Agreed. It would also be a testament to how lame the Democrats really are.

I don't think society in the US or Korea is as "controlled" by the media as some.

I think in both Korea and the US, and perhaps in democracies in general, the media is as controlled by the people as it controls them – because they have pressure to give the people what they want.

(This is less so in Korea where government funds go to the media)

For example, right now in the US, given what the media is doing for the Obama and Demcrat campaign, you'd imagine Obama would be 20 points or more ahead of McCain – instead of pretty even.

In fact, I say, if Obama fails to win the election – it will be more important as a statement about the state of the media in American society than what voters felt about Obama.

you give Korean people a LOT more credit than I ever would And these are MY people! But I must say that I've known too many average citizens who harbor ill-feelings towards Korea's best ally based on false information or false impressions or even a complete lack of any information! I'm not suggesting they r dumb or uneducated or that some of the anti-American sentiment is groundless because America rightfully deserves some of that hatred or paranoia. Some of these folks are well educated, indepedent-thinking individuals, and a few of them are seriously smart people and yet they CHOOSE (I think they do) to see only one side of the coin. But based on my experience, I'd venture a guess that most of the other average citizens are also largely misinformed or underinformed about US, its history, and its foreign policy toward other nations, and the left-leaning media is aggrevating the situation with shameless sensationalism and yellow journalism in some cases. As the MBC's PD Diary fiasco proved once again, it is so very easy for the media to create a mass hysteria amongst a poluation using clever editing, some choice words, and an illusion of gravitas. I found yesterday an interesting article by a documentary film maker Erol Morris, one of my favorite filmmakers ( http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/?scp=1-spot&s… ) which reminds me once again that the 21C's best and worst weapon of choice may be information/misinformation.

Getting back to the original question of Koreans' apparently conflicting sentiments toward US, so why this hysteria and paranoia, you might ask? The thing is you don't really have to be an expert on the US foreign policy to develop this paranoia (ignorance is not necessarily bliss). America for better or worse has been deeply involved in and on certain occasions proactively engineered the course of this nation; even historians and experts don't know for sure to what extent the US imposed its will on the past Korean governments since Lee Seung-man's regime. And we don't have a whole lot of tell-all books written by former government officials and insiders so when it comes to speculating on the clandestine stuff between US and Korea, your guess is as good as mine. And it's no secret that US has been actively meddling with certain regimes under the banner of Pax Americana for more than half a century. For example Iraq, Iran, Seria, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicagarua, just to name a few. Even JFK, a liberal's darling and an icon around the world, had seriously questionable foreign policy ideas (see Bay of Pigs) that would be sliced and diced by the liberal media of today. Given this history, American would be hard-pressed to sell the idea to the current generation of Korea that USA is just a friendly bear that has only good intentions and wants no harm ("hey, those assasinations and regime change stuff we did, that was our predecessors, not us! Friends?") So it's not all that irrational for average Korean citizens to have in their heads this picture of Bush and neocons plotting their next sinister moves in a dark, windowless room. What I find irrational is the younger generation's hugely misguided notion that North Korea is somehow less of a threat than USA. It's illogical at best and downright insane at worst.

Now I'm not getting into an argument on whether or not the net effect of the US foriegn policy has been good for the world; it's just too complicated stuff and not enough time has passed for it to be judged fairly. But you'd have to admit that it has been quite visible enough to develop a certain amount of paranoia in a lot of people around the world, not just Koreans.

