Speaker 1: Welcome to the Worst Happenings Here Ever, Bastards pod shit.
Speaker 1: I'm Robert evans Um. This is it could Happen here,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast about the fact that everything seems to
Speaker 1: be falling apart, and wouldn't it be nice if we
Speaker 1: tried to do something better than the stuff that's falling apart?
Speaker 1: That seems like a good idea. Huh do you agree
Speaker 1: with me my my panel for today's episode? Yes, I
Speaker 1: agree with that general concept. That's Garrison Davis. And who
Speaker 1: else is agreeing with me today? That Christopher Wong is?
Speaker 1: Is that Christopher Wong mildly agreeing, mildly agreeing, mildly agreeing. Wow, well,
Speaker 1: that's extra disturbing because you you you you're in charge
Speaker 1: of today's episode. So in brief, when we did our
Speaker 1: first so you know, if you're new to the show,
Speaker 1: come back check out the first five episodes of the show.
Speaker 1: They're scripted Evergreen kind of layout our philosophy on the
Speaker 1: crumbling of society and what to do next. But one
Speaker 1: of the questions we had is, Okay, it kind of
Speaker 1: seems like one of the only ways potentially forward without
Speaker 1: just accepting that everything's going to keep falling apart is
Speaker 1: some sort of big general strike that forces action on
Speaker 1: you know, things like climate that are are we can't
Speaker 1: really wait on anymore. And of course one of the
Speaker 1: big questions is, well, all right, you get a bunch
Speaker 1: of people to agree to strike, how do you agree
Speaker 1: what to do with the strike? How do you agree?
Speaker 1: What like the terms are? You know, how do you
Speaker 1: how do you put together a list of demands? How
Speaker 1: do you get millions of people to agree to a
Speaker 1: list of demands and then fight the government in order
Speaker 1: to institute those demands? Um? And I don't know the
Speaker 1: answer to that question. Um, but there are some people
Speaker 1: in the world right now who did a version of
Speaker 1: that in Hong Kong. And today we're going to talk
Speaker 1: with someone who can talk to us about that process
Speaker 1: and hopefully kind of give us some insight both and
Speaker 1: how it worked and what didn't work over there, and
Speaker 1: that might inform us on what we might do here
Speaker 1: someday in the future. Uh, if you know that, that'd
Speaker 1: be nice. Maybe did I get it right? Chris? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is yeah, that's good enough for that ringing endorsement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, So so to to to work more
Speaker 1: of this out. Um, I've brought in j n who
Speaker 1: is a writer, researcher and organizer with a Laosan collective.
Speaker 1: Um he's currently be I said of Los Angeles and Jane, Okay,
Speaker 1: do you do you want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what Lauson is and then also talk a bit
Speaker 1: about how, you know, for people who've sort of forgotten,
Speaker 1: weren't paying attention at the time, how the Hong Kong
Speaker 1: protest started. Yeah. Sure, thanks thanks for having me excited
Speaker 1: to be here and to talk about this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff because I've been wanting to kind of you know,
Speaker 1: talk about this and discuss the way things have gone
Speaker 1: with the protests for a while. Um It's been hard
Speaker 1: to find the time, I guess with our cascading crises
Speaker 1: and whatnot. Um, but yeah, so I guess Lao Son.
Speaker 1: I'll speak briefly about law Song, since you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not speaking on behalf of the collective in this interview,
Speaker 1: but just kind of like, um, talking about how we
Speaker 1: started and then everything else after that is is kind
Speaker 1: of just my view of things. UM. So Lawson has
Speaker 1: members with kind of like different leftist orientations, um, from
Speaker 1: you know, anarchists to more social democratic um, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's been a kind of a lot to work through,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine. But I think it also that
Speaker 1: also kind of reflects the necessity of our political condition, um,
Speaker 1: which is that they're really you know, in my view,
Speaker 1: there hasn't really been any internationalist groups that focus on
Speaker 1: Hong Kong from those different perspectives um, at least for
Speaker 1: me when I was growing up. Um, most of the
Speaker 1: kind of like radical Hong Kong folks that I knew
Speaker 1: would tend to just be uh, you know, we would
Speaker 1: join different we would join other movements and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Like there was never anything that was Hong Kong centered, um.
Speaker 1: And I guess stuff in the daspora, uh it's pretty conservative.
Speaker 1: You know, the diasporad folks that I grew up with,
Speaker 1: we're we're pretty conservative. So there wasn't that that kind
Speaker 1: of avenue for organizing, unlike other kind of Asian dasper
Speaker 1: groups like uh, Philipinos folks have like this kind of
Speaker 1: very long history of radical das board organizing and I
Speaker 1: don't really think Hong Kong has had that ever. So
Speaker 1: I think that's why law Son is this kind of
Speaker 1: very broad tent, big umbrella type of organ where we
Speaker 1: try where we do kind of collect a lot of
Speaker 1: folks who are you know, progressive, left leaning to to
Speaker 1: to otherwise. Um And but I I guess our general
Speaker 1: orientation is the kind of neither Washington nor Beijing line
Speaker 1: with with varying degrees of general anti statis um in
Speaker 1: the mix. Um And I think, you know, I'm hopeful
Speaker 1: that this is helping to build the foundation for more
Speaker 1: of that in the Hong Kong diaspora and then hopefully
Speaker 1: in the broader Asian dasper as I see it, since
Speaker 1: I think the general divide tends to be kind of
Speaker 1: like you know, radical Asian folks will be anti U
Speaker 1: s imperiless, which is great, but then specifically do that
Speaker 1: by expressing support for states elsewhere and um, you know
Speaker 1: that can that can take good forms and bad forms
Speaker 1: and whatnot. So um And I guess just really quick,
Speaker 1: we we do both kind of organizing and writing and translation.
Speaker 1: Those are kind of the three pillars of the group,
Speaker 1: I guess, and the bedrock of our work is really
Speaker 1: kind of aiming to create international solidarity with Left US
Speaker 1: around the world to kind of amplify left his voices
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong, but then also kind of create nonstate
Speaker 1: centered connections across Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and how do you I mean, I think one of
Speaker 1: the big questions that that keeps coming to me over
Speaker 1: and over again is how do you overcome the how
Speaker 1: do you overcome the resistance to internationals? And that's caused
Speaker 1: by kind of I don't know, conspiracism may not be
Speaker 1: exactly the right way to frame it, but this belief
Speaker 1: that you know, your your struggle for liberation is really
Speaker 1: just a c I, A OP or whatever like this
Speaker 1: this this, this case of brain worms that keeps that
Speaker 1: I see as a major barrier towards you know, kind
Speaker 1: of functional internationalism in a lot of cases, particularly within
Speaker 1: the United States. Um, what are some ways in which
Speaker 1: you you've actually seen some luck in combating that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's really the million dollar question, I think,
Speaker 1: which is, like, you know, I think if we had
Speaker 1: figured it out, it wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, it's
Speaker 1: growing problem growing. So in many ways, from one view
Speaker 1: could say that it's we haven't been very successful in
Speaker 1: combating that. But I think in some you know, some
Speaker 1: of the leading groups in that camp you know, the
Speaker 1: campus I think are very well funded and they have
Speaker 1: very powerful connections. When you say campus, could you explain
Speaker 1: that term briefly, because I don't think it's something and
Speaker 1: certainly that's when we've talked about on the show, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of our listeners probably wouldn't be
Speaker 1: familiar with that. Yeah. Sure, I mean, I'm sure Chris
Speaker 1: could speak much more about this. I feel like you
Speaker 1: of your expertise is is kind of explaining these very
Speaker 1: kind of deep left traditions and whatnot. But I guess
Speaker 1: my understanding is is just very generally the campus will UM.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like the anti imperialism that UM sees
Speaker 1: the US as the kind of number one enemy and
Speaker 1: everything kind of is is you know, they're the primary
Speaker 1: contradiction I guess to use some malice terminology UM, and
Speaker 1: that everything must be subordinated to that, to that cause
Speaker 1: of like being against the U. S empire UM, And
Speaker 1: usually that requires supporting what they see as uh, you know,
Speaker 1: abbreviate as a as actually existing socialism UH states that
Speaker 1: kind of use that that are nominally socialists, nominally communist
Speaker 1: UM and use all the kind of like imagery and
Speaker 1: trappings of that um to kind of like whole maintain
Speaker 1: that political identity despite the kind of material reality of
Speaker 1: their politics and economy and all that. So um, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can tell more about that later maybe, But I
Speaker 1: think one thing that I've been chatting with a lot
Speaker 1: of my kind of like uh, radical Asian friends, who
Speaker 1: are you know, I I am very kind of obviously
Speaker 1: against these campus because they are so veriantly against Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: But you know, other folks that I've talked to have
Speaker 1: have said, you know, they really kind of understand that
Speaker 1: viewpoint in the sunset. It's a very emotional attachment, right.
