When they are not writing in a foreign language, those protestors can be quite clever:
Of course, some prefer to dispense with the “bull” and go with the nice and direct approach:
North Korea would appreciate the imagery.
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8 Comments
First pic…some Korean cows have been found to have mad-cow disease, so I stay away from the Korean beef, too. (By the way, Holsteins are dairy cows).
Second pic…Unless they think that the South Korean government is a puppet of the US (traditional North Korean agit-prop), I don’t get it. Shouldn’t the fist be hitting the Korean flag too since the South Korean wants the FTA just as much as the American?
Like you were saying, typical ‘bull’.
I agree it’s tasteless and counterproductive. However, Koreans are certainly not alone behaving like this.
Would you like Freedom Fries with that (Mad Cow) burger ?
(OK, I’m beating a dead horse/cow with “Freedom Fries”, but it fits well in this case)
Come on Miguk, the banner in the second photo is straight-up Soviet socialist realism, because the “leftists” here are utterly unoriginal. Wait, I take that back–yesterday there was an anti-FTA “performance” next to Kyobo with a kid wearing a “Scream” mask ordering another masked kid with a toy M16 to “shoot” three other masked kids who presumably represent the downtrodden Korean masses who prefer to pay through the nose for their produce, or something. It was definitely a “short bus” production, although kind of amusing for how simplistic it was.
Michael,
Yes, the banner in the second photo is indeed unoriginal and pathetic. It seems more likely to discredit the protesters as extremists rather than win converts to their cause. Also, the converts they will win with that kind of propaganda will likely be of the “short bus” type.
I’m sympathetic to the criticism that the FTA (any FTA really) can be a mixed blessing for a country’s economy, but if I recall right the one with Chile didn’t bring out thousands of vandals that lit trees on fire and cause 670 million won in property damage. These people are harming, not helping, the majority of Koreans and should be jailed.
Come on people. That giant, paper mache archer kicks ass.
For the Korean language guys (and girls) here –
have you ever seen a news or other org do any indepth investigative reporting on how these anti-US, anti-free trade, pro-NK groups go about setting up the violent protests?
I’ve never seen anything in English or English translation.
But there is obviously a good story there.
It is obvious the groups pick and choose when to use violence, and it does take organization, time, energy, and money to put these things together in such a coordinated fashion.
I mean, the fact sometimes they show up with large bamboo poles or steel pipes and sometimes they don’t speaks volumes for the fact a significant effort is put into staging these events.
Why has the society not devoted time to deconstructing the process? Why has the media not dug into it? Why has the government and police, who do infiltrate the groups, not speak out about it?
I would also like to know why we’ve never heard any leaks about the financing of these groups…..
usinkorea, the reason you won’t many in depth stories on this topic, or any, is because that would involve doing research. There are few incentives for the media to spend the resources on investigative reporting-type stories because far too many readers and viewers are content with fluff pieces and nationalistic propaganda.