Speaker 1: Also media Welcome Dick it Happened Here, a podcast that
Speaker 1: has increasingly become about it happening in other places in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Via Wong with me his care Hello.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 2: So if I'm remember incorrectly, and it is entirely possible,
Speaker 2: I have forgotten several coups that I've covered. I think
Speaker 2: this is the second coup that I've covered in six
Speaker 2: months that feels right. And you know, when we last
Speaker 2: left the dumbest coup I had ever seen in my
Speaker 2: entire life. We were in Bolivia and it was a
Speaker 2: truly spectacularly stupid coup. That coup ended with the army
Speaker 2: running away from a bunch of protesters who were just
Speaker 2: like yelling at them meanly. So that one had a
Speaker 2: thing I've never seen before, which is the army. The
Speaker 2: protesters were trying to bring something up to break a barricade,
Speaker 2: and the army ran away before they could get the
Speaker 2: like anti barricade thing up to the police barricade. So
Speaker 2: that was a disaster. Today we are talking about what
Speaker 2: I having now studied this since it was since it started,
Speaker 2: I genuinely believe this somehow is an even stupider coup
Speaker 2: than the last one, like I you have to go
Speaker 2: back to like the CIA coup in Venezuela where everyone
Speaker 2: just got that like arrested by fishermen to find a
Speaker 2: stupider coup in this it is, and even that one,
Speaker 2: like at least they like landed guys with guns. It
Speaker 2: was over so quick, like yeah, I think the official
Speaker 2: number is that the amount of time the martial law
Speaker 2: was technically in effect before the Assembly voted to get
Speaker 2: rid of it was one hundred and ninety minutes.
Speaker 3: Like people could have like slept through this coup, which
Speaker 3: is really funny, right, I.
Speaker 2: Made an executive decision, right, and I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna sleep in for one more hour. So I woke
Speaker 2: up at eight am, as at a seven am, and
Speaker 2: I missed like half of it because I was just
Speaker 2: I slept for one hour. So let's let's let's get
Speaker 2: into a bit about what happened here, because you know,
Speaker 2: as as dumb as this looks now, because it failed,
Speaker 2: this was for people who don't know there was an
Speaker 2: attempted coup in South Korea. I don't know what day
Speaker 2: it's gonna be when I don't know what day it's
Speaker 2: going to be in Korea when this comes out, because yeah,
Speaker 2: but on on Tuesday Day, on our Tuesday in like
Speaker 2: the it was I think ten thirty at night there
Speaker 2: the hideously unpopular president of Korea Sokyel yun, tried to
Speaker 2: declared martial law June is. His approval rating is like
Speaker 2: half of Joe Biden's approval rating. Like his approval rating
Speaker 2: is like twenty percent. He is staggeringly unpopular. He yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah. Youn won one election in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: very narrowly in a race where neither of the candidates
Speaker 2: were particularly good. And he is a hardline far right dipshit.
Speaker 2: He's you know, I mean, one of his big things.
Speaker 2: He has this unbelievably hardline in North Korea, which is
Speaker 2: not you know, doing anything productive at all. He's also
Speaker 2: you know, and this is like, if you want to
Speaker 2: look at like, who are his twenty percent of supporters left?
Speaker 2: He was the guy of the unbelievably unhinged Korean misogynist movement.
Speaker 2: I guess you would call them, who are some of
Speaker 2: the worst people on earth? I mean, these are guys
Speaker 2: who will just There was a court case recently that
Speaker 2: decided that you can't just like beat someone up for
Speaker 2: having short hair because you think they're a feminist like that.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of like unhinged misogynists that we're dealing with.
Speaker 2: That's that's Yuan's base. However, com a couple of things
Speaker 2: have happened since then. One is that he's racked by
Speaker 2: like a thousand scandals. Everyone in his in his cabinet
Speaker 2: keeps getting impeached for doing corruption. There are so many
Speaker 2: different corruption scandals with him going on right now that
Speaker 2: I was considering like reading out a list of all
Speaker 2: of them as a joke, but it's too long. One
Speaker 2: of the important ones is that he was like basically
Speaker 2: doing like a pay for play thing to like fuck
Speaker 2: with his his own parties primary process nice and this
Speaker 2: has pissed off basically his entire party, which is great,
Speaker 2: which is exactly the thing you want to be doing
Speaker 2: right before you would take the stage of coup is
Speaker 2: piss off your own political party. So all right, let's
Speaker 2: get to the coup. He has major problem with One
Speaker 2: of his very major problems is that he hasn't been
Speaker 2: able to do anything basically since he's been in power.
