• Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      2 年前

      Well, the citizens they killed were literally firing on them and killed around 150 soldiers. Meanwhile the military for the most part did not have guns. Not saying it is justified even then to use military force on striking workers, but a hell of a lot more justified than western media claims. Oh yeah, and literally no college students died that day, as well as nobody within a mile of Tianenmen Square.

    • RiikkaTheIcePrincess@kbin.social
      1·
      2 年前

      America Also Bad!

      Seems like they usually leave out the “also” because apparently two things can’t be bad at the same time. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where only one thing is bad? I expect it’d be simpler, at least.

    • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
      0·
      2 年前

      I mean, China fucking sucks and is a shit authoritarian statist government but let’s not pretend America hasn’t done similar things.

      Ever heard the stories of how America won the right to unions?

      • Columbine Mine Massacre

      • Ludlow Massacre

      • Thibodaux Massacre

      • Battle of Blair Mountain

      • Herrin Massacre

      Hundreds of people killed in total because they were protesting.

      The difference in outcome is that back then the technology was more of a level playing field.

      • shadowspirit@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 年前

        Can always rely on there being at least one person … “but the USA did XYZ.” Doesn’t change what happened in 1989.

        • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
          0·
          2 年前

          No it doesn’t. But the same people who whine and cry about people using whataboutism in favor of China do the EXACT same thing in favor of the US.

          They are both shit. Everyone is tired of each side pretending that only one side is shit.

          • Syrc@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 年前

            Except they’re nowhere nearly comparable. The US is pretty bad but China is an authoritarian state with internet censorship and state-controlled companies.

            The “America also bad” argument feels like a mass murderer saying “well you stabbed a guy 10 years ago, you’re no different!”.

            • diffaldo@lemm.ee
              0·
              2 年前

              Do u know banana republics, thats a rad story. i think u should look up what usa have done to south american contries.

          • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
            0·
            2 年前

            Go look up to see what China did during the great leap forward and cultural revolution. They killed about 30 million of their own people. I would like you to post a source proving that the United States murdered 30 million of its own people within the past 150 years, as well as persecuting tens of millions of people and sending millions of children from cities to be reeducated with forced labor on camps after being separated from their parents. Hundreds of thousands of intellectuals were murdered for being… Intellectuals.

            The only thing that comes close was slavery and the Japanese internment during world War II. However, slavery was abolished over 150 years ago, and during the Japanese internment families were generally kept together and they were not forcibly reeducated.

            • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
              0·
              2 年前

              “Please tell me a time when.this country did terrible things b-b-but only in this certain half of the country’s existence!! Otherwise it’s cheating!!1!”

              Conveniently chose a time right where you can ignore the Slavery and the Trail of Tears (% population wise that was just as bad). Not to mention the mass Native American “reeducation” and ripping them away from their families to get a “proper white education”

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

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

              Every government has done terrible things. The US, China, and Russia are among the worst. We can argue about what is “worse.” But that is completely subjective. China literally just did much of what the US did, but on a larger scale 150 years later and with different technology.

              Arguably Russia was the worst of them all, but literally all 3 are bad. America pulled itself out of that era and into corporate indetured servitude era of corporations committing genocides and coups in other countries. Personally I think that China is worse than the US and Russia dwarfs both of them, but just because one is maybe marginally worse doesn’t mean the other wasn’t/isn’t bad.

        • atx_aquarian@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 年前

          The one they replied to may have been criticizing “whataboutism”, but it could also be (mis)interpreted as implying the USA has not had similar problems.

          But who hasn’t killed their citizens in a simple misunderstanding? Or, if that doesn’t work, America Also Bad! \s

        • archomrade [he/him]English
          0·
          2 年前

          Weird how I only ever hear one of those events used to dismiss an entire system of economic organization though

          • socsa@lemmy.mlBanned
            0·
            2 年前

            Imagine thinking that people are opposed to post-scarcity economics, and not the whole “let’s kill everyone who disagrees with us until we achieve such conditions”

          • originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
            0·
            2 年前

            I guess you’re not listening then because “capitalism fucking sucks and is responsible for countless atrocities” is a pretty common tale these days.

