Environment Killing Bastards! |
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UPDATE 2 -- I thought I'd post a quote from the Korea Times editorial desk to illustrate the batshit comment below and about the SK-NK Summit actually being the prime driving force behind the massive spike in anti-USFK / US-SK alliance activity in 2000 rather than the microscopic illegal dumping.
UPDATE 1 -- Some links to articles to show how microscopic the 2000 Great Poisoning of the 20 Million Souls in Seoul -- "Firm Caught Dumping 46,000 Tons of Waste," I'm trying to locate another article from a few months after the Great Dump of 2000 began. ---- Well, I found it, but it is in the Korea Herald, so you'd have to pay to see it. It told how a group of squatter businesses, including restaurants and a car mechanic shop, had been fined repeatedly for dumping raw sewage and oil and other material directly into the Han reservoir, because it was cheaper for them to keep paying the fines than it was to install the equipment that would help them meet the legal standards. But, a USFK worker must go to jail.... ORIGINAL POST -- Thanks to Lost Nomad for pointing out this article from the Stars and Stripes. This is one of the best tools for the anti-US civic groups and the media and Korean society when they feel like venting.
A friend of mine from high school went on to graduate from Georgia Tech as an environmental engineer. He told me once that 80% of the gas stations in the States have some kind of fuel contamination problem from tank leakage. South Korean society also knows it has bad environmental problems that grew from its drive to industrialize fast. But, see this site to see how, although they periodically find the desire to express righteous rage against the US military and even the US Embassy over their "disregard for the Korean environment and the Korean people are effected!!", they have a hard time getting around to attacking the chaebol (conglomerates) or even small businesses. Here is an example of Green Korea's work. This org got its group off the ground like a rocket with the 2000 minor water dumping explosion in outrage. Here is another example of the activism and how the media sometimes chooses to support it and here is another one.
The 2000 water dumping, linked above, is by far the best example of how the process of anti-US /USFK culture works in Korea. It was a minor infraction by Sweden's standards. It was microscopic by Korea's environmental standards. ...But, Korean society as a whole went absolutely batshit... I had watched murder convictions of Korean women by a criminal GI not generate 25% of the prolonged fury Korea put on showcase over the Great Water Poisoning of 20 Million Koreans who Rely on the Han as a Vital Source of Drinking Water. Horseshit. All Koreans keep large water cooler bottled water to use. I was told by students not even to wash fruit and vegetables with tap water.
The only question now is how much Korean society wants to vent. In 2000, the difference between the 2 murders in the late 1990s and the microscopic water dumping crime against humanity --- was the SK-NK Summit. Such a summit was unthinkable even in 1998 or 1999, and such things had petered out in the past, but in 2000, it not only was the unthinkable approaching, it actually happened. Long time peace activist Kim Dae Jung was allowed into Pyongyang and shook hands with Kim Jong Il himself and South Koreans were rightfully giddy with the prospect of peace in our time. And that strong euphoria was very easily transferred into exercising anti-USFK / US demons. That is the only thing to explain how the Yongsan dumping of some gallons of formaldehyde into a sewer system that was treated 3 times before it touched the highly polluted Han River could have sparked such a prolonged and very heated period of demonstrated anger. And in 2002, the crushing death of the two middle school girls was horrible to imagine, but if Korea had not hosted the World Cup and done so well, who knows how much steam would have been taken out of the orgy of hate? Right now, there has not been a corresponding event unconnected to US / USFK that has stoked Korean pride. The 6 Party Talks are going on, but that has as much chance of convincing broader South Korean society their national security is in a precarious position and to keep quiet about this small group's activities. But, we also haven't seen a very big spike in anger since early 2003... But, the activists have been able to bring out a few thousand protesters for a return of fairly violent protests at US bases... And the media has been focusing on a string of street altercations involving GIs -- so another part of the GI Crime argument is already at play... I can't predict how much Korean society is ready to give its ear to the anti-USFK environmental activism??? (5 August 2005)
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