Speaker 2: And the reason he hasn't been able to do anything.
Speaker 2: Is that his first sort of like off election was
Speaker 2: this unbelievably crushing electoral defeat for his party. The National Assembly,
Speaker 2: which is their like parliament, is just straight up controlled
Speaker 2: by the opposition democratic like Liberal well okay, let me
Speaker 2: be very cific about this is controlled by the opposition
Speaker 2: Democratic Party, who are the sort of like Korean Liberal
Speaker 2: Party and also a bunch of like minor allied opposition parties,
Speaker 2: and they keep on again impeaching all of his cabinet members,
Speaker 2: which is very funny. You know, he was trying to
Speaker 2: get a budget through and the budget got eviscerated and
Speaker 2: he hasn't been able to do it. So he's been
Speaker 2: very very angry and very frustrated, and so his plan
Speaker 2: apparently to deal with this was just to knock out
Speaker 2: the National Assembly.
Speaker 3: This is so funny because like, because of who I am,
Speaker 3: I was talking about this at the bar last night,
Speaker 3: just completely insunderable. And the one thing I couldn't put
Speaker 3: together is like what his exact motivation was besides like
Speaker 3: rooting out like political enemies. No one knows that he
Speaker 3: like labeled us like quote unquote anti communist, right, but
Speaker 3: let's like we were talking about like how funny this
Speaker 3: all is, and like I still can't quite understand, like
Speaker 3: why he did this?
Speaker 2: No one news like this, this is Jenny, whyey, Nobody
Speaker 2: has any idea why the fuck he thought this would work?
Speaker 2: Like the best thesis and we'll get to this a bit.
Speaker 2: The best thesis that I've seen is that she wanted
Speaker 2: to do this because he was pissed off with the
Speaker 2: fact that he hasn't literally been able to do anything
Speaker 2: his entire time in office, because he's really mad at
Speaker 2: the National Assembly and also his own party, And it's.
Speaker 3: So funny to do that and then have that be
Speaker 3: underscored by them like be like, oh no, actually, you
Speaker 3: can't do a coup. No, no, thank you, nice try
Speaker 3: legally you cannot kou.
Speaker 2: Me yeah, Like the I think the semi serious part
Speaker 2: of this is that it doesn't make any sense to
Speaker 2: me how this could have been done if there also
Speaker 2: wasn't a faction of the Korean military that wanted this. Right,
Speaker 2: the Korean military is I mean, most of Korea's history
Speaker 2: still to this day, but I think it's still a
Speaker 2: majority of the amount of time South Korea has been
Speaker 2: in existence has been under military dictatorships of various kinds.
Speaker 2: There's been a whole bunch of them. They were staggeringly hideous.
Speaker 2: They killed unbelievable numbers of people, they tortured unbelievable numbers
Speaker 2: of people. They were fully backed by the United States.
Speaker 2: And the military has also always had this real chip
Speaker 2: on its shoulder about sort of liberal civilian politicians. And
Speaker 2: they have their version of like all of the conspiracy
Speaker 2: things that we have about how all democratsic communists, how
Speaker 2: they're all like secretly yea et cetera, et cetera. So
Speaker 2: this is like they're all secretly North Korea supporters, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 3: Right, And this is something I was also seeing yesterday
Speaker 3: people being like, oh wow, when did South Korea become
Speaker 3: North Korea? And they're like, oh my god, that's so
Speaker 3: that's like what a weird like orientalist racist comment. This
Speaker 3: is this is the most South Korean thing to ever happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like military coup and then military coup
Speaker 2: being overturned by protesters is the single most South Korean
Speaker 2: thing ever, right, Like, this is just how South Korean
Speaker 2: history has been.
Speaker 3: Having the fucking assembly you have to like break in
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night to vote. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: so funny.
Speaker 2: It's just it's Yeah, we're gonna get to the actual
Speaker 2: details of it a second, but I want to I
Speaker 2: want to go back to what was actually in this
Speaker 2: declaration of martial laws. So the Korean constitution does let
Speaker 2: you declare martial law, but you're only supposed to do wait,
Speaker 2: if there's like a war going on or like.
