WEBVTT - Who Is Running South Korea? 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.880 All Zone Media. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:07.960 Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about the 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.560 worst coups in all of history. I'm your host, Bia Wong, 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.440 and we are returning to one of the worst coups 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.759 I have ever seen, because a whole bunch more stuff 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:23.040 has happened in our most recent, unbelievably dogshit coup in 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:27.080 South Korea, the six hour coup of which President Yun 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:30.840 declared martial law and tried to shut down the National Assembly, 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.479 and then the National Assembly got together and voted to 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:40.479 end the martial law, and then it stopped. Extremely bizarre 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.159 in baffling series of events. And you know, when we 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.400 last left our intrepid heroes, the people of South Korea, 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:49.920 they had just successfully overturned a coup. No one quite 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:51.720 knew what was gonna happen. In the aftermath, we knew, 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.960 and impeacha vote was coming, a vote to impeach President Yun. 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.200 The reason we're coming back to this, though, is that 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.160 the aftermath of all of this has been absolutely baffling, 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.280 and I think this has all been lost in the 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.280 news cycle because about a trillion things are happening right now, 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:13.600 But the situation in South Korea has been unbelievably weird, 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:16.160 and so we're now going to take a look at 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.560 the actual impeachments of President Yun and the unbelievably bizarre 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:24.600 path that led to it, because oh my god, the 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:26.399 more I talk to people, the more I realize that 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:30.880 people don't know how unbelievably unhinged everything has been since 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.160 since the military coup, because everyone has moved on. So 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.679 we're going back. So immediately after the coup, there was 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.559 this whole wave of military guys going like, we didn't 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:43.160 know we were taking part in the COUU, We're totally innocents, Like, oh, 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:45.560 they just let us out of the trucks and suddenly 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:46.959 we were at the National Assembly. 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:48.640 We were like, oh, what are we doing? 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.000 And there's also been this whole thing of all these 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:53.960 special forces guys going like oh yeah, no, no, yeah, 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.520 we totally could have taken the National Assembly in twenty 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.080 minutes if we wanted to. We just uh, we just 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.000 like didn't want to take a National Assembly, Like we 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:03.640 didn't we didn't really want to do it, man, Like 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.160 our heart wasn't in this coup, and like, really, I 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:09.560 have seen the videos of that shit, man, Like I 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:11.880 didn't see you like going in there and kicking ass 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:13.839 and taking names. I saw you getting your ass kicked 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.560 by a guy just like blowing your ass up with 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.600 a fire extinguisher and like not being able to break 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:21.960 a bunch of very well constructive barricade set up by 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:26.760 like fucking Senate aids. So that's been extremely funny. So 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.600 you like vanished for the entire time this coup was 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:31.880 going on, and like nobody knew where he was and 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:35.400 no one had seen him, and things were kind of 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:36.440 fiasco e. 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:37.840 He was just gone. 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:43.200 So he finally like reappeared, right, And as he started reappears, 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:47.040 he tries to like do this explanation of why he 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.840 did the coup. It goes about as badly as you 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.200 would expect from someone who just failed the worst coup 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.200 that we've ever seen. Here's from MPR quote in his 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.680 speech on Thursday June, a former chief prosecutor attempt justify 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.040 his actions and downplay its significance. He argued that the 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:09.320 opposition's quote legislative dictatorship unquote paralyzed state affairs and disturb 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.440 social order. Now this this is going back to the 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.600 thing you know he did at the time, Right, he 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:17.840 has this thing where he keeps calling the Parliament which 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:19.760 is controlled by the Democratic Party, which is like the 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:24.079 liberal opposition party. He kept calling the parliaments like opposition 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.239 anti state forces, and like, my brother in Christ, what 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:32.680 the fuck is a legislative dictatorship? I mean, like, you know, 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.040 you could be really strictly anarchist about it and be like, well, yeah, 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.520 all legislatives are dictatorships. But my dude, you are not 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.840 living under a dictatorship because the parliament that your country 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.640 elected hates you and refuses to pass your dogship budget 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.760 because no one likes you. That is simply not what 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:53.120 the word dictatorship means. It reminds me of this thing 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:55.400 where like, you know, if you go back and you 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:59.280 read like people in the eighteen hundreds talking about or 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:04.440 like like seventeen hundreds too, you'll read them talking about monarchies, right, 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:06.880 and they'll be like, ah, if the king can like 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:09.440 overrule the will of the nobles, we would be living 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.360 in a peer dictatorship. It's like, what the fuck are 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.000 you talking about? Like Suri, you