> While the South Korean government claimed 165 people were killed in the massacre, scholarship on the massacre today estimates 600 to 2,300 victims.
Just for the sake of it, compared it to the widely known chinese tiananmen square massacre, albeit this one has widely varying figures on wikipedia:
> The Chinese Red Cross had given a figure of 2,600 deaths but later denied having given such a figure.[16][17] The Swiss Ambassador had estimated 2,700. Beijing hospital records compiled shortly after the events recorded at least 478 dead and 920 wounded. ...etc
It’s pretty good, you should be able to find it on streaming services.
Happened with tacit approval of the US, that's probably why - since it was ""anticommunist"".
South Korea is a new democracy and sudden impositions of martial law harken back to the 1970s-80s when military rule existed.
Best case, this is a blatant attempt at a self coup d'etat.
Worst case, North Korea actually engaged in war.
That reason would be awful, and most likely the consequences too, but it's not readily obvious to me that the timing would be.
The North marching South would get little to no support from their allies and would be repelled rapidly before returning to the current status quo.
So yes, I am sure. Neither sides allies have any desire to be the agressor. Not to mention that simply starting a war to cling on to power might be the stupidest reason there is to start a war.
What if they didn't do that (at first), but instead (as an intermediate step) annexed the north as a colony with its own economy but South Korean governorship; and then opened said colony to worldwide foreign aid?
This would be very similar to the short-term arrangement negotiated between West Germany and East Germany after the fall of the Berlin wall. For analogous reasons, West Germany didn't want to immediately absorb/unify with East Germany; instead, they held political and military stewardship over East Germany until it could be built back up.
It's one of the richest country in the world, right next to one of the poorest. Unification in any sense at this point is suicide by the South. The misery inflicted upon the southern Koreans will be immeasurable if both countries are unified. The leaders of both Koreas know this.
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Or, alternately, given that literally everything in NK would need to be rebuilt at some point... rather than "swallowing the elephant whole", they could take incremental bites: annex a few miles of North Korea into themselves; revitalize/gentrify that part; repeat. Slowly, over 50 years.
(How? At the end of the war, they'd do a census, figuring out where every NK citizen lived as of the end of the war. Then, for each annexation, anyone already living in the annexed area as of the end of the war, would automatically become a South Korean citizen. Anyone who moved to the area after the end of the war would not, and would instead be required to vacate northward, with the SK government compensating them for the [very low value of the] home they're being displaced from, per eminent domain.)
Of course, any NK citizen would be free to apply at any time for a South Korean visa — just like a citizen of any other country can. They wouldn't be especially prioritized.
And an NK citizen would also be equally free to apply for a visa to move to literally anywhere else — possibly as a refugee. SK would probably encourage this and even assist with it.
Remember that much of the reason North Korea is the way it is currently, is due to active suppression of many types of economic activity that would otherwise be happening naturally. There's a lot of economic "potential energy" in NK waiting to be unleashed — e.g. many NK entrepreneurs currently doing grey-market activity while hiding from the regime, who'd love to become reputable businesses and market their services in the open; many NK workers who'd love to take jobs in the inevitable call centers SK would build there (NK would instantly become to SK as the Philippines is to the US — a country full of native speakers of your language, that you can put in front of phones); etc.
Also, probably one of the first things to happen, as soon as it was allowed to happen, would be that North Korean land-owners would sell their land to South Korean farming conglomerates (at ridiculously low prices); those farming conglomerates would then come in and apply modern agriculture practices, and be growing 100x more food within the year than the NK farmers were able to grow on the same land area.
Yes, by default those SK agro-businesses would be growing for export ("extraction economy"), because SK could pay far more than NK could for the produce. But the NK government could just tax that economic activity — it's not an SK business, after all, but an NK-incorporated subsidiary of an SK business, subject to NK laws. The NK government could then use the tax revenue to turn around and buy the food grown by those businesses, to distribute it in social welfare programs. (Or they could just levy taxes directly in the form of produce, ala historical agrarian-economy taxation systems.)
(Interestingly, there should also be at least some things you can grow cheaply in NK but not SK, due to the latitude difference. SK is parallel to Spain/Greece; while NK is parallel to France/Northern Italy. Agro-businesses love expanding into these alternative growing regions to expand their TAM.)
All these positive things would happen quickly and easily (i.e. within a 3-year period), just by converting North Korea into a capitalist-market-economy + social-welfare state and enabling free trade between NK and SK (and between NK and everywhere else, too.)
By a curious geographical coincidence, neither North Korea nor North China nor North Post-USSR are known for their independent reality-based reporting and I take it as a given that North Korea would never start a war of aggression. If the North should ever march South (again) it will of course be as a completely righteous response against intolerable provocation and aggression from its eternal enemy, as confirmed by media duly approved by Moscow and Beijing.
They're looking more ready and eager to do that by the month, and with the present Global political situation, the respect for current status quo seems to be at a low.
If you perceive the respect (NK has) for current status quo is at a low then it is most likely that NK desperately needs food or fuel for the coming winter, for every other player in the world/region the desire for the status quo is at an all time high.
Obviously none of us know the details yet but there are clearly better possible outcomes than a full on coup.
Makes me think of the Gwangju Uprising in 80s, which happened after martial law was instated, after a military dictator was put in place. IIRC, the US was also involved with the newly installed military junta.
Seems like a coup.
> Yoon’s conservative People Power Party had been locked in an impasse with the liberal opposition Democratic Party over next year’s budget bill.
Yeah, just like in France where the government is expected to fall within the next two days. Not a reason to attempt to force the way: the fact opposition can actually sometimes fulfil its purpose which include blocking a budget is a normal thing in democracy.
This is instead a rejection of the democratic process. I don't know enough about SK's internals to say if the democratic process is already dead because of corruption (as the leader claims), or if the leader is trying to kill the process using corruption as a scape goat - but everyone should strongly lean towards the later.
The longest a French Republic has lasted is 70 years. The fifth republic is today 66 years old. The ordinary can turn into the extraordinary in an afternoon.
No, De Gaulle created the V republic with a military coup [1]. There were troops all over France, including paratroopers in Fontainebleau at 60km from Paris [0], while the "président du conseil" of the 4th republic transmitted peacefully the power to De Gaulle, to mitigate a civil war.
Wikipedia:
"The May 1958 crisis (French: Crise de mai 1958), also known as the Algiers putsch or the coup of 13 May, was a political crisis in France during the turmoil of the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962) which led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic and its replacement by the Fifth Republic led by Charles de Gaulle who returned to power after a twelve-year absence. It started as a political uprising in Algiers on 13 May 1958 and then became a military coup d'état led by a coalition headed by Algiers deputy and reserve airborne officer Pierre Lagaillarde, French Generals Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud, Jean Gracieux, and Jacques Massu, and by Admiral Philippe Auboyneau, commander of the Mediterranean fleet. The coup was supported by former Algerian Governor General Jacques Soustelle and his activist allies.
The coup had as its aim to oppose the formation of Pierre Pflimlin's new government and to impose a change of policies in favor of the right-wing partisans of French Algeria."
When the military woke up again in 62 in Algiers, De Gaulle crushed them.
You got it reversed.
Massu, who had gained prominence and authority when he ruthlessly suppressed Algerian militants, famously declared that unless de Gaulle was returned to power, the French Army would openly revolt.
> When the military woke up again in 62 in Algiers, De Gaulle crushed them.
