• Rev@lemmygrad.ml
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        I was honestly so surprised myself when I realized that the supposed most famous picture of the massacre didn’t show a single dead body. Just makes you think about how easily can falsehood be used for propaganda.

        • 201dberg@lemmygrad.ml
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          One of the first casualties of the whole protest was an unarmed PLA officer that was tied to a bus by the protestors and burnt alive. Then mocked and photographed. They never share that photo around though.

          • Water Bowl Slime@lemmygrad.ml
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            Westerners refuse to believe that about half the fatalities were PLA members because in their countries, the police would never be unarmed, never abandon their equipment, never hesitate to kill in retaliation.

            Westerners also don’t pity the murdered PLA officers because they view them the same as their own police: violent people that eagerly abuse their power.

            • 201dberg@lemmygrad.ml
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              Imagine if BLM protestors had tied an unarmed, out of uniform, cop to a bus and burnt them alive what the libs would be screaming for. They would want outright slaughter.

            • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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              I think that’s the most eye-opening thing about this “massacre”

              if this had happened in the US, the streets would have run with rivers of blood. It would’ve been utterly brutal. And the US would be the one rewriting history to try and pretend it never happened. It’s always projection.

              • Water Bowl Slime@lemmygrad.ml
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                Yeah so much western propaganda is essentially just accusing this or that country of being like the USA. I genuinely don’t understand why it’s so effective

                • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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                  Because the other half of the propaganda is convincing people that the USA isn’t like the USA. No idea how that one works so well either thought.

  • The only reason whitey even gives a shit about these dead chinese people is that they hate china so much. After all, half of them are still secretly jerking themselves off at the thought of millions of chinese farmers dying due to the Three Gorges Dam going broke.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      Muricans; TIANAMEN SEESEEPEE 10,000 dead tank jelly gutters!

      Also Muricans: What do you mean Indonesia slaughtered half a million innocent people with the knowledge and support of the US government? What do you means the US and Saudi conspired to kill hundreds of thousands of Yemenis in a campaign of naked and uncomplicated genocide? What do you mean the South Korean forces murdered tens of thousands of innocent people using a pretense of communism? That’s all bullshit I would have heard about that and anyway they weren’t white so I don’t care.

  • senoro@lemmy.ml
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    Most reliable genzedong news source. When you google A B Abrams, supposed writer of the book in question there is zero information about him other than the very questionable books he has written from very biased news sources. And there aren’t many.

    Let me ask you this, what does A B in A B Abrams stand for? Nothing because they aren’t a real person.

    When you google A B Abrams, one of the top results is from the “daily nk” i.e. the daily North Korea. Where we are told that the author has published under multiple pseudonyms, none of which we are told. They supposedly have multiple Masters degrees in “related fields” from the university of London. Which by the way, is not a single university but a group of different universities throughout London, so that’s even more vague. And then finally, we are told that “A B Abrams” studied korean at the university of Pyongyang. And has many contacts with people inside of North Korea.

    To me, this screams propaganda, likely originating from North Korea or potentially even China, in order to make the west look bad. And you can make the west look bad without lying about the Tiananmen Square Massacre’s existence.

    To deny the events that unfolded at Tiananmen Square is like denying that humans have been to the moon. It’s an unfounded, in fact, disprovable conspiracy theory.

    Also, if the Tiananmen Square massacre had never happened, then why does the Chinese government continue to block any mention of it vis the firewall and censorship?

    • WhatWouldKarlDo@lemmygrad.ml
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      To deny the events that unfolded at Tiananmen Square is like denying that humans have been to the moon. It’s an unfounded, in fact, disprovable conspiracy theory.

      So prove it to us then. All you’re doing right now is scolding us for being insane conspiracy theorists. I’ve never seen any evidence that anything happened at tiananmen square. Reports from people who were actually there all say that there was no massacre

      The US has a very long history of lying about its enemies. There are plenty of declassified CIA docs that talk about what lies to tell the media. Why is this one different?

      Edit: also, see pen names. Isn’t it a little hypocritical to call us conspiracy theorists when you come to the conclusion that the book was lies written by China or North Korea because you can’t find any information about the author?

