Great Video, and Other News   2008-06-15 07:06

A Korean-American man in Los Angeles, named Jay Kim, has put together a fantastic 25-minute video clip in English about what's going on in Korea now. You can find it in both MySpace Video and Google Video. We recommend everyone to watch it, as it not only talks about the current beef crisis but also provides information about numerous other problems that President Lee Myung-Bak has brought upon himself since last December. To be sure, the narrator's language might a little on the dirty side for those of you who are high-minded; but heck, anyone would be forced to use a few "F" words if he or she were in our situation!

Professor Paul Krugman of Princeton University wrote a column on the New York Times yesterday about what the protests in Korea mean for food safety in the U.S. In case anyone is still wondering why on earth Koreans are mad about U.S. beef, keep in mind the fact that Lee Myung-Bak's agreement with George W. Bush on April 18 permits the import of all sorts of beef products which are not normally for sale in the U.S. due to health concerns. If food safety in the U.S. is in such bad shape as Professor Krugman suggests, imagine how bad it can get in Korea!

Meanwhile, protests continue as usual in Seoul and other major cities. Somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 citizens gathered in Seoul last night with candles in their hands, both in the downtown area and in Yeouido. The police is again becoming more aggressive after a couple of days of relative peace; but the People are showing no intention of backing up. If the President is hoping that we'll just get exhausted and stop protesting after a while -- as sources close to him have suggested a number of times -- then he is mistaken. As university students finish their exams this month, and as high school students also begin their summer holidays in a few weeks' time, protests are only expected to grow.

Pro-government demonstrations are also being held in several places, though the number of participants does not compare at all to that of our massive candlelight vigils. In yesterday's report we talked about the Agent Orange Veterans Association and the suspicions surrounding it. But there's another noteworthy group, which doesn't look as suspicious: conservative Christians.

Conservative Christians have been the only non-military-related group to support President Lee so far. Revs. Kim Jin-Hong and Seo Gyeong-seok, two of the Korean church's prominent leaders, led a pro-government rally yesterday, saying that our candlelight protests disturb the rule of law and hurt the economy. (See picture at bottom left; strange, they don't have any religious agenda on their pickets!) When it comes to hurting the economy, they may have hit upon something true; the Cargo Union's strike has brought the country's entire shipping industry and a large part of international trade to a grinding stop since Friday, and some of the issues we're protesting about are also on the Cargo Union's agenda. But most of us who are out there holding candles have nothing to do with the Cargo Union. Most of us are just concerned about food safety, health care, and numerous other issues that have a direct bearing upon our daily lives. if that's going to hurt the economy, so be it. What good is a strong economy if you're not healthy enough to enjoy it? Besides, we have already stressed in one of our early posts, in a democracy, "rule of law" means the rule of the People's law. A President who is all too willing to build a wall between the People and himself has no right to make law. If the elders of the church have forgotten that, we'd tell them to go back and look up the meaning of democracy.

A few other Christians, however, held demonstrations against the pro-government group. (See picture at bottom right.) The young pastor holds a picket which reads, "Revs. Kim and Seo: we are ashamed of you." President Lee Myung-Bak identifies himself as a conservative Christian, and he has a large following among conservative Christians. This fact has given Christianity in Korea a bad name of late. But obviously, not all Christians think well of Lee's policies. A lot of the protesters are Christians too. Religious leaders should ask themselves where their allegiance truly lies. Are they really doing what they think God wants them to do, or are they only trying to hide behind the President, a mere human being?

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