Speaker 1: It's like folks for you know, folks let's let's say
Speaker 1: Vietnamese folks who uh their families were refugees and had
Speaker 1: to come to the US because of the Vietnam War,
Speaker 1: for example. Then you know when when you're the child
Speaker 1: of refugees and you're like, why the hell am I
Speaker 1: here in America, and then you start to kind of
Speaker 1: like learn about the history and background of what happened,
Speaker 1: then it makes sense that you would have this kind
Speaker 1: of very emotional attachment to a s these actually existing
Speaker 1: social states UM and those histories and those those radical
Speaker 1: anti imperial histories and whatnot, despite the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: clearly history has shown that they have either betrayed their
Speaker 1: own movements or gone down in defeat and whatnot, which,
Speaker 1: you know, I think there's two ways to react to that.
Speaker 1: One is to kind of continue to cling to the fantasy,
Speaker 1: and then one is to try and figure out what's next. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like, how can we either revive that or continue
Speaker 1: that in in the ways that makes sense in this world? Right?
Speaker 1: And so I think, you know, I guess to answer
Speaker 1: the initial question, I think it is a little bit
Speaker 1: easier to for especially if we're like young, newly radicalized
Speaker 1: Asian folks, it's a little bit easier to maintain that fantasy.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, I think the way that media,
Speaker 1: you know, social media and online media has gone nowadays,
Speaker 1: it's like it's becoming distilled into even like the most
Speaker 1: simple and understand bowl like nuggets of that, so like
Speaker 1: infographics and stuff like that. So I feel like that
Speaker 1: entire ecosystem uh tries to make it so that people
Speaker 1: do stay within that fantasy rather than trying to do
Speaker 1: the harder work of like how do we extrapolate this
Speaker 1: or how do we adapt this to our conditions? Now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, I can talk about this
Speaker 1: for a little like a brief amount because I don't
Speaker 1: want to spend Jewish time. Yeah, I'm talking about these people,
Speaker 1: but you know, like I think, like like one way
Speaker 1: to look at them is so camp is um is
Speaker 1: a thing from from the Cold War. Right. It's basically like, okay,
Speaker 1: you pick you pick one of your like two maybe
Speaker 1: three camps. If you come an online movement, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: you're really with the Soviets or with you with the Americans? Right,
Speaker 1: And you know, part part of this happening here is
Speaker 1: it's like that that's a very easy way to look
Speaker 1: at the world. And this is this is why it's
Speaker 1: so easy to sort of like condense it in infographics. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like there's two sides. One of them is good,
Speaker 1: one of them bad. But you know, this is like
Speaker 1: the thing that's that's sort of the problem here is
Speaker 1: that the Cold War is over, like it's done. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's gone, right, the communist countries are gone. None
Speaker 1: of the stuff, none of the stuff exists anymore. And
Speaker 1: so you know, and it's it's very easy particular, particularly
Speaker 1: for for the diaspor to sort of get stuck, suck
Speaker 1: like back into the politics where well, okay, well well
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, hold on, there's a new Cold War.
Speaker 1: The Cold War is happening again. It's all the same stuff,
Speaker 1: and you can just sort of like tack all the
Speaker 1: same symbols back on. But you know, it leads you
Speaker 1: to down these pasts where you know, and this is
Speaker 1: like like something Janna I think is dealt with a lot,
Speaker 1: which is like, you know, when when when the protests
Speaker 1: started happening in Hong Kong, all these people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is all the CIA, and it's like not at all,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's sort of yees. So it's they
Speaker 1: they they come to see this world in a way
Speaker 1: that's sort of purely conspiratorial and purely sort of based
Speaker 1: in this old Cold War stuff that just doesn't exist anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think part of the problem is that there's been
Speaker 1: this consistent failure and this isn't even really a left
Speaker 1: or right issue. This is like a a a culture
Speaker 1: issue and kind of how to refer to places that
Speaker 1: are outside of the US or sort of you know,
Speaker 1: in the old days, the USSR is influence block. Like
Speaker 1: you have terms like third world and now Global South,
Speaker 1: and all of them are really um bad, bad terms
Speaker 1: for kind And I'm We're going to try to have
Speaker 1: Joey I U bon soon. But I've come to like
Speaker 1: the term the periphery to refer to those states that
Speaker 1: are kind of outside of or at least kind of
Speaker 1: mingling influences from those you know, the major power blocks.
Speaker 1: UM and I but it's it is um it I
Speaker 1: think has led to this that kind of binary thinking
Speaker 1: kind of the failure too. I think the complexity of
Speaker 1: the actual global geopolitical situation leads to a failure, leads
Speaker 1: to kind of a rejection of that complexity, in which
Speaker 1: everything boils down to either pro or anti um socialism
Speaker 1: or whatever on a lot of people's heads. And I
Speaker 1: don't think that is a particularly good framework for making
Speaker 1: good decisions. Yeah, absolutely, And yeah that that piece by
Speaker 1: Joey is really amazing, And yeah, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I think the reason you know, a lot of times
Speaker 1: folks are just kind of like, well, you know, these
Speaker 1: these campus these tankis or whatever, it's just like they
Speaker 1: have no real world impacts, so like just don't bother uh,
Speaker 1: you know, don't don't spend too much time arguing with
Speaker 1: them or whatever. But I guess the part that really
Speaker 1: bothers me about all that is, I think what you're
Speaker 1: kind of just saying, Robert, is like it's reducing the
Speaker 1: complexity of places outside the US so much that it's dehumanizing. Right.
