beat

(some background: it wasn't 30 years ago that the military of a dictatorship massacred protesting civilians by railgunning them from tanks and helicopters. not only is the democratic revolution still in living memory, but there was also a popular movie this year about the military coup. Han Kang became a nobel laureate this October for writing about the people who died in those protests.)

the special ops team's guns on the night of were loaded with rubbers, but there were reports that real bullets had been handed out ready to be used if the order came down (south korea bans the use of guns. it is also treason if you fire at parliament.)

what helped was the speed with which people rushed to take action against this middle-of-the-night onslaught. soldiers had been sent to politicians' homes to arrest them before they could gather in assembly, but the politicians had already headed to parliament for an emergency meeting.

a lot more Koreans were tracking the situation via social media, news reports, radio channels, and personal streamings. night shift workers at parliament barricaded the doors. the scrutiny and pressure put on the military troops attacking parliament was not insignificant. it bought us the ten minutes required for parliament to slapdash a martial law cancellation motion and vote on it, even as the strike team was breaking the windows and pushing in to the assembly hall.

this could all have gone really fucking wrong. we were saved by every civilian who put themselves in front of gunmen (including disabled human rights protestors), every councilor who jumped a wall to go vote, every reporter who shared breaking news on-site, every single audience member of live streams and social media, every police or soldier who tried not to escalate violence against civilians.

References

¹ Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. (2012). Thrift shop. s.n. [2:38]: ""They be like, "Oh, that Gucci? That's hella tight", I'm like, "Yo, that's fifty dollars for a T-shirt", Limited edition, let's do some simple addition, Fifty dollars for a T-shirt, that's just some ignorant bitch shit, I call that getting-swindled-and-pimped shit, I call that getting tricked by business, That shirt's hella dope, And having the same one as six other people in this club is a hella don't"

² Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. (2012). Thrift shop. s.n. [1:29]: "They had a broken keyboard, I bought a broken keyboard, I bought a skeet blanket, then I bought a knee board"

basically my gf's phone is completely Fucked and we've been shit out of luck trying to find a refurbished replacement that's unlocked and wouldn't require a down payment on a plan. so i'm asking for donations to get the original phone fixed, since she kinda needs a working phone in order to get a job.

ko-fi.com/possqueenvivvie