Carrie notices something

How big was the oh-please-do-we-really-need-another-march yesterday?

To put estimates of the turnout in perspective, the entire population of Hong Kong Island is around 1.4 million. I don’t know if it is physically possible for that many people to squeeze into the public areas along the Central to Tin Hau strip – public park space, five MTR stations’ worth of subterranean passageways, several main arteries plus adjoining streets, footbridges and malls. It felt like that many tried.

It was so massively huge, even Carrie Lam noticed.

The apology she issued was a wretchedly clumsy, stomach-churning, pseudo-regal mess. But by her standards of warm-and-fuzzy touchy-feely (this is a woman who calls the Gay Games the ‘same-sex games’) this is like slashing her own wrists.

One of the main reasons for the high turnout was Carrie’s previous inability to exhibit an iota of remorse or empathy following two previous mass gatherings in a week. Such arrogance and insensitivity is just begging for a major slapping. Then there’s the disastrous performance of the poor cops on Wednesday (is there some anti-Beijing mole in the HKP handing down orders?) And the weird death-martyrdom of a protester. Plus, in the background of course, the extradition bill.

Most of all, the march was surely a reaction to the almost unbelievable incompetence of the people who are supposed to govern Hong Kong. This wasn’t a protest so much as an act of collective reality-checking, where the whole population come out to ask: ‘is it just me or are these highly paid, smug, condescending officials really such total and utter morons?’

Although the government won’t explicitly say so, the extradition bill now joins Article 23 as a matter too toxic to go near. The parallels with 2003 are remarkable. In both cases, the proposals would have opened the door to Communist-style rule by fear across Hong Kong life. Maybe not everyone would be directly under threat, but everyone would notice the impact on law, media, business, education, churches and civil society. One difference is that, looking back, the Tung Chee-hwa administration seemed dimly aware of the existence of a wider community around it.

You would have thought, wouldn’t you, that the Chinese Communist Party would step back now and consider – for a change – installing a competent government in Hong Kong able to win legitimacy for itself and indeed for Beijing?

No, of course you wouldn’t – stupid question.

A few odd pix you may have missed: here, here and shades of Hieronymus Bosch here

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19 Responses to Carrie notices something

  1. MeKnowNothing says:

    I reckon Curry did all this in order to get out of being CE.

    Next one will have an indoor BBQ.

  2. Revolution says:

    You know, if you picked 20 people at random from the crowd yesterday they’d make a better job of governing this city, and playing to its strengths, than the current mob do.

    I’d have given anything to have been at the meeting between Carrie and the Anti-Democrat lawmakers on Saturday lunchtime. I read somewhere yesterday that one of them swore at her. I wonder who? my money’s on the Rat Queen.

  3. Des Espoir says:

    Be careful what you wish for….. The scary thing is who will be dumped on us as a replacement? Carrie proved herself not even capable of running a candy-store, let alone the 3rd largest financial centre in the world… Who is there around of appropriate stature and competence who could either (a) do the job (b) want the job..? Not Regina, SURELY…?

  4. Stephen says:

    Lets hope the parallels to 2003 continue. The resignations of morose John and terrible Teresa should happen in quick succession (Vagina and Lexus). Carrie ? Well 30 June 2022 is a long way off and what will follow will doubtless be equally as bad. Also a long way off is 30 June 2047…

  5. reductio says:

    2nd picture is more like Goya:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Devouring_His_Son

    Plus, any bets that it will soon be the CCP devouring its daughter?

  6. Cassowary says:

    You know that anybody appointed to be CE will be Beijing’s official Eater of Shit. Grin optional. Blaming individual leaders is beside the point. What we have here is a highly optimized garbage-producing machine. Nobody competent or principled can survive for long. I’ve met retired government officials who are fully aware that what they did in office was absolute shite – but they seem to feel they were as clueless and powerless to prevent it as the rest of us.

  7. Chris Maden says:

    I noticed last night as I shuffled with 1.4 million other protestors past the Ta Gung Po propaganda/newspaper massive LED Signboard that, where last week it was alive with slogans informing the crowd how great the extradition law is and that there is no need for concern, this week it was back to broadcasting Happy-Tourism-and-Real-Estate-Opportunities-in-PRC videos, with not a word on the extradition law.