    • GorbinOutOverHere [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      100% more reliable as a source than Adrian Zenz and yet Im sure you believe all the Uigher genocide bullshit that almost always circles back to him or literally U.S. mouthpieces like Radio Free Asia

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        I don’t believe that “A B Abrams” is a reliable source, I don’t know anything about these other things you say. But when I googled A B Abrams, I only found a small selection of very suspect websites. And for that reason, I do not trust this article or this book

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          He isn’t the source, he is the author. As far as I have read he is not claiming firsthand knowledge of the events from the incident. It honestly shouldn’t matter to you if it was written by Mao himself, if there are directly verifiable sources being presented.

          The reliable sources are the accounts he cites, like the diplomats who provided first hand accounts of events there.

  • jackpot@lemmy.ml
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    what the fuck is this shite, tiananmen happened you fucking cunts cry me a river

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      Have you ever tried… Reading anything? Other than comment sections I mean.

      Even western sources agree with us. The only place that continues to spread the mythological bullshit narrative that was first dreamt up about it is reddit. Everyone else, even the western press, has accepted that the Chinese narrative is more accurate.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html

      https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/

      • jackpot@lemmy.ml
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        The Chinese Red Cross had given a figure of 2,600 deaths. shut the fuck up??? if no massacre took place why cant chinese people discuss it?

      • jackpot@lemmy.ml
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        thats a perverted bastardisation of my argument and you know it, im angry cause youre lying about a massacre that did happen not happening

      • jackpot@lemmy.ml
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        want me to pull up the mass starvation records under mao or are yiu going to claim thats fake too, youre no better than a holocaust denier. fuck off

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          The average lifespan of the Chinese at the start of the revolution was 33 years of age, that’s how horrible things were under the British, Americans and other western imperialists exploiting the country. It went up DURING the revolution, a time of civil war between the communists and the ROC combined with a literally genocidal fascist invasion by the Japanese.

          Conditions were so bad that the communists still made people’s lives better during those horrendous circumstances. By the time the new country was founded it had risen to 45 years, and by the time Mao died in 1976 it had risen to 62 years of age.

          Were things just peachy during this time? No. Did they consistently improve the lives of the people? Yes. Were things significantly worse beforehand? 100%.


          The maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry.

          • jackpot@lemmy.ml
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            global lifespans around the world have gone up, this isnt a totally fair argument. as they say, high tides lift all boats. british colonialists are notoriously evil, i wont defend them. i will have to look into uour comment more, thanks for the info. but on zedong, he was a cutthroat dictator and is succeeded by another and another and (etc. etc.), we’re still seeing genocides today with the ugyhurs for example in tibet and forceful annexations with hong kong, tibet, taiwan (soon?), large sea expanses, etc… china’s economic success does not excuse ethnofascism

            • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              Can you tell me what the life expectancy is in capitalist Nigeria please? Which France is attempting to get to invade Niger to stop them from becoming free of colonialism.

              Capitalism has yet to improve the lives of people. It functions to maintain itself and provide wealth extraction from the labour of the working class, in the global south it functions to export that wealth into the imperialist western nations which act as an empire bloc.

              he was a cutthroat dictator

              Nah man. You don’t really know this, you’ve just heard it repeated by hundreds and hundreds of reddit comments over and over again without actually investigating it properly from proper sources instead of propaganda. You also probably come from a country that has a deeply anticommunist problem. Here in the UK viewing Mao as having done more good than harm is normal among the left. It is the right and particularly the far right nationalists that scream all this bullshit. Here I can even show you elected mp Diane Abbot defending Mao on national TV (surrounding by right wing psychos). Or then Shadow Chancellor of the Treasury John McDonald throwing Mao’s little red book on the table in Parliament giving a speech in front of the labour party.

              Mao played a pivotal role in freeing the country from colonialism, establishing new china, redistributing wealth and land and improving the lives of the people. Anyone that believes those lives were going to improve without revolution is crazy. Was he perfect? Fuck no he definitely made mistakes like killing the Sparrows which they quickly backtracked on. But was he good? Fuck yes. 70% good, 30% mistakes.

        • uralsolo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          mass starvation records under mao

          You mean the last Chinese famine, after a thousand years of recurring famines which happened under every Chinese regime, and were solved once and for all by the end of the Great Leap Forward? Yes let’s talk about those.

    • booty [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      lmao you wanna try that again without any slurs? you forgot to put your mask on before coming into the discussion, dronie

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        what mask? i dont care if your feelings are in a twist youre literally denying the deaths of thousans of teenage protestors under a regime. talk to the families of the victims holy shit you asshole

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Akshually sweaty, according to the intense and very legitimate research of the victims of communism foundation every one of those 10,000 theoretical victims would have had 10,000 good anti-communist childre, who would have had 10,000 children, so really the ICUP killed THIRTY INFINITY PEOPLE, including all of the neanderthals and DB Cooper!

