I Suppose Hani 21 Has Never Heard of Godwin’s Law

by Robert Koehler on August 28, 2008

in Korean Media, South Korea

Even for a magazine so dumb it once quoted me on its cover, this is completely retarded.

What’s next? The Weekly Chosun running a cover of DP chairman Chung Sye-kyun next to Joseph Stalin?

Don’t suppose Jewish groups would appreciate the comparison, either.

(HT to reader)

{ 49 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Netizen Kim August 28, 2008 at 2:06 am

Let’s face it. Highly nationalistic East Asians find Hitler fascinating for some reason. Get over it.

2 Zonath August 28, 2008 at 2:16 am

What’s next? The Weekly Chosun running a cover of DP chairman Chung Sye-kyun next to Joseph Stalin?

Actually, I believe plans are already in the works to photoshop up a depiction of Park Geun-hye in a three-way with Mussolini and Tojo. Just don’t say you heard it from me.

3 user-81 August 28, 2008 at 2:37 am

At least the Hankyoreh recognizes that Hitler was bad. The issue is that Koreans and much of the rest of East Asia doesn’t treat him as a taboo in the same way Europe and North America does.

4 R. Elgin August 28, 2008 at 3:35 am

Pathetic . . . the Hankyoreh really sullies their already dubious reputation by pulling boners like this. Their might be more truth in their cover if they had used a space alien instead.

5 slim August 28, 2008 at 3:46 am

Nothing good ever comes from the Hankyoreh. Put Putin in such a photo and they might be on to something…

6 cm August 28, 2008 at 3:47 am

Lee Myung Bak pissing off the Socialists and Communists, so much so that they compare him with Hitler. Hmmm… Lee must be doing something right.

7 bumfromkorea August 28, 2008 at 4:17 am

This is a prime example of where the reality has become so absurd, it caught up with the concept of satire. If you saw the magazine cover without explanation that it is actually real, what would you have thought? The Onion-esque interpretation of the appalling standards of Korean journalism, right?

Christ, that’s a scary thought.

8 iheartblueballs August 28, 2008 at 4:30 am

Highly nationalistic East Asians find Hitler fascinating for some reason.

So that reason eludes you, does it?

9 mizar5 August 28, 2008 at 4:36 am

user-81: “At least the Hankyoreh recognizes that Hitler was bad.”

I was goint to point that out myself. This is a long belated sign of progress.

10 mizar5 August 28, 2008 at 4:47 am

How about Hitler in a mad cow costume?

11 bulgasari August 28, 2008 at 5:55 am

During the ‘beef’ protests the Hankyoreh published a cartoon comparing police behavior at that time to that of the military in Kwangju in 1980, which was an apt comparison of course; we all remember the paratroopers running around in front of the kyobo building cracking skulls with batons, bayoneting protesters and firing into unarmed crowds with M16s. It’s unsurprising that the Hanky has come up with an equally apt comparison once again.

12 seouldout August 28, 2008 at 6:01 am

What a boring photoshop. Should have used this photo instead. Just clicky photoshop’s shrink-head button to maximize LMB’s adorability.

13 Brian August 28, 2008 at 6:39 am

Last week they had a political cartoon with LMB as Hitler overseeing a concentration camp housing some of his enemies.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti.....05731.html

14 Billy August 28, 2008 at 6:40 am

Wow, is anyone in charge of thought at that magazine?

@10: that would be fucking hilarious, but only if he was being cuddled in the laps of Bush and 2MB.

15 JohnT August 28, 2008 at 7:38 am

And you say expats are hypocrites Nutizen Kim.

Yet your draft dodging ass will complain about Japanese politicians visiting the Yasukuni Shrine.

Why does the Korean media insist on making Koreans look like retards?

