postposting posted:it'd be cool if the lasting legacy of occupy is the state department farming out its tactics and imagery to whatever comprador revolution is in vogue this week
i think that just happened
It's easy to roll your eyes at the fairly modest amount of money the US government is (overtly) contributing via NED. But that's missing the point. After all, American money is hardly necessary. Even if you consider the likelihood of some amount of covert funding, it'd be a drop in the ocean compared to what local pro-western tycoons provide.
NED funding is significant not in itself but because it formalises the relationship between the US government and a local HK movement that nonetheless passes itself off as grassroots. More than that, it indicates ideological and strategic guidance, and indeed training.
I've pointed to the involvement of Gene Sharp's Albert Einstein Institute and the response has been a resounding "huh, so what".
http://www.voltairenet.org/article30032.html posted:In 1983, Sharp designed the Non Violent Sanctions Program in the Center for International Affairs of Harvard University where he did some social sciences studies on the possible use of civil disobedience by Western Europe population in case of a military invasion carried out by the troops of the Warsaw Pact. At the same time, he founded in Boston the Albert Einstein Institution with the double purpose of financing his own researches and applying his own models to specific situations. In 1985, he published a book titled "Making Europe Unconquerable" whose second edition included a preface by George Kennan, the Father of the Cold War. In 1987, the association was funded by the U.S. Institute for Peace and hosted seminars to instruct its allies on defense based on civil disobedience. General Fricaud-Chagnaud, on his part, introduced his "civil deterrence" concept at the Foundation of National Defense Studies.
General Edward B Atkeson, seconded by the US Army to the Director of the CIA, integrates the institute into the apparatus of the US stay-behind network interfering in the affairs of allied states. Focusing on the morality of the means of action avoids debate on the legitimacy of the action. Non-violence, accepted as good in itself and an integral part of democracy, facilitates whitewashing of covert actions which are intrinsically non-democratic. (Petrol Note: I don't think the HK pro-democracy is "intrinsically non-democratic"; however, Occupy Central usurped any grassroots potential.)
In 1989, when the Albert Institution became well known, Gene Sharp began to advice anticommunist movements. He participated in the establishment of Burma’s Democratic Alliance - a coalition of notable anticommunists that quickly joined the military government - and Taiwan’s Progressive Democratic Party - which favored the independence of the island from communist China, something U.S. officially opposed. He also unified the Tibetan opposition under Dalai Lama and tried to form a dissident group within PLO so that Palestinian nationalists would stop terrorism (he made the necessary arrangements with Colonel Reuven Gal, director of the Psychological Action division of the Israeli armed forces, to train them secretly in the American Embassy in Tel Aviv).
When CIA realized how useful could the Albert Einstein Institution be, it brought Colonel Robert Helvey into play. An expert in clandestine actions and former dean of the Embassies’s Military Attachés Training School, "Bob" took Gene Sharp to Burma to educate the opposition on the non violent strategy for criticizing the cruelest military junta of the world without questioning the system. By doing this, Helvey could identify the "good" and the "bad" opponents in a critical moment for Washington: the true opposition, led by Mrs. Suu Kyi, was labeled as a threat to the pro-American regimen.
«Bob’s» job was easily done. Since he was military attaché in Rangoon from 1983 to 1985 and helped to structure the dictatorship, he knew everybody. By playing a double game, Colonel Helvey simultaneously directed a classical action of military support to Karen resistance: by providing weapons and controlling a limited guerrilla, Washington wished, indeed, to maintain the military junta under pressure.
Since that moment, Sharp has always been present everywhere American interests are put at risk. In June 1989, he and his assistant, Bruce Jenkins, went to Beijing, two weeks before Tiananmen events. They were both expelled by Chinese authorities. In February 1990, the Albert Einstein Institution hosted a Conference on Non Violent Sanctions that brought together 185 experts of 16 countries under Colonels Robert Helvey and Reuven Gal. This marked the beginning of an international anticommunist crusade to involve peoples in non violent action.
Professor Thomas Schelling, well known economist and CIA consultant, joined the Administrative Council of the Institution whose official budget was still stable though it was also funded by the International Republican Institute (IRI), one of the four branches of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED/CIA).
