Hong Kong 'civil society' in action

[armati]

Interesting to see you guys fight it out over China.

I didnt notice anyone mentioning that HK and Taiwan are part of China.
Notice too that alot of those protesters signs are in english, kinda odd being in China. Ya know, cause ;people speak chinese in china.
Who do you think they are talking to?

Anyone recall what happened in the states when some states decided to succeed over states right?
In contrast China is very peaceful.

[mrswdk]

Notice too that alot of those protesters signs are in english, kinda odd being in China. Ya know, cause ;people speak chinese in china.
Who do you think they are talking to?

Protesters do that to increase the likelihood of people in other countries paying attention to them and/or sharing photos of the protests internationally.

[armati]

Yes they do, that was my point.

When we have protests in Canada or the states for example, we actually print the signs in English.
We dont print them in Chinese etc, so my question, who are they talking to?
ummm, perhaps the americans?

Not that it matters, just interesting.
Its possible we get a war over this, maybe it happens in Iran, in either case it will be interesting.

Think Epstein was killed for information on China? or just all the pedophilia of western leaders?

[Dukasaur]

Why do you insist on using the term 'Peking'? Are you actually the ghost of a colonial era slave trader or something?

Pinyin is historical negationism. Shades of 1984.

lolwat

There have been various different systems used in the past to convert Chinese names into Latin characters. The current one - Pinyin - was developed by Chinese people and is most reflective of the Mandarin pronunciations of Chinese names (Mandarin being the national language). 'Peking' is the spelling used by an old system, devised by Europeans and based off of the pronunciations present in regional dialects in the south of China (where the original colonial concession ports were located).

If your use of 'Peking' is an attempt to convey some sort of value statement then the statement you are conveying is '19th century colonialist'. If what you want to convey is just 'here is how to pronounce Chinese names' then you should be using Pinyin, the system currently used by everyone all over the world who is under the age of 150.

That's actually incorrect. It's true that the earliest attempts to transliterate Chinese into the Latin alphabet were based on southern dialects. The gold standard however, Wade-Giles, was definitely based on Mandarin. Giles' was extraordinarily thorough. His dictionary had pronunciation notes on 9 dialects of Chinese and 3 other related languages, but he was very explicit that Mandarin was the dominant one and it is always used in his dictionary as the primary.

When Pinyin was invented, Wade-Giles was 70 years old. It was probably somewhat dated and desperate for an update. However, the decision to invent something completely new instead of updating a working system was politically motivated. The Committee charged with reformation of the Chinese Language followed several tracks at once: developing Pinyin, developing the Simplified Chinese Characters, pushing the use of the Putonghua version of Mandarin. All these things were intensely interesting to the leadership: Mao Tse-tung made many pronouncements on language. These things are not independent of the Communist Party's push towards a unitary state where regional cultures eventually disappear. While there's nothing wrong with Pinyin itself, given that it's born of Mao's express wishes, opposing it is opposing Mao.

[mrswdk]

Do you treat every aspect of your life as a Cold War metaphor or something? Do you refuse to eat potatoes because doing so is basically endorsing Stalin?

In other news, Hong Kong rioters cornered, zip tied and viciously beat a journalist outside Hong Kong airport earlier today:

Flight check-in has been suspended at Hong Kong International Airport for a second consecutive day because of anti-government protests.

Videos on social media showed passengers struggling to get through demonstrators, who were sitting inside and blocking departures.

In an ugly incident, young protesters mobbed a man they suspected was an undercover policeman and zip-tied his hands together. Paramedics struggled to treat the man amid a crowd of angry protesters before he was taken to hospital.

The editor of China's Global Times newspaper said the man was one of his reporters who was merely doing his job.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-49330848

[Dukasaur]

Duk
"They spend their time dreaming up ways to squeeze more work out of me for less pay. Precisely the opposite of what they'd do if I elected them."

Bologna
Purchasing power of currency
american 1971-2019 down 98%
2000-2019 80%

all other currencies are similar.............https://www.silverdoctors.com/wp-conten ... 667377.jpg

the average house in the UK cost £4,700 in 1971. Today the price is £230,000 , the average price has gone up almost 50x or 4,800%.
instead of buying a house, the person put £4,500 in the bank earning 4% per annum for 48 years between 1971 and 2019. Today he would have £30,000 in total, including the interest.
money in the bank went up 6x whilst the house went up 50x.
Obviously savings have lost most of their purchasing power.

https://www.silverdoctors.com/gold/gold ... ........... for the article

I posted that to show that "....squeeze more work out of me for less pay.." is exactly what the people you vote in do to you.

