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Alias
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:07 am Post subject: Article: South Korea's Useful Idiots |
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North Korea is the most oppressive regime in the world. Its Stalinist leaders have gutted the nation's industry and starved its people to fund their mad rush to build nuclear weapons. Dissidents are routinely tortured and executed. Even people who merely complain about their meagre rations are sometimes jailed. Still, nearly a majority of voting age young people in democratic South Korea say they would throw their lot in with the Communist North rather than the United States in any conflict between Pyongyang and Washington.
Call it a victory of ethnic solidarity over common sense. Just under 50% of South Koreans between 17 and 23 years of age -- all of whom will be eligible to vote in the 2007 presidential elections -- say that sympathy for their Northern cousins trumps co-operation with the Americans. A further 41% told pollsters they would remain neutral in a putative conflict. Just 12% vowed to stand by South Korea's long-time ally.
Jean-Francois Revel, a French intellectual who has studied the sources of Western Europe's vehement anti-Americanism, likens knee-jerk hatred of the United States to a "disease of the mind," a miasma that seizes its victims so completely "the normal ability to reason is consumed." It is easy enough to identify such a disease among some Canadians of a similar age. Shouting anti-American slogans at rallies and attributing all manner of conspiratorial motives to the U.S. administration on blogs and in graduate seminars is akin to a feel-good parlour game. Such name-calling is ignorant and embarrassing. But at least it isn't dangerous.
North Korea, however, still represents a very real threat to the South. There are still nearly 30,000 American troops on South Korean soil, along with South Korea's own 700,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen, defending against a potential invasion from the North, which has 1.1 million troops. Seoul, the South Korean capital, is still just 12 miles from the demilitarized zone. And the North has never renounced its claim on the South -- a claim that led to the North's invasion in 1950 and to the deaths of 34,000 Americans (and more than 500 Canadians). Indeed, the North and South are still technically at war.
Can the Korean students who insist they would side with the North against the Americans really believe the North would not swoop in immediately, if it could, and strip the South of everything not bolted down -- including people? This is the same country, recall, which kidnapped numerous tourists off Japanese beaches so they could be used as instructors in North Korea.
In just the past six years, against their own best instincts, the Americans have reduced their troop levels in the South, dismantled the 57 tank barriers they had in and around Seoul, and vacated their largest base in the heart of the South's capital. They have done this at the South's request, in order to facilitate the so-called "sunshine policy" of rapprochement and appeasement Seoul has been pursuing towards the North since 1999.
But then, the Americans aren't likely to take out their anger at South Korean students by locking them away in re-education camps or lining them up and shooting them. So they are safe targets for the students' juvenile rage. One can only hope the North collapses under the weight of its own tyranny before South Korea's youth are taught the extent of their folly by North Korean tank treads.
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:22 am Post subject: |
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History and usage
The term is purported to have been coined by Vladimir Lenin to describe those western reporters and travellers who would endorse the Soviet Union and its policies in the West. However, no reference to a communist sympathizer or political leftist as a "useful idiot" was made in the United States until 1948, and not until decades later would the attempts to attribute the phrase to Lenin be made.
Lenin never wrote it in any published document, no one has claimed to have heard him say it first hand, and it contradicts the opinions expressed in Lenin's published documents in reference to the Comintern.
Hmmmmmmm ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 4:28 am Post subject: |
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| Interesting article. But if it was actually the way the article makes it seem, how do you explain that the top 2 presidential candidates are both GNP conservatives? I dont think the results necessarily show that Koreans support NK over the US. I think it points to different interpretations. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:12 am Post subject: |
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Ask anyone here on the board if they believe in free speech. You know what the answer will be. Ask the same people if a student should have the freedom to say 'Screw you, teacher!' and you will get an entirely different response.
My point is, asking Korean students what they would do in a vague and imaginary ideal situation will get one response. Ask them what their reaction would be if the Dear Leader demanded they give up their hand phones and stop sleeping with their girlfriends, and I'd imagine you would get a whole different response. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 6:39 am Post subject: |
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The National Post is not exactly what I would call a credible newspaper.
The National Post wrote:
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Still, nearly a majority of voting age young people in democratic South Korea say they would throw their lot in with the Communist North rather than the United States in any conflict between Pyongyang and Washington.
Call it a victory of ethnic solidarity over common sense. Just under 50% of South Koreans between 17 and 23 years of age -- all of whom will be eligible to vote in the 2007 presidential elections -- say that sympathy for their Northern cousins trumps co-operation with the Americans. A further 41% told pollsters they would remain neutral in a putative conflict. Just 12% vowed to stand by South Korea's long-time ally.
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This is a misrepresentation of what the poll actually asked.
