[liberationtech] What could we at Liberationtech do to help pro-democracy HK activists protest China's new security law?

[Yosem Companys]

Thank you, Hans. This is a constructive and productive direction for the
conversation thread to go. 





On Tue, May 26, 2020 3:41 PM, Klein, Hans K hans at gatech.edu  wrote:
Well, I would propose a softer version of the posting below. 

  

As currently practiced, liberation technology and its policy partner, democracy
promotion, build on an implicit and overly-simple model of democracy. It
involves catalyzing large public protests that destabilize governments. 

  

The model supposes that destabilization is followed by "democracy", but in fact
destabilization is more often followed by chaos, civil war, and foreign
intervention. 

  

Libya had a brief democratic moment, but now it has a civil war; so far the list
of interveners includes France, Italy, US, Turkey, and Russia. Syria had its
moment, but then came foreign intervention in the form of various radical
mercenaries backed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and even the US. Ukraine had its big
demonstrations, but the people in the Maidan were then given a government
hand-picked by foreign powers (See: BBC [
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 ], Consortium News [
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGq_Xvzn_3I ] .) In every case, the people (the
"demos") of the country came out as the loser. 

  

What is a more effective model of democracy promotion? I think it is one based
on organic growth in the society. Political development takes time; the clock
speed may be measured in human generations. The successful model requires
patient nurturing and no threatening or attacking. The terrible democracy
recession that we have seen in the last 10 years is in large part a reaction to
outsiders seeing democracy as an act of "liberation", i.e. as a rapid and
kinetic process that can deliver immediate results. 

  

In each case, we can ask what is worse: the problem or the cure? 

  Syria: Assad or the civil war 

  Libya: Ghaddafi or the civil war 

  Ukraine: Yanukovych or the civil war 

(You can pose the same question of Iraq and Afghanistan...) 

  

A useful question would be: given the learning that (hopefully) has taken place,
what could we at LiberationTech do to *effectively* promote democracy? 

  

Hans Klein 

School of Public Policy 

Georgia Tech 

  

  

  

-----Original Message----- 

From: LT [mailto:lt-bounces at lists.liberationtech.org] On Behalf Of grarpamp 

Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 6:32 AM 

To: lt at lists.liberationtech.org 

Subject: Re: [liberationtech] What could we at Liberationtech do to help
pro-democracy HK activists protest China's new security law? 

  

> What could we ... do to help pro-democracy ... activists ... 

> do things that have not been done in the past. 

  

Stop teaching them that they can somehow break free from whatever shithole
government they're under now by claiming democracy is some magical font of
freedom worth aspiring to. It's not, at all. It's just another form of same
slavery, force, murder, trickery, theft, war, false authority... 

Spread out, infused, diluted, harder to see and kill than their average
dictator, by design... a ruse, a ploy, a trap for confusing the sheeple. And it
worked. 

"B-ah-ah-ah" they all said, "oh please give us that" they begged, while
scrambling over each other in queues hundreds deep to cast discard their own
fates down some worthless memehole in a box... a final act of spiritual suicide
transformed into one of joy by the programming of the wolves that still rule
over all of them. 

  

Regarding "government", there is only one thing that hasn't been done in the
past. 

  

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