• 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.

            • 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.

            • 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.

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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              Word. Kent state? Armed National Guard goons in full battle rattle with bayonets fixed fired 7.62mm rifles point blank in to students. Tianemen? The majority of the PLA soldiers in the square didn’t have any weapons of any kind what so ever. They didn’t have batons. They didn’t have helmets. They were just wearing their uniforms and basically standing there. It was a show of force, certainly, but unlike anything I can think of in Western political history.

              • Water Bowl Slime@lemmygrad.ml
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                In authoritarian America, citizens aren’t taught the history of the New York Draft Riots and anyone who googles 紐約徵兵暴動 gets disappeared by their secret police! 😱😱

          • Comrade_Vig@lemmygrad.ml
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            Not true, they do … And they claim that it’s another instance of SeePeePee violence …

            Let me see if I can find the libbed up reddit thread where I saw it:

            Not as upvoted as I remember, the post is a Midjourney selfie from tank man.

          • Kuori [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            i distinctly remember being ‘informed’ that “right after this photo, he was disappeared by the secret police and never seen or heard from again!

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            I remember being sat in my classroom as a primary school kid with my teacher showing us that photo on the newspaper days after the event and him telling us to think about what happened to that poor brave man.

            • ComradeChairmanKGB@lemmygrad.ml
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              what happened to that poor brave man.

              He probably went home to clean up, and later hooked up with some PLA Chad for a romantic dinner. When he climbed on the tank for a chat he was actually exchanging numbers.

              • JucheBot1988@lemmygrad.ml
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                My theory, based on the fact that he had a shopping bag, was that the dude in the tank was his son:

                “Hey, didn’t I tell you grandma and grandpa are coming over tonight?”

                “Uh, yeah dad, could we talk about this later?”

                “No. And do you remember how I specifically asked you to pick up some lettuce and tomatoes on the way to work?”

                “Uh, dad, we’re kind of holding up traffic here… WHAT THE HELL, DAD PLEASE GET OFF THE TANK, PLEASE, YOU’RE EMBARASSING ME”

                Tank Man was later given a medal for Most Epic Dad Moment

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      I believe there’s actually video footage of tank man climbing up on the tank, conversing with the tank commander, and then getting down and walking away.

      I’m told that many people were lying prone because there was machine gun fire from the battle between the PLA and the insurgents several blocks away.

    • richietozier4 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      You don’t get it! Deng flattened all the people with his fat cheeks, then inflated everyone back up, then cleaned up the blood and viscera but not the bodies!

      • loathesome dongeater@lemmygrad.ml
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        You joke but there is a BBC article that literally claims that someone saw dead bodies of the protestors beinng churned and sent down the gutter or something like that.

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          I remember that and it was that they ran tanks over hundreds of bodies for hours turning the remains into pulp so they could wash them down the gutters. It was years ago before I knew better and actually believed that shit. Imagine thinking that they were able to sneak out all these other photos but not any of the events they SAY happened? lol.

        • ElHexo [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          Yes, it was the British Ambassador IIRC and the Australian prime minister caused a minor drama by reading out the cable like the next day.

          Incidentally that Australian Labor Prime Minister was informing to the US for decades prior and led the US-proposed agreement between unions, corporates and the government which ended up collapsing the union movement and bringing in a wave of austerity a decade later.

  • 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.

    • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
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      I always enjoy re-watching the full “Tank Man” video, with the “brutal Chinese tanks” awkwardly trying to bypass the protestor and patiently waiting him out. I think libs just see that single frame and fill the gaps with their own experiences in their countries in thinking that the guy got ran over or something. If you try that with a secret service car they might do just that.

      • diegeticscream[all]🔻@lemmygrad.ml
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        If you try that with a secret service car they might do just that.

        There’s videos of NYPD just plowing BLM protesters. Amerikkkans think other places are as awful as theirs is.

      • CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml
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        I think it’s something Statesians get taught in schools. In Europe we’d always heard he stopped the tanks and then went on his way but “was never seen again”, not that the tanks rolled him over or anything.

