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Brian Reynolds Myers
183 quotes
“Like all men I have a maternal instinct, but I can clutch only so many characters to my breast at one time.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Touch of Evil: A selective investigation of recent mysteries and thrillers" (April 2006), The Atlantic
“The Korean people have always been more outward-looking than their insecure leaders, and for centuries this was especially true of those in the northern part of the peninsula.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not for nothing did Eldridge Cleaver say that the North Korean police made him miss the Oakland police.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If South Korea's dictatorships were America's running dogs, then North Korea was the Eastern bloc's house cat: intractable, convinced of its superiority, and to some observers a more independent creature, but never much good at feeding itself—even after the can openers started falling silent in 1989.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The question of where Europe ends and Asia begins has troubled many people over the years, but here's a rule of thumb: if someone can pose as an expert on the country in question without knowledge of the relevant language, it's part of Asia.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“North Korea is a unique socialist country in that its ruling ideology is conveyed through what is written about its leaders, not by them, and the message could hardly be simpler. Foreigners bad, Koreans good, Leader best.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What must be acknowledged is that Kim Jong Il has evinced a genius for propaganda ever since managing the efflorescence of his father's cult in the 1960s. Even so, he cannot cover his lack of charisma completely; it's as if Hitler died and left the Third Reich to Goebbels.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To North Korea, diplomacy is another form of war.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Few things are more important to Pyongyang than its propaganda apparatus. Even when the rest of the nation came to a standstill in the mid-1990s, it never missed a beat.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world's complacency about North Korea’s nukes is inspired in large part by memories of stodgy Soviets who had the bomb for 40 years and never used it.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Koreans in general are very generous about misrepresentations when it’s another Korean doing the misrepresenting.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Usually the South Korean left is blamed for the public's lack of patriotism, but it is the right who made blood nationalism a state religion.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: South Korea: The Unloved Republic" (14 September 2010), Asia Society
“Seoul doesn't have the will to "De-Kim Il Sungify" North Korea.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Uses and Misuses of Ideology" (8 September 2011), by Chris Green, The Daily NK
“The South Korean flag continues to function at least in South Korea, not as a symbol of the state but as a symbol of the race.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Chad O'Carroll (2014)
“The world isn't going to become an Islamic caliphate, but that doesn’t stop the Islamists from pursuing that as a goal.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Here's what's driving North Korea's nuclear program — and it might be more than self-defense" (1 May 2017), by Jonathan Kaiman
“We need only look at the much lower level of anti-Americanism in Vietnam to realize that suffering incurred in wars does not necessarily dictate decades of animosity and fear between peoples. It’s what propaganda does with history — for contemporary political ends — that counts.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Recent Spate of 'Why North Korea Hates America' Articles" (27 May 2017), Sthele Press
“The DMZ does not divide the last bastion of communism from a liberal democracy; it divides a radical nationalist state from a moderate nationalist one.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: North Korea, Nuclear Armament, and Unification" (21 July 2017)
“Show me a persona non grata, and I'll show you a persona non give a shit.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Response to Twitterati" (9 January 2018), Sthele Press
“Like Goethe and Spengler I’m convinced that history has an inner, organic logic which can’t be grasped purely in terms of causality.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Methodik (2019)
“[T]here’s much more to far-rightism than fascism. See the Nationalkonservativen in Weimar Germany.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Fascist' North Korea?" (3 September 2019), Sthele Press
“Up close, North Korea is not Stalinist — it’s simply racist.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[S]trong racial pride always entails intense awareness of an inferior other. For the North Koreans, foreigners are inferior — even the friendly ones.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Korean nationalism is its emphasis on the vulnerability of the race.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Japan's racialized worldview equated virtue with strength, the North Koreans are taught that their virtue has rendered them as vulnerable as children in an evil world — unless they are protected by a great leader who keeps a watchful eye on military readiness. Unfortunately for the United States, there is no place in this for any improvement in relations between the two countries.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Were Kim Jong Il to abandon his ideology of paranoid, race-based nationalism and normalize relations with Washington, his personality cult would lose all justification, while his impoverished country would lose all reason to exist as a separate Korean state. The problem for U.S. negotiators is therefore not one of sticks versus carrots; the regime in Pyongyang will neither be bullied nor sweet-talked into committing political suicide.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“South Korean nationalism is something quite different from the patriotism toward the state that Americans feel. Identification with the Korean race is strong, while that with the Republic of Korea is weak.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Koreans in both the north and the south tend to cherish the myth that of all peoples in the world, they are the least inclined to premeditated evil.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This urge to give the North Koreans the benefit of the doubt is in marked contrast to the public fury that erupted after the killings of two South Korean schoolgirls by an American military vehicle in 2002; it was widely claimed that the Yankees murdered them callously.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want to be here for unification.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ultra-nationalism is an appealing ideology; the Third Reich fought to the end, even sending their children into battle... We should not underestimate its appeal.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[I]f indigenousness were the key to state longevity on the peninsula, the Japanese would not have taken Korea so easily in 1910. Take it they did, of course, and their propaganda soon reached far more Koreans than had ever heard of the ancient sages.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[R]ace theory is at variance with all Korean traditions; not for nothing did the national language lack a word for race until modern times.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Far-right states derive mass support from the perception of their success in dealing with internal or external enemies; economic matters, though certainly important, do not bear directly on state legitimacy as they do in far-left states.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So it is that I can talk for an hour on North Korean race propaganda, only to be chided during the question-and-answer session for overlooking the "nationalism" inherent in Stalin's "Socialism in One Country" policy. This is a prime example of the terminological confusion discussed above. Putting one's multiethnic state first is not the same as propagating a race theory.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let me highlight the fact, then, that a mistrust of outsiders – as manifested by and in states for thousands of years – is very different from an ideology asserting that one uniquely pure race is morally superior to all others. Such thinking was by no means the norm even in European fascism. It runs directly counter to Marx.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Judging from the yin-yang flag's universal popularity in South Korea, even among those who deny the legitimacy of the Republic of Korea, it evidently evokes the [Korean] race first and the [South Korean] state second. There is therefore none of the parodying or deliberate desecration of the [South Korean] state flag that one encounters in the countercultures of other countries.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Americans can't really handle the truth, the enormity of the truth.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You cannot have racial pride without an inferior other.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everybody really is the "other" for North Koreans.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“North Korea cannot normalize relations with the United States.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the late 1990s, North Korea was the main recipient of American aid in Asia.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“North Korea fears an improvement in relations.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You don't prove a point with nationalists; you cannot make nationalists happy.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What you have here in South Korea really is extreme nationalists.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“North Korea's future depends on a large extent on South Korea's future.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“North Korea has to inspire its people and so far it's done that.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“South Koreans do not consider the integrity of their state important enough to go to war for.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Communism is all about breaking down nationalism, about uniting workers around the world, and North Korea has always been about the opposite, it’s been about racial purity and pride, so remember North Korea was isolated even inside the old east-block, even inside the Soviet block.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“South Koreans are very nationalist, too, because in South Korea nobody cares if the North Korean people starve to death, but they get very nervous about the Chinese people investing heavily in North Korea and they get very worried about the prospect of China maybe taking over North Korea. In other words, they only worry about North Korea in terms of nationalist problems and nationalist questions.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In South Korea, which is a much less conservative environment, politicians do not take their wives around with them as much as their American counterparts do. Showing pride in your wife is thought of as juvenile bad form. There's a special pejorative for people who do it.”
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Top North Korean Expert Explains What Happened to Kim Jong Un's Uncle" (16 December 2013), by Isaac Chotiner, New Republic