{"id":6528,"date":"2015-04-22T18:20:28","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T00:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/?p=6528"},"modified":"2015-04-22T18:30:49","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T00:30:49","slug":"a-distinction-without-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/2015\/04\/a-distinction-without-a-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"dystopian distinction without a difference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;Hong Kong&#8217;s pursuit of democracy has entered a crucial stage. After almost 18 months of heated debate, the long-awaited reform package for the chief executive election in 2017 was finally unveiled yesterday. The details, unsurprisingly, dovetail with <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">what Beijing had already decided<\/span> last August. Imperfect as it is, the proposal is still a step forward.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The outlook, though, remains gloomy at this stage, despite efforts <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">by the government<\/span> to make the contest more competitive. As many as 10 hopefuls <em>will be allowed to come forward for consideration by the future nominating committee<\/em> under a threshold lower than the existing one for the chief executive race. But <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">as mandated by Beijing,<\/span> <em>only two or three candidates who secure at least 50 per cent support from the committee at the second stage will advance to a popular vote<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Sounds pretty much like Colorado&#8217;s caucus system, but the Chinese call it communism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/MG_2221-copy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-6527\" src=\"http:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/MG_2221-copy.jpg\" alt=\"_MG_2221 copy\" width=\"635\" height=\"1768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/MG_2221-copy.jpg 1121w, https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/MG_2221-copy-108x300.jpg 108w, https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/MG_2221-copy-368x1024.jpg 368w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 635px) 100vw, 635px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Hong Kong&#8217;s pursuit of democracy has entered a crucial stage. After almost 18 months of heated debate, the long-awaited reform package for the chief executive election in 2017 was finally unveiled yesterday. The details, unsurprisingly, dovetail with what Beijing had already decided last August. Imperfect as it is, the proposal is still a step forward. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[146,94,169],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-caucus-system","7":"category-communism","8":"category-dystopia","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6528"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6533,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6528\/revisions\/6533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}