Speaker 3: If there's like an actual crisis happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, instead of just like I'm mad I can't pass
Speaker 2: my budget, which she used to be. What was happening here?
Speaker 3: You feel bad on a Monday night and you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I guess I'll dular martial law.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so okay, I'm going to read some I'm going
Speaker 2: to read a thing about what was going on here,
Speaker 2: about how unhinged. This was from Hawkura, which is the
Speaker 2: Korean media outlet. Quote Commander park Ensou announced quote martial
Speaker 2: law Command Proclamation number one, which, by the way, that's
Speaker 2: how you know you're dealing with people who have done
Speaker 2: this before. When when when they start doing their like
Speaker 2: decree number one, Decree number two.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's that.
Speaker 2: That is an that is an experience the side of
Speaker 2: like very very experienced military coup people announced Martial Law
Speaker 2: Command Proclamation number one based on the contents of prohibiting
Speaker 2: all political activities of the National Assembly and local assemblies.
Speaker 2: The proclamation also included contents that controlled the press and
Speaker 2: publications and prohibited citizens assemblies and demonstrations, as well as
Speaker 2: strikes and workstopages by workers. It is also notable that
Speaker 2: it included the content quote all medical personnel, including residents
Speaker 2: who are on strike who have left the medical field
Speaker 2: must return to their original work within forty eight hours
Speaker 2: and work faithfully, and violations will be published in accordance
Speaker 2: with the Martial Law Act. Now it's important to note
Speaker 2: here if the thing you're trying to do is impose
Speaker 2: martial law on Korea according to the constitution, and obviously
Speaker 2: if you're in the state where you're opposing martial law,
Speaker 2: the law has kind of got out the window. But
Speaker 2: you can't get rid of the National Assembly. That is
Speaker 2: not a thing that martial law allows you to do.
Speaker 2: And in fact, very explicitly in the Korean Constitution it
Speaker 2: says that like the National Assembly can't be gotten rid
Speaker 2: of by martial law. So this suggests to me that, yeah,
Speaker 2: this was something that was also being sort of spearheaded
Speaker 2: by parts of the Korean military. Because if you're not
Speaker 2: someone in the army who has their own interest in
Speaker 2: doing a coup, and someone asks you to just like
Speaker 2: overthrow the parliament, which is a thing that they're not
Speaker 2: allowed to do, you just say no. Which also makes
Speaker 2: the failure of this and how un believably stupidly it
Speaker 2: was all put together even more baffling, right, because if
Speaker 2: we assume that parts of the cliqus in the army
Speaker 2: had to have been involved with this, and like we
Speaker 2: know and this only FPR talks about Yun is like
Speaker 2: fucked right. There's no way he's holding onto power. He's
Speaker 2: screwed and he's gonna be That will make him the
Speaker 2: second Korean president in seven years to be ran out
Speaker 2: by mass protests and dream the last set of politicians
Speaker 2: who were getting read out by mass protests. The army
Speaker 2: actually started drafting like procedures for how they were going
Speaker 2: to do a military takeover to like to knock out
Speaker 2: the protests, and they never did it. But this has
Speaker 2: been a thing that's been in the background for a
Speaker 2: long time, and the liberal the liberal establishment has been
Speaker 2: talking about how the right wants to bring back military
Speaker 2: rule for ages. This is a situation that in some
Speaker 2: ways is similar to Brazil, where the Right has always
Speaker 2: been a sort of like, we like military rule kind
Speaker 2: of thing, but nobody actually seriously thought they would do
Speaker 2: it until they did. And you know, I'm gonna read
Speaker 2: one more thing before we go to ads here, which
Speaker 2: is he claimed that the National Assembly was quote the
Speaker 2: mastermind behind the downfall of the country, which, okay, that's
Speaker 2: pretty normal coup stuff, quote monsters and quote anti state
Speaker 2: forces seeking to overthrow the system. Now again, he has
Speaker 2: just described the National Assembly, which is the Korean parliament
Speaker 2: as quote anti state forces seeking to overthrow the system,
Speaker 2: which now gives us the specter of the Anarco Parliament.
Speaker 3: I do wonder how much of this type of stuff
Speaker 3: is influenced, like by Trump's victory and like the enemy
Speaker 3: within rhetoric. I'm not sure how much influence Trump has.
