To read the liberal media, who fawn over vegetarian and animal rights activists like they were martyrs, you'd swear the whole populace of South Korea had taken on their cause, as they demonstrate in the streets against U.S. beef.
The demonstrators claim U.S. beef carries a danger of BSE (Mad Cow Disease). There is much more BSE in South Korea's own domestic cattle herd than has ever been found in the U.S. The truth is, they need more U.S. beef available to consumers to counteract the dangers of South Korea's own beef.
Those arguments aside, beef is a sideshow in the current street demonstrations. South Korea has a new, narrowly elected government of just a few months. It is still feeling its way along, and frankly, lacks the deft political touch to cement its hold on power.
The street demonstrators care very little, and may not even know, what the issue is. They are just opposed to the new government and want to bring it down. If U.S. beef is the convenient whipping boy to get this job done, so be it.
That's why much of the U.S. press coverage is such a farce. The press has fallen for the line that the demonstrations are about U.S. beef--and by extension--we in the U.S. must also be in grave danger, eating U.S. beef. To anyone who truly understands what is really going on in South Korea, they just laugh at how badly out of touch the U.S. press is.
Most of the rest of the world understands the South Korean situation, and consumers in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Asian countries buy U.S. beef with none of the public outcry. We just need to wink at South Korea's inept government, and understand that we are just convenient pawns in their sideshow.
As the saying goes "and this too shall pass."
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