live under a monarchy, 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:17.239 like you are already in a dictatorship. You are also 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:19.839 like part of the authoritary and apartans of the dictatorship, 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:21.320 and this is just like the inverse of that, where 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.760 it's like, ah, the legislature won't let me do whatever 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.000 the fuck I want, so this is now a dictatorship 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.880 and so like, you know, that's simply not what the 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.520 word dictatorship means, and you can't get away with that 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.919 shit as much in a country where people like in 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:41.080 living memory, have lived through an actual military dictatorship and 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.720 understand what that's like. The parliament refusing to pass your 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.640 terrible budget, that's not an excuse to institute martial law 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:52.599 and try to shut down the legislature. So this was 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:57.080 not received well as you would expect from whatever unhinged 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.360 speech that was. He did apologize for imposing Marshall Law, 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.560 which is a very funny place to end up, is 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:04.960 like you try to do a coup and then you 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.120 have to go on TV and apologize for trying to 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:09.159 do the coup and also try to argue you didn't 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:10.039 just try to do a coup. 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.279 So this is received very poorly, as we sort of predicted. 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:18.080 Immediately, the opposition Democratic Party immediately tries to impeach Youn, 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:20.880 and from the way the headlines kind of work in 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:22.760 the West, and from the way this is being talked about, 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:24.680 and even from the way this episode sort of opened, 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.800 you'd think that this impeachment vote was how we got impeached. 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:33.040 But no, no, the first impeachment vote is not how 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:34.000 un gets impeached. 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.599 Everything is way way weirder than that. 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:42.799 Now, June's party, the People's Power Party, which is henceforth 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:44.760 going to be called the PPP because I am not 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.040 going to say the words People Power Party over and 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:47.520 over again. 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:50.080 Good lord. The PPP get a lot of. 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.640 Credit from people outside of South Korea for, like, you know, 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.080 some of their members legitimately did show up to parliament 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.360 to vote against the martial law declaration, and at the 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.640 time in the last episode, I said, that's bullshit. You 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.640 don't get credit for voting against martial law. And also 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.159 like most of them weren't there, and I kind of 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.920 got shited for this. And I have been absolutely one 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.520 hundred percent vindicated because the. 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.400 Piece are vote, the first one rolls around. 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.440 The first one happens very quickly after the first coup, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.080 right well, the first que hopefully the only cue, hopefully 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:22.880 it is not a second cue. But this happens very quickly, 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.479 and Okay, so the vote rolls around, and the entire PPP, 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:31.040 the entire party except maybe like two people, just walk 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.200 out of the chambers. And because they walk out of 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.039 the chambers, the vote fails because they don't have they 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:36.640 don't have quorum. But if you don't have a quorum 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:38.760 is like there's like a minimum number of members that 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.760 has to be in attendance for for whatever you're doing 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:43.599 to be legal to stop like two people from showing 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:45.400 up in the middle of the night and being like, aha, 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.240 I am the parliaments. We've just passed this like order 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:51.800 that makes me dictator or whatever. And again, the entire 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.000 PPP just walks out and they leave, and the vote 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.880 fails because the PPP managed to whip basically its entire 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:10.760 membership into into trying to keep union power. And here 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.760 begins the what the fuck is going on part of 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.280 this episode, because A all reports we have suggest that 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.360 Yun was planning to have the leadership, but the PvP 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:23.160 arrested and b he just literally tried to do a 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.840 coup and they're still backing him. And see we stumble 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.680 into a very very thority question that I saw from 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.640 people in Korea, Like the moment after all this stuff happens, 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:35.960 but didn't really hit the western press until later, if 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.960 at all, and didn't really hit like the mainstream consciousness. 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.040 And this question will become a parent in a second. 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:46.160 So here's from the Guardian. Senior PPP politicians have claimed 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.840 you can continue as president while delegating his powers to 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:50.640 the Prime Minister. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:52.160 An arrangement. 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.000 Park that's Park Seoan Day, who's a very powerful Democratic 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.880 Party politician. An arrangement Park described as quote a blatant 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:00.600 constitutional violence with. 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.360 No legal basis. Now, this is true. 