Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

Interesting how an incidence in gaming garner more eye balls on the topic of Hong Kong politics than whole month combined. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Good for the people of Hong Kong.

The topic of Hong Kong didn't struck me as sensational/desperate as it deserves until a Hong Kong friend send me this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yXTHODE24Q Am moved by the clip, especially for the first 50s. It is english sub-ed. Would recommend anyone interested in the topic give it a look

Sorry for not entirely related to the main thread, but since it seems there are many people in this thread knowledgable on what's going on in Hong Kong, I'd like to ask 2 questions. I'm not siding with CCP, but my issue is I'm not sure I can side with the protestors either. Because

1. Does the protestors representing the majority of citizens? If yes at this stage why the working class in Hong Kong hasn't started long term strike yet? I would imagine that the most effective non violence method of protesting by citizens would be stop working. That would for one stop the tax flow to the government.

2. Is it necessary for protestors to be violent against pro-China civilians/properties? I'm aware that the protestors have been subject to violence from both police and mobs alike, but fighting for democracy should be a higher cause than revenge? Aren't they fight for freedom of speech among others? Or it's just freedom for themselves and violence and totalitarianism for who else disagrees? [1]

Again I love freedom to the point I've spent many years fighting it for myself and helped a few people. I support Taiwan to be an independent country. But we all know many bad things have been committed under the name of freedom as well. Now I'm not sure if the Hong Kong protestors are fighting under the name of freedom to actually express their hatred toward mainlanders? Thanks for reading and hope my questions would not offend anyone. Just would like to understand the situation better.

Edit: some explanations on the downvotes would be nice.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-GR88q8pIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPYuGYLesx0 (the planting of CCP flag near the end is really distasteful for me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NFb2chXt9k

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3031906.... (trashing trains while passengers still inside)

(Toby Guu is a Canadian software developer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Jgp7-tXfc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFwGqF3QlVc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcw7lcZA7SE

1) Stopping HK employee taxes flow, will stop China how? This is not really their concern

2) Peaceful protest and cleaning up after themselves would make many people very happy. They did this during the umbrella and occupy central protests: however many thousands of people protesting, but the streets were spotless. They were very polite at that time; but still increasingly cannot trust the government

For instance the extradition law that started this protest was declared dead multiple times, but we're still awaiting the government to actually do that -- maybe when they re-convene on the 16th it will be removed from the agenda?

I like your views about peaceful protest, but will it lead to the peaceful removal of democracy, expression, belief, etc? Any HKers in support of the government are looking forward to that peaceful life

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On your links: The SCMP is a China owned news source, and it should be easy to find other videos of police shooting people with rubber bullets, etc??

My wife was just showing me a video of an undercover police officer trashing government property and threatening pepper spray when videoed -- I do appreciate your questions and approach though, and wish life was that simple

> Fighting under the name of freedom to actually express their hatred toward mainlanders?

Sorry you could feel that. I don't. We don't. We apologize

I asked some questions, rather than trying to convey some arguments, since I'm not expert in any way about Hong Kong situation. The only thing led me making this post is after watching the old lady video I felt it's important to introduce some other viewpoints to the discussion happening on HN, a website I visit daily and I appreciate the HN community. Other than that I don't have any stake in the game. You might watched the beginning of the second video and think I talk about clean up after pretesting? In that video protesters shined laser on that old lady.

I might not have expressed my question clearly. Thanks for bearing with me:

1. Let's say the whole city would like to obtain democracy as fast as they can, strike would be one of the most effective method for nonviolent resistance, no? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance) I'm curious why this way of protesting has not been employed yet?

2. >My wife was just showing me a video of an undercover police officer trashing government property and threatening pepper spray when videoed --

I'm very aware of those police shenanigans. I'm also ok with violence against oppressive police/military. However, does this justify violence against not armed civilians with different opinions? If your answer is yes then it's fine. It would help me understand the perspective of westerners better.

It's good to ask those things. I can only answer for myself, which is maybe not a western view point, but anyway:

I assume almost everybody thinks shining lasers on the old lady is bad. I don't think violence against civilians is ever justified. However wrong though, it is probably never fully one-sided

The last video you linked ends with a 'civilian' having molotov cocktails thrown at him, and the author of the video uses this to discredit the protests..... But... that 'civilian' has a gun in his hand. He is an undercover officer, and those events happened shortly after police shot someone with a live round in the same area

The police have not pressed charges against mafia caught on camera beating people up, but they have recently arrested a pregnant woman for wearing a facemask*

I think the protesters have been more restrained, but they still definitely make mistakes. Sadly this doesn't get us out of the spiral of violence: to do that the gov and police would have to face loosing their jobs; and maybe just as hard is they would have to accept that the protesters' anger and vitriol as true

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Nonviolent means were employed during the earlier umbrella revolution and occupy central. These didn't seem to work. But I agree that the anger, vitriol, and violence on all sides is creating another wall...

*facemasks are quite different in HK than the west. The SARS epidemic and close living quarters means people see them as essential to health and safety -- so the facemask ban is bordering on offensive in HK culture

-- Hope that helps. Years ago I was in a warzone where the people were undefended by their government. The church was preaching forgiveness to those who attacked them, and it was impressive to see how effective it was. But it was a very big cost