We returned on the evening that Trump and Kim had their historic meeting. I caught as much as I could on the news at LAX before our flight back to Ohio.
The next day back in Ohio, we unpack and I go through the mail and listen to some of the news reports of the historic meeting the night we fly back to Ohio from California.
I scan the news the next day about the meeting.
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I see one article about an interesting video that Trump had made in Hollywood to show Kim during their meeting. The story seemed interesting by itself: that is, the story that Trump is enlisting the help of Hollywood in one of his deals. Who would have ever thought?
Evidently, Trump had a video made to show Kim what North Korea might look like if Kim dropped his nuclear missile program and began to receive investment from the United States in the economy of North Korea. (See the video below.)
“We had it made up. I showed it to him today, actually during the meeting, toward the end of the meeting and I think he loved it,” Trump said during a news conference. The video was broadcast on big screens at the start of Tuesday’s press conference. Trump said the video was played for about eight members of the North Korean delegation, “and I thought they were fascinated by it.” The president added: “That could very well be the future.”
In the video, there were pictures of massive hotels on the beaches of North Korea. In another part of the video, large speedboats skimmed through the ocean waves on the beaches in front of the hotels.
In the next few days and weeks, assessments will be made about the meaning and results of the historic meeting between Trump and Kim. Of course, the two political sides will line up in their usual pattern.
Perhaps there is one of those architectural models of North Korean development that builders show their clients before a large project is undertaken? As the famous dioramist Bodys Isek Kingelez of envisioned cities said, “Without a model, you are nowhere. A nation that can’t make models is a nation that doesn’t understand things, a nation that doesn’t live.”
Will a model of possibility of North Korean development be presented to Kim rather than a threat of sanctions?
Trump/Kim Resorts appeared along the coast of North Korea … Economic development proves more important to Kim than economic sanctions.
It was difficult to rid my mind from an image that rose that rose in my mind from the Trump / Kim summit that had taken place on the last day of our trip to California. Perhaps not only were the two nations set on a new course. But something more. Two businessmen had just entered into a new business agreement.
The result of this business agreement was that soon there would be massive hotels along the wide, beautiful beaches of North Korea. The hotels would be state-of-the-art in design and technology. Perhaps the greatest hotels the world has ever seen. They would rise perhaps a hundred stories above the beaches of North Korea. And, in the background, behind the grand beach hotels, the economy of North Korea would be thriving with a new light thrown into their deep darkness. Perhaps the new mayor of the Pyongyang would be no other than former basketball NBA player named Dennis Rodman. All of this seemed a possibility. Trump promised a new type of world to Kim. All that Kim could promise to Trump was more safety in that world that Trump had so carefully constructed.
The promises of a new world. Versus the promise of safety.
But more for Trump unlike any other world leader in history.
The greatest business promoter America and the world has ever had.
Of course, the secret to a Trump and Kim deal was really a deal outside the provincial confines of world politics and in fact went far beyond their rather narrow focus. Rather, it was a business deal ultimately. Not a political deal between two political leaders representing their nations as much as a deal between two businessmen representing their own business interests.
Perhaps the grandest symbol of this new business partnership are the massive hotels along the sands of the great North Korean beaches. Resorts like no one in the world has ever seen before. Each resort, almost an entire story like Fitzgerald’s “A Diamond as Big as The Ritz.”
So, a new scene is looked into my mind. A scene of great hotels along a stretch of the most beautiful, wide beaches one has ever seen.
And the names on top of all the hotels along the beaches: The dual names on top of the massive hotels – often in 50-foot-high letters – TRUMP/KIM RESORTS. Often, there is a photograph of the two of them together in a brotherly hug. Their photographs are seen everywhere in the new North Korea: in the markets, the sports venues, the public spaces. Their two images on the massive beach hotels are perhaps the most famous symbol of their business relationship.
Everyone was fooled back in those days.
They thought that the world would continue to spin forward based on the whims of history or culture or politics.
Few considered it would move forward though business deals rather than global treaties.
Sometimes dioramas offer up prophetic images as the one of the beach hotels with Trump/Kim names on them.
A future business solution … rather than a political one. Trump would of course be the first to conduct politics as business.
And, was there any greater example of the Trump philosophy than its working itself out in the rogue world nation state of North Korea?
In other words, a Trump invasion not of a president’s ideas but an entrepreneur’s vision of what North Korea might be like one day.
Perhaps Trump managed to share his dreams of development for North Korea from a great developer’s perspective.
But why not.
Dreams mutually shared are so much more valuable than tired political demands imposed on people. When will be ever learn this simple fact? If ever?
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Trump perhaps played his grandest card ever in his meeting with Kim.
His business card.
And perhaps it is (or eventually be) a different way to conduct our society.
As an overall business, rather than two dueling political parties.
These types of thoughts lead to dioramas … it seems to me.
Pitches for new dioramas. Somewhat like pitches for films or plays.
That’s a new story for another time.
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(The morning after I wrote the above, I received “It’s Showtime in North Korea” from Jon Rappoport’s No More Fake News site. We’re thinking along the same lines.)