Extreme Championship Government this December.

Reuters, via The Huffington Post, has brief footage from Seoul City Council's "December to Remember," in which rival stables clashed over a free school lunches bill.

Meanwhile the industry's biggest stars were promoting their upcoming Pay-Per-View "Some Assembly Required" at a house event on the 2nd.



Song Gwang-ho gets caught in a bad spot during a lumberjack match (top), and oversells a wrist-grab (bottom).

Pushing and shoving again in the National Assembly.

Watching news footage of this I thought somebody replaced the lawmakers with drunks outside the taxi stand.



The Joongang Ilbo explains a little:

About 40 lawmakers from the main opposition Democratic Party occupied the conference room of the Budget and Account Committee of the National Assembly yesterday morning to protest the ruling Grand National Party’s plan to form a subcommittee on adjusting the budget bill.

Rough stuff in the National Assembly is a fairly regular occurrence, and though the Korean Embassy in New Zealand once complained about a commercial there that featured video footage of brawling politicians, saying

It depicted Korean politics and people in a negative fashion and was therefore offensive to the Korean community in New Zealand.

perhaps politicans that behave like this depict Korean politics and people in a negative fashion and are therefore offensive to the Korean community in New Zealand. This latest episode doesn't compare to July's Media Law Pay Per View



or to last year's December to Remember.

It's a shame you didn't invite me to any Halloween parties. You missed the costume of the year:

Lots of unfinished business after July's Pay Per View.

Run-ins, scrums, and weapons marred the July Pay Per View at the National Assembly. The Chosun Ilbo snapped a photo of the "King of Hardcore" Triple K Kang Ki-kap attempting to use a desk against his opponents.



And members of the Democratic Party attacked babyface Yun Seok-yong while driving to the ring in his free Rascal scooter.




Here some cronies went under the ring to bring a chair into the match.



The referee separates the two combatants after Baek Won-u tapped out to Kim Seong-tae's Sharpshooter.



The Korea Herald has the story.

* Update: You can catch videos all over the local news channels and their websites, or tune in to this one from the BBC. Thanks to a reader for passing it along.

"Unprecedented" indictment for hammer-wielding politicians.

Six months after the December Pay-Per-View, five lawmakers have been indicted for their role in the violence at the National Assembly.

Five opposition lawmakers and their aides have been indicted for brandishing a hammer and other implements at the National Assembly and assaulting or insulting governing party lawmakers.

The indictment comes about six months after they clashed with lawmakers from the governing Grand National Party (GNP) over the attempted ratification of a free trade agreement with the United States on Dec. 18. To block GNP lawmakers from tabling the FTA deal at a subcommittee of the Assembly, opposition lawmakers used a hammer and other tools to destroy a door to the panel room, which had been occupied and barricaded by GNP lawmakers.

During the clash, there was scuffling, individuals were grabbed by the collar and insulting words were traded.

The indictment is unprecedented, even though there have been numerous cases of violence in the Assembly over the last 60 years. The opposition parties denounced the prosecution for what they call politically motivated legal action. The violent scenes were featured in major daily newspapers worldwide.

Among the indicted ― without physical detention ― are Rep. Moon Hak-jin of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and Rep. Lee Jung-hee of the minor opposition Democratic Labor Party (DLP) on charges of damaging public property. DP lawmaker Kang Gi-jung was indicted for obstructing the execution of duty, and GNP lawmaker Cho Won-jin for violence.

Some footage of the event:

National Assembly panel okays KORUS FTA.

The Chosun Ilbo has a bunch of photos from today's match, including one devoted to the always ricetarded Kang Ki-kap.



Still, I think my all-time favorite Kang Ki-kap gallery is this one, courtesy of Korea Beat. Here's another great one. Why does he always look like he's going after Tommy Dreamer?




If you're interested, the Joongang Ilbo profiled him back in November, and brings us this image of him versus Sabu:

More rough stuff in the National Assembly.

One of these days some legislation might break out. The Korea Times has some background the photo they ran (not above):

Rep. Lee Jong-kul . . . of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), scuffles with lawmakers as he attempts to block Chairman Ko Heung-kil . . . of the National Assembly’s Culture, Sports, Tourism, Broadcasting and Communications Committee from invoking his power to table contentious media industry-related bills in a conference room, Wednesday. The main opposition Democratic Party (DP), which has objected to the passage of those bills, claimed that the introduction of the measures was “invalid.”

