Turns out South Korea was a brutal military dictatorship under the backing of the US way longer than you'd think
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So few opportunities to use the word "decimate" literally. And now, one fewer.
I use it in a mortal combat voice whenever I eat a tenth of something and it always makes my husband laugh (somehow)
How often do you eat a tenth of something?
A few times a month, maybe? A lot of things come in ten packs and the bakery I work at sells five rolls for a discount, so I’ll get two of those relatively frequently
Separate the whole thing into 10 equal sized pieces and then eat one of them?
Most people don't know the historical definition of decimate, so using here it would be confusing or redundant.
It would be neither. It would be appropriate.
Can you define the word redundant for me?
Asking for the term decimate would have been more appropriate here.
If it were phrased "they decimated the population" most would assume from the phrasing that it mean that you're saying that a large proportion was killed, because that's how that word is actually used in the English language. If it were phrased "they decimated 10 percent of the population" you're either using the word as people understand it wrong or your saying they killed 10 percent of the population twice right next to each other, which is you know, redundant.
The definition of words reflect how we use them. An interesting fact is that scientists use Latin for scientific names of things because no one speaks Latin so the meanings of those words will not change with time. It's the same in courts, you'll find that a lot of old English words that aren't commonly used in everyday conversation are used and that's so that the meaning of things stay consistent over time.
If you replace "wiped out" in the title of the OP with decimate then it'd be exactly as wasteful, would use the word as it's understood in modern English properly, and you'd get to use the original meaning too. Sure, it's redundant (sort of) but it doesn't take any extra time or space than what's already written.
Actually, after some further thought I've realised I was wrong actually. If you were to use the phrasing "decimated 10 percent of the population", it wouldn't be redundant it would just be straight up wrong. To decimate 10 percent of a population would mean either you killed 10 percent of 10 percent of the population (i.e. 1 percent), or it would mean you've killed a large proportion of that 10 percent of the population.
And of course my point about how using the phrase "decimating the population" on its own would lead to confusion for most people because when people think of "a large proportion of", people generally think that it's more than 10 percent.
Can you define the word redundant for me? You seem to have dodged the ask.
Unnecessary or superfluous. For example: calling an ATM (automated teller machine) an "ATM machine".
You seem to have missed the example I gave.
If it were phrased "they decimated 10 percent of the population" you're either using the word as people understand it wrong or your saying they killed 10 percent of the population twice right next to each other, which is you know, redundant.
What would be redundant in this circumstance is saying decimate (e.g. to kill 10 percent of a group) 10 percent of the population. This is of course assuming that the person reading it knows the historical definition of decimate.
Furthermore I used the two different phrasings as examples because if you just wrote "they decimated the population", most people would assume a number larger than 10 percent. But if you try and clarify by stating "they decimated 10 percent of the population", and they know its historical definition, you're being redundant.
So in conclusion, using decimate would either confuse people or be redundant.
As an aside; when you're trying to report something, whether that be a current event or a historical one, you should be using language that the most people will be able to understand for the sake of clarity.
Read my original reply and do realize that it stood perfectly well on its own without captain obvious swooping in to give some grade-school tier lecture that nobody asked for.
Everything about you and your smarmy act is redundant. Can you shut the fuck up? Thanks.
Your original comment didn't stand "perfectly well on its own", actually. Decimate meaning to destroy or kill a large proportion of something is just as literal as the definition you're using, only the definition I'm using is much more commonly used and understood, so it generally takes precedence.
Everything about you and your smarmy act is redundant. Can you shut the fuck up? Thanks.
If you want someone to shut up on the internet, the best way to do it is to not engage them. Works just about every time in my experience. But you cared enough to engage and then engage again.
And if you don't like smarmy people explaining things with a holier than thou attitude, engaging in internet discussion might not be the thing for you, you little piss baby.
This entire exchange has been me watching you talk to yourself about something nobody gives a fuck about.
My original comment was well-received for a reason.
