this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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chapotraphouse
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So you tankies agree that Tiananmen Square massacre happened? Good job
yes the tank man at tinyman square from that famous picture got squished like a grape by the tank
https://nitter.cz/fedurante/status/1533099332496502786
Look it's important that Western countries don't show the full vid, otherwise their citizens would think they can do the same to cops in the US, can you imagine what they'd do to a guy walking around on one of their armored vehicles?
So that's why China allows open conversation about the incident right? If it's all just a big misunderstanding, they should be happy to allow their citizens to share the facts. Certainly they wouldn't take steps to ban all mention of the incident as if there was something terrible there they wanted to hide.
This actually gets discussed in Chinese state media. The idea that people get -500 social credit score when they barely mention Tiananmen Square is mostly Western propaganda. Maybe somebody else will link you articles about this from China, i'm not gonna bother because they've already been linked ITT and you liberals don't read them anyway. But of course they're around.
Your post also shows a vast ignorance about how propaganda even works in the first place, whether we're talking China or the USA or any other country. That's because you get your ideas about politics from idiots like the antisemitic snitch and cousin r*pist George Orwell and then you think dictatorships work like 1984 and completely miss that you're living in a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Propaganda is not about hiding things from the public, that simply doesn't work well enough. You can downplay the truth, but you'll never get rid of it entirely. We're one example of that, existing and driving you nuts in spite of the largest propaganda and surveilance apparatus in the world working against us. And the same applies for the smaller, less overarching, less well funded Chinese "intelligence community", as you'd call their spies and snitches and secret police if they were Western spies and snitches and secret police. For example, anybody in China can install a VPN and look at Western news sources if they care, and a lot of younger people actually do that, just as you can come here and get exposed to facts that counter Western narratives.This is why propaganda works by emphasizing what you want the people to hear to the point were the noise drowns out what you do not want them to hear. By establishing counter-narratives to the truth. For example, you get flooded with the still image of the guy standing in front of the tank instead of the full video. You get fed the story about China somehow wafflestomping 10.000 corpses down the sewer drains by rolling over them with tanks until they're mush, as if that could even work, even though the only source for this is something 1 (in words: ONE) British diplomat has allegedly heard from somebody in Beijing. But because people like you never actually check their sources, you think there's hundreds of accounts of that incident just because there's hundreds of articles citing that one unnamed British diplomat or each other, and that's all over reddit, that site that has not only ruined your sense of humor and your ability to ever have a good faith discussion with another human being again, but that has also turned you into a mindless drone lashing out at anybody questioning the racist, national chauvinist narratives that have been blared into your ears until you came here 3 months because the pedophile spez threatened to take away the apps that allowed you to more conveniently doomscroll that hellsite on your mobile phone.
What you usually do not get to see in Western media are the Chinese cop strung up on a lamppost and set on fire by the protesters, or that many of the counterrevolutionaries where, what a surprise, reactionaries that earlier the same year took part in riots against African exchange students at Chinese universities.
Anyway, it was fun yelling at you, have a nice day.
My favourite bit about the video is that the tank column is leaving Tiananmen when this guy stops them, and I always get the impression he's essentially asking the tankers to go back to the Square.
Naturally the lib framing is that he's blocking them from entering the Square
'massacre'
What do you think happened exactly?
https://www.liberationnews.org/tiananmen-the-massacre-that-wasnt-2/
Edit: the other source I was looking for
https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php
The thing to get is that there was no massacre on the square, and in fact there's no verifiable evidence that anybody died there at all that day. Many people did die elsewhere, in street clashes with soldiers, after demonstrators killed and burned a few of them.
I would like to note also that bringing up events like Tiananmen Square, especially heavily propagandized and warped versions of them, without an understanding of the complex political context which led up to them, is not a gotcha, it's just ignorant. Not saying you're doing that or that you would do that, but it's something others do frequently when they invoke it round here.
US Military Pysops Division literally bragged about how successful they were with Tiananmen in this recruitment video
https://youtu.be/VA4e0NqyYMw
Edit: Found out about this video from this article which was linked on hexbear lol https://www.fridayeveryday.com/how-psy-ops-warriors-fooled-me-about-tiananmen-square-a-warning/
Ah, I remember that. Almost feels like the cocky bastards are mocking us at this point.
With no actual evidence, it just seems like China's word against the US's. Neither are sources I trust, and both have motives to lie. I'm just going to assume nothing.
Can you possibly explain why the western diplomats stationed there told their home countries nothing happened in diplomatic cables?
Why would they do that if it was real?
