World won’t forget Tiananmen Square, US and Taiwan say on 36th anniversary of massacre - AOS for Lemmy.World - A generic Lemmy server for everyone to use.

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World won’t forget Tiananmen Square, US and Taiwan say on 36th anniversary of massacre

1y 18d ago by lemmy.world/u/MicroWave in world from www.theguardian.com

Date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, with government using increasingly sophisticated tools to censor its discussion

There is no official death toll but activists believe hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed by China’s People’s Liberation Army in the streets around Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s central plaza, on 4 June 1989.

The date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, and the Chinese government employs extensive and increasingly sophisticated resources to censor any discussion or acknowledgment of it inside China. Internet censors scrub even the most obscure references to the date from online spaces, and activists in China are often put under increased surveillance or sent on enforced “holidays” away from Beijing.

New research from human rights workers has found that the sensitive date also sees heightened transnational repression of Chinese government critics overseas by the government and its proxies.

As an American I think it's helpful to put this into some sort of perspective.

Things the US won't forget:

Tiananmen Square (thousands dead)

Things the US will forget:

Korean War (3mil civilian dead)
Vietnam War (2mil civilian dead)
Iraqi War (1mil civilian dead)
Violent overthrow of East Timor (widely considered a genocide)
Violent overthrow of Afghanistan (twice, over 1 mil dead)
Violent overthrow of Nicaragua
Violent overthrow of Grenada
Violent overthrow of Panama
Violent overthrow of Libya
Coup d'etat of Guatemala
Coup d'etat of Iran
Failed Coup d'etat of Syria
Failed Coup d'etat of Indonesia
Many failed Coup d'etat attempts on Cuba
Coup d'etat of Congo
Coup d'etat of Laos
Coup d'etat of the Dominican Republic
Coup d'etat of Iraq
Coup d'etat of Brazil
Successful Coup d'etat of Indonesia (1 mil dead)
Coup d'etat of Chile
Multiple Coup d'etat of Bolivia
Coup d'etat of Haiti
Multiple Coup d'etat attempts on Venezuela
Coup d'etat of Palestine
Mass civilian casualties, destabilization of many governments, people subject to a lifetime of torture without a trial, all under the War on Terror

This list could be so much longer, but I gotta get to work.

Things the US will forget:

Korean War (3mil civilian dead)

Vietnam War (2mil civilian dead)

Iraqi War (1mil civilian dead)

Imagine thinking that the US has forgotten any of these when they're a constantly pressure on the cultural zeitgeist even literal decades later. Or, for that matter, that the Korean War is in any way comparable.

Violent overthrow of Afghanistan (twice, over 1 mil dead)

Twice? Christ, tell me you aren't talking about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Not to mention that the 'overthrow' of 'Afghanistan' the second time would rely on recognizing the Taliban, and not the democratically-oriented Northern Alliance which was fighting them at the time, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

Yeah, just recently I rewatched Apocalypse Now. And I've never been to the U.S. or Vietnam. I agree, this is pretty much alive in cultural memory, not forgotten.

What's ironic is that his list conveniently forgets China's invasion of Vietnam 1979.

Not trying to be confrontational or pedantic (there's enough bickering in here) but it's important to state that the Korean War is quite literally called "The Forgotten War". In fact, it's more important to point out that it wasn't even a War, but considered a "police action" that claimed the lives of up to 3 million civilians (link).

Council on Foreign Affairs

Truman acted without seeking congressional authorization either in advance or in retrospect. He instead justified his decision on his authority as commander in chief. The move dramatically expanded presidential power at the expense of Congress, which eagerly cooperated in the sacrifice of its constitutional prerogatives.

Robert A. Taft of Ohio, one of the leading Republicans on Capitol Hill at the time, took to the Senate floor on June 28 to argue that “there is no legal authority for what he [Truman] has done.” Nor could Truman argue that the Korean conflict didn’t constitute war in a constitutional sense, even if he did downplay the significance of his decision. (At a press conference on June 29, Truman denied the country was at war, prompting a journalist to ask, “would it be correct…to call this a police action?” Truman answered simply, “Yes.”

Truman in the end acted because he believed, contrary to what the framers envisioned and the historical record showed, that as commander-in-chief he had the authority to order U.S. troops into combat.... Truman was able to establish the precedent that presidents can take the country to war, though, because members of Congress were unwilling, Taft’s complaints notwithstanding, to defend their constitutional power from executive encroachment.

You can't look at those statements and not make parallels to what's going on in America today with the executive branch trying to sequester even more power. Ironically just recently saw a pretty decent video on the war by Mr. Beat

The War Americans Forgot About

edit: forgot an S

Is it better to be drowned out than forgotten?

recognizing the Taliban

The US gave the fucking country to the talibans omg

The "pressure on the cultural zeitgeist" you speak of is just "shoot, then cry". The victims are forgotten.

and not the democratically-oriented Northern Alliance which was fighting them at the time, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

You're joking right

Please tell me this is sarcasm bruh

You’re joking right

Sorry, do you not remember who the de-facto leader of the Northern Alliance was?

Hey, hey, hey...

Korean War (3mil civilian dead)

Vietnam War (2mil civilian dead)

They at least got hit movies and TV shows! ;)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAS*H_(film)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAS*H_(TV_series)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platoon_(film)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Metal_Jacket

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Beach

If I had a nickle for everyone who either stopped watching Full Metal Jacket after Lee Emery gets shot or watched the husks of men, who just got massacred by a child defending her home, marching through the burning town while singing children's songs, and thanked the next veteran they met for fighting for freedom.

Most of that looks right, but

Violent overthrow of East Timor (widely considered a genocide)

Ok, this was Indonesia, with murican quiet assent, but still, don't give other countries a pass on these things to make them look clean.

Many of these also involved the local elites going to the US for help. e.g. The draft UN resolution for the no-fly zone in Lybia was produced by the Arab League and backed by the African Union, which pressured russia and China not to veto it.

It is not my intention to give other countries a pass. Indonesia is guilty of genocide in the case of East Timor; the US is guilty as well.

The genocide in East Timor is analogous to the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

Both genocides are not conducted by US personnel, but the majority of arms are supplied by the US. The US gives international legitimacy to the genocidal party, while running defense for it's atrocities. The genocide in East Timor was ended by a phone call from the US president, and I am of the firm belief that the genocide in Gaza could be ended by a similar call. Previous Israeli atrocities were ended by calls from Reagan and Bush Sr.

Allowing the government to be taken over by fascists makes any "remembering" of horrific events pretty meaningless anyway. In the context of government, not individuals.

Add to the list the US support of the Israeli war crimes currently going on in Gaza. Just yesterday they vetoed a ceasefire and delivery of aid proposition in the UN.

And we know the extent of US involvement in these coups and conflicts because the US declassified the info, becauase all info becomes declassified eventually.

When is the Dictatorship of China going to admit that this happened, when will they declassify the internal documents about this atrocity they were responsible for?

That's the problem people have with the Chinese government. They can't even acknowledge reality because they seek to eventually change the records of what really happened to pretend they did no wrong.

I agree that declassification is a great thing, but it is not so black and white. Not all info becomes declassified eventually, so much is covered up and destroyed.

For example, much is known about the My Lai massacre in the Vietnam War. Most of this information is known due to declassified documents. But these declassified documents also mention that there were over 100 My Lai-level massacres that occured, most of which we know nothing about. Army Chief of Staff Westmoreland was quoted saying we do a "My Lai each month".

One of the largest, codenamed Speedy Express, reportedly killed 11,000 people, and was covered up at the highest levels.

I don't care about your whataboutism meant to deflect

When is the Chinese government going to admit that they were responsible for the Tiananmen Square Massacre?

If you can't answer that then fuck off tankie

My best guess is that the Chinese government will admit fault long into the future, when most of the accountability and backlash has already faded into history.

Which is no different than how the US has handled many of the atrocities I mentioned.

When will the US acknowledge and release info on the 100s of Yemeni and Pakistani civilian targets that were destroyed by drone strike? When will the US release the warcrimes reports from the War on Terror? Does the US even still have these warcrimes reports, or were they destroyed (as whistleblowers and Amnesty International have suggested they were)?

If you can't answer questions like these without resorting to cries of "Whataboutism", then fuck off hypocrite.

And we know the extent of US involvement in these coups and conflicts because the US declassified the info, becauase all info becomes declassified eventually.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout

According to Victor Marchetti, a former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a limited hangout is "spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting—sometimes even volunteering—some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further."

US declassification falls squarely into this domain. What gets released into the public record is enshrined as "The Truth" and what gets omitted is reserved to the domain of "Conspiracy Theory". Thus a guy like Allen Dulles can sit on the committee that investigates the assassination of the President and author the copy that the CIA was in no way at fault or otherwise involved in the actions of a disgruntled former agent's actions against the Chief Executive who personally fired Dulles three years earlier.

That’s the problem people have with the Chinese government. They can’t even acknowledge reality

The Chinese Communist Party has its own version of Limited Hangout and goes to some length to assert that the riots in Tienanmen were the result of outside agitation, the civilian death toll was minimal, and the reforms that followed succeeded in restoring trust in the national government.

Westerners choose to ignore the official party line and rely on the equally unreliable narrations of participants who were fully opposed to the party, heavily invested in an insurgent opposition, and outspoken in their desire to abolish the CCP and have its leadership executed.

So you end up with a bunch of smug liberals denouncing Chinese state media as controlled, while regurgitating talking points that came straight out of the John Birch Society and the Falun Gong.

