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'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

fieldofvision.org

221–230 of 289 posts

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#221
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equating the two is ridiculous. The Capitol Riots were an attempt to overturn a free and fair democratic election in favor of the rioters preferred candidate. The HK protests are in relation to freedom from the Chinese Government's dictatorial rule. Democracy is what is most important in both of these situations. The Capitol Riots were anti democracy. The HK protests are pro democracy.

I understand your point, but what I was asking for is a non-ideological distinction. Every point you have made is from the ideological position that supports liberal democracy, but those who support people’s democracy would levy the same accusations in reverse. I’m not interested in hearing either of those points of view, because there simply cannot be a productive discussion on those terms. I would like to understan…

In DC, people tried to overturn the US Congress, which's elected by and representing the American people.

Where in HK, people protested against the HK government which is appointed by the CCP, and the HK legislature where half of the seats are appointed by the CCP and the rest is elected with vetting by the CCP. The HK gov (both exec. + leg. branches) don't represent the HK people, they represent the CCP.

That's the non-ideological distinction. US Congress is authorized by the people. But the HK gov (both exec. + leg. branches) are authorized by the CCP. And unlike US, people in HK have no peaceful way to influence the politics in HK by voting.

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#222
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equating the two is ridiculous. The Capitol Riots were an attempt to overturn a free and fair democratic election in favor of the rioters preferred candidate. The HK protests are in relation to freedom from the Chinese Government's dictatorial rule. Democracy is what is most important in both of these situations. The Capitol Riots were anti democracy. The HK protests are pro democracy.

I understand your point, but what I was asking for is a non-ideological distinction. Every point you have made is from the ideological position that supports liberal democracy, but those who support people’s democracy would levy the same accusations in reverse. I’m not interested in hearing either of those points of view, because there simply cannot be a productive discussion on those terms. I would like to understan…

You can't just ignore the ideological elements of this, because they are at the heart of why people feel differently about these events. If I attack someone because I want to rob them, I'm the bad guy. If I attack someone because they are about to hurt some children, I'm the good guy. The only difference here is the intent of both parties, and you can't simply brush that aside because it isn't "empirical".

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#223
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment I replied to was equating my defense of the Hong Kong police as "a CCP talking point." How else am I supposed to interpret it?

> The comment I replied to was equating my defense of the Hong Kong police as "a CCP talking point." How else am I supposed to interpret it? Not as equating HK with the CCP? You wrote "How is this a CCP talking point?". I don't know if touting "only 2 deaths by HK police" is or isn't a CCP talking point, but it ignores the question of how many HK residents were extradited[0] to the mainland, never to be heard from ag…

Also, the top comment who replied to me is using a single cherry picked clip of an officer speaking a couple Mandarin words as evidence that Hong Kong police are secretly CCP.

> I don't know if touting "only 2 deaths by HK police" is or isn't a CCP talking point, but it ignores the question of how many HK residents were extradited[0] to the mainland, never to be heard from again.

I explained why the film wasn't overly harsh to the Hong Kong police. This has nothing to do with the extradition bill.

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#224
post #44

I'll try to strictly source my remarks and refrain from commenting on the political content of the HK demonstrations to keep this purely factual, as I think this could be a rather controversial thread; however, it's interesting how different the reception to these demonstrations is to the reception to the US Capitol riots and the BLM demonstrations of last year. Hong Kong demonstrators have stormed government buildin…

> To keep this in context, the current Hong Kong SAR government is democratically elected[6] according to the provisions of an international treaty signed by the PRC and the UK which took effect in 1997

No, this's misinformation. The HK government isn't democratically elected. The CEO of the HK government is selected by a committee appointed by the CCP. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Committee_(Hong_Kong)

Quote: The Election Committee is a Hong Kong electoral college, the function of which is to select the Chief Executive (CE).

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can only hope that will be its downfall. Be careful what you wish for. Toppling a horrible government does not always solve problems. I'm not saying we should just throw the oppressed under the bus to get stability, but an actual downfall of CCP would probably be like Saddam Hussein only exponentially worse.

There are many different definitions of "downfall". Nobody's suggesting the US ride in and dethrone the CCP, leaving a power vacuum in its wake. There are several reasons that would (and should) never happen. All I'm suggesting is that there is rot at the heart of the CCP, which over time could hopefully eat away at their effectiveness, favorability, and eventually their power over Chinese society. Even then I'm not…

To be clear - I'm not talking any actions (yes, that would be absurd), just pointing out that it is not obvious which outcomes we should root for.

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To keep this in context, the current Hong Kong SAR government is democratically elected[6] according to the provisions of an international treaty signed by the PRC and the UK which took effect in 1997[7]. Democratically elected ? Note that hong kong functional constituency system is fully controlled by CCP. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_constituency_(Hong_...

So what? A lot of government bodies are appointed by US president, and are "elected" only through some behind-curtain political exchanges.

The head of the HK government and half of the legislators are also appointed by the CCP.

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits. The fragility of American imperialism and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits. That’s why they focus on creating propaganda like this. I’ve liked some Field of Vision stuff before (shining a light on content moderation practices on Silicon Valley social media platforms), yet this feels part…

> The fragility of American imperialism and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits. This is 100% unarguably, demonstrably false. Americans write books critical about American imperialism ( https://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Cruise-Secret-History-Empire... ), we make (and fund with public broadcasting money!) documentaries that criticize both the effectiveness and wisdom of our own military eff…

> documentaries that criticize both the effectiveness and wisdom of our own military efforts

So the criticism is on how to carry out imperialism more effectively?

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fragility of the CPC and its fear in being portrayed in any negative light knows no limits. That's because they have single party system. Eventually they'll figure out that splitting into two parties and exchanging highest power between the two every few years while still colectively controlling everything of value is way more resilient system. Then they will be able to let themselves to be hated because half o…

[flagged]

> The US political system is not some secret power sharing conspiracy.

It's not "secret" and not a "conspiracy". There is a lot of effective agreement and continuity between Republican and Democrat administrations. GP is phrasing it more colorfully for dramatic effect.

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#229
Uuuffff..

HK is 'dead in the water'.

UK abandoned HK, creating a vacuum, leaving the door open to China to step in and take over; and nobody wants to risk stepping-in to block China from absorbing HK.

China will (literally) fight anyone who will dare step their foot in HK to 'guarantee' its independence. I don't believe anyone is able to stand up to China, apart from Russia or USA. And neither are willing to go to war for HK. It's someone else's problem. Worse case scenario when the transition is complete, HK will die as a global financial centre, and its big-banks operations will move to a more USA-friendly place.

Poor HK-ers could as well replace their flag.

It's a pity, but such is the luck of the ant in front of a elephant.

Re: 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

which party do I vote for if I want to stop US imperialism? which party do I vote for if I want MFA? Its not the Republicans, and its definitely not the Democrats. Its no conspiracy theory to say the duopoly shuts down a lot of issues from being ever being addressed

The two more prominent political parties which stand for this seem to be:

Green Party of the USA

https://www.gp.org/

The People's Party - recently formed, channels a lot of the disappointment of Sanders supporters but also non-two-party elements

https://peoplesparty.org/

However, my personal opinion is that it is more important to develop anti-imperialism in the context of organizing independent labor unions, unemployed people's organizations, neighborhood committees, student unions and such. This has many reasons IMO which I won't go into in this thread.

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