South Koreans Are Pissing Me Off

[WARNING: This post is probably going to get me into trouble. In all fairness, my suggestions at the end are hostile and I don't really believe what I say. Okay, maybe I don't believe it only 10%.]

Have y'all been following the story of South Koreans going apeshit over the importation of U.S. beef?

They are pissing me off big time. They've pissed me off for a long time, only I didn't have a blog to gripe about it when the company I worked for was bought by a giant South Korean company and they ran it into the ground.

Tens of thousands of auto workers in South Korea went on strike to oppose the government's lifting of a ban on U.S. beef imports.

Partial walkouts at Kia Motors and Hyundai were the centerpiece of a one-day strike to protest U.S. beef imports and the pro-business policies of President Lee Myung-bak. About 130,000 workers across the nation were expected to join the strike, which would also include workers at textile and chemical factories.

The president's office denounced the walkout as an attempt to hurt the nation's economy and vowed to deal sternly with strikes.

The walkouts come a day after U.S. beef returned to South Korean store shelves for the first time under the much-criticized beef import deal with Washington, though the sale was limited to one store run by a U.S. beef importer.

U.S. beef imports to South Korea have been largely banned since 2003, when the first case of mad cow disease was discovered in the U.S. South Korea's new pro-U.S. President Lee Myung-bak agreed to lift the import ban in April just before a summit with President Bush.

But the move provoked a backlash over health concerns spurred in part by false media reports about risks, along with a sense that South Korea had backed down too easily to American pressure.

As the protests peaked in June at 80,000 people, the Cabinet offered to resign and Lee reshuffled top aides. Seoul negotiated an amendment to the import deal last month to limit shipments to beef from cattle younger than 30 months, believed less susceptible to mad cow disease.

Okay, here's where I go off:

Fuck us and our beef? Fuck YOU and the horse you rode in on.

#1: This is anti-Americanism behind the cloak of consumer protection. South Korean's love to bash the U.S. It's like a national sport. Fuck YOU.

#2: If they don't want U.S. beef, don't buy it. I don't buy crap made in China, and now South Korea. Just don't ban it as part of an international fuck you to the U.S. We always have to tip toe around "saving face" of foreign countries but these people don't give a shit about us. Fuck YOU.

#3: I'm sick of MY TAX DOLLARS and OUR YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN protecting their sorry asses. And for what? So they can bitch and moan every time we want to sell a hamburger there? Why we're still stationed on their demilitarized zone is beyond me. The cold war is over and, frankly, South Korea's strategic importance has evaporated. And North Korea? Let them overrun the South's ungrateful asses and Kim Jong Il can shut down these protests with a healthy dose of totalitarianism. Fuck YOU.

#4: They want to go on strike? Fine. But over U.S. beef? Gimme a break. Why not strike because they are essentially slaves, where they sleep on cots on the property of the chaebol and they can never leave because their pay just covers the room and board the company charges? Yep, why don't they protest that shit? Fuck YOU.

#5: You want to play the "block imports" game? Let's. I call on Washington to impose immediate tariffs on South Korean products to make their sales plummet to zero. They love to dump their products here and run a wonderful trade imbalance. Fuck YOU.

Bottom line? Be nice, play fair, or we'll take our marbles and go home. And Fuck YOU.
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