Your tax dollars at work: HK Police do a lame – but apparently earnest – mock shoot-out against terrorists at a National Security Education Day event. Starring Jacky Chan as the heroic cop abseiling from the helicopter, Holden Chow as an evil bomb-throwing splittist, Allen Zeman as the dastardly foreign mastermind, and Regina Ip as Lassie the plucky patriotic police dog, who summersaults through flaming hoops to snatch a Chinese flag before a youth misled by Western thinking sets fire to it. Massed ranks of Asia’s Finest Goose-steppers added to the warm-and-fuzzy feel for the school-kids bussed in for the occasion.
More on the NatSec Adoration Cosplay Day activities. Although clearly aimed at meeting Beijing’s demand that Hong Kong correct the next generation’s minds, it all looks too clunky to convince average six-year-olds (though I wouldn’t mind a ‘Warning Tear Smoke’ key-ring). Prison officers battling foreign-influenced anti-China slippers here (yes, that’s slippers as in indoor footwear). For creepiness, try kids playing ‘riot squad’ in the MTR.
Police Commissioner Chris Tang celebrated National Insecurity Paranoia Day on a rather grim note, blaming protests on US agents fiendishly using public-opinion polls to ‘hype-up issues’. He promises proof of foreign influence, some time (heard that before). If the Party demands witch-hunts with a dash of xenophobia, it must be obeyed.
Not everyone is deferential. Apple Daily, with an evil gleam in its eye, examines Mainland think-tanker Tian Feilong’s ‘follow-up spanking of the pro-establishment camp’. Beijing is dividing its local followers into the merely stupid/lazy/cowardly ‘loyal garbage’ who can be slapped into submission, and the possibly disloyal ‘two faced’ who are on the CCP’s naughty list. And who among us has not wanted to give some bureaucrats and tycoons a serious ‘follow-up spanking’?
Some weekend reading…
For those fascinated by the structures of functional constituencies and the Election Committee, a couple of good explainers on the ‘improvements’ that stripped the processes of individual voters, here and here, and a look at the newly rigged Legal sector.
On economics, blogger Andrew Batson looks at how Beijing may be getting tougher on both tax and inequality.
From China Media Project, the 80 propaganda slogans you must learn to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the CCP. Start with this snappy little one…
Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era is the guide of action for the whole Party and the whole nation as they strive for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation!
We really should be calling her Regina Id, as she is that sole agent of the CCP’s subconscious that says exactly what the civic ego prevents the more reserved members from saying in their most feverish throes of patriotic longing.
Lets hope we never get attacked by real terrorists
Only a matter of time before self appointed roving gangs of pre teens wearing red scarves go rampaging through MTR cars or public parks calling out, berating and possibly assaulting what they perceive as incorrect dress, attitude, deferential posture, or insolence from weary citizens just trying to get home after work. Now that the “beast” has been released, it’s going to be hard to bottle up again. If you’re lucky, factional fighting will even become a thing!
Are the elite international school kiddies also forced to enjoy the Popo spectacle or is just the sad, robotic local kids?
@Chinese Netizen – I asked my youngsters yesterday what they did at school. Had the usual glib replies, but apparently nothing about NSL. Hopefully the money I pour out each month on fees is not squandered on this BS and my choices as a parent to keep my kids away from this loyal trash is discreetly respected.
But I somehow feel my name would get sent somewhere by some OA should I need to object to this nurturing of fascism.
“One rapid but fairly sure guide to the social atmosphere of a country is the parade-step of its army.
“A military parade is really a kind of ritual dance, something like a ballet, expressing a certain philosophy of life.
“The goose-step, for instance, is one of the most horrible sights in the world, far more terrifying than a dive-bomber.
“It is simply an affirmation of naked power; contained in it, quite consciously and intentionally, is the vision of a boot crashing down on a face.
“Its ugliness is part of its essence, for what it is saying is ‘Yes, I am ugly, and you daren’t laugh at me’, like the bully who makes faces at his victim.
“Why is the goose-step not used in England?
“There are, heaven knows, plenty of army officers who would be only too glad to introduce some such thing.
“It is not used because the people in the street would laugh.
“Beyond a certain point, military display is only possible in countries where the common people dare not laugh at the army.”
George Orwell, 1941
@Ho Ma Fan: Thanks for that. This is precisely why there was so much hand wringing and soul searching when “president” orange twat of the U.S. wanted so badly to have a NorKo/Soviet/CCP type military parade/spectacle on Independence Day and even the military brass were hemming and hawing, delaying, and hoping the attention-span-of-a-gnat moron would just move on to the next outrage. Like coddling white supremacist conspiracy theorists or giving a grinning thumbs up at the site of a lynching.