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Almost half of juniors surveyed, who will get their first voting rights in the 2007 presidential election, said in a recent poll that South Korea should side with North Korea if Washington attacks nuclear facilities in the North without Seoul's consent.
In the survey of 1,000 youngsters aged between 18 and 23, conducted by The Korea Times and its sister paper the Hankook Ilbo on Feb. 16-19, nearly 48 percent of respondents said that if the U.S. attacked nuclear facilities in North Korea, Seoul should act on Pyongyang's behalf and demand Washington stop the attack.
But 40.7 percent of them said Seoul should keep a neutral stance in the event of such attacks, while 11.6 percent said South Korea needs to act in concert with the United States.
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(The numbers are close enough that I assume they're talking about the same poll, with the Post rounding the numbers up. The discrepancy in respndents age is likely a result of the different methods of calculating age.)
So, what the poll REALLY asked was what the respondents would want to happen if the US launched an attack on North Korea without consulting the South. And 48% of them said that SK's response should be to demand that the US stop(which the Post describes as "siding with the North").
Note to Americans: There is probably nowhere on the face of the earth right now where a majority of people would endorse the USA attacking another country. And this is likely to remain the case as long as George W. Bush is the American president. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200602/kt2006022117121711950.htm |
That poll has also been significantly misrepresented. The hypothetical question was, would you want ROK to support the US if the US made a unilateral bombing of Yongbyon?
Who in their right mind would say yes to that? |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 9:09 am Post subject: |
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Recently, in answer to a question on a written test, one of my elementary school students wrote:
"I would like to go to North Korea, and kill Kim Jung il because he is a bad president."
This is an exact quote. He's in fourth grade. Please don't flame about his punctuation (comma).
I have never heard any young students express sympathy with North Korea. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 10:51 am Post subject: |
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Fine Young Communists
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SEOUL, South Korea�Dae Sik Yoo, the student body president of Kyung Hee University, is on the lam. Since police can arrest him anywhere but here�they're not allowed on university grounds�Yoo never leaves campus for more than 12 hours. For a wanted man, he looks wholesome, with wire-rimmed glasses, baseball cap, and khaki pants. He could pass for a preppie American student. But when asked about the political opinions that got him into trouble, he sounds more like a North Korean Communist affiliate than a college student in a U.S.-allied country.
"Kim Jong Il is an outstanding leader," says Yoo. "No other country can stand up to the U.S. Only North Korea can."
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Yoo landed on the wanted list for his role as spokesperson for the Hanchongryun, a left-wing student organization notorious for its pro-North Korean views. |
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dogbert
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: Killbox 90210
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| Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Hater Depot wrote: |
Fine Young Communists
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| "Kim Jong Il is an outstanding leader," says Yoo. "No other country can stand up to the U.S. Only North Korea can." |
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The only reason Kim Jong Il can stand up to the U.S. is because the U.S. is not willing to sacrifice millions of Koreans such as Yoo in a war with North Korea. If we were willing to do that, North Korea would not be able to fuel the masturbatory fantasies of greatness of thousands of adolescent male South Koreans as a "tup-peu" nation. |
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jinglejangle
Joined: 19 Feb 2005
Location: Far far far away.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
Recently, in answer to a question on a written test, one of my elementary school students wrote:
"I would like to go to North Korea, and kill Kim Jung il because he is a bad president."
This is an exact quote. He's in fourth grade. Please don't flame about his punctuation (comma).
I have never heard any young students express sympathy with North Korea. |
No doubt he heard that from an older relative. |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:37 am Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
| Hater Depot wrote: |
Fine Young Communists
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| "Kim Jong Il is an outstanding leader," says Yoo. "No other country can stand up to the U.S. Only North Korea can." |
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The only reason Kim Jong Il can stand up to the U.S. is because the U.S. is not willing to sacrifice millions of Koreans such as Yoo in a war with North Korea. |
Yeah, you might be right about that ... so, I guess Koreans everywhere ought to be thankful that their homeland was partitioned and divided for going on 3 generations by some guys sitting in a room in Yalta or somewhere a long time ago.
Um, okay.
On the other hand, he have no compunction against sacrificing a potentially equal number of millions in the ME ... make of that what you will. |
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Harpeau
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Location: Coquitlam, BC
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| Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 10:06 am Post subject: Re: Article: South Korea's Useful Idiots |
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| Alias wrote: |
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| Seoul, the South Korean capital, is still just 12 miles from the demilitarized zone. |
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More like 52 miles. Nothing like twisting polls to missrepresent the news.  [/quote] |
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Wrench
Joined: 07 Apr 2005
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| Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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I say blame the god damn Russians..
Why is it that Koreans are so quick to jump at the throats of Americans but never ever blame the partition of Korea on the Russians. |
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