Speaker 3: I know he has a degree of influence like pop
Speaker 3: culture wise in like Japan, I'm not sure of his
Speaker 3: influence in South Korea, but like in terms of just
Speaker 3: like geopolitics, like that's very similar to the type of
Speaker 3: like deep state enemy within rhetoric that like Trump used
Speaker 3: to success. Yeah, I not like tie everything back to America,
Speaker 3: but like.
Speaker 2: This like subversive shit is like stuff that you can
Speaker 2: trace back to, like the original dictatorship. Right, Like this
Speaker 2: is a very very old, long running thing in Korean politics. Okay,
Speaker 2: we will get to the coup after I guess we
Speaker 2: get to a faction that didn't back the coup, which
Speaker 2: is the Korean capitalist class. So here are some ads.
Speaker 3: Salute to our comrades.
Speaker 2: We are back now. I will say it is true
Speaker 2: that this whole thing folded so quickly that we'd never
Speaker 2: really got a chance to see how the Korean capitalist
Speaker 2: class would have reacted, other than the fact that all
Speaker 2: of the newspapers immediately were like, what the fuck are
Speaker 2: you doing? So it's also worth noting if you're trying
Speaker 2: to do a coup, right, there are four things that
Speaker 2: you need to do. You need to arrest your senior
Speaker 2: opposition political figures. You need to seize the radio stations
Speaker 2: that this includes, you know today like newspapers, TV stations.
Speaker 3: Podcasts obviously, you know streamers, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we're a vital part of the media infrastructure
Speaker 2: that must be controlled.
Speaker 3: I show Speed or whatever his name is he has
Speaker 3: to come under your control. You gotta get Aiden Ross
Speaker 3: locked in the cage fast fast.
Speaker 2: I think Speed would have fucking gone just gone sicko
Speaker 2: mode on their special forces guys, given how just like
Speaker 2: unbelievably their asses got kicked. You know, you have to
Speaker 2: seize the airports and you have to take the major
Speaker 2: government buildings. Right, So how many of these did this
Speaker 2: coup manage to do?
Speaker 3: They did like zero?
Speaker 2: Right, They sort of kind of took most of the
Speaker 2: National Assembly. Yeah, but that last and what like an hour? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: well we'll get to that in a second. So it
Speaker 2: seems like what we have reporting from the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: of Korea. They claim that the military attempted to arrest
Speaker 2: the head of the National Assembly, the head of the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party, and then also the head of the PPP,
Speaker 2: which is People's Power Party, which is Yun's own party.
Speaker 2: So he tried to have the head of his own
Speaker 2: party arrested Korean special forces and it didn't work because
Speaker 2: none of them were at their offices.
Speaker 3: It's so funny because they kept putting out a restaurans
Speaker 3: for like like the opposition party, his own party, and
Speaker 3: the Assembly was like hyer and.
Speaker 2: You know, they did legitimately shut down some news outlets
Speaker 2: and that was it. You know, that was sort of genuine.
Speaker 3: I saw reporters like fucking like fighting with the military
Speaker 3: in the streets. It was sick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this is why this is such a bad idea, right,
Speaker 1: Like in the words of a football commentator whose name
Speaker 1: I'm forgetting right now, who had the greatest cast light
Speaker 1: at all of human history.
Speaker 2: Oh, no, disaster, what a bad idea? Like I okay,
Speaker 2: just just from the logistics of this, right pretty up
Speaker 2: on the list of countries you don't want to try
Speaker 2: to hold by by military force is South Korea, and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of reasons for this one. You know,
Speaker 2: you're dealing with like one of the largest jushu bases
Speaker 2: in the world. The other thing is like this is
Speaker 2: an entire country of protesters and capitalist protesters.
Speaker 3: Very scary.
Speaker 2: Well, but like like everyone fucking like fucking everyone in
Speaker 2: this country either like was a protester when they were
Speaker 2: a fucking kid, or was one now to the extent
Speaker 2: were like liberal members of parliament know how to build barricades.
Speaker 3: It's so cool.
Speaker 2: This actually mattered enormously, Like like fucking guys who are
Speaker 2: just like random aids where and there are videos of
Speaker 2: this of the of like just like random staffer guys
Speaker 2: like holding barricades from like against like paratrooper units and
Speaker 2: like like just random staffers like shooting fire extinguishers at
Speaker 2: armored special forces units. Like can you fucking imagine that
Speaker 2: shit in the US?
