North Korea- Neotiations

I can’t really agree fully with either side on this issue. I’m sure I don’t have enough information to make an educated judgment. In Kang’s piece his message that “A North Korea that feels threatened and perceives the U.S. administration to be actively attempting to increase pressure on it is unlikely to trust the United States” made me wonder why we weren’t trying to work with North Korean. But then again what kind of “trust” could North Korea give us?

There does seem to be a “spiral of mistrust and misunderstanding” that has clouded any treaties between the United States and North Korea. Kang points out that the U.S. will only back down once North Korea stops their military programs. That doesn’t leave a lot of trust in the equation. The author claims that North Korea wants better relations with the U.S. and the U.S. should respond by “negotiating a nonaggression pact with the North”. Another interesting point brought up in the “yes” article was that, just because North Korea has nuclear weapons, doesn’t mean they are “more likely to engage in unprovoked military acts now than it was before”.

Victor D. Cha also had valid points about North Korea. It could be very harmful to simply let North Korea “off the hook” because they did violate laws and there should be a consequence. It would only “validate their perceived success of the strategy”. Cha declares that it must be the North Koreans who make the first moves forwards a solution because any move from the U.S. would be seen as forgiveness. Then he says that if North Korea is unwilling to cooperate with other countries, “there is no choice but isolation and containment”.

I’m not sure either one is right because they both have good and bad aspects. If the situation in North Korea continues to disintegrate there might be a point where the U.S. has to pick the lesser of two evils; I’m not sure which one is worse.

Mitchell B. Reiss’ article focuses more on the alliances that the United States should be collaborating with to address the problem with North Korea. She has a three step plan that she feels would work best for the U.S. Those three steps recommend that the U.S. shouldn’t be going to the North Koreans for their cooperation, but instead building support with Seoul and Tokyo. Step one recommends that the U.S. should but patient in their solution.

Philip Zelikow’s article (“Be ready to strike and destroy North Korea’s missile test”) said the solution was to take action quickly the first time. He feels that the U.S. should sit around and to see what happens but should take action to disarm North Korea. However, his article did have a similarity with Reiss’ because both acknowledged the need for repaired alliances to fix the problem in North Korea.

Censorship

While I knew censorship was quite political, I never realized that it was so wide spread and so varied in its reasons. Most of the time when I hear about censorship it deals with the “Right” side’s viewpoint. But, after reading “Thin Gruel”, I realized that the “Left” side censorship is just as influential (if not more). Both sides are assuming that kids will model “their behavior on whatever they read” but, because nothing can ever be censored enough, they might as well be saying kids shouldn’t read at all.

The “Right” side seems so old-fashioned in their views and it was interesting to note that textbooks 100 years ago had many of the stories they now object to. Diane Ravitch makes a good point that kids “confront, sooner or later, the reality of death and loss”. Censorship from the right focuses on “protecting” kids from the “harsh” reality of life, but they are sure to encounter that reality soon anyway. Plus, by never reading any stories about those tough situations, kids might feel as if they are the only ones going through those emotions, making them feel isolated.

The “Left” side seems to have a justified reason to censor books (after all who wants sexism, racism etc. in their books?) but the truth is that, by being too politically correct, they’re almost moving backwards. As a feminist I see the need for equality but do we really need to cover up the truth? I completely disagree that people in a minority group are the only ones who can write about that group. Different perspectives are what make stories so interesting sometimes. Plus, some women really are passive and some African Americans are athletic so censoring stories so those traits are never represented, we are denying children the right to see all kinds of people. By trying to hard to make everyone equal, the “Left” side is wiping out individuality. (As author Nat Hentoff said, “…political correctness would stifle free expression”).

“Literary quality became secondary to representational issues”. The purpose of these textbooks is to improve kids’ reading skills. I highly doubt that by simply reading a book or story a child will be scarred for life. There are so many other influences that kids have too (like television and video games) that are probably worse than a book. I think the real problem is that people tend to think kids are stupid. But that assumption that kids can’t think for themselves is creating a world similar to the one described in 1984. I don’t think people are really protecting the children, I think they are protecting themselves. By limiting the children’s’ selection of stories we’re only hurting their future, not ours.