Reality Check in Seoul and Busan

The conservative crooks won by a landslide in Seoul and Pusan. The big media and justice system cartel virtually buried the progressive movement in South Korea this week. They’ve been working on it since the special interests on the right were forced out of the Blue House in 2017 by the candlelight revolution. Politically motivated prosecutors frame and indict political leaders on the left, and the corrupt right wing media companies broadcast the fabricated charges on a non stop basis. Meanwhile the press-prosecution political collusion intentionally ignores or dismisses the long record of corruption in their own leaders, officials, and candidates. So the dumb young male voters in South Korea's two biggest cities fell for it big time.

They were motivated by the economic dislocation and hardship from the pandemic, the real estate speculation bubble that precludes housing away from parents, preventing new household formation, and the general lack of job opportunity in a legacy neo-liberal economy. Ironically the corruption in the real estate market facilitated by government officials predates the Moon administration. The two winning conservative candidates' own records of self dealing in real estate while in office personify the problem. Emblematic of the political corruption, the former conservative prosecutor general Yoon Seok-yeol’s mother in law was on trial during the campaign for another of her numerous business/real estate scams netting her millions. Why are journalists banned from covering her trial? Why is the trial “secret?” Instead, the sycophantic media blathers about Yoon's deceitful commitment to the "people" and "justice" after he visited with a centenarian philosopher to gain wisdom concerning his future political mission in South Korea. Save the veneration, Yoon's political mission is simple, keeping himself and his corrupt wife and mother-in-law out of prison by grasping at the president's office.

The relatively recent military service of most young South Korean men can’t be discounted either. The anti-communist anti- socialist rhetoric is imbued during universal military service. The media and right wing demagogues branded the democratic administration as commies and reds. This explains the big difference between males and females in the younger voting block. Males from 20 to 39 voted overwhelmingly conservative, the same aged women did not. Women are not subject to universal conscription also generating some resentment by younger males. Perhaps when the men get to their forties, they may develop the wisdom of the current middle aged group, or their current women peers. They didn't think voting for a mayor who opposed free school lunch for grammar school kids was likely to help them with their economic or family needs either.

One can understand why "gold spoon" types with medical and law degrees support the most conservative cartel of "deep seated corrupt vested interests." Why people who can’t find housing or a job to support themselves would vote for their tormentors is explained by the fake reality the media create in conjunction with an unchecked and wildly political justice system.

So the democratic reform movement in South Korea which came to power by means of street demonstrations against the neo-authoritarianism returning in South Korea is on life support at this point. A combination of the big lie strategy, political prosecution of leading people on the left, and the political truism that people vote their pocketbooks, took its toll on the democratic movement today.

The fight isn’t over, the democrats still control the National Assembly. The corruption reforms still need to be implemented, the epidemic needs to be defeated, justice needs to be made impartial. The conservative leadership will spar over who becomes the next presidential candidate. Many are too weak, too unpopular for various reasons. Typically a trio emerges near the campaign season’s end splitting the vote in a way that the presidential candidate with the largest plurality will win. So the democratic party is still in it despite universal pronouncements in western media that they are doomed at this point. Even if the democratic reform movement were pushed out of power in March 2022, the coalition of grass roots movements, unions, student activists, public interest groups, etc, that made the candlelight revolution possible will be back in their element, forcing the corrupt establishment to bend to their numbers on the street.

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Addendum- 4.8

Hol Seu-hyung on his latest program* brought up the use of pro-feminist signals in the failed Park Young-sun democratic campaign for Mayor of Seoul. This he claims was ill considered as the young male demographic is afflicted by a sense of unfairness in their social, political and economic situation. Hol claims Park's campaign feminist tact was a blunder. He then brought up examples of "favoritism" toward women in hiring practices by government agencies, particular the police and other emergency responders. Candidate Park's appeal to women voters had to made based upon the former mayor of Seoul's indiscrete relationship with his office secretary.

Obviously the publicaton of this improper office affair was a political operation by the right. To call it sexual harrassment, assault or rape as it was often portrayed in the media was completely unsubstantiated. But the democrats were faced with the public image problem of the former mayor's poor ethical judgement sullying the office of mayor by his improper relationship with his secretary. ( It appears from witness statements, photos, and her own written record that she pursued the Mayor's affection.) The office affair that brought down the former democratic mayor (resulting in his suicide) was in fact the reason for the Seoul by election. Candidate Park Young-sun had to get the women's vote and she did.

Frustrated young males with economic difficulties and a serious housing problem don't like to hear feminist rhetoric and frame it in a package of unfairness to them, an "il be" meme (see note below). Too bad. I'm doubtful other political journalists on the democratic side are going to buy this analysis. The proper critique is as Hol says, we (young males) voted for the 21st National Assembly. We put the democratic supermajority in power. What did you do for us? Answer, nothing. Other generations such as the current middle aged voters stayed loyal to the democratic party despite the distressing lack of social and economic progress since President Moon was elected. This is because the entrenched special interests on the right, in the media, and opponents inside and outside of government, have been following a scorched earth policy to immobilize the current administration. Hol Seu-hyung said it's a mistake to grant the democratic party the indulgence of that excuse. At the same time, even entertaining the notion that affirmative action for women in the employment sector generates an even obliquely warranted resentment by young males, is also a mistake. If this resentment was successfully exploited by the right, then they should be condemned, not candidate Park or her supporters.

Hol's tactless take on this issue with respect to sexual equality in hiring policy and the inappropriate young male response show an unusual insensitivity not characteristic of him. The enthusiatic and uncritical support of his South Korean viewers in the comments to the video was another distressing element of this program. They were probably mostly male. I hope to see another take on this il be element in the election outcome. This parallels the Trump phenomenon and anti-Asian racism in the US.

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Note: Il be ( 일베저장소- 일간베스트 저장소, 약칭 일베 ) is an internet community in South Korea that appears to share the qualities of Trump's "deplorables" on QAnon. One young democratic pundit recommended a counter strategy in the online gaming community of engaging the misguided young people found there who live in an (addictive) internet virtual reality. I think Hol was trying trying to recommend a similar tact, of sincere engagement, but as a 40ish journalist, he goes a little too far, in discussing the misogynist meme having as some foundation in fact. (There are analogous recommendations by progressives in the US not to denigrate the "deplorables" but to engage them and understand their frustrations with government.) These are the people who gave the PPP the landslide earlier this week. According to this view, they didn't vote for the PPP but rather they voted against alleged democratic party hypocrisy and ineffectiveness. The hypocrisy argument is based upon a virtual reality created by the press-prosecution conspiracy against the democratic party and the politicization of the South Korean judicial processes. The ineffectiveness argument is based upon all sectors of the right, media, justice administration, the Korean medical society, the evangelical community, and the paramilitary and former military zealots, conducting obstructive tactics to paralyze government processes and policies. This is clearly the PPP constituency. Notably, O Se-hun appeared with these elements at a large October 3, 2019 demonstration in Seoul, which labeled Moon Jae-in a dictator and communist and called for his impeachment. This is the il be mantra.