By Raymond E. Gerth
Well, it seems that the Korean National Assembly is back to work again. Prior to this it appeared that the governing Grand National Party (GNP) seemed to have taken a hint from the U.S. House of Representatives during the Bush administration.
The first time they seemed to copy the American republicans was when they attempted to impeach then President Roh Moo-hyun in a similar fashion to what the U.S. Congress tried to do to Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky affair.
With the election of George W. Bush in 2000, and with Republican control of the House of Representatives, the Republican U.S. Congress attempted to ramrod its own legislative measures through, by excluding democrats from committee meetings and combining smaller bills into huge ``omnibus" bills with no chance for debate or discussion, let alone giving the members of Congress time to read the entire bill or even any portion of it.
Wayward Republican congressmen were kept in line by such folks as house majority whip Tom ``the hammer'' Delay. The name for this tactic is ``Rule by Cabal.''
Prior to that and during the Clinton years, rather than pushing its own legislation, their measures consisted of failing to pass budget legislation and only keeping the government running by passing what are called continuing resolutions, which only continue appropriations at their present level and without eliminating any of the government programs that are not actually working.
At one time they (the Republican congressmen) even attempted to shut down the government by not passing a budget. Fortunately, however, this backfired on them as the American pubic was wise enough to fix the blame on Congress rather than President Clinton.
They also spent an excessive amount of time and taxpayer dollars investigating the so-called ``Clinton Scandals'' (whitewater, etc.). The oversight changed dramatically after George W. Bush was elected. In one word: ``Zilch.'' Did the GNP learn something from the above? Others will have to be the judge of that.
Rather than continuing with details of the failure of the American Republican Congress, especially during the Bush administration, I would recommend the following books:
``The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get it Back on Track'' by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein and ``Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship Is Poisoning the House of Representatives'' by Juliet Eilperin.
For a more concise report I would recommend ``Broken Government'' by John W. Dean, former Republican presidential consul to Richard Nixon. These three sources explain in detail what I have just touched upon.
With regard to the sit-ins and protests by the minority parties in Korea, a parallel event is present in recent U.S. political history.
In the state of Texas, during the Bush administration, one of the congressional representatives from that state (Tom Delay, the same person mentioned above) in collusion with the state governor, who was a fellow Republican at the time, attempted to force the state legislature to reapportion the congressional districts in the state by changing their boundaries which would make it more favorable to Republicans.
In fact, part of the plan included, in a few cases, combining into one two congressional districts that had been represented by two Democrats. Another proposed district represented the shape of a snake rather than a congressional district, in order to include more Republican demographics.
In response, the Democratic members of the state legislature had to fly out of the state in protest to prevent a quorum being present in the legislature so a vote could not be taken.
I would add that reapportionment is only authorized by law after a U.S. census has been taken ― every 10 years. Also, congressman Delay has since been voted out of the U.S. Congress and is currently facing corruption charges.
Getting back to Korean politics in general, though, and it seems apparent that none of the political parties in Korea have been able to learn and practice the art of compromise as practiced on a wide scale by both U.S. political parties (with the exception of the above, the 109th U.S. Congress).
Both major Korean political parties ― and the minor ones ― seem to consider it an anathema to work together for compromises. They will talk to one another on occasion, but no substantive progress seems to take place. Each party, when in power, seems to push its agenda too far and attempts to overreach.
With regards to the North Korean situation, it appears that the GNP has also taken a lesson from the first four years of the Bush administration and neo-conservative John Bolton in reation to its ``Cowboy Diplomacy'' and confrontational rhetoric.
Confrontational rhetoric may be fine for ideologues but pragmatic negotiations seem to achieve results when needed. To assume that negotiation with your enemies is appeasement is a falsehood. For 45 years, the United States negotiated with the Soviet Union, even though they were our avowed enemy.
Of course even progressive pragmatists realize that North Korea cannot be trusted, but confrontation only strengthens the hard-liners in the North and when Kim Jong-il does eventually leave the scene, confrontational rhetoric will only have left them (the hard-liners) in a stronger position to assume power rather than the technocrats whom, if they assume power, will be much more open to accommodation than the hard-liners.
But there are aspects of Korean politics that indicate it is maturing. Some would not include inter-party squabbles as democratic maturation. However, I'm including it here for the purposes of comparison with the U.S. political parties.
After the presidential election, attempts by the backers of President Lee Myung-bak to isolate and marginalize the backers of the number two party candidate, Park Geun-hye, is an example that can be compared to the ``moderate vs. rightwing'' confrontations within the U.S. Republican Party as well as ``leftwing vs. centrist and so called (Yellow Dog Conservative)'' Democrats.
The GNP for now may be the majority Korean political party, but with many new young voters coming on line and an anticipated renewal of efforts by all of the progressive parties to get out new voters, that fact remains to be seen.
Time will tell, and future Korean politics will certainly be interesting to observe.
Raymond E. Gerth is an active member of the U.S. Democratic Party through ``Democrats Abroad Republic of Korea'' (DAROK). He resides in the southeastern port city of Busan, South Korea. He can be reached at raymondgerth@yahoo.com