Jokers to the Left and Right of Me For Hong Kong

     On August 19, 2019, the administrator from Taiwan Writers Facebook page, William Stimson, lost any future writing contributions from me by being unrepentant about sharing a prejudiced post against China in the Hong Kong crisis. Taiwan Writers had not been for political posts in the past. When I protested in a comment, Mr. Stimson dug in deeper by adding Chinese re-education camps in Xinjiang to his condemnation. When I objected to his posting irrelevant shares from western media sources, he implied everyone would support him on the page. Two other Taiwan based Facebook pages that went against their own mission statement have since stopped sharing political posts; that's why I still share my posts with them, but not Mr. Stimson; a joker to the right of me.

         I get so frustrated defending Chinese actions in Hong Kong, especially to progressive people. Why can’t anarchists realize that the protesters are pro-capitalistic opposed to a world of of unions, forget about worker self-management, while China, though a long way to go, is holding its ground and fighting against capitalist imperialism?
      Jon, my former Fellow Worker from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union troubled me the most. He doesn’t know much about the reality of a no-longer cheap China (read End of Cheap China by Shaun Rein), but  I respect Jon. I won’t give up until he realizes China is not the enemy of anarchism; it's in the right direction.  

I got upset watching Taiwan TV news shorts about Hong Kong taken from CNN and other corporate media. I don't pay attention to news about the world from Taiwan media; I get my news on the internet from sources I trust but, even so, some anarchists are dazzled by the sea of humanity in Hong Kong and share the excitement; how cool it is that protesters are using lasers to confuse the face-identification cameras!
      The Chinese are not prepared for U.S. crowd control tactics like having thousands of SWAT teams putting up steel barricades, penning people in, not allowing anyone in or back if they leave, noisy helicopters buzzing overhead, sonic sounds sirens upsetting everyone's stomach. The demonstrations in Hong Kong look like the ones I joined in New York City before the 911 clampdown. There are fewer and fewer demonstrations in the U.S. and all are highly controlled, seldom seen in corporate media. 

Most English language Facebook group pages in Taiwan are against China; I leave when they show their real colors and  share no more poems, education or cultural blog articles with them, but the man from Taiwan Writers was getting on my nerves, so I had a plan: He approved my friend request on my  Indydaiwan page but the first post I sent about Hong Kong ("Where the Money Goes") wasn't approved; I piggy-backed comments on a few of his anti-Chinese posts. Wouldn't you know it, Facebook sent me a letter:

Changes to What Group Admins Can See. This message is just for your information. It is not in response to anything you've posted, and does not mean we've removed any of your content. Our Community Standards help keep Facebook safe and welcoming for everyone. If we find that content in a group goes against the Community Standards, we remove it from Facebook. We may also tell the group's admins which standard the content violated, and in some cases we may allow the group admins to see the removed content for up to 7 days. Ha-ha. 
 How many Facebook and Twitter accounts that don't support the chaos in Hong Kong have been shut down under the premise of them being Chinese cyber-attacks? Look at how my rebuttals on Facebook pages have been treated; ignored, deleted, or argued against by trolls. I am not working for the Chinese secret police. Twitter and Facebook claimed Chinese hackers were filling the internet with pro-Chinese comments and blocked six hundred! Meanwhile, a video being shared by some anarchist Facebook groups of protesters cutting down a pole in Hong Kong  was going viral on Google.

Viral 'Cutting down Surveillance Pole' Video 

     The video of a face recognition surveillance pole being cut down by youthful protesters has been shared by six  progressive-minded Facebook friends, so far; pages that don't realize the irony of such an act; impossible outside H.K. in any U.S. or European city because the cop watching through the monitor would have sent someone to stop it and beat the shit out of them. Go to Google and you will see a dozen references to the video, none supporting Chinese restraint. Corporate western media is the teapot calling the kettle black. 
             I'm not writing any more explanation to Jon, either. I have explained what the problem in Hong Kong; I'm finished. It's time for him to start reading my taIWWan blog and digging deeper. My anarchist professor friend wasn't seeing it my way. "It is a question of organization, mass support and determination - not government tolerance," he wrote. "Our rulers tolerate what they must, biding their time until the balance of forces enables them to crush us. Because our fellow workers in Hong Kong have organized and are putting up a fight, they can do many things of which we can only dream. But if they splinter or slack off, then they will all be herded to the concentration camps China has maintained for decades to control those who it fears might question the regime." I have more tolerance for Jon, an old friend so I replied: 