        What do you have to say to that, tankie!?!?!

      • jackpot@lemmy.ml
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        how tf does anyome invent 10K dead people??? they had fucjing families yiu moron yiu can go ask them yiurself you degenerate shithead. stop sucking off some dictators cock

        • HornyOnMain [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          you removed shithead. stop sucking off some dictators cock

          Liberals really come in screaming slurs and being homophobic in a predominantly queer instance and expect to be taken seriously

        • keepcarrot [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          Yeah, you can. Except… 10k people, there’s actually only a couple of primary sources for that number who claim to be there. I realise that every lib expat from China will claim that they had a family member in the protests who died, but very few are willing to go on the record even with Western protection.

          The thing is, the vast vast vast majority of people who believe “10k dead” haven’t engaged with primary sources (people that actually saw what was going on at Tiananmen Square). The western journalists who were present don’t believe the 10k number, even though they aren’t CPC shills.

          Why am I even responding to this? I literally have been in those spaces and asked, all without sucking Xi’s dick, let alone Deng’s or whatever.

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Some dipshits just made it up out of thing air way back when the whole thing went down. Like just completely made it up, along with the bullshit about tanks running over people in the square and all kinds of other BS.

          Also, gulag

  • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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    Coming even from from an anarchist (i.e. someone who is also distrustful of government, media, etc), this type of stuff makes you guys sound crazy. In 2023 saying Tiananmen Square massacre never happened is an extraordinary claim and therefore is going to require extraordinary evidence for effective persuasion. You behave like Chinese state apologists to most people.

    Now maybe you’re right, TBH I can’t claim to know for certain, but if you actually want to convince people you need to do more than point to documents I have no more reason to believe than the pictures and documents I’ve already seen. Why should I believe your sources vs what as far as I can tell is the rest of the academic world that doesn’t agree with you? Especially when it seems apparent that current Chinese leadership has an obvious authoritarian quality and ends justify the means type of attitude. You may deny this but all it takes for me to believe it is to see the fear in the faces of Chinese people when asked certain questions.

    • SleepyCat@lemmygrad.ml
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      saying Tiananmen Square massacre never happened is an extraordinary claim and therefore is going to require extraordinary evidence

      You got the concept completely backwards. The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim, not on others to disprove.

      Saying that soldiers gunned down a bunch of unarmed protestors is the extraordinary claim here, and it’s the one that lacks evidence. A picture of bicycles and of one man standing in front of a tank is not evidence of a massacre. If there’s better evidence out there then please provide it.

      • urshanabi [he/they]@lemmygrad.ml
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        Very well said. I forget that one can already be on the defensive when engaging due to poor faith arguments or extraordinary claims which seem so obvious by others but which still need hard evidence to believe rather than gestures and seemingly innocuous phrasing.

      • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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        I would say the more extraordinary of these claims is the one believed by a tiny subset of the western world (at least when these claims are made in the western world).

        A bunch of people on Lemmy pointing me to likely auth-communist propaganda is no different to me than a bunch of Christians pointing me to the bible. Why would I believe your websites any more than I believe the bible, or CNN?

        • DrCrustacean [any]@hexbear.net
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          A bunch of people on Lemmy pointing me to likely auth-communist propaganda is no different to me than a bunch of Christians pointing me to the bible. Why would I believe your websites any more than I believe the bible, or CNN?

          I’m going to send you an emoji of a pig pooping on his own balls. I’m not sure if emojis are transfered properly through another federated instance, so if it doesn’t work please send me a message so we can fix it.

          PIGPOOPBALLS

        • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          A bunch of people on Lemmy pointing me to likely auth-communist propaganda is no different to me than a bunch of Christians pointing me to the bible. Why would I believe your websites any more than I believe the bible, or CNN?

          smuglord

        • SleepyCat@lemmygrad.ml
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          It doesn’t matter how many westerners do or don’t believe something. A claim without evidence can be dismissed without evidence regardless.

          Where are the piles of corpses that the PLA supposedly created that day? Please show me.

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          Demanding evidence and the writing off evidence as “auth-communist propaganda” is just declaring your prejudice correct with an extra step. Shall we say that internal memos of the US government are “auth-communist propaganda” too?

