[Xmca-l] Re: That other political crisis

[David Kellogg]

Thoughtful and care-full as always, Mike. The link you sent wasn't full of
errors, but it also wasn't very full of information: it faithfully
reflected the questions that most people have (Why, for example, should a
friendship between two women be a matter for scandal and street
demonstrations?). It also didn't really answer them.

But maybe this one will (Greg--if you are not following the scandal through
Mark's work on Cheondoism then you might want to give this to your
students):

http://askakorean.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html

Last night I was thinking to myself, with some astonishment, that 2016
represents the first time since 1933 that a major Western country has voted
in a far right government with a violent, extraparliamentary base. When
Marine Le Pen began "Euro-fascism", I had thought it would probably happen
in France or Austria or Switzerland first. The fact that it has happened in
the USA (and that it happened through social media but largely without a
parliamentary "ground game" of the sort that people on this list were
engaged in) astonished me, and I fell asleep thinking that xmca might want
to revisit the PPTization of intellectual arguments, the nature of media
like twitter, and the ways in which Trump's speeches were constructed on
the fly, in order to really understand it. (I keep thinking of his uncanny
ability to end every sentence on a fall, except when he is constructing
a speech act around a vacuum--"I'm not sayin', but I'm just sayin',
y'know?")

But this morning when I woke up I realized that it has happened before, and
that Alfredo can probably tell us a lot about it. Spain, after years of
Francoism, underwent an eight year experiment with social democracy and
then voted in a neo-Francoist party under Aznar. Similarly, South Korea,
after years of murderous repression under the current president's father
and his military academy juniors (Jeon Duhwan and Noh Tae-u, the "Class of
56", who succeeded Bak Jeonghi when he was assassinated) underwent a ten
year experiment with something like social democracy--this coincided with
my own rather carelessly made decision to settle there--before voting in
the current president on a similar neo-authoritarian platform. Something
there is about a frantic petty bourgeoisie that loves a wall.

Mutatis mutandis.

David Kellogg
Macquarie University


On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 4:27 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:

> Having worked until time was up, I have had time to go back and read some
> of what has been discussed.
>
> The outcome of the election is there for all to consider and experience in
> the weeks and months ahead.
>
> I attach an article for those who do not (like me) know much about the
> current political crisis in South Korea. David will correct the errors in
> it i am confident, and it appears to give at least a hint of the turmoil in
> that part of the world.
>
> it can be found here, last time i looked  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/
> 11/06/world/asia/south-koreans-ashamed-over-les-secretive-adviser.html
>
> FYI
>
> mike
>