At the same time, Baltic countries proclaimed their independence but, after a test of endurance with Mijail Gorbatchov, they postponed their decision for 2 or 3 years to negotiate their terms. In October 1990, Gene Sharp and his team traveled to Sweden and trained several Lithuanian politicians in the organization of a popular resistance against the Red Army. Months later, in May 1991, when the crisis broke out and Gorbatchov deployed his special forces; Gene Sharp was the adviser of Sajudis separatist party (Perestroika Initiative Group) and remained close to Vytautas Landsbergis. In June 1992, independent Lithuania Minister of Defense, Audrius Butkevicius, hosted a symposium to thank Albert Einstein Institution’s key role during the independence process of the Baltic countries.
Srdja Popovic (left), Serbian leader of the Otpor movement, Gene Sharp (center) and Robert Helvey
When the U.S began its rearmament in 1998, the Albert Einstein Institution became part of an expansionist strategy. It provided ideology and technique to Otpor («Resistance»), a group of Slobodan Milosevic’s young opponents. Simultaneously, it intervened in Kosovo province to train Ibrahim Rugova’s LDK, but it turned useless for Washington during the Kosovo war. Then, Otpor quickly became a choice to overthrow Milosevic who was very popular for resisting NATO. Colonel Helvey trained Otpor’s leaders through seminars hosted at Hilton Hotel in Budapest. Money was not a problem to overthrow Europe’s last communist government. The person in charge of commanding the operation was agent Paul B. McCarthy, discreetly settled at Moskva hotel in Belgrade until Milosevic’s resignation in October 2000.
In September 2002, Gene Sharp went to The Hague to train the members of the Iraqi National Council who were preparing themselves to return to Iraq, along with the American army.
In September 2003, it was also the Albert Einstein Institution who advised the opposition to question the electoral results and go on demonstrations to force Eduard Shevardnadze’s resignation during the «revolution» of the roses in Georgia.
When the CIA-organized-coup against Venezuela failed in April 2002, the State Department counted again on the Albert Einstein Institution which advised the owners of enterprises during the organization of the revocatory referendum against President Hugo Chávez. Gene Sharp and his team led the leaders of Súmate during the demonstrations of August 2004. As done before, the only thing they had to do was questioning the electoral results and demanding the resignation of the president. They managed to get the bourgeoisie out in the street but Chavez’s popular government was to strong. All in all, international observers had no other choice but to recognize Hugo Chávez’s victory.
Gene Sharp failed in Belarus and Zimbabwe for he could not recruit and train in the proper time the necessary amount of demonstrators. During the orange «revolution» in November 2004, we met again with Colonel Robert Helvey in Kiev. Finally, we must point out that the Albert Einstein Institution has begun to train Iranian agitators.
This article did not go down well with Gene Sharp, who has worked hard in recent years to strike a balance between maintaining a modest public profile for AEI and obfuscating its relationship to the US government and neoliberal interests. Sharp wrote an open letter in response, saying the article "contains so many inaccuracies that it is surprising to me that some people can believe much of its contents. It appears, however, that some do. That will have serious consequences to the detriment of future events." He goes on to make a number of disingenously narrow denials: AEI receives no government funding; he has never been an employee of NATO or CIA; AEI has never conducted training in a US embassy.
But don't take his word for it! The New York Times reckons he is humble genius in the best liberal tradition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/world/middleeast/17sharp.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 posted:Mr. Sharp, hard-nosed yet exceedingly shy, is careful not to take credit. He is more thinker than revolutionary... He has had no contact with the Egyptian protesters, he said, although he recently learned that the Muslim Brotherhood had “From Dictatorship to Democracy” posted on its Web site.
While seeing the revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak as a sign of “encouragement,” Mr. Sharp said, “The people of Egypt did that — not me.”
He has been watching events in Cairo unfold on CNN from his modest house in East Boston, which he bought in 1968 for $150 plus back taxes.
It doubles as the headquarters of the Albert Einstein Institution, an organization Mr. Sharp founded in 1983 while running seminars at Harvard and teaching political science at what is now the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. It consists of him; his assistant, Jamila Raqib, whose family fled Soviet oppression in Afghanistan when she was 5; a part-time office manager and a Golden Retriever mix named Sally.