Speaker 1: It's just like people in Hong Kong aren't full humans
Speaker 1: to these people because they see it's like the c
Speaker 1: I you can just kind of parachute one or two
Speaker 1: people in and lead like a two million person march, right,
Speaker 1: as if Hong Kong people have no political agency of
Speaker 1: their own or you know, understandings of how complex their
Speaker 1: own situation is, right, just this kind of interimperial entanglement
Speaker 1: that they're stuck in. So you know, there's this book
Speaker 1: called Nothing Ever Dies by Vieton Win that I would
Speaker 1: really recommend folks read, and I wish a lot of
Speaker 1: these folks would read it too, because you know, his
Speaker 1: he's talking about memory in the Vietnam War. But I
Speaker 1: think the thing that really stuck out to me and
Speaker 1: that in that framework that he develops is like, you know,
Speaker 1: everyone is capable of doing right and wrong, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's the way that we remember things like the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War, for example, there are always good and bad
Speaker 1: sides that people UM each side will deploy those different
Speaker 1: types of memory in order to like villainize others and
Speaker 1: uh lionize themselves, right. And then so I guess you know,
Speaker 1: he sees the true task as being able to recognize UM,
Speaker 1: the agency of all of us to do good and
Speaker 1: bad UM, and that that earned him a lot of
Speaker 1: hate within the Vietnamese community, I think, right, because you're
Speaker 1: encouraged to you know, in southern California, you're encouraged to
Speaker 1: be very anti communist in Orange County, that that community,
Speaker 1: because that's the southern Vietnamese to Aspera. And then uh,
Speaker 1: you know, people in Vietnam saw him as as still
Speaker 1: kind of like this this compromised person who lives in
Speaker 1: the US. The Vietnamese to Aspera. So it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, no way to win there, and
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of residents with that in
Speaker 1: the Hong Kong ASPMA as well. I kind of want
Speaker 1: to move us along if I can to actually talking
Speaker 1: about UM the five demands and sort of the process
Speaker 1: by which first off like, how you know, and this
Speaker 1: is a thing that like a lot of people who
Speaker 1: marched in the streets during the Black Lives Matter protests
Speaker 1: last year, the uprisings whatever you want to call them, um,
Speaker 1: we kind of kept running into this wall of well
Speaker 1: what do we what do we want? And a lot
Speaker 1: of folks were like, well, we want no police. But
Speaker 1: also a lot of folks were like, well we just
Speaker 1: want to defund or right, and we just want to
Speaker 1: reform the police. And even some of those folks were like,
Speaker 1: we want to reform the police by giving them more
Speaker 1: money and they'll hopefully kill less people. Like it was,
Speaker 1: it was, um, you know, I'm trying to speak abroad here, right.
Speaker 1: There were different local kind of movements and organizations that
Speaker 1: were more specific, but you had this tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: energy and precedent amount of energy out in the streets. Um,
Speaker 1: but you did not have concerted demands. I think the
Speaker 1: anchor was pretty concerned. I think everybody was more or
Speaker 1: less pissed about the right things. But there was not
Speaker 1: there was at no point did did we come together
Speaker 1: I think in a meaningful way on a big enough
Speaker 1: scale to to force to force into the mainstream of
Speaker 1: very specific set of demands. Um. And that's not even
Speaker 1: really a criticism, it's just an acknowledgement of the reality, right. Um.
Speaker 1: Whereas in Hong Kong, I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that was really successful was the messaging, the way that
Speaker 1: kind of the messaging of the movement united around these
Speaker 1: initially five demands, which I think was very successful. And
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious, first off, how did that come about.
Speaker 1: It really did kind of take center stage very quickly,
Speaker 1: I think, and I think some people maybe we're a
Speaker 1: little bit surprised by that, but um, it did. I
Speaker 1: think it. You know, it really kind of crystallized around
Speaker 1: because you know, the big protests happened kind of like
Speaker 1: June nine, um, and it was just like millions of
Speaker 1: people on the street, and you know, the protests were
Speaker 1: so singular in many ways, like it was the biggest
Speaker 1: political mobilization in Hong Kong history. Um. And that had
Speaker 1: been kind of just like been boiling for the past
Speaker 1: like decade before that, And I think it was just
Speaker 1: the atmosphere was was kind of like crystallized in the
Speaker 1: sense that everyone like just everyone was scared of what
Speaker 1: the CCP was going to do next. And I think
Speaker 1: that created this kind of common understanding for people to
Speaker 1: come together very quickly and easily around these uh, these
Speaker 1: five demands. And you know, on June June twelfth was
Speaker 1: when there was like the first really big escalation of
Speaker 1: police brutality um, and people were kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: police kettled people inside buildings and then tear gas them,
Speaker 1: which was just like the most outrageous thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of Hong Kong's either were formerly not they
Speaker 1: didn't really care much about politics, or they didn't really
Speaker 1: care much about police violence because you know, that's been
Speaker 1: going on for a very long time against marginalized people
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong. But I think just the fact that
Speaker 1: I happened to the certain set of protesters, um, non
Speaker 1: violent protesters at that time, UM, that was one of
Speaker 1: the really big kind of like breaking points. And then
Speaker 1: on June fift there was there was a protester called
Speaker 1: Marco Lung and he had set up on a scaffolding
Speaker 1: at the top of like a really tall shopping mall
Speaker 1: in this yellow rain code, and he had a banner
Speaker 1: that had some of these demands on the banner. UM.
Speaker 1: And then you know, eventually he fell off the scaffold
Speaker 1: and died, and that was really kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: wake up call to a lot of people about how
Speaker 1: dire people were feeling about this. So there was a
Speaker 1: lot of emotion behind it that allowed people to come together,
Speaker 1: um around these five demands, you know, so like full
Speaker 1: withdrawal the bill, retraction of the characterization that the protests
Speaker 1: were riots, anesty for for arrested protesters, establishment of you know,
Speaker 1: some commission into police abuse, and then uh, Carrie Lamb resigning,
Speaker 1: and universal suffrage. So it was it's a really interesting
Speaker 1: set of five demands, and I think, I guess to
Speaker 1: get to your question, I think it runs the gamut
Speaker 1: between like very doable too not so doable, I guess, right, Like, uh,
Speaker 1: the universal suffrage, when I think is like, you know,
Speaker 1: that's there because that's been the demand from Hong Konger's
Speaker 1: for like a very long time, at least a decade
Speaker 1: before that. So but then you know, I think that
Speaker 1: it's not. I don't think anyone I've really thought that
Speaker 1: was going to happen. The government was never going to
Speaker 1: concede to that. But uh, you know, the very first amount,
Speaker 1: full with drawal, of the bill was very doable, and
Speaker 1: it did end up happening very soon after the death
Speaker 1: of Marko Lung Right, So, um, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that helps answer the question a little bit.
Speaker 1: Is just like the five demands, Uh, we're we're very
Speaker 1: pragmatic in some ways but then also aspirational in other ways,
Speaker 1: and that that gave a lot of different people different
Speaker 1: avenues to like come into it. And there was I
Speaker 1: as I understand, there was like an app right, like,
Speaker 1: can we talk a little bit more about like the
Speaker 1: kind of methods by which I mean it was that
Speaker 1: more forum actually voting on actions or was that one
Speaker 1: of the ways in which demands were kind of arrived
Speaker 1: at as well? Yeah, so there's it wasn't I mean,
Speaker 1: it was telegram. A lot of people use telegrams, but um,
Speaker 1: you know l I h k G, which is like
Speaker 1: a really popular Internet forum. I guess kind of the
Speaker 1: equivalent is something like reddit um. And you know, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say that they were kind of like the centralized
Speaker 1: site for where like decisions were like made an issued
Speaker 1: from there, but it was the kind of most active
Speaker 1: site where people would go to discuss strategy tactics and
Speaker 1: debate things. Um. And you know, this might get to
Speaker 1: some later questions about like the role of the right
Speaker 1: wing and all this, but I would say that the
Speaker 1: overall character of the forum was slightly more you know,
Speaker 1: right leaning, or at least they were sympathetic to that
Speaker 1: to that position, right. So I think in that way, UM,
Speaker 1: that might be how things eventually, like you know, a
Speaker 1: year and a half later, started moving more towards the
Speaker 1: right um through that forum. Yeah, but there was never like,
Speaker 1: you know, there was never like, oh, okay, we're gonna
Speaker 1: run a poll and then whatever the decision of this is,
Speaker 1: that's going to side what we do tomorrow. Like, it
Speaker 1: was never that formalized, um. And you know, it was
Speaker 1: decentralized in the sense that people would discuss what would
Speaker 1: be the best tactic and then you could just like
Speaker 1: split off into like affinity groups and then you could
Speaker 1: choose to follow that if you want the next day
Speaker 1: or or or not right and a lot of times
Speaker 1: it was like people would be making these decisions on
Speaker 1: the fly the day of, at the front lines on
Speaker 1: those telegram groups and stuff. And how was it that, Um,
Speaker 1: I guess the question I'm trying to answer for myself
Speaker 1: is like it seems like, you know, for a movement
Speaker 1: that was in it, you know, it internally had a
Speaker 1: lot of ideological diversity and a lot of disagreement. It
Speaker 1: seems like there was more of a concerted agreement about
Speaker 1: goals in Hong Kong UM than I've seen in anything,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, state side in my life. And I'm
Speaker 1: kind of wondering how that process of consensus or if
Speaker 1: I or if I'm even kind of approaching it from
Speaker 1: the wrong perspective by thinking that there was that white
Speaker 1: a consensus. Maybe that's something that just reached out internationally.