Speaker 3: Like it was very cool to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like this is this is why this is
Speaker 2: such a terrible idea because everyone has a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of institutional memory and experience of this, right, not just
Speaker 2: because you know the Democratic Party, right, which is which
Speaker 2: is the party that this was largely targeted at most
Speaker 2: of Like the elder statesmen of this party used to
Speaker 2: be Koreans like student protesters, Like they're all veterans of
Speaker 2: the campaigns that brought down the Milton government. And it's
Speaker 2: not just that there's like a there's a memory of it.
Speaker 2: It's like there are a protests outside the National Assembly
Speaker 2: like every fucking day, right, Like again, the last time
Speaker 2: they brought down a prime minister with mass protest was
Speaker 2: seven years ago. This is a whole country of people
Speaker 2: who know how to do this shit, and for some
Speaker 2: reason these idiots were like, we have no popular support whatsoever,
Speaker 2: and we're just gonna be able to like roll over
Speaker 2: this entire country in one night. So I think the
Speaker 2: plan was to hold the National Assembly and prevent the
Speaker 2: National Assembly from convening so that there was nobody who
Speaker 2: could override the martial law order.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds pretty basic, right, just to keep them
Speaker 3: out of the building so that they can't do anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they failed, easy, right?
Speaker 3: Oh oh no, they failed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the thing the problem here again is that
Speaker 2: you're dealing with an entire country that has been doing
Speaker 2: this for fucking ages. Right, So they do this at
Speaker 2: like ten thirty at night, and immediately what happens is
Speaker 2: just like a bunch of drug guys in bars like
Speaker 2: show up to the National Assembly. Like the moment I
Speaker 2: knew it was doomed, was there. I was reading in
Speaker 2: the New York Times they had an interview with this
Speaker 2: guy who showed up. This is again the part I'm
Speaker 2: not talking about this being a country protesters like these
Speaker 2: guys aren't like leftists like revolutionaries, right. This Like one
Speaker 2: of the guys they were talking to the New York
Speaker 2: Times like their journals on the ground, pulls over a
Speaker 2: random guy and he's a sixty year old real estate agent. Right,
Speaker 2: this is a guy who should be like, this should
Speaker 2: be the base of a military coup. Right, this is
Speaker 2: a sixty year old man who doesn't real estate it
Speaker 2: and he heard about this and immediately his his life
Speaker 2: was quote this is the end. So he drove for
Speaker 2: a fucking hour at like one in the morning to
Speaker 2: show up to the National Assembly to go fight the army.
Speaker 2: There was just no way this is good to work.
Speaker 2: And so people, even though it's really late up, people
Speaker 2: just flood out. And suddenly there's all of these protesters
Speaker 2: in front of the National Assembly and they're doing shit
Speaker 2: like there's this unbelievable video of this soldier like tries
Speaker 2: to take a guy's phone and this guy has some
Speaker 2: kind of emrtial arts trading. It just grabs his arm
Speaker 2: and just spins him around, the coolest thing. And the
Speaker 2: guy's like, so I'm just like, well, fuck, guess I'm
Speaker 2: not dealing with this shit.
Speaker 3: And there was such like a resignation. Yeah, in the
Speaker 3: movements of that military officer would be like it's just like, well, shit,
Speaker 3: we could keep fighting, but why like what's the point,
Speaker 3: Like why am I out here? It's midnight, I should
Speaker 3: be in bed. What's going on?
Speaker 2: And like and part of this too also and this
Speaker 2: is this is a smart decision by someone, is that
Speaker 2: these guys weren't issued with actual bullets. So when I
Speaker 2: say these guys and this is this is the you know,
Speaker 2: the actual loving part about this is that these were
Speaker 2: largely Korean paratrooper units, and Korean paratrooper units are some
Speaker 2: of the most unhinged like fascist troops in the entire world. Like,
Speaker 2: these are people who didn't just fight in the Korean War.
Speaker 2: A bunch of these guys fought in Vietnam. Like on
Speaker 2: the American side, they are notorious as the people who
Speaker 2: the military has always used to sort of put down protests.