It's propaganda all the way down. Nobody is giving you a complete and accurate picture of events. Any serious scholar must reconstruct events by bits and pieces, sifting through the enormous amounts of FUD. And when their work is completed... good luck finding it, because vanishingly few media moguls have an interest in promoting something that is insufficiently sensational.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Some commentators have defended the usage of whataboutism and tu quoque in certain contexts. Whataboutism can provide necessary context into whether or not a particular line of critique is relevant or fair, and behavior that may be imperfect by international standards may be appropriate in a given geopolitical neighborhood. Accusing an interlocutor of whataboutism can also in itself be manipulative and serve the motive of discrediting, as critical talking points can be used selectively and purposefully even as the starting point of the conversation (cf. agenda setting, framing, framing effect, priming, cherry picking). The deviation from them can then be branded as whataboutism

Wow. Fascinating. Thanks for the link.

This makes perfect sense, it's one thing for Taiwanese and Chinese people to remember it but its absolute hypocrisy for the west to comment. Especially as they fund the genocide in Gaza and Western Liberals make excuses for it.

No, it doesn't. Only people who are full shit use and defend this fallacy. People who have principles call out shitty behaviors and actions whenever they see them, that's because principles are universal. If you selectively choose when to apply them, then you don't believe in them.

Like how you selectively care about china's students from 30 years ago but you don't give a shit about the people your country's killing right now

And who told you that I don't? It's funny how Marxists cannot defend their positions with lies, misinformation, and fallacies. Normal people don't function like tankies, they call out atrocities wherever they seem and they acknowledge and condemn the atrocities of the past.

Go back and keep digging, I'm sure you're just a scroll away from the ultimate gotcha that will surely justify you and your arguments from being dishonest. Maybe reply to a few dozen more of comments, that will surely help you.

If you acturally call out genocide and shitty practices wherever you see it than its being principled. If you only call it out when a "bad" country does its hypocrisy, and tbh I have seen people do the later far more often while claiming the former.

Tell me, when Western Europe plunders the global south to subsidize their social programs do you complain? Or when the Zionist Occupation slowly takes more land away from the natives? What about the western funded dictators committing genocide across the third world and selling their nations for scraps?

Do you acturally call for freedom, an end to the exploitation, or do you demand a compromise? Do you demand native Palestinians give up half their land to the occupation? Africans half their resources to Europeans? And dictators to kill half as many minorities?

When somebody supports said "bad" countries, they'll view any instance of these countries being called out for any shitty actions as hypocrisy. What this actually shows is that these people are in fact hypocrites themselves. If they were principled, then they would've acknowledged the shitty actions of whatever country is pointed out and moved on. Instead, they go on they go on the brainless rants that are filled with fallacies to distract from the original issue and dismiss criticism, misinformation, and endless crying about how the country being called out is a victim for the atrocity they committed. These rants don't change the reality of the issue being raised originally.

This entire post is about western governments who are currently engaging in genocide calling out an event in China that if you look at the proper context is bad but not an atrocity

the Tiananmen Square Massacre,

"not an atrocity"

yep, tankies gonna tank.

No the post is about the Chinese massacre.

By all mean call out genocide but it's not relevant in post.

Don't try to dismiss criticism of one massacre and its continuous censorship by bringing up another massacre.

Least braindead Marxist

I can critize and dislike the US involvement in Korea, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, AND the Tiananmen Square massacre.

I can rank which ones killed more people, but no one should be committing any crimes against humanity like these regardless of scale

Honestly, even with an ulterior motive, I see no reason they shouldn't.

The thing is, only the US and West do this shit of constantly complaining about other countries and celebrating their historical tragedies every year. And it's not a coincidence that they're also the countries to invade and constantly engage in imperialism all around the world the most, and have the capacity to, with hundreds of military bases around the world.

It's such obvious propaganda against foreign enemies, especially ones we want to fight. You think it would make it super obvious how propagandized Americans are, but they don't see the hypocrisy at all because of that very propaganda.

What would be the point in China bringing up the Haymarket massacre or Kent state every year? And for that matter, what's the point in the US bringing up the Tiannamen Square every year?

Glass houses indeed.

The US brings up its own horrible events all the time.

I learned about The Trail of Tears, the era of segregation, and of the KKK in my history class in America. We make conscious efforts to be aware of and criticize our own faults - as well as those of other nations.

There is currently LOTS of criticism of the US government for its participation in the massacre in Palestine. Claiming otherwise is lying. China is relatively unique in that it has committed atrocities, and refuses to allow anyone in its own country to acknowledge them. Both countries have done bad things. One country recognizes those facts and attempts to learn from them.

Just arrive at your point.

The US is not allowing criticism of Palestine. Not sure if you've seen the stuff happening in college campuses, job applications, the DNC where they didn't allow a speaker, even local elections where foreign policy shouldn't matter, etc. And it's only going to get worse according to the 2025 plan, where it details additional attempts to shut it down. It's also been downplaying other stuff in schools, such as the negative parts of slavery, Jim Crow, basically everything bad the US has ever done. The problem with our education system is that it depends a lot on which state, city, and even school you are from (private or public, charter or not, etc.).

The whole conflict about critical race theory and the Moms for Liberty stuff is all about them trying to roll these things back.

I agree their censorship is too high in China, though, but I think it's a result of siege theory. Essentially they've seen the US do a million coup attempts and color revolutions in other countries, often successful, and so you if you're a third world country you basically need a tight control of your press and elections if you want to resist US control. And I doubt seeing us fall to propaganda in the US from billionaire backed media organizations and foreign countries is going to encourage them to not censor though. Unfortunately, if anything, it will do the opposite.

I agree their censorship is too high in China, though, but I think it’s a result of siege theory.

Buddy, fuck right the hell off. The USA is not the only country with free media. Small countries do it too. Al Jazeera is quartered in Qatar, and is critical of both the USA and China. China enacts the Great Firewall because they're power-hungry, not because they want to fucking stay safe, and they are not in any regard a third world country.

Al Jazeera is a terrible for you, but a great example for my point. It never mentions things critical of Qatar ever. It's good for news about other stuff, like Palestine, which the US media is likewise horrible about covering. It's why nobody here knew about the situation there until October 7th.

Why should they care about atrocities committed 40 years ago in other countries? -_- That's fucking weird

Weird? That sounds like a healthy interest in history to me.

Besides, if people had more interest in, for instance, how Nazis came to power 100 years ago, the political landscape in the US, Canada, and Europe might be a little healthier now.

Agreed, dont throw stones from glass houses

The implied issue with that phrase is you risk your own glass house being pelted, correct? The glass house, in this case, being atrocities each government is implicated in?

I'm fine with all the atrocities being called out. Otherwise, how do we learn not to do them anymore?

I want to belive that people here genuenly call out atrocities everywhere but they dont, if you personally call out evil in every place it resides then I respect you.

"Whataboutism" can occasionally be an honest critique of a spurious argument.

When it's just a link on it's own, it's almost always cover for hypocrisy.

Yep that's exactly my point, the US is doing Whataboutism when it issues these PR stunts to condemn Chinese atrocities.

That shit gets brought up all the fucking time, in their own threads. Notice how people don't bring up Tiananmen Square, Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, the Uyghurs, or the many other atrocities the CCP has committed whenever an American atrocity gets mentioned.

Your comment ignores the context that the US is doing anti-Chinese propaganda here, and there is no parity.

Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot, and China was releasing PR statements on every anniversary of every US atrocity. They would still be issuing multiple statements every day.

China is also doing anti-American/anti-West propaganda. It's just favored differently because of different cultural values of the target audience. Still stinks the same.

How is the US doing "anti-Chinese propaganda"?

Every time the US president says "CHAYYYNNA", I consider that anti-Chinese propaganda.

What? What that fuck are you talking about and how is it relevant to the tiananmen square massacre?

It isn't relevant. I'm just making fun of your president.

I don't have a president.

All the fucking time? Really? When was the last time the Coup d'état against Aristide was discussed around here?

Post about it on it's anniversary then. Don't bring it up as a whataboutism in unrelated threads.

I didn't bring up anything, the comment you responded to did. My comment was my first intervention in this thread and I was responding to you specifically. You said that things like that get brought up all the time. I am asking you for the receipts. When was the Haitian coup d'état brought up before today?

Really? Could that be because china isn't carpet bombing civilians?

Hey, the difference is, you can post this list here, and nothing will happen to you.

Become a Chinese citizen, and then post that single bullet item about the TS incident in China, on a Chinese social media. Then see what happens.

That may be true, but it doesn't excuse the list at all.

My country is responsible for the majority of international violence since WWII. I find that morally unacceptable.

I make posts like this because I want my country to do better. But the sad reality is we have yet to learn our lesson. We have been aiding and abetting an ongoing Holocaust for almost two years now.

WHATABOUT.

Name a more iconic duo than tankies and misinformation.

Americans and kindergarten mass shootings

People like you are evidence that Marxism is failed ideology that cannot be defended by it's own merits. You know it's a failure, which is why you resort to fallacies and misinformation.

Yeah, the amount of hatred Americans are fermenting on their own country is just mind-boggling. It's like their number one wish in the world is to fail.

Don't take this site as a reflection of the world. Lemmy in general is nothing more than a fringe echo chamber on the internet.

Which is nice, but it's still sad to think that such sad creatures exist in the first place

"Never forget" is great and all but from a German perspective it seems to not be enough. It is much more important to make sure the same or very similar things do not happen again, not by China and not by any other nation. Otherwise you end up like we did here in Germany where decades of "never forget" lead to very similar sentiments being expressed by a new major party but since things are slightly different (e.g. the "never forget" was always phrased to be about Jews, this is more about foreigners in general) people seem to allow themselves to ignore them.

"Never again":

❌ "We must never do what we did to the Jews in WW2 again".
✅ "We can never allow what we did to the Jews in WW2 to happen again to anyone".

Germans should be critical of Israel then.

why?

Genocide

how are the 2 genocides similar to eachother?

You're asking how two of the same thing are similar? Very strange. They share the same definition. They are similar in the ways that things with that label are similar.

Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

All of that is similar.

thanks

and how are they different?

Happening in different times, to different groups, in a different region.. there are millions of differences down to being named Siwar Jamassi instead of Anne Frank.

US currently working on ways to top it.

