The Hanky reports that all 14 members of the National Police Agency’s human rights committee has decided to resign because the riot police kids kept letting themselves get pushed around by protesters cracked down on candlestick girls.
Fourteen fewer holdovers from the Roh administration hanging around? I certainly hope this starts a trend.
Somehow, I don’t think the committee’s friends at the NPA are going to miss them:
An NPA official said, “As their resignations have not yet been made official, we will have to observe the development of the situation. The committee members apparently feel their activities are limited, perhaps because the committee is an advisory body with no legal status.”
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
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Well, now the police are talking about adding tear agents and color to their water cannons:
http://news.naver.com/hotissue.....#038;seq=1
I don’t want to play fortune teller, but it seems gov’t officials have been talking pretty tough today — they might be thinking the protests have jumped the shark — and it wouldn’t surprise me if they start cracking down hard.
“On Wednesday night, protesters pelted police with dirt and bricks, broke the windows of police buses, and tied the buses with ropes to pull them from the barricades in scenes reminiscent of the democracy protests of the 1980s. Pushed to the ground by protesters, riot police troopers had their shields and helmets snatched and were kicked and trodden on. Some were seen pleading with the protesters, saying if they returned without their shield and helmet they would be confined in the lockup.
Protesters also attacked the conservative Chosun and Dong-A dailies, removing their signboards, urinating on the buildings or throwing garbage at them. Downtown Seoul was effectively a lawless zone until early morning the following day.”
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....70011.html
Realizing that the gov’t is averse to mass arrests for historical reasons,, still, why can’t the police (the real ones, not the kids doing their service) go in and arrest at least the most blatant protestors and hold the organizers responsible?
Aside from running occasional drunk-driving checkpoints the cops here really do f@ck all to enforce the law.
Just curious, what would happen if a protester died (say, by accident) while the police were on the scene? Would the locals cut back the protesting?
Well, the “protesters” with candles and metal pipes have attacked the Koreana Hotel to “protest” Chosun Ilbo, as the police watched. They threw garbage in the hotel, destroyed property, and physically attacked innocent hotel employees. How is this anything different from what the Chinese rioters did in Seoul back in March? If MBC reports this crap (which I doubt), they’ll probably chalk it up to “democratic” protest against the evil Chosun Ilbo.
http://news.chosun.com/site/da.....00067.html
The foreign guests in the hotel got scared shitless and wondered if there’s any protection - they all insisted on leaving the hotel (if not this self destructing country).
Maybe Lee should bring out the military instead and restore order. Because this is getting ridiculous.
“Just curious, what would happen if a protester died (say, by accident) while the police were on the scene? Would the locals cut back the protesting?”
No. That would be the rallying cry for them. I think that’s what many of them are hoping for - some incident that they can rally around and take it to the next level.
I think that’s why the police have been extra careful not to be baited into reaction. And that’s why Lee Myung Bak has been hesistant to use force. But if this continues he may have no choice.
If I was Lee, though, I would disband the riot cops. I would say, “here you go South Korea, you can protest all you want - democracy for all”. Once the mobs destroy properties, and attack people without discrimination, and the ordinary citizens get so sick of these animals, bring out the military and herd them into big cages in one big crack down. Then throw away the keys no questions asked.
CM, the faux “leftists” in Korea would like nothing better than for Lee to bring in the military since it would make them look like oppressed martyrs rather than incompetents and thugs. The protests are mostly confined to Kwangwhamun and City Hall, so the police can effectively deal with them if they were doing their jobs.
Michael, I was only half serious when I said he should bring in the military. But there’s nothing more I want to see right now other than for someone to take a machine gun and blow those mother fuckers away.
That’s tempting….
That’d be a nice little cleansing of the gene pool!
Oh sh!t, I sound like a ‘final solutionist’ or something. Is that what these nitwit vandals have driven me to?
“The horror!”