Speaker 2: One of the most famous examples of this is the
Speaker 2: Guandara uprising in nineteen eighty. This was a pro democracy
Speaker 2: uprising after one of the various stages of insane military
Speaker 2: coups stuff was going on in South Korean nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: and there's a large democratic uprising from sort of students
Speaker 2: and workers. There's a bunch of strikes. They take this area,
Speaker 2: and the paratroopers come and shoot them all. They killed
Speaker 2: probably several thousand people and a lot of the paratrooper
Speaker 2: units that were deployed to take the National Assembly were
Speaker 2: literally the same units that were sent into crushes uprising
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty, So this was in some ways very
Speaker 2: very scary, right because these are like, again, these are
Speaker 2: the units that were sent in to shoot a bunch
Speaker 2: of fucking civilians in the streets in order to keep
Speaker 2: military rule intact. However, this time these para units just
Speaker 2: got their shitthanded to them. So it's sort of unclear
Speaker 2: exactly what was going on in the National Assembly. It
Speaker 2: seemed like some National Assembly members were still there, but somehow,
Speaker 2: and we don't part of how this happened, which is
Speaker 2: protesters were just there's a video of I think it
Speaker 2: was like the opposition leader the protesters like pushed them
Speaker 2: up over a fence so he could break into the
Speaker 2: National Assembly and get past the military barricades. Like one
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety lawmakers somehow like got into the National
Speaker 2: Assembly and barricaded themselves in.
Speaker 3: This also shows a level of like dedication. Yeah that
Speaker 3: I suspect none of none of our lawmakers would do. No,
Speaker 3: they're not gonna they're not gonna break into the capital
Speaker 3: when it's surrounded by military guard.
Speaker 2: You know, we had this with January sixth, right, and
Speaker 2: like what what what did our congress people do dream
Speaker 2: January sixth? They all ran and hid.
Speaker 3: I mean these are slightly different circumstances.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is true, but like but like you know, okay,
Speaker 2: so if if you look at there's been a lot
Speaker 2: of shit talking of the of the American people's willingness
Speaker 2: to protest and stuff in the light of like watching
Speaker 2: the Korean people overturn this coup in like three hours.
Speaker 2: And I will point out that in twenty twenty, this
Speaker 2: was this was literally four years ago. Like we put
Speaker 2: the President of the United States in a bunker. People
Speaker 2: fought the Secret Service hand to hand outside the gates
Speaker 2: of the White House. Like the police in this country
Speaker 2: lost control of the centers of several major American cities.
Speaker 2: So like Americans will fight, right, but can you imagine
Speaker 2: like Nancy Pelosi or like like Chuck Schumer or whoever
Speaker 2: was around, like trying to set up like like setting
Speaker 2: up barricades to stop the army from like marching into
Speaker 2: Like no, it's unreal. And these were good barricades too,
Speaker 2: These were very well constructed barricades. These were barricades that
Speaker 2: like are better than a lot of barricades I've seen
Speaker 2: set up by protesters over the like can the US
Speaker 2: over the last few years. And the consequence of this
Speaker 2: was that the National Assembly just voted for the cup
Speaker 2: to be over, because they can just vote to say
Speaker 2: that the martial law is over. And then the military
Speaker 2: kind of was just like, well shit and just kind
Speaker 2: of left.
Speaker 3: I mean they waited in the wings for a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and we were all curious to see what the president
Speaker 3: was gonna do after this. Emily was like, uh, nice,
Speaker 3: try sir, and I guess we will talk about that
Speaker 3: after another message from these ads.
Speaker 2: And we are so back. We are so back. And it
Speaker 2: has never been more over for President UNI. That is true,
Speaker 2: it has never been more over. And so part of
Speaker 2: the weird part about this is that you just like
Speaker 2: vanishes for most of this, Like we don't hear from
Speaker 2: him until like the morning when he announces that he's
Speaker 2: going to roll back the martial law thing. But he
Speaker 2: needs his cabinet there to do the vote, so he's
Speaker 2: gonna do it later. I don't know. But the troops
Speaker 2: have already all pulled out by this point. And like
Speaker 2: they go back to their barracks after the National Assembly,
Speaker 2: it is like what the fuck. So there's been a
Speaker 2: lot of hay made about how one hundred and ninety
Speaker 2: members of the National Assembly showed up and every single
Speaker 2: one of them voted to end martial law, and like
Speaker 2: that's cool. But I've seen a lot of people be like, oh,
Speaker 2: look at how democratic the PPP, which is the right
Speaker 2: wing party that UN's a part of, is from, Like
Speaker 2: they voted to do it, but like, okay, yes it was,
Speaker 2: this was a unanimous vote. I need everyone to understand
Speaker 2: that there are three hundred members of the National Assembly
Speaker 2: and that means one hundred and ten of them didn't
Speaker 2: show up, and that of the people who showed up,
Speaker 2: there were only eighteen members. Yeah, of the PPP who
Speaker 2: showed up to this now, and part of that, like
Speaker 2: it is true. It is. It was a bit difficult
Speaker 2: to get through the fucking military occupation bit with paratroopers,
Speaker 2: but everyone else you to have managed to, so you know,
Speaker 2: and you AND's own party also just hates him because again,
Speaker 2: like one of the scandals he's going down for is
Speaker 2: like fucking with their primaries and like getting a bunch
Speaker 2: of people who had safe seats like losing their safe
Speaker 2: seats so he could put his guys in. And again
Speaker 2: he also tried to arrest the head of his own parties.