    • 201dberg@lemmygrad.ml
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      Yeah, that was one of the more fucked up sections of the video I posted, is her crying into a camera. The way she starts crying because the students kept trying to have a peaceful resolution with the government instead of getting themselves massacred… Their entire goal was go try and get as many of their fellow students killed as possible to have as propaganda footage. Like who watches that and then sympathizes with her? Who sees someone crying, because the people under her were trying to be reasonable and not provoke a needless massacre, and thinks “Oh that poor girl. Having to deal with these people that don’t want to get killed for the CIA.” ?"

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        I mean, frothingfash Anti communists frothingfash are weird, perverse freaks and many of them would happily murder the entire human population if they thought it would keep people from helping each other and making the world better.

  • jackmarxist [any]@hexbear.net
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    It was not fabricated, it was exaggerated. Clashes occurred around Beijing and bloodshed was real. Most of them were Maoists clashing with pro market reform government.

    • WhatWouldKarlDo@lemmygrad.ml
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      Nobody is denying bloodshed. There absolutely were violent protests outside the square. The claim in question is that the military gunned down thousands of peaceful protesters in the square, which so far as I know is a claim that’s exclusively made by people who were not there.

      • WayeeCool [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        Even that is giving too much credit to the US government narrative.

        There literally are all the US mainstream news outlets like CBS News who actually had reporters there at the time: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/

        Also from classified US communications with assets on the ground: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89BEIJING18828_a.html

        Funniest thing is that “tank man” photo idiots spam on Reddit all the time. Most people in the west don’t realize there is video of it, that the guy didn’t get run over. Furthermore they assume he was blocking tanks heading towards the square, infact those tanks were at the time headed away from the square to avoid engaging with armed agitators (people with guns and grenades that had killed police) in a crowded environment. Dude was trying to make them go back.

        The deaths that day were people who got gunned down by the “protestors” or the police who were killed when the “protestors” threw grenades (military ordnance) into police vehicles. People that were armed by the CIA as part of a color revolution operation, one that failed because it didn’t actually have any support and more importantly because the PLA commander on the scene ordered his units to leave the area rather than responding in kind. The only actual protestors that day were communists having labor protests happening nearby and not the dancing libertine youth acting as the face of the US color revolution operation involving armed groups trying unsuccessfully to provoke the PLA soliders into responding to deadly attacks with deadly force in a crowded urban environment.

        • WhatWouldKarlDo@lemmygrad.ml
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          My personal opinion on the matter isn’t that much different from yours (the biggest reason being that the media blitz about the massacre seemed preplanned… It just didn’t go according to plan). The problem is that I can’t prove anything, so it’s all conjecture. So I typically leave that out. It’s already a sensitive enough subject.

      • aleph@lemm.ee
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        On balance, it would be fair to say that while thousands of protestors were most likely not gunned down in the square itself, hundreds were being gunned down around it. So there was a massacre by the PLA, it just didn’t happen in the square itself.

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

        https://archive.is/20191208232045/https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/13/world/turmoil-china-tiananmen-crackdown-student-s-account-questioned-major-points.html

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

        • JucheBot1988@lemmygrad.ml
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          So there was a massacre by the PLA, it just didn’t happen in the square itself.

          Current research by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation suggests that the massacre occured in the same place Sadaam Hussein would later store his nonexistant WMDs.

  • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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    I’m bowing out y’all, it was fun. Definitely will be looking into this event and checking some references people pointed me to.

    • Omegamint [comrade/them, doe/deer]@hexbear.net
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      That’s dope. The one thing I always find frustrating when bickering over politics is people not even caring to read or learn more. I have a lot more respect for my friends when they do, even if all it does is give more nuance to their takes.

      Hell if I never decided to read more shit I’d still be a right winger with the rest of the nutcase family.

      • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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        Right, learning is always good. The thing is, every fringe group, whether it’s MAGA, anarchists, or ML or whatever, everyone wants you to read their docs.

        And while I’m willing to check some stuff out, I’ve come to conclusions based on arm-chair reasoning such as “no government can ever be trusted”, “humans are fallible, and putting some of them above others is inherently problematic regardless of the system”. I’ll read but am doubtful something will be able to convince me to trust in government or someone with power.