Speaker 1: I guess. I mean, I can talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about kind of like what decentralization meant in Hong Kong
Speaker 1: and the wider context of like the political culture there,
Speaker 1: because like I was saying, like the protests in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen were really singular in the sunset like um, it
Speaker 1: was like a really big cultural shift from previous political
Speaker 1: events in Hong Kong. So like occupied, the Occupied Central
Speaker 1: Movement inteen that morphed into the Umbrella movement UM was
Speaker 1: this kind of like Sunday nine day occupation of like
Speaker 1: different parts of the city. But like most notably the
Speaker 1: central banking areas. And it was it was like very
Speaker 1: much led by student protests groups, you know, like Joshua
Speaker 1: Wong and all the all the other people that you
Speaker 1: would have heard of, um. And then also these kind
Speaker 1: of like old guard political parties, and they were the
Speaker 1: ones kind of literally on a stage kind of like issuing, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what we should all do. But we've we've
Speaker 1: come to our analysis and these are the best decisions.
Speaker 1: And you know, the the Umbrella Movement was, you know,
Speaker 1: from one perspective, from from just kind of the pragmatic
Speaker 1: perspective of like achieving its goals. Like it just a
Speaker 1: complete failure, right. It was just seventy nine days occupation
Speaker 1: and they were just like swept away by the police.
Speaker 1: And but you know, I think that the consciousness of
Speaker 1: what happened, which was just like we're gonna sit here
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna have leaders tell us what to do.
Speaker 1: I think that really kind of affected people when the
Speaker 1: Umbrella Movement collapsed. And you know, in in that five
Speaker 1: years afterwards, as the CCP was kind of like ramping
Speaker 1: up its repression. UM, that's what was kind of like
Speaker 1: the light switch for people was like, we can't replicate
Speaker 1: this kind of like follow the leaders style thing anymore. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know the movements before that too was like
Speaker 1: the occupied There was an occupied Central in twelve as well,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously to coincide with Global occupy. That was
Speaker 1: also this kind of like we're all just going to
Speaker 1: camp out here at the plaza beneath hsp SEE headquarters,
Speaker 1: and um, there was there was kind of like the
Speaker 1: Occupy Wall Street type of like trying to build consensus
Speaker 1: and decision making there. Um. But I think it was
Speaker 1: so it was like so hemmed in based on the
Speaker 1: act of occupation. Um. That that's why you know, people
Speaker 1: also learned from that that just you know, camping out
Speaker 1: is not really going to do anything in the Hong
Speaker 1: Kong context. Um. And then that's where all this kind
Speaker 1: of like decentralization be water and the fluidity and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. That's where that sprang out of. So so
Speaker 1: I guess if I'm understanding this right, the demands kind
Speaker 1: of had been like floating around and then you have
Speaker 1: the sort of political conscious as you have all of
Speaker 1: this stuff anger crystallizing. And then is it accurate to
Speaker 1: say that when Marcael young fell from the building, like
Speaker 1: holding the signs like that. That's how it's sort of
Speaker 1: like became officialized, like the sort of the rage around
Speaker 1: that like crystallize it into a thing. They were issued.
Speaker 1: I mean, the demands like existed before that, but I
Speaker 1: think the when Marco died, that's when like that gave
Speaker 1: a lot of people who were either kind of like um,
Speaker 1: either apathetic or they like didn't really agree or you know,
Speaker 1: they saw no way to like kind of participate in
Speaker 1: what became just kind of like it was just like
Speaker 1: every you know, eventually everyone had an avenue into this,
Speaker 1: into the movement. UM. I think that's what crystallized that, right,
Speaker 1: and it made the demands accessible to everyone. So I
Speaker 1: guess I guess the question is just like where did
Speaker 1: they come from? Like who actually like rope them? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that would have taken place on the on
Speaker 1: l I h KG right, And as far as I know,
Speaker 1: no one, there's no like authorship or ownership over them. UM.
Speaker 1: People are anonymous on that forum, right, So in that way,
Speaker 1: it's like somewhat like four Chad like UM. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there was definitely voting on all h KG
Speaker 1: UM and I would assume at some point that happened
Speaker 1: to bring the five demands together. So there's another thing
Speaker 1: I think that that watching it from the outside was
Speaker 1: really interesting about the protest that like very much did
Speaker 1: that does not happen in the US. Which was the
Speaker 1: way that the sort of more militant factions who are
Speaker 1: willing to fight the police for like main developed and
Speaker 1: maintained like a working relationship with the not the very
Speaker 1: nonviolent factions. And it might understanding it was to sort
Speaker 1: of solidifies after the storm of the Legislative Council. Um,
Speaker 1: could you talk about that a bit more and like
Speaker 1: is that actually like is that what happened? And how
Speaker 1: how did that actually happen? Because that seems like a
Speaker 1: very important moment. It just hasn't happened in the US. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's I mean, the way that that happened,
Speaker 1: I think was just so um like there were so
Speaker 1: many factors, um, that enabled that to happen. Because yeah,
Speaker 1: for the longest time, like in those previous movements, especially
Speaker 1: the Umbrella um, the Umbrella movement, and then in SI
Speaker 1: there was something called the Fishball riots, which was like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, police were police and government officials were trying
Speaker 1: to like clear out street vendors because of like licensing
Speaker 1: issues or whatever. And then you know, just a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of kind of like radical folks. They're kind of
Speaker 1: like independence leaning uh folks, politicians and stuff. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of flat back on that, and it became violent.
Speaker 1: And you know, that was that was when the one
Speaker 1: of the protest luminaries, Edward Luang was was he came
Speaker 1: up with that that that kind of slogan, the free
Speaker 1: Hong Kong Revolution of our time slogan. That's when he
Speaker 1: was in prison and after that the fish Ball riots.
Speaker 1: But um, so there had been this kind of like
Speaker 1: push and pull or like tension between the moderates and
Speaker 1: the um violent militant factions for quite some time. And
Speaker 1: so I think a lot of people saw the Umbrella
Speaker 1: movement and it's it's kind of non success as being
Speaker 1: attributed to the moderates, right, and so there was I
Speaker 1: think there was a general mood that things had to change. Um.