Well, I'm convinced,
postposting posted:it'd be cool if the lasting legacy of occupy is the state department farming out its tactics and imagery to whatever comprador revolution is in vogue this week
Edited by TheIneff ()
TheIneff posted:
rHizzone: expect it where you'd least expect it
daddyholes posted:the other legacy is a bunch of weird go getter people asking to be paid money to read their tweets
please dont shame meursault
(Justine Tunney) Even when I identified with the far-left, I still had a very hard time getting into feminism. Mostly because: a) they hate trans people; b) they hate the gender binary; and c) they literally want to destroy the social concept of gender. I mean, I like the gender binary. I like being a woman. I don't want to live in a society where everyone is a "they" rather than a "he/she", men aren't brave, and women aren't compassionate.
All in all, I just consider feminism to be a profoundly anti-woman ideology. Think about it. How often do you hear them talking about how women are "sex objects"? Why is it that they abhor the things that have traditionally been associated with women, like childbearing and homemaking? Why do they think the solution to everything is to get more women in power? Do you think more domineering female capitalist patriarchs is going to make things better? Why do they want all women to become wage slaves to a strange man at a corporation, rather than their husbands?
Now you might be saying, "I have friends who are feminists and they aren't like that! They don't want to destroy gender. They're perfectly reasonable people!" In which case I would say that your friends aren't actually feminists, they're just *fans* of feminism. But the fact still remains that the true radical feminists want to take our society in direction where gender doesn't exist, and they've been very successful at accomplishing it.
I was immersed in this culture for years during my time as a radical activist. It's not a place where I want to be. It's a very ugly world. But the thing that saddens me the most, is that the radical feminist culture I came to abhor, will be America's mainstream culture in 10-20 years. This is because mainstream culture is downstream from radical leftist culture. The things the radical feminists believe today, will percolate down into society gradually, and eventually you too, my dear reader, will also come to believe them. I'm so sorry.
how.you.go.from.this
to.this
The bottom 1/3rd of the population should be live-in servants for the top 1/3rd.
— Justine Tunney (@JustineTunney) July 23, 2014
in.just.three.years?
she.has.to.be.crazy.or.just.plain.evil
I love poor people. They make my clothes, make my food, clean up after me, etc. Sort of like how a wolf loves sheep. The sheep thinks that the wolf hates him, but that actually isn't true. The wolf loves sheep, because they taste delicious and provide the sustenance that makes the wolf's life possible.
shriekingviolet posted:ultimately the continuing consolidation of power is going to benefit "activist hedge fund managers" just as much as the mainland government (their power structures will integrate seamlessly once they stop catfighting over who gets how much), and western imperial power too. it's not like hong kong has ever, ever, ever had anything resembling an actual democracy, even by degenerate western standards. it looks like the upcoming changes are actually preventative stopgap to curtail any possible influence from the mainland china and south-east asia labor immigrant class, who of course are completely absent from media coverage and have had nothing to do with this mickey mouse shit (duh). my friends "on the ground" as it were see this as mostly just a posturing pissing contest and maybe testing ground for occupy-style emergent astroturfing (as was noted by rad folks upthread)
its clearly astroturf, funded by the hedges (which naturally means a lot of western money, indirectly) and trained to spur a spontaneous-ish nonviolent mass movement with a controlled, coordinated message (for beijing, and for western media).
i dont think there is necessarily anything bigger planned. the essential issue does seem to be what OCLP says it is: when HKers get the vote in 2017, they dont want candidates to have to pass a CCP vetting process. they're going to get some kind of vote, so they obviously feel now is the time to throw down if they want to at least maintain the current level of autonomy. its actually crazy how long theyve been planning this, and the detail involved. http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1201313/occupy-central-pioneer-outlines-its-four-stage-plan-achieve-democracy
SCMP 28 March 2013 posted:It's taken fewer than 100 days for Dr Benny Tai Yiu-ting to go from low-profile academic at the University of Hong Kong to leading figure in one of the most radical and ambitious campaigns in the city's fight for democracy...
Tai emphasised that the blockade was merely the final step in a campaign to "cultivate a democratic process" for the city.
