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Largest protest in Korean history, demanding for President Park's resignation

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EVOL 100%

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Aljazeera: South Korea: Seoul rally urges Park Geun-hye to resign

The Guardian: Tens of thousands march demanding South Korean president Park Geun-Hye resign

The News 21: 역대 최대 규모 100만 '촛불집회'...'박근혜 퇴진' 외쳐

The background of these protests: The Irrational Downfall of Park Geun-Hye

Choice quotes:

As it turned out, Choi Soon-sil owned Park Geun-hye just as much as her father did. Peddling the presidential influence, Choi extorted tens of millions of dollars from Korea's largest corporations. When they found a small and profitable company, Choi's cronies would straight-up steal it, threatening the owner of the company with the company's destruction and personal harm. More importantly, Choi effectively controlled the presidential power. Every day, Choi would receive a huge stack of policy briefs from the presidential residence to discuss with her inner circle--an illustrious group that included Choi's gigolo (no, really) and a K-pop music video director (I'm serious.) Choi would receive ultra-confidential information detailing secret meetings between South and North Korean military authorities. Choi would receive in advance the budget proposal of more than $150 million for the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, and distributed them to her friends' projects. Choi went around saying North Korea would collapse by 2017 according to the spirits that spoke to her, and the Park Geun-hye administration may have set its North Korea policy based on this claim.

For years, Park's aides complained about the mysterious off-line person to whom the president would send her draft speeches--when the drafts returned, the professionally written speeches were turned into gibberish. We now know that one of Choi Soon-sil's favorite activities was to give comments on the presidential speeches. Even the famous Dresden speech, in which Park Geun-hye outlined her administration's North Korea policy, had a number of markups from Choi Soon-sil. The aides who dug too deep into the relationship between Park and Choi were dismissed and replaced with those close to Choi, to a point that Choi's personal trainer became a presidential aide. No, really. I wish I were joking.

...

Meanwhile, Korean people's collective heads exploded. As discussed earlier, it takes quite a bit for Korean politics to shock the Korean people. Having survived a particularly tumultuous modern democratic history, Korean people may be the world's most cynical consumers of politics. But this. Even the most cynical Koreans were not ready for this.

At first, there was a tiny bit of perverse relief, as all the bizarre actions of Park Geun-hye administration suddenly began to make sense. Why did the president only hold just three press conferences in the first four years of her administration? Why does the president always speak in convoluted sentences that make no sense? Why did the president fly off the handle and sue the Japanese journalist who claimed that she was with Choi Soon-sil's husband while the ferry Sewol was sinking in 2014, drowning 300 school children? Why did the ruling party randomly host a shamanistic ritual in the halls of the National Assembly? Ohhhh, the relief went. Now it all makes sense.

But this brief relief soon gave way to the terrifying realization: actually, it does not make sense. None of this makes any sense.

In an ordinary case of political corruption, the politician is in it for himself. At most, the politician is doing it for his family, or other rich people who may end up helping him later. Obviously, corruption is bad. But this type of self-interested corruption at least gives some measure of predictability. We all know what self-interest looks like. Even though we would prefer that our politicians are not corrupt, at least we know how corrupt politicians behave.

ut not with Park Geun-hye. Her corruption was not self-interested at all. If anything, her corruption was self-sacrificing in favor of Choi Soon-sil. Among the numerous revelations, I personally found this the most pathetic: Park Geun-hye gave Choi a sizable budget to purchase the presidential wardrobe, and Choi embezzled most of it. Instead of purchasing the clothes that befitted a head of state, Choi outfitted Park Geun-hye with crappy clothes that she had her cronies made with subpar material. There is a video of Choi's staff smoking and drinking while eating fried chicken, right next to the suit meant for Park Geun-hye. At one point, one of the staff members handled the suit without even wiping chicken grease from his hands, while breathing smoke onto the clothes. Park Geun-hye would wear this suit on her presidential visit with Xi Jinping. For accessories, Choi gave Park the cheap leather purses and clutches that her gigolo designed. This could not have possibly escaped Park's notice. Even assuming the unlikely possibility Park Geun-hye might not have had the discernment to know firsthand (unlikely because she grew up in the lap of luxury,) the obvious cheapness of Park's clothes and bags even made the news. Yet nothing came of it. Choi Soon-sil dressed Park Geun-hye liked an unwanted doll, and Park, the president of the country, did not care.

Finally change coming to this godforsaken country? I feel really bad that I'm not out there right now
 

Alienfan

Member
If Trump starts reducing minorities rights I'd expect (hope) for a similar gathering, although the VP would have to go too
 

Apollo

Banned
This would had been Clinton...These ppl are there for the woman's corruption. Anyways imagine being in the front of that crowd and needing to turn around and go home and having to walk through all that.
 