9/11 and the Bush doctorine only rekindled that paranoia, although to be fair his policy has gradually moved toward a more centrist approach since 2003. Some of the Bush haters only make the situation worse by insinuating through the media that the Bushies are nothing but a corrupt group of politicians determined to furthur the America's imperial ambitions and replenish their coffers with corrupt business dealings and no-bid contracts. (btw, contray to what liberals/far-left might think, I believe that Bush and his neocon people were and still are true-believers, no matter how misguided and incompetent they might be)

But enough with the painful memories from the past. One thing this mad cow thing proved is that the loudest do not necessarily represent the silent majority in Korea. And the bombardment of sensational sights and sounds disseminated through the attention-hungry media prodly wearing political agendas on their sleeves do necessarily reflect the true feelings among the Korean populace toward America. Mr.Kims and Ms.Parks that you personally know may give you a much more accurate idea of where the Korea-US relationship is, not the would-be psychologists in the media. At least so I hope.

I agree it does act out irrationally — but I think it is more "controlled" than that — more rational — a rationally chosen movement to vent.

In 2002, they got too caught up in it, but that was a rare moment.

2000 was the only other period since real democratization in the early 1990s where Korean society has let itself go anywhere close to the extent they they did in 2002 — and it was far short of the fury of 2002 — but they also quickly realized they had gone too far once the euphoria over the NK-SK Summit began to initially fade.

What bothers me most about South Korean society's anti-US habits aren't the massive protests or the more common smaller scale ones —

— but the elements that create an environment in which South Korean society is ready to let fly an irrational outburst — when they feel the time is right….

On seeing the US as a bigger threat than the North, my bet from having taught Korean adults in the past is that they wouldn't be able to explain why if you started asking any questions that try to scratch beyond a bumper-sticker style statement — (and yes, Americans are like that too when stating opinions they have never put any thought into)…

…but the foundation of the idea — from what I saw of it — was laid for the population in general in the early days of the Bush presidency when Korean society – beyond the usual far left — got angry at Bush's reversal of US approval of the Sunshine Policy and then labeled Korea (the Northern half) part of the Axis of Evil.

(People forget that Korean society had kept up a steady though not high-key pressure against the US in Korea from the Fall of 2001 up to just a couple of weeks before the World Cup — with constant negative attention given to something as relatively minor as the possible(and then actual) choice of the F-15K as Korea's most advanced generation fighter plane — among other things given wide coverage in the press — which I know from having taught adults in Korea in the late 1990s – does reach further into the Korean public than the press does among American adults)

The world was concerned about how far the recently awakened "sleeping tiger" (the US) was going to go after 9/11 – and the Axis of Evil speech particularly worried South Korean society – a society where adults, I was very surprised to see in the late 1990s, had pretty much no fear North Korea would attack the South, because the US was too strong and would surely defeat the North.

So, after the Axis of Evil speech and 9/11, the idea took root among the general population that was advanced by the far left:

That the US bombing or invading the North was much more likely by far to happen and cause a massive retaliation by the North than the North ever attacking the South on its own.

The US putting pressure on the South Korean government to move forward with a fundamental reshaping of USFK's defense posture — including massive shifting of US forces off existing bases — to consolidate OFF THE DMZ – with much of it being placed out of and below Seoul –

— scared the non-far left as a sign the US was preparing to leave -

– but also led them to take up the idea the far left started selling – that such a move was a prelude to a Bush-led bombing of the North – since USFK moving out of Seoul well South of the DMZ would take GIs ot of harm's way and leave South Koreans to pay the price of retalization.

At least one politician claimed in the press that the US would somehow spirit USFK away before North Korea could retaliate.

But, I got the sense that the general public stuck more with the line that — moving troops off the DMZ just made it easier and more likely to bomb the North.

Since 2001-2002, the US push to reshape USFK has waxed and waned with the South Korean government being somewhat successful in delaying it.

Fear of the US bombing the North has also waxed and waned but has never come back to the level it had in the months after 9/11 and early into 2002. You could point to the invasion of Iraq as a period of significant unease, but I don't think it reached the earlier level.

But, I believe that history is what is behind average Koreans who might say they see the US as a bigger threat.

If you look beyond average Koreans, it is again rooted much further back in what the nutroot-left has been saying in Korea for years.

—- Things like attacking Patriot missiles being brought into South Korea to defend against possible offensive missile attacks from the North — or the US push to get South Korea to join a regional defensive shield.