Because then, the coup was directed against him!
Rene Coty himself said he would resigned if the national assembly didn't pick him as a prime minister.
Then the national assembly vote him with a huge majority margin.
And finally, he wins the november election in a landslide.
So if a coup means that you get power by following all the rules and the decorum and win the election, then the term "coup" does not mean anything.
Additionally, during the 1958 coup itself he did basically give his support for it in the sense that he explicitly said he was "ready to assume the powers of the republic" if asked for (which is what the leaders of the coup demanded be done).
Legislative elections take place at the midpoint between presidential elections, and the opposition kept their majority in 2024, so there was hardly a mandate, if anything the legislative elections indicated a rebuke.
Yoon Suk Yeol is the one of the most unpopular democratic heads of state with 19% approval and 72% disapproval.
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It's worth noting that it seems like he didn't talk to anyone about this and even the head of his party in the National Assembly said they would vote to overturn it.
You don't become the leader of a developed, stable, democratic nation by pulling crazy stunts like that.
Is there any other factor to influence or any big group that would benefit from such extreme measures?
I do think he was acting by himself; he’s generally got weird political instincts. Part of how he got walloped in the legislative elections was by remarking that green onions were cheap normally because of his policies, when it turned out the supermarket he was electioneering at was running a 75% off sale on them. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/political-leeks-...
South Korea has had exactly one president in the modern democratic era who hasn’t been indicted after their term or impeached.
Broadly Parliament is split into 3 camps, the left, the centr, and the right, all pretty much even. Any two could work together as a coalition and agree to a leader, but that is proving harder.
There was a parliament election, with three blocks each gaining roughly a third of the seats.
The block that won the most seats (but not enough to have a majority) immediately declared they would never compromise/ally with anyone else. Essentially, if they were called on to form a government, they were almost certainly going to be immediately censured.
So Macron, rightly or wrongly depending on who you ask, decided to not call on them since he estimated it was bound to fail and waste time. Instead, he nominated someone from a (now) minor political force because, at least in theory, they were enough people willing to negotiate with them to form a majority. Looks like it didn't work in the end and now France will be stuck because no one is willing to compromise.
[1] https://x.com/BigBreakingWire/status/1863964015376089313
They are very proud of the country they built over just a few generations(and really since about 1990); no way they take this sitting down.
They've had seven leaders since 1993 (before which they really did have a military junta in power). Three of them ended up impeached or jailed for corruption or wrongthink [0], a fourth has just attempted to use the military to crack down on the opposition. This is more like what I expect from Argentina or Brazil than a fully fledged democracy with peaceful transitions of power, say France.
That said, the Economist has it at #22 on its Democracy Index [1], one of the worst "full democracies" but ahead of France #23, USA #29, Brazil #51.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Korea
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
"Yoon — whose approval rating has dipped in recent months — has struggled to push his agenda against an opposition-controlled parliament since taking office in 2022.
Yoon’s conservative People Power Party had been locked in an impasse with the liberal opposition Democratic Party over next year’s budget bill. He has also been dismissing calls for independent investigations into scandals involving his wife and top officials, drawing quick, strong rebukes from his political rivals."
See the same patterns. You can tell which side they want to paint in a bad light and what do you know it's the conservative side.
On the one hand, a sitting president has conducted a coup d'etat condemned by his own party, on flimsy grounds and apparently with limited public support.
On the other hand, he's not left wing so it's clear that the only possible problem with his military coup is that journalists are insufficiently favourably disposed to it.
EDIT: Not mentioning Trump is my mistake.
If they're actively fighting against the democratic principles (like enforcing martial law to distract from something rather than when really necessary) then yeah, I think we'd want them to take them down if they don't leave by themselves.
Of course, the military could refuse. In the abstract, I think that might be ideal. (I don't know enough to say whether that would be ideal in this situation.)
This AP article is written very unsympathetically towards him
I wonder what the level of journalistic independences is in KR. What their public discourse is like. How truth, and opinions are tolerated.
> The Republic of Korea (South Korea) is a liberal democracy that respects media freedom and pluralism. However, tradition and business interests often prevent journalists from fulfilling their role as watchdogs, and populist political tendencies stoke hatred of journalists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_affair
When the MV Sewol capsized a couple miles off the coast with 300 children actively drowning, the corporate control of the news channels allowed them to suppress the truth of the event, like how there was zero attempts at any rescue, and near zero survivors of passengers. Instead, the news spent a day reporting that all 300ish students had been rescued.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_MV_Sewol
South Korea is controlled by just a few Chaebols and that includes its news media. The president during the MV Sewol incident for example was ousted at least partially due to the kinds of corruption and non-democratic influences that were uncovered after the sinking.
When most media is produced, financed, owned, operated etc by a couple hegemons with aligning goals, I don't care what economic system you operate under, you do not have "free" media.
Taiwan is more free than Korea but due its political predicament, it is not a candidate for the bureaus. As for Japan, after a series of controversial bills were passed under Abe, their ranking dropped like a rock over the past decade and it is getting worse with so-called "press clubs" that are reluctant to criticise the govt due to how access is granted.
Source?
Sept 3, 2024 Lee’s raising of suspicions of martial law plans isn’t baseless — just look back to 2017 https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1...
Sept 4, 2024 [News analysis] Why is Korea’s Democratic Party talking about martial law? https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1...
Sept 4, 2024 [ED] No room for martial law talk https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.amp.asp?newsIdx=381...
Sept 5, 2024 DPK's martial law claim backfires due to lack of evidence https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.amp.asp?newsIdx=381...
Sept 5, 2024 Martial law equals coup-d’etat: What would it mean for South Korea? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.amp.asp?newsIdx=381...
I'm curious if you have some sources for this? I'm not that familiar with SK politics and I'm obviously biased since almost all info about SK I either get from English/Japanese sources.
Afaik he was pretty dovish towards Japan during his election, which goes against the decades long tradition of tit-for-tat during election between SK&Japan since "looking tough to the neighbor" win votes. I wasn't aware of any "Japan whispering in his ear" level embezzlement. He seems just more pro US, closer ties with Japan rather than "balance things between China/US-JP"
I’d say anyone seriously thinking Japan has bought out the conservatives is just as foolish as someone that seriously thinks the liberals are North Korean spies.
That said, there is a contingent of South Koreans that genuinely consider Japan a mortal military threat just biding their time and waiting to attack Korea. And that North Korea is just a merely misguided misunderstood brother that is absolutely harmless despite their sabre rattling.
Anyone who has dealt with Japanese bureaucracy and government at large is stifling a giggle at this idea.
Seems to be something that kind of happens when someone in Korea rises to the top of political power. Remember the former president that was pretty much ousted for corruption a few years back? She had a confidant that would pull her strings.
Any guesses on market reactions here? Are component prices going to get worse?
"He has also been dismissing calls for independent investigations into scandals involving his wife and top officials"
Well, there's a standard motive.
And, if there's two things that seems constant in conservative politics, it's that they don't want anything to change (by defintion of 'conservative'), and they do seem to be forever embroiled in accusations of corruption.
And they never look trustworthy, for what that's worth. Perhaps it is as I understand that a lifetime of being lousy to other human beings shows on one's face, in one's voice, and is evident in one's lack of happiness.
We all reap what we sow, for ill or good, and apparently the vast majority of people that seek power generally do so for selfish, greedy reasons.