I always have enjoyed the penchant for public officialdom in South Korea to bail out of office as soon as it looks like they might be forced to actually do their jobs. A normal day for one of these asses is probably to check in at about noon, rifle through half a dozen or so complaints by drunks complaining that their human rights were violated when because the cop who arrested them for public indecency was younger than them, and then go play golf at about 3:00. But as soon as things get tough, do they stay around and try to fix things? You know — try and investigate these ‘human rights abuses’ and either reassure the populace that they’re mythical or else prosecute the violators (i.e. their jobs)? Nope. Instead, they resign en masse in a seeming huff while muttering to their colleagues, “Well, at least we got to milk that cow for a few years before actually being called on to do anything.”
If they damage public/private property, bust them. If they assault a cop or someone else, bust them. If they protest illegally, bust the leaders. If it’s plain illegal, bust them…
Michael: “CM, the faux “leftists” in Korea would like nothing better than for Lee to bring in the military”
This is a striking term - “faux leftists”. It underscores the intellectual dishonesty that underlies Korean culture. What is particularly ironic is the extent to which intellectual dishonesty coexists with righteous indignation. One can be adamant in defending the honor of the Korean borg collective without exhibiting any particular regard for the truth.
Let me be clear about this lest some faux cultural ambassador get her dander up. In Korea, the phrase “koji mal!” (that’s a lie!”) has commonly been used in lighthearted banter. Contrast this to the epitaph on a tombstone in the American west :He called Bill Smith a liar.”
White lies are probably universal, but what is impressive is the extent to which lies are acceptable in Korea. The key in being persuasive is not honesty and evidence, but the forcefulness of the argument, the vehemence with which it is expressed. In other words, emotionalism is culturally valued above reason.
Am I saying that this trait is exclusive to Koreans? By no means. Look at how Dukakis was excoriorated over his tepid response to the hypothetical question of how he would react if his wife were raped. Americans were turned off by his apparant apothy. And examples of the dishonesty of polititions abound.
However, in the final analysis dishonesty is abhored. Both Bushes were criticised for lies and/or flipflops (”read my lips”…WMD). When the Korean media begins to do some mia culpa, setting forth the actual truth about the 2 schoolgirls incident, Kwangju, No Gun Ri, US GI crime and Korean on foreigner crime, then Korea will begin to earn the reputation of a mature, advanced nation. Until then, it will continue to be viewed as an emerging nation that is just not quite with it.
Conspiracy theorists obsessively searched for answers about the Kennedy Assassination years after the event became irrelevent.
continuing my thoughts…
First, apologies about the numerous misspellings.
Second, about conspiracy theorists…so far as I know, they exist in all cultures and one commonality is that they never get it right. They have too much of a prejudicial agenda.
After all these years of believing that the Kennedy assasination was a conspiracy, new technologies are beginning to debunk this. Hopefully, this will happen someday in Korea with regard to the revisionism about America.
And I suppose you wouldn’t mind turning back the clock to the Chun Doo Hwan era.
Nice one cm. Mindlessly reading all those Chojoongdong articles while sitting in front of a PC in the comfort of your home in Canada has surely made you lose sight with reality.
The linked article in the first post also mentions that the police might track down protesters doused with the chemical agents. I wonder if that’s plausible.
IMHO, I think you struck a real and lasting vein of truth, for better or for worse.
I currently have yet another project that was sidetracked because of this sort of problem. I could get on with this project, knowing full well that our project was 100% legal and just, yet my partners are afraid of the emotional-based problems that would come from such work.
This is the same reason that more time will need to pass before any impartial and rational examination of history since 1963 can ever take place — unless one is in the privacy of a classroom or salon with level-headed Koreans. There are many but just not enough to win the war on emotionalism.
andy, to be honest, cm is right. The arrogance and lawlessness of the average Korean citizen is out of control. It’s time to apply the law to them, with no more excuses. Not to spite them, but to rehabilitate them.
And who gave you the title of “Rehabilitator of Koreans”?
I don’t think the lawlessness and arrogance of Koreans are out of control but the arrongance of people like you who (wrongly) believe they know everything about Korean and what’s right for it.
