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Category: Anti-Americanism

May 12, 2010

Mad Cow Revisionism

The Hankyoreh reacts to comments by President Lee by reinventing the Mad Cow riots of 2008: During a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, President Lee said, “It has been two years since the candlelight vigil demonstrations and although many suppositions proved untrue, not one of those intellectuals or medical sector figures who participated back then has engaged in any reflection. The president also said, “Without reflection, there is no development of society. He added, “I would like to say that it is...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea
April 12, 2010

Just for the Paulbots: Why the U.S. Army Should Leave South Korea

Even an imbecile like Ron Paul accidentally happens on the truth now and then. And while the election of Lee Myung Bak has reduced the degree to which South Korea actively undermines U.S. policy toward North Korea, the continued existence of Kaesong and Kumgang up to this moment refutes any suggestion that South Korea has really joined it, either, or restored South Korea as a bona fide U.S. ally on a global or regional scale, or tapped into South Korea’s...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea
March 26, 2010

Don’t Know Much About History

Just the latest example of historical myopia from the kids in South Korea. As the university was announcing the plans, the Chosun Ilbo reported a Gallup poll in Korea that showed 62.9 percent of teens and 58.2 percent in their 20s did not know when the Korean War broke out. Also, only 43.9 percent of those surveyed said North Korea is to blame for starting the Korean War, with the figure among teenagers 38 percent and 36 percent for 20-somethings....

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Education/Korean History/Korean War/U.S. & Korea
February 2, 2010

Christopher Hitchens on Brian Myers’s “The Cleanest Race”

Hitchens writes: All of us who scrutinize North Korean affairs are preoccupied with one question. Do these slaves really love their chains? The conundrum has several obscene corollaries. The people of that tiny and nightmarish state are not, of course, allowed to make comparisons with the lives of others, and if they complain or offend, they are shunted off to camps that–to judge by the standard of care and nutrition in the “wider” society–must be a living hell excusable only...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Books & Films/Korean Society/Propaganda/Racism
August 18, 2009

Kim Dae Jung, Fallen Liberator (1925-2009)

A few days ago, a well-informed reader and commenter on this site informed me that former President Kim Dae Jung would soon pass on, yet the time proved inadequate for me to work out my own internal conflicts about Kim, or “DJ” as many called him. Maybe Kim’s contradictory legacy just isn’t amenable to mutual reconciliation. Much will be said in the coming days — deservedly so — of DJ’s role in democratizing the South. Less will be said of...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/North-South/South Korea/Sunshine
May 5, 2009

South Korea: Always There When They Need Us

South Korea, whose main contribution to the war in Afghanistan so far has been to pay the Taliban a $20 million ransom, has ruled out sending troops there to help fight them. Who still thinks that the unsound fundamentals of the US-ROK alliance have suddenly renewed under President Lee, or doubts that Lee’s decision was an acknowledgement of the anti-American sentiments of South Korean voters, sentiments that can only remain latent for so long?  Who still thinks that Obama’s election...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea
February 10, 2009

Being Loved Is Overrated

Good morning, America — the world hates you slightly less! They took a poll shortly after Obama’s election: Views of the US showed improvements in Canada, Egypt, Ghana, India, Italy and Japan. But far more countries have predominantly negative views of America (12), than predominantly positive views (6). Most Europeans show little change and views of the US in Russia and China have grown more negative. On average, positive views have risen from 35 per cent to 40 per cent,...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Europe/Geopolitics
February 5, 2009

S. Korea Finally Ends Subsidies to Violent ‘Civic’ Groups

Drink a toast to President Lee for this one: The government cut financial aid to non-profit organizations by half this year. Civic groups hosting or participating in illegal violent demonstrations will have their aid scrapped, and the government has asked the National Police Agency for background checks. [Chosun Ilbo] One of the most infuriating things the Roh government did was to subside extremist groups that engaged in violence, including violent demonstrations against U.S. installations. Why any government would subsidize violent...