The above should not be confused with values. Many people abusing power really have values against what they are doing. They have just figuring out how to convince themselves the alternatives are worse. Having values does make it somewhat easier to suppress your tendency to abuse those values, but only somewhat.
This is false and excessively cynical. There are genuinely good people who have values and live up to those values, without hypocrisy, and that doesn't mean they have "carefully suppressed" desires to do otherwise.
"Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God."
That is the highest point of human self-evolution, though precious few even attempt it, much less recognize a person who has done so. And so few believe it to be possible that even those of us who try are in a small minority.
But do you want to want the hamburger? Or do you want to want a salad? Which do you, the person (not the animal), really want?
With a bit of reflection, it's not so difficult to figure out what you as a person really want, and it's often different than your lower level primal drives.
Those who choose to eat the salad haven't suppressed anything - they've simply aligned their actions with their higher order desires.
What you are really saying (not that you have the wherewithall to admit it) is you don't believe this can be done, and therefore no one can do it. In other words, you don't believe we can self-evolve into being better people, much less being beyond temptation to selfishness at the expense of others.
And so, by believing this, you have prevented yourself from even trying to be better, but you have only limited yourself. The rest of us are capable of evolving ourselves beyond our vices into the selfless light of compassionate service to mankind, not that it has ever been a commonly taken path.
This is why the person who does not enter the Path of Love has "eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, and a heart that does not understand," as we have to begin our transformation to see the world (and ourselves) for what is possible. This is why the uncommitted can be fooled by the cruelly lying oppressors of mankind, as has been repeated throughout history. Those bent on selfish mischief cater to the ignorant's selfish desire for ease, no matter who else is harmed in the process. In this way they are even worse than the animals, as they use our advanced abilities to behave as mere pack animals, lacking all humanity and its essential element: compassion.
People are complex creatures with complex values and desires. Sometimes two values are in conflict (which may be a hypothetical or real situation) so it is impossible to be true to both values at the same time.
Remember "accusation of corruption" is not the same as proven corruption, but making an accusation is an overt action by someone. Many accusations are false and sometimes are even projections.
The first casualty of corruption is honesty.
That's generally the first defense of innocent people, too.
2. South Korea has a bizarre large-scale "gender war" going on that extents into mainstream society. Imagine the Western online MRA/redpill/incel vs. radfem circles but as core identities in national politics.
For some reason a high-trust society has decided to become an ultra-low-trust society where trust is being eradicated all the way down to the nuclear family.
Had to look that up and wasn’t disappointed…
"...former president Park Geun-hye was secretly a religious cult member."
which is shorter and clearer.
I have zero idea about SK, but ... "woke vs not woke" has become very much a core identity part in Western politics. The last US election has proven that, and what's going on here in Germany especially with Markus Söder isn't funny any more either [1], we got elections looming in about three months.
[1] https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2024-11/markus-soede...
Pretty much every "Western" election voted out the incumbent due to their either poor economy or poor messaging about the economy. The swing-PA voter didn't vote out Biden because their daughter was dominating trans-kids in sports; they want grocery prices down.
The way the "gender war" appeared was that Yoon was more popular among men, and this was reported in the international news, then Korean news reporters reported on the international news, legitimizing the story of a gender gap.
This primed Korean journalists to look for further signs of conflict between the genders, which were then amplified out of proportion by international journalists looking for a story. Korean journalists see the international stories as more trustworthy, and now they report as if there is a gender war.
There is a heavy selection bias among journalists to look for spicy gender stories, where the actual participants are the fringe of an online "movement". The Korean press club doesn't seem to understand or account for these biases. In real life there isn't much "war".
Up there with gravity and shit. I wish we could do something with this information, but alas, knowledge isnt power.
Cersei Lannister: Power is power.
It's not a prediction when it's history. That has been going on at least as long as the Roman Empire, yet people are still surprised it's happening today. Modern regimes didn't invent these schemes, they're reusing tried and tested methods because they're known to work because human psychology and behavioral instinct is vulnerable to the same exploits which probably will never get patched anytime soon.
No one from that period is still in the exact same position as when it happened - some of them were promoted.
And the rest? Who exactly are you talking about here?
None of the storyline actually takes place in 'Eurasia' or 'Eastasia' or any other part of the world. They don't need to even actually exist for the storyline. Indeed, this itself is a message about controlling a populace via control of information. The rest of the world could have been razed by war, they could be total utopias. The propaganda keeps people from thinking about alternatives.
Interpret more broadly and it becomes a much better, more important book.
He arrived as an idealistic anti fascist fighter. After experiencing Stalinism in person, he became the man we know.
https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/commentaries/how-spai...
He arrived as a Stalinist into a government and population of anarchists.
The way modern states leverage external threats to justify abusing people or waging their own external wars is fairly parallel to how the less top heavy kingdoms of the middle ages and early modern period used religion as a justification for comparable atrocities.
One of the reasons "they're oppressing and committing atrocities against some of our people who live there!" has been a perpetual casus belli against neighboring states.
If you trumpet it long enough, eventually people start believing and get mad.
Orwell being so right about governments using the constant threat of a virtual enemy has got to be one of the all time top on the money predictions ever.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-enemies-from-within-...
Pretty much everyone.
Only difference in which enemy is pointed to, is who you ask.
As for the "pardoned cronies", isn't today a bad day to single one side out based on that?
(Not to mention the singling out for "war criminals", when the other side is warmongering hawks, bombing, openly pushing for war, sabotaging peace deals, and openly assisting a slow burning genocide).
Biden pardoning his son is a black mark, especially for the tax evasion. (I think pardons should be abolished.) Yet an order of magnitude less worrisome than the scum Trump has pardoned and promises to pardon.
As to warmongers... which party voted almost unanimously to invade Iraq without hard evidence of WMDs? Who backed out of the Iranian nuclear deal? Who praises bullies and dictators? Who moved the embassy to Jerusalem? Who is so deluted they claim merely winning an election will bring peace to the Middle East and Europe? Who threatened to pull support from allies -- in the midst of a war -- because they want dirt on political rivals or to catch up on underpaid bills. (Trump knows a thing or two about not paying when he owes someone.)
Why the silence about my other remark? Does assaulting, denigrating, and stripping the rights of women not bother you?
Why do you carry water for this man?
* Trans people
* "The enemy within" or "the deep state" (i.e. their political opponents)
* The "woke left"
I suppose if you have people shooting and bombing you, "enemy" is a fair label to put on them. Those are the only types of "enemies" that are the same whether the view is from inside or outside the bubble.
But most of these people talking about their "enemies", are not in those situations at all.
Has China been accepted as a "real" enemy? To me, China is the main virtual enemy that politicians trout out to create fear and distraction.
The USA without cheap Chinese manufacturing is basically dead in the water. It is approximately unfathomable how much of the comfortable and cheap way of life enjoyed in the US is directly dependent on trade with China and mindbendingly cheap Chinese manufacturing labor.
The ~most valuable company in the country is 100% beholden to Chinese manufacturing to make the most popular product that makes all of their money. They are doing their best to replicate manufacturing capacity in India but you can’t make 50,000 iPhones an hour without years of build-up and thousands upon thousands of trained staff.
If China invades Taiwan, the USG is basically game theoretically forced to make Americans endure some significant hardships until a new metastability is achieved.
If anything, the US-led blockade of advanced chips to China will make it more likely for China to use force. If China can't get their hands on the most advanced TSMC chips, then why would they let the US do so and get too far ahead in AI? Both can't have them then.
