in the street. Also the coastline is probably pretty much fished out. I hope there is no endangered species reliant on the N.Korean lands as they are probably doomed too.
No, I also thought it appropriate. It didn’t — and still doesn’t — strike me as archaic (that might be due to Toliken?).
I associate “dotard” with Shakespeare, and I’m not even certain if he used it.
I sent two work colleagues into fits of laughter when I used the word “burgle” a few weeks back. I never thought of that word as unusual.
He did (apparently several times). The one I recall is in The Taming of the Shrew, when Baptista orders Vincentio imprisoned, “Away with the dotard; to the gaol with him!”
(A possibly interesting site found whilst checking my memory, Shakespeare’s Words, “The site integrates the full text of the plays and poems with the entire Glossary database, allowing you to search for any word or phrase in Shakespeare’s works […]”.)
Dotard is one of those words that is utterly familiar to me in its written form, but I doubt I ever uttered it or heard anyone use it outside a Shakespeare production or the LotR movies. My wife (not a native speaker) asked me how it’s pronounced. I did my best, but it doesn’t sound right coming out of my mouth.
VolcanoMan @45
What do you have against people?
I love seeing racist people who think they’re enlightened beings presenting rational arguments continue to embarrass themselves.
I found the responses to Mr Toad highly offensive, but all things will parse. To go straight for the trigger happy trumpster nuclear option of fuck you racist is to commit a greater sin than that preached against, for which I recommend the author have his dogma carved into his back as per In the Penal Colony, that he may closer read himself. It could be considered unfriendly. I’m less certain I’ll get over ‘off of’ which I consider a hideous assault, but more readily forgive as lacking mens rea. Only a blank page is unblemished. Two wrongs can make a right later, but this wished for right is religious certainty, and extremist bleach indeed. And who would want to read that but the transparently unreflective vampires you will become.
MAKE PIE OUT OF GOATSE MAN?
Yeesh.
Hunka hunka burning dung @65.
Then again, burning dung is at least useful sometimes, so not an entirely apt comparison.
If you’re wondering about the prevalence of words or phrases in literature, Google has you covered:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=dotard%2Csenile%2Cburgle%2Cmake+America+great+again&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cdotard%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Csenile%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cburgle%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cmake%20America%20great%20again%3B%2Cc0
67 had wit, the two minute afterthought less so. The host sets the table manners, someone uses the wrong spoon in the wrong order and gets a fork in the face. We may miss what he might have had to say.