There’s a billionaire in South Korea acting like an Elon Musk. As you may remember from my earlier post, Musk regularly uses Tesla and Twitter to promote Hitler and demote democracy.
Starbucks Korea ran a “Tank Day” promotion on May 18 for a “Tank” tumbler line with the tagline to slam it down with a “Tak!” sound. This “bang the desk” line was read as mocking the torture death of student activist Park Jong-chul.
The campaign is on the anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising, where the military killed hundreds of citizens in 1980. The official count stands near 165. Independent scholarship puts the dead between 600 and 2,300. The killing was by paratroopers and special forces with gunfire and bayonets, not by tanks as such, yet tanks are the symbol of the tragedy.
The Starbucks CEO was fired hours later and the stock crashed. Unlike America, where Elon Musk’s constant promotion of violent fascism is only growing, there has been immediate and fierce condemnation in South Korea.
