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defrogAs you've heard, #OWS has not only lasted a month and raised some cash, it's also gone global. They even opened a franchise here in Hong Kong. (It's called Occupy Central, as in Central District, which is where all of the banks are headquartered.)
Not that it's a huge event. A few hundred people turned up for the initial rally, and attendance for the actual occupation part under the HSBC building has been well under a hundred – which, by HK standards is pretty low. You could get double that number protesting everything from election rules changes to permanent residency rights for Filipino domestic helpers. Probably something to do with the fact that those protests can be done in an afternoon, as opposed to camping out indefinitely.
Indeed, the HK #OWS people are reportedly only planning to stay for maybe a week. Which is kind of lame (though not as lame as doing it while wearing Guy Fawkes masks – how clichéd can you get?).
Anyway, an #OWS protest in HK is kind of anti-climactic when – thanks to the League Of Social Democrats and the Post-80s student groups throwing temper tantrums about every single thing chief exec Donald Tsang says and does (mainly because they’re furious that The Donald reneged on plans for full democracy in 2012, and, to be fair, The Donald really does give them too many openings) – we have anti-govt protests every weekend now, and they generally get at least a few thousand people to show up even on slow days.
By comparison, you'll find very few people interested in “tearing down capitalism”, as one guy says – which is a particularly stupid thing to say when you live in the Special Administrative Region of a country that rejected capitalism in 1949 and LOOK HOW WELL THAT TURNED OUT.
Granted, people here aren't happy with the huge property companies that practically own most of HK, where property prices are way out of control. And people who lost their money because of shenanigans by Lehman Brothers in 2008 have been staging protests for the past few years. But they don't want to tear down capitalism – they just want their capital back.
This makes me think that the #OWS movement may run into trouble sooner or later.
As I’ve said before, I think the #OWS movement is potentially a good thing and something that should be taken seriously by The Man as a symptom that business as usual can’t continue for much longer, and the grievances of the 99% (or 90% or whatever it is) need to be addressed. But that is going to depend on the willingness of the wealth-owners and/or the govts to instigate change. So far neither have any incentive to do so. Generic (and frankly ignorant) demands to dismantle capitalism in favor of some vague cashless Utopia won’t change that.
In fact, it'll have the opposite effect. As soon as the #OWS lets itself be defined as anti-capitalism (as opposed to anti-greed, anti-corruption, anti-plutocracy or whatever), the 1% will dig in, and that’s going to be the ball game. Even demanding equal distribution of income, as I've heard a couple of people say on national television (as opposed to protesting disproportionate wealth control) is a blatantly Socialist proposition. And that’s all the 1% and the right-wing contingent need to brand the whole thing as a liberal Commie plot organized by Obama to overthrow America.
Okay, technically they're saying that already. And in that sense, maybe it doesn't matter. Fox News, the Tea Party and the GOP were always going to paint #OWS as the latest liberal threat to national security no matter what protesters actually said or did.
But it’s grating to see a relatively small group of nitwits in the #OWS protests handing them verbal ammo to make their case – as well as the inevitable handful of nitwits that just want an excuse to smash shit up. Luckily that’s only happened in Rome (so far), but the one thing #OWS doesn’t need is people pointing out that Tea Party rallies have the benefit of typically resulting in zero property damage.
BONUS MATERIAL: I also have been noting with amusement the efforts by Obama and the Democratic Party to try and capitalize on #OWS as a re-election strategy. Yeah, well, good luck with that.
Camping indoors,
This is dF
Not that it's a huge event. A few hundred people turned up for the initial rally, and attendance for the actual occupation part under the HSBC building has been well under a hundred – which, by HK standards is pretty low. You could get double that number protesting everything from election rules changes to permanent residency rights for Filipino domestic helpers. Probably something to do with the fact that those protests can be done in an afternoon, as opposed to camping out indefinitely.
Indeed, the HK #OWS people are reportedly only planning to stay for maybe a week. Which is kind of lame (though not as lame as doing it while wearing Guy Fawkes masks – how clichéd can you get?).
Anyway, an #OWS protest in HK is kind of anti-climactic when – thanks to the League Of Social Democrats and the Post-80s student groups throwing temper tantrums about every single thing chief exec Donald Tsang says and does (mainly because they’re furious that The Donald reneged on plans for full democracy in 2012, and, to be fair, The Donald really does give them too many openings) – we have anti-govt protests every weekend now, and they generally get at least a few thousand people to show up even on slow days.
By comparison, you'll find very few people interested in “tearing down capitalism”, as one guy says – which is a particularly stupid thing to say when you live in the Special Administrative Region of a country that rejected capitalism in 1949 and LOOK HOW WELL THAT TURNED OUT.
Granted, people here aren't happy with the huge property companies that practically own most of HK, where property prices are way out of control. And people who lost their money because of shenanigans by Lehman Brothers in 2008 have been staging protests for the past few years. But they don't want to tear down capitalism – they just want their capital back.
This makes me think that the #OWS movement may run into trouble sooner or later.
As I’ve said before, I think the #OWS movement is potentially a good thing and something that should be taken seriously by The Man as a symptom that business as usual can’t continue for much longer, and the grievances of the 99% (or 90% or whatever it is) need to be addressed. But that is going to depend on the willingness of the wealth-owners and/or the govts to instigate change. So far neither have any incentive to do so. Generic (and frankly ignorant) demands to dismantle capitalism in favor of some vague cashless Utopia won’t change that.
In fact, it'll have the opposite effect. As soon as the #OWS lets itself be defined as anti-capitalism (as opposed to anti-greed, anti-corruption, anti-plutocracy or whatever), the 1% will dig in, and that’s going to be the ball game. Even demanding equal distribution of income, as I've heard a couple of people say on national television (as opposed to protesting disproportionate wealth control) is a blatantly Socialist proposition. And that’s all the 1% and the right-wing contingent need to brand the whole thing as a liberal Commie plot organized by Obama to overthrow America.
Okay, technically they're saying that already. And in that sense, maybe it doesn't matter. Fox News, the Tea Party and the GOP were always going to paint #OWS as the latest liberal threat to national security no matter what protesters actually said or did.
But it’s grating to see a relatively small group of nitwits in the #OWS protests handing them verbal ammo to make their case – as well as the inevitable handful of nitwits that just want an excuse to smash shit up. Luckily that’s only happened in Rome (so far), but the one thing #OWS doesn’t need is people pointing out that Tea Party rallies have the benefit of typically resulting in zero property damage.
BONUS MATERIAL: I also have been noting with amusement the efforts by Obama and the Democratic Party to try and capitalize on #OWS as a re-election strategy. Yeah, well, good luck with that.
Camping indoors,
This is dF
