[Sisters Jessica and Mary thumbing through a photo album]
Jessica Gatling Tate: Look, Mary.
Mary Gatling Dallas Campbell: Randolph.
Jessica Gatling Tate: That's right. Our brother. Our brother who fathered an illegitimate child with a Swedish maid and then disappeared into the wilds of Ecuador. Don't you find that a little peculiar?
Mary Gatling Dallas Campbell: Jessie, Randolph was peculiar. Any man who would go to Ecuador to sell wall-to-wall carpet is not all there.
40 years later on the Far Side of the Pacific Ocean, South Korea has mashed the wildest plots of regular soaps with almost every other genre of fiction to create hybrid-fantasy-super-soaps. Well worn themes of mortal enemies becoming lovers, rags to riches, princes and paupers, cinderellas or cinderfellas, surprise siblings, conniving concubines, etc, etc have been augmented by inexplicable identity losses or amnesia, time travel, falling in love with aliens, transgender romances and even a few bromances.
One would imagine that this heady cocktail of Extreme Soap would render the nation immune to anything that real life could actually have to offer. However in a little over 10 days, starting late this October, the entire nation has imploded in a total frenzy over allegations of a relatively down-to-earth, real life cronyism scandal centred on the incumbent President (Ms) Guen-Hye Park and the alleged inappropriate influences claimed to be exerted over her by her life-long confidante Ms Soon-Sil Choi and indeed the whole Choi family.
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| Nov 4th 2016: Penitence; President Guen-Hye Park's 2nd apology to the nation in 10 days. |
As a person with no official role in govt or politics, Ms Choi allegedly;
- controlled organisations in Korea and Germany into which conglomerates (all the usual household names) were coerced to donate millions of dollars
- reviewed govt speeches as they were drafted
- bypassed govt security, having unfettered access to govt buildings and staff
- had access to govt documents relating to national security and foreign affairs
- influenced the appointment of senior govt officials
- etc, etc
- was unfairly admitted to the country's most prestigious women's university
- university officials favourably graded Ms Choi's daughter despite poor attendance and submitting substandard assignments
Ms Chung undoubtedly gained few friends by issuing a poorly judged comment on social media as follows;
"If you are not rich, blame your parents. Money is competency".
"If you are not rich, blame your parents. Money is competency".
A humiliating retraction may be in order if the parental 'competency' to which Ms Chung refers is shown to be graft and extortion. Only time will tell.
Handfuls of officials caught up these allegations have been either arrested, are resigning in panic or simply giving themselves up to police on a daily basis to offer all they know and clean themselves of the stigma of the whole affair.
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20161104000780
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20161106000002
The nation watched bewildered as even the Gangnam Style pop icon Psy was forced to deny ever having met anyone in the Choi family.
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| Psy: "Oppo Not me Bro" |
Media outlets continue to scramble over each other like kittens chasing a laser pointer, speculating on the motivation of witnesses, the validity of confiscated evidence, what govt secrets were on Choi's computer, who will run the country while the President submits to judicial investigation, etc, etc. Meanwhile citizens traveled to Seoul from all over the country to protest at the president's refusal to resign, only to concede to an judicial investigation.
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20161105000099
The truth is that the president's closeness to the Choi's family has been recognised for the best part of 40 years. In keeping with the best Korean Extreme Soaps there are stories that Choi's father was a shaman cult leader who held a Rasputin-like influence over the president's "body and soul" since she was in her twenties. There are suggestions of everything short of mind control of the president. In 2007 the US Embassy in Seoul warned the State Department in Washington of the potential risks of the Choi family influence should Park ever come to power. It is after all the function of the intelligence gathering agencies to distinguish the puppets from the puppeteers in all levels of business, government and religion worldwide.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/10/28/2016102801342.html
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20161105000099
The truth is that the president's closeness to the Choi's family has been recognised for the best part of 40 years. In keeping with the best Korean Extreme Soaps there are stories that Choi's father was a shaman cult leader who held a Rasputin-like influence over the president's "body and soul" since she was in her twenties. There are suggestions of everything short of mind control of the president. In 2007 the US Embassy in Seoul warned the State Department in Washington of the potential risks of the Choi family influence should Park ever come to power. It is after all the function of the intelligence gathering agencies to distinguish the puppets from the puppeteers in all levels of business, government and religion worldwide.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/10/28/2016102801342.html
Curiously almost nothing is discussed about the actual timing of these revelations. Countless people 'in the know' have been well aware about this situation for decades, so it is interesting that the truth is finally being revealed to the great unwashed at this particular moment. A keen mind would wonder which events are being quietly completed behind the scenes while the nation engorges itself on these revelations. Or perhaps; which events are the revelations designed to derail ?
In all probability, casting aside all the hybrid-fantasy-super-soap elements with which the Koreans like to embellish their daily lives, this scandal most likely boils down to yet another example of simple graft and corruption. Most of Korea's previous presidents (and many of their family members) were brought down by similar charges in the final years of their presidential terms.
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20161104000495
Korean prisons are fitted with revolving doors to accommodate the constant flow of conglomerate leaders, govt officials and judiciary who are first jailed for corruption on vast scales or decades-long tax evasion and then miraculously shown clemency, receiving presidential pardons after 'finding God' or expressing deep personal remorse.
Clearly the Park/Choi allegations implicate the very top of government, but one would be naive to think that the highest echelon of power works any different from all the other levels below. It is well ingrained in the working places of normal people that the wife of a departmental manager can summon the wives of his team to come and pay tribute with gifts or luxury services on the occasion of her birthday or that of her children. Any wife whose tribute does not find favour with the manager's wife can rapidly precipitate the downfall of the team member in that department. Against this regular daily background, why should it be surprising that the nation's top conglomerates pay tribute to companies set up on paper by friends of top politicians ? And comparing these two extremes; which is really the greater crime and which should really command the loudest outrage ?