That’s exactly what I was thinking. I feel like we’re months away at most

Timing will be important. They'll want the big violence to break out next summer, so he can declare Martial Law, and suspend the 2026 Midterm election.

America has never missed an election, even during the Civil War. Suspending an election is a big, bright red, flashing line. They do that, and it's on for real.

The death toll of Tiannenmen riots is around 300. You would think it was 300.000 from the amound of posts we see about it.

Current casualty count in Gaza is about 200 times higher than Tiannenmen.

I just mean to say I don’t see any sort of barrier preventing the US government from sending the military in to massacre its own civilians

Was genuinely thinking of walking in front of Trump’s military parade.

Never forget says country engaged in rewriting its own history.

Which country do you think The Guardian is from?

Things only come from murikkka. The American exceptionalism is rife.

England, a country absolutely dripping with revisionism.

FFS, the royal family of their Protestant breakaway nation is German Catholic.

wtf does the religion of the tourist-attraction royal family have to do with anything in 2025? are you from the middle ages?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/14/secret-papers-royals-veto-bills

Brits have no clue how powerful their monarchy remains.

This list also highlights how selfish they are.

Marxist ideology is fragile house of cards, where each card is a lie. Without fallacies, misinformation, and outright lies, Marxism will collapse in on itself. It's an ideology that cannot be defend on it's own merits which is why its brainless supports will cling on to any fallacy to distract them for the reality.

Here we go again, the fallacies fetishist. Good thing you're there to show us the enlightened truth, genius.

This is just my personal experience:

_{I was talking to a few young Chinese. They were after born after the massacre happened.}

"Why are Hong Kong people are so full of themselves and rebellious? They think they are better? (Derogatory comments....", cheating among themselves, happily.

I couldn't help and interrupted, "Some young promising Hong Kong students were murdered, beaten and kidnapped under the mainland China. You can't blame them for not being defensive."

Immediately they resorted to their memorised response, "Do you have any resources to back up what you said? The official death count was zero."

Of course there was no "official" news resources. China suppresses the news media.

"It is the same as Tiananmen massacre. You won't find any "official resources " but everyone knows people were killed."

Another one retorted, "The official number is zero. What official resources you have to backup your claim?"

It was useless to talk anymore at that moment. I left. My encounter probably would be on their "report."

Meanwhile Oklahoma telling kids the 2020 election was rigged under state law.

Tankies and whataboutism, name a more iconic duo (pro tip: you can't)

You say whataboutism, I say hypocrisy.

Whataboutism is literally the appeal to hypocrisy fallacy. It's a fallacy because the appeal is done in place of a proper argument that addresses the original issue. The very purpose of this fallacy is to distract from the original issue and to dismiss criticism without ever addressing it by bringing up something irrelevant to the topic at hand and accusing others of hypocrisy.

Americans are the one doing whataboutism lmao. China killed a bunch of student in the 80ies? Big whoops, america is sending tanks to a genocide right now.

The hypocrisy is real

Whataboutism is the appeal to hypocrisy fallacy you moron. That's literally what you're doing.

China killed a bunch of student in the 80ies? Big whoops

I cannot imagine being such a miserable, evil, and braindead moron that I would say shit like this. You're scum.

It's not a phallacy if the hypocrisy is real. You're american. You're whining about a thing that happened 50000km from your place, 40 years ago. Meanwhile, your country is sending litteral tanks to a genocide. Yet you whine about other people being TanKiEs.

Idiots redditor using phAllAciEs as if they were pokemon cards. Classic & cringe.

The point isn't to distract, it's to provide context so the accuser can't create an inaccurate framing. The atomic unit of propaganda isn't lies, it's emphesis.

If every week, a right-wing German posted about how many gays Britain murdered, imprisoned, or castrated during the 40s, it would be borderline deceitful for other lemmy users not to provide the full context of what Germany was doing to gays at that time (and what West Germany continued to do until the 1970s).

Same deal when we get the occasional zionist talking about the plight of gay Palestinians. Yes, they have their own struggle, but there is a very specific and obvious purpose behind a zionist bringing it up.

You're being dishonest. You didn't provide any context or made any remark regarding framing or context. In fact, you made no argument at all. You just brought up an entirely irrelevant subject for the sole purpose to distract from the original issues and dismiss the criticism being brought up by appealing to hypocrisy. It's literally the textbook definition of the fallacy.

Same deal when we get the occasional zionist talking about the plight of gay Palestinians.

This is a good example, you're exactly like them in this case.

The subject is "whataboutism", or when people bring up similar, but far worse things done by liberal institutions in response to supporters of liberal institutions accusing communists of doing bad things to show that the supporter of the liberal institution doesn't actually give a shit about the event they're crying about and is simply using it as a pretext to justify hostility against that communist state, victims included.

That's a wild assumption you just made up based on literally nothing. But the fact that you need to make up such assumptions is ironic, because it shows that yourself are a hypocrite. You support these atrocities and the regimes who committed them and so you perceive people calling out these acts as unjustified "hostility" rather warranted criticism. Since you're admitting that you don't actually care about the atrocities being committed, that means the only purpose you would bring up anything to do with "liberal institutions" is to be fallacious, which is exactly the case here.

The entire purpose of bringing up entirely irrelevant subjects is to distract from the original issue and dismiss criticism. There's no context, there's no argument, there's no point. You're simply mad that the regime you support is being criticized and as a desperate attempt to divert attention away from the criticism, you bring up irrelevant topics and accuse people of being hypocrites for their criticism of the original topic... even that doesn't negate the validity of their criticism whatsoever.

When people call you out on your fallacious argumentation, they're telling that the logic you're using is inconsistent. If you're actually ignorant enough to not understand what the fallacies are or why they're bad then that's a different issue, but if you're aware what they are and why they're bad and still choose to be annoyed then that means you're disingenuous. It means you're arguing in bad faith from the get go, which is an indication that the beliefs you are trying to defend are flawed to the point where you can't defend them on their own merits.

You support these atrocities and the regimes who committed them and so you perceive people calling out these acts as unjustified “hostility” rather warranted criticism.

Given the total lack of knowledge surrounding any of the events in question or the people affected, it is blatantly obvious that the "criticism" begins and ends with "<insert communist country> bad!"

The average ML has studied how/why such actions occurred and the response beyond the childish "dey did it coz authoritarianism!" that libs end their analysis at, because our interest isnt limited to its utility as hostile evidence.

When a country does a bad thing, then that thing is indeed bad. It's fairly straight forward. Your persecution fetish isn't going to change the reality. You're not a victim, neither are the communist countries who committed these atrocities. Just because you're soulless ghoul who supports these atrocities, that doesn't means others do as well. This might be shocking to you, but most people don't have ideological brainrot. They call out bad things when they see them. That's called consistency.

But that's something you lack, because if you had consistency then you wouldn't need to use fallacies. You would just defend your positions by their own merits, but you can't do that so you become dishonest. Even now, instead of just taking the high road and saying "these events were atrocities and I condemn them" like a decent human being, you do the opposite by still defending them. You don't seem to understand there is no justification for them. The fact that you are trying to justify them is direct evidence of your ignorance.

At no point did I try to justify any atrocity, I simply supplied context that pissed off liberals because it required more nuance to interpret than their thought-terminating clichés supplied. Which really was rude, feel free to ignore me and go back to "china ran 100,000 people over with tanks for peacefully asking for freedom like we have, because thats just what ~~terrorists~~ authoritarians do."

What fucking context lmao? You literally provided nothing. There's no sources, no arguments, no explanations, no points, absolutely zero context was provided. The only things you did do was make false assumptions and use fallacious reasoning to justify using logical fallacies. That's not context, that's trying to justify poor critical thinking skills.

The context that the reason this is promoted multiple times a year as opposed to any particular atrocities committed by western media that this can be used to justify further hostile action against a foreign nation.

If you still use the word "authoritarian", You're not ready to have a meaningful discussion on the event anymore than a zionist screeching about "terrorists" is capable of discussing Oct 6th.

The context that the reason this is promoted multiple times a year as opposed to any particular atrocities committed by western media that this can be used to justify further hostile action against a foreign nation.

Here you are at again, this is NOT context. Context is when you add relevant information to a topic in a discussion. What you're doing here is the tu quoue fallacy. Do you understand why the fallacy you're using is just that? Do you even understand why fallacies are considered bad to begin with? We can't have an honest discussion if you can't comprehend this.

If you still use the word “authoritarian”, You’re not ready to have a meaningful discussion on the event anymore than a zionist screeching about “terrorists” is capable of discussing Oct 6th.

What other word would you use to describe it? You have a very big government that tries to control every aspect of society at the expense of the freedoms and rights of its citizens, it places a lot overbearing rules that are enforced very strictly, and those who break these rules receive punishments that disproportionately exceed the crime. In this case, the CCP is a tyrannical government that ordered soldiers to kill students for the crime of peacefully protesting. That's the textbook definition of what authoritarianism is. How am I, or anyone, supposed to take you seriously, when you can't even admit a basic fact like the CCP is authoritarian? Even they don't deny it.

You have a very big government that tries to control every aspect of society at the expense of the freedoms and rights of its citizens

The term is pointless because it is only used to describe foreign countries. What freedom does someone working for minimum wage, barely able to afford rent, and at the mercy of their employer to even be able to do that much experience? But also it's impossible to separate any actual freedom in the west from the hyperexploitation of the global south; you are able to buy bananas or coffee with less than 10 minutes of labor because the dictators the US keeps in place in countries that produce them keep the price of labor and resources low.

overbearing rules that are enforced very strictly, and those who break these rules receive punishments that disproportionately exceed the crime

I'm from a country with 2% of its population in prison or homeless. To call any other country (except maybe Saudi Arabia, Iran, some gulf states, and Russia)'s rules disproportionate is laughable. Hell here in SK leading a socialist org is technically punishable by death, though the law isn't enforced as written, in the lead up to the election I saw a demonstration with LGBT+ communist-like and anarchist flags that weren't shut down. It's like a fish accusing another fish of being wet.