So much propaganda.
American propaganda...one day Americans are going to wake up and realize, China has taken over in all areas of tech and Americans are going to be in such denial that they'll want war... sigh. China is already leading in many areas, not all of them yet, but they soon are
you watched too much MSM
1. the whole taiwan thing is just an excuse to force the united state to waste more resources on a topic selected and controlled by China. nothing is better at wasting US efforts by forcing it to keep investing borrowed $ in its military presence over 10,000km away from its mainland, nothing is affordable at such distance.
2. Taiwan doesn't make those ASML machines, they operate those imported machines very efficiently, that is all. China is playing a long game, trying to master and eventually control the full semiconductor supply chain at any cost by developing its own industrial bases. In such a big picture, Taiwan with what it has today is tiny, it doesn't worth such an invasion. With 1.4 billion population and its ongoing competitions with the US, China doesn't have the luxury to select which sectors or fields it must control - it has to control everything to just have its people employed on half decent pays.
Man Americans are oblivious to how fast China is progressing.
The Chinese leadership is well aware of this and is massively funding efforts to build these indigenously, but they're chasing moving targets and still decades away from catching up.
China will win through brute scale and determination, I believe.
War is not a joke, it does no good to both sides.
Good "return on propaganda investment" for those guys.
Smedley Butler told us how this was all gonna work a long time ago.
It extends as far as Zuckerberg hiring PR firms to write hit pieces on Tiktok and lobbying government officials in order to stave off competition.
"China bad" is profitable for everyone it seems, except the commoners.
I don't see it as rational, but there is definitely an argument that the USA ought to remain positioned as number one, having the ability to dictate global politics. I don't think we deserve it, but it's certainly 'better' for us in the sense that it gives us an advantage and thus might improve our quality of life (cheaper imports, blah blah blah). I view that argument as entitled and promoting the status quo.
The Chinese people have worked hard. Actually, people all over the world work hard, although the Chinese have gone past industrialization and have a massive and capable population. The idea that they wouldn't have more power and would need to somehow remain under the US's thumb, where we get to say how they treat Taiwan or what currency they can trade in with other countries, just seems absurd. People come up with bullshit reasons for why the US ought to retain some control over their politics or how the rest of the world engages with the Chinese (and we don't just get to do that anyway), e.g., the Chinese are mean to the Uyghurs, as if anyone ever gave a fuck about the Uyghurs or whoever twenty years ago.
In all that sense, China is certainly a real threat. But the level of entitlement behind that argument is so blatant that I can't take it seriously.
But with Trumpism again being the winner, how much of the world still view the US positively? Obama's Iran Deal was a USA-EU-Iran agreement, when Trump pulled it, it didn't just piss off "the enemy" (Iran) but also the allies (EU), and it destroyed US's credibility, even with a Democratic president, anyone going to do a deal with the USA will ask for guarantees in case the deal gets wrecked after the next presidential election...
That said, China has stated that their long-term plan is to overtake our military, economic, and technological dominance.
That's, at the very least, a clear signal that they want to beat us.
Any source on that? From what I have read, according to CCP's official mouthpieces[1], "China's development strategy focuses on continuous self-transcendence, and does not aim to surpass the US or any other country".
Objectively, the state-promoted bogeymen in the USA are consistently Iran, China, DPRK, and increasingly Russia.
I just spent a month in China and the disparity between what we are told in western media and what is actually going on is substantial, but not in the ways I expected.
I was just in Shenzhen last month. It feels like a city that is 10 years ahead of any place in the US. The city felt extremely futuristic. Most cars on the road are EVs. Payments are all digital. Ordering at restaurants is on your phone. The entire city is extremely clean, civilized, efficient, safe which you can't say about any major US city. Hop on a high speed train at any time and go to anywhere in China within a few hours.
China basically feels like a bigger Singapore except people in China are generally friendlier and more down to earth.
When you're actually in China, the constant negative stories about China in your head will go away. What you'll see is just like any other place: people working hard, minding their own business, and generally friendly people.
It's easy to make changes quickly when the people making the change don't really have a choice. I've heard the murder rate in North Korea is almost 0 and the crime is very low compared to most other countries. The devil is in the details.
"When you're actually in China, the constant negative stories about China in your head will go away. What you'll see is just like any other place: people working hard, minding their own business, and generally friendly people."
There was never any doubt that the people are nice and friendly in China. The issue is the authoritarian government. As an example, do some research on how the Chinese government treats people from the LGBT community and get back to me.
China is a terrible place, the ultimate star wars crab bucket dystopian future. It’s shiny and pretty and has cool LEDs and malls.
Any place can be decades ahead if you simply outlaw the old ways of life. Authoritarianism is a terrible cancer.
I just spent a month in China and the disparity between what we are told in western media and what is actually going on is substantial, but not in the ways I expected.
The vast majority of people on Hacker News have drank so much "China bad" propaganda that they're even afraid of visiting.
Remember that China is not a "free country" (even as much as Western nations have started to make a mockery of that word) like those of the US or Western Europe. Your experience is highly curated by default. If you're just a tourist or a businessman visiting Shenzhen or Shanghai, it's unlikely you'll have any problems - those are major international business cities!
indeed, none of them had the freedom to get a full unconditional pardon by their father with terminal stage dementia.
I mean freedom of what? unlimited number of genders? fat dude wearing a dress competing sports against young girls? or maybe you are talking about the freedom to avoid jail time for convicted felony by being elected the leader of your free world?
And often it's the very people and organizations supported and lauded as allies and/or freedom fighters and lauded a few years earlier (like Shaddam or the Taliban).
The warring US tribes certainly made an effort to associate their internal enemy with these (Democrats insinuating Republican subversion by Russians, Republicans insinuating Democrat sympathies with China and Iran). Arguably, this did not really catch and the majority of people are more preoccupied with their internal outgroup, which suggests that the external-enemy strategy is currently falling flat in the US. You could make a better case for it being in place in various European countries.
Knowledge is a necessary, but not sufficient component of power
Or in other words observability is a necessary, but not sufficient component of optimization.
There's nothing virtual about North Korea ...
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
We suffer with inefficiency, majority tyranny, populism, short-term-itis, inequalities, and voter apathy which promotes less qualified people.
At least we usually have peaceful conflict resolution rather than firing squads. <3
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42306176.
In Israel it's common to view his genocidal use of the IOF as a way to cling to power and avoid prosecution.
It shouldn't. People are complex - all of them. Many people do both good and bad things. We should celebrate and encourage the good even while condemning the bad.
Not comparable. This is a coup d'etat. Netanyahu is a corrupt politician; President Yoon is attempting to rise above politics.
Right. This is politics. Martial law would have meant the judiciary is irrelevant.
FDR was unstoppable except for when he tried to pack the courts.
You're calling the line between civilian rule and martial law a hair?
> FDR was unstoppable except for when he tried to pack the courts
FDR never attempted a coup d'etat.
And Israelis don't kowtow to him at all, the same Israelis who were out protesting the judicial reform, the largest protests in Israeli history, are still very much against him.
Do folks have any recommendations for how to keep up with global news at a high level so that you're not completely clueless when something like this happens? Like I mean some sort of "international edition" of an aggregator like Google News, I guess.
