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Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

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Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#141

Post by RankingMember »

j_m_b wrote: post #95
RankingMember wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we should have no recourse against a tyrannical government, but I just don't see how anyone is going to realistically go up against the US military and make even a tiny dent. To your latter point, there are constant human rights abuses/crackdowns on dissent in China, but does anyone intervene? Now consider that the US has military might many times China's. Who's going to intervene? I, too, would hope fo…

>I don't think we should have no recourse against a tyrannical government, but I just don't see how anyone is going to realistically go up against the US military and make even a tiny dent. See Vietnam

Fighting a war on foreign soil is much different from a conflict on home turf.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#143

Post by abtinf »

0898 wrote: post #130

Could one make a case in favour of China's one party system by likening it to Apple's tightly integrated ecosystem? I mean, people argue that technology works better when one system controls the hardware, the software and the ecosystem around it. Could the same principle apply to human society? Which is an order of magnitude more complex than a piece of technology. Again, I don't know if this argument has been made b…

A hundred million dead in the 20th century wasn’t enough for you?

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#144

Post by wybiral »

huffmsa wrote: post #131
yorwba wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Hong Kong police is made out of people. Unless they have an incredibly accurate filtering process for new hires, at least some police officers will support the protests, and even those who don't probably have some pride that'd make standing aside for criminal gangs hard to swallow. Of course the leadership could've arranged for the police force to retreat without informing them about the purpose. In that case, th…

The latter seems like the likely answer. If your unit is pulling back, then you have to decide on an individual level if you're going to follow the herd or go AWOL. Pretty easy groupthink situation.

That's exactly how leadership manipulated soldiers during the Tiananmen Square massacre [0]. They weren't given clear orders and were basically only told where to go and when. With that much force and tension anything can set it off.

But... As a counter argument, that could be exactly why law enforcement were pulled away this time. If they started cracking down on violent anti-protestors the peaceful protestors could have gotten caught in the mix and it could have escalated rapidly. I'm not defending Honk Kong leadership, but hopefully they're aware of the risk of concentrating armed forces amidst this tension.

If shots are fired it turns into a chain reaction.

[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/06/02/317996805/...

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#145

Post by phry »

nabla9 wrote: post #74
keanzu wrote: post #42

Excellent analysis here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20492145 The Chinese and HK governments have realized they've lost the culture wars and public opinion so they've resorted to the tried and tested handbook of authoritarian governments, to create a cycle of violence to create justification for cracking down. This is a provocation. Protesters will now counter arm themselves with similar bats and stick…

Non-violent resistance is an option, but it requires very tough attitude. If people would just take the beating and lay down, like Gandhi-led resistance against Brits did, it could break down the violent strategy.

Gandhi was hardly the sole arbiter of Indian resistance. In fact their success in fighting colonial rule was dependent on the reality that there were people like Bhagat Singh who were willing to and did use militant tactics.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#146

Post by onetimemanytime »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #56
keanzu wrote: post #42

Excellent analysis here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20492145 The Chinese and HK governments have realized they've lost the culture wars and public opinion so they've resorted to the tried and tested handbook of authoritarian governments, to create a cycle of violence to create justification for cracking down. This is a provocation. Protesters will now counter arm themselves with similar bats and stick…

One would hope that the protesters will continue to use the ingenuity they've shown over the last month (intensely coordinated logistics, hand signs, etc) and refuse to take the bait while finding a clever, asymmetrical response to the intimidation tactics.

No ingenuity is a match for police. And China has shown that they mean business when things risk getting out of (their) hand

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#147

Post by nabla9 »

cevn wrote: post #133
wavefunction wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One wonders if the British were even half decent when you consider their long history of colonial and imperial oppression. One might conclude they were fully indecent, in fact.

Half decent? Has the GP heard of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, or how Churchill starved 3m in Bengal?

Becoming shamed requires some amount of decency.

Amritsar caused outrage in Britain and changed the whole narrative. It took time, but within a decade British government had lost all moral ground and British attitudes had shifted.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#148

Post by mytailorisrich »

riffraff wrote: post #86
underthebus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if I wish they could just gain independence, it seems unlikely, and it's not like any foreign power would go to war to protect HK. I never understood this. Why would HK gain 'independence'? Why would a foreign power 'protect' HK? (protect from what?) HK has been used to build a narrative that is rather strange... Frankly people in HK calling for independence are a bit like, say, the Texas Nationalist Movement…

> Why would HK gain 'independence? because if they don't they will be slowly assimilated into a non-democratic PRC. I am not calling for independence, I'm saying it would be nice if they had it rather than add 7m people to a regime. > Why would a foreign power 'protect' HK? they wouldn't, that's the point. If HK were to declare independence, in other ages there might have been foreign powers propping them up _for the…

People fail to understand or accept that HK is in China. It is a rather strange state of affairs, which I think is due to ignorance and, frankly, anti-Chinese narratives.

What you are suggesting is exactly the same as discussing Seattle independence mentioned by GP, and should be regarded as equally extravagant.

> HK was independent for a while

HK was never, ever been independent.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#149

Post by verttii »

huffmsa wrote: post #136
verttii wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No foreign power would ever dare to intervene with HK. Every country is simply too horny about Chinese money nowadays

Last time we got hot and bothered about Chinese money, the British crashed the entire nation via illicit drug sales. No reason something like that won't happen again.

Not sure what you're implying here - that the British will roll out illegal drugs to the Chinese market again?

Look at how everyone is treating Taiwan. That should tell you enough about how nobody will be willing to compromise anything for the sake of Hong Kong.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#150

Post by 0898 »

abtinf wrote: post #143
0898 wrote: post #130

Could one make a case in favour of China's one party system by likening it to Apple's tightly integrated ecosystem? I mean, people argue that technology works better when one system controls the hardware, the software and the ecosystem around it. Could the same principle apply to human society? Which is an order of magnitude more complex than a piece of technology. Again, I don't know if this argument has been made b…

A hundred million dead in the 20th century wasn’t enough for you?

If you read my post instead of downvoting, I'm not calling for the end of Western democracy.

I'm just curious whether people who are in favour of the One Party system use arguments or metaphors like these.

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