I said there was no evidence that a massacre took place in Tiananmen Square. What actually took place there is well evidenced by eyewitness testimony, a fair bit of which is contained in the two sources I linked.
Edit: I also take issue with the assertion that both the US and China are equally untrustworthy, particularly when the Chinese government freely admits that violent clashes between civilians and PLA personnel took place that day, something they would certainly have incentive to lie about if they were as untrustworthy as all that.
I recall seeing eyewitness testimony supporting both sides. Although, its possible the testimonies I saw were about the clashes that China admits to, and were simply framed as being about a massacre. They didn't seem very specific or definitive.
Even though the Chinese government admits to those violent clashes, its still very plausible they would lie about a massacre. Its much easier to justify that than it would be an actual massacre, especially when the civilians act violently. Its also possible that admitting some aspect of it would benefit them more than complete denial.
You'd have a point there, if there wasn't ample photographic evidence which also suggests that no concerted massacre took place, in the square or elsewhere. All available photographic evidence that I've seen supports the Chinese government's version of events: scattered street clashes which unfortunately featured some quite heavy duty violence, but no mass formation of tanks coming in and deliberately schwacking everybody in sight.
You make convincing arguments, and I'm sure you are correct to some degree. I do not believe that the dramatized events suggested by the west are accurate. But, I still think it was a disgusting waste of life that could potentially be described as a massacre.
It wasn't nice, to be sure. The workers' protests which happened concurrently with the events of Tiananmen Square were reportedly the source of much of the violence, and it got properly nasty at times. The two events are often conflated though, and I felt it important to draw that distinction. Anyhow, I appreciate your open-mindedness.
Reactions like yours are why I still bother. All I ever want is for people to look at popular historical and political narratives critically. I apologize if I came off as hostile at all, we get a lot of calumny coming our way, as you might imagine.
If you want to find it more, I often recommend the documentary "the gate of heavenly Peace" which you can find on YouTube. If you want to understand a bit of it's perspective before watching check the reception/controversy section on its Wikipedia page
I don't trust anyone, so i will believe the US
That is not what I said
I'm sorry, you're actually being reasonable and in good faith. Some other people in your instance have shortened my fuse a bit when i see the @shitjustworks, and you didn't deserve that. I'm going to reign it in, and i apologize again.
Thanks for genuiniely engaging with other people from hexbear on these issues
Oh, come off it. Your comment was removed because there was no content warning for violent images, which you were told and which is stated in the modlog.
Here, I'll post your link with a CW and you can watch it stay up.
CW: Violence, Gore
https://www.aboluowang.com/2008/0529/89034_3.html
We don't want this to be a space where people could randomly stumble across images of graphic violence they're not prepared for. You're not being censored by the CPC, dumbass.
Check modlog to see removal reason
Which side allows it to be discussed?
There's your answer.
Firstly, we insist on content warnings being applied to violent content of that sort.
Second, I'm guessing you didn't bother to translate any of this or investigate the sources cited - or lack thereof, since most of these images lack citation or provenance. The one source I was able to follow back was an interview of the man who lost his legs, conducted by right wing rag the Epoch Times and signal boosted by noted CIA cutout Radio Free Asia. Most everything else in there is unsourced, and many of the captions just outright lie about what's being depicted, such as the one claiming the crushed red motorcycle is actually a guy run over on his bike.
Important to note also, none of these pictures are claimed to have been taken in the square itself. That violence occurred elsewhere is not in doubt; I never claimed there wasn't violence, and the Chinese government themselves acknowledge it. What often gets left out is that the student demonstrators initiated it, and even western journalists working with eyewitness testimony concede that the PLA operated with remarkable restraint until things boiled over.
Third, and this is a comparatively minor point, the site you link to is a noted right-leaning anti-communist news organization which I suspect has ties to RFA. Even if that weren't the case, it doesn't seem at all trustworthy, given its clear bias against the Chinese government.
Edit: Upon further investigation, I found that Fang Zheng, the man who claims his legs were crushed by a tank in an unprovoked attack by the PLA, is himself not a very trustworthy source. The one person who he identified as being able to corroborate his claims, declined to do so, saying that she didn't remember being with him at all on the day that violence broke out. Also potentially significant, he's a founder of the Chinese Democracy Education Foundation, a California-based nonprofit opposed to the Chinese government. The organization has worked with RFA, and Fang Zheng himself has attended Falun Gong rallies and apparently shares their insane organ harvesting conspiracy theories.
Is this really what you're giving us?
Tianamen and the official narrative
Reposted from elsewhere.