I went to check to see if its available online- even via my local library, but it seems The Economist was pulled from major online sites around 2023 due to their pricing model. So I can't verify if this was covered. That said, what information has trickled out points to this being a big surprise, so there may not have been storm clouds brewing that could have foretold this.
Edit: Got past the paywall on the site and did a search and there appears to be no articles published that would have predicted an issue like this: https://www.economist.com/search?q=south+korea&sort=date&pag...
https://theonion.com/the-economist-to-halt-production-for-mo...
I can't imagine reading every issue cover to cover unless it's really relevant to your work.
It certainly has issues in the depth of its coverage, the simplistic endings of its articles, occasional culture war snipes, and lots of other stuff. It’s far from perfect. But for my money it’s still the best general world news source out there, and I check most of them out regularly. I have so many conversations with coworkers and people I meet about their home countries that I just couldn’t without reading The Economist.
I live in the "rest of the world" and never thought of myself like that.
About our name
Why “Rest of World”? It’s a corporate catchall term used in the West to designate “everyone else.” Companies use it to lump together people and markets outside wealthy Western countries. We like the term because it encapsulates the problems we fight head-on: a casual disregard for billions of people, and a Western-centric worldview that leaves an unthinkable number of insights, opportunities, and nuances out of the global conversation.I’m no expert but I find it hard to believe there’s much pro-PRK sympathy in Seoul among a major political party.
Considering this is making western news, it seems the president has over-played his hand. Hopefully this passes quickly.
Democratic opposition can seem stifling. However the solution is to negotiate.
The leader here is taking an authoritarian dictatorship path so a solution, unfortunately, it appears to my eyes.
National Assembly has voted to lift martial law. Yoon (and the army) would still have to recognise it.
Case by case. (And by redeploying problematic people out of the capital.)
They previously wrote that "The National Assembly speaker has just said that South Korean troops are leaving the parliament building, the Yonhap news agency reports."
So I'm not sure if the military isn't unified in what to do, or if certain troops are just not enforcing the President's near certainly unconstitutional order. The Constitution gives the President many powers under martial law ("Under extraordinary martial law, special measures may be taken with respect to the necessity for warrants, freedom of speech, the press, assembly and association, or the powers of the Executive and the Judiciary as prescribed by law"), but it appears to give the President no powers over the National Assembly, so the "All political activities, including the activities of the National Assembly... are prohibited" part of his martial law declaration appears to be blatantly unconstitutional.
According to the constitution, "When the National Assembly requests the lifting of martial law with the concurrent vote of a majority of the total members of the National Assembly, the President shall comply." [2]
Some are saying the constitution doesn't give a timeframe for when the President has to comply, but if he doesn't soon, it definitely appears to be a self-coup. [3]
1. https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn38321180et
2. https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Republic_of_K...
If the army recognises it and Yoon does not, that's still a coup d'etat. It's just that the military is siding with the National Assembly. The only way for this to consittutionally resolve is Yoon recognises it as well as the army.
If the president says "martial law", and the military says "no", that's not martial law. That's the president saying some words.
It may still be a coup d'etat attempt by the president, but it's not martial law.
So if the military recognizes the end of martial law, the martial law is over.
If Yoon recognizes it, and the military doesn't, that's a whole nother can of worms. Then it's really a coup.
"1. When it is required to cope with a military necessity or to maintain the public safety and order by mobilization of the military forces in time of war, armed conict or similar national emergency, the President may proclaim martial law as prescribed by law.
2. Martial law shall be of two types, extraordinary martial law and precautionary martial law.
3. Under extraordinary martial law, special measures may be taken with respect to the necessity for warrants, freedom of speech, the press, assembly and association, or the powers of the Executive and the Judiciary as prescribed by law.
4. When the President has proclaimed martial law, he shall notify the National Assembly without delay.
5. When the National Assembly requests the lifting of martial law with the concurrent vote of a majority of the total members of the National Assembly, the President shall comply."
https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Republic_of_K... page 16
If the President is accusing "the country’s opposition of controlling the parliament, sympathizing with North Korea and paralyzing the government with anti-state activities," that vote will take place without the opposition.
(It's mindblowing they left this in their Constitution after the 80s.)
You're confusing prime ministers in parliamentary democracies, e.g. the UK with presidents [1].
[1] https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-betwee...
In a parliamentary democracy, the governing coalition and opposition are clearly delineated. In a presidential system, a legislature controlled by a party different from the president tends to be referred to as an opposition legislature, e.g. the House is currently in opposition to Biden.
True, there's a minority and majority.
> journalists tend to impose the term on non-US presidential systems
Didn't President Yoon call them the opposition? Or is that a liberal translation?
The classic move is to block the legislature from assembling while one gets around to dissolving it.
Or can they meet anywhere they choose?
It's just harder to create a veneer of the constitutional necessity of such a move when your own highest profile political allies apparently condemn it and pledge to "stop it with the people" instead of queuing up to rubber stamp it and do "this is a small problem with criminal elements in one party which is all resolved now" briefings to confused foreigners wondering who the real government of South Korea is.
Edit: reportedly the National Assembly has actually managed to hold a vote against it. Not sure how or what the constitutional quirks are, but that's probably going to make it considerably less likely the military unites behind the President...
As a Brazilian, well, Bolsonaro is all over the news right now. Peru has had one recently too (it lasted for 6 hours or so). Going North, the US famously had one just some 4 years ago.
This is in practice useless. The time for action is while the usurper is conslidating power. After a few days, they've either won or lost.
[1] https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20241203013900315 [2] https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20241203013200315
The entire reason he declared martial law was to eliminate the opposition.
-- Sepultura (1993)
Also, private gun ownership was the norm at the time.
Heller draws it's decision from historical reality and originalist philosophy
Private gun ownership != the right to a private gun.
Having read Heller, the various drafts of the Bill of Rights, and some of the correspondence, I don't think anyone that has done the same can make an honest originalist argument against the private right.
In particular, I think the linguistic argument about militias relies on a neologistic definition that is particularly misleading.
People can make valid living constitution arguments against the second amendment all day and all night, but these seem particularly out of favor. I think this, more than anything else explains the Heller decision in 2008
The founders, in 1808, appropriated funding for arms to state militias. [1]. Previously the arming of militias was up to the individual states. Some would have chosen to just have private citizens bring their own arms. Others would have actually set aside a fund to bring those arms.
And that's blatantly apparent when you think about the wars fought after the revolution. Cannons had to come from somewhere and you'd not expect a private citizen to have procured one.
That was, in fact, one of the reasons George Washington disliked the idea of militias, because you'd be arming untrained and undisciplined citizens with weapons they'd never used before and expect them to somehow know how to operate them.
> To place any dependence on the Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows ... if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter. -- George Washington
The author is absolutely hated the idea of a standing army, and I think the Bill of Rights reflects this ideal over more practical concerns.
You should look up letters of marque and reprisal, where private citizens effectively owned entire warships.
Just ignore all the privateer ships that were loaded with cannons.
The "reality" in this sentence here is pretty solidly not accurate. The majority opinion in Heller asserted truths about the past that aren't born out by the historical record. Probably lifted straight from interest-group amicus briefs that agreed with what the majority was inclined to decide to begin with.
[EDIT] Whoops. I mean, that the above is often true in cases that cite history, even legal history, means it might still be true, but I was actually thinking of Bruen, where this happened to a degree that'd be comical if it weren't, you know, the Supreme Court.