I live near one of the uncovered mass graves. They put a hauntingly beautiful memorial over it.
All, it was more than a general strike. Also, fyi, OP is a bot
How do you know? What are the lemmy telltale signs?
Highly disproportionate post to comment ratio is usually a good telltale sign
Very high number of posts, very few comments, for this user.
An average user with a genuine question or sharing will engage with other users. Although with LLMs, there are bots that reply too, in the writing you'll see AI failings, not human failings.
I don't think cm0002 is a bot. From what I remember, cm0002 makes a lot of posts to grow various communities, some of which are crossposts in between communities with similar topics. Although this account looks different from the one I remember, so maybe this one is an alt.
I personally don't find that behaviour to be harmful unless it's fully automated or a fire hose of low quality junk. If a human is picking out the content to post, then it gives people something to discuss and vote on.
I'm likely biased myself since I also schedule out posts with another account @otters_raft@lemmy.ca. I do that since this account is an admin account, and so I don't want to risk any issues if the scheduling tool goes haywire. I do check it about once a day and respond to comments when appropriate, but overall the post to comment ratio on that account is pretty lopsided.
We DO get harmful bots too, and they get downvoted/reported/banned very quickly. Those are pretty obvious since they post spam and ads in unrelated communities.
Anything I don't like or makes me uncomfortable is Russian bots, or Chinese weather/spy balloons, or North Korean propaganda. Everything I like is fact, evidence, and science-based because I said so, or someone I like said so.
There, I just summed up humanity for you.
OP has posted like the majority of their post history (119 posts) in the last 24 hours
OP is a bot
And yet I've had DM convos with them that were remarkably like talking with a human. Am I a bot?
I wish we had more bots posting useful links to articles.
Humans just seem to post screenshots of headlines ;/
hol up, Jeju island is a real place and a real massacre took place there? Doesn't that make it kinda fucked up that the manga Solo Leveling used it as a location and set a different, wholly unrelated massacre there? I just naively assumed they made up an island. There wasn't even a mention of the labor struggle in either the manga or the anime.
Seems more lile an explicit political statement, but yeah.
I've been trying to go through and see if there are any other allusions that would make it a political statement, but can't really find anything. Maybe that ants were chosen as the enemies who inhabited the island? but the "moral" of that arc was "hell yeah kill everything, even the kids" so I really hope that wasn't meant as an allusion. It's not like the manga makes any political statements in general, it's your typical generic shonen "helping people is good" and "get strong" kinda themes. I guess there's a bit talking about people trying to forget Jeju Island, but it's played entirely in-universe. Seems too strange to be coincidence though.
Jeju Island is basically the Kenny of South Korean novels and webcomics. Place gets cooked pretty often.
The anti-socialist views of the southern government and worry about losing control to the north played more into it than the strike.
This is the kind of shit that either gives you a raging authoritarian boner or like in my case, radicalises you toward anarchism, because fuck the state, fuck absolute power.
It's called 4.3 in here South Korea. Fascist pesident Syngman Lee, backed by the US army, committed genocide in Jeju. The army was ordered to consider anyone in the island, including children, as riots. The reason of this genocide was that Labor Party of South Korea was popular in Jeju. The fascist leading opposition People's Power still claim that it was a communist riot.
Han Kang's novel well describes this event.
I also recommend Han Kang's Human Acts, going over the Gwang-Ju Massacre by the butcher Chun Do-Hwan.
Nobel prize recipient
Why even bother mentioning this? Nobody cares about the opinions of some crusty old imperialist fuckheads. They are clearly deeply unserious in their prize selection process.
Yeah but I was told that it's hateful to call a fascist a fascist, so...
Guess we'll just have to live with the coming bloodshed. I can't wait to be told to "get over it."
I am being deprogrammed....
Nodutdol just released a toolkit on Korean reunification, going over the background of the division, its history of Japanese colonialism, and demystifying the DPRK. Seems to do a good job of going over the western framing of Korea from a Korean leftist perspective.