Speaker 2: So like, these people don't like him for very immediate
Speaker 2: person or reason. Is not because the PPP is somehow
Speaker 2: like a party more committed to democracy than the Republican
Speaker 2: Party is here like no, these people all suck, Like,
Speaker 2: oh god. But this leaves us with the aftermath of this,
Speaker 2: and the first thing I want to kind of go
Speaker 2: over is what the fuck were they doing? Because again,
Speaker 2: if you look at the sequence of events here, right,
Speaker 2: there's this coup, right, the martial law goes into effect,
Speaker 2: the army backs it and tries to occupy the National Assembly,
Speaker 2: but then the National Assembly votes that the martial law
Speaker 2: is over, and then the army just leaves. Now, what
Speaker 2: if you go back to remember when I was talking
Speaker 2: about the beginning of this, right, seizing the National Assembly
Speaker 2: is not something you were allowed to do when at
Speaker 2: a state of emergency or a martial law in position, Right,
Speaker 2: that's something explicitly the army is banned from doing. They
Speaker 2: did it anyways, which means that like probably like a
Speaker 2: bunch of generals are also going to prison for this.
Speaker 2: But then they also immediately backed down when it became
Speaker 2: clear that you know, they were going to there was
Speaker 2: going to be resistance, and that if they were going
Speaker 2: to try to stop this, they were either wouldn't have
Speaker 2: to beat the shit out of or just like actually
Speaker 2: shoot a bunch of lawmakers in the National Assembly. And
Speaker 2: I understand that that's a bad idea, and I get
Speaker 2: why these people didn't want to do that, just put
Speaker 2: like from the their own things politically. But if if
Speaker 2: you weren't willing to do that, why did you do
Speaker 2: this in the first place? Like, how did you think
Speaker 2: this was gonna go? Like the only thing I could
Speaker 2: think of was that they thought they could just should have.
Speaker 2: I thought it was ten thirty at night, we can
Speaker 2: just shock and awe everyone. Yeah, we'll just roll them over.
Speaker 2: But like, do you know what country you were in?
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, it's a massivenst calculation. That's what makes
Speaker 3: this the worst coup since Bolivia. I think it's worse
Speaker 3: in Bolivia, Oh absolutely, because it shows a complete like
Speaker 3: disconnection from understanding the country that you're in.
Speaker 2: What were they doing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like the willingness of the people to like get
Speaker 3: mobilized at ten thirty. Yeah, and the willingness of your
Speaker 3: own lawmakers to try to put like some level of
Speaker 3: resistance to this, even if it's not like physically fighting
Speaker 3: the army, which someone that ended up doing.
Speaker 2: Which they did. They fought the army, Like, ah, what
Speaker 2: a world. And also with Bolivia too, you know, there's okay,
Speaker 2: so a with Bolivia, there's a lot of debate over
Speaker 2: where that coup is real or not. I lean towards
Speaker 2: it was. There's a lot of people think he was staged.
