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To: MikeinIraq

Bill Clinton is a good comparison to Roh, but an important difference is that Clinton had at least some unity of opposition before and after the Dole debacle. And the opposition had an agenda. That is not the case in Korea.

To my knowledge, URI runs the place entirely--not a coalition government. Roh's party took a majority of the seats in their National Assembly and was NOT removed after impeachment, so as I understand it, he got a bit of PR bounce as a result. Plus, the parties that are in opposition are either in disarray (the GNP is still squabbling over who'll be its face) or even farther left than Roh. The major opposition party, the GNP, is still mired in corruption and focused on returning the old guard to politics. And Roh took 49% of the vote, while the lefties took a couple of percentage points, too. Don't think that the majority of Korea is "with us." A strong minority is out of self-preservation, but the country's young-uns are vocally not so, and the elders who know better seem to be fading from the scene.

In my experience, the 386er voting bloc actually is what the Boomers spuriously say Gen X is--largely a bunch of whining leftists. That's not to say that it's entirely their fault, because we're the idiots who showed Korea the model of education, with tenured libs running their system, and education being far more influential in a Confucian system than the American system. And 386er activism is really what got the dictatorship out, so the results aren't all bad. Roh actually does make reform noise, occasionally, and moving the Korean capitol from Seoul is a good idea militarily and governmentally. That said, the 386ers are like brats who got a piece of cake after they whined, and now expect the rest of the cake--and they think America stole it from them, because their teachers told them so.

Until the GNP manages to get its head out of its ass, or the Korean universities are de-liberaled, I think that country's in trouble.


220 posted on 07/11/2005 3:52:24 PM PDT by LibertarianInExile ("Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist." -- John Adams. "F that." -- SCOTUS, in Kelo.)
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To: LibertarianInExile

sounds like the GOP circa 1976 or so....or possibly 1992...


221 posted on 07/11/2005 4:29:12 PM PDT by MikefromOhio
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