Categories Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column
January 23, 2009

As KCTU Calls for ‘All Out War,’ Rally Attendance Declines

The thugs at the Korean Confederation of trade unions see opportunity in their country’s bad economic times, reports the sympathetic Hankyoreh: The KCTU plans to launch an “all out war” against the Lee administration in February, since it has again made known its intention to have the ruling Grand National Party pass revisions to laws on irregular workers and the minimum wage in the extraordinary National Assembly session scheduled for that month. The KCTU plans to launch its offensive with...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/Korean Society/The Fifth Column
January 16, 2009

FTA Prospects Still Bleak

You know, with all of the anti-American falsehoods some Koreans proliferated before the FTA was signed, I thought the entire effort was more trouble than it was worth even before the beef riots, also inspired by asinine libel, and largely attended by people so stupid as to legitimize the issue of reproductive licensing. Then came the recent parliamentary brawls: And for a moment, South Korea blessed a troubled world with the gift of laughter. (If you polled Koreans about how...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea
September 30, 2008

Korean Kids Face Twin Perils: Poisoned Chinese Milk, Moms Who Use them as Human Riot Shields

Update, 12/08: Here’s how history will record this whole ridiculous episode. BY NOW, WE KNOW THAT THERE WAS NEVER ANY SCIENTIFIC SUBSTANCE BEHIND all of those “Mad Cow” protests in Korea over the imports of U.S. beef.  So why so little protest over melamine contamination in food imported from China poses an actual, no-sh*t health risk to Korean kids who drink powdered milk?   It might even be a greater risk to the health of Korean kids than strapping them...

Categories Anti-Americanism/China & Korea/Korean Society/The Fifth Column
August 20, 2008

It’s What’s for Dinner!

Even in Seoul: Resumed supplies of controversial U.S. beef are already second most popular in the Korean imported beef market.  According to quarantine data by the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service on Monday, a total of 4,439 tons of U.S. beef passed Korea’s quarantine inspection from July 1 onwards. During that period, Korea imported beef from four nations. Australian beef accounted for 60.2 percent or 12,753 tons from a total of 21,184. The U.S. came second with 20.9 percent...

Categories Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea
August 17, 2008

What Ranch Country Thinks of Korea’s Beef Protests

Update, 12/08: Here’s how history will record this whole ridiculous episode. As Korea heaves a meek “never mind” to a national crisis based on exposed falsehoods and manipulated by an  anti-democratic fifth column, American Korea-watchers may be tempted to  assume that the episode passed without being noticed by most Americans.  That’s not a safe thing to assume for my part of the country, the part that produces most of that beef.  If you’re not from that part of the country,...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea
August 11, 2008

The Freedom of the State’s Press to Deceive the People Shall Be Abridged

[Updated below] In the wake of a court’s decision ordering a retraction of a distorted, sloppy, and  false  MBC report that triggered massive anti-government protests, Lee Myung Bak is moving to clean house.   A principled approach would be to ask why Korea’s government (or for that matter, ours) is in the business of broadcasting the news anyway and just saw off this vestigial limb.  Instead, Lee is being Lee and conducting a purge. The shakeup culminated on Friday at national...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Censorship/Korean Society/Media Criticism/The Fifth Column
July 31, 2008

Court Orders MBC to Broadcast a Retraction on Mad Cow Report

A Seoul civil court on Thursday found an influential MBC report on U.S. beef health risks “wrong” and ordered the major broadcaster to air a correction, upholding the government’s complaint over the critical coverage.    “PD Notepad should broadcast a correction of its wrong piece on mad cow disease,” Judge Kim Sung-gon of the Seoul Southern District Court said in the verdict. The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries raised a complaint against the popular MBC current affairs program,...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Censorship/Korean Society/Media Criticism
July 29, 2008

In Seoul, ‘Mad Sheep’ Protests Descend into Radical Violence

Update, 12/08: Here’s how history will record this whole ridiculous episode. The herd has gotten leaner, and meaner:  Around the Seorin Rotary in Jongno, another 80 protesters besieged a traffic police officer and an auxiliary police officer from Jongno Police Station, and stole three two-way radios. Demonstrators also broke the windows of a police bus in front of the Samsung Tower, and flattened tires. Two police officers were taken to the Boshingak Pavilion, had their shirts taken off, and were...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/Korean Society/The Fifth Column
June 28, 2008

Mad Sheep Disease

Update, 12/08: Here’s how history will record this whole ridiculous episode. It is an inviolable rule of today’s South Korea that all social movements will eventually become violent and anti-American.  So inevitably, a movement  that was, at first,  ostensibly about food safety has descended into a violent anti-American riot, with protestors ransacking the offices of newspapers that don’t  echo the street’s bleat.   I’d love to know a little more about who  the shepherds are: Junior Naver, the children’s site of...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/Korean Society