Speaker 1: But then I think the fact that I would say
Speaker 1: again the overarching thing that enabled people to come together
Speaker 1: was this kind of everything has to be against like
Speaker 1: we we had to put everything we have against the CCP. Right, So, um,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of kind of like power struggle
Speaker 1: and like um divisiveness uh during the Umbrella movement of
Speaker 1: people trying to like um, have their view you know,
Speaker 1: their political analysis or their strategies and tactics take precedence,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people saw that as just kind
Speaker 1: of like pointless squabbling or like divisiveness that the government
Speaker 1: was able to use to like um, you know, defeat
Speaker 1: the movement. Right. So I think all those things informed
Speaker 1: what was having there. And then there were two kind
Speaker 1: of like overriding philosophies in the movement. So one was
Speaker 1: like the idea of like having no big stage, that's
Speaker 1: what it was called, and so that was like not
Speaker 1: taking any uh, not having protest leaders, not having people
Speaker 1: make the decisions up top. And the second thing was
Speaker 1: this idiom like called brothers climbing the mountain um, which
Speaker 1: basically means like we're all climbing the same mountain of
Speaker 1: trying to defeat the CCP. It doesn't matter how we're
Speaker 1: doing it. So there was this really kind of like, uh,
Speaker 1: the question of method uh and means was really kind
Speaker 1: of put into the backseat. It was all just kind
Speaker 1: of about the end goal UM. And you know, there
Speaker 1: was that kind of related idiom of like not cutting Matt,
Speaker 1: which means like even if you have different and those
Speaker 1: with folks in terms of like how you choose to
Speaker 1: go about contributing to the movement, uh, you never severed
Speaker 1: ties with people over this, and so those are the
Speaker 1: two kind of overwriting philosophies in the movement. And I
Speaker 1: think it was definitely very helpful in in keeping this
Speaker 1: kind of like movement unity, but it definitely had its
Speaker 1: drawbacks eventually in terms of like decentralization. I can talk
Speaker 1: more about that later or I can talk about it now.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, no, sorry, I was yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I would like that. So, you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of decentralization, I think it was it was just kind
Speaker 1: of like in the right place at the right time
Speaker 1: for for Hong Kongers. I think, you know, they were
Speaker 1: very fed up with with all the ways that things
Speaker 1: had gone before, and so a lot of people were
Speaker 1: more open to trying this out. And I think the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, there was a lot of fear
Speaker 1: around surveillance UM and and whatnot at the time in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, and obviously it's gotten much worse, but you know,
Speaker 1: so everyone there was never really the kind of that
Speaker 1: overriding fear in the umbrella movement or the occupy movements
Speaker 1: of like having to stay anonymous or whatever, Whereas here,
Speaker 1: I guess the fact that it just went hand in
Speaker 1: hand with UM taking more militant actions that a lot
Speaker 1: of people kind of. I think the really interesting part
Speaker 1: is is so much of the what happened in decentralized
Speaker 1: decentralizing UM, you know, the political culture in Hong Kong
Speaker 1: was that it adopted a lot of leftist tactics UM
Speaker 1: you know, obviously like black block and stuff without you know,
Speaker 1: I think the word leftism or leftist in Hong Kong
Speaker 1: is like it's like you don't touch it, right because
Speaker 1: it's there's no way to dissociate it from from the
Speaker 1: CCP and Hong Kong's minds, which is it's very topsy turvy, right,
Speaker 1: because there's nothing leftist about the CCP as it stands
Speaker 1: right now. But it's it's very hard to convince folks
Speaker 1: there of that. And so it's very interesting the way
Speaker 1: that people were able to adopt like the tactic and
Speaker 1: strategies without any of the ideological underpinnings to it. UM.
Speaker 1: And so you know, the no big stage and the
Speaker 1: brothers Climbing Mountain um. That eventually became a way to
Speaker 1: shut down dissent, right because any time people wanted to
Speaker 1: have like principal debate, principled debate or two talk strategy
Speaker 1: or to question the way things were going, then that
Speaker 1: you know, that philosophy would be kind of trotted out
Speaker 1: and you would be you could be accused of like
Speaker 1: undermining movement unity and whatnot. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: people were so fearful of either being accused of that
Speaker 1: or of or or of causing that, right, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't think anyone wanted the movement to fragment, right, but um,
Speaker 1: people were so averse to doing that, that those two
Speaker 1: philosophies really became a way to silence UM any other
Speaker 1: thing other than what is dominant in the movement. And
Speaker 1: that eventually became you know, the exclusionary, xenophobic like pro
Speaker 1: Trump thing, you know, in the tail end of after
Speaker 1: COVID and a lot of stuff. So that's how I
Speaker 1: see it going down. Yeah, yeah, and it is this, UM,
Speaker 1: I think there's this problem. You saw versions of it
Speaker 1: in Ukraine too, where As the as a movement kind
Speaker 1: of predicated on confronting the government goes on and as
Speaker 1: the clashes get more violent, kind of the right wing
Speaker 1: UM picks up influence because those kind of folks tend
Speaker 1: to be more prepared for the for the fighting. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I mean there's never been any kind of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there there's no kind of conclusiveness about
Speaker 1: the ideology of the front liners, like the more militant
Speaker 1: folks UM, but I think there's there's kind of a
Speaker 1: general sense that a lot of the front liners were
Speaker 1: UM a little bit more if not right wing, then
Speaker 1: they were more sympathetic to the to that right because
Speaker 1: if they were fired up enough to like, you know,
Speaker 1: do that kind of street fighting, then likely their their
Speaker 1: view of China is like, you know, along the more
Speaker 1: kind of xenophobic and uh nativist wavelength. One of the
Speaker 1: struggles I think is that um, you know, for the
Speaker 1: kind of for the goals as they were kind of
Speaker 1: hallucidated of the Hong Kong movement, that could have worked,
Speaker 1: but it also like you know that that would have
Speaker 1: eventually provided a problem when it came to the whole
Speaker 1: figuring out what to do next? Thing? Right, Like, there's
Speaker 1: only there's there's kind of a limited extent to which
Speaker 1: those tendencies can potentially coexist. Um, And it is one
Speaker 1: of those things you have to think about, like if
Speaker 1: you happen to get a broad movement, you know what.
Speaker 1: Like again looking at Ukraine, Um, there there's been this
Speaker 1: kind of very awkward compromise with the far right, which
Speaker 1: is a minority party, but like that compromise has led
Speaker 1: to some very ugly things happening over there, including like
Speaker 1: the arming of a kind of a militant neo Nazi movement,
Speaker 1: which is like yeah, and I don't know, like when
Speaker 1: you're there in the moment and you're just trying to
Speaker 1: deal with the state, Um, I don't know how you
Speaker 1: entirely avoid that, right because you need frontliners and if
Speaker 1: some of those folks believe fucked up ship but they're
Speaker 1: going up against the cops, like, what are you going
Speaker 1: to do? Exactly? And I mean, I guess it's I
Speaker 1: don't think it's any small coincidence that you know, those
Speaker 1: those kind of like fascist Ukrainian people showed up at
Speaker 1: the Hong Kong protests, right, Um, And you know, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the front liners who like took
Speaker 1: photos with them and stuff, had no idea who the
Speaker 1: hell they were, right, They're just like hey, Like I
Speaker 1: think that the overriding sentiment was like anyone who's who's
Speaker 1: going to like show us support? Is that's good for
Speaker 1: us because we want this a global visibility to put
Speaker 1: pressure on China. That was just how basic it was
Speaker 1: and very understandable. And you know, so obviously those images
Speaker 1: were trotted out all over uh you know, Twitter and
Speaker 1: stuff to show Okay, well Hong kongers or fascist and
Speaker 1: and whatnot. But yeah, I think it's it's much more complex,
Speaker 1: Like you were saying, it's just like when when you're there,
Speaker 1: what do you do. It's like, you're not gonna stop
Speaker 1: front liners while they're fighting the cops to like have
Speaker 1: principal debate, right, And at some point it's just like,
Speaker 1: when is that going to happen? And I think the
Speaker 1: l I h KG as a as an internet forum,
Speaker 1: I think, um, in some ways it could make that
Speaker 1: very possible, but in other ways, I think it makes
Speaker 1: it much more difficult, right, because you're you're having these
Speaker 1: discussions with anonymous people who don't you know, Obviously, if
Speaker 1: you're anonymous on a forum, it it kind of like
Speaker 1: gets rid of so many uh boundaries of like accountability
Speaker 1: and um, how you would treat each other with respect
Speaker 1: in a debate about your shared goals and of right. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think decentralization was very important to Hong
Speaker 1: Kong in that moment. But I think the right wing folks,
Speaker 1: you know, who are a very small minority, I think
Speaker 1: they were able to instrumentalize those two philosophies very well
Speaker 1: and manipulated very well to like position themselves as like
Speaker 1: the true inheritors of the movement by you know, forcing
Speaker 1: through this idea that they were the ones that were
Speaker 1: protecting these kind of like secret principles of like unity
Speaker 1: movement unity and no splitting and and all that stuff, right.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think what I've heard from from
Speaker 1: leftist folks over there is that, you know, obviously the
Speaker 1: left is very marginalized in Hong Kong, but what I've
Speaker 1: heard from leftist folks is that just like no one
Speaker 1: had the means, either the means or the heart to
Speaker 1: fight back against that, because I think the conditions just
Speaker 1: weren't right. You know, the people were living in such
Speaker 1: like everyone felt like they were steeped in this daily
Speaker 1: kind of like extremity, that everything was just like crisis mode. UM,
Speaker 1: and to ask people to slow down or to like
Speaker 1: take non extreme measures became extremely difficult. UM. And I
Speaker 1: can totally understand that. Yeah, I mean that's something UM.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's something we've seen in Portland to just
Speaker 1: this UM. Not with the right wing so much, because
Speaker 1: there's obviously has never been really any collaboration between right
Speaker 1: and left in the but but with this kind of UM.