Some video footage here, in Korean. The referees broke it up pretty quick, though, instead of letting the boys go at it.

This is nothing compared to the brawling that happened this December. Last week it, and 16 other politican brawls were ranked by Cracked.com; South Korea placed an impressive three times. I suspect Koreans aren't happy about that, though; footage from a brawl a few years ago was used in a clothing commercial in New Zealand. That drew a complaint from the Korean Embassy that said in part:

It depicted Korean politics and people in a negative fashion and was therefore offensive to the Korean community in New Zealand.

To the outside observer perhaps Korean politics depicts Korean politics in a negative fashion.

"It depicted Korean politics and people in a negative fashion."

That's some fine sleuthin' and a good memory by A Fillet of Seoul, who is enjoying the parliament brawl as much as its participants. He reminds us that a few years ago Koreans got bent out of shape over a clothing commercial using stock footage of brawling Korean politicians. A complaint lodged by the Korean Embassy in New Zealand to the Advertising Standards Complaints Board of New Zealand in 2001 reads:

An advertisement for Hallensteins was screened on TV One, TV2 and TV 3. It depicted an incident, in what appeared to be an auditorium and which involved a large number of smartly dressed Asian men, wearing suits. Some of the men wore jackets and some wore shirtsleeves. For no obvious reason, groups of men started to behave aggressively toward each other, pulling at each other's clothes and throwing punches. The graphics state, "Business Shirts 2 for $50 – Hallensteins".

The gist of the ad being you never know when you'll need a back-up shirt. The complaint continues.

The Embassy believes that the advertisement breached Rule No. 5 in the Advertising Code of Ethics and Basic Principle No. 3 of the Revised Code for People in Advertising. It depicted Korean politics and people in a negative fashion and was therefore offensive to the Korean community in New Zealand. It also believes that scenes of a country’s political conflict should not be used for commercial purposes.

The complaint was not upheld, and the blog comes to this astute conclusion:

If you stopped acting like asshats, people wouldn’t laugh at you for acting like asshats.

Go read the rest of the entry for more.



Still no sign of the advertisement online, though searches did bring up a few mentions on Korean websites and the above scan from a page about creative advertising.

Democracy fail.

From the Korea Times article talking about the big parliment brawl yesterday comes this quotation from Park Byeong-seuk (sic, 박병석), chief policy maker for the Democratic Party (민주당).

Rep. Park Byeong-seug, DP chief policymaker, said shortly before the committee's approval of the motion that his party would fight against the GNP in collaboration with the general public.

``We now realize that we are unable to represent the voices of working- and middle-class citizens properly in the legislature where all decisions are made based on votes,'' Park said.

That picture of him isn't from yesterday but rather from a different scuffle in 2007.

Parliament brawl.

Violence erupted between opposing parties in the South Korean Parliament today as they met to discuss the ratification of the KORUS Free Trade Agreement.

Determined to ratify the controversial South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA) before the end of this year, the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) physically barred opposition lawmakers from a committee room and put the motion before parliament. The trade deal has been sitting idle in the legislatures of the two countries since June last year.

"We have managed today to pave the way for this critical deal," GNP floor leader Hong Joon-pyo said. "It will be ratified by the end of the year. There will be no further delay."

Scores of lawmakers from the largest opposition Democratic Party and the minority Democratic Labor Party scuffled for hours with security officials, who had been guarding the hall since Wednesday.

"No FTA for the country!" "No dictatorship in the parliament!" opposition legislators called out, shaking their fists in the air at the National Assembly.

As security officials, mobilized by President Lee Myung-bak's GNP, continued to bar them from entering the committee room, some lawmakers used hammers and chisels to tear the back door down. They still could not enter, however, as a fire extinguisher blast broke up the scuffling. No one was seriously hurt.

Some pictures from today's festivities.









LOL, 폐문.

Update: I couldn't help but post more of these dignified men and women. I don't really know what to say except, yeah, I guess is where the well-known impression that Koreans are hot-tempered comes from, and we hardly needed any more evidence for their flair for the dramatic. Geez, you'd think somebody cheated at soccer or something.