Don't cry! It is the power game.

Why do those politicians -- who praise the North Korean regime, yet live in South Korea, and hate America -- send their kids to America for study or permanent residence? This is a confusing question, which is over my head to answer, my friend Dr. C raised in dire exasperation for which I give him my sincere sympathy. Hoping to soothe his feeling a little bit, here is my take.

Politicians live on the power. They flourish with power and fade away with the demise of power. Historically, they have gained the power by trade: buying votes with money. They are not smart enough to have a political philosophy or conviction. Therefore they do not have much to sell potential voters other than to trade. Poor voters are accustomed to receive money for their votes.

So called conservative politicians so far have contributed to a large degree to shape  today's Korean economy and at the same time accumulated money more to perpetuate their power. But they do not seem to have the idea of the conservatism Americans understand. On the other hand, so called liberal politicians, not having much money to buy votes, drove themselves to capitalize the labor force  by demagoguery to collect their votes. We must undersatnd that the labor unions in Korea, when put together, have a dangerously big power, which can easily tip off the balance of the political power.

Politicians play poker games. They have two wild cards: North Korea card and national pride card. As long as they have a good hand, they do not use the wild cards. When they use a wild card or both, it means that something is wrong in their hands. They are also good at the sleight of hand. Past Presidents used time and again these wild cards to sabilize their tilting power, wasted astronomical amount of tax payers' money, and misguided the emotions of private citizens by blaming America for no legitimate reason (-- red herring). Koreans have their own national pride as any other nation has. There is nothing wrong with it. The problem is that the national pride is hijacked into anti-Americanism by some politicians and union leaders, whose sole purpose is to promote their agendas. It must be taken back from the sleazy leaders.

I know that no politicians wants to live in North Korea, because he knows that, as soon as he moves into there, he loses his power base and becomes nobody. He knows by heart that anti-Americanism is a fake propaganda used to consolidate the voting power to his advantage. He, in fact, loves America where life, liberty, and the pursue of happiness are among the unalienable rights. That is why they send their kids to america. (What they say is one thing; what they do is another -- left right hand trick.) Politicians are smarter than ordinary people like us. They are different breed of people. They are poker players. They bluff. We are often exasperated when the bluff sounded real threat to us. Then, they ask us our votes for the trick performed. They do not even bother to pay money for our votes this time. We are duped. Anyway, we all are gullible.
This is the end of my bloviation. (May 12, 2012, KYP)