[EDITORIALS]Get to work

Where is this country going? Do we have a tomorrow? The people are truly uneasy, perhaps even feeling hopeless. And yet the president and the opposition parties are continuing to fight. Instead of firm determination to save our nation, our leaders persist in childish emotional confrontations.
Isn’t politics the art of the possible? Politics should find solutions through talks and compromise to break a deadlock, but we no longer have such politics. The president jeered at the opposition party’s protest against his veto of an independent counsel bill and the leader of the opposition is on a hunger strike. They are after sensation, not solutions.
Do we have time for such a luxury? What has the Roh administration done for the past nine months? More than 3.5 million persons can’t pay credit card debts, and financial markets are unstable. Farmers and unions are demonstrating violently. Buan, where the government planned to build nuclear waste dump, is in anarchy.
The president’s anti-American remarks and inconsistent policy on deployment of troops to Iraq has jeopardized U.S.-South Korean relations and the future of U.S. troops here. Confidence in the public education system is gone. The government has no clue on how to resolve the Samangeum reclamation problems, the bullet train program or the planned construction of a beltway around Seoul. The government and politicians have encouraged confrontation and hostility instead of resolving pending issues.
Cooperation between the ruling and majority parties is not enough to save the nation, but the parties are wasting their energy on fighting instead of running the nation and improving citizens’ livelihoods. They are too much swayed by party interests before next year’s legislative election.
The president is responsible for this crisis. His priority must be the nation and the people. The Grand National Party should stop its protest and return to the floor to correct the government’s mistakes to serve the people. The president and the opposition party must calm down and think about this nation’s future.