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