Speaker 2: But also if it wasn't stage, the excuse they have
Speaker 2: is that the general who was leading it was about
Speaker 2: to get fired, so he just had to go, right.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, yeah, okay, it looked like a completely
Speaker 2: half cocked coup because it was they just they had
Speaker 2: to go before he got fired. This one, there was
Speaker 2: no time pressure. He could have just done this whenever
Speaker 2: with better planning. And I don't know, it's all very
Speaker 2: very deeply weird in terms of what's happening next. I mean,
Speaker 2: Yun was finished anyways, Like he again, he had a
Speaker 2: twenty percent of proof of rating going into this. Coming
Speaker 2: out of this, there's immediately a democratic party is trying
Speaker 2: to impeach him, like a bunch of the PPP, who's
Speaker 2: again supposed to be his party, are also going along
Speaker 2: with it because they hate him. There was some very
Speaker 2: funny comments from PPP guys who were like his supporters,
Speaker 2: who were like, well he literally one of them said
Speaker 2: that he did this thing. Has anyone thought about like
Speaker 2: the pressure of burden placed on him, maybe someone should
Speaker 2: have gotten to talk to him. He did this because he
Speaker 2: was lonely, which is the most insane thing I've ever
Speaker 2: heard of my life. Like, he just he just tried
Speaker 2: to Aren't you that this guy get a coup because
Speaker 2: he was lonely?
Speaker 3: What the fuck? It's the in cell evolution. It's finally
Speaker 3: happening in South Korea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like he is going to get impeached. The
Speaker 2: only way he's not going to get impeached is if
Speaker 2: the judiciary steps had to save him. And I can't
Speaker 2: imagine them trying it. After again, he just tried to
Speaker 2: do a coup. He's going to prison, Like probably his
Speaker 2: defense secretary is going to prison, like Confesse Minister's going
Speaker 2: to prison. Probably a bunch of military guys are going
Speaker 2: to prison. Like this is it's so funny. They have
Speaker 2: just effectively annihilated their own political power for a generation.
Speaker 2: Like this faction of people who have been running the
Speaker 2: country is just gone. I mean they'll still be the PPP, right,
Speaker 2: this will be like conservatives, but like they just have
Speaker 2: obliterated themselves in maybe the most spectacular fashion I have
Speaker 2: ever seen. And you know what happens when they were
Speaker 2: sort of unclear? Is it right now? We're recording this Wednesday, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Wednesday at like ten am. Yeah, so it's it's unclear
Speaker 2: exactly what's gonna happen in the time between when this
Speaker 2: when we record this and when this goes out, but
Speaker 2: unis finished. This is it's pretty ver Yeah, And I'm
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that we see a serious attempt to actually
Speaker 2: like deal with the fact that the army is ran
Speaker 2: by a bunch of people who tried to do a coup.
Speaker 2: We won't we might well, no, like it, here's the
Speaker 2: thing in the US, absolutely not South Korea. Maybe there's
Speaker 2: a chance there's like a there is a slight chance
Speaker 2: that people get purged from this, right and in a
Speaker 2: similar way to like Lula kind of purging some of
Speaker 2: the army.
Speaker 3: My South Korea Does Good Things card is already full
Speaker 3: up because of yesterday.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine they're gonna do more because it's South Korea.
Speaker 2: Well, I will also say, like one of the things
Speaker 2: that's happening is Korea is like major trade union Federation
Speaker 2: is like doing a general strike until until the impeachment happens.
Speaker 2: So you know, there is a lot of pressure to
Speaker 2: clean house here. And like a lot of Korean liberalism
Speaker 2: is based on the sort of mythos of like of
Speaker 2: the student protesters, and like the protesters, you brought down
Speaker 2: the military dictatorship and trying to do a military coup
Speaker 2: and immediately failing is like the best possible thing you
Speaker 2: could have done for them. The consequences of this for
Speaker 2: you and are going to be extremely bad. I hope
Speaker 2: we get a better Korea out of this. I hope
Speaker 2: this sort of starts to stem the tide of the
Speaker 2: unhinged right wing surge that's been happening there for a
Speaker 2: while now.
Speaker 3: It'd be nice that this was like the tip of
Speaker 3: the bell curve. Yeah, in the global far right takeover. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean it's wow, it went bad. I may every
Speaker 3: single right wing attempt to do this, go this badly,
Speaker 3: because good lord, what a heartwarming tale. Yep. Well that's
Speaker 3: that's been it for us today. You're at It could
Speaker 3: happen here. Tune in tomorrow for more exciting tales of
Speaker 3: political collapse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and quite quite possibly, quite possibly, this is going
Speaker 2: to happen to you too. And I want everyone to
Speaker 2: understand that, in terms of military ques in the last
Speaker 2: six months, the protesters are two to zero and the
Speaker 2: armies zero and two. So if this happens to you soon,
Speaker 2: Witchie very much might go get them.
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