About the one thing this situation does not need is armed randos taking matters into their own hands. Currently, Seoul is in a constitutional crisis. The President is required to lift martial law. He has not yet done so. If people on the streets started shooting at each other, he'd have legitimate reason to send in the military. Korea's lack of a 2nd Amendment is one of the things keeping this constitutional crisis from what would have been the stupidest civil war of the millenium.
A tyrannical state will not care that you are "legally" allowed to own firearms, and rebels do not get rights.
Also, I'll believe the claim that 2A is to prevent tyranny when I see it, because most of the time when you ask someone who supports the 2nd amendment about slave revolts, you tend to find out how little they care about "tyranny"
I'll point to a more recent example: the Los Angeles riots in 1992. Koreatown was protected by gun toting citizens, literally fending off the mob. (Whether we categorize the mobs as tyrannical is more pedantic than anything else, the men with weapons maintained their agency because of the threat of lethal force. Guns against a government yield the same end, maintaining agency when others may try to take it from you.)
The history with actual cases of private arms being used to support or to resist government tyranny in the US can be generously described as "mixed".
It's also telling that so many instances like that, in the US and elsewhere, start with "... and then the good guys (or sometimes bad guys) seized a barely-guarded state armory". It's debatable how relevant private arms are to the resistance of tyranny anyway.
Foreign occupations are a whole other matter. When the call's coming from inside the house, plenty of your fellow "freedom-lovers" are helpfully using their liberty to liberate you from your liberty.
If the US military is united behind one group then that's that. If the US military is divided, then god help us caught in the middle.
For some reason, folks like to cite US foreign intervention failures as proof motivated locals with rifles can beat the US military, but that's not really the right thing to look at, as a bunch of things about those situations are materially different from a civil war (plus there is in every case a ton more to the resistance's armament and materiel than some guys taking their old AKs out of the closet, dusting them off, and digging into their prepper-crates of MREs)
> The entrance to the National Assembly has been sealed, and MPs have been barred from entering the building, according to Yonhap.
> Following Yoon’s announcement, South Korea’s military proclaimed that parliament and other political gatherings that could cause “social confusion” would be suspended
Edit: vote complete, declaration of martial law is voted down. Now what?
If the tanks politely go back where they came from, maybe parliament could consider tweaking the constitution to prevent blockading the assembly building next time.
Edit: "The South Korean military says it will maintain martial law until it is lifted by President Yoon Suk Yeol, despite the nation's parliament voting to block its enforcement". That's a bug. "the government must lift martial law" as a result of the vote, but the government is apparently the president?
Some translations say "guarding martial law" instead of "precautionary": https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_mobile/viewer.do?hseq=45785&type... "Once guarding martial law is declared, the martial law commander shall have authority over the administrative and judicial matters concerning the military of the area where martial law is declared."
But this time it was the emergency one.
conflict vs conflict
You can't compare McCarthyism to Korean politics because Canada wasn't the USSR.
It's not really "red scare stuff."
Edit: I'm not sure what I was getting at, so ignore me
Yoon Suk Yeol claimed he is protecting the country from "shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces."
Now...
I do not doubt that NK has spies in SK, possibly some in government. I am sure there are some in SK who are happy to get a paycheck from NK to share some info. It's what any oppositional nation state would be trying to achieve.
But as far as literal "pro-North Korean" forces in SK, that seems close to literally impossible to me.
I cannot imagine any significant number of South Koreans looking at North Korea and thinking ooooh yes that is what I want.
Not that this justifies any of the recent coup, but actual communist conspiracies were still happening in recent memory.
Had a coworker whose best friend got lost on night patrol. Another unit killed him when he didn't come up with the password of the day quick enough. The coworkers comment? "He screwed up."
Probably has something to do with the fact that Seoul is like 50 kilometers from the border, and has enough rockets pointed at them to cause unprecedented carnage. HIMARS can launch precision strikes at that range, but DPRK doesn't need precision, and has clearly committed to quantity. And they're not exactly peaceful about it: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-fires-multipl...
Every developed nation is barreling towards this fate. It's what end stage capitalism and 5 chaebols-in-a-trenchcoat as a government looks like.
The only thing preventing population collapse in the West is immigration. Any country that wants to maintain a particular ethnic majority is doomed.
So why is South Korea like this? Because of the demands of work, the government being beholden to the chaebols, the demands on women to both work, have children and largely be responsible for raising them without work suffering. There's a vicious cycle of entrenched misogyny and women essentially opting out of this system (ie the 4B movement).
Add all this up and you have a country that is bound for crisis after crisis. You cannot look at this current crisis without understanding the broader context.
The endless pursuit of profits will quite literally destroy a country if you let it.
Problem is: what is NK doing with its army, when SK has practically died out? I mean, they could just procreate, wait and declare superior victory, instead of wasting resources on their army.
Equity is usually pretty difficult to swallow for those who are benefiting inequitably. But the thing is, if it's not working for everyone, it isn't working at all and it should probably be broken the rest of the way and rebuilt.
Sorry if you're in the camp that doesn't think anything is broken, but if this many people think it is then maybe you're wrong. At the very least don't pretend to be surprised when the people at the bottom lack any reason to defend your place on top.
By the way, how is women being housewives them at the bottom? Housewives have an equal share of their husbands' income, so they're just as wealthy as men. They also traditionally control what it's spent on. It's just that their job is childcare instead of pushing buttons on a machine. Is the problem that men can choose which kind of machine they'll spend all day pushing buttons on but housewives can't choose their work?
Feminism is about equality of opportunity and not necessarily being bound by traditional gender roles. That doesn’t mean someone can’t be a homemaker. It means no one should be forced to be. It means everyone should autonomy over their own bodies.
You made a wild suggestion that having more children years ago somehow is evidence of a lack of misogyny.
North Korean women have more children because of poverty, a lack of options and limited to no access to birth control. South Korean women 50+ years ago had more children for basically the same reasons .
South Korea has created a society where women have much higher expectations yet they’re paid less for the same jobs, moreso than most OECD countries. The US is down a path where people can’t afford housing and need multiple jobs to make ends meet. What we see is an entirely predictable drop in people having children.
Make it the law then. Housewives having an equal share of their husbands' income only when the husband is in a good mood is not a place we as society want to get back to.
Unless western liberal society finds a way to either increase birth rates or reliably "convert" immigrants to our ideals, society of the future will be shaped by those groups who have a high birth rate today. Those seem to be tightly nit, religious and conservative groups.
It's entirely possible, even likely, we'll see the Supreme Court reverse itself on Griswold v. Connecticut (birth control), Obergefel v. Hodges (gay marriage) and Loving v. Virginia (miscegenation) in the next 4 years, all rooted in the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory [2][3].
[1]: https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/the-racist-history-...
[2]: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/05/17/racist-great-...
[3]: https://fpif.org/tucker-carlsons-great-replacement-theory-co...
If he's smart, no-fault divorce would go first, so she couldn't say anything.
Procedural due process asks the question "did the government follow proper procedure?" whereas substantive due process asks "does the government have an interest in this issue?"
So this was a key pillar in Roe v. Wade as the Court (theN) ruled that the government has no interest in what a woman does with her own body for the first trimester. As such, laws against abortion were unconstitutional. Critics at the time said there were other ways to construct a legal framework to protection abortion access.
Anyway, this implied right to privacy had all sorts of implications that the conservative judges don't like. Loving was based on both substantive due process and equal protection so it gets a little complicated.