16 Inkevitch August 28, 2008 at 8:33 am

Every time there is a new sporting star (even though they have achieved nothing) they are compared to the greatest, you know like Messi with Maradonna. So this is on the same scale comparing a conservative leader of a country with the ultimate conservative leader of a country. Who here hasn’t seen the UC Berkley posters with George Bush next to hitler, or George Bush in Nazi paraphanalia? Yes it is not some mainstream media, but there probably is some popular left wing manifests with the same photoshops.

Obviously I haven’t read the article, but maybe they are just alluding to the fact that his reforms will push through development. Or they are saying his canal could be as integral to Korea as the autobahn is to Germany? Probably not.

Brian’s radar for Nazi imagery is a good as gbevers for anything dokdo related.

17 Austin August 28, 2008 at 9:25 am

Funny about the left, Uncle Joe Stalin was a good guy, Pol Pot is just misunderstood, Mao a great reformer, yet Western leaders who don’t engage in mass murders, and fundamentally follow the rule of law, are reviled.

18 Tripod August 28, 2008 at 9:25 am

#4,

I’m not sure it wasn’t a calculated move.

From now on, it would be very easy for them to paint a government audit as an attack on freedom of the press.

19 Tripod August 28, 2008 at 9:27 am

“Don’t suppose Jewish groups would appreciate the comparison, either.”

Yeah, comparing LMB to Hitler, if anything, is making light of Hitler’s crimes.

20 wjk, 검은 머리 외국인 August 28, 2008 at 9:45 am

how is it draft dodging if ROK military law says,

1/ US citizens not required.
2/ Half Koreans not required.

etc?

JohnT, I want you to drink your own urine tonight.

I am told one of the late Prime Ministers of India used to drink one cup daily, claiming it gave him, power that normal individuals do not have. It was a widely known fact. He lived up to 90.

But, I want you to do it, so that it will substitute for me pissing on you.

Preferably, give it a Korean flavor. Drop a piece of kimchi in it.

21 wjk, 검은 머리 외국인 August 28, 2008 at 9:46 am

shaken, not stirred.

22 Renato August 28, 2008 at 10:00 am

“…they are compared to the greatest, you know like Messi with Maradonna…”

Maradona? Greatest? In soccer or smoking pot? Oh, I assume the second one…just to make sure you are not comparing him with Pelé.

23 user-81 August 28, 2008 at 10:24 am

“Yet your draft dodging ass”

When/how was it established that Netizen Kim is a draft-dodger?

24 Inkevitch August 28, 2008 at 10:34 am

User-81, it should be clear that all gyopos are.

25 user-81 August 28, 2008 at 10:37 am

You are being sarcastic, right?

26 Inkevitch August 28, 2008 at 10:54 am

I am, not sure he is.

27 Alejandro Marivosa August 28, 2008 at 11:10 am

Renato: That’s part 2 of Godwin’s Law. No one shall ever be compared to Pele.

28 Tripod August 28, 2008 at 11:14 am

“I am told one of the late Prime Ministers of India used to drink one cup daily, claiming it gave him, power that normal individuals do not have. It was a widely known fact. He lived up to 90.”

No thank you. Besides, my grandfather exercised regularly throughout his life…He lived to be 95. Had he not been a smoker, he probably would have live to be 105.

29 Tripod August 28, 2008 at 11:15 am

#22,

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Any self respecting soccer/football fan knows Maradona’s drug of choice is cocaine.

30 madar August 28, 2008 at 11:41 am

#16

Actually Hitler being right wing is a nice piece of historical repackaging. He was actually on the left of the political spectrum. His party was the National Socialists. They had controlled wages in factories, lots of welfare, public health care, child support, housing assistance available for anyone of proper ethnic origin.

Now I am usually more left leaning in my politics, but repackaging Hitler as right wing was a nice piece of spin doctoring by the left. Basically they repackaged him, stating that anyone into war, dictatorship, or extreme racism must be on the right politically. But if you look at all his governments policies, not just the crazy evil shit the everyone sees right away, this was a left leaning government that was totally evil.

31 Sonagi August 28, 2008 at 11:59 am

Even for a magazine so dumb it once quoted me on its cover

What was the quote?