Since he first floated the idea in his Economic Journal column two months ago, Tai has met 10 pro-democracy groups to lobby support for his plan and says the feedback has been encouraging.
...the Occupy Central plan is due to roll out over the next 15 months,..
"I know many people are focusing on the final action, but the movement is more about cultivating a democratic process for the city," Tai said last week.
Tai says there are four key stages of the plan, beginning with the oath members will be asked to take in July this year. The oath, drafted as a legal document, will acknowledge the movement's non-violent nature...
After the oath, the movement will hold a novel "deliberation day" - a concept borrowed from a book of that title by American political scientists Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin. The academics conceived the idea of a deliberation day as a public holiday when members of the public could come together to discuss public affairs.
On the deliberation day, which Tai anticipates will take place early next year, tens of thousands of people who sign the oath will be divided into focus groups of 10 to 15 people for in-depth discussions on various proposals for political reform...
A citywide ballot of preferred proposals, either in the form of a civil referendum or a by-election triggered by the resignation of a lawmaker, would then take place by April or May next year to obtain "the citizens' authorisation" - the penultimate step in the plan... (Petrol Note: They ended up doing this unilaterally in a joint project with HKU that used a custom voting app)
Tai has repeatedly insisted that the final action, the road blockade, is "the last resort", and is in no rush to discuss the details, including the location and the length of the blockade. He also would not rule out other acts of non-co-operation before or after the blockade.
"By the time we obtain Hongkongers' endorsement of a political reform proposal, the nuclear weapon is assembled," Tai said of the blockade. "But whether we will use it depends on whether Beijing fulfils the expectation of Hongkongers for genuine universal suffrage that meets international standards."
Tai is optimistic that at least 10,000 people will sign the oath, citing encouraging feedback from the middle class.
"The next step will be to convince the grass roots," he said.
Haha.. indeed. In fact, the most troubling aspect of OCLP isn't the mere fact that it's the creation of a privileged elite in concert with the west.
http://hk-magazine.com/city-living/article/occupy-central-20 posted:Middle Class War
In his own “Occupy Central” movement, Benny Tai is emphasizing the participation of the middle-class and the middle-aged.
“This group of people might have children, so they don’t think only about themselves. I hope they want to put more thought into it, and do something for the next generations,” explains Tai, who has three children. He also argues that the middle-aged have less to lose than the young, whose futures lie before them. “For young people who take part, the cost is higher.”
Tai is also aiming for the support of those who enjoy high social status, including moderate political leaders, former government officials, religious leaders and scholars. He has sought two partners for the movement: Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, a pastor who took part in Operation Yellowbird, which helped dissident leaders escape the mainland after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown; and Professor Chan Kin-man, who teaches sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Chan was a member of the now-disbanded Alliance for Universal Suffrage, a coalition that formulated a political reform proposal and engaged in negotiations with Beijing.
But there’s one big question: will this focus on the middle class weaken its support base?
“This is the limitation of the movement,” says Icarus Wong, deputy convener of the Human Civil Rights Front. “A successful social movement must be supported by people of all classes and organizations.”
Wong doesn’t object to the movement’s origins, but he is worried that the working class might not take an active interest in the “Occupy Central” movement because the discussion centers on political systems.
Lol. Obviously he means, the discussion is EXCLUSIVELY about political systems - electoral systems to be precise. It's only about suffrage. Regardless, they've had lots of time to build support, and theyve clearly used it well. Having youth groups front and center (alongside friendly media, church groups and Hedge Krew) probably helped.
But even now, at what must surely be the peak of the action, it just comes off as an aggressively bougie exercise. It's amazing how much passion you can squeeze out the middle class in defence of the socioeconomic status quo. Surely they havent acheived all this simply by preaching Love and Peace?? Well, theres also stuff like this on the OCLP blog. A "viral video" with a note saying it's "banned in China". Um. Maybe it's banned because it really is viral.........and the virus is Fail Aids.
http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/beijings-censors-ban-hong-kong-short-film/ posted:The seven minute and 28 second video, Hong Kong Will Be Destroyed After 33 Years, from GVAcreative appeared without much comment in early March. It currently has over 600,000 views on YouTube (which is blocked in mainland China) and is hardly the stuff of legend. But, on March 25, it was leaked that the great might and majesty of the Middle Kingdom and its modern economic miracle could not abide this satirical science fiction...