In this case, the CCP is a tyrannical government that ordered soldiers to kill students for the crime of peacefully protesting.

Read the wikipedia article. You only accept such cartoonish logic of the evil communists needing to control everything and sending in troops to murder everyone who tries to ask for freedom because you have a cartoonish understanding of a real place with real people. You see the same short-circuiting of logic when you try to explain to a zionist why Oct 7th happened and they just go "They did it because they're terrorists!" over and over. The CPC sent police and soldiers in unarmed, several got lynched (don't look the pics up, they're very graphic), they sent them back with weapons and a battle ensued, involving cops shooting indiscriminately in the area surrounding the square.

See, the next step is where you go "well it's still bad cpp ebil" instead of developing any nuance or researching the political impact within China or doing further research into the various student factions and how it got to lynchings and how the other factions reacted (there's quite a few contemporary interviews by students whose positions lead them to have different biases), and then I realize I've wasted my time.

The term is pointless because it is only used to describe foreign countries.

The mental gymnastics of tankies knows no bounds, you get a gold medal for your disingenuous efforts. There's nothing that you can do to twist the reality. By every single measurable and observable metric, China is an authoritarian country by the purest definition of the word. The word "authoritarian" has a very clear, well defined, and straightforward definition that is objective and is applied universally. If you are really trying to sit here and argue that China of all places is NOT authoritarian then you're either too dishonest or too stupid to have this discussion.

What freedom does someone working for minimum wage, barely able to afford rent, and at the mercy of their employer to even be able to do that much experience? But also it’s impossible to separate any actual freedom in the west from the hyperexploitation of the global south; you are able to buy bananas or coffee with less than 10 minutes of labor because the dictators the US keeps in place in countries that produce them keep the price of labor and resources low

Three things:

Everything you said here applies directly to China. Every single word.
This analysis has zero basis in reality. It's like you get all your information from idiots on 2013 Tumblr or lefypol and pretend that's how the world actually works. By your logic, Xi Jinping is a American installed dictator since China is America's biggest trading partner.
That's not what authoritarianism means in this context. Authoritarianism is a system of government where power is concentrated in the hands of a single leader or a small group, with limited political freedoms, strong state control, and little accountability to the public. It has nothing to do with how countries conduct foreign policy (and your understanding of modern American foreign policy can only be described as false, if you want to understand why then just ask).

You simply cannot argue in good faith that China today, under the rule of the CCP, is not authoritarian or is less authoritarian the US or the rest of the West. Doubling down on this take means that you're arguing against actual facts, and that's when you start crossing into clown territory.

I’m from a country with 2% of its population in prison or homeless. To call any other country (except maybe Saudi Arabia, Iran, some gulf states, and Russia)'s rules disproportionate is laughable.

Are you really that dumb or are you actually going to argue that poverty and crime = authoritarianism? If you don't understand what the word means then look it up and actually try to grasp the concept. I mean I literally spelled out the definition for you multiple times, but if you don't believe me, you can look it up.

It’s like a fish accusing another fish of being wet.

If you hold up a giant sign in the heart of Seoul that says "Lee Jae-myung is a pig", nothing will happen. If you hold up a giant sign in the heart of DC that says "Trump is a pig" nothing will happen. If you hold up a giant sign in the heart of Paris that says "Macron is a pig" nothing will happen. If you hold up a giant sign in the heart of Beijing that says "Xi is a pig" you're going to be arrested and punished. They are not at all the same thing, this is a false equivalency.

Read the wikipedia article.

Did you read the article? Because it doesn't all say what you claim it says, in fact, it's details are pretty in line with I and everybody else have been saying.

the evil communists needing to control everything and sending in troops to murder everyone who tries to ask for freedom

This is exactly what the article you posted says. Adding words to make sound absurd doesn't change what actually happened. It seems like you don't even know what happened.

You see the same short-circuiting of logic when you try to explain to a zionist why Oct 7th happened and they just go “They did it because they’re terrorists!” over and over.

You're using the same moronic logic as them, actually yours is worse because you seem to lack the self awareness to recognize it. What Hamas did on Oct 7th are indeed terrorist attacks that are entirely unjustifiable. With that being said, what Israel is doing now is also unjustifiable. You know what this is called? Consistency. The idiots that try to pretend that the Hamas terrorist attacks were justifiable are evil parasites, and the idiots that say that defend what Israel is doing by saying that all Gazans are terrorists are also evil parasites. Multiple things can be true at once.

In your case, the CCP killed a bunch of people in a massacre in 1989. This is an objective fact that is undeniable. Instead of condemning this event for what it was like a decent human being with the bare minimum level of moral consistency, you choose to repeatedly try to justify it like the idiots described above by repeatedly droning about "MUH CONTEXT"... without actually providing real sourced context that supports your claims. In fact, your own source shows you're full of shit. It's like you don't seem to understand that baseless accusing ignorance doesn't make something wrong or you right, nor does it invalidate the objective facts.

Those facts show that the CCP on June 4th 1989 committed an atrocity against it's own people. You can either be a normal, condemn it, and move on or you can be a scumbag who admits that you just straight up supports the atrocity, at least you'll be honest that way. You can't have it both ways where you pretending you're against the atrocity while defending it.

See, the next step is where you go “well it’s still bad cpp ebil” instead of developing any nuance or researching the political impact within China or doing further research into the various student factions and how it got to lynchings and how the other factions reacted

Ah, there it is. You did the thing again. You made another baseless accusation of ignorance while providing absolutely nothing... you know other than you either showcasing your own ignorance or dishonesty. How can someone take you seriously when you're detached from reality? How can somebody have a meaningful discussion with someone who thinks this atrocity is justified? How can somebody give you the benefit of the doubt that you're arguing in good faith when you're repeatedly dishonest about basic facts? The answer is that you can't, and you're clearly just a troll.

I say, why not both?

Sometime whataboutism is warranted, when the pot is calling the kettle black.

Kinda like a guy calling archlinux nazi is a godwin point. Calling a genocidal state nazi is just an accurate description.

When Whataboutism is Fallacious:

Tu Quoque Fallacy – Uses whataboutism to dismiss criticism instead of addressing the issue itself.
Red Herring Fallacy – Introduces an unrelated comparison to distract from the original argument.
Ad Hominem Fallacy (only in certain cases) – Uses whataboutism to undermine the credibility of the person making the argument, rather than addressing the argument itself.
Two Wrongs Make a Right – Suggests that an action is acceptable because others have done it.
Argumentum ad Populum – Justifies a behavior by implying it’s acceptable because many others do the same.

When Whataboutism is NOT Fallacious:

Exposes Hypocrisy – Highlights inconsistencies in judgment or double standards.
Provides Relevant Context – Uses other examples to enhance understanding of the issue rather than deflecting.
Challenges Selective Outrage – Points out biased criticism when similar actions are ignored elsewhere.

So while you're right that there are cases when it's a valid argument, this is not one of those cases. In this case, OP of this comment thread didn't provide an argument or add context or even made a point. Their whataboutism goes through fallacies like a check list. Therefore, their usage is fallacious in this case.

Imagine being so slow that you think being proud of your intellectually dishonesty and poor comprehension is some sort of flex

Stay mad lol

whataboutism

How to spot a shill for state propaganda.

Ah yes, the state is paying me to call out idiots on Lemmy for using fallicious argumentation and inconsistent logic. Which state is paying me? Who knows, but that's the fun of making up random baseless accusations when you have nothing of value to provide.

Do you dingleberries even understand what you're saying?

Let's not forget Faris Odeh

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faris_Odeh

A picture of Odeh standing alone in front of a tank, with a stone in his hand and arm bent back to throw it, was taken by a photojournalist from the Associated Press on 29 October 2000. Ten days later, on 8 November, Odeh was again throwing stones at Karni when he was shot in the neck by an Israeli soldier.

Why would any kid throw stones at armed soldiers? Where were his parents?

Murdered by Israelis one would assume.

And your assumption is wrong. If you read the article, you'll see that his parents were alive and well at the time, and so were his 8 other siblings. Apparently this kid developed a habit of doing dangerous stunts like this, and father used to severely beat him many times as a way to deter him from doing more stunts in the future. Shockingly, physical abuse didn't work, and he ended up being killed by doing another dangerous stunt in the future.

So why did you ask a question you know the answer to?

It was a rhetorical question

This isn't the remark you think it is, you're just showing everybody that you're intellectually less capable than a high schooler because you think rhetorical questions are some sort of advanced technique.

Ah yes it's the kid fault.

You're an utter piece of shit lmao. I'll take my chance with the tankie thank you very much

Killed by Israeli.

Actually if you read the article, you would see that this is in fact false, but that won't stop you from spreading misinformation

Well u did not pay attention to story and see how powerful the picture is. So to make u read the wiki, I had to fill some disinformation about his parents. U fell for it. Lol

"Where are his parents". Where are your buddy

I'm sure you think of yourself as this

Uhh Zionist got butt hurt. Could not come up with something?

Definitely smarter than you. Just looking at how logic works in your brain.

>spreads misinformation

>gets called out for it

>"no no it was a 4d chess move to make you look dumb, I'm full of shit I swear"

Yeah okay buddy

Bye. Good luck with your life. If you think that is how world works.

careful, that doesn't fit the narrative

Tankies talking about Tiananmen Square without whataboutism:

Challenge Level = IMPOSSIBLE

Maybe I'll take Taiwan's word on this one...

Whatever the US says, you just know it's posturing hypocritical bullshit

I'm confused, I thought June 5th was the taboo 'tank day'?

The massacre was on June 4th, and Tank Man was on the 5th. The involvement of the military lasted several days and the protests had been going on for a couple months.

downvotes are from tankies

Everyone should read this

https://archive.ph/2020.07.12-074312/https://imgur.com/a/AIIbbPs

Love the propaganda around this. Its very dramatic and all. But here in the west its held up as some big thing. The rest of the video never gets played.