You simply dont see it because they dont teach you economics, they dont want you to know it.


Our government is as much scumbag as anyone elses.

Short answer: I agree that ALL governments are composed mainly of scumbags. However, being able to influence those governments helps curtail their excesses.

Just as one simple example: you've seen in recent times several people in Canada who were wrongfully convicted of various crimes get released, along with official apologies and paid compensation from the government. Can you imagine the Russian or Chinese government ever paying compensation to someone wrongfully convicted of a crime? In most cases, the government will never admit it was wrong. In very rare instances, such as when Khruschev released a lot of the Stalinist-era prisoners, they will get a grudging apology. Most of the time not even that. Certainly never compensation.

I don't think there's any candidates for sainthood in our government, but the fact that they can be thrown out of office makes them keep their crimes to a dull roar.

As for your money supply argument, I disagree completely. To the normal working man, who spends his paycheque within a couple days of getting it, it really doesn't matter what the money will be worth next week. It will be spent long before then. Only to the rich who have money to hoard would long-term value mean anything, but the rich are smart enough not to keep their money in cash. So, it really doesn't matter to anybody. But we're really getting off topic. Start a new thread if you want to discuss monetary policy.

[mrswdk]

Can you imagine the Russian or Chinese government ever paying compensation to someone wrongfully convicted of a crime? In most cases, the government will never admit it was wrong. In very rare instances, such as when Khruschev released a lot of the Stalinist-era prisoners, they will get a grudging apology. Most of the time not even that. Certainly never compensation.

It is sad that Big Brother has given you such a warped view of the world outside your national borders:

China: Man compensated with 670,000 U.S. dollars for wrongful conviction

The man spent 9,217 days in jail for a murder of a woman that he didn't commit. For the wrongful 9,217-day imprisonment, the Intermediate People's Court in the city of Liaoyuan ruled that he should be paid 4.6 million yuan which is around 670,000 US dollars.

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/c ... 2019-01-08

Maybe if you travelled to some other countries and met people from different places, it might expand your worldview a little?

[armati]

Duk

I had no intention of discussing monetary policy.
CC forums are not really the best place for that discussion.

The loss of purchasing power is just what I said the guys you vote for do to you as you were saying the chinese were so much worse.

Im not sure what kind of people you know, extremely poor I guess, most people I associate with or have known, plan for a retirement and the theft of retirement funds from the government is huge.

And basically, the theft of funds and how to deal with it has to be explained due to a lack of education.

Which is intentional from our governments.

[Dukasaur]

Maybe if you travelled to some other countries and met people from different places, it might expand your worldview a little?

I've traveled to many other countries and met people from many different places, thank you very much.

Maybe if you stopped hanging with rich kids whose daddies own Rolls-Royces and spent some time with people who have lived in the gulag, you'd learn that it's not all fun and games for people in the real world.

And yes, I have known personally or at least had long and detailed conversations with, people who have survived Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, as well as Husak, Honecker, Tito, Noriega, Duarte, Mugabe, and Gowon.

[mrswdk]

So you're going to ignore the fact you claimed that in China there would 'certainly never (be) compensation' awarded to people wrongfully convicted of crimes, despite all the evidence that in China wrongfully convicted people are routinely given compensation by the government?

I wonder which page from 1984 you will quote at me next. Hate Week? Room 101? Or perhaps you will instead realise the irony of repeatedly quoting Cold War propaganda while simultaneously accusing foreign governments of manipulating the truth.

[mrswdk]

A mob of Hong Kong rioters - known as 'pro-democracy protesters' in American media - rush a Hong Kong police officer outside the airport, beating him with clubs until he is unable to stand:

[Dukasaur]

So you're going to ignore the fact you claimed that in China there would 'certainly never (be) compensation' awarded to people wrongfully convicted of crimes, despite all the evidence that in China wrongfully convicted people are routinely given compensation by the government?

I wonder which page from 1984 you will quote at me next. Hate Week? Room 101? Or perhaps you will instead realise the irony of repeatedly quoting Cold War propaganda while simultaneously accusing foreign governments of manipulating the truth.

The occasional odd exception does not disprove the rule.

