THIS IS TANGENTIALLY RELATED TO A THING I'M PASSIONATE ABOUT AND I'M GOING TO RANT NOW!!!!!
Here's what the Korean city of 대구 (Taegu) looks like:
See how all of the buildings are practically stacked on top of each other? That's what most of inhabited Korea looks like. Korea is a small peninsula with a booming population, so they don't have much room. The Korean people have invented really amazing ways to get around this, such as parks on raised platforms hundreds of feet in the air, incredible skyscrapers, etc. etc. You'd think that the American military bases that claim to be there to provide support to Korea would adapt to Korean urbanization methods. They've definitely gotten better at this over the past ten years, but contrasting the American owned portion of 대구 with the rest of the city really emphasizes the stupidity of American construction. Even in our own country, with all of its many many stolen miles, we're expanding too rapidly. We are building outwards instead of upwards, which is wreaking havoc on the environment.
Here's what the American military base looks like:
Does that lifeless, flat grass look familiar?
Yes! Congratulations. You've found a golf course! This one is special. It's surrounded by barbed wire and 24/7 security officers. The golf course winds its way through the rest of the military base, but as you can see, a big portion of the lawn is free of any worthwhile infrastructure.
Except for incredibly special circumstances, most Koreans are not allowed on that green green grass. It's reserved for Americans. The base professes that citizens can come play golf, but I've never seen anyone who wasn't a white dad schmucking their way across the lawn. My own American grandmother wasn't allowed to enter the base when she came to visit us because her paperwork, filed months in advance, was rejected. It's even harder for non US citizens to get on base. Nobody is going through all of that security for a round of golf.
Note how this is SO MUCH SPACE that could be used by Koreans. Citizens are incredibly pissed about it. The US only needs half of that space, but we're obsessed with our ugly ass manicured fucking lawns for some reason.
Not to mention that the course looks absolutely fucking hideous in the winter (pov dead yellow grass covered in slush outside of your back window). And this is one of THREE military bases in 대구 (one city!!!!). Since I first lived there ten years ago, the Koreans have finally been able to kick the Americans out of two of the bases. Those are slowly being reconverted for public use. Outside of these THREE BASES IN ONE CITY, Korea also contains Camp Humphreys, the biggest overseas American base.
This image is a little harder to decipher, because 평택 is a rural area, but compare the tighter, more economic Korean build in the bottom right corner to the massive, spread out, blocky buildings on the base that takes up the entire left side. Did you notice the excessive amounts of lawn?
Are you thinking to yourself, gee, how did this much lawn get here?
I can't even begin to get into the nitty gritty of it, but suffice it to say that two agricultural villages were utterly demolished to build Camp Humphreys.
Anti-base activists have been fighting since bases began forming in Korea. The lawn pictured directly above was acquired after a highly protested military base expansion. Anti-base activists squatted in homes that had been vacated and were set to be demolished. Most of these homes had belonged to Korean farmers (mostly dealing in rice). Korea was momentarily hesitant to enforce the base expansion.
America said, "Hey, Korea, if you don't give us more lawn space, we're going to have to break up. You don't want to break up, do you? We're protecting you from North Korea. Right? Right."
Korea said, "Hey protestors, we're going to remove you forcefully, because if America, a massive global power, doesn't get its way, we're all fucked." So, a massive police force violently removed all of the activists.
Here's some footage of the raid: [그때 그 뉴스] 평택 대추분교 행정대집행 - YouTube
You might think, "Gee, this sounds dystopian. Surely 12,000 armed police weren't sent to fight for the cause of American expansion only twenty years ago, in the year of our lord two-thousand and six!" You would be wrong! And you forgot about the thousands of Korean soldiers who were put to the task of surrounding the acquired territory with barbed wire trenches! As always, American imperialism won the day, and the local villages were crushed under the power of our ever resilient ideal Lawn.
These anti-base activists weren't just fighting for their land, they were also fighting for Korean self-sustainment. Through the destruction of farming villages like 대추리 and manipulation of Korean politics, the US has successfully destroyed Korea's native agriculture. Korea now relies on US imports for about half of their food.
Congratulations! You've just had a tangentially related crash course in American imperialization disguised as allyship!