The far left has tried to sell that to the general public as another way the US government is trying to make it easier to attack the North by making it harder for the North to retaliate. — but my sense was that they have only had minor luck selling that much to the public at large.

First of all, policitians do and say whatever is politically expedient on a given day. I don't know if you've seen a footage of Roh Moo-hyun getting a huge standing ovation from a cheering and hollering crowd of college kids during his campaign when he defiantly said something like "so what if I'm anti-US?", as in "so what's the big deal about being anti-US? We don't need them any more than they need us! To hell with them!" I remember thinking, "hey, at least he's got a pair. Too bad that's pretty much all he's got to offer us". And we all know what he did afterwards after being elected to the office (just picture Roh going "Nailed it!" after the speech and the dinner with Bush). Yoo Si-min, one of Roh's loyal lap dogs, opposed sending troops to Afghanistan and Iraq for about two seconds before he realized that he might make his master look bad if he got a little too uppity. Was I shocked to see those spineless politicians do a complete 180? Not really. They were just being politicians. I was little disappointed however because it would've been fun to see Bush's reaction to Roh doing his "Rebel Without a Clue" routine. It would've made a pretty good clip on youtube.

What I do find baffling is not the hypocracy of politicians (especially the left leaning ones who reap plenty of benefits from every cliched anti-US slogan on every election), but rather this irrationality of the voters (especially young people. I'll come back to that subject later) which somehow believe that US of A is a bigger threat to the sanctity of this nation, when South Korea has a giant looney bin of a "nation" as its neighbor. To me, it's kind of like a teenager rebeling against her parents. She knows her parents can cut her allowance, ground her for two months, make her do chores, etc. She yells at them and call them names. But she also knows that they will never kick her out of the house or abandon her for good. Meanwhile she dates this no good, scruffy-looking boyfriend of hers who has a violent temper, hangs with the wrong crowd, and possibly deals drugs. She believes that he loves her more than anything in the world (because he said so) while her parents are appalled and scared to death because they KNOW that this dude is a Charles Manson,only more troubled. But this school girl thinks that this potential career criminal loves her more than their parents do even though the only agenda he has, if you can call it that, is to get into her panties. She hates her parents and even considers eloping because she doesn't understand why her parents cannot see what a good person her boyfriend is and how sincerely he loves her.

At this point, some obvious questions must be asked.

1) Why does this stupid school girl think that her parents who have devoted their lives to raising their daughter are mortal enemies while a dude with nothing but sweet words, an uncontrollable libido, and a criminal record is the love of her life who will sacrifice everything, even his life, for her?

2) What makes this sweet school girl think that she has a much better judgement on people than her parents who have seen and heard it all?

3) Where can I find dumb girls like that?

I have heard some people who voted for Roh say to me "I wish I could cut off my hand that voted for Roh". Easy, old man! It's good enough if you just bang your head against the wall for 5 minutes 10 times a day. Cutting off hands is way too messy and the landfills are overflowing with enough shit already. Whenever I hear someone say that, I feel like telling them "yeah, go ahead. Thanks to you shit-for-brains, people like me had to suffer as well". Let's face the ugly truth. People are idiots. Most of us are; that's how democracy works. Politicans always say "I trust the voters. They are smart and will make the right decision". Yeah, they will make the right decision FOR YOU! Because they are so easily manipulated and swayed. You just have to know which buttons to push. The truth is I don't trust the judgement of people who chose DJ AND Roh and complain about MB ruining everything (sure, Korea was Garden of Eden before MB took a bite out of that proverbial apple). I don't trust the intelligence of people who got all worked up after seeing PD Diary and poured out onto the streets. I don't trust the rationality of people who go nuts when their soccer team wins World Cup games even though they never pay any attention to soccer on regular days. I don't trust the attention span of people who give 80% approval ratings even before the new adminstration moved into office and give 10% approval ratings now because their government "ruined the economy" in six months.