As of right now, it's estimated that several hundred thousand ethnic minorities are being held in concentration camps in the west end of China:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps

You can be detained for 37 days before the police decide if they want to make it official and arrest you. During that time, you have no rights (because you haven't been arrested yet). After that, you can be held for another 13.5 months without any charges being laid. Between the unofficial 37 days and the official 13.5 months, that's almost 15 months in captivity without any charges. At that point you finally have a right to know what you're accused of and to get a lawyer, but permission to actually speak to your lawyer can be withheld at the capricious whim of the court. Family members might or might not be told. You have no opportunity to phone anyone other than your immediate family or your lawyer if the courts are in a good mood and let you call him.
https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/advisories/china/criminal-law-system

Chinese courts convict more than 99.9% of the people brought between them. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/12193202/Chinese-courts-convict-more-than-99.9-per-cent-of-defendants.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter If you think that 99.9% of defendants are actually guilty, I've got a really nice bridge I'd like to sell you. Given that torture is commonly used to get confessions, it's not surprising. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/11/china-torture-forced-confession/ https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/05/13/tiger-chairs-and-cell-bosses/police-torture-criminal-suspects-china

Phony criminal charges are often used to intimidate journalists (https://cpj.org/blog/2019/03/journalists-jailed-china-censored.php) or lawyers who won't kiss the government's ass (https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/04/28/walking-thin-ice/control-intimidation-and-harassment-lawyers-china)

Foreign press are usually spared the phony arrests, and just beaten and harassed. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-12666701

It's bad, and getting worse. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2120318/human-rights-china-under-xi-jinping-worst-tiananmen

[mrswdk]

So you're going to ignore the fact you claimed that in China there would 'certainly never (be) compensation' awarded to people wrongfully convicted of crimes, despite all the evidence that in China wrongfully convicted people are routinely given compensation by the government?

I wonder which page from 1984 you will quote at me next. Hate Week? Room 101? Or perhaps you will instead realise the irony of repeatedly quoting Cold War propaganda while simultaneously accusing foreign governments of manipulating the truth.

The occasional odd exception does not disprove the rule.

Okay, you win. Reds Under The Beds. The Chinese and Russians are all evil. I can't wait until Glorious Trump flies into Beijing Peking, capital of the evil Qing Dynasty, to decapitate Xi Jinping and declare peace and justice to all of China's Nazi China's long-suffering people. May the Hong Kong rioters burn the city to the ground. I love hamburgers.

[armati]

Duk
You keep bringing up crap thats the same in the states as it is in China.

No rights?, ever hear of the ndaa?

How about George Carlin?

George Carlin - You have no rights

https://youtu.be/m9-R8T1SuG4

[jimboston]

Interesting to see you guys fight it out over China.

I didnt notice anyone mentioning that HK and Taiwan are part of China.
Notice too that alot of those protesters signs are in english, kinda odd being in China. Ya know, cause ;people speak chinese in china.
Who do you think they are talking to?

Anyone recall what happened in the states when some states decided to succeed over states right?
In contrast China is very peaceful.

Taiwan doesn’t think Taiwan is part of China....

[NomadPatriot]

you will never be America..

[mrswdk]

Interesting to see you guys fight it out over China.

I didnt notice anyone mentioning that HK and Taiwan are part of China.
Notice too that alot of those protesters signs are in english, kinda odd being in China. Ya know, cause ;people speak chinese in china.
Who do you think they are talking to?

Anyone recall what happened in the states when some states decided to succeed over states right?
In contrast China is very peaceful.

Taiwan doesn’t think Taiwan is part of China....

Yes it does. The Taipei administration’s policy is that there is one China, which includes Taiwan, and that the Taipei administration is the rightful government of all of it. That’s why other countries either recognise the Beijing government or the Taipei government, but never both.

[armati]

China is losing patience with the americans in HK.
China denied ports to american warships and XI has begun talking of selling the massive amounts of U.S. treasuries China holds.

Wanna see chaos? The americans need to get their nose outta HK.

The msm was showing a Chinese girls that lost an eye in the protests.
For some reason they dont mention the 24 people that have lost eyes in the French yellow vest protest.

Kinda makes ya wonder just where they want people to focus.

[jimboston]

Interesting to see you guys fight it out over China.

I didnt notice anyone mentioning that HK and Taiwan are part of China.
Notice too that alot of those protesters signs are in english, kinda odd being in China. Ya know, cause ;people speak chinese in china.
Who do you think they are talking to?