        • Beat_da_Rich@lemmygrad.ml
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          We can be critical of past and existing socialist projects, but we can’t ultimately forget that they must be supported and given grace in the face of the primary contradiction that is Global North imperialism. As long as our societies are influenced by class relations, states are going to exist for the foreseeable future. To think a socialist state shuld be abolished immediately in the context of being surrounded by imperialist predators is an irrational expectation…

          Because of this, we are skeptical of the messaging coming from imperialist states. We support the countries that are attempting to progress humanity past capitalism, which is destroying us. For those of us in the imperial core, we understand that any criticisms we have of other socialist revolutions can’t ultimately be trusted. Those criticisms – whatever they may be – have zero relevance to the nations that are battling for survival in spite of the empire we live in.

          We should cautiously inspect the propaganda we consume from all states, socialist or not. But we omly continue to amass reasons to be downright cynical of anything coming out of Western governments.

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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            Agreed! Criticism of the 20th century, both it’s failures and it’s successes, is vital to moving forward! We can’t treat our past comrades as saints, nor ignore them, and they wouldn’t want us to! Imagine knowing that those who came after you refused to learn from the mistakes you made! I can’t imagine anything more horrible for someone who devoted their life to a scientific understanding of economy than people refusing to learn from observation.

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          I’ll read but am doubtful something will be able to convince me to trust in government or someone with power.

          I know you said you’re bowing out in another comment but I just want to say that states are bad, all states. States do bad things in pursuit of maintaining themselves. This is true of the capitalist state. This is true of the socialist state. What matters here is who they do their bad shit in service of, what class are they serving, the proletariat or the bourgeoisie.

          We are communists. We want a stateless society. We want this because we know states are bad.

          • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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            I think the only real difference in our views is the classic one. I simply don’t see the dictatorship of the proletariat as not having the same tendencies toward corruption as every other. I can’t imagine an organization powerful enough to defeat capitalism willfully giving up it’s own power after it’s job is done.

            It will attract psychopaths like flies to shit like every other power structure.

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              I would strongly suggest reading State and Revolution to understand the reasoning on the function of the DotP. It is fundamentally oriented towards the tendencies of power and people following self-interested motivations in aggregate over time. No one is talking about “giving up” anything. The proletariat is to oppress the bourgeoisie by means of more genuinely democratic governance (that obstructs the power of capital that is exerted in liberal democracies) and erode the bourgeois class over time until it no longer exists. No power is surrendered at any point in that process, but the people who need to be oppressed are decided on class lines that cease to exist by the very same process as the class is oppressed.

              You can find both text and audiobook versions online pretty easily, and hopefully the most famous work of the founder of the first Marxist state is not on the same level as QAnon manifestos to you.

    • lazynooblet@lazysoci.al
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      I’m probably replying to some anti-lib community, but it’s really weird coming from “/c/all” that nearly every comment has some sort of jab at “libs” for a topic that I would never associate with a political spectrum.

      Fyi I’m not affiliated with any political “side” and I’m not American, so it just seems weird to be.

      • WhatWouldKarlDo@lemmygrad.ml
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        We are an a communist instance. American liberals (which includes both of their major political parties) are very imperialist and love to push propaganda about their enemies. It’s why public opinion for China took a nose dive in the last 10 years. Why Iran is so evil, but nobody thinks about Kuwait. Why Tiananmen square gets so much attention but the white terror receives none. China’s the enemy, and “Taiwan” is an innocent friend that needs protecting.

        Being communist, we are anti-imperialist, and hate the war mongering propaganda that the liberals seem to lap up. They see this as being conspiracy theorists or contrarian. Hence the conflict about things like this.

        • lazynooblet@lazysoci.al
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          Okay, I understand the narative, and agree that western culture has cemented certain opinions on history. But where does the liberal part come in? Maybe I’m misunderstanding that bit. On US social media there is this whole lib vs republican thing going on. In this case does lib just mean “not communism”?

          • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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            In this case does lib just mean “not communism”?

            Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism. Thus “liberal” is everyone who support capitalism, that is basically starting at socialdemocracy and everything right of them - which in western countries mean literally entire political mainstream.