Oh is this the terrible bad country we shipped our entire industrial base to?

I’m surprised trump didnt try to give Taiwan away by tweet yet

Kent State says what?

Not contesting there was a violent crackdown, but didn’t the video for this moment end with the tank just stopping the entire time, the briefcase guy climbing onto the tank, then getting shuffled away by fellow civilians?

Everyday we see way worse shit happening on the streets of the US. Somehow the crackdown back then on anti-communist academics is an enshrined moment, but people on our streets getting arrested, detained, or killed is just business as usual.

And we also act like our country doesn’t call academics “indoctrinated”, beat the living crap out of both students and academics, and doesn’t want to kill them. Amazing.

The were about 8000 people killed iirc. I once saw on reddit a link to a photo archive of the day and especially night. There were some very explicit photos. Like intestines falling out of opened bellies and bodies with half a head left.

Pretty sure the range is unknown to this day, and 8k is incredibly excessive. The British ambassador that claimed 10k revised it to around 3k and even that was high compared to corroborating reports

I think I know the pictures you mean and those were PLA soldiers lynched by the mob before the tanks started rolling in.

You're actually delusional if you think anything like the Tiananmen square massacre is happening in the US today.

Its far worse, seppoland has actual concentration camps at the border and ~~secret~~ plainclothes police disappearing people into torture prisons in foreign countries. Also funding, arming and running political cover for a genocide. Why just today it vetoed a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. And thats just whats currently going on off the top of my head.

If we look at US history however we can find stuff like throwing a bomb on their own civilians and just one genocide after another.

Boy tankies will literally anything out of their ass to justify their false narratives.

No, the reality is that you cannot come up with any examples like this massacre so you're trying to cope with any random thing you slap on. Come back to me when you have an example of the federal government giving direct orders to massacre anything that moves during a massive civilian protest (pro tip: you can't).

Trying to argue that the US today is worse than China today or even back then, is the definition of arguing in bad faith. Just about every index and measurement shows that China is way more authoritarian, and to the CCP human rights isn't even a subject of debate, it's more like a loose guideline that should be applied selectively.

If you really want to get into history, then literally nothing in history matches the insane death toll of communist China. Mao is literally history's biggest killer by a big margin, and his reign has resulted in the worst man made disasters ever. From illegally occupying to Tibet to putting the Uyghurs in "reeducation camps" to stealing islands in the South China sea from the Philippines to massacring civilians peacefully protesting to literal demicides to the worst man made famine in history, and so much more. Your ignorance on the history of China is expected, but also still embarrassing

For the record, unlike you mouthbreathers, I actually acknowledge the bad things the US has done and does, because I actually have principled. I know you don't have any, otherwise you wouldn't be showcasing yourself as a hypocrite and a clown for everyone to see in attempt to distract from a basic criticism of the Chinese government.

Non-sense. Mao just got rid of white-wingers. You're just scared because you know you deserve it lmao

Come back to me when you have an example of the federal government giving direct orders to massacre anything that moves during a massive civilian protest (pro tip: you can't).

You can't just make up shit. The soldiers weren't given orders to "murder anyone that moves" or else the tank would've run that guy over. Where did you get that? They just looked at each other for awhile. I don't think anyone even died in Tiannamen Square itself. Battles happened in other parts of the city as soldiers defended themselves, though. It wasn't peaceful like you said earlier, soldiers died. Not that I think every protest necessarily has to be, or should be, peaceful, but at least get the facts straight.

And of course similar things happened in the US. We bombed an apartment building. There was the Kent shootings, the Haymarket massacre, Whiskey Rebellion, the incident in Waco, the assassination of Fred Hampton, hell, cop shootings happen every year. Not to mention hundreds of years of slavery where who knows how many were killed.

And no, Mao is not worse than Hitler. Mismanagement leading to famines is bad and the Cultural Revolution went too far in some places, and China acknowledges those mistakes btw, but they don't compare to the targeted genocides, holocaust, and wars of Hitler. And most of those things you said weren't even Mao. Plus, the US has done all those things of illegally occupying places (that's how we got a bunch of states like Hawaii or Texas, as well as territories later like the Philippines), we did more than re-education camps of Native Americans, we killed them all and are now helping Israel do their own genocide and occupation in the present day, we have basically taken over the sea in the whole world and kill people who don't agree (like Yemeni civilians), and have military bases all over including places they don't want us (like Guantanamo Bay in Cuba), and have massacred civilians protesting peacefully as I said above, and helped other countries do the same, and have people under-fed and poverty stricken in the richest nation in the world.

You say you acknowledge the bad the US has done and then ignore all of them to make it sound like China is the worst places to have ever existed, at the same time an ongoing genocide is happening facilitated by the US. All you've proved is you consume propaganda uncritically and without context.

The soldiers weren’t given orders to “murder anyone that moves” or else the tank would’ve run that guy over. Where did you get that?

Tank man stood in front of the tank on June 5th, the massacre happened on June 4th.

I don’t think anyone even died in Tiannamen Square itself. Battles happened in other parts of the city as soldiers defended themselves, though. It wasn’t peaceful like you said earlier, soldiers died.

What was that again about me making shit up? It sounds to me like you're getting high off you're own supply.

but at least get the facts straight.

You know what, that's a good idea. Let's get the facts straight, shall we? Go ahead and post your sources that actually support your claims. Shouldn't be a hard thing to do if they're facts like you say. I'll be waiting.

And of course similar things happened in the US. We bombed an apartment building. There was the Kent shootings, the Haymarket massacre, Whiskey Rebellion, the incident in Waco, the assassination of Fred Hampton, hell, cop shootings happen every year. Not to mention hundreds of years of slavery where who knows how many were killed.

Lol you really had to do mental gymnastics to come up with any examples at all. I mean you had to go all the back to 1791 to the Whiskey Rebellion (if we're going back that far then look up the Taiping Rebellion) to find something and then used the Waco Seige of the Branch Davidians cult as an example. The only relevant example you have is the Kent state shooting, and even that's from 1970 and only 4 people were killed. Even then, I'm honest enough to acknowledge that this event was indeed bad and should be condemned.

And no, Mao is not worse than Hitler.

Highly debatable. Mao has a very good case to top Hitler. He killed way more people and he was just as ruthless. Mao tops Hitler as the worst dictator of the 20th century.

Mismanagement leading to famines is bad and the Cultural Revolution went too far in some places, and China acknowledges those mistakes btw

Somewhere between 40 and 80 million people died under Mao's reign. That can't brushed off with an "oopsies". Also, China still hails this guy as a national hero even though his successor, Deng Xiaoping (who's responsible for the Tiananmen square massacre), had to literally do a de-Maoization like Khrushchev did with de-Stalinization to save the country from collapse.

but they don’t compare to the targeted genocides, holocaust, and wars of Hitler

Don't get it twisted, Hitler is one of the most evil men in history. There's a reason why he reached infamy in history. I'm just pointing out that he wasn't without rivals during the 20th century, and Mao is one of the very few people with a legitimate case as being the shittiest human of that century.

Plus, the US has done all those things

Wow, you are slow. It's not a competition. The reason why I brought up those things about China was to demonstrate no matter what examples are brought up about the US, China has an endless bag of atrocities to match or even exceed. That's not the point because nobody is arguing which country has the worse history, the point of contention was that the person that I replied to originally claimed that the US today is worse than China today when it comes to things like Tienanmen Square massacre and their examples had no relevance to their claim at all.

You say you acknowledge the bad the US has done and then ignore all of them to make it sound like China is the worst places to have ever existed

You don't need to have a ledger of condemnations so tankies can be satisfied with their perceived proportionate amount of criticism being applied towards China or any country. If an event is worthy of criticism then it should be criticized, simple as. If you're seething over people condemning an atrocity and drowning yourself in fallacies like whataboutism, then there's a good chance you either support the atrocities or the entity responsible for committing them.

If you made a post about the Kent State shooting, for example, right now on Lemmy or anywhere else really, you're not going to get a hoard of Americans or non Americans in the comments crying about "BuT wHaT aBoUt ChInA hYpOcRiTeS?!?", they're just going to condemn the event and move on... as they should. But when it comes to doing the same thing for a country like China or Russia, you will always get a hoard of tankies defending the reprehensible acts and crying hypocrisy... even though they themselves are hypocrites.

All you’ve proved is you consume propaganda uncritically and without context.

Ironic coming from you

Tank man stood in front of the tank on June 5th, the massacre happened on June 4th.

They're always combined together. They're considered part of the same event.

What was that again about me making shit up? It sounds to me like you're getting high off you're own supply.

Journalistic and diplomatic testimony at the time confirms this. It's pretty accepted by people who were there, including Western journalists. This is one example of a journalist there for the Washington Post at the time who later wrote a piece regretting writing their article in such a way that contributed to the myth that people died in the square.

Lol you really had to do mental gymnastics to come up with any examples at all. I mean you had to go all the back to 1791 to the Whiskey Rebellion (if we're going back that far then look up the Taiping Rebellion) to find something and then used the Waco Seige of the Branch Davidians cult as an example. The only relevant example you have is the Kent state shooting, and even that's from 1970 and only 4 people were killed. Even then, I'm honest enough to acknowledge that this event was indeed bad and should be condemned.

I gave more recent examples too. The only reason I went back that far is to show that the US has been shooting at its citizens from the beginning. Keep in mind, China is a lot newer of a country than the US, so it feels fitting. When cou tries are newer, they are a lot more vulnerable to different conflicts and, sadly, these things can result as different factions fight it out. It's only been around since about the 50's. And 1970 isn't that much older than 1989. You act like it's ancient history.

Highly debatable. Mao has a very good case to top Hitler. He killed way more people and he was just as ruthless. Mao tops Hitler as the worst dictator of the 20th century.