Anyone recall what happened in the states when some states decided to succeed over states right?
In contrast China is very peaceful.

Taiwan doesn’t think Taiwan is part of China....

Yes it does. The Taipei administration’s policy is that there is one China, which includes Taiwan, and that the Taipei administration is the rightful government of all of it. That’s why other countries either recognise the Beijing government or the Taipei government, but never both.

No... the Taipei administration thinks China is part of Taiwan, it doesn’t think Taiwan is part of China.

You can’t have it both ways... if Taiwan truly believes what you state is their position why do they seek recognition as independent from China.
These are mutually exclusive ideas.

Regardless, the point is that Taiwan doesn’t consider the the Mainland Chinese gov’t valid, so they would not consider themselves subject or ‘part of’ that gov’t.
Therefore your comment that HK and Taiwan are ‘part of’ China is not truly valid.

[Dukasaur]

Interesting to see you guys fight it out over China.

I didnt notice anyone mentioning that HK and Taiwan are part of China.
Notice too that alot of those protesters signs are in english, kinda odd being in China. Ya know, cause ;people speak chinese in china.
Who do you think they are talking to?

Anyone recall what happened in the states when some states decided to succeed over states right?
In contrast China is very peaceful.

Taiwan doesn’t think Taiwan is part of China....

Yes it does. The Taipei administration’s policy is that there is one China, which includes Taiwan, and that the Taipei administration is the rightful government of all of it. That’s why other countries either recognise the Beijing government or the Taipei government, but never both.

No... the Taipei administration thinks China is part of Taiwan, it doesn’t think Taiwan is part of China.

You can’t have it both ways... if Taiwan truly believes what you state is their position why do they seek recognition as independent from China.
These are mutually exclusive ideas.

Regardless, the point is that Taiwan doesn’t consider the the Mainland Chinese gov’t valid, so they would not consider themselves subject or ‘part of’ that gov’t.
Therefore your comment that HK and Taiwan are ‘part of’ China is not truly valid.

You're confusing the issue.

Independence and being the real government of China are indeed mutually exclusive policies, which is why they're never pursued by the same leaders.

The "Blue" coalition, led by the Kuomintang, the traditional ruling party of China, maintains that Taiwan is the Republic of China, the true Chinese government, and the Communists are merely in illegal occupation of the mainland.

The "Green" coalition, led by the DPP, wants to stop claiming the rest of China and seek independence for Taiwan.

The Green coalition ruled the country from 2000 to 2008. It again won the elections in 2016.

All the other years, Taiwan was ruled either by the Kuomintang alone, or by the Blue coalition led by the Kuomintang.

So, for 8 years and now for 3 more years, Taiwan has been pursuing independence. That leaves about 60 years when Taiwan was committed (at least in theory) to booting the Communists back to Moscow and liberating the mainland.

[mrswdk]

China is losing patience with the americans in HK.
China denied ports to american warships and XI has begun talking of selling the massive amounts of U.S. treasuries China holds.

Wanna see chaos? The americans need to get their nose outta HK.

The msm was showing a Chinese girls that lost an eye in the protests.
For some reason they dont mention the 24 people that have lost eyes in the French yellow vest protest.

Kinda makes ya wonder just where they want people to focus.

Exactly, armati. Violent riots met by riot police in France? Just a bit of trouble. Riots in London? Just some criminals running amok. Violent riots in Hong Kong? Clearly democracy at work and we should support these people to overthrow their leaders.

Such a pathetic double standard.

[Dukasaur]

So you're going to ignore the fact you claimed that in China there would 'certainly never (be) compensation' awarded to people wrongfully convicted of crimes, despite all the evidence that in China wrongfully convicted people are routinely given compensation by the government?

I wonder which page from 1984 you will quote at me next. Hate Week? Room 101? Or perhaps you will instead realise the irony of repeatedly quoting Cold War propaganda while simultaneously accusing foreign governments of manipulating the truth.

The occasional odd exception does not disprove the rule.

Okay, you win. Reds Under The Beds. The Chinese and Russians are all evil. I can't wait until Glorious Trump flies into Beijing Peking, capital of the evil Qing Dynasty, to decapitate Xi Jinping and declare peace and justice to all of China's Nazi China's long-suffering people. May the Hong Kong rioters burn the city to the ground. I love hamburgers.

You phrase it like that to make it sound like some kind of a nationalist issue. 'The Chinese and Russians are all evil.'