Speaker 1: If what you're suggesting isn't more extreme than what's been
Speaker 1: done before, UM, then why would we listen to it?
Speaker 1: You know, this UM, which is I think a product
Speaker 1: of trauma as much as anything else. And I don't
Speaker 1: know like that I think is one of the things
Speaker 1: you have to solve if you're actually going to like win, UM,
Speaker 1: which obviously you know, winning is a separate matter altogether,
Speaker 1: like we've got. I think there's a lot of lessons
Speaker 1: in what happened in Hong Kong, UM. And one of
Speaker 1: those lessons is that it's pretty easy for the state
Speaker 1: to win. Yeah. And I forgot to mention this before
Speaker 1: we were talking about the five demands. But I guess,
Speaker 1: just just to jump back really quickly, I mean, there
Speaker 1: was that there was a sixth demand, right, and um,
Speaker 1: you know that that cropped up around October two one,
Speaker 1: like a cop shot a teenager with the live round
Speaker 1: and you know, the cropped up for obvious reasons because
Speaker 1: of that um in in protest chance all over the place.
Speaker 1: But that never crystallized into like a quote unquote official thing,
Speaker 1: right because I think there was still that kind of
Speaker 1: barrier to the idea of police abolish and uh for
Speaker 1: a lot of folks, I guess, and because it's the
Speaker 1: it's the first time, you know, this is the only
Speaker 1: or I guess this is the time in Hong Kong
Speaker 1: where the most people have had the most anti police
Speaker 1: sentiment in its history. Right Yeah, Um, like people kind
Speaker 1: of like disapprove of, you know, how the police conducted
Speaker 1: themselves or whatever during the protests. So, um, it's I
Speaker 1: think it's a start. I think it's a good place
Speaker 1: for to like plant the seeds of abolition. But I
Speaker 1: think that that kind of shows the dynamics of like
Speaker 1: what became official and then what became what couldn't become
Speaker 1: official in terms of those demands. Um, and I you know,
Speaker 1: because I'm I'm assuming on l I h KG. It's
Speaker 1: like a closed forum, so you can't you can't join
Speaker 1: and discuss if you don't have like a university address
Speaker 1: or whatever. So that's why I wasn't on there Hong
Speaker 1: Kong University address. Um. There was tons of debate there
Speaker 1: about you know, this idea of police abolition, but I
Speaker 1: think it eventually. Also, this is kind of a similar
Speaker 1: thing between the abolished the police or defund the police
Speaker 1: debate here, which is like a lot of people saw
Speaker 1: the sixth demand as reform, like we should just like
Speaker 1: fire every single cop and then rehire like the entire force, right,
Speaker 1: and they thought we just need to clean house. That's
Speaker 1: like the bad Apples thing, right, And then other people
Speaker 1: saw that as more like we need to actually confront
Speaker 1: the practice of policing, practice and concept of policing. So, um,
Speaker 1: I guess because there was that divisiveness over what abolition means,
Speaker 1: abolition or reform, then yeah, that's why it never took
Speaker 1: root as something official. I guess. There is one thing,
Speaker 1: which is that you know, we saw some of this
Speaker 1: like spread to the US. But the way that I
Speaker 1: guess could you talk a bit about how this sort
Speaker 1: of like the how the like street fighting tactics spread
Speaker 1: because I know, I mean but both both how they
Speaker 1: developed inside the movement then, you know, because after that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember there are these protests Indonesia in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, and like those people were also you know,
Speaker 1: they were doing the like water stuff and that formulas
Speaker 1: or to spread really quickly. But I'm exciting and I
Speaker 1: know also that like there there I saw some of
Speaker 1: these like they had these like really detailed infographics on
Speaker 1: like like you know, this is this is how you
Speaker 1: form people on a line. This is everyone's roles, is
Speaker 1: what equipment you need? So how did that stuff like
Speaker 1: appear And was it just spreading a telegram or yeah?
Speaker 1: I think, um, And I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: ways I guess this kind of connects actually to the
Speaker 1: very first question was, which is like how do we
Speaker 1: confront or like try and deal with this the campus,
Speaker 1: which is like one of the ways we tried to
Speaker 1: approach it through lou Song was just kind of like
Speaker 1: this exchange of tactics actually is something that we can
Speaker 1: share transnationally. Um, because obviously states are collaborating in terms
Speaker 1: of exchanging strategies and weapons and ammunitions and a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. So we should be kind of collaborating in
Speaker 1: the same way. And I think that's something that Hong
Speaker 1: Kong had to offer the world, um, in terms of
Speaker 1: how that actually happened. Um, it's kind of interesting, right
Speaker 1: because I was saying earlier how I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of the protesters adopted black block without adopting any
Speaker 1: of the ideology. Um. And then maybe it was I
Speaker 1: think that's seeing that similarity for a lot of folks online,
Speaker 1: Like I think it was, it was all like viral videos, right, Um,
Speaker 1: that people would just encounter on their timelines without any
Speaker 1: real context of like what the hell was happening in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong. Uh. You know, seeing seeing like clearly young
Speaker 1: young kids like putting out tear gas canisters with pylons
Speaker 1: and water and stuff is just like that's something immediately
Speaker 1: that you learned within thirty seconds that you don't have
Speaker 1: to like I don't agree with their aims or I
Speaker 1: don't agree with any of that. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: using the umbrellas to block out security cameras and and
Speaker 1: all that, and and tear gas and stuff is just
Speaker 1: like these things are so portable visually, and like we
Speaker 1: were saying before in terms of infographics, where there's drawbacks
Speaker 1: to that, I think it's like the thirty second clip
Speaker 1: on like TikTok or or Twitter or whatever happens to be.
