Yes. Some protesters destroyed property. But the Hong Kong protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful.
Almost shockingly peaceful. Millions of people are mobilizing in cramped quarters. Very few cultures have the restraint to coördinate so massively with barely any mistakes.
Contrast this with the counter-protesters, in Hong Kong [1] and overseas [2]. Pro-Xi protesters are violent at about the same frequency as (if not higher than) Hong Kong's protesters. This despite there being far fewer pro-Xi protesters on the ground.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49066982
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/australia/hong-kong...
You're asking questions of concern without taking a side by the way, suggesting that maybe the mainlanders are right to see the protesters as violent and deserving of violent repression by a dictatorship. I would urge you to be a little less willing to take the dictator's side on this.
The mainstream media were all, in orchestrated unison, arguing loudly for the war. And the government provided lots of allusions to evidence and appeals to authority, demanding support for it. And this was a conflict with the 'good guys' versus a literal dictator who was undoubtedly a horrible person. Yet the consequences of that war far dwarfed the atrocities of that man. And it was all based on lies. There was no WMD, the secret high level insider source was a taxi driver who had no connection to the government, the 'mobile weapon labs' were helium generating stations for use in conventional artillery, etc.
Throughout history it's not infrequent that such things happen. We'd like to imagine that when the 'good guys' win good things happen, but reality is often not so kind.
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Attaching this as an addendum since I've now been throttled for getting downvoted:
I am referring to things such as the single word title piece ran by the Washington Post, "Irrefutable." [1] On the same day the New York Times published this [2] piece entitled "Irrefutable and Undeniable". And there were many other such pieces being run as well. It's just a tad tedious to dig up these articles now from 16 years ago. It was bad. Note in these articles the complete and absolute lack of any sort of critique or even consideration of the possibility that evidence might not hold up to scrutiny. Instead the media condemned and proclaimed with absolute certainty. That was not, is not, journalism - it is propaganda.
Consequently I find it important to always remain critical of anything that has substantial political undertones. And so I prefer to take information that both sides agree to and judge it for myself while giving the arguments a distant secondary interest. And while it may ultimately leave me drawing the wrong conclusion, I'd rather be able to justify my logic based on evidence I personally felt compelling beyond any doubt, rather than on parroting others' analysis.
I don't really understand why more people don't think this way.
[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...
[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-u...
It was one of, if not THE most divisive and unpopular decision(s) the Blair government made, even at the time.
Eventually this sort of media analysis becomes a sort of clairvoyance. Intelligent news consumers responded to June's "Gulf of Oman" incident with questions about the "Gulf of Tonkin". Earlier, we had also questioned the official narrative about gas attacks in Syria. Now it's clear that was all bullshit too. [0] Unkillable zombie authoritarian organizations who have lied in specific ways for specific reasons before, will lie in those same ways for those same reasons again and again.
[0] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-04/eminent-american-s...
This is plainly false.
The New York Times featured e.g. then-Senator John Kerry arguing against war in Iraq: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/opinion/we-still-have-a-c...
They also had e.g. news pieces about the UN chief chemical and biological weapons inspector contradicting the US government's claims of WMDs: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/world/threats-and-respons...
This Atlantic cover story opposed war in Iraq: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/11/the-fif...
In the UK, only The Sun unequivocally supported the war, and The Daily Mirror and The Independent both strongly opposed the war: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/sep/25/pressandpublis...
Washington Post columnist Katrina vanden Heuvel always opposed war in Iraq, although she's a weekly columnist so I don't have the time to scroll through her archives to find a Post article, but to prove she's not like Trump (who claims to have been against the war, but actually publicly supported it before it started and didn't publicly oppose it until after it started): https://www.thenation.com/article/powell-fails-make-case/
Sure, the US mainstream media broadly supported the war and failed to challenge the government's claims, when they should have been much more skeptical. I've seen estimates that, for example, the opinion section of the Washington Post was 91% in favor of going to war. But being duped or foolish is a world apart from being coerced, as the media is in China. Can you find even a single word in a single mainstream Chinese outlet in favor of Hong Kong democratic demands? 9% is completely different from zero. It's not even comparable.
In checking out USA Today their coverage of Hong Kong [1] today also seems remarkably level-headed in contrast again to the New York Times, Washington Post, et al - which are presenting the situation in a sensationalized and single-sided fashion. Unfortunately more tempered coverage seems to gain little to no traction, then and now.
[1] - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/07/02/hong-ko...
The US mainstream media and the Chinese state media both engage in propaganda, but they're completely, fundamentally different.
I have my quibbles with that USA Today article (which I actually found quite biased, presenting the views of 3 different Hong Kong or Chinese government offices but just one single protestor viewpoint). I have quibbles with NYT and WP coverage of Hong Kong too. But fundamentally, they're written with good-faith intent to inform. Though I perceived a bias in USA Today's coverage, they still did report on the woman shot in the eye by Hong Kong police with a less-lethal round. Chinese state media, by contrast, is reporting that she was hit in the eye by a fellow protestor, and even claims that "Internet sources" say she's in charge of paying protestors to demonstrate: http://m.news.cctv.com/2019/08/12/ARTIZFDwhpv8u9PFBzzWbYhP19...
That's not good-faith intent to inform. That's bad-faith intent to deceive. That's completely, fundamentally different the kind of "propaganda" that US media engages in.
February 23rd - truck set on fire. western media runs nonstop articles blaming Maduro. politicians use it as effort to try to justify war.
February 24th - RT publishes refutation clearly showing it was a protester who set the vehicle on fire [1]
February 25th - March 9th - US media and politicians continue shoving the Maduro did it fabrication.
March 10th - NYTimes acknowledges it was a protester who set the convoy on fire and very briefly runs a story as if its breaking news. [2]
Even getting back to the Iraq reporting. Our media did not just passively present what was said. They actively evangelized and argued in favor of the evidence which was always, at best, dubious. Fundamentally I think one of the major differences in our propaganda is that we're simply much better at it. Propaganda should not make most people suspect it's propaganda. Ours doesn't - theirs does.
[1] - https://www.rt.com/news/452326-venezuela-us-aid-truck-protes...
[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/americas/venezuela-...