  • 201dberg@lemmygrad.ml
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    I like that we have/need new books to re-report information that was widely known decades ago because of how easy it is to sell propaganda to the west. We have actual documentaries, made by the west at the time of Tiananmen, that completely contradicts the massacre narrative that was invented years later. lol. Libs really will believe anything as long as it comes from the mouth of some oligarch backed talking head.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      The key reason this kind of lazy propaganda works is because people want to believe it. It leverages the latent racism and capitalist realism people have internalized living in decaying western societies. The idea that a country that doesn’t follow liberal ideology could be more successful is a complete anathema to these people.

      • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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        Indeed. “The west is the best” is the prevailing thought in the zeitgeist of the west. So as bad as things can be in the west, at least they are still “the best.” But if other nations actually practice “freedom and liberty” better than they do, despite not screaming about how “free” they are all the time, it calls the whole western narrative into question. And causes a lot of cognitive dissonance. And people in the west are not given the tools they need to deal with that, so they just lash out and get angry, or find an easy excuse to ignore it.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      Have you seen that chart that tracks how Americans went from credditing the USSR for making the greatest sacrifice in WWII and contributing the most to victory in 1946, to completely removing the Soviet contribution from the picture by the 80s? It’s really sad. The Red Army deserves better.

  • 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?

      • senoro@lemmy.ml
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        I can’t prove it to you, I just use my skills at googling “A B Abrams” to conclude that this is untrustworthy. I also can’t prove that the moon landing happened or that matter is made of atoms, doesn’t mean they are false.

        • temptest [any]@hexbear.net
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          To add to WhatWouldKarlDo’s posts, which provided credible counter-evidence (A CBS reporter on location, and a Latin American diplomat’s leaked eyewitness account), I want to further emphasise that using a search engine to assess credibility and provide ethos isn’t a strong argument. If I search your username, and if you search mine, neither of us will show up as a real person and both our histories will show we reply to political topics. Should we therefore conclude we’re both just writing propaganda, and further assume that makes it false?

          We’re writing opinions or analyses, and hopefully, substantiating them with evidence. And surely the book is doing the same.

        • WhatWouldKarlDo@lemmygrad.ml
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          See my edit. But here’s the thing. We have video of the moon landing and rocks from the actual moon. That’s solid evidence. We have plenty of evidence of the atom existing, because half our tech wouldn’t work if they didn’t exist.

          Where is the evidence of a massacre at tiananmen square? Please read the links I gave you.

          Edit: please remember, you said that this was an easily disprovable conspiracy theory.

    • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
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      The Daily NK is a South Korean newspaper that also happens to be funded by the US through the National Endowment for Democracy. It would be funny if the US were funding a North Korean propaganda outfit but somehow I don’t think that’s what’s happening.

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        It would be funny if the US were funding a North Korean propaganda outfit but somehow I don’t think that’s what’s happening.

        Hey, maybe while we were out posting, the reincarnated Huey Newton and William Z. Foster took over the US government and established a Marxist-Leninist state. After all, nobody can right at this instant prove it didn’t happen…

    • immuredanchorite [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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      Why don’t you read the book, investigate the citations and claims, and report back on whether the text is fabricated?

      Whether or not the writer has a connection to China or the DPRK doesn’t actually impact the soundness of any claim. If anything, you are taking an extreme position about academic authority that isn’t reflective of reality. You should use your critical thinking skills to assess the claims in the book instead of attacking the author because they might be a Korean or Chinese national. It is kinda racist to assume someone from China or Pyongyang are unable to write on these topics without it being “propaganda”

      • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Exactly how many times has the US lied to us? You expect me to to belive the country that said Iraq had WMD when they say anything? When they brag about lying all the time?

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        Don’t you know? If a source comes for CHYNA or NORF COURIER it is automatically fake and lies. Automatically. If Xi Jinping said the moon is real, it would instantly pop out of existence.

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      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

      Open report 590, it’s the first item of the day. I hope you didn’t expect they would talk about it in English.

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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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          you verify a suspect source by analyzing their material and checking their sources for accuracy. just discounting a source because you can’t find info about them is itself unsound reasoning.