Speaker 1: It's like that is the flip side of how social
Speaker 1: media is actually fucking amazing, right, because it's just like
Speaker 1: you're getting this instant kind of political education and also
Speaker 1: like street fighting education. Um, just like that and without
Speaker 1: without actually seeking it out, right, because I think that's
Speaker 1: the key part. Um. People who might be predisposed to
Speaker 1: being against what Hong Kong is trying to do or
Speaker 1: what they stand for, and that type of thing, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Falselier or otherwise, UM might just that that
Speaker 1: might just like be retweeted onto their timeline. And I
Speaker 1: think that's that's the kind of beautiful thing about Twitter
Speaker 1: that I really love. UM. And I'm pretty sure that's
Speaker 1: how it spread. I don't you know. Laosan tried to
Speaker 1: put on these these formal exchanges where we would talk
Speaker 1: more about that, UM, but I'm pretty sure that at
Speaker 1: all it was mostly all just viral. Yeah. Yeah, even
Speaker 1: mainstream media was picking up stuff up and show sharing
Speaker 1: those videos because they want the clicks and they want them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they're really hitting on something there with the
Speaker 1: spread of visual information, because that's that's something we definitely
Speaker 1: saw last year in the States is a lot of
Speaker 1: people who were newer to protesting picking up on the
Speaker 1: visual cues that they saw from Hong Kong coverage and
Speaker 1: trying to replicate it um And for a lot of
Speaker 1: the time it didn't actually work out that well. Like
Speaker 1: like remember like the first few weeks in Portland, we
Speaker 1: would see people like carrying around pylons but not knowing
Speaker 1: no what, not really knowing what to do with them,
Speaker 1: just because they saw people do this before online. And
Speaker 1: then after a while we started to see them slowly
Speaker 1: figure out how to actually extinguish tear gas canisters loafing
Speaker 1: with like leafblowers and stuff. We see it like they
Speaker 1: first used the rhetoric, they first used kind of the aesthetics,
Speaker 1: and then slowly they learned the actual practical skills um.
Speaker 1: Because you can't just learn something by watching, you have
Speaker 1: to also kind of do it. I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: it's trickier. You sometimes can, but you generally kind of
Speaker 1: have to practice skill as well. We saw that a
Speaker 1: lot and one thing that people never really learned how
Speaker 1: to do well, but they kept the rhetoric of it
Speaker 1: is the whole like b water thing. That's something that
Speaker 1: no one really figured out, at least here in Portland.
Speaker 1: It was like it would get chanted a lot, people
Speaker 1: would say it, but like it didn't actually do You
Speaker 1: weren't actually doing anything. Um. And I think that it's
Speaker 1: kind of like that. It's kind of the flip side
Speaker 1: of having something so reliant on like info graphics and
Speaker 1: just like viral footage, is that you'll think you're prepared
Speaker 1: for something because you've seen it, and then when you're
Speaker 1: actually doing the thing, you're like, oh, this is actually
Speaker 1: a very different than sitting in my bed scrolling through Twitter.
Speaker 1: Of this is like it's a whole it's a whole
Speaker 1: different thing. Um. But still it's it's still like incredibly useful.
Speaker 1: Right to have to have that base knowledge in the
Speaker 1: first place, is it's very useful, but you have to remember,
Speaker 1: like you you can't just think that you can watch
Speaker 1: it and then go do it immediately. And I was wondering,
Speaker 1: like from from your perspective, when you saw stuff happening
Speaker 1: in the States last year, and we saw a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, like a lot of like aesthetic mirrors
Speaker 1: of the Hong Kong protests. Were there anything, Was there
Speaker 1: anything that you think people really succeeded in or was
Speaker 1: there stuff that you think people kind of tried to
Speaker 1: replicate but kind of failed at. I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: really good point, and I think that kind of gets
Speaker 1: to what Chris was asking as well, in terms of
Speaker 1: just like I feel like there had to be also
Speaker 1: the strategic exchange to match the visual exchange in terms
Speaker 1: of just like actually knowing how to get into formation
Speaker 1: because it's just like, um, yeah, like the with the
Speaker 1: putting up the tear gas, with the pylons, it's just
Speaker 1: like you actually had to have like three or four
Speaker 1: dedicated people, like one person to hold a pilot, one
Speaker 1: person to have the water, one person to like you know,
Speaker 1: all these different things that really do need to be coordinated,
Speaker 1: and then also, like you said, practiced before you get
Speaker 1: it right, and um, I don't know. I mean there
Speaker 1: I think just so many of the tactics, like you know,
Speaker 1: stopping tear gas with umbrellas is not super effective, right,
Speaker 1: because it's just like First of all, the rounds are
Speaker 1: extremely you know, they move very fast and they're very hot.
Speaker 1: And then there it's also not going to actually shield
Speaker 1: very much from you, right. So, um, I think visually
Speaker 1: it was very striking and it it's very helpful in
Speaker 1: terms of surveillance. Um. But that was something that happened
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong and also happened over here that I
Speaker 1: saw that I was just like, um, that's not super useful. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think I have been encouraging people to to
Speaker 1: bring those out more still, umbrellas and stuff, because I've
Speaker 1: heard in Toronto at least that the cops are like
Speaker 1: using surveillance drones. Yeah, umbrellas are great against cameras, and
Speaker 1: they do have a lot of advantages compared to hard
Speaker 1: shields in a lot of situations, but of course when
Speaker 1: you're facing like heavy munition fire, then they're they're not
Speaker 1: as useful. Yeah. And I saw, you know, like I
Speaker 1: saw a lot of inventiveness with the heavier shields in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong in terms of like using plastic barricades. But
Speaker 1: then you know that was that that's not super portable, right,
Speaker 1: So then I saw a lot of people making them
Speaker 1: out of like those floating you know, those things that
Speaker 1: helps you float and swim because they're super light, but
Speaker 1: then they also reflect chair gats very well, the canisters. So, um,
Speaker 1: I didn't see so much of that in the US.
Speaker 1: I saw people use more like big wooden boards and
Speaker 1: like you know, uh street signs and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and um so that was maybe that's just a difference
Speaker 1: in terms of like what material is available to you
Speaker 1: and stuff. But um, I think the emphasis on mobility
Speaker 1: was a lot more in Hong Kong rather than the US,
Speaker 1: where it was just like the actual emphasis was on
Speaker 1: luring police to a location and then being able to
Speaker 1: quickly run away so that they're stretched so thin, right,
Speaker 1: Like that was that was a water touch. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that the States did not do that at all. You know, well,
Speaker 1: I I would say, like, okay, I don't think the
Speaker 1: people who like said be water did that at all.
Speaker 1: But like I remember, like in the beginning in Chicago,
Speaker 1: before anyone was coordinating anything, it was just a bunch
Speaker 1: of people running around like that actually did happen, Like
Speaker 1: like that was, yeah, the police like in Chicago collapse
Speaker 1: and the reason they collapse was that there's like you know,
Speaker 1: there's just six hundred people just on every street corner.
Speaker 1: There were absolutely fu cities where that did happen, and um,
Speaker 1: but generally from my experience of at least on parts
Speaker 1: of the West Coast, there was a lot of a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot of chanting about the water while you stand
Speaker 1: in front of a police station for six hours. And
Speaker 1: there were definitely actions where people did that, you know,
Speaker 1: and would would go and and and you know, get
Speaker 1: away with some mischief because they were willing to move
Speaker 1: quickly and not stick around. But yeah, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of chanting be water while repeatedly heading back to
Speaker 1: the same police station. Um. You know, I wonder about that,
Speaker 1: like because because it seems like once this it seemed
Speaker 1: like like once you were in because at the very
Speaker 1: early stages in the US, like my impression of it was,
Speaker 1: it was just like it caught everyone off guard and
Speaker 1: it was just a bunch of rent and people and
Speaker 1: it's like they seemed so just like do it. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe just by the fact that they were very coordinated
Speaker 1: and so it was it was just centralized, just sort
Speaker 1: of just by the nature of the fact that it
Speaker 1: was just a bunch of red and people. But then
Speaker 1: when you started getting these sort of like you had.