It's nothing like that. ALL of human history is the story of tyrants fighting each other for the right to exploit the population. Left-wing tyrants, right-wing tyrants, religious tyrants, secular tyrants, white and black and brown and yellow tyrants, nationalist tyrants and internationalist tyrants. They come in many shapes and sizes and colours and flavours, but they are all united by the firm belief that the common man is just a domesticated animal to be used, exploited, enslaved.

Against the backdrop of tyranny, people fight for and eke out precious bits of rights and freedoms. All people, everywhere. Just some places have been luckier that others in how much freedom they've been able to eke out. I have no illusions that the people of the West are somehow morally superior to the people of the East. We just got lucky, that in the dynastic wars of the last millenium the rulers beat each other to a pulp and had to come to terms with the common man to some degree. And we got lucky that the Enlightenment philosophers came along just at the right time to give some guidance to the process, to codify ideas like the separation of church and state, to codify ideas like the right of self-determination, etc., etc.

It's by no means a straight road. The German democracy was coming along, then one bad war and one crazy demagogue later and it all went to hell. The Americans spent 200 years gradually building and improving the protections of the accused, then one nasty terrorist attack and down comes the Patriot Act and half the freedoms in the country are wiped out at the stroke of a pen. It's a story of long, slow improvements punctuated by brutal and rapid setbacks, and I don't think for a minute that any of us are safe. We're just very lucky right now, that so far we're keeping the majority of our freedoms.

There's nothing wrong with the Chinese people or the Russian people. They've just had the bad luck that for most of their history they've been ruled by unitary states. There's never been a power vacuum for the common people to exploit, like there was in Europe during the dynastic wars.

The government of China is scary. The people in the government are individually no more evil than people in governments everywhere, but unfortunately there isn't any real check on their power. They're too big to be threatened by anyone, foreign and domestic. They don't have to fear being thrown out in elections. There's no independent judiciary to rule their actions illegal. There's no tradition of privacy or individual rights for people to tap into. There's always been an autocratic ruler exploiting the people. The Communists are just filling the shoes vacated by the Emperors.

[riskllama]

well said, duk...

*polite clapping*

[Dukasaur]

Duk
You keep bringing up crap thats the same in the states as it is in China.

No rights?, ever hear of the ndaa?

How about George Carlin?

George Carlin - You have no rights

https://youtu.be/m9-R8T1SuG4

George Carlin is my all-time favourite comedian. He is, however, exactly that -- a comedian. He makes valid points, but he makes them by engaging in ridiculous exaggerations. As much as I love the man, I would never think of pretending that most of what he says is literally true. It's hyperbole: creative exaggeration to make a point, not literal truth.

Of course you have rights. I can tell you that, because I've exercised mine. I've been wrongfully arrested. I was able to go to court, get the charges thrown out, have the cops reprimanded. That wouldn't happen in a country where the cops are always right, and there are many such countries. In many countries, maybe even a majority of countries, getting arrested is the same as being convicted, because the courts exercise no real oversight and there's no real protection for the rights of the accused. I don't think you've travelled much. I don't think you realize just how rare and precious it is to live in a country where you actually have a right to cross-examine the cops and to question their evidence. I think you really don't know how lucky you are.

In Mexico I watched a gang kidnap a guy, right on the street with everyone watching. They tied him up and threw him in the back of a pickup truck. Why I don't know, but quite possibly to go and kill him. In the bar across the street a bunch of cops were sitting, and they did nothing. Nothing! You live in a country where if a criminal gang was kidnapping you, and a bunch of cops were sitting across the street, they would stop it or die trying. You just don't know how lucky you are.

You ever move to a new apartment? Had to get your phone hooked up, you hydro hooked up, your gas hooked up? Did you have to pay a bribe? In Moscow, when you move, the guy who gives you your keys demands a bribe first. The clerk downtown who authorizes your power hook-up demands a bribe, and then the guy who actually comes to turn it on demands another one. The clerk downtown who authorizes your phone demands a bribe, and then the guy who actually comes to connect it demands another one. I know people who had to wait six months to get their phone hookup, because getting their heat and hydro hooked up cleaned them out; they had to wait six months to recover financially to get their phone. I don't think you realize how good you have it here. You live in a country where people are expected to do their job for the fee specified and not to jack you for bribes, and I don't think you know how lucky you are.

[NomadPatriot]

looks like Duk just finished writing chapter 9....