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.520 What Parky is saying is right right, And the fact 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.080 that the Guardian is saying like that their way of 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:13.480 framing this is Oh, the opposition party person says that 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.720 this is a blatant violation of constitutional law with no 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.520 legal basis. That's not just a thing that he says like, 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.080 this is true, like there is no legal mechanism for well, 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.920 we don't want to impeach our presidents. But also he 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:27.720 just tried to do a coup, so is said, we're 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:29.080 going to take his powers away and give it to 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:30.800 the Prime minister so he can still serve withou us 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:32.480 impeaching him like that, that's not a thing you can't 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.840 do this. There's no mechanism for this. The Democratic Party 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.440 people are just completely correct here. But because for some 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.320 reason the Guardian feels it, I mean, it's the Guardian 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.400 right like, but they feel it necessary to sort of 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.840 both sides again, a fucking coup. 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:49.439 This is where we are. Here's more from the Guardian quote. 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:53.120 The leader of the PPP, On Dung hun said at 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.080 the weekend that Yun would not be involved in foreign 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.600 and other state affairs, with control of the administration shifting 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.920 to the prem Minister. Hon Duk sue Hans said Yun's 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:07.320 televised apology was effectively a promise to leave office. 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.040 Now, no, it wasn't. It was not a promise to 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.280 leave office. What the fuck are you talking about? Like 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:14.600 everyone could just go listen to his apology. He didn't 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:16.160 say that. He did not say he was gonna. 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.760 Leave office, right and no, hell he says it's effectively 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:19.800 a promise to leave office. 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.040 But it simply isn't right. Everyone could just like see 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:23.880 this and again. 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:25.320 Like you know, okay, so like the thing that the 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:27.160 thing that the PvP is trying to do, right, the 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.400 PvP is trying to have their prime minister like gain 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:34.040 control of the administration. Now, there is a mechanism to 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.880 do this under the constitution. It's called impeachment. The thing 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:38.959 it happens where you get impeached is that you get 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:40.920 kicked out of office. And we're gonna get to this later, 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:42.720 but you get kicked out office and the Prime Minister 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.480 gets put into power, and this happens until this pre 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.319 court decides whether whether whether your impeachment should go through 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:50.400 or not. Right, So, like there's a mechanism for this, 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:52.960 but the PvP doesn't want to like impeach un but 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:57.120 they also don't want him seemingly running the country because 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.959 he appears to be like absolutely unhinged and just again 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.520 declared martial law and tried to knock off the legislature. 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:04.920 So you have this, You have this whole sort of 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.120 steaming mess of a situation where the PvP is trying 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.760 to like have it both ways of like not having 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.280 union power but also not impeaching him. But this also 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:19.680 begs one very important question. Hula fuck was running the 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:21.880 country between the first. 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.120 Appeachment vote and the second one. No one knows. No 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:26.880 one knows who was running this fucking country. 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.520 This is a country with fifty one million people and 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.920 nobody knew who was fucking running the country, and this 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:34.360 this barely made the news. 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.520 I'm going insane, How how? Why? Why? 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:39.880 Why is this a thing that just like completely disappeared 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:40.920 beneath the fucking. 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:42.880 Like chatter of the news waves. This just this just 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:43.760 vanished entirely. 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:49.120 And speaking of vanishing entirely, we were gonna vanish entirely 0:10:49.400 --> 0:11:10.240 to do these ads. 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.959 And we are back. 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.520 So, as you would imagine from a situation where again 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.880 you have a country, you're fifty one million people, where 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.000 no one knows who is running the country, things have 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.280 been extremely chaotic. So you know, we covered in the 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.920 last episode that like a bunch of ministers were resigning, 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.000 right because you know, they had just taken part in 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.880 a coup and they were like, well shit, the ex 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:28.880 defense minister, who's one of the people who's been sort 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.319 of implicated as being like saying that he's to a 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.160 large step behind the coup like is true. 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:35.000 But I mean this was a. 