Speaker 1: We had another phase in Chicago that was it was
Speaker 1: like it worked really well, but it was there's there's
Speaker 1: like a bunch of anti statute protests and it was
Speaker 1: like the anti statue people would they were just like
Speaker 1: surround like a statue and they would just throw things
Speaker 1: at it. And that was very much more similar to Portland.
Speaker 1: I guess, so I don't know. Part of me is
Speaker 1: wondering whether it was like there's something about the organizational
Speaker 1: structure that in the States where that were people that
Speaker 1: that like heavily favors getting a bunch of people to
Speaker 1: go to one place and sitting there in a way
Speaker 1: that didn't happen in Hong Kong. I think it was
Speaker 1: that you there was a certain point in the protests
Speaker 1: in a number of US cities where you still had
Speaker 1: intense interest in people being out in the streets, but
Speaker 1: you hadn't had Number One, there wasn't necessarily a concerted,
Speaker 1: agreed upon list of demands, but also there wasn't a
Speaker 1: clear understanding of how to achieve them, Like you know,
Speaker 1: in Portland, there was a point where the hardcore folks,
Speaker 1: the folks showing up every night pretty much we're all
Speaker 1: in agreement that like, yeah, we don't want any more cops.
Speaker 1: But there was also not a white agreement. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: how do we what's the path to that? Is? It?
Speaker 1: Is it showing up and trying to make their lives
Speaker 1: miserable every night? Like? Is it? There was kind of
Speaker 1: a there was a there was a point at which
Speaker 1: their motivation to be on the streets was there, but
Speaker 1: the understanding of like how to achieve the goals was not,
Speaker 1: and so folks were, um. You would see kind of
Speaker 1: the same thing being done a few times without without
Speaker 1: it necessarily making making progress, and eventually, you know, people
Speaker 1: didn't move on. But it was this this thing of like,
Speaker 1: I think what you need if you're going to actually
Speaker 1: forced through significant changes is um a continually evolving understanding
Speaker 1: of your goals and methods UM. And that's it's a
Speaker 1: really hard like I'm saying, this is what's necessary, I
Speaker 1: have no idea how to do that when you've got
Speaker 1: this very decentralized, large group of people out in the streets,
Speaker 1: you don't have you know, leaders or a central organization.
Speaker 1: In fact, having those things is going to endanger people
Speaker 1: in the movement because that stuff always gets infiltrated, you know,
Speaker 1: or or winds up to be in some other way problematic.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of I'm acknowledging this as a problem,
Speaker 1: and I don't want that to be like I'm pointing
Speaker 1: at like activists in Portland or activists and wherever and saying,
Speaker 1: you dummies didn't figure that. No one's figured it out.
Speaker 1: We don't know like nobody knows how to do this
Speaker 1: yet because it hasn't been done. Um, but that's clearly
Speaker 1: where I think you can see. That's where the problem
Speaker 1: is is that you you get these situations where there's motivation,
Speaker 1: people are willing to be out in the streets, but
Speaker 1: there's also not outside of being angry and in the streets,
Speaker 1: there's not necessarily clear understanding of like, well, how okay,
Speaker 1: how do we what what are we trying to achieve specifically?
Speaker 1: And how were we achieving it? Like how are we
Speaker 1: furthering that Golden Night? Yeah? Well I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: I mean, because eventually, you know, street fighting I don't
Speaker 1: not really like lost its luster, but people were just
Speaker 1: kind of like what is this doing in Hong Kong
Speaker 1: as well, And um, it's you know, eventually it stopped
Speaker 1: because all the all the kids were doing it were
Speaker 1: like traumatized or bodily you know, exhaustion or mental exhaustion
Speaker 1: and all those different things where they were all arrested. Right,
Speaker 1: so you know, there's it just kind of petered out
Speaker 1: like that. And I think the problem was that, you know,
Speaker 1: it was very anti CCP for for most of it,
Speaker 1: but then I think eventually it became just so anti
Speaker 1: police that um it. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: kind of eventually lost sight of what yeah, like you're
Speaker 1: saying the goal was, or what what's the best way
Speaker 1: to achieve what we want? And if it was just
Speaker 1: continually attacking the police on the street, then it wasn't
Speaker 1: going to accomplish that what I mean, No, no, no, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And I don't want any of this to come as
Speaker 1: like criticisms. It's more just like a well this, this
Speaker 1: didn't do it, you know, like they're still cops, right,
Speaker 1: like if that's if that is the goal and for
Speaker 1: some people, right for the broader tens of millions of
Speaker 1: Americans in the streets, there was never that kind of
Speaker 1: a consensus. It was much more muddled, but the dedicated activists,
Speaker 1: there was a consensus, but it also didn't it ain't
Speaker 1: done yet, So I think there is like there's a
Speaker 1: continuing question everybody needs to be asking themselves, just like, well,
Speaker 1: how do we get from A to B, you know,
Speaker 1: um or A to Z as the case maybe? Is
Speaker 1: there is there any uma places that people can go
Speaker 1: to learn more about this type of stuff online or
Speaker 1: any any like resources that you you would like to share. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, uh, you know, plug loss on
Speaker 1: in terms of our website, you can go to las
Speaker 1: h K and then all of our social media stuff
Speaker 1: like that. UM, I don't know. Yeah, if folks are
Speaker 1: more interested in We're trying to put together a uh
Speaker 1: kind of non status anti militarist coalition soon UM, and
Speaker 1: our first event is going to be hopefully in a
Speaker 1: month or so UM to try and provide some solutions
Speaker 1: to um what we see as kind of like anti
Speaker 1: war activism that is, like it's just about kind of
Speaker 1: marching from from A to B and then holding PSL
Speaker 1: signs and answer coalition signs and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: I guess I'll just pre plug that for now and
Speaker 1: keep an eye on that. Great. Yeah, and thank you
Speaker 1: so much, for coming on and talking with us. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you, Yeah, thanks for the invite. Happy to be
Speaker 1: this has been it could happen here talking about a
Speaker 1: place where it did in fact happen and then yeah
Speaker 1: it did, it didn't happen enough. Yeah, and it didn't
Speaker 1: happen enough here either, And a lot of questions in common,
Speaker 1: Like I hope nobody thinks when we say, like we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about how to you know, potentially come
Speaker 1: to agreements about a list of demands and even general
Speaker 1: strike that we're saying like here's the solution to this.
Speaker 1: Um I I've said a couple of times. I think
Speaker 1: the problem confronting as getting a mass movement to agree
Speaker 1: on a list of demands and then take mass concerted
Speaker 1: action to force them, like is a is a a
Speaker 1: cultural task, probably exceeding in difficulty the moon landing. Um
Speaker 1: So no, like we're not we're not coming here trying
Speaker 1: to say like here, but like here's what everyone needs
Speaker 1: to do. It's more of like, well, this is a
Speaker 1: question we all need to be asking ourselves, and I
Speaker 1: think our role in that is to be asking that
Speaker 1: question of some people who have spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time trying to practically ask that question another part of
Speaker 1: the world and learning what we can from that example,
Speaker 1: because we don't have a tremendous amount of time, so
Speaker 1: we should probably be studying. Yeah. You can find us
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Happened Here pod and cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: You can listen to other episodes of it Could Happen
Speaker 1: Here um five days a week, Monday through Friday on
Speaker 1: this feed and other podcasts. You know where to find
Speaker 1: them behind the Bastards source you're ever that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. We will We will be back
Speaker 1: in the next in the next day or after the weekend,
Speaker 1: whenever this airs allegedly. Allegedly it Could Happen Here is
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
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Speaker 1: find sources for It Could Happen Here updated a month
Speaker 1: Lee at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.