Here Comes the Election!

Update: I’ve been expecting this, and I expect more of it:

There is a fourth reason why the P.P. [the new leftist party that will officially replace Uri this month] will recover considerable support, and it’s the timeless appeal of nationalism, particularly in Korea (ht). The P.P. leaders, Comrade Chung and (especially) Kim Geun Tae, show no sign of any ethical, political, or financial restraints to stop them from setting new lows in crass appeals to those sentiments, to include anti-Americanism and racial hatred. In 2007, expect the post-Roh Korean left to get meaner and more confident in the purience of such appeals, and that will be even more true in 2008 if it becomes an opposition party. By doing so, the P.P. will survive as a major political force, but not without saddling all of Korea with the consequences of more ugly manifestations of Korea at its worst.

We (and Japan) will be on the receiving end of this kind of nationalist incitement because Koreans think we will tolerate it; China will not be on the receiving end of this (although it deserves some very harsh criticism) because Korea now knows that China won’t tolerate it. As emotional and superficial as all of this may seem, it has very real consequences for national policy. The South Korean nationalist media and politicians still do not understand this, or choose not to, or don’t care.

Next up: the Jews! Who else?

Original Post: If you thought the greatest threat facing the Republic of Korea this election year is a genocidal tyrant with nuclear weapons, you were mistaken. The Republic’s Great White Peril turns out to be the GI’s who are keeping the tyrant on his side of the line. Astonishingly, these deviants have an unexplained affinity for going to Hongdae to drink and meet hot Korean chicks during their down time. The horror ….

No word on who is transporting the hot Korean girls to Hongdae, or who is cloaking them in cosmetics, mini skirts, or those sassy tall boots with the fringes.

Your next wrong guess is that this is a law enforcement problem, which is a mistake you wouldn’t make if you’ve been watching how the Korean cops (never) deal with political violence, such as that by Korean labor unions. You can’t deny that boorish behavior, criminal or otherwise, is distasteful regardless of the actor’s ethnicity. Instead, Korea follows the lazy path of collective guilt, which fails to make the distinction between serious (alleged) crimes by a very few, and which may merit serious punishment, and the criminalization of behavior that’s normal and accepted when Koreans do it. Maybe if the soldiers would simply organize, buy some iron pipes, and call themselves a “civic group,” they might even qualify for government funding. Honestly, I have no idea how anyone could write a coherent operational definition of “law and order” in Korea today.

When the media industry that your nation made free turns on you — government-controlled media at that — it is called “being a victim of your own success.” In which case, a rapid USFK withdrawal would obviously remove that threat, and there will be much rejoicing by all involved, especially the soldiers. You have to wonder, then, why the South Korean government is trying so hard to delay even a modest redeployment to Camp Humphreys. It’s as if they so love to hate us that they can’t bear to part with us.

Is any non-Arab people so easily manipulated or cowed as the South Koreans?