Furhter complicating this is the Respect for Marriage Act (2022), which codified things like interracial and gay marraige.
But all sorts of rights we take for granted are built on substantive due process so as soon as the court dismantles that doctrine, the genie is out of the bottle. It's not that Thomas would necessarily vote to overturn Loving (particularly because of other complications mentioned above) but once you set the precedent, certain things become inevitable.
Contraception is probably the next thing to be under attack, particularly because there is an effort to define contraception as an abortion, both from a political and legal POV. Mifepristone will almost certainly be outlawed. Don't be surprised if the oral contraceptive pill also ends up illegal in red states too.
There is about 200 millions of africans and north of 500 millions of asians in extreme poverty who would give their left leg to move to modern democracy, if it would be feasible. Heck, they are dying by hundreds trying to cross rough seas like mediterranean.
'quite open to immigration' is most probably not what we should call it, if expectations are around 100% knowledge of language and very obscure culture and its rules right out of the box to be at least tolerated.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn38321180et
> According to South Korean law, the government must lift martial law if the majority of National Assembly demands in a vote.
> The same law also prohibits martial law command from arresting lawmakers.
> members of the National Assembly have been banned from accessing the building.
The head of the (president's) ruling People Power Party has vowed to block the (president's) declaration, describing it as "wrong".
> Currently, around 70 members of the opposition are inside the assembly, while the rest are gathering outside
> When Speaker Woo Won-shik arrives he will call for a vote to lift the martial law
> special forces soldiers are inside the assembly building. It is unclear what the soldiers are doing.
Also, military helicopters landed on the roof.
> In order to protect liberal democracy from the threat of overthrowing the regime of the Republic of Korea by anti-state forces active within the Republic of Korea and to protect the safety of the people, the following is hereby declared throughout the Republic of Korea as of 23:00 on December 3, 2024:
> 1. All political activities, including the activities of the National Assembly, local councils, and political parties, political associations, rallies and demonstrations, are prohibited.
> 2. All acts that deny or attempt to overthrow the liberal democratic system are prohibited, and fake news, public opinion manipulation, and false propaganda are prohibited.
> 3. All media and publications are subject to the control of the Martial Law Command.
> 4. Strikes, work stoppages and rallies that incite social chaos are prohibited.
> 5. All medical personnel, including trainee doctors, who are on strike or have left the medical field must return to their jobs within 48 hours and work faithfully. Those who violate will be punished in accordance with the Martial Law.
> 6. Innocent ordinary citizens, excluding anti-state forces and other subversive forces, will be subject to measures to minimize inconvenience in their daily lives.
> Violators of the above proclamation may be arrested, detained, and searched without a warrant in accordance with Article 9 of the Martial Law Act of the Republic of Korea (Special Measures Authority of the Martial Law Commander), and will be punished in accordance with Article 14 of the Martial Law Act (Penalties).
> Martial Law Commander, Army General Park An-su, Tuesday, December 3, 2024.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/full-text-south-k...
so, the Assembly meeting to even discuss this is explicitly banned.
Or is it that when the politics isn't US politics, HN readers can be more emotionally detached and treat it as "interesting"?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/03/south-kore...
For the South Korean population, the proper way to deal with this is a general strike. Do not work unless in absolutely vital sectors.
Koreans here say that this is domestic. Hopefully it is and will be over soon. It is odd however that the U.S. government escalates in Ukraine, there is a new color revolution in Georgia (the country adjacent to Russia), the Syrian rebels launch a major attack and now this.
All of this "coincidentally" makes Trump's peace efforts more difficult. Trump will have to clean up all the fires started by this incompetent or malicious administration.
Escalating in Ukraine (against Russia), launching a major attack against Assad (a Russian ally) and an upcoming revolution against an (allegedly) pro-Russian government in Georgia all seem to fit into a pattern. This SK-thing seems to divide from that pattern and I’d say it is domestic until proven otherwise. If anything, those other small stabs against Russia will aid negotiations as Russias global influence will be weakened by multiple small fires, some of which western allies can put out more easily.
The only "pattern" between these two at least -- is that you haven't cited any direct, observable reason to believe that US agencies have been behind these events. You know, "evidence" and all that.
But rather simply -- speculation.
The National Assembly voted Wednesday to demand President Yoon Suk Yeol lift emergency martial law.
Under the Constitution, martial law must be lifted when a parliamentary majority demands it.
Of the 300 members of parliament, 190 were present and all 190 voted in favor of a motion demanding the lifting of martial law. With the motion's passage, the martial law declaration is void, according to the parliamentary speaker's office. [1]
Any idea how and why it was unblocked ? Anyone with more context ?
EDIT: This is the first I cannot think of any reason for getting a downvote... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Martial law is about using the military to control civilian activities. The police are civilian. Their order is to maintain peace, not to interfere with people who have legitimate business at the facility. If Yoon really wanted to preempt the national assembly, he should have sent in the military earlier.
---
Article 44
1. During the sessions of the National Assembly, no member of the National Assembly shall be arrested or detained without the consent of the National Assembly except in case of flagrante delicto.
2. In case of apprehension or detention of a member of the National Assembly prior to the opening of a session, such member shall be released during the session upon the request of the National Assembly, except in case of flagrante delicto.
Article 45
No member of the National Assembly shall be held responsible outside the National Assembly for opinions officially expressed or votes cast in the Assembly.
---
(from https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Republic_of_K... linked elsewhere in this thread; "flagrante delicto" is a legal term of art for "being caught in the act". These provisions are similar to ones found in Article I section 6 of the US constitution.).
Edit to give additional credit where it's due:
According to the US Library of Congress, the US Speech or Debate clause is derived from a similar provision in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and was adopted as part of the US constitution without much discussion.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S6-C1-3-...
>Martial law will remain until the president lifts martial law"...Armored vehicles also seen in the city center
https://m.ytn.co.kr/news_view.php?s_mcd=0101&key=20241204013...
They're following the law. The Constitution obligates the President to lift martial law after the National Assembly nullifies it.
I don't even know if there is a faster route than impeachment in the US system.
There's an impeachment process. Creating a separate, faster one for constitutional violations is just inviting trouble.
I think it is always interesting when the curtain gets pulled back to reveal how all of our political systems and norms simply overlay the fact that power is the ultimate law of the land.
The sticky part comes in when the venue for determining the legality of the order often then becomes one's own court-martial and resulting appeals. I'm not sure how much case law there is on the subject.
The law is arguably not what's written, but what actually happens, and analyzed that way our laws about war crime are complicated.
Like, if it's not plainly an awful decision on its face (and god, it so very is) then the fact that just about every plausible application of it looks something like that, as far as who can and cannot be held responsible for their actions, should demonstrate that the decision is, in the highest ideal of what it means to be American, deeply un-American.
The stumbling block is if the President invokes the Insurrection Act. Which is a bit of a gray area.
It's less a legal provision than a consequence of humans being the interface of the law. So while there is, in theory, a duty to disobey, there is also a presumption of lawfulness of orders [1][2].
[1] https://ucmjdefense.com/resources/military-offenses/the-lawf...
[2] https://warontherocks.com/2017/07/when-can-a-soldier-disobey...
> It is a defense to any offense that the accused was acting pursuant to orders unless the accused knew the orders to be unlawful or a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the orders to be unlawful.