     "There is a reason sweatshops are moving out of China, some even to Wisconsin in the case of Foxxcon. How many Chinese workers have you worked with, worked for, lived with, or talked to," I asked."Do you know that most Chinese workers intrinsically know all the ways to sabotage their bosses? Every obstruction and tactic you can imagine, and some you can't. Have you read or studied Sun-Tzu Art of War? I can e-mail you a PDF book an expat friend wrote as a primer to direct action that most Chinese apply as second nature when under attack. The Chinese government knows what it's doing in Hong Kong." What I wrote didn't make a dent. Instead he dug deeper, too; a joker to the left of me.  

     I was not happy about Jon's insult to my comment about the labor-rights reporter that was sentenced to prison and lashes in Iran recently. Of course, I am on her side and resent the obstruction and detention and punishment of workers' voices, but Iran is in an extraordinary situation, under siege from Israel and the U.S., What this woman was doing was good but at the wrong time; it is like treason. It's like if someone called a strike in the U.S. during WWII with the Nazis attacking Europe; a strike during WWI would have been acceptable though. Of course I would condemn the strike, until the Nazis were defeated. The U.S. is the 21 Century Nazis. Jon had the nerve to link my comment with my support for China during the Hong Kong subterfuge and question my worker solidarity. I countered that by writing, typically, anarchists were short-sighted and unpractical. 

       Hong Kong protesters are not 'fellow workers'; most workers and a major union is against them. There is so much more chaos in China and liberty in Hong Kong where selfish impressionable people are drawn into going against their class interests. Their privileges are being challenged; a distinction between their 'sophisticated' British-Americanized selves and rich 'bumpkins' from China raising their property prices out of reach and clogging their streets. It has nothing to do with the right to assemble. They have that right, more so than protesters in the U.S. and NATO demonstrations against austerity and capitalism. And what did my friend say about 'it a question of organization, mass support and determination; does that make Hitlers Nazi rallies right? 

     I have been to H.K. a number of times. As in Taiwan, Hong Kongers are proud of their Western leanings and style. They  think they are better than mainland Chinese; they resent them. However, these protests have no interest raising wages or starting unions; They are are brainwashed that the Honk Kong government is not on their side. But they must understand the H.K. government has a mandate of absorbing and normalizing it into their social system. It won't happen in a day on the fiftieth the anniversary of Chinese administration; it has been twenty-three years already.  China's interest is keeping their threatened borders secure; look  at  the western media subterfuge and misinformation in Hong Kong, Taiwan,  Xinjiang  and Tibet; the threat is real.

     I blocked William Stimson on Facebook from sharing anti-Chinese propaganda with me. I complained to the administrators of the two Taiwan Facebook pages, too. One of them responded and subsequently removed Mr. Stimson's irrelevant share. 
     The riots are not in response to austerity programs, union crackdowns, or anti-racism, in fact they are racist (not including Kong Kong's immigrant workers) anti-union (a major Hong Kong union opposes it) and is being carried out by privileged petite bourgeois capitalists. The biggest shame is seeing 'anarchists' sharing the titillating scenes without understanding the circumstances. When I see it on corporate TV, we switch channels. Of course I don't buy Taipei Times with headlines about Hong Kong daily; the DPP government is using the anti-Chinese riots as a scare tactic for Tsai Ying-Wen to win the election and keep Taiwan in the U.S. camp. 

     China has shown amazing restraint these few months of turbulence. Perhaps it is time they send in the PLA and crack down.  I hope the PLA doesn't have to come to Taiwan, too, but they'd be justified if they did. I hope the next Taiwan government starts a process, like the Koreans, of unification, since independence,with the U.S. pulling the same shit as in Hong Kong, is impossible. 

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Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved