Suggested Answers to Second Short Quiz

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Suggested Answers to Second Short Quiz

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Editorial Note: In order to avoid spoiling your enjoyment of our book, the following questions are intended to be circumspect.

Question 1

How does our book compare to other books about life under totalitarian regimes, such as Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World or Koestler’s Darkness at Noon?

Answer 1

For anyone who read 1984, Brave New World and Darkness at Noon during Freshman Year, it all seems too familiar. Indeed, North Korea’s death grip on the media and its pervasive Big Brother atmosphere give the impression that the East German Stasi (secret police) which out-KGB’d the KGB, were themselves out-classed by North Korea.

For Solzhenitsyn fans, the only record left standing appears to be the Soviet Gulags which were constructed by Lenin for killing 7 million/year of the intelligentsia and aristocracy and were then used by Stalin for killing political enemies at the rate of 7 million/year from 1924-1953.

Question 2

How well does North Korea’s control of information insulate it from change?

Answer 2

As we have often studied in the past, democracy is meaningless without unfettered access to accurate information.

Even in terms of access to satellite television and social media in the most repressive societies around the world, North Korea must rank at the bottom of the heap by a wide margin.

Question 3

Is there anything that other governments, most notably South Korea’s, can do to transform the situation?

Answer 3

Probably not a lot.

Though free tuition/room/board/etc. at South Korean Universities for every North Korean who can show up would probably go a long way and be the most cost-effective!!! Particularly if the North Korean students are encouraged (or forced) to learn professions, such as medicine or agriculture, that can be used in North Korea.

Question 4

How long can the U.S. policy of quarantine continue to be successful, especially vis-à-vis using intelligence to interdict North Korean exports of nuclear materials and plans to wannabe nuclear states and/or non-state groups?

Answer 4

Every day, Yours Truly opens the NY Times with a sense of dread vis-à-vis this issue.

Question 5

How difficult would it be to apply sufficient pressure on the Chinese to tame its attack dog?

Answer 5

What do you think???

Question 6

Does Leslie Gelb (the author of our focus for last month = Power Rules), who claimed that foreign policy is just a matter of “common sense,” have the answer? If so, what is it?

Answer 6

What do you think???

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