So for those non-military reading, while it's almost always a bad idea to try to sea-lawyer your way out (though some court challenges have worked), you also are expected to use "ordinary sense and understanding" to reject orders like "go massacre those clearly unarmed noncombatants." But if it's not as cartoonishly obvious as that, there's a good chance you will have to defend your actions at a court-martial, and the legality of the order will be down to the interpretation of the presiding military judge and appellate courts.
Interestingly the oath for enlisted does include a section on obeying the President, subject to the military Code.
Debt exists because of (the threat of) violence. Money exists because of debt (.. is in fact debt). Modern society is based on our monetary system.
Violence is a major form of power, but so are utility and persuasion.
You can persuade or pay people to things that you can't threaten or force them into.
Any examples? Beyond immaterial things like respect/love/etc?
And while on the face of it, this video would appear to jump headlong into a hot button political discussion... it's actually very calm, collected, and appears to be striving to provide an objective analysis from a military perspective about just these issues.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/07/12/what-happens-...
There's section 4 of the 25th amendment, but it is untested.
Very much not good...
In the US, military officers take their oaths to obey the constitution, not the president. I don't know if that's true in South Korea.
So the military should respect the constitution, but when it comes to a coup you'll get whichever general respects the constitution the least.
A general that wants to stage a coup seems like they must still require the support of the troops.
Speaking anecdotally, every unit I've been in not a single man would follow the questionably illegal orders of any general unless they had full respect and confidence in that general, and typically the troops only have full respect and confidence in a subset of their immediate leaders (which are not typically generals). I guarantee a LARGE percentage of troops would treat the highest ranking general as an enemy combatant if their direct (low ranking) leaders who they respected convinced them that the general's orders were illegal or against their oaths. Soldiers don't die for generals, they die for each other, and "each other" is usually enlisted or low-ish ranking officers (maybe captain and below in the US). A professional and disciplined soldier will charge a hill risking certain death on the orders of a general, but a professional and disciplined soldier will not stage a coup on the orders of a general alone.
You need a general with likeminded officers, and a convincing excuse for the rank and file to go along with their officer's orders.
Something like "the election was stolen, the winners weren't legitimately elected, we've got to defend our country". It doesn't need to survive detailed scrutiny, a few hours is long enough for the major scrutineers to accidentally fall out of windows.
As the constitution is written, the nullification vote doesn't directly end martial law. It simply binds the president to withdraw martial law.
In hindsight, that might be a slight flaw, there doesn't seem to be any time limit or mechanism for what happens if the president doesn't. I'm not sure their constitution was written with an autocoup in mind.
In the end it wasn't an issue. The President did eventually withdraw martial law, I wonder what pressure was put on him to do so. And by who.
My understanding is that the parliamentary vote itself is not binding, but requires essentially a rubber stamp by the cabinet. They can decline to do so and the President wouldn't be legally required to stand down. Regardless, 190-0 is an overwhelming statement and if I was represented by one of the 110 absent members I would have a lot of very serious questions for them.
On December 3, 2024, at 10:27 PM, President Yoon Seokyeol declared martial law. This declaration is illegal and constitutes a criminal act, directly violating the Constitution and other laws.
It is essentially a coup d'état.
The current political and social situation does not meet the criteria of "a time when it is necessary to respond to military needs or maintain public order in wartime or a similar national emergency" as outlined in Article 77 of the Constitution. Therefore, the emergency martial law is invalid and illegal, and the president should be held accountable. Additionally, martial law is procedurally invalid as there was no cabinet meeting, which is required by Article 2(5) of the Martial Law Act. This martial law is null and void!
It is illegal for martial law forces to enter the National Assembly. We demand the immediate lifting of martial law.
Kim Min-seok, Member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea
http://youtube.com/post/Ugkxb5QujtsQagPZalY1RJLx8Cd-W3gdyqO1...
Do you consider Justin Trudeau's invocation of the Emergencies Act in Canada to have been a coup?
- all political parties voted to have the martial law order revoked.
I don't know what the fallout of this will be, but the curent president of South Korea is toast. He went all in and lost big time.
On the other hand, declaration of martial law or walking armed into parliament might well be a coup attempt.
Context and intent is everything.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japan-South-Korea-ties/U.S....
https://bsky.app/profile/antonhur.com/post/3lcfxpcpmuc24
https://bsky.app/profile/sarahjeong.bsky.social/post/3lcfxvf...
My understanding based on just finding out about this and skimming a bit:
President declared martial law to distract from some embarrassing thing
Military starts enforcing
Assembly votes to outlaw martial law
Military stands down
> Democratic Party aides are shown spraying fire extinguishers at the infiltrating army to keep them back.
I remember reading this type of minute by minute description of unfolding news on Twitter, back in the day. I'm reading it on BlueSky now. My, how times have changed.
I can't find a similar thread on X. For me X's lead post on the subject is:
> ELON MUSK HAS CHANGED THE LIKE BUTTON TO SUPPORT THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH KOREA!!
Plenty of Armchair experts on both platforms giving likely misconstrued information.
You're welcome to express your views thoughtfully and substantively, of course—just not to do this sort of drive-by inflammatory thing, which is tedious and evokes worse from others.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Will not last. When this finish the rebloom of the societies will be massive.
The only info is that he said that it is to protect the democracy from north Korean supporters in the opposition, but no more details.
Does anyone know which action of the opposition triggered that? And why so suddenly? Also, might it be reasonable grounds to his claims or is he just clearly using the martian law against his political opponents?
Something a little bit scary around the world is that it looks like that bad guys are quite active and good at disrupting democracies and elections in free countries (France, us, Romania, moldovia, ...) whereas it looks like that the western world has really low influence to disrupt these countries for a political change.
> From the start [...] Mr. Yoon faced two obstacles.
> The opposition Democratic Party held on to its majority in the National Assembly and then expanded it in parliamentary elections in April, making him the first South Korean leader in decades to never have a majority in Parliament. And then there were his own dismal approval ratings.
> Mr. Yoon’s toxic relationship with opposition lawmakers — and their vehement efforts to oppose him at every turn — paralyzed his pro-business agenda for two years, hindering his efforts to cut corporate taxes, overhaul the national pension system and address housing prices.
and also
> Opposition leaders warned that Mr. Yoon was taking South Korea onto the path of “dictatorship.” In turn, members of Mr. Yoon’s party called the opposition “criminals,” and voters on the right rallied against what they called “pro-North Korean communists.”
> (Mr. Yoon echoed that language on Tuesday in his declaration of martial law, saying he was issuing it “to protect a free South Korea from the North Korean communist forces, eliminate shameless pro-North Korean and anti-state forces.”)
So basically, Mr. Yoon was unable to pass his agenda (as his party never had control of the legislative branch), and rather than continue to negotiate, he decided to impose martial law, label the opposition communists, and then ban the National Assembly from gathering (they gathered anyway).
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[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/world/asia/south-korea-yo...
Why x happened
What might happen next
How does this tie into bigger trends
I feel like i'm taking crazy pills. The world can't be this stupid yet it is. Subconscious social intelligence is real and it has taken a massive fucking hit recently. I've got an entertaining 60 years ahead of me. Social media has destroyed anything in the human experience outside of immediate status and gratification. I'm trying my best to insulate myself by getting into data science but I feel like I'm living on borrowed time.
What's more scary is how quick many people are to blame foreign boogeymen instead having a hard look at their own politicians and the hostile policies they have been implementing. You don't need to disrupt democracies when there is hardly anything democratic left about them.