          Why would I believe your websites any more than I believe the bible, or CNN?

          It’s interesting because you seem to have still inherited your beliefs from the state you decry and corporate media.

            • Gucci_Minh [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              I’m just going to paste the entirety of On Authority by Engels here, I know you don’t read theory but at least try

              A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. This summary mode of procedure is being abused to such an extent that it has become necessary to look into the matter somewhat more closely.

              Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority presupposes subordination. Now, since these two words sound bad, and the relationship which they represent is disagreeable to the subordinated party, the question is to ascertain whether there is any way of dispensing with it, whether — given the conditions of present-day society — we could not create another social system, in which this authority would be given no scope any longer, and would consequently have to disappear.

              On examining the economic, industrial and agricultural conditions which form the basis of present-day bourgeois society, we find that they tend more and more to replace isolated action by combined action of individuals. Modern industry, with its big factories and mills, where hundreds of workers supervise complicated machines driven by steam, has superseded the small workshops of the separate producers; the carriages and wagons of the highways have become substituted by railway trains, just as the small schooners and sailing feluccas have been by steam-boats. Even agriculture falls increasingly under the dominion of the machine and of steam, which slowly but relentlessly put in the place of the small proprietors big capitalists, who with the aid of hired workers cultivate vast stretches of land.

              Everywhere combined action, the complication of processes dependent upon each other, displaces independent action by individuals. But whoever mentions combined action speaks of organisation; now, is it possible to have organisation without authority?

              Supposing a social revolution dethroned the capitalists, who now exercise their authority over the production and circulation of wealth. Supposing, to adopt entirely the point of view of the anti-authoritarians, that the land and the instruments of labour had become the collective property of the workers who use them. Will authority have disappeared, or will it only have changed its form? Let us see.

              Let us take by way of example a cotton spinning mill. The cotton must pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in different rooms. Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed, must be observed by all, without any exception. Thereafter particular questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled in an authoritarian way. The automatic machinery of the big factory is much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have been. At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the portals of these factories: Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate! [Leave, ye that enter in, all autonomy behind!]

              If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him, in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all social organisation. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel.

              Let us take another example — the railway. Here too the co-operation of an infinite number of individuals is absolutely necessary, and this co-operation must be practised during precisely fixed hours so that no accidents may happen. Here, too, the first condition of the job is a dominant will that settles all subordinate questions, whether this will is represented by a single delegate or a committee charged with the execution of the resolutions of the majority of persona interested. In either case there is a very pronounced authority. Moreover, what would happen to the first train dispatched if the authority of the railway employees over the Hon. passengers were abolished?

              But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas. There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and absolute obedience of all to the will of one.

              When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that’s true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.

              We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us together with the material conditions under which we produce and make products circulate.

              We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority. Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society. If the autonomists confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they passionately fight the world.

              Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

              Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.

            • DoiDoi [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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              The united states has the world’s largest prison population by both total incarcerated and percentage of the total population. People from the US calling any other country authoritarian is fucking hilarious, and should make it clear how little meaning the word actually has in common usage.

              • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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                Um acktually tankies, don’t you know I hate the US too?

                Anyway, back to my angry ranting about China’s authoritarianism using US state department propaganda about them.

              • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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                I never claimed the U.S. wasn’t authoritarian. I think the U.S. is in fact extremely authoritarian, maybe even on the same level as China.

                • egg1918 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                  I think the U.S. is in fact extremely authoritarian, maybe even on the same level as China.

                  And yet you believe everything 1 tells you about the other. I wonder white thonk

    • WhatWouldKarlDo@lemmygrad.ml
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      extraordinary claim and therefore is going to require extraordinary evidence

      All it takes to prove that the massacre did happen is evidence. Where is this extraordinary evidence?

      Proving that something doesn’t exist is much harder. There was a liberal in here earlier though that was also saying that we’re a bunch of conspiracy theorists. I gave him links, you can see them below. First hand reports from people who were actually there say that there was no massacre. This includes a CBS reporter and a Latin American diplomat.

      • aleph@lemm.ee
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        First hand reports from people who were actually there say that there was no massacre.

        In the square itself, maybe, but all eyewitnesses agree that the PLA shot and killed many hundreds of protesters in Beijing during the protests, which had been (until that point) largely peaceful.

        So while you at the author of this article might be correct to say that there was no actual massacre in Tiananmen Square itself, there certainly was a massacre going on around it.