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:39.079 Cooperative effort between Yun the defense minister, and a bunch 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.280 of the people in the army, and the defense minister 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.560 who resigned in disgrace like got thrown in jail. So 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.760 that's fucking wild, like you just got like arrested by 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.240 the police. A bunch of testimony also has come out 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.280 from the National Assembly investigation, which I'm not covering much 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:01.760 of the testimony from the National Assembly investstigation because it's 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:07.320 really unclear exactly how reputable all this stuff is because 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.400 a lot of people are just saying shit, right, and 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.560 some of it may be real. Some of it maybe 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:15.920 some of the people have you know, obtained their sources, 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:20.040 but some of it's probably not. But like to get 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:22.280 a sense of like the kind of stuff that is 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.640 coming out in this investigation. One of the big claims 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:27.760 was from I think it's some like a TV host 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.439 who claimed he got texted it by a guy in 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:33.520 the army. But apparently he was saying that the plan 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:35.760 by union the army, the plan was to have the 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:39.840 head of the PPP killed and then drop a North 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.400 Korean uniform nearby to like do a false flag and 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:51.640 implicate North Korean special forces. Now this is unbelievably unhinged, right, 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:57.080 what the fuck? And it probably isn't true, but you know, 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:01.200 the source isn't great, But like who knows, right, we 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:03.040 don't actually know if they're playing to do this and 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:04.720 fucked it up, or if they weren't playing to do this, 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:06.720 or if this person is this person just lying, this 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:09.760 person did get this text, but the person was misinformed. 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:11.640 We don't know if this is just like misinformation that's 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.000 being spread around. This is a good demonstration of what 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:19.679 the sort of chaos of this moment has been. And 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:21.600 you know, and there's been a lot of other stuff 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.679 that I think in any other time and place probably 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.920 would have been like front page news. So one of 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.080 the things that happens in this whole process is that 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.720 the South Korean police tried to raid the house of 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.480 the president, and you know, like as part of their investigation, 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.040 there's a whole thing where Union's been ordered by like 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.560 the investigatorial services to not leave the country because he's 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.160 just actively under investigation for this military coup being illegal 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.200 by just like the regular ass police. And so South 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.360 Korean police like try to raid his house and they 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.640 can't do it because the South Korean equivalent of the 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.880 Secret Service stops them from doing the raid. And this 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.760 in and of itself is something that like again would 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:08.160 be a giant news headline at any other point in time, 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.560 and it's just been completely lost, and it's like it's 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.800 not sort of clear right now how this is all 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.080 sort of going to play out, and whether the police 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.840 are going to be able to do this and you know, 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:24.040 what's actually gonna happen to you And after he presumably 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:25.840 leaves office, I mean, I guess the Streme Court could 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.520 save him, but like, you know, there's there's a real 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:30.520 chance that he and we're going to get into this 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:32.320 morning a second, there's a real chance that he just 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.400 like fucking goes to prison, right And unlike the last 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.400 president who was going to move from office, like, I 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:41.480 can't imagine him getting pardoned by the next administration because 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:45.920 that was merely an unhinged corruption scandal involving the president 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.800 of South Korea being under the influence of a shaman 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.760 and doing a bunch of corruption that did a bunch 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.960 of horrible shit. But this is, you know, this is 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.760 like he tried to do a coup, right, So it's 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:01.720 sort of unclear if he's going to get saved from that. 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.160 It does seem very likely that he's going to face 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.160 a bunch of charges for this because everyone is unbelievably 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:13.120 pissed off. Here's from dw On Monday, former head of 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:17.600 Special Warfare Command Kwak Jung Gwyn and former head of 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:21.680 the Capitol Defense Command Lie Jin Wu were arrested on 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:27.000 charges of deploying military personnel to the parliament. Former chief 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:31.360 of the Defense Counterintelligence Command Yo En hung has been 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.000 accused of orchestrating the implementation of marshal law, and Army 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:39.280 Chief Park Ensiou has been suspended from his role. Yun's 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:43.160 former Defense Minister Kim Yong yun, who stepped down immediately 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.800 following the board in martial law declaration, and former Interior 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:51.040 Minister Lee Song min also face investigations. So what we're 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:53.720 seeing here effectively, right, is the house cleaning of the 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.280 ranks of the Korean military who've been involved with this 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:58.480 whole thing, right, And they're going through a lot of 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.960 different people. This is also clearing out some of like 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.720 the clicks in the military who've been sort of backing 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.560 you and and who people have suspected have been a 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:10.760 bunch of the people behind a lot of this stuff, 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.840 And this is a good and necessary process. The entire 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.560 time this has been going on, everyone has been terrified 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.720 of the possibility of a second coup, and the only 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:22.680 way to avoid that in the short term is to 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.040 remove the senior leadership with the military and get them 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.200 away from their troops. They don't have the ability to 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:30.680 sort of plan anything, and sometimes this can make people 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.280 just go for it, right like that that's what happens 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.560 in Bolivia. It looks like where the failed Bolivionque was 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.520 a product of you know, people trying to do house 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.160 cleaning and get rid of military guys before they did 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:43.720 a coup, and so that this makes them go off 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.960 half cocked, and like, you know, that's a bad situation 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:49.840 for I mean, it's that situation for everyone that says 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:51.440 that there's a coup happening. But it's a bad situation, 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.560 especially for the military because they don't have their coup 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.400 preparations in place, so it's easier to knock them off. 