New York Times Criticizes Park Geun-hye’s Government’s Response to Protests

If the New York Times wants to criticize President Park I have no issues with that, but at least provide all the facts so readers can at least make up their own minds instead of selectively publishing information to support the anti-President Park narrative:

South Koreans can be as proud of their country’s emergence from dictatorship into a vibrant democracy as they are of the rags-to-riches development that made their country a global industrial powerhouse. So it is alarming that President Park Geun-hye appears intent on backtracking on the democratic freedoms that have made South Korea as different from North Korea’s puppet regime as day is from night.

Last weekend, tens of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets to protest two repressive government initiatives. One would replace the independently selected history textbooks now available to South Korea’s educators with government-issued textbooks. The other would change labor laws to make it easier for South Korea’s family-controlled business conglomerates to fire workers.  [New York Times]

Normally I say read the rest at the link, but don’t bother because it is more of the copy paste Park Geun-hye is daughter of former dictator and trying to squash dissent like her father nonsense.  First of all the current textbooks were mostly written by leftists that are used by teachers who promote pro-North Korean ideology in the classroom.  That is the driving factor of why the government is changing the textbooks.  Secondly the textbooks have not even been written.  I would be more sympathetic to textbook protests if one of these books had even been written that showed slanted history.  Right now we don’t know what will be in them.  Maybe they will be as bad as predicted, but maybe they won’t.

As far as the changing of labor laws the Park administration is trying to make it easier for corporations to layoff older workers in order to open slots for younger workers.  South Korea has a large youth unemployment problem.  Will this work?  I have no idea, but the issue is not as simple as the New York Times makes it out to be.  The New York Times should at least provide both sides of the issue to inform readers.