...the propaganda authorities ordered the deletion of “video, text, etc. that advocates the short sci-fi film about Hong Kongers ‘saving themselves’ titled Hong Kong Will Be Destroyed in 33 Years.”
Yik Kan Cheung, a VFX artist and post-production supervisor with GVAcreative told The Diplomat, “The reason the video is being censored by authorities is, we believe, that they think what they’re doing is keeping the society peaceful. But, what we think they are doing is keeping people away from knowing the truth, that China is trying to suffocate Hong Kong to death by importing Mainland Chinese into Hong Kong until there’s enough people for them to control the elections. After that, there will be no open elections in Hong Kong.”
The video itself features apathetic Hong Kongers indifferent to an approaching meteor, set to hit in 2047 — not entirely coincidentally the year in which China’s capitulations to Hong Kong expire.
welp.
AynRandAnCap posted:how.you.go.from.this
http://i.ur.com/EZebYoM.jpg
to.this
The bottom 1/3rd of the population should be live-in servants for the top 1/3rd.
— Justine Tunney (@JustineTunney) July 23, 2014
in.just.three.years?
estrogen injections
posted from le_goat_phone_6
Petrol posted:tunney just craves attention. shes a troll. noi more no less~
shriekingviolet posted:ultimately the continuing consolidation of power is going to benefit "activist hedge fund managers" just as much as the mainland government (their power structures will integrate seamlessly once they stop catfighting over who gets how much), and western imperial power too. it's not like hong kong has ever, ever, ever had anything resembling an actual democracy, even by degenerate western standards. it looks like the upcoming changes are actually preventative stopgap to curtail any possible influence from the mainland china and south-east asia labor immigrant class, who of course are completely absent from media coverage and have had nothing to do with this mickey mouse shit (duh). my friends "on the ground" as it were see this as mostly just a posturing pissing contest and maybe testing ground for occupy-style emergent astroturfing (as was noted by rad folks upthread)
its clearly astroturf, funded by the hedges (which naturally means a lot of western money, indirectly) and trained to spur a spontaneous-ish nonviolent mass movement with a controlled, coordinated message (for beijing, and for western media).
The world’s four largest accounting firms have added their names to a chorus of voices in Hong Kong’s financial establishment opposing a threatened sit-in protest in Hong Kong’s Central business district.
The Hong Kong affiliates of Ernst & Young LLP, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte LLP and KPMG LLP published a half-page Chinese-language advertisement in the local press Friday voicing concerns about the Occupy Central movement. The pro-democracy coalition calls for protests to paralyze the city’s financial district if an electoral proposal that the Hong Kong government is scheduled to release by the end of this year ignores the views of the city’s residents. Hong Kong’s chief executive is currently chosen by a 1,200-member committee composed largely of pro-Beijing organizations and business groups.
...
The accounting houses called for the issues to “be resolved through dialogue,” writing that civil disobedience in Central could hurt the city’s financial industry. “We worry that multinational companies and investors might consider moving their regional headquarters from Hong Kong, or even remove their businesses, in the long term shaking Hong Kong from its position as an international financial and commercial center,” the firms wrote. Spokespeople for the four firms confirmed that they jointly issued the advertisement and declined to comment further.
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/06/27/big-four-accounting-firms-oppose-hks-occupy-central/
vampirarchist posted:The Hong Kong affiliates of Ernst & Young LLP, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte LLP and KPMG LLP
None of them are able to be part of Occupy Central because they're too big to fail
stegosaurus posted:semi-autonomous region of hong kong is my favorite beefheart song
Trot Mask Replica
shriekingviolet posted:stegosaurus posted:semi-autonomous region of hong kong is my favorite beefheart song
Trot Mask Replica
damn thats good....
stegosaurus posted:whats more offensive, equating anime with japanese culture, or saying 'anime is gay' using those exact words. you may assume a low-mid irony level on the second statement. 10 minutes. go.
pretty much everyone in america still thinks everything from japan is weird
shriekingviolet posted:south-east asia labor immigrant class
would like to hear more about this aspect. how would this movement disenfranchise them?