Squid Game and the Long Shadow of American Empire (Reprint)
I originally wrote this article for The Real News back in December of 2021, where I used Squid Game as an allegory for American Empire in Korea. With Korea in the spotlight again, I thought it was worth revisiting this article. The article is not about Squid Game but Korea's painful modern history.
Some clarifications: It was 40,000 Jejuans that fled to Japan and historian Bruce Cumings estimates that the US murdered 80,000 Jejuans.
Things I couldn't fit into the article: The US didn't stop the sexual enslavement of Korean women started by Japan but expanded it, with ramifications to today, from Korean beauty standards, sexual tourism and fetishism, "social cleansing" programs, the adoption industrial complex, to the Halloween crowd crush. The US also exploited Korea to redevelop Japan. Korea has found the US guilty of many crimes against it (the actual list is endless and ongoing), but the US never acknowledges them. With the US giving carte blanche to Israel with no one being able to do anything about it, not even the International Criminal Court, the United Nations, or US allies, who can ever bring the US to justice? Yet it's always the US who gets to decide who is guilty of crimes and who stands for justice (itself). This makes the US more like God than just another powerful country. Despite all that Western radicals have become aware of in the past several years, starting with Black Lives Matter and then digging into the hidden past of the US and then, of course, Palestine, they STILL give too much good faith to the US on the world stage and aggressively attack any other radical they see as being too anti-American. I hope this article and update can chip away at this unexamined US allegiance.
To access the Liberation Martial Arts curriculum and contribute to the sustainability of this project, consider upgrading your membership. Find other ways to support me here. – Sam
✊✊✊
(I write daily about martial arts and other topics from a liberatory perspective. If you like my work, upgrade your subscription. You can also support me on Patreon or make a one-time donation on Ko-fi. Find Southpaw at its website. Get the swag on Spring. Also check out Liberation Martial Arts Online.)