The RoK put communists in concentration camps and it is ignored as often as those who died in Hitler's camps
Title very misleading
A general strike was later organized by the Workers' Party of South Korea (WPSK) from February to March 1948.
Yes but then
The WPSK launched an insurgency in April 1948, attacking police and Northwest Youth League members stationed on Jeju who had been mobilized to suppress the protests by force.[
Not justifying a crime like this, just setting the record straight
Yes, because the dictator Rhee Syngman was slaughtering communists and labor organizers, as well as just random civilians.
Mods should indeed consider banning you from the server for spreading disinfo. They are far too lenient.
Are you really coming to the defense of the dictator Rhee Syngman just because leftists hate him? The WPSK started fighting against the dictatorship because it was a merciless dictatorship slaughtering communists, trade unionists, etc. Rhee Syngman was a butcher, he slaughtered countless Koreans even below the parallel. One of the more famous instances was blowing up the Hangang bridge while civilians were still on it, just to save his own skin.
You're outright defending Korean Pinochet.
I'm not defending anyone, I'm saying that it's unsurprising that the title is a part-truth given the instance.
It's also unsurprising that you get attacked for pointing out that the victims weren't entirely innocent: a general strike and a revolution are not the same, regardless of the cause, because the full, accurate, truth is discouraged here even when it paints the same picture you were originally trying to.
You're complaining about the lack of justification for Rhee Syngman's butchery of Jeju Island in the post title. The victims were largely innocent, the fact that some villiages in Jeju took up arms against Rhee Syngman's dictatorship was used as justification by Rhee Syngman to slaughter 10% of Jeju Island. It's said that the bloodbath was so significant that the waters around Jeju ran red. This is on top of the fact that armed resistance was fully justified, and intensified after Rhee Syngman started slaughtering innocent villagers.
Truth isn't discouraged here, what's discouraged is caping for fascist dictators by trying to say the slaughter was justified. You had a knee-jerk reaction because leftists correctly pointed out an example of the ROK's dictatorship slaughtering civilians, something it did on countless occasions in its early years and continued even decades later such as the Gwang-Ju Massacre.
You realise you're not helping your image by attacking viewpoints I don't even hold, right?
I responded to a comment asking why the post asking why details were omitted when the truth was on your side anyway, and you instantly take that as an attack on your beliefs, because posting the full truth or in any way acknowledging shortcomings of your comrades is actively discouraged, as you're very kindly demonstrating for me.
For full clarity, the actions of the old RoK government were inexcusable. The actions of the protesters were excusable given the context, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen or that we can call them something they weren't.
The headline also omits that Rhee Syngman was a puppet placed by the US Empire specifically to slaughter communists and labor organizers after the US Empire outlawed the PRK and divided Korea. It's a headline, not a comprehensive overview, and you complained about it not including that there was armed resistance against fascism, using that as a springboard to complain about leftists. What purpose does this serve, if not to cape for Rhee Syngman?
"for the crime of organising a general strike"
It wasn't for the general strike, it was following violence against the regime who tried to suppress the general strike.
Once again, the violence was completely excusable given the circumstances, but to say that the regime's actions were even mostly due to a simple general strike is incredibly disingenuous.
I'm not looking to villify the workers, I'm saying that tankies have a long history of hiding parts of the truth that show any form of wrongdoing by leftists, even when that wrongdoing was excusable or necessary, and that doing that is worse for your image than accepting history as it happens.
The actions of the fascists were against normal labor organizers, the violent resistance largely came after. The ROK millitary was told to slaughter indiscriminately, which they did. The title is accurate, they were slaughtered for the general strike, which then errupted into armed fighting and resistance at scale. It isn't disingenuous nor is it without precedent, Rhee Syngman had sent his fascist thugs after all manner of labor organizers using "sympathies with the north" as justification all of Korea. The goal was to root out any left opposition, that was the cause.