    I doubt Beijing will do anything as rash as install a competent government, but the Ta Gung Po is the CCP’s voice in HK and the signboard shows a greater sense of awareness of what’s going on here than HK’s own officials.

  8. Gooddog says:

    I took great joy in signing this petition – one of 157,000 signatories requesting the French Government revoke Carrie’s Legion d’Honneur.

    I’m hoping the French Government might feel a pang of Vichy induced shame….Carrie would definitely have deported the Jews to Nazi Germany…

    I want her to face the consequences of selling out 7,000,000 of her fellow Hong Kongers for a decent pension in Surrey. Hopefully the good burghers of Surrey will give her the damn good shunning she deserves.

    https://www.change.org/p/the-grand-chancery-of-the-legion-of-honor-revoke-hong-kong-chief-executive-carrie-lam-s-legion-of-honor-distinction-1401f615-a42b-4485-9cd2-5a7cab597c8c

  9. CurryLamb says:

    Des Espoir > I can bet my shirt it will be Andrew Leung, after a fake pro-beijing legco rebellion during autumn

  10. Big Al says:

    Andrew Leung? That dopey-looking twat? He’ll need serious plastic surgery and an massive personality infusion first …

  11. Horney Badger says:

    It’s really starting to look like Hong Kong people care less about full democracy and more about just keep China the F*** away from here.
    Also, I think Xi Jinping is hanging on the ropes right now. Some folks in CCP higher circles no doubt want him to get his act together or he will be pushed off the stage, rather than just losing his footing.

  12. The Unbearable Shiteness of Beijing says:

    It’s the Zhongnanhai Paradox: the CPC systemically can’t install a competent government in Hong Kong.

    1. Anyone clever enough to be a competent governor is by definition also clever enough to run away at full tilt from the poison chalice of CE if offered.

    2. The CPC wouldn’t trust anyone clever enough to be a competent governor: they would only consider people who slavishly agree with their every (and often contradictory) edict.

    3. As dictatorial communists, the CPC are not competent to govern Hong Kong. As dictatorial communists, the CPC want their will imposed in Hong Kong. Their will is incompetent government. So even if the first two filters somehow failed, anyone who was a competent governor would — in the course of governing competently — refuse to implement the CPC’s wishes, and therefore be removed from office by the CPC.

  13. caractacus says:

    Some astute observers think they have identified PLA officers among the police ranks outside Legco on Wednesday. Keep your eyes peeled.

  14. Cassowary says:

    @Unbearable Shiteness
    4. If by chance someone competent managed to run the gauntlet of shiteness tests and get into a ministerial position somehow, five or more years of being surrounded by shite colleagues and a civil service whose sole expertise is in stonewalling and arse-covering will eat away at their souls and leave them apathetic hollow shells of their former selves.

  15. Reader says:

    @Cassowary
    “4. If by chance someone competent managed to run the gauntlet of shiteness tests and get into a ministerial position somehow, five or more years of being surrounded by shite colleagues and a civil service whose sole expertise is in stonewalling and arse-covering will eat away at their souls and leave them apathetic hollow shells of their former selves.”

    You wouldn’t, perchance, be thinking of a certain former Under-Secretary for the Environment?

  16. Cassowary says:

    I was actually thinking of a few people. Individually, some (1) government officials can be quite reasonable, intelligent, and well-intentioned. Collectively, they are what is scientifically referred to as “a shitshow”.

    There was even a time when Carrie Lam was fairly respected as a competent and public-minded Development Secretary. Considering that her replacement was a literal slumlord who tried to give the country parks away to developers, this wasn’t hard, but still.

    (1) The word “some” is doing quite a lot of work here. Lau Kong Wah’s not winning prizes for any of those qualities.

  17. @Mjrelje – more at https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/17/media-round-local-newspapers-covered-hong-kongs-largest-ever-protest/ – clearly the China Daily’s policy is to write about the mouse while ignoring the elephant in the room.

  18. Bob says:

    Should we get the thugs who lobbed and hurled bricks at police to apologize? Let’s get both sides of the story.

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