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:00.840 But what's interesting about this too is to a large extent, 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.720 we're seeing other parts of the Korean state like really 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:09.359 go after the military, right, and this I don't know, 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:13.000 I mean, like I'm hoping this kind of like has 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.920 a precedent inside of the sort of Korean like liberal 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:21.240 democratic societal norms that like, you can't let this just 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:26.440 unhinged military do all of this stuff that the precedent 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:28.760 of this sort of like military house cleaning, I think 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.879 is a good one. Right, this is going to be 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:36.280 a rare, a rare Mia agrees with the people who 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.160 founded the US moment because oh my god, those people 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.440 suck shit like a bunch of slave owning, gedicidal bassards. 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:44.760 But you know, one of the things that they were 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.439 right about is the political danger to any democratic system 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:52.000 of having a standing army, right, and especially when you 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:54.800 have a standing army that's like permanently on a semi 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.640 war footing the way the South Korea is is there's 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.679 always a real political risk that they attempt sees power 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.600 and you have to fucking stop them from doing that. 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.480 And ideally you just fucking acts as much of it 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:09.600 as you possibly can, right, I mean, I think you 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:11.479 should act. You acts the entire political system to make 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:13.960 sure this doesn't happen. But you know, this is a 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.160 this is hopefully a good first step. I also want 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.680 to mention that the specific charge of insurrection is being 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:22.720 thrown at a lot of these people and also at 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:28.320 Un himself, and like he absolutely did it right, Like 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:30.640 there's not much of a dispute that he did in 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:35.560 fact do uh An insurrection under under sort of Korean law, 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.639 and this technically like carries the death penalty, but I 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:41.879 don't think they're gonna kill him, but you know, this 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.960 is the sort of severity of this stuff under the 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.080 Korean legal system. And Okay, so, like all of this 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.679 fucking chaos happening, right, and eventually there's a second impeachment vote, 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.240 and this time the public pressure is enough that the 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.479 PvP stays in the chamber to vote no, and only 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.000 about a dozen, like per MPR, only about a dozen 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.840 tpp lawmakers actually vote to impeach the guy who just 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.880 tried to have their fucking parliament disbanded. 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:11.399 You know. 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.400 And this is like one of the really depressing things 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.679 about this, right, even after everything, right, and this is 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:17.920 something that we can trace back to sort of the 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.920 roots of the conservatism of the PPP, even after all 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.040 of this shit, right, like, these people still backed him. 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:31.239 And that's a really really grim and depressing thing. And 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:32.920 part of the reaction to this has been from the 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.119 South Korean trade Union Movement, which has been calling for 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.320 just to straight up the disbanding of the PPP as 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.360 a political party, right, And that's something that I think 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:44.320 is extremely reasonable. Again, if your party's president tries to 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.160 do a military coup, I think I think you shouldn't 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.639 be allowed to have a party anymore. This is the 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.879 liberal opinions, right, Okay, So like eventually this vote does 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:59.159 go through, and the stage that we're at right now 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.280 is that. Okay, So once you get impeached by the 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.919 National Assembly, you're suspended from all your duties and the 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:07.480 Prime Minister takes power. So it's happening right now is 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.639 he doesn't have any power formally, but we're still in 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:12.840 this sort of holding period. We're waiting for the Supreme 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.520 Court to weigh in and either like approve the impeachment 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:19.199 or not. And that's kind of where things stand now. 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:24.479 After an unbelievably unhinged wee get a half of just 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.400 everything being extremely unboud two weeks, I guess everything being 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:33.399 just unbelievably extremely weird. And yeah, but I think I 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.359 think there is a mild hopeful note, which is that like, 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:40.080 if you fight back against these people, they can be defeated. 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:42.560 It sucks, but you can eventually get them to crumble. 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:45.879 And all I can really say for this is I 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:50.000 hope the South Korean people prevail over the shitty military dictators, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.680