Once again, Mao didn't kill more than Hitler. Famines are not the same as purposeful targeted genocides. If you want, we can say that US Presidents are worse than both if you add every death resulting from every war, and every post-war famine, civil war, etc that the US has been involved with. You'd add up basically every death from everything that's happened in all of South America and the Middle-East since the 50's in there.

Not to mention that the numbers you quoted aren't reliable. Their sources are dubious and usually CIA funded. Deng's numbers are a bit more realistic at 16.5 million but still most likely exaggerated because of the downplaying of Mao's legacy they were doing at the time, like you mentioned. US numbers are usually wild guesses and extrapolations.

And of course they still hail him as a hero. Even if policy-wise he wasn't the best, he was still a great and successful revolutionary who freed them from an oppressive monarchy, brought them socialism, cut poverty, increased life expectancy, reduced mortality, increased the spread of education and healthcare, and led them on the path to where they are now as an extremely successful country. And yes, they were increasing life expectancy even while he was in charge.

And yes, the US is worse today. They are enabling a genocide. That's basically the checkmate of atrocities.

Its not a competition, but the point is that these statements and propaganda always start as a way to encourage war and conflict with other countries. Every single time. It's why China doesn't celebrate the Kent massacre every year or the Civil War, or things like that that the US does. They don't have military bases all over the world and aren't constantly invading and occupying other countries, so they don't really need the excuse to drum up propaganda as an excuse for war. And while China has a lot of negative points, that's what makes the US worse that people in it don't understand: it's inperialistic nature.

They’re always combined together. They’re considered part of the same event.

Are you really dumb enough to not understand my point with the dates? You made the stupid argument that if there was a really a massacre then why isn't the tank man dead. This isn't the "gotcha" you think it is because it shows you don't understand what happened. The Chinese government gave the soldiers the order to massacre the students protesting on June 4th, tank man and the picture of him happened AFTER the massacre on June 5th.

the myth that people died in the square.

So let me get this straight, your grand argument to justify this massacre is that the people weren't killed in the square itself but right outside of it? Damn, you sure showed how innocent and glorious the CCP is with this zinger.

I gave more recent examples too. The only reason I went back that far is to show that the US has been shooting at its citizens from the beginning.

You literally had one single relevant example. Even if we take all the other examples you gave and ignore their validity for a second, they still had less deaths combined than the Tienanmen Square massacre.

Keep in mind, China is a lot newer of a country than the US, so it feels fitting.

No way somebody is dumb enough to think China, one of the world's oldest civilizations, is newer than the US. China didn't start in 1949.

And 1970 isn’t that much older than 1989. You act like it’s ancient history.

You don't even know what the topic of conversation is, do you? If you scroll up this thread and read what the original point of contention is, then you'll quickly realize that it's about some idiot saying that the US TODAY is worse than China. You citing examples from 1791 to 1970 shows that you either have no idea what the conversation is about or your argument is so weak that you have go that far back to find anything.

Once again, Mao didn’t kill more than Hitler. Famines are not the same as purposeful targeted genocides.

Mao's death toll is so high that his non famine deaths give the Holocaust's death toll a run for its money. Let's do some basic arithmetic:

Chinese land reforms: 1 million - 4.7 million
Government violence during the Great Chinese Famine: 2.5 million
Anti-Rightist Campaign: 550k - 2 million
Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries: 712k - 2 million
Three-anti and Five-anti campaigns: 100k
Cultural Revolution: 500k - 2 million

That's bring us to: 5.362 million - 13.3 million

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China#People's_Republic_of_China_(since_1949)

So even if we exclude the famine, which we shouldn't because those deaths are direct result of his policies, his death toll is still either half of that of the Holocaust at best or even higher the Holocaust at worst. When we factor the Great Chinese Famine that he caused, then he's well and away the greatest killer in history.

If you want, we can say that US Presidents are worse than both if you add every death resulting from every war, and every post-war famine, civil war, etc that the US has been involved with.

Except we're not going to say because that's idiotic logic. First of all no, not a single American president comes even close to Mao's death toll. Second of all, his death toll, like Hitler's, is a direct result of his policies. These death toll figures don't include deaths caused by wars. If we included the Chinese Civil war or the host of other wars that he involved in, then he might actually top 100 million death by himself. Thirdly, even IF we did include wars, what kind of clown counts every single death in wars, including the deaths caused be the enemies, as a part of the death toll? Not only that, but including subsequent events as well? That's stupid.

Not to mention that the numbers you quoted aren’t reliable.

No, they're extremely reliable. All the estimates are provided by independent research teams and well respected academics who's full research, sources, and methodology are have been peer reviewed and are available to all who wish to see them. You just want to find any excuse to dismiss the figures because they don't conform to your tankie biases.

Their sources are dubious and usually CIA funded. Deng’s numbers are a bit more realistic at 16.5 million but still most likely exaggerated because of the downplaying of Mao’s legacy they were doing at the time, like you mentioned. US numbers are usually wild guesses and extrapolations.

Do you actually think successfully arguing that the death toll is "only" 16.5 million is some sort of win? Not only is it sad that you think that, but it's also a losing battle because that figure is well below what most academics estimate. There's another thing, simply putting saying "US" or "CIA" in front of everything you don't like doesn't discredit the validity or accuracy of those figures or statements whatsoever nor does it make the association inherently bad. These assumptions exclusively exist in the empty minds tankies who think the rest of the world thinks like them, well they don't.

People understand that despite all it's flaws, the US is still a liberal democracy that actually has freedom of speech and freedom of the press. This means that academics in the US are extremely reliable because they're independent researchers who can publish all their research without fear of manipulation or censorship from the government regardless of how the government wishes the results were or how they make the government look.

This isn't the case in China because it's an authoritarian country, and so research on touchy subjects is inherently unreliable because it all goes through the great CCP filter. Not to mention that the research on Mao's astronomical death toll isn't exclusive to US researchers. Academics all over the world have studied the same material and came up with estimates that are largely in the same range. So no matter what excuse you come up with, they simply won't mean anything because you're defending a position that contradicts reality.

successful revolutionary who freed them from an oppressive monarchy

What monarchy lmao? China has been a republic since 1912. I know tankies are ignorant, but do you seriously not know who the communists fought during the Chinese civil war? Because that's astounding levels of ignorance.

brought them socialism, cut poverty, increased life expectancy, reduced mortality, increased the spread of education and healthcare, and led them on the path to where they are now as an extremely successful country.

Literally all of this is false. Mao's policies were such massive failures that killed so many people and brought so much suffering that the country was actually on the brink of collapse. After he died, his successor, Deng Xiaoping, had to do a de-Maoization to help save the country. The Chinese economy under Mao was extremely small and stagnant, and China didn't experience any real economic growth until Xiaoping started liberalizing the economy. In the late 70s and throughout the 80s, he introduced a series of reforms that allowed people to own private property, allowed foreign investment to flow into the country, created "special economic zones" where capitalism ran free, and allowed markets to exist again. Only then did China economic rise start to take off.

You can literally see this in GDP numbers:

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/chn/china/gdp-gross-domestic-product

And yes, they were increasing life expectancy even while he was in charge.

The country went through a genocide that killed 30 million people followed by a civil war that killed 10 million people. The life expectancy in China in 1945 was 33.4 years. Literally any sort of stability would've seen a rise in life expectancy. We saw the same thing happen in Russia, Germany, and bunch of countries who exited eras of brutal war. With that being said, Mao wasn't exactly good for the life expectancy, you clearly see in the country's life expectancy graphs when the famine happened as well as when his brutal massacres started slowing down:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041350/life-expectancy-china-all-time/

And yes, the US is worse today. They are enabling a genocide. That’s basically the checkmate of atrocities.

China is arming Russia's genocide in Ukraine as well as committing their own genocides in TIbet and Xinjiang. So if we're using mental gymnastics make the US indirectly supporting Israel count as enabling genocide, then China has a checkmate x3.

Its not a competition, but the point is that these statements and propaganda always start as a way to encourage war and conflict with other countries.

These atrocities are historical facts, not propaganda, and recognizing them isn't going to start wars. What kind of idiot thinks that recognizing and condemning an atrocity like the holocaust is propaganda to start a war? If you ever get the self awareness to wonder why nobody likes tankies, this is why.

It’s why China doesn’t celebrate the Kent massacre every year or the Civil War

Nobody is celebrating this massacre you dimwit. People are acknowledging and condemning it because, unlike the US, the Chinese government denies the atrocities it committed and pretends this massacre never happened.

They don’t have military bases all over the world and aren’t constantly invading and occupying other countries,

Yes they literally are. Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, India, Tibet, and the list goes on and on.

And while China has a lot of negative points, that’s what makes the US worse that people in it don’t understand: it’s inperialistic nature.

Clearly, you don't understand what imperialism is either because if you think China isn't imperialist then you're huffing something strong.

Can you quit doing holocaust trivialisation? Attrocities have been commited under every ideologies (wanna talk about Congo?). Nazis were the only ones with the explicit goal of ethnic purity

Can you quit doing holocaust trivialisation?

Pointing out other atrocities in history that are just as, if not more horrific, is not trivialization. The Holocaust is one of the worst events in history, no doubt about it. That being said there are other atrocities in history that have reached that levels in either ruthlessness, death toll, or both. Ignoring the other atrocities in history would just be us trivializing them.

Attrocities have been commited under every ideologies (wanna talk about Congo?).

Yes, they have, and yes, we should talk about them. Belguim's atrocities in the Congo aren't talked about nearly enough.

Nazis were the only ones with the explicit goal of ethnic purity

No, this is false. The idea of ethnic purity is something that has been around for a long time. The only unique thing about the Nazis was that they industrialized mass killings while carrying out their genocides.

That's not what I said. I said the Nazi state explicit goal was racial purity. Communists, Christians, Liberals have all done genocide IN SPITE OF their stated goal and doctrine. The nazis did it because it was their plans all along

You come back to this post after 4 months for whatever reason just to write this? Wow, whatever education system you went through failed you because your level of ignorance is genuinely painful.

