I suppose if one were naive, and did not pay attention to the fact that the article says specifically that no US government representatives and no North Korean government representatives were present for this academic conference, one might possibly infer that, but I don’t feel that this particular article spins the circumstance in that direction.

All the outcome of the conference told us was something that any human being, with a moderately healthy amount of faith in humanity, would have already known.

But.. I do tend to forget that a large portion of the populace fails to read beyond the spin and sees things as the media intends them to be seen.

What I’m saying here, is that I understand your point, but I think the guy deserves credit for standing up and doing something about a situation that troubles him. More Americans should. Rather than calling him naive and being pessimistic about the outcomes of his choice, isn’t it admirable that he took the initiative to do something at all?

My example, today as I was driving home, a little old man was riding his bicycle through the construction zone and did a header straight into the intersection (his bike tires must have slipped on the gravel). I slowed down long enough to see that he was able to get back up, but that was it. I feel bad that I didn’t pull the car over to see if he was okay, and I’m really not sure why I didn’t stop.

Shouldn’t we, in our fast growing era of global community, take the responsibility to do something about the things that concern us? I really felt bad for that man today, I was concerned for his well-being, I had a cell phone. If he needed medical attention, I had it within my power to make sure that he received it long before he could get to a pay phone to call for help.

I’m not talking about in terms of socialist government patting the heads of the sheep. I’m talking about each person taking that responsibility upon themselves to choose to stand up for what they think is right. If a few people are inspired to follow in this man’s footsteps, it places us on a path where we are willing to help each other on a global scale. That, in my opinion, is something that is far from useless.

From what I can read, he is pretty much spelling out concessions the U.S. should make. That isn’t helpful.

Even if we are willing to make those concessions, letting NK know that ahead of time makes the negotiations more, not less difficult.

As it is, all he is doing is supplying PR for NK to use to show that the U.S. government is being ‘uncoperative’ and apply more pressure on our government to make concessions.

Like I said, I assume his heart is in the right place, but he is naive.

I do realize that nothing will change in terms of negotiations between the governments, but I disagree that what he has done is not useful. It’s set an example that peace can be achieved if we work at it hard enough, and in my universe that’s an incredibly important example to set.

Negotiations between countries tend to be more hobbesian than he imagines. NK (and the U.S. for that matter) isn’t looking for a solution that will make everyone happy, they are looking to get the most that they can out of the situation. Part of the tactics for getting there is ‘refusing’ to negotiate, trying to put pressure on the other side to make concessions ahead of time.

Hellman may not understand this, but he is simply helping NK in their strategy.