By Deauwand Myers
“Revenge... is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.” –Jeremy Taylor, British clergyman and theologian, (1613-67).
There’s no love lost as far as I feel about Korea’s conservative party, the People Power Party (PPP), which is nothing but a light version of American conservatism.
A previous version of the PPP sought a rebranding after the disastrous tenure of Korea’s only female president, Park Geun-hye. Besides having an authoritarian bent in her governing style — much less than her father, but no less arrogant — and lacking the charisma or vision her late father had, President Park was woefully unprepared for the job. Some Korean political pundits even predicted there wouldn’t be another conservative presidential administration for a generation.
American Republicans suffered this for decades in the U.S. House. Democrats won a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954 and did not relinquish said majority until the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994. In short, for 40 years, two generations, Democrats controlled the House, unopposed in power. Democrats also achieved a majority in the Senate which it maintained until 1980.
For well over a quarter century, Democrats had senatorial control, a feat made more impressive by the anti-majoritarian design built into the American Constitution (where in the Senate, two senators represent every state regardless of the population of said state). So a state like Wyoming, with a population (around 579,000 people) three times smaller than the city of Daegu (2.4 million), has the same Senate representation as the two senators of California (with over 40 million people). That's 26 years control of the Senate. This also means for over a quarter of a century, Democrats had a majority in Congress.
Indeed, seeing the massive protests in the streets of Korea in 2016 and 2017 against the Park administration, I concluded her tenure would be a death blow to her party for years and years to come. Yet, five years after her impeachment, conviction and imprisonment, her party ascended again to the presidency with President Yoon Suk Yeol.
President Yoon, regardless of his politics, which differ from my own, has an impressive resume, having led the successful prosecutions of two of his own party’s luminaries, former presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-Bak. It took a great deal of integrity and political courage to levy such blows to the same party of which he wished to become the presidential nominee in some not-too-distant future.
And so I wonder, because the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) lost the last presidential election, is that party’s attempts to have a special counsel investigate President Yoon’s wife merely political retribution, with no substance to the claims therein, about activities done over a decade ago, none of which implicate President Yoon himself?
It's not unlike the American Republicans and their shameless and substanceless claims of some kind of criminality with President Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s business transactions (when President Biden was either vice president or a private citizen). By the way, if there was something untoward in said dealings (again, this has been thoroughly investigated and not a scintilla of wrongdoing by President Biden has been unearthed), a president cannot be charged with articles of impeachment for misdeeds committed outside said office.
I think the National Assembly’s passing of a special counsel bill is mere political theater and retribution, just like with American Republicans and President Biden, because ex-President Trump has 91 felony indictments across multiple jurisdictions. (Further, federal indictments have a 95 percent to 99 percent success rate toward convictions, so Trump will be convicted and very likely imprisoned, if he loses on appeal.)
Again, when it comes to President Yoon, and certainly his party, and I do not agree on some political and sociopolitical issues, like the protection of rights of women in the workplace and the rights of sexual minorities — a stain on Korean society, because even conservative Japan has some legislation protecting the rights of sexual minorities, like non-discrimination against the LGBTQI community.
But that does not mean I’m for meaningless and unproductive legislation meant to politically wound the Yoon administration and does nothing to advance Korean society, whose domestic problems are aplenty: high unemployment of young, college-educated Koreans, underemployment and poor wage growth among salaried and hourly wage workers alike, lack of wage parity between men and women, mental health and suicide, low birthrates, frighteningly high household debt, the existential threat of North Korea and China with its designs to conquer Taiwan, and soon, and Korea depending so heavily on an export economy for economic growth.
Retribution and revenge rarely ends well, for interpersonal relationships and political parties. Korea’s DPK should find better things to do with its time.
Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master’s degree in English literature and literary theory, and is a private English teacher.
Era of political revenge
26
0
22.01.2024
By Deauwand Myers“Revenge... is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.” –Jeremy Taylor, British clergyman and theologian, (1613-67).
There’s no love lost as far as I feel about Korea’s conservative party, the People Power Party (PPP), which is nothing but a light version of American conservatism.
A previous version of the PPP sought a rebranding after the disastrous tenure of Korea’s only female president, Park Geun-hye. Besides having an authoritarian bent in her governing style — much less than her father, but no less arrogant — and lacking the charisma or vision her late father had, President Park was woefully unprepared for the job. Some Korean political pundits even predicted there wouldn’t be another conservative presidential administration for a generation.
American Republicans suffered this for decades in the U.S. House. Democrats won a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954 and did not relinquish said majority until the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994. In short, for 40 years, two generations, Democrats controlled the House, unopposed in power. Democrats also achieved a majority in the Senate which it maintained until 1980.
For well........
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