“The Orient” is definitely problematic–but that was part of the joke, that the author was treating “the law” like some sort of mystical concept from the Far East and fetishizing it in the way that a lot of folks fetishize anything East Asian.
I was told that using “Orient” as a geography was fine, but not for people.
We do, after all, discuss “Oriental Rugs” without the clutching of pearls. I mean, here in Boston one purveyor of such rugs underwrites on the local NPR station. And in case you didn’t know, NPR is the official maintainer of the Euphemism Treadmill.
Rumours of a second coup attempt are doing the rounds in BlueSky.
This article provides a pretty good overview of the issues with the terminology. But at that, I think I’m getting pretty far afield, so I will leave it there, unless someone wants to start a thread on the topic.
Or “exoticizing” it, if we want to avoid some of the connotations of that last term. But yeah, the post was obvious sarcastic commentary on how the notion of The Law being above “I am the Boss” now seems alien to some in our society, deliberately written in that tone.
The parliamentary leader of Yoon’s own party has now definitely come out in favour of “suspending” Yoon’s powers, which sounds like code for supporting impeachment, since a vote of impeachment immediately suspends the president’s powers and hands them to the prime minister.
What appears to have tipped his position is that he now has evidence that Yoon planned to arrest MPs.
The vote will likely be tomorrow.
Last night at 11 p.m., I declared a state of emergency martial law with a determined will to save the nation, in response to anti-state forces that were paralyzing the essential functions of the state and undermining the liberal democratic constitutional order.
Which is sort of like raping a women to save her virginity.
"The Communists can’t undermine the liberal democratic constitutional order if I do it first! I’m a genius!"
As my ethnically Chinese wife says: “Rugs are Oriental. People are Asians.”
Yoon has apologized, said he won’t do it again, and will accept legal consequences.
Han, the leader of Yoon’s own party, continues to call for his suspension. (The People Power Party, or PPP.)
I made a mistake in an earlier post. Han is the leader of the party, but is not himself a member of Parliament so has no vote.
Eight of the PPP have to vote for impeachment for the motion to pass. Eighteen of them previously joined in the vote to rescind martial law.
Went to pick up my cleaning today, and the guy is positively seething. He hasn’t given up hope the Yoon will find another way to rid South Korea of these weak-willed, lily-livered pinkos.
Arirang TV is covering the vote live in the National Assembly on the motion to impeach the president. Arirang TV is an English-language channel from South Korea, so this coverage is in English…
From CNN:
But it goes on to say that things don’t look good for Yoon in the long term.
So it isn’t just the US where they put party first. Somehow comforting and disconcerting at the same time.
Cromwell also shut down Parliament by military force when it refused to implement religious reforms he wanted, and replaced it with a nominated assembly:
Cromwell finally became so frustrated that on 20 April 1653 he led an armed force into the Commons Chamber (as Charles I had done in January 1642) and forcibly dissolved the Rump, stating: " You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … In the name of God, go!"
May have been the first “autocoup” in the modern sense.
Mind you, by that point the Long Parliament had likely lost its representative character, having been elected in 1640, and previously had unacceptable members purged by the New Model Army in 1648.
The impeachment motion did not pass. (The link goes to The Korea Times.)
President Yoon Suk Yeol escaped impeachment on Saturday, as the National Assembly failed to pass the motion to oust him over his short-lived martial law, which sent shockwaves through Korea and triggered massive street protests.
The impeachment motion failed as most ruling People Power Party (PPP) lawmakers boycotted the vote by walking out the Assembly chamber, preventing it from reaching the quorum, 200 votes. Impeaching a seating president requires support from a two-thirds majority of the 300-member parliament to pass.
Bit it ain’t over. (Same article.)
The DPK condemned the PPP for not participating in the voting and vowed to submit the impeachment motion again.
“PPP is not a democratic party. The PPP is a criminal traitor that actively participated in the act of rebellion. We will push for the impeachment vote again and pass the impeachment by the end of this year. Han should bear historical responsibility,” DPK leader Rep. Lee Jae-myung said.
The main opposition said it will table the impeachment motion every week until it’s passed.
“We will immediately hold a special session on Dec. 11, a day after the last day of the parliamentary regular session, and push for the impeachment vote again on Dec. 14,” the DPK said.
^ From the linked quote in your post.
So, as @OldOlds noted, it’s another case of party before country. But they weren’t confident-enough of their position to actually participate in a vote (which presumably the coup-attempter Yoon would have lost).
Former defence minister said to have attempted suicide in jail:
Am account of how Yoon gave his Cabinet five minutes’ notice of martial law:
As far as I can tell, we still don’t really know why he did it, do we? I know he made claims about infiltrators from the north, but I doubt many people really believe that.
Anyone have any more thoughts or facts or reporting on the why?