
South Korean President Park Geun-hye's corruption scandal - _khau
https://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html
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whack
Sounds to me like the president has a multitude of skeletons in her closet,
through which she's being blackmailed. Or perhaps she's just a puppet, under
someone else's control all along.

Maybe I'm just overly cynical, but I'm not too surprised to hear stories like
this. Our political process is just so dysfunctional, that I don't think it's
possible for a normal, worthy leader to actually win the election. The only
way to get to the top is to sell out your integrity in one way or another.

We wonder why our leaders are so morally bankrupt, when really, our process is
explicitly designed to weed out anyone who isn't.

~~~
ionised
I'm reminded of a quote (not sure who by, and I'm paraphrasing) along the
lines of;

 _" Those who desire power make the worst leaders, those who don't make the
best."_

Basically anyone who wants to be leader, probably shouldn't be. Not sure how
you would resolve a dilemma like that though.

I've always felt a modern version of Sortition would be ideal;

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition)

~~~
bboreham
“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the
many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or
rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize:
it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are,
ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who
is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be
allowed to do the job.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

~~~
TulliusCicero
This is an intellectually lazy and overly cynical view of human nature. The
reason politicians seem so terrible is not that they were the dredges of human
morals and character to begin with, but because a) power corrupts, b) the
stronger the light you shine, the worse every flaw looks.

Do you ever make mistakes in your job? Things that, in hindsight, were non-
optimal? Of course you do! And in most jobs that's not a big deal, but when
you're a head of state, even a slight error in judgment can get you torn to
pieces in the press. And since positive news isn't news, most of what anyone
hears about a given president will likely be bad, so inevitably you've mostly
heard bad things about what a president (or national-level politician) has
done in the past. Hence, everyone seems terrible.

~~~
soylentcola
It's meant to be a bit of dark humor. Sometimes the folly of humanity
(including much of what you bring up) can make us cynical, angry, or
depressed. Being able to have a laugh at those troublesome aspects of human
nature is one way some of us can find a bit of a respite.

~~~
TulliusCicero
I realize it's meant to be somewhat humorous, but I also think it's meant to
be taken seriously; or at least, there are a lot of people with exactly the
viewpoint espoused in that quote.

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barrkel
I was completely unaware of this developing story in Korea. Properly
contextualized, it's very interesting.

~~~
ionised
Yeah as the article mentions, the English press has only lightly touched on
the story. There is a lot more to it.

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bbctol
Ask A Korean is a really good blog if you remain interested in the country. I
follow Korean issues less now than I once did, but the author has a nice style
and is willing to deal with Korean/American issues complexly.

~~~
at-fates-hands
How is the Korean media in comparison to say the US or UK? Are they pretty
objective, or more in the vein of the US, UK media where its very tabloidish?

~~~
bbctol
The newspapers/TV are plain, if somewhat conservative. However, South Korea
has an internet culture that makes America look a decade behind, for better or
worse; people get massive amounts of information from social media and citizen
journalists, which is one of the reasons a story this weird is stirring up so
many conspiracy theories and speculation.

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sho_hn
I live in Korea. No particular authority, but if anyone has additional
questions I can take a stab at answering.

~~~
rjbwork
Is this "8 Goddesses" cult thing legit, or is yet another paranoid conspiracy
theory meme? It's really hard to tell as someone who doesn't speak Korean.
there's just little bits of info leaking out, mostly just talking about Choi
Soon-Sil.

~~~
sho_hn
Dunno. The facts on the ground are that Choi's father became an ordained
priest in '75 (reportedly he paid handsomely for his ordainment and didn't
actually complete theological studies) and set up his own Christian-
Shamanistic church. Commentors describe him as having been mostly interested
in political gain and using his cult as a means to do so. It's unclear in what
capacity his daughter has actually continued to do so. One of Korean's Shaman
associations has publically distanced itself from both of them this week,
effectively calling them self-appointed charlatans.

Basically, cults do exist in Korea, and cults and political leadership have
been involved with each other. Whether there's a grand conspiracy I can't say.

I'm no fan of religion myself, but in fairness it's important to note that
"Shaman" & co are sort of a trigger word for a Western audience, invoking
images of the barbarians at the gates - that's our Christian cultural-historic
bias at work (I'm originally from Germany). This conflict actually plays out
in Korea as well, owing to a large percentage of Christians among the
population (how that came to be is in itself a fascinating topic). But really
it's just a tree of folk religions. The problem here is how easily it's
invoked by cult schemes, I guess.

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devonkim
I've heard mention that this cult is somehow related to the Moonies cult that
Americans are more familiar with, is there any merit to these claims? I can't
find much connection between this and the Moonies in terms of current
activities and maybe I'm not looking for the right terms in Korean but it
seems like a very tenuous or circumstantial relation, if any. I don't
understand why it would even matter if they're connected either.

