Yes, But Which Mainstream?

Which one is the mainstream?

Quite apart from the bare-faced nonsense it spouts about the CE election (see yesterday's post), the government's report on constitutional reform claims that mainstream opinion is that the functional constituencies in the Legislative Council should be retained (or more specifically, that the present composition of LegCo need not be changed).  This may be the mainstream opinion in Government House, but out here in the real world I don't know anyone who shares it except those who benefit from the undue influence the FCs give to a few selected groups.  Most people can't wait to see the back of these rotten boroughs and hopefully enjoy a more genuinely representative legislature - which would at least bring some balance to a system in which it has obviously been decided already from on high that we're not going to get a genuinely representative Chief Executive.

In yet another sign of how far Hong Kong politics has drifted from reality, ATV news tonight reports that "Beijing's mouthpiece newspaper the Global Times published an editorial today hailing Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's own report on political reform as 'more representative than any other voice in Hong Kong and the best definition of the SAR's current situation'".  So don't worry, Daddy knows best - but more representative of what exactly?

The Global Times article also claimed that mainstream opinion in Hong Kong had been "hijacked by extremists".  That must explain the 800,000 mainstream people I saw recently being dragged kicking and screaming into polling booths to vote in the Occupy Central civil referendum.  Not to mention the hundreds of thousands marching from Victoria Park to Tamar at gunpoint on 1st July.

[Note to humourless CCP minions - the previous paragraph is satire.  Don't quote it as fact.]