Further, no, leftists do not have a history of hiding "necessary wrongdoing." If it's necessary, it isn't wrongdoing! The right of armed resistance to oppression is a necessity, and it doesn't mean said violence is wrong. I think it's odd to try to lecture leftists on our "image" when all you've really done is cape for Rhee Syngman and attack leftists for not having a comprehensive overview in headlines of posts.
Taken directly from the linked article:
A general strike was later organized by the Workers' Party of South Korea (WPSK) from February to March 1948. The WPSK launched an insurgency in April 1948, attacking police and Northwest Youth League members stationed on Jeju who had been mobilized to suppress the protests by force.[1]: 166–167 [6] The First Republic of Korea under President Syngman Rhee escalated the suppression of the uprising from August 1948, declaring martial law in November and beginning an "eradication campaign" against rebel forces in the rural areas of Jeju in March 1949, defeating them within two months. This resulting campaign has led to the event being called the Jeju massacre.
The escalation by the government came in August, after the insurgency had been launched, and I don't think it's up for debate that after this point the government forces were slaughtering indiscriminately.
Thanks once again for proving my point that you're being disingenuous, in this case by incorrectly representing the timeline, when once again the facts are on your side and you don't need to make an unjustified slaughter of a country's own people look any less justified.
I haven't once defended Rhee Syngman, all I've done is say you make yourselves look untrustworthy and suspicious by misrepresenting the truth, even when you don't need to.
It isn't up for debate that Rhee Syngman was slaughtering labor organizers and communists before the WPSK and other groups started resisting the fascists. Further, again, Rhee Syngman was killing labor organizers that didn't resist as well, and before slaughtering Jeju. The slaughter existed because of labor organizing, not because of resistance. I'm not incorrectly representing the timeline, you're misrepresenting it by taking Rhee Syngman's narrative of just responding to the leftists, when in fact the resistance was provoked by Rhee Syngman slaughtering people.
You've defended Rhee Syngman by taking his version of events, ie no violence, then leftists resist, then he responds, rather than Rhee Sybgman slaughters people all over Korea, parties organize and resist, then Rhee Syngman ramps up the slaughter. You then used this as an opportunity to attack leftists! The one making themselves less trustworthy here is you.
I agree that authoritarian governments' versions of events usually vary from misleading to downright false, but I used a direct quotation from the article linked in the post, so if you have issues with the veracity then take it up with the post author or Wikipedia editors.
I haven't disputed the indiscriminate slaughter post-insurgency, or that there were some instances of it before the insurgency, it's just that it wasn't a direct causation, and if you have time in the title to specify cause and effect, then you should do the most direct cause and most direct effect, not the one which makes your favoured group look the most innocent.
Addressing this first, all states are authoritarian, the difference between them lies in their class character, ie are they working class states, or capitalist states. All states are instruments of class oppression, solidifying the power of one class over the others, and in the ROK that class was the capitalist class, especially the former compradors that benefited from Japanese colonization of Korea.
Going forward, even without armed resistance, Rhee Syngman was still slaughtering labor organizers. The cause was the labor organizing, not the resistance to him. He was hand-picked by the US Empire specifically to be used as a tool to wipe out any semblance of a Korean left south of the parallel. You're putting too much of an emphasis on the resistance, and not on the root cause: leftist organizing in general was unacceptable to the US Empire and the comrador regime they installed.
The fact of the matter is that daring to organize is what caused the massacre. The headline doesn't have the full context, not even the full Wikipedia article does. I suggest you stop caping for Rhee Syngman and instead try to look at the root cause, which the OP does get closer to than what you're saying.
I won a debate against evil Marxist-Leninists by pointing out how their post titles are inaccurate in the order of fascist genocide! I'm so proud of myself!
Do you really expect OP to explain the full context in title which would take up a full page?
I still see no issue with the title. The troops were sent in to suppress the strike with force. Whether or not the fascists in charge tried to spin it as the strikers getting violent isn't really relevant.
Damn... everyone in S.Korea except the far right hates Rhee... including liberals... We actually learn at school that Rhee was a dictator.
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