32 Tripod August 28, 2008 at 12:05 pm

#30,

Obviously, ‘left wing’ and ‘right wing’ are little more than gross generalizations.

33 bumfromkorea August 28, 2008 at 12:10 pm

Considering how frequently and meaninglessly the word “conservatives” “right-wing” “left-wing” “liberals” are being thrown around in the American politic arena, can anyone even make sense of any of that crap?

34 Robert Koehler August 28, 2008 at 12:27 pm

#31: “한국 사회는 좀 미친 것 같다”

Granted, it’s an eye-catching quote, made referring to English education attitudes:

http://news.naver.com/main/rea.....0000016890

35 Ryan August 28, 2008 at 12:38 pm

Did you frame it? No joke.

36 Robert Koehler August 28, 2008 at 12:39 pm

Nope. Don’t even think I have a copy.

37 Renato August 28, 2008 at 1:16 pm

Tripod: my bad…always trying to make things not that ugly… :-)

38 Burma Bob August 28, 2008 at 2:10 pm

Christ. Apparently the Hanky is run by people far too young to remember the good old days of Park Chung Hi and the generals who followed him.

If this were the “5th Republic” under Shiny Head Chun, all of the protesters would still be on extended vacations at a series of special camps somewhere in the wilds of Kangweon-do. LMB should let it slip that maybe the 삼청 교육대’s weren’t such a bad idea after all.

39 Tripod August 28, 2008 at 2:38 pm

#38,

The only bad dictator is a foreign one, I guess.

40 Michael August 28, 2008 at 6:10 pm

Damn that is retarded :)

41 virtual wonderer August 29, 2008 at 2:11 am

You know… on the cover of the National Enquirer, you expect a picture of a baby gorilla in the arms of Elvis.

dang… marmot, you really said this–>
“미국 고등학생들은 매일 놀기만 하고 범죄를 저지르니까 무조건 미국 제도가 좋다고는 생각하지 않는다.”

I wonder if this is translator “error” or just “sexed up” editing. That’s sloppy….

42 virtual wonderer August 29, 2008 at 2:11 am

come to think of it, do people really call you, “Quellah”?

43 mizar5 August 29, 2008 at 3:07 am

Highly inappropriate. Hirohito would have been a better choice.
Or if they were actually aiming for something “retarded”, how about Kim Jeong Il?

44 CactusMcHarris August 29, 2008 at 8:08 am

Is the translation of Robert’s quote

‘Korean society seems a little crazy.’

Thanks – my Korean has been rusted.

45 bumfromkorea August 29, 2008 at 8:14 am

You got it. I’m guessing the context was “Korean society seems a little crazy for English education”, if I remember correctly.

46 NES August 29, 2008 at 7:41 pm

Mizar, you forgot to declare, “argumentum ad Hitlerum” or “reductio ad Hitlerum.”

Get back on your game, man!

47 Robert Koehler August 29, 2008 at 8:01 pm

#41: Not a translator error — the discussion was conducted in Korean. Not an editor error, either.

Or in other words, yes, I really said that.

Just trying to point out that there are advantages to forcing your kids to study all day long, namely, if they’re too busy studying, they’re too busy to other things. Sure, the Korean public education system has its problems, but I’ll take it any day of the week over the American one.

48 Brian August 29, 2008 at 10:40 pm

16

Heh, I’ll take that as a compliment!

49 Chong S. Kim August 30, 2008 at 10:35 pm

brian, so what is the problem with a picture of 2mb juxtaposed with that of hitler with the heading of “prelude to fascism”? must 2mb or anyone kill 6 million jews to be pictured with hitler?

jews would care about 2mb with hitler; other than to think that someone thinks of 2mb as devil incarnate–though i wouldn’t give 2mb that much credit. he is just a misplaced merchant with his religion on the sleeve. show me a self-righteous and self-professed man of religion, and i will show you an incompetent hypocrite.

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