Posted on 06/27/2021 6:46:07 PM PDT by MtnClimber
For 26 years, the pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily was a thorn in Beijing’s side. This week, the paper closed for good. What its death means for Hong Kong — and for us all.
By my lights, the most important news event of this past week was not the New York mayoral primary (my condolences to Andrew Yang). It wasn’t Bitcoin dropping below $30,000. And it certainly wasn’t the new bipartisan infrastructure deal announced by President Biden.
It was the forced closure of Apple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong.
You may not have heard of Apple Daily. I knew of it, but only vaguely. It is — or rather, it was — Hong Kong’s version of the New York Post combined with William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator. A tabloid, yes. But also: a voice for freedom.
Ever since it began publishing in 1995, Apple Daily has been a thorn in the side of the Chinese Communist Party. Its commitment to democracy and freedom had everything to do with its founder, Jimmy Lai.
It’s not possible to do Lai’s whole story justice in a column — someone should make a blockbuster — but here is the cliffsnotes version: Lai fled mainland China at 12 years old as a stowaway on a fishing boat. He found a job in a Hong Kong sweatshop and eventually worked his way up in the garment trade (or, as we in the Jewish community call it, the shmata business.)
Along the way, he encountered fellow garment workers in New York who introduced him to free-market theorists like Frederick Hayek, Karl Popper and Milton Friedman, with whom he later developed a close relationship. “This is a guy who didn't have any formal schooling past the age of maybe eight,” Mark Simon, who has been Lai’s right hand for the past two decades, told me in an interview this week. “Those books started his real political awakening.”
By the ’80s, Lai had built out his retail empire in Hong Kong; his company, called Giordano after a New York pizza spot, became a wild success.
But becoming rich wasn’t what changed the course of Lai’s life. The massacre at Tiananmen Square did.
“That's when he went from his economic and intellectual awakening to his political awakening,” said Simon. “I don't want to be too crude, but [Lai] said, ‘I hated the bastards. I knew evil when I saw it. And they are evil.’”
Lai, a devout Catholic, shifted his focus from t-shirts to tabloids and began to build his media empire. The first edition of Apple Daily made its purpose plain: “We are convinced that Hongkongers who are accustomed to freedom will not stay silent in the face of unreasonable restrictions and unfair treatments, for Hongkongers are born with a passion for freedom.”
This communism is spreading like a pandemic!
Bari Weiss may still be a liberal, but she writes well and she offends many of the right people. Her letter of resignation from the New York Times was a classic.
I hope Substack pays her enough.
Bkmk
I suspect that Bari Weiss is an old school liberal, not a blinded idealogue.
bookmark
I think it’s a subscription basis. I thought the authors get the money themselves. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Coming soon to the US if BiZiden and his ‘Rats are not summarily extirpated.
Thanks,
I heard about it only
as ‘Apple’ closed.
.
To much goin on,,,
Gee, where are all the stories about this from our US corporate media?
Oh, I know!
Curious Why US News Networks Are Supportive of Chinese Government? Just Look at the Corporate Ownership
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3838407/posts
Remember when the ScamDEMic shut down the Hong Kong protests?
Like magic, they were gone, overnight.
🤔
I seriously never expected this article to be about China. I saw the headline and 100% thought it was us. Because it is.
Jane NO ONE will ever convince me that this was not released deliberately, China solved their problem in Hong Kong, AND got rid of Trump NO ONE will ever convince me that our government wasn’t involved, to these bastards the end justified the means!! They could care less about lives lost AND putting seniors back into nursing homes drove up their SCARE TACTIC death numbers!!
And, as an added “bonus” it....
.... attacked the most vulnerable, at first, helping to take care of that ‘aged population’ problem.
Scared half of the country out of their wits....so, they could shut down the economy....and, these scardies were perfectly fine with mail in ballots......which enabled the stolen election.
Gosh...so many *benefits* to these commies, everywhere.
It’s here already.
It’s not in my deep flyover ‘hood yet, but it is certainly in Rudy’s ‘Hood.
It wasn’t even only mail in ballots. It was put them in a box in the park.
Literally.
“It’s not in my deep flyover ‘hood yet, but it is certainly in Rudy’s ‘Hood.”
If someone in your neighborhood went to the Capitol building on Jan. 6 it’s there. They will hunt down your next door neighbor.
If anyone uses YouTube or Facebook or Twitter there, it’s there.
Yep. Easy peasy voting.
Just Posing on FR likely makes one a Yuge Target.
I do need to get a VPN up and running.
The ‘Rats are working on getting a functional final solution up and running.
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