Hong Kong Protests

Tomous wrote:“If only all the HK protestors had guns” is one of the worst takes I’ve seen on the situation

Yes, all out war between the protestors and the police would be much better. It would be a bloodbath.

Yes, you're right, as I said in my last post, it's clearly much better the way it is now where the protestors just get quietly rounded up afterwards and get beaten senseless/raped/mysteriously commit suicide.

The reason the protestors aren't being run over by tanks now isn't because they haven't resorted to extreme violence, the Chinese government has shown many times that it is willing to murder peaceful protestors. The only reason the protestors are still alive is because they're in a place that is important for the Chinese economy.

Lex-Man wrote:

Karl_ wrote:Marx thought that an armed proletariat would be a part of most (not necessarily all) successful political changes, but that was in the 1800s and I just don't think ordinary people can successfully wage armed revolution any more -- not in a rich country with a tightly-controlled, modernised military like China, or indeed America or the UK. These countries would sooner get out the machine guns and mow down their own citizens in the street than allow a revolution to succeed.

So yeah, I think that would only make things worse in Hong Kong but I don't know what the answer is. I just don't know what alternate form of revolution the material conditions in the modern era lend themselves to. General strikes might still be an option.

From the interviews the protesters don't really know what to do. Also it's only a small section that actually supports the protest. Older people are resigned to the lose of rights that going to be introduced in 2040 and the younger kids are already being brainwashed by Chinese propaganda.

EDIT:
I guess they could try and get another country to intercede on their behalf.

No other country is going to come help them, one of the main reasons being is that any country with the capacity to actually help (like the US) owes a ton of debt to China, and if they did something that genuinely angered China they could just destroy their economy.

While the protestors want real democracy, I think there is sadly not enough of a history of it in HK. One of my former work colleagues was from HK, and he was very pro-Beijing, saying that the British only really started peddling the idea of democracy for Hong Kong in the time of the last governor general. Before that he said, they just kind of treated them as a colony that should do as it was told, I suppose that's the same thing that happened with Macau and why there was no real protests when that got taken over.

Rightey wrote:
Yes, you're right, as I said in my last post, it's clearly much better the way it is now where the protestors just get quietly rounded up afterwards and get beaten senseless/raped/mysteriously commit suicide.

The reason the protestors aren't being run over by tanks now isn't because they haven't resorted to extreme violence, the Chinese government has shown many times that it is willing to murder peaceful protestors. The only reason the protestors are still alive is because they're in a place that is important for the Chinese economy.

You're kinda contradicting yourself here tho. You can't both simultaneously argue that the reason China hasn't escalated is because HK is too economically important and also argue it would be good for the protestors to be armed given that that would directly lead to immediate escalation.

It's precisely because the protestors are not formally armed, and their weapons and makeshift and improvised, that China hasn't been able to, literally, bring out the big guns because the world stage optics are important. The China of today is not the same as the one that rolled out Tiananmen Sq - not for lack of want or will - but for significantly increased international presence. Public opinion is still largely on the protestors side and a lot of that is due to the fact that the protestors are under-armed underdogs fighting against a world superpower.

If the protestors were armed it would be an armed insurrection, and China would have no problem massacring them. As awful as it is now, arming the protestors would simply make it alright to wipe them out. But whilst it's still 'unarmed' students (quotes because they've been fabulous as improvising) barricading themselves in their universities against arrest by a strawberry floating despicable bunch of pigs then China can't roll over them without causing international conflict.

It's genuinely nothing short of amazing that the student protesters have lasted this long against pretty much the most brutal state in the world using only the traps from Home Alone.

It seems like China is manufacturing consent for a violent crackdown with all these news stories about protester brutality (which I don't believe for a second fwiw). It's terribly sad and frustrating.

Work cancelled again tomorrow because of the fire and the fact they’re evacuating universities and then arresting anyone who leaves.

Skarjo wrote:You're kinda contradicting yourself here tho. You can't both simultaneously argue that the reason China hasn't escalated is because HK is too economically important and also argue it would be good for the protestors to be armed given that that would directly lead to immediate escalation.

It's precisely because the protestors are not formally armed, and their weapons and makeshift and improvised, that China hasn't been able to, literally, bring out the big guns because the world stage optics are important. The China of today is not the same as the one that rolled out Tiananmen Sq - not for lack of want or will - but for significantly increased international presence. Public opinion is still largely on the protestors side and a lot of that is due to the fact that the protestors are under-armed underdogs fighting against a world superpower.

I don't fully agree that they care about optics. They care enough that they don't want to send in heavy tanks against protestors, but not enough that they will actually let the protest leaders live. There's already been some pretty high profile "suicides". This is a government that literally calls up Uyghurs living abroad and tells them they should stop criticizing China and "think of the safety of their family members back home". Their primary concern is with preserving their shitty government and crushing all but the tiniest amount of dissent.

If the protestors stick to the current strategy, eventually the government will either get enough of their leaders that the movement will fall apart, or they'll feel comfortable just going in and destroying them all as they will have become enough of a nuisance to the local population. Then before long they'll introduce some new bill to boost "public safety" and erode more and more freedom from them until they are living in the same situation like the rest of China.

Who are the protest leaders you speak of?

Skarjo wrote:Work cancelled again tomorrow because of the fire and the fact they’re evacuating universities and then arresting anyone who leaves.

If you had a gun then you could put the fire out.

Ah, the good old "nuke the hurricane" move.

Karl_ wrote:Ah, the good old "nuke the hurricane" move.

Good plan.

Skarjo, nuke Hong Kong and then China won’t want it anymore. Problem solved.

Getting serious Danny Dyer vibes from that advice.

I agree Karl, Danny Dyer should be Secretary General of the UN.

Danny Dyer's guide to the Hong Kong argy bargy:

1. get rid of the missus and the kids, get rid of 'em
2. get yourself a nice crate of lager in
3. just dont go a honkong