MGrant

Member
This would had been Clinton...These ppl are there for the woman's corruption. Anyways imagine being in the front of that crowd and needing to turn around and go home and having to walk through all that.

What?

Also, a modal verb is followed by the infinitive.
 

Peru

Member
Good to see various rights groups out there too, gay rights, women's rights, labor unions. Here's some feminists styling themselves 'hell femis' (adopting a MRA derogatory term as their own)

 

Xe4

Banned
This would had been Clinton...These ppl are there for the woman's corruption. Anyways imagine being in the front of that crowd and needing to turn around and go home and having to walk through all that.
No, it wouldnt. If you knew anything abut Clibton, or the situation in NK, you'd know this isn't the case.

Clinton's "corruption" is Republican hogwash, and that's provable too, since Clinton is the most open candidate in history (albeit mostly not by her choosing).

On topic, I'm glad. I never liked Park, she seemed far too much like her dictator father. Far too aggregsive foreign policy wise, which I suppose is invitbe to some extent with an enemy on your border. Still, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
This would had been Clinton...These ppl are there for the woman's corruption. Anyways imagine being in the front of that crowd and needing to turn around and go home and having to walk through all that.

You can go ahead and remove her female status from the equation. Park being revealed as a puppet of a cult organization is so conclusive that essentially the entire country is now against her. This would be the same regardless of gender. It's an exceptional "caught red handed" moment for a politician.

edit: now that I re-read this, I think you were going for more of a Clinton's corruption = Park's corruption (which is also wrong). I was reading an anti-woman sentiment into your post, but I think I misread.
 

EVOL 100%

Member
This would had been Clinton...These ppl are there for the woman's corruption. Anyways imagine being in the front of that crowd and needing to turn around and go home and having to walk through all that.

Not really.

If Clinton turned out to be controlled by the daughter of a cult leader who controlled her for decades, claiming to be able to speak with her dead mother then yes you have a point
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Not really.

If Clinton turned out to be controlled by the daughter of a cult leader who controlled her for decades, claiming to be able to speak with her dead mother then yes you have a point

I think the correct analogy for America would be if they found Putin's cellphone with marching orders for Trump that he had already followed.
 

Madness

Member
If Trump starts reducing minorities rights I'd expect (hope) for a similar gathering, although the VP would have to go too

Difference being though, half the country wants Trump to exactly that. Here, almost the entirety of South Korea is against Park and her corruption/weird cult stuff.
 

eot

Banned
Come on, this is a serious event. Don't turn a thread about SK into your damn election. You have plenty of threads for that
 
I remember reading about the situation on that Ask A Korean blog. Absolute madness. The concept of being complacent with normal corruption hits close to home.

Difference being though, half the country wants Trump to exactly that. Here, almost the entirety of South Korea is against Park and her corruption/weird cult stuff.
More like ~20 percent of the population thinks they want that, or they think they're okay with that, so long as he does (insert single issue here).

South Korea is more homogeneous than the U.S. in a lot of ways, so a concensus is probably easier to reach for the population. Most people in the U.S. don't want to experience the results Putin controlling the U.S. president. A fifth of the country was willing to vote against their best interests and those of the country's.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
I hope this happens for Trump when he assumes office. I really do. Without the violence of course. And that is a lot of people, must be a bad leader.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I remember reading about the situation on that Ask A Korean blog. Absolute madness. The concept of being complacent with normal corruption hits close to home.


More like ~20 percent of the population thinks they want that, or they think they're okay with that, so long as he does (insert single issue here).

South Korea is more homogeneous than the U.S. in a lot of ways, so a concensus is probably easier to reach for the population. Most people in the U.S. don't want to experience the results Putin controlling the U.S. president. A fifth of the country was willing to vote against their best interests and those of the country's.

I agree with your broader point, but I'd say it's not that Korea is homogenous so much as America is uniquely polarized.

Korea has its hard divisions between left and right. Consensus is actually very hard. The two sides hate each other. Typical. But they found the smoking gun which was so conclusive that even diehard supporters of Park had to admit their women was corrupt.

It's America that is uniquely odd on this point. If there was hard evidence that one politician in America were corrupt, there'd be a much large percentage of deniers.
 

Owari

Member
Interesting that no one protested Samsung when they were found to be doing sketchy shit in league with this president.
 

Savitar

Member
Wow that is really a lot of people........yeah everyone has said it already but wow.

2016 is one hell of a year in politics.
 
What has she done? I don't keep up with South Korean politics so I don't know.

She has been under the total control of a woman whose father was a cult leader who claimed to channel the spirit of the president's dead mother. This woman has stolen over $50m from South Korea with the president's help.
 

Meadows

Banned
Americans, we know it was a crazy election, but please please please stop bringing it into every thread.

On topic: I hope she stands down. What a weird situation :(
 
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