        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8057762.stm

        https://earnshaw.com/writings/memoirs/tiananmen-story

        https://apnews.com/article/4d3bc613370f4f1d97bf841d1ef5ef6c

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        1 year ago

        Why would I believe your sources over others? Especially when there are what appear to most people to be pictures of the Chinese state using lethal military force against protesters and dead bodes on the ground. Are these fake pictures?

          • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Do you believe we went to the moon? If so why? If not why?

            Do you believe human caused climate change is a thing? Why?

            You’re believing somebody, why do you believe those people?

            • 新星 [he/him/CPC bot]@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              Do you believe in Last Thursdayism? I choose not to because reality has no meaning that way and the consequences are still the same.

              Do you believe in your own birth? After all, you couldn’t possibly remember it. How do you know aliens didn’t just materialize you out of nothing? Again, I choose not to subscribe to the alien-materialization theory because there’s a much better hypothesis that seems to make a lot more sense.

        • WhatWouldKarlDo@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Again, fantastical claims. Where are these pictures?

          Edit: I love that this is the second person to come in here who gives us shit for being conspiracy theorists, disregards first hand eyewitness accounts, and runs away when pressed for evidence. Murder trials in the US must work very differently than I’ve been led to believe.

    • SootySootySoot [any]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Honestly, you want a simple, widely accepted, heavily west-biased source? Literally just read the wikipedia article.

      “[CBS and WP journalists] could not find enough evidence to suggest that a massacre took place on the square”

      “cables from the United States embassy in Beijing agreed there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square”

      Nobody here is denying there were protests, or that a limited number people died in clashes with police across the country. But literally no reputed source, western lib or otherwise, claims that the government was out in Tianenmen killing civilians in major numbers.

    • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      No ML denies that China is ‘authoritarian’. They argue that all states are.

      Almost everything Marxists say is poorly understood by their detractors and framed in a negative light in one way or another.

      what as far as I can tell is the rest of the academic world that doesn’t agree with you?

      This makes it seem as though you haven’t read the literature and arguments of either side. If that’s the case you shouldn’t be coming to any conclusions at all, especially to dismiss one side outright for being unorthodox. By definition, the counter narrative is going to sound unorthodox in light of the orthodox claims. The correct approach is to read the source and judge it on its own merit and in light of other known facts.

        • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Same energy as saying that Soviets ‘pressed’ women into science careers in the same era as liberals were paying Nazi fashion designers (Dior) to design clothes for women (the ‘new look’) that made working almost impossible, so as to force them back into the home after their taste of (relative) freedom during the war years.

          (To be fair to Dior, his sister was based and he apparently named a perfume after her but my source for this is rather cleansing (Wikipedia) so who knows how true that is.)

      • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        This makes it seem as though you haven’t read the literature and arguments of either side.

        Correct, I have not studied this event.

        If that’s the case you shouldn’t be coming to any conclusions at all

        You’ll notice I didn’t come to a conclusion.

        dismiss one side outright for being unorthodox.

        Your position is in fact unorthodox in my culture (U.S.) – that’s what I’m saying. If you have a non-standard position, if you actually want to convince people you need to make the information accessible and give people a reason why they should believe it over their normally acceptable sources. Making fun of them is probably counter-productive (even if it is fun).

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            1 year ago

            To be clear, I’m not speaking of this event, I never made any claims of knowledge about this event.

            • Kuori [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              you’re just loudly denouncing everyone who has investigated the event in question as wrong because they go against your (admittedly) ignorant view of reality

        • 201dberg@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          you actually want to convince people you need to make the information accessible and give people a reason why they should believe it over their normally acceptable sources. Making fun of them is probably counter-productive (even if it is fun).

          Says an “anarchist”

          On a post

          About a book

          That’s is literally the source of the information in which you say we should be proving.

          You not only have no right to complain about being made fun of and harassed but deserve it. lol

          • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Do you expect everyone to read your book? How credible is this author? What about this book makes a true understanding of the events accessible rather than just being another person voicing their opinion of evidence the choose to accept?

            • AOCapitulator [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              bro, just go read the book, or at least parts of it and skim for quotes to smack us down with, if its really that flimsy fucking get us for it!