I'll explain in the simplest way that I can. Ethnic purity as a concept has existed long before Nazi Germany. There have been countless ideologies before Nazism about getting rid of ethnic minorities to achieve this goal, and a lot of them have been enacted. Want examples? Look at the Armenian genocide or the Circarssian genocide or Holodomor or the Assyrian genocide or the endless of racially motivated genocides before the Nazis. The point is that the Nazis were NOT the first to commit genocide with the explicit goal of ethnic purity.

Read my message again retard.

Jesus Fuck, you tankies are god damned children with your logic. More than one thing can be, and in fact are and have been and will be, bad while other things have happened that are also just as bad, if not worse, while not diluting other events, you get that, right? There is more than one atrocity you should be aware of throughout history and every government has been objectively fucking awful, stop sucking so much authoritarian dick. You fuckers are kowtowing cowards.

Whine harder sweetie you might make a point.

I found it utterly scummy to have westerners whine about China while their country is making bank off the genocide in gaza. What have you done beside whining on the internet

https://feddit.org/search?q=israel&type=All&listingType=All&creatorId=7226226&page=1&sort=TopAll

You're a brainwashed idiot who cares a lot about genocide as long as it aligns with your first world interests lmao

You're a genocide voters and when your loved one will be bombed with white phosphorus I won't have the slightest empathy lmao

Fuck off you tanky piece of shit. Learn about context and irony, you idiot fuck.

Also, insulting someone by saying they support genocide to only then say you want their country to be genocided. You are quite literally not only a supporter of genocide, but an advocate for it. Fuck you, you genocidal authoritarian boot licking scum.

AHAHAHAHAH the bitchtard from a genocidal country thinks he's in position to call out anything

You're a terrible person asshole

you made a post about the Kent State shooting, for example, right now on Lemmy or anywhere else really, you’re not going to a hoard of Americans or non Americans in the comments crying about “BuT wHaT aBoUt ChInA hYpOcRiTeS?!?”,

China doesn't have a penn state day, idiot.

Also china isn't arming a genocide right now

China doesn’t have a penn state day, idiot.

Penn state? Wtf are you talking about?

Also china isn’t arming a genocide right no

Yes, they are. They're arming Russia's genocide in Ukraine and they're also carrying out their own genocides in both Tibet and Xinjiang.

Lmao sorry whatever is happening in Tibet is certainly awful but it's not carpet bombing civilians.

Beside that whole Ukraine shit is instigated by the oligarchs from both side. Yeltsin was in Washington 3 days before the ussr coup. Putin is a corrupted capitalist cunt like von der leyen is a corrupted capitalist cunt

I usually avoid commenting on your replies in other posts because it's a waste of time, but I'll make an exception here to demonstrate your complete lack of moral integrity.

sorry whatever is happening in Tibet is certainly awful

You should've stopped your comment here. This would've been a very principled position against genocides that would've demonstrated that you understood the point that I was making and you would've demonstrated that you have moral integrity. But then you decided to continue...

but it’s not carpet bombing civilians.

Now, your position is less principled because you're trying to turn genocides into some sort of competition. Instead of condemning them all outright out of principle, you're trying to determine which genocides better or worse than the others which not only demonstrates that you didn't understand my point, but it also shows that you care more about pushing your ideology than the actual genocides themselves. As bad as this is, at least you admit that what's happening in Tibet is still awful, you should've really stopped here, but of course you didn't...

Beside that whole Ukraine shit is instigated by the oligarchs from both side. Yeltsin was in Washington 3 days before the ussr coup. Putin is a corrupted capitalist cunt like von der leyen is a corrupted capitalist cunt

Why? Why would you say something so mind numbingly ignorant? If you are adamant about what Israel is doing in Gaza is a genocide regardless of nuance or context, one would think you would apply this standard consistently to other conflicts out of principle... yet you don't. If you wanted to argue that Gaza is worse than Tibet for the sake agenda pushing, fine, whatever, but this? This just shows that you have no principles, no morals, no values, no consistency, nothing.

The Ukraine war is the clearest and most clear cut example of genocide in the world today. Ukraine was attacked by Russia completely unprovoked, Russia has explicitly stated their goal is to erase Ukraine, they kidnapped over 700k children, they killed tens of thousands of civilians, they systematically razed a quarter of the country, and they have been intentionally trying to destroying civilian infrastructure for almost 4 years now. This is despite the West doing their best to buddy up to Russia even after they illegally invaded Georgia in 2008 and illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. One would think you would apply the same standard you have for Israel on Russia, but you don't. Now it's suddenly "both sides" and the fault isn't with the aggressor but with "capitalism", "Washington", "oligarchs"... even though there's less nuance and context necessary to understand this conflict. You're so slimy its gross.

Yeah i'm not reading your essay retard. Your country is complicit with a genocide and it's not the uygurs

This is why I and most other users on this site actively avoid interacting with you. You're an illiterate moron who painfully ignorant with a stick up his ass. I'm done wasting my time on you, you're going to be ignored again.

Don't worry the world will forget about Ukraine. The world has already moved on past Armenian genocide even though Turkey and the vast majority of Turks still deny the genocide, and some are even openly proud of it. The world has moved on from the Holocaust even though there are still soooo many genocide deniers everywhere. The world has moved on from the Yazidi genocide even though that has happened only 10 years ago and a lot of perpetrators are still running around today. Even now with what’s going on in Gaza, Myanmar, Tibet, Armenia, Kurdistan, Sudan, Yemen, people just move on with their lives. What makes you think that they don’t or that this will be different?

You're a piece of shit propping "the denmark model" of remigrating people to god knows where lmao you think you're a good person?

You're a weapon industry simp

Everyday we see way worse shit happening on the streets of the US. Somehow the crackdown back then on anti-communist academics is an enshrined moment, but people on our streets getting arrested, detained, or killed is just business as usual.

If it's condensed down to a day then it's easy to bleat about it since you can point to a single day "where it all happened". If you spread out the injustice, like instituting unjust laws bill-by-bill, increasing police funding, and ramping up media rhetoric on how crime is out of control and that we need politicians who are "tough on crime" then you get something like the most imprisoned population on Earth, but there isn't a single focal point to point at, instead multiple contributing factors, so it doesn't stick out as much.

Agreed, I was hoping to bring attention to the fact that beyond a short attention span, you’d see comparable if not exceeding levels of historic violence

They weren't "fellow civillians".

https://x.com/carlzha/status/1134582926325104641

Those "fellow civillians" weren't civilians, they were secret police. So I don't know what good does the video do.

Have you tried actually confirming that?

Have you tried not being a tankie and thinking for a second, or actually doing your own research?

That was a Socratic question. You clearly have not because you’re parroting unconfirmed theories from Internet forums. Perhaps if you had “done your own research”, you wouldn’t be sounding like such a moron

Uh huh, sure mr tankie, I sound like a moron. Get blocked.

No. The US is not currently outright massacring citizens.

Could it happen? Sure. Is it happening? No.

They're massacring palestinians citizens.

At least chineses are doing that to themselves. The US just bombs brown people with both side of the "PolItCicAL SpecTruM" applauding themselves for bringing democracy

Narrator: “It did.”

damn propaganda in all its glory

The US won't "forget" unless China pays the Dipshit-in-chief some payoff money. He'll then EO that it never happened.

Free West Taiwan! Someday, the White Sun will rise above Peking.

Why is it being written as “date of 4 June”?

There's a whole world outside of the US.

That didn’t answer my question. Is it the new lemmy thing to fuck with Americans for asking questions? I thought that was unique to Reddit but I guess not.

I guess us Americans will be stuck being stupid because non Americans refuse to answer questions to make a point that Americans are stupid.

You have the opportunity to learn something and instead you throw a tantrum

I literally asked the question. I don’t know non US date formatting. I know this story didn’t originate in China so it can’t be Chinese date formatting. We have the guardian in the Us as well but this formatting is not from the US. I am actively trying to learn something. A simple answer like “XYZ country formats their dates this way”. If you don’t know not answering would have been fine but the condescending response isn’t helpful.

It amuses me the amount of effort you've put into this instead of just simply googling the answer

The west sends literal tanks to a genocide RIGHT NOW but some "leftists" are whining about what the USSR did 50 years ago. Yeah very convincing

Never forget when the CIA organised an armed color revolution which resulted into people shooting at the Chinese military. The clashes outsider of the square, not on it as the name suggests, resulted in a total of around 300 deaths.

Tiananmen has to be the dumbest propaganda pount because it is so incredibly easy to debunk for anyone who has basic access to a search machine. The CIA literally admitted they backed the riots.

The sheer hypocrisy of posting this while the American government is arming a live streamed genocide with over 60.000, likely more than 200.00p killed.

Gonna need a source of two there, chief.

"Trust me bro"

https://youtu.be/2Oq2k066A1w

Couple of good sources in this summary here.

Well I gave it a go, but the very first argument was a straw man, so I didn't have the energy to filter through 30 minutes of biased, disingenuous and amateurish documentary. If you could give me some readable sources, from credible sources, that would be great. You've made a lot of extraordinary claims in your original comment...

Shithead lib refuses to learn. Surprising.

Cretin

You might be enjoying your creative writing class a little too much

I think you've been sucking CIA propaganda cock a little too much.

>consumes nothing but propaganda

> literally make up things as you go

> people call you out on it

> everybody else is clearly brainwashed except you

Sure thing, bud

what an elaborate fantasy.

You could pick so many more things to criticize China for especially from its past, verifiable events, yet the west always picks Tiananmen Square, making sure to pick the image of the guy standing in front of the tank, but somehow always forgets to show the video of the guy climbing on top of the tank, asking soldiers to turn around to where the protesters are, and somehow forget mentioning that literally half the casualties were soldiers that were set ablaze. Even diplomatic cables at the time either leaked or declassified prove that.