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          “Suspect” based on what exactly? Your preconceived notions of what “good” journalism and places are? Based on your education by Western states with vested interests in portraying their enemies as evil as possible?

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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.

    • SovereignState@lemmygrad.ml
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      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.

      Then why would these sources be lying?

      NKnews and Daily NK are anti-DPRK news outlets funded by the U.S. Be pretty funny if even y’all’s most orientalist propaganda outlet turned out to be Norf Kowean (OR EVEN CHINESE!!!) Pwopaganda!

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      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?

      They don’t. People in China know that the protests in 89 happened, they just don’t think it’s a big deal. The idea that it’s this huge dangerous taboo is just western brainworms brainworms brainworms

    • The_Walkening [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      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?

      Because the purpose of the firewall is to keep the West out.

      This is like asking why people who call the Civil War the “War of Northern Aggression” are censored/ignored. It’s historically inaccurate and you deserve to be the subject of animus and suspicion if you do so.

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          “June 4th incident” or “counter-revolutionary riot/rebellion” is part of a larger topic called “1989 Political Disturbance/Turmoil”, those who are interested can try searching with these terms.

          BTW, in China “Tiananmen incident” refers to the 1976 incident, both incidents began from the mournings of Chinese leaders (Zhou Enlai in 1976 and Hu Yaobang in 1989).

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          That’s the most hilarious part. It isn’t censored in China at all. They just call it a different name and gullible westerners assume that the blank looks Chinese people give them when they froth at the mouth about “The tinyman square massacre” is proof that THE TRUTH is censored in China.

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          Not censored. It’s openly discussed in the literature. Unsurprisingly, they don’t let you spread unsubstantiated claims about massacres, though.

          If, as I’ve seen many a white “journalist” do, you go up to a random chinese person on the streets and ask “Hey do you know about the thousands of people that were massacred?” they would, very understandably, think you were deranged.

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        Because the purpose of the firewall is to keep the West out.

        This is a common misconception. The real purpose of the Great Firewall is to keep China’s posters in. The CPC is doing the world a great kindness. I’ve seen the magnitude of posting that happens in China. We could not survive posting of that magnitude.

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      Dude. These people are insane and not worth your time. Just block the sub like I’m about to do and never look back. They can find comfort in their eco chamber

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    Wow, straight-up propaganda. Seek the Truth, people. That event has been covered by multiple reputable journalists, from all around the world…

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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

        • 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.

        • 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

          • JucheBot1988@lemmygrad.ml
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            Yeah, that “it’s just like religion” argument really is a blast from the past. As in, edgy atheist spaces c. 2010.

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      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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        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”

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          “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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      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.

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          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.)

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        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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          Your position is in fact unorthodox in my culture (U.S.) – that’s what I’m saying.

          In Nazi Germany in 1944, I think it would be regarded as an unorthodox position that Jews aren’t specifically inclined towards greed and evil conspiracy to destroy the Aryan race. By your epistemology, wouldn’t it be true that the person defending the Jews is the one that has the burden of proof and not the people who cling to antisemitic conspiracy theories?

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            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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              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

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          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

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            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?

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              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”

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              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

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                  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.

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            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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                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.

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                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.)

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          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.

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              Of course they did! They bought them from the French and used them with the knowledge and support of the US in the Iran-Iraq war!

              They didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction in 2003, of course.

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            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.

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              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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                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.

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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.

    • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.net
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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

    • WhatWouldKarlDo@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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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 [she/they]@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.

      • aleph@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        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

    • 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.

  • jackpot@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    what the fuck is this shite, tiananmen happened you fucking cunts cry me a river

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        1 year ago

        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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            1 year ago

            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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              1 year ago

              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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          1 year ago

          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.

          • jackpot@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            youre making it soumd like tens of millions starving to death is a win

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                1 year ago

                global rising tides lift all boats. plus if all of your weak and eldery stave to death and youre left with only the fitter people then yeah youll have highrr life expectancies. pretty fucjed up way to do it though

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

      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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        1 year ago

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

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

      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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        1 year ago

        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!?!?!

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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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          1 year ago

          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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          1 year ago

          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

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    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.