          • Jonna@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 年前

            I use those events in the US (and many more) to condem capitalism. I also use Tianamen (and others) to condem state capitalism.

    • NotSpez@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 年前

      .ml readers interpretation: Tanks (fighting for democracy) brutally killed students

      • socsa@lemmy.mlBanned
        0·
        2 年前

        Don’t lump us all in with those naive authoritarian children. Some of us believe the internet deserves a better class of communist.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 年前

    Ah yes the one demonstration to push a government to the left and organize labor that tankies don’t like acknowledging

  • bouh@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 年前

    So the west is still hunting communists to this day? Easier than fixing climate or providing healthcare I guess.

    • Syrc@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 年前

      Care to explain what was communist in the event except the name of the party that enacted the massacre and maybe some of the people who died?

      • bouh@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 年前

        I wonder why an event that happened almost before I was born is so important to some people here. Why aren’t we showcasing how monstrous Hitler was burning people for racism then? That’s far more fitting to the situation of most western countries that are all leaning on fascism and racism. Some western countries like France are not far from crushing protestors with tanks btw.

        But I guess the cold war world of 40 years ago is more comfortable. There was this nice black and white taint where capitalists were the good guys against evil communists. And we must now bring back all the sins of China and USSR to never forget what they did, so can be blind to what’s happening now I guess.

        People throwing “tankies” everywhere are worth no more than any Russian troll honestly.

        • Wanderer@lemm.eeBanned
          0·
          2 年前

          If Hitler or his party was still around and denying the Holocaust that that would be a comparable analogy. But it’s not, so it isn’t.

        • khalic@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 年前

          I think you’re underestimating the simple anti-authoritarian spirit in many. Why are Tiananmen Massacre posts so popular? Because they’re forbidden, and freedom of expression is a big deal for many, many people. Not just Americans

          • bouh@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 年前

            Forbidden? Hahaha that’s so funny!

            That’s pure anti-china propaganda. Anti-left propaganda even. It’s a Godwin point.

            There’s a saying in French : it’s easier to see the straw on the neighbor nose than the beam you have in the eye.

            If you want to criticised China you should talk about the current, these days genocide they’re doing. Or about Hong Kong. Tiananmen is a Godwin point, in my generation you’d only know about it if you’re exposed to liberal propaganda. Because as a historical event it is irrelevant.

  • delete013@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 年前

    Nothing happened on Tienanmen square, how naive are you all. The British ambassador inventer a tad too detailed horror stories, based on “trusted sources”. In fact, the students protesting killed a PLA soldier but after a talk with the intervention force decided to clear square peacefully. The deaths happened elsewhere but we have almost no information about those. People protested against different things, some were for liberal freedom, some for more communism. We know what told us the Western “objective” press.

    • zanzo@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 年前

      From my conversations with mainland Chinese, they often tout the line that the US was somehow involved, so it was partly an excusable defense of the homeland against dangerously co-opted students. That said, most acknowledge that it was pretty bad. But these are also well-educated Chinese working abroad, so I assume the majority of Chinese don’t know much.

      One story I heard retold by an English teacher working in Nanjing that I used to know was about the experience of one of the people involved in the protests…or at least they were an academic in Beijing at the time of the massacre. They were really depressed 20 years later and felt that nobody around them, particularly their students, knew anything.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
      0·
      2 年前

      According to my aunt, whose parents fled the Cultural Revolution when she was a teenager:

      It’s like if Chinese people kept trying to give you shit about the Kent State massacre and not Vietnam itself.

    • socsa@lemmy.mlBanned
      0·
      2 年前

      The people I have spoken to in China understand something happened, and most of them know that it was the suppression of a student protest movement. From there the knowledge diverges as to what kind of protest movement and how violent was the suppression and whether it was justified. My family will kind of halfheartedly repeat some version of the party line but acknowledge it was a fucked up situation, and they also understand that the censorship surrounding it is awkward and unnecessary.

      Generally the Chinese I have spoken to are mostly aware of and opposed to the CCP’s censorship, but they also don’t really like to talk about it for obvious reasons.