Will the Bulldozer ram it through?

The sign our traditionally dressed National Assemblyman Kang Gigap
is holding expresses opposition to the Korea-EU FTA.

Over at the Wall Street Journal blog, Evan Ramstad wonders if the ruling GNP (Grand National Party) will take advantage of its majority to simply ram through the pending US-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) and the North Korea Human Rights Act?

If they don't get cooperation from the Democratic Party, that's just what they might do, and Mr Ramstad argues it might not be in the DP's interest to abstain:

The Democratic Party joined other left-leaning, opposition parties in abstaining from Wednesday’s vote on the EU FTA. That was portrayed in the South Korean media as a maneuver by DP chairman Sohn Hak-kyu, who got elected to the parliament in last week’s by-election, to curry favor with the smaller parties to support him for a presidential run next year.

But some in the DP instantly regretted the decision because the GNP passed the FTA without taking up assistance measures for farmers and retailers that the DP was pushing. Previously, the two parties had agreed that the GNP would support the DP’s assistance measures in return for the DP’s support on the overall ratification.

In general I support free trade, but I have qualms about people being overrun when the floodgates are open to new competition, so I kinda like the idea of this joint GNP-DP approach as a way to allow the inevitable in a way that makes things smoother. Supposedly.

I'd also like to see passage of the KORUS FTA without a hitch too many hitches.

And speaking of the NKHRA, the Joongang Daily has a good op-ed on it here. They also have a short but interesting article on the 101 North Koreans who have resettled in the United States.

Nazis. I hate these guys.

Courtesy of Brian's website, we get news of Hitler Walkers. These are trendy-looking casual walking shoes that are storming their way through Korea. Sort of like a blitzkrieg.

Okay, bad joke, but I don't know what else to say. Naming a consumer item after one of the worst mass murderers in world history is so blatantly wrong that at first I thought there might be some mistake. Maybe they say 하틀러 instead of 히틀러, or maybe they were trying to Hangulize Heathrow and it got all mucked up (히드로).

But nope. They're really shoes named after Hitler, looking a bit like jackboots lite. And they're fashionable shoes named after Hitler, so it's only a matter of time before they invade other East Asian markets or, worse, they end up in a Korea soap opera for every sensitive person in North America to gawk at, mouths agape.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

In the weird fetish toward Nazi-era chic that weirdly pokes its head up from time to time in East Asia (it's also in Japan, Taiwan, Mongolia, and a few other places), there are okay references and definitely bad references.

An okay reference would be something like, say, naming a bar after a famous German general from World War II who wasn't actually a Nazi and was entangled in a plot to oust Hitler. A definitely bad reference would be naming a bar after Der Führer. A borderline but probably bad reference would be using Nazi-esque uniforms and what sounds like a speech by Hitler in the background audio of a cosmetics commercial with only a French painting of Liberté to balance out the imagery.

Calling your shoes Hitler is definitely bad. Bad enough that there should be a letter-writing campaign, phone calls, etc., etc., until the product is renamed or discontinued. I think Heathrow Walkers sounds quite nice.

And like LG when they had that whole fiasco with blackface, now that they know about the problem, there is no excuse for not doing something about it.

Italy drops opposition to the ROK-EU free trade agreement, allowing for unanimous passage

A little horsetrading with Rome — delay of the FTA by six months to allay concerns about the impact on the local car industry — has brought Italy into the fold, providing unanimous acceptance of the FTA. I wonder if the hold-up had something to do with a certain controversial 2002 Korea/Japan World Cup match. Hmm... Payback is a biz killer.

The FTA is now scheduled to go into effect next July, and this may put pressure on US lawmakers to pass the pending KORUS FTA.

I have a question, though: Which Italian-made cars compete with which Korean-made cars?

Oh, the horror!