Mr. Tweedle-dum and Mr. Tweedle-dee

Mr. Tweedle-dum and Mr. Tweedle-dee
Two bears, one, Siberian and the other, a legendary Tangoon, have met at the menagerie in Moscow to settle their horse-trading. The Siberian bear wants his counterpart to forgive most of his debts ($2 billion) in return for offering some nebulous industrial projects. The Tangoon bear needs to fix this matter once and for all, even though Siberian bear is not in ship-shape and close to collapse under the pressure of other creditors.
Curiously, there are parallelisms between them
1. Both bears walk clumsily, Siberian always tipsy like an inebriate homeless man in Manhattan and the latter limp like a duck with rictus smile of a bowing undertaker.
2. They were superb wheeler-and -dealers, Siberian being a Moscow mayor, manipulated his city-dwellers a bunch of empty promises and later became a shill for the Western corporate interests to obtain financial support for the Presidency. The latter has changed clothes from the principled man to a Machiavellian disciple to trade horse with his former torturer.
3. They are allegedly elected to be the people's president, that Siberian kicked Commies out of power since Lenin's proletariat revolution and brought into ' Market-oriented capitalism' resulting in the financial insolvency and the political quagmires. The latter was introduced as a Nelson Mandela of Korea, the champion of the human rights, and the crown prince of democracy that cast off the image of South Korea as the dictatorial military regime. However, he still maintains the infamous National Security Act and he pledged to rehabilitate the former military dictators and torturers to be national heroes to curry favor with the regional people.
4. They came into power with the promise that they eliminate rampant corruption and inefficiency in high levels of the government officialdom and employ the policy of justice for all. Instead, the former have been mired with the scandals and political infighting; his daughter plays the role of a princess regent in doling out the state-run business to the Russian Mafia, and a huge suburban villa is under construction with the money from Switzerland for the retirement home of Siberian bear, while the majority of average Russians toil for the bread crumb and the state can not pay the salaries of soldiers, teachers, coal miners and pensioners. The latter had inherited the most scandalous bureaucracy from his nemesis that the life style of 'la dolce vita' is the norm and the bribery is the most important conduit to the promotion. Since he has been out of the loop in the establishment so long, he can not run the government without the support of the mandarins and other new appointees. Therefore, he was degenerated to accept the modus operandi of rotten behavior and to cover up the series of monetary scandals involving almost entire ministries of his government. For instance, he publicly announced before his journey to Russia that Governor You had done nothing wrong when he lost $120,000 to the cat burglar; the governor was hoarding the greenbacks while his government was urging average Joe to open up their mattress and to deposit the hidden U.S dollars in the bank.
5. They have been clinically atrophied and severely maimed in the course of the surgical operations by the IMF doctors and lost sight of their raison detre as the national leader. Siberian bear changes his prime minister overnight as Saudi prince chooses his girl from the harem and opens up mines, oilfields, forests, farmlands and spaces for international fire-sale. The latter has filled every lucrative and important post of the state-controlled enterprises and bureaucratic establishment with his coterie of aides and sycophants who use the Cholla-do vernaculars. The banks, insurance companies, public facilities, green-belt lands, and almost everything saleable matters are placed on the flea market and the state robs Peter to pay Paul at leisure. If anyone resists his demented agenda, he applies the exact tactics of the former dictators to beat, cajole, blackmail, and jail, and he still believes himself as a humanist.

The point is whether the populace under these two bears would have the capacity to grasp correctly where they are and head for.
Russians were pampered and accustomed for state-subsidized economy for a century and they have developed into numbness and paralysis when frenzied sharks from the Wall Street ravenously suck the blood out of their veins with the help of their leader.
Koreans have lemming-like obsession with their leader and follow blindly when they were told. They are totally duped to think Gen. CH Park as their hero, who was the most inhumane, corrupt, and philandering president. No one imagined a few years ago that Gen. DW Chun would make a cameo appearance in the public gathering and the president who was jailed by General actively calls for his collaboration. Koreans are oblivious that the president himself admitted he had received a huge amount of the slush fund from Chaebols, and they raise Cain over the sensational dress scandal of the minister's wives. As far as Koreans are concerned, history is bunk. When they are told of their shortsightedness, they tend to blame the unique and distinct upbringing ingrained with the principles of Confucianism. (Please read OGM's rebuttal against my posting 'America, the beautiful? 05/27/99)
Some Koreans are apologetic to defend their president's compliance with the IMF's restructuring for the Hobson's choice.
Dr.Mahathir Mohamad, the prime minister of Malaysia, last year, had dug a moat around its economy by imposing capital controls and build a drawbridge only for the international investors who desire to produce something, not for the currency speculators like George Soros whom Korean president invited to his palace and flirted with feast. At first, Malaysia appeared to become a pariah in the global investment circle, but greed and pragmatism eventually took over the investor's fury and the major foreign banks volunteered to loan $1.35 billion at a lower rate than Malaysia has to pay to raise cash on the international bond market. Investors are not very keen to come in and stabilize the economy, as popularly believed. They are not the charity organization to give out cash and compassion. They solely follow profit like lemmings as Koreans follow their leader and this logic has been based on the ipsissima verba of Jesus Christ (Matt 6:21), "For where your treasure is, there will be your heart be also."
Moreover, they always want to use the financial trouble in other countries to enable to come in, take over the economy and take out their profit as they wish--they are exploiters also.
When Dr. Mahathir insists to regulate international cash flows like hedge funds, he is a heretic, while George Soros supports it he is a guru, because they stand on the different podium.
Russian stands firmly against international creditors (including Korean) and refuses to service the loan and the creditors buckled under the rescheduling arrangement.
Korean as lemmings surely have ceded economic sovereignty to the IMF and that they respond more to the directives of Uncle Sam than to the violent protest of laid-off workers and enraged students.
Mr. Tweedledee would brag that his journey to Russia was successful though his wallet is empty, and I wonder how many Koreans have the intelligent capacity to overcome the brouhaha of main stream media and to grasp the reality they, the taxpayers, eventually have to pay the bankers