Search Results for: KCTU thugs

January 29, 2008

Anju Links for 29 Jan 08

BRING OUT YOUR  NOT-QUITE-DEAD:  “UN agency to conduct its first census since famine killed millions.”  If things don’t quite add up, try looking here. NOT LOOKING GOOD  FOR KEVIN G. HALL:  A reader e-mails a detailed article — co-written by Bradley K. Martin,  no less –that  drives a few 3-inch  sheetrock screws into the coffin of Hall’s piece of work.  If you’re not yet saying “enough already” to all of this, the updated post is  here. DAVID ALBRIGHT, CALL YOUR...

Categories Anju Links
November 13, 2007

Korean Election Update: Lessers Versus Evils

Just over a month before South Korean presidential election, Lee Hoi Chang has announced that he’s  running as an independent candidate.  I have now seen it all.   So can he win?  Hell if I know.  To an observer of long American political campaigns, it’s hard to see how anyone could  enter  a race so late and have a chance of winning it, but this most definitely is not American politics.  Korean politics is famously mercurial; it’s about as exact, empirical,...

Categories Korean Politics
December 5, 2006

The Cons Are Running the Prison: Why Is S. Korea Subsidizing Violence?

[Updated and bumped up]   To the astonishment of absolutely no one, union goons  affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions  are (yet again)  unleashing a wave of  violence: We saw 47 arson and vandalism cases around the nation suspected to have been committed by Korea Cargo Transport Workers’ Union members,” Lee Taek-soon, head of the National Police Agency, said yesterday. “Thirteen cases were reported in North Gyeongsang province, seven in Ulsan and six in Busan.” It would surprise...

Categories Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/The Fifth Column
December 1, 2006

Full Court Press

Roh Moo Hyun is recruiting for a new cadre of proxy censors in his war against a critical press: Continuing his battles with the media, President Roh Moo-hyun sent an e-mail yesterday to about 500,000 government officials, encouraging them take action against any media they believe acted wrongly, including taking them to court. In principle, I’m not opposed to the government having some appropriate way to address its  grievances against inaccurate press coverage.  And this, friends, is not an appropriate...

Categories Censorship/Korean Politics/Miscellaneous
November 30, 2006

Cindy Sheehan, Kim Jong Il, and Me

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. — Martin Luther King, Jr. I will restrain the expression of  views on  Cindy Sheehan herself.  I’m one who makes allowances for the fact that she’s traumatized by her son’s death, an event that quite obviously and understandably blew a few of her circuits.  And while I’m sure that Casey  Sheehan  wouldn’t appreciate his mother’s hard work to render his sacrifice meaningless, I’m just as sure...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column
August 7, 2006

Fifth Column Watch

Conspiracy theories always labor against a presumption of neurotic inspiration, but even paranoid people have real enemies, and some conspirators make the error of supporting such theories with their own words. (In the conspiracy business, Rule Number One is, “Be discreet.”) Recently, I finally got around to compiling some of the public statements by leaders of South Korean labor unions and political groups that would support a reasonable inference that those groups were either willing servants of the North Korean...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
June 30, 2006

Collaborators, You Say?

I’m certainly no expert on those who collaborated to enslave their brothers under fascist tyranny six decades ago. Some may have done genuinely awful things; others may have been “mere” profiteers. Some may have acted more voluntarily than others. The passage of six decades certainly complicates such questions. That’s why there are statutes of limitations. On the other hand, I can’t help but note the absence of any official list with more contemporary application, so here’s my effort at a...

Categories Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column
May 11, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 39: The Korean Malaise, Anti-Americanism & Anti-Anti-Americanism

The bee-man has officially entered his sixteenth minute, and Korea’s fiery gaze has shifted to the violent excesses of the extreme anti-American left — chiefly the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and Hanchongryeon. There is new statistical evidence that the violence of the red guards has triggered a backlash and alienated the silent majority. This occurs just 20 days before a round of local elections that will choose the next mayor of Seoul and the governor of Kyonggi Province, among...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 9, 2006

Roh Moo Hyun, Imperialist Flunkeyist Lackey!

Remember the good old days when only right-wing regimes would call out the Army to battle protestors or haul North Korean sympathizers before military courts? Chew this one slowly. You owe it to yourself to savor this delectable irony. President Roh Moo-Hyun (of the squishy left) is marshaling the power of the state against the radical unions and students (of the bomb-throwing left), many of whom undoubtedly contributed to this razor-thin election in 2002. It seems so very long ago...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Democracy/Korean Law/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 4, 2006

Battle at the Hump: You Can Keep the Place

“During the May 1 North-South Workers’ Rally in Pyongyang, the workers of North and South agreed to unify to carry out the anti-American struggle”¦ The center of that struggle with the United States is Daechu-ri, Pyeongtaek. — Kim Tae-Il, “General Secretary” of the Korea’s largest labor group, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions As predicted, South Korean police have cleared out a group of several hundred local area residents and violent anti-American activists — many from the radical KCTU — who...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
April 10, 2006

The FTA Debate Is Turning Ugly

FTA negotiations will likely magnify “anti-American” sentiments in the short run and unleash a backlash in America. — Balbina Hwang, March 2, 2006 There are really three premises to this post, all of them leading to one conclusion: First, a Korean-American free trade agreement would be a good thing for both countries, but particularly for Korea. Second, despite that being demonstrably the case, the usual suspects see the FTA as an opportunity to ride to power on the shoulders of...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Korean Education/Korean Politics/Media Criticism/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
January 27, 2006

Radical Leftist Union to Represent S. Korean Government Workers

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, whose goons most recently gained infamy with an anti-anti-North Korean protest that blocked the U.S. Ambassador from attending a media interview, will now represent South Korean government workers. The KCTU has a long history of violent and thuggish protests, reflexive anti-Americanism,* and sympathetic dealings with the North Korean regime. The KCTU is the more radical of South Korea’s two largest labor organizations, the other being the Federation of Korean Trade Unions. The Korean Government...

Categories Uncategorized