Watching Korean politics growing up I thought what was happening was basically
the equivalent of Western tabloid media, but I'm not sure where the absurd
starts anymore.

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smoyer
Well ... I guess I feel a little bit better knowing that today in The US we'll
elect a rationally corrupt president instead of an irrationally corrupt
president.

~~~
wsc981
As an European, I sure hope the "rationally" corrupt president won't be
elected. I fear that under her leadership chances for a war with Russia would
increase and WW3 is not something I look forward to. If a war would happen
because of US's interests in Crimea, we would take the hits.

~~~
smoyer
I wasn't predicting the outcome of the election other than I'm expecting one
of the major party candidates to be elected. What I'd really like is the
opportunity to vote for someone I respect, trust and can follow. It seems
politics seems to weed out those candidates in favor of the ones that will win
at any cost.

~~~
tdb7893
People always seem to want a "decent" candidate but it always seems to me that
even decent candidates get vilified. For example I personally respect Obama a
lot (even if I don't agree with him on everything) but some people literally
thought that he was the antichrist.

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bane
Lots of people have questions about the nature of the cult that the president
seems to be connected with. In South Korea, just like any country, there's an
entire spectrum of minor splinter "cults" along the entire spectrum of
available religions. Korea has a surprisingly rich and complex religious
landscape ranging from ancient folk practices (often translated as "Shamanism"
in Korea) to various Buddhist sects to various flavors Christianity (the
current religious majority), Confucian practices and so on. All have deep
historic, political and social roots and between the cracks of the formal
practices, tons of cults, syncretism, and other practices flourish.

For example, it wouldn't be at all unusual for somebody to go to a very formal
church on Sunday, attend a Buddhist funeral on Thursday, and go out with
friends on Saturday to visit a "fortune teller" before going on a blind date
who would supply fortunes based on ancient folk practices. The average person
might not even be aware that they are crossing various religious boundaries.

For reasons I haven't quite understood, there's also a cultural acceptance
that many people wish to become religious leaders of some sort. It's often
manifest in members of the majority Christian churches becoming ministers at
very high rates and forming their own minor churches. Korea is littered with
churches of all sizes. In general this happens in the formal church structure
but it's not uncommon for splinter groups to spin out rapidly as well with
various modified beliefs or teachings or even forming syncretic cults of some
flavor.

To give you an idea of how intense religion can be in Korea, it's the only
known country to have self converted to Christianity and established an
internal proselytizing mechanism _before_ missionaries showed up in the
country.

Cults are not really accepted in South Korea, most people still look at them
as out of the norm, and cult members to be out of the norm, hence the public
reaction to the President's connection to a cult.

For anybody interested in the shamanistic folk traditions in Korea, I can
highly recommend the movie "The Wailing" (2016) as an both a great movie, and
contains several brilliantly filmed scenes of some intense shamanistic
practices that I've heard described as "deeply authentic"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_South_Korea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_South_Korea)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5215952/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5215952/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wailing_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wailing_\(film\))

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brilliantcode
As a Korean, it infuriates me to see a Korean president who genuinely seems to
be _incapable_ of making rational decisions with the country's interest at
heart.

Choi Soon Sil (lovingly called Choi SIRI by the people we'll call her CSS)
comes from some Korean shaman society.

CSS's father was a leader of some shaman cult and claimed that he could speak
to Park Geun Hye's mother who was assassinated by a North Korean agent.

The Choi family grew very close to Park Geun Hye, and it was presented that
they used their closeness to the First Lady (Park Geun Hye took the role after
her mother's death) for profiteering and corruption.

After the assassination of Park Chung Hee (Park Geun Hye), President Chun Doo
Hwan, a loyal disciple of the deceased president, exiled CSS's father.

It is alleged that President Chun Doo Hwan's corruption revelation was
orchestrated by CSS to avenge her father.

In an economy dominated by a handful of family dynasties, it seems that in
order to continue this asymmetrical system that puts so much burden on the
Korean people, president's office and the people surrounding it are almost
certainly likely to peddle influence which Chaebol (Korean word for
conglomerates) gladly pay large amount of sums for (since the return on
investment by paying off a Korean politician is massive - you could win
military contracts, license for monopoly etc.).

This system is now beginning to show cracks. People have completely lost trust
in the system.

There's even rumours of a military coup, how ironic, that the current
president whose father overthrew the first Korean president Rhee with a coup,
is now expecting one herself.

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yarou
It's quite sad how one's mind can be poisoned, corrupted, and manipulated by
the loss of a dearly loved one.

~~~
hga
Yeah, I've seen too much of this with my mother's abuse of my father, and she
lost both her parents to assassination, vs. his losing his father to an
accident.

In all the cases I know of, at least if early enough, this sort of loss really
messes up a surviving child.

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sickbeard
I wouldn't be shocked if Choi Soon-sil has some dark secret of hers.

