What I found when covering the Portland protests was that veterans were disproportionately represented among protesters. But I think the draft affected Korean protests in the sense that the soldiers sent to shoot citizens were normal guys and not Border Patrol psychos who are Into Hurting People
I would sort of expect the same if we had martial law- folks joining for GI bill different than ICE. Typing that out I’m realizing US has undeclared martial law if people can be whisked off the street and/or flown to El Salvador with no due process.
I think the US has been in existential constitutional crisis since January and that the difference between here and Korea in early December is the absence of an opposition party.
"Our present constitutional crisis is Putin’s pay back for the fall of the Soviet Union, and convenient cover for an even more egregious crime: ecocide."
Good point. There were quite a few vets in Occupy Oakland. Holding up copies of the constitution to cops in riot gear. IIRC the ‘good’ people joined the military after 9/11, leaving local law enforcement to be taken over by white supremacy (to the extent that it already hasn’t been.)
I doubt US protests can ever really map 1:1 to Korean protests, because the US has a vast police apparatus that can and will swoop in on protests and start tear-gassing and beating people and hauling them off to vanish in for-profit prisons. It’s why cops often infiltrate protests as shit-stirrers.
Like, if some dork at your intentionally peaceful protest starts trying to set concrete on fire, there’s a good chance that’s a cop. (Or just a dork, but “cop” is always a distinct possibility.)
The Korean attitude towards protests, policing, and the martial law declaration itself is informed by the dictatorship years, where there was a massive military-police apparatus that hurt, disappeared, and killed people.
99% of Americans know nothing about the ‘87 protests or Chun Doo-Hwan
Right, but is that apparatus in place NOW? I get the impression the Korean armed forces mostly don’t want to fire on their neighbors, in the current state of things, or is that not the case? It sounds like Korea has already gotten past the state the US is currently in, hence the different vibes.
I’m not trying to play “Who Is More Oppressed” and I hope it didn’t come off that way! I’m mostly trying to gauge why the Korean impeachment and protests play out so differently from similar efforts in the US, and is there anything the US could pick up from that, what works differently, and why?
i think it's futile to liken Korea is to America in general. we have more police, more guns, and more violence.
videos i saw of old ladies pushing back on guns and such would not play out the same here. it would've been so much worse.