“And who gave you the title of “Rehabilitator of Koreans”?
That is all of our jobs as Koreans. Have you heard of the concept of individual responsibility? Korean society must change through introspection. The protestors are merely mimicing and perpetrating the evils they pretend to decry - bullying others into compliance with their own beliefs.
“I don’t think the lawlessness and arrogance of Koreans are out of control but the arrongance of people like you who (wrongly) believe they know everything about Korean and what’s right for it.”
You’re entitled to your opinion, but also obligated to justify it. This is what is known as a bald assertion without evidential support.
It takes a great deal of humility and personal bravery to go against the crowd and critique things in defensible terms, which I have done. But it takes simple emotionalism to contradict an opposing argument without presenting a logical valid argument of your own, which is in fact intellectual arrogance.
@12, Mizar5 if you are going to critique the situation you need to make the distinct between the younger under-21 crowd and the older generations participating.
Motives and objectives are completely different and until you understand your commentary is pointless.
stacked, don’t join andy in that tired old “you don’t know” argument and the oh-so-persuasive a “wrong” fallacy.
I understand a bit about the generational differences, having only left Korea 2 years ago.
But I am always interested in learning so please enlighten me.
stacked: “Mizar5 if you are going to critique the situation you need to make the distinct between the younger under-21 crowd and the older generations participating.Motives and objectives are completely different and until you understand your commentary is pointless.”
Let me refer you to my post at the Metropolitician in which Lirilou asked about the reasons for my generation’s opposition to the Vietnam War. My response is as follows:
While I was idealistic enough to oppose the war on what I thought to be moral grounds, the primary factor was generational. Virtually everyone in my generation was anti-war, and I jumped on the bandwagon. It was “cool” and trendy to be anti-war, when, in fact we didn’t really understand the issues well enough to make a fully informed decision, just like these young Koreans today.
Fortunately history proved us right. It was a proper, righteous cause after all, but what did we know? We were just kids. Unfortunately, this is not the case today in Korea.
Historically, following the assassination of the most popular president since Washington, this was the beginning of the age of disenchantmant. We channeled it into the naive optimism of the 1950s and 1960s, which reconstituted itself as the youth counterculture of sex, drugs and rock and roll - and liberal protests. We thought we were the chosen ones with all the answers abd that “tune in, drop out, turn on” was something profound. In fact it was adolescent self-absorption.
How closely this parallels Korea today. The hopes of the great populist presidency of Roh Mu Hyun having ended in utter failure, a disenchanted nation elects a Nixon-like conservative, and the self-absorbed youth rise up in defiance. Instead of the haze of sex, drugs and rock and roll, this time its the haze of the internet, but it is essentially the same phenomenon of a self-absorbed youth culture seeking to channel the optimism of the past into a culture of protest.
If this is indeed Korea’s 1960s, we can pretty much predict where things are going - the rise of a new conservative era.
However, there are also strong indications that this may not be the case, as Korea is a lot less economically, socially and politically stable. Historically divisive elements still have the ability to undermine progress and send Korea back into Depression. Only time will tell.
In my analysis above, just substitute the “counter culture” for the “internet culture” and we have essentially the American youth of the 1960’s all over again. Of course, this is only a parallel, but it sure is an interesting one. Modern technology, like the drugs in the US have been suddenly introduced to a generation that is little prepared to handle it. Internet abuse in Korea parallels drug abuse in the US. The aftermath in the US was utban blight and an increased crime rate, from which the US eventually recovered.
Today, US crime rates have dropped precipitously, and NYC is the safest US large city. The age wave is one factor, along with the element of increased emotional maturity. Hopefully, this can happen in Korea but the question is: how much worse does it have to get before things improve?
Will today’s youth grow up to be Korea’s new Reaganites, ala Michael J. Fox’s role as Alex Keaton in the sitcom “Family Ties”, in which the mellow 1960s clash with the conservative 1980s - the generation gap in reverse? That would be good for Korea.
Just some food for thought.
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