OK, so it’s only US$44 for a day

We interrupt this coronavirus epidemic for a few hours’ tear-gas, pepper-spray and arbitrary-arrests mayhem, starring a cop apparently on some sort of acid-dexedrine cocktail waving a Glock around. Agonized official hand-wringing follows about the harm this terrible violence will cause an already ailing economy. But, as ever, there is no acknowledgement that government might need to fix any underlying problem. It’s all the fault of flowers laid outside an MTR station which spontaneously erupt into burning barricades that can only be overcome by spraying chemicals into bystanders’ faces. We must crush the flowers.

So as WuFlu recedes, back we go to the imbecilic cycle – under the stiffened resolve of Beijing’s new overseers – of trying to tear-gas and arrest the city into peace and harmony.

To put moaning about the Financial Times or Apple Daily online paywalls into perspective, here’s an article on the political science of this that costs US$240 to read. Courtesy of the bizarre world of academic journals. Fortunately, they let you have a pithy abstract that probably gives most of the plot away…

Beijing has been unable to impose its nationalism directly from above. Instead, it has [co-opted] local elites, who have promoted state nationalism from within. This … has led many among Hong Kong’s political elite to compete in expressing an increasingly overt Chinese nationalistic posture as a way to signal loyalty to Beijing. [This has backfired], triggering … a … popular Hong Kong sub-state nationalism. [And, voila! You get…] intensifying radicalization and polarization between the authoritarian establishment and the democratic opposition.

In academic-journal ‘abstract’-speak, they use the word ‘monist’ for ‘mouth-frothing top-down Leninist control-freak’. They also use the phrase ‘a reactive form of popular Hong Kong sub-state nationalism’. This means ‘HK independence movement’. Which the CCP, Beijing’s new knuckle-dragger bosses, the local administration and, not least, the police seem determined to deliver.  

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13 Responses to OK, so it’s only US$44 for a day

  1. Joe Blow says:

    I hear from well informed sources that the collapse of the internal discipline of the HK popo, that we witness on our streets almost every day now, is also playing out inside the force itself. Senior officers are taking verbal abuse from juniors who have to do the dirty work outside. And nobody knows what to do about it because of failing leadership. With other words, HK is effed big time. It is only a matter of time before some of those under-educated ex-lorry drivers that make up the riot popo squad lose it and start pumping bullets into crowds.

  2. Anna G Ram GBS says:

    CORONAVIRUS is an anagram of

    CARNIVOROUS.

    I guess our vegetable government is safe.

  3. Bradley Kerr says:

    I can remember when Hemlock used the term “troglodyte” to describe a generally useless person. Now “knuckle dragger” is in vogue. My question- which creature comes first on an evolutionary timeline?

  4. PaperCuts says:

    Oh boo friggin’ hoo…these stand over goons can’t inflate their disgusting extortionist rent, hotel fees and skank kitchen slop house gruel disguised as real food bills quite as much as they usually would.

    I notice the government sure isn’t mucking around. The streets are literally humming with parking inspectors, civil enforcement officers and public violation victimless crime peasant money extraction deployment teams writing tickets hand over fist, day after day.

    10 grand per man won’t pay for itself you know!

  5. Reactor #4 says:

    One way the democracy advocates could show their dissatisfaction/anger with the Government is to organize mass gatherings where people torch their HK$10k “bribes” that will be coming their way later in the year/next year. Somehow, though, I doubt there are many (?any) in the city who are that principled.

  6. Hong Kong Hibernian says:

    @Joe Blow: the PoPo knows that it has problems! See the link below for just one urgent cry for help coming from within their ranks:

    https://www.indeed.hk/m/viewjob?jk=4671fdbb1b6c5446&from=serp&prevUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indeed.hk%2Fm%2Fjobs%3Fq%3DPsychology

  7. dimuendo says:

    HK Hibernian

    If the police know they have problems you would think they would throw more than the sum of about hk$21k salary per month at it, particulary given the multi billion increase to their budget.

  8. Hamantha says:

    @ Anna G Ram GBS

    Truly, you are the most deserving GBS recepient of recent times.

  9. Din Dan Che says:

    Rectum No.4 and his delirious fantasies. Elections, lad… not your erections

  10. Not Reactor #4 says:

    Joe Blow: Sorry to spoil your wet dreams but things are looking up in the Force. Just got our pay rise and back pay and looking forward to a lot of moolah in March’s pay packet. Added to this the boys are getting their overtime paid in full (HKD1 Billion, if you must know). We are also cutting back on our frontline riot squads with the officers returning to their normal duties. However, you are correct in assuming some of the boys are bitching as its now business as usual and they are not earning overtime anymore. Discipline and morale remain high and your hopes of some thug becoming a martyr by getting riddled with bullets has yet to come to fruition. All the more remarkable given the 10,000s of petrol bombs, bricks, arrows, knives that the Force has had to face over the last 6 months. We still remain Asia’s Finest.

  11. Joe Blow says:

    Simon Reactor, it’s amusing (no more than that) that you are identifying as a HK popo. I am just imagining your lanky frame in a green object-uniform and a big helmet on your already big head while you engage your fellow officers in the ‘art of conversation’ with your fake plummy accent that picked up at the FCC.

    ” Just got our pay rise pay packet….We are also cutting back on our frontline riot … We still remain Asia’s Finest…” and you are punching the little buttons on your smartphone while you ‘hoist’ your fourth pint in the gwai lo pub in sunny Sai Kung because you have nothing else to do all day.

  12. Not Not Reactor #4 says:

    @Joe Blow

    “punching the little buttons on your smartphone while you ‘hoist’ your fourth pint in the gwai lo pub in sunny Sai Kung”

    I my view, that is pretty close to being in heaven. Me thinks yous is jealous.

    Now off you go and go earn yourself some beer tokens so that you can redeem them when you get some time off this weekend.

  13. HKJC Regular says:

    No not Reactor again – hasn’t the poor o’ Duke of York has gone downhill

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