The Tiananmen square massacre is a verified event. We literally have videos and pictures documenting the entire massacre. How much of an idiot do you have to be to believe low level Chinese propaganda about this being fake or a good thing?

So where are said videos of the massacre happening

I've seen images and footage put out by journalists. I'm just not bothered to re-locate them for the sake of a tankie.

Because they don't exist. China is winning and you're just a sore loser

In his dreams, along with destroying the three gorges dam and not seeing the irony in pretending to care about civilians.

Whataboutism

the guy was blocking the tanks from leaving tiananmen square too blobfox, blobfoxangrylaugh

The most intriguing alt-history stuff I've read about it was that the protesters were "lefties" protesting the Dengist attempts at liberalization and confucianist reform, because in one of the videos the protesters were singing socialist anthems e.g. 1st international. It looked like the last gasp of the cultural revolution. But I'm not sure how to check any of this (certainly not from the Chinese archives and the rest of the world only has videos...and the cables you mention), it's probably just another bullshit story to cover up what happened.

"The consensus is also that there was no actual “massacre” in the square."

oh, so because hundreds of people were killed in the streets just outside the square, that's alright then, no need to mention it, let's keep defending the authoritarian state, huh.

the DW article does mention that most of the killings were on the streets outside the square.

you disingenuously cherry-picked your quote to imply there was no massacre at all.

with your demonstrated level of respect for human life, it's entirely unsurprising that you admire authoritarian violent regimes.

It actually matters where people died because in the square there were unarmed student protesters and outside the square were armed workers battling it out with military which resulted in an almost even split in casualties between workers and military. A massacre entails armed people rounding up unarmed people and just straight up slaughtering people.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42465516

"The Chinese army crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests killed at least 10,000 people, according to newly released UK documents.

The figure was given in a secret diplomatic cable from then British ambassador to China, Sir Alan Donald.

The original source was a friend of a member of China's State Council, the envoy says.

Previous estimates of the deaths in the pro-democracy protests ranged from several hundred to more than 1,000."

The capitalism capital of the world probably shouldn’t be preaching about human rights.

Boy, you sure did get 'em. No pointing out bad behavior unless your history is unblemished, I guess.

US history is a little more than unblemished, though. Hell, not even history. They are literally arming a genocidal state as we speak.

So is China.

Don't forget that they are literally being lead by a political movement named after the history denying idea that they were "great" at some point and want to get back to that (never mind the other lie that the leaders of the movement don't actually want to get back to any particular point in history despite the name)

Tankie bot says what now? Get lost.

Every now and then I follow up and ask tankies what their actionable alternative is. They just never have one. Just making perfect the enemies of good. Tankies are deeply un-serious.

Best resource distribution (economic) model according to tankies: "Trust me bro"

I'd still rather have a more socialist society. Distribution based on markets means depriving those in need. Unfortunately tankies would rather leave vulnerable people to suffer the brutality of capitalism.

Shocking idea (this will blow your mind), but what if we dont fund a genocidal apartheid state? I mean not cut military aid by 30% or delay it three weeks, what if we just dont? What if we dont compromise with fascism?

If you abstain then you won't have influence to stop funding genocide.

If you are serious please comment a real and actionable alternative.

The fact that voting inherently requires accepting fascism does not make fascism ok, it inherently makes liberal democracy fascist. As for a real and actionable alternative, building dual power through unions. Build communities from the bottom up to resist fascism and arm workers to prepare for eventual revolution.

The fact that voting inherently requires accepting fascism does not make fascism ok, it inherently makes liberal democracy fascist

I don't see how that follows

Build communities from the bottom up to resist fascism and arm workers to prepare for eventual revolution.

I agree, but don't you want to see some incremental progress for it in the mean time? We need political influence and tankies are just not good allies for it. Genocide is happening today. People are hungry and without medicine today. We can't wait for a perfect revolution (those who wait are really just showing their privilege). Waiting for that also means leaving those you intended to help to die in the trenches. That in short is why I consider tankies un-serious.

I support the community building from the bottom up, but tankies are not doing that either. They are no shows on all fronts, and demoralizing our movements when we do try to do other things.

Agreed people are dying today, thats why we cant make these compromises. Compromising the lives of milliones of people based on what makes a bunch of privileged white liberals feel comfortable. Because right now only liberals are trying to equate the Palestinian Genocide with Palestinian resistance, thats what actural both sideism looks like.

Look I can tell you are semi tankie and just don't want to help, but I will leave you with a semi personal and unrelated note. As a teen I first heard of UBI. I thought it was a bad idea. I sounded as if it was some sort of bribe. Like there is an understanding that capitalism sucks and instead of doing anything to fix society here is some cash to get you to shut up. I wanted a more permanent solution. I still do. But getting that cash in peoples hands today still helps our overall movement and provides relief to those suffering. Incremental progress to our goals matters. If we worked on growing the progressive wing in the dem party we would have more tools to limit the funding we give to Israel. You know what else? That gives us more space to build worker communities from the ground up as well.

And I mean this on all levels. From local elections to federal. We need more progressive policies to help us if we are going to move left. And so speak with you a bit directly Lenin ultimately did move to have political power to further his goals. Tankies not working to build a progressive moment where we can means we never move forward. I have not disagreed with you on anything, but you are not showing solidarity with me and leaving others like me alone to die without support.

There are things im willing to compromise on, basic human rights and the dignity of all workers are not among them. Liberation of workers in one region should not and and does not come at the expense of international workers liberation. I refuse to accept any system that bribes workers using the plunders of the global south. If that makes me a tankie than feel free to call me one.

There are things im willing to compromise on, basic human rights and the dignity of all workers are not among them

And at no point where you being asked to compromise on that. You are being asked to do something tangible for people today, so that we can have a real leftist movement.

I understand this is a difficult topic (it is for me as well), but please re-read what I am saying sometime in the future when you are in a better state to understand what I am writing.

Whataboutism.

Taiwan?

China?

Lol you're the type of imbecile who would cry about Palestine and American imperialism, but then turn around and say shit like this. Marxists are a joke.

You’re not making much sense.

I'm saying you have no moral consistency. Think about it, what purpose does your comment serve besides defending this massacre? You're simply mad that are people are recognizing it as such, and you want to shut down the criticism by screaming hypocrisy, but that in of itself is hypocritical because if China came out and recognized the trail of tears for example, you would be ecstatic with joy. You wouldn't be crying about how China shouldn't preach about human rights due to their extensive record of human rights abuses.

My favorite thing to do is to watch liberals read the (very western biased) Wikipedia article on this event. The moment when they realize how many soldiers were killed before the crackdown is always radicalizing for those with even a modicum of intellectual curiosity.

This sounds like how conservatives rationalize the Kent State massacre by claiming that the protesters were throwing feces.

You're not radicalized. You just switched which authoritarian you swear fealty to.

Reminds me of Hillsborough and “some fans”.

It would be different if the protesters had lynched a dozen soldiers before they responded.

Of course given the context of the Vietnam war, the soldiers wouldn't have been justified even if the protesters killed some of them first; you don't get to claim self-defense when you yourself are only there to put down a protest against imperialism.

I guess the Chinese soldiers were minding their own business at home with their families, and not there to just put down protests against authoritarianism.

Wasn't the problem that their families were part of the protesters? That's why reinforcements from outside the city (without family ties) were called in.

See the big difference is the US was murdering countless Vietnamese to keep them under the boot of capitalism. The protesters in Tienanmen aren't as black and white. If the protesters were protesting China poisoning the food supply and massacring countless villages of country on the other side of the planet to keep a country's resources easy to exploit and their people's blood ready to be spent keeping other countries under the boot of capitalism, it would be that simple, but they weren't.

Also "against authoritarianism" lmao you are a literal child.

Most rational people oppose authoritarianism.

Ah yes that must be why so many people revolt while the west is sliding into fascism /s

Here, it'll take two minutes to read this. I'm not even going to get into the contexts "authoritarianism" is and isn't used today (hint: liberals use it and see no hypocrisy).

"Chinese government killed their own people, it's fine! They are basically property"

I'm always curious to compare how Americans view the Tianemen Square incident with Waco.

Like, if you ask an American to explain what happened at Waco, you'll get a bunch of blank stares. A few people with anti-government views will explain how a religious community was ruthlessly butchered by the Gestapo-like FBI. A few people with anti-religious views will insist this was a child sex cult that committed suicide while the FBI tried to help.

But for the most part, those Americans who remember it just see it as another normal police action against people who were probably committing all sorts of crimes.

You could also talk about the BLM protests from '14 to '18, and how the broad American view was that this was police acting to protect private property. And maybe some of the protesters didn't deserve such rough treatment, but hey they knew what they signed up for when they blocked traffic.

But the views on Tianemen are uniform. Chinese killed that nice man with their tank and then killed everyone else in the city and then covered it up in a way only people in China are unaware it happened.

I only see wiki reference 10 soldiers having died - is this the number you're referring to?

Do you think that's alot? In my head that's disproportionately few compared to the [disputed] 100s of civilians that the Chinese government declared dead

According to the linked page with PLA/PAP casualties, there were 15 verifiable deaths (PRC official number is 23). Half of them weren't directly caused by the protesters, and the other half occurred after troops first opened fire. Truly, I feel quite radicalized.

Consider yourself both radicalised and owned liberal! /s

Can you share that link? I'm curious how the 7 "non directly caused by protesters" died. They just had a random accident? Lovers quarrel? Food poisoning?

PLA/PAP Casualties

Summary is a truck flipped over, supposed friendly fire incident with a non-uniformed soldier, and a heart attack.

According to the official numbers there were ten civilians killed for every state agent of oppression.

Liberals are hardly better than the conservatives in the US. They all seem to be naive right wingers.

Killing the villainous authoritarian ork creature CCP is always virtuous and good and needs to be celebrated.

Stopping a tank in front of an unarmed bicyclist until police pull him out of the way is unforgivable genocide.