              “I could beat you up if I wanted to but I don’t so I won’t waaaaaaaa”

            • Kuori [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              this is pure JAQing off. you’d have answers to your questions if you spent more time investigating and less time regurgitating state department propaganda

              expecting everyone to do the work for you because you’re too lazy is LIB shit

                • Kuori [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  y’all are doing god’s work out there comrade. even if no known substance can pierce their ultradense skulls you might still catch someone who can be saved, and that’s worthwhile

        • You’re proudly proclaiming that you know little about the subject? Yet you still felt like joining in, because…?

          Not to mention the fact that you’re essentially asking that people chew up this complex topic and regurgitate a dumbed down version… because you’re a yank and being uneducated is part of your “culture”?

          You can read, and you have a mind, it’s up to you to put those two things together to inform yourself and form opinions.

          • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Nope, I’m assuming y’all want to get people on your side right? I was just giving an example of what people outside of your bubble see when they see posts like this. No need to get your panties in a bunch.

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                1 year ago

                Rare to see an anarchist one. Though I’m guessing this one is “anarchist” because they have a Rage Against the Machine tattoo and went to a BLM protest once (But left early because some of the other protesters made them feel uncomfortable.)

              • urshanabi [he/they]@lemmygrad.ml
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                1 year ago

                To clarify for some of us that don’t understand, are you saying the poster is sealioning or engaging in bad faith? I haven’t ever seen this word and I’m not sure if there’s some specific reference I am not getting.

        • Gucci_Minh [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          If I had a sufficiently powerful laser I could point it at one of the retroreflectors they put up there and get a reflection back, there is actual proof, and the fact that the Soviets even acknowledged it says a lot about its veracity. Do you think that just because some of the stuff that the US says is true that I’m to take the other things at face value without proof? If NBC cites CBS cites AP cites Reuters cites CBS cites NBC… am I supposed to just be like oh well there’s a lot of citations so clearly it must be true? Please try to challenge this “west good by default” mindset that you have, it clouds your judgment.

          • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            Oh, good response. I should keep this in mind in the future when people try to call us “conspiracy theorists.” Establishing that we believe in things that have evidence behind them, and don’t just say everything the US says is a lie.

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Many leftists conspiracy theories are just “Yeah, the US toppled this government and slaughtered a huge number of people. Here’s the CIA written article on the CIA website where they admit to it”.

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                1 year ago

                I guess that’s why people never listen to us. Our conspiracy theories are boring. They’re all “shady government agents doing exactly what you’d expect them to do.”

                We don’t get any fun stuff like secret cabals or lizard people or hologram moons. It’s all just real world espionage shit, which is much less fun and exciting than James Bond.

                • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Just came from a forum thread where OP was like “i don’t want to be a conspiracist but I think tech companies are working together to suppress tech workers!” And I had to be all yeah bruh they go caught ten years ago and had to pay some fines and pinky promoise not to get caught again. Shit’s exhausting I hate it here I wanna go live in Tamriel.

    • JucheBot1988@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      all it takes for me to believe it is to see the fear in the faces of Chinese people when asked certain questions.

      The “I talked to one person so now I’m an expert on the situation” school of historical anyalysis.

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        1 year ago

        If some tourist also asked me about some shootout that happened in my country I would bail ASAP too. Serial killer shit lol who begins a convo with “so what about that time yall killed students”

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          “Hey, what do you think about the 2020 antifa uprising where the antifa burned all America’s cities down and executed white parents and small business owners?”

          “I think you’re a cop”.

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      1 year ago

      The country that says Iraq had WMD said China did a thing that wouldn’t make any sense for them to do. That is the extraordinary claim. Why do you feel that a claim made by the US, who has only ever lied to you, is a reasonable starting point?

      • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Do you think the U.S lies a whole bunch but other countries don’t lie or only a little?

        • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          I think the US verifiably lies more than other countries, and has international publishing efforts that make it harder for other countries to lie like we do. Being the hegemony and the long time sole superpower does put you in unique positions

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    1 year ago

    Shouldn’t even take a book to come to that conclusion, honestly. Frankly, I doubt anyone who is entrenteched in the propaganda around the event would change their mind no matter how much evidence you show them. For them, China is bad, so everything else must follow from that.

    Even western media, at the time of the event, said that basically nothing happened in the square. It wasn’t until they realised that didn’t line up with the US position that they changed their line, but you can find old articles (including first hand accounts from diplomats in the area) that say there wasn’t much.

    I don’t think anyone denies that some violence occured in the city as a whole, though it was very often levied the opposite way of popular portrayal. Especially because a lot of the PLA that were initially deployed were not even armed.