Havings saids that, I also don't trust the judgement of people who chose G.W Bush not once, but twice. I don't trust the judgement of young voters who are blindly marching under the Obamania flag even though he is an empty suit with a silver tongue, which is why politicians try to lower the voting age all the time, not the other way around (more stupid voters to manipulate! Oo-hoo!); it's a little ironic given that the average age of kids leaving their nest and becoming financially indepedent is going up. Think about that.

This anti-US "movement" is a wedge issue that the leftists love to have on their docket to get easy votes from dumb voters. Deep down, we Koreans all know that a) we would never want to live in a god-forsaken hell-hole like North Korea under any circumstances, b) US is still the biggest trading partner c) US has always been a staunch ally to S.Korea, d) if we had to pick one nation as our ally, we would choose US any given day e) we want to be like US in terms of economical and military superiority and other areas where US excels.

In the mean time, don't feel too bad if we march in the streets saying ugly things about your innocent American cows. We Koreans wannna feel self-righteous every now and then; it's the David vs. Goliath thing (we all cheer for underdogs, don't we?) We need that morale boost! We haven't chanted "Death to America" or fired AK47s into the air yet. Relax, we just playing, bro! So we are still cool, right?

…because…over time….that has tended to be one of the common sources of divergent opinions between long-term and short-term expats alike.

I'm thinking here about the occasional discussion where someone's view of anti-US sentiment is guided by how big the protests are or how violent. (I'm not referring to Kalani here – but a trend in the K-blogsphere).

It has also been my feeling that this type of disagreement often happens between the GI or USFK-related expat and the ESL-ers or other expats who have more contact with Koreans day-to-day. (Again, I'm not talking about Kalani here – because he fits the second group)

I've said all along (since the late 1990s) what concerns me isn't the street activity but what goes on elsewhere that provides — I guess you could say — preparation for street protests.

Korean society would not be able to whip itself into the kind of frenzy we just witnessed over something as small and irrational as the beef deal — if it were not being prepped to do so elsewhere above the street.

At least in the 2002 period, the horrific nature in which the 2 middle school girls died could offer some plausible explanation why some people got so angry about it.

But, the 2000 water dumping case is another, like cows gone wild!! hysteria, where you see that the event itself isn't the main reason the protest happened.

I no more believe the couple dozen gallons of a formaldehyde derivative dumped in the Yongsan sewer system were what generated all that heat in 2000 than I believe fear of catching mad cow disease (or Lee's arrogance) is what caused this latest major spike in street activity.

It is the activity in Korean education and notes in the popular culture and elements like that which are the foundation for something like cows gone wild!! hysteria. The protests do help perpetuate themselves — and by that I mean all protests – related to the US or not. Korean protest culture helps perpetuate itself.

But, when you see how Korean society held off on big protests against the US in Korea for several years — despite things like the Iraq troops dispatch, the Pyongtaek base expansion, other trade issues and things like the APEC conference — only to reemerge on something like the beef deal – you have to look beyond the street to really understand what has been going on.

List them. List the things that American do (real or imagined) that piss off Korans and they don't protest about.

Gaetano Calabresi is a Korean. He sounds just like that "wankong942" guy that the MarmotHole blog owner works for.

Roh also spoke out that if were elected, he would not going to America to kowtow as all the other presidents did.

He also said that he would fundamentally alter the SK-US relationship, especially with the US in Korea, to make it more equal.

Kalani, with all do respect, —- and I do mean in all do respect — I think your definition of "anti-Americanism" tends to be prohibitively narrow.

I felt that was with the beef issue too.

The protesters might not have been burning American flags, but to call them non-anti-US obscures root causes. If it were Canadian or Aussie beef, and they had had the same mad cow scare as the US 5 to 10 years before, do you think we would have seen Korea rise up as it did against Lee cutting a deal with Canada or Australia?