The Chinese state continues to cauterize the idea of free will by strictly moderating or banishing independent media outlets to the fringe of the Gobi desert, as any dissent or criticism towards the Hong Kong debacle is erased from history, and revised to revere the leadership of the militantly Communist regime.
As former leader Deng Xiaoping facilitated sweeping reforms in the wake of Mao’s death in 1976, including the dubiously infamous “one country-two systems” dumpster fire of an attempt to maintain the lucrative free market attributes of Hong Kong, while infusing the ironclad brute ruling force of the central government, the disastrous model paved the superhighway of citizens to be denied basic rights and freedoms. It should be noted that the ineptitude, arrogance and cowardice of Margret Thatcher’s Parliament in basically marooning the population surrounded by a hostile wall of ideological extremism was a major factor for the unrelenting plight that Hongkongers endure today.
On Thursday, seven individuals individuals linked to the now defunct and pro-democracy electronic publication Stand News, were arrested and detained, and two were charged by local authorities for apparent seditious acts. The nightmarish totalitarian actions by the Beijing are the latest by the government in eradicating any contrary or editorial voice scrutinizing blatant nefarious policy and acts percolating from the empire’s capital city.
Hong Kong police released a statement hinting that the future would most likely be arduous for the two media members, who were officially charged with sedition, a thoughtcrime that carries a maximum sentence of two years behind bars (forced labor camp), and a monetary fine of $624. Under the former British colony’s national security laws, unleashed last year to give prosecutors more latitude in identifying and punishing protestors in granting egregious micro-control over residents, the former Stand News employees are at the mercy of a boundless and cruel governing body which rivals a eusocial entity with innovation limited to tactics of suppression and tyranny. The news organization officially shuttered its operations on Wednesday and the website has been reduced to a pitiful form letter of rhetoric, in the aftermath of government agents executing a tactical raid and seizure of equipment of the former company’s newsroom location.
Screenshot of the tattered remains of the Stand News website.
The radicalized methods of censorship preferred by Beijing in silencing and torturing counter-perspectives to the domineering and stifling politics of a governing body with an insatiable lust for power has brought severe sanctions from the West. However, a bureaucratic response to an ongoing crises of human rights violations is simply a ceremonial gesture with trillions of dollars on the line based on trade, manufacturing the steady flow of consumer goods being produced in sweat shops under the guise of “voluntary centers for free enterprise”. Add to the hazardous rapids of malaise, a concerted and coordinated effort to spread misinformation through social media and periodical domains by specialized operators of the People’s Liberation Army, and a full-scale assault of propaganda has saturated F***book and the Chinese-owned TickTok with insidious nuances of reeducation attached to the inane lust of smartphones and selfies.
With the disturbing disappearance of billionaire, publisher, and advocate for an independent Hong Kong Jack Ma, the disheartening precedent has been set that all media outlets within the financial autonomous zone are subject to raids taken directly from the training manual of the Mao’s Red Guards and the Little Red Book. As Hong Kong nearly abuts the Chinese mainland and is only separated by the razor thin girth of the Ping Yuen river, the metaphorical temperamental and brooding heat of the dragon’s breath is literally breathing down the next of each and every resident. While the hundreds of next-gen high definition facial recognition cameras keep tabs on disrupters or those who have fallen out of favor with the inner-party, the populace has shown a fierce magnitude of fortitude considering the stifling conditions on free speech.
Ma purchased the historical and reputable South China Morning News in 2016, and bravely fought against attempts of Beijing to gain control over the newspaper, before succumbing to the horrific Orwellian Chinese response to what is construed as treason in most-likely being vaporized, before being thrust into the propaganda mechanism as a “rehabilitated” and loyal subject to the organism that stripped him of his individuality and soul. Ironically, CNN tends to frame Chinese officials favorably, as the Ted Turner-founded incredulous rag of forwarding terrestrial sedition, gives government figureheads a platform to explain their side of the story, a counteractive force to pursuing liberties and an increased quality of life.
As the central government continues to stifle the flow of information from a series of indiscretions that make hell look like a quaint bed and breakfast, a token resistance emanates from North America, as the US faces its own information wars as extremism and the special interest lobby threaten the very fabric of the Constitution. The “wokest bunch of wokes who ever woked” are oblivious to the reality and the law of legislative physics that once a freedom is lost, it is impossible to restore. What should be a chilling tale and abject lesson of what can happen to once a bastion of Capitalism and unbridled entrepreneurship is instead buried under the false-pretense of “it can never happen year”, a dangerous oversight to the designs of American elitists attempting to morph society into an unrecognizable universal dystopia of gray.
