And if something did maybe happen, it’s the CIA’s fault
try posting it on grad, they’ll love it
Or ml. Or Hexbear.
Why can’t we have a leftist instance that doesn’t suck CCP dick?
Blåhaj is here! I don’t recall seeing a tankie with a blåhaj account, and also we have personalities outside of politics.
If you check the Blahaj rules it explicitly states being tankie adjacent is a bannable offence, I love it.
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Lemmy.world absolutely isn’t Leftist, it’s overwhelmingly liberal and the mods are anti-Marxist, even defederating from Marxist instances. Lemmy.world is allowed to be a liberal instance, but pretending it’s socialist is silly.
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I mean, depends on the day. I see tons of very socialist/leftist memes and content posted to world.
Leftist messaging is increasingly popular as Capitalism decays, but that doesn’t mean everyone has read theory. Lemmy.world is largely populated by liberals sympathetic to an idealistic form of Socialism that is pure fantasy, and denounce AES as a betratal of Socialism. Blackshirts and Reds has an entire chapter dedicated to western “left” anticommunism.
That being said, how many times do you need to circle jerk about socialism in the comments section on Lemmy?
I’m a Marxist-Leninist, I believe Marxism to be correct and try to get others to read theory. I get deep satisfaction whenever someone changes their mind or reads theory because of what I comment and post.
It’s not like anyone is actually going to do a proletariat revolution
On what grounds do you say this? Revolution is happening all around the world every few years in different states, as Capitalism decays more people become sympathetic to leftism. It will likely happen latest in Imperialist countries like the US, where living standards are inflated by hyper-exploitation of the Global South, and happens all the time in the Global South. Trends exist, systems aren’t static, Capitalism cannot last forever. That would be like believing water could be continuously heated and never boil.
At this point, it would just be Marxists “ackshually”-ing each other. I’m super bored of the lack of progress made in the discussions.
To be clear, most Marxists don’t need to “ackshually” each other, just towards liberals. Liberals often have the same misconceptions, that doesn’t mean they aren’t changing their minds individually.
So those people calling it neoliberal are fucking liars
Yeah, basically. ‘Neoliberal’ and ‘lib’ are just snarl words many tankies use to mean “Anyone less fascist than Mao”.
In general, .world is much less radical than many places on Lemmy. But they’re far from neoliberals. The average poster is slightly left of a Berniecrat, probably; that is to say, either a very strong SocDem or a very weak DemSoc.
Listen all I’m saying is that if we were so far left that Bernie was center right on policy the country would be a much better place for everyone.
Wouldn’t it be lovely? Unfortunately, we’ve got a lot of fighting on the ground to convince our fellow citizens to get their asses there instead of some weird 90s fantasy world.
Thanks for calling tankies what they are: fascist.
Read Blackshirts and Reds, Socialism and Fascism are entirely incompatible and serve entirely different classes.
I’m theory, yes. In practice the idea of socialism has been hijacked and subverted by the same ruling class to serve their nefarious needs time and time again. Y’all should focus instead on how socialism is incompatible with authoritarianism. “Power to the people” my ass.
Eh, it’s a mixed bag. There’s a very high concentration of centrist, “vote blue, no matter who,” liberals in Political Memes. They’re not the whole instance, but they’ve made a nice little echo chamber that makes them a pretty loud minority.
The people who think .world is socialist also think socialism is when the government does things and that social democracy is a type of socialism and not a type of liberalism.
This is especially evident the way they get whipped into a froth any time actually existing (and former) socialist countries get brought up.
Socialism is when the CIA goes in and kills your leader right?
The CIA tried to kill Charles DeGaulle in 1961, but if the CIA isn’t trying to kill your leader, you’re not doing socialism.
This is especially evident the way they get whipped into a froth any time actually existing (and former) socialist countries get brought up.
It’s funny that all the “AES” countries that are brought up are just authoritarian states, and sometimes, for that matter, authoritarian capitalist states. It’s almost like the people championing these supposedly socialist countries are just fascists painted red.
I still don’t get how the far leftists (the types who think soc dems are basically the same as any flavor of lib, including libertarian, neolib, etc) are so convinced that socialism is the answer when there hasn’t been a country that even comes close to making it work. I guess China works for certain values of working, but it’s pretty capitalist these days, and you’ve got an overbearing government that goes along with it.
Whereas countries like you see in Scandinavia, with strong soc dem policies under capitalism like high taxes on wealth and strong safety nets, seem to be doing pretty well. I get why socialism would be good in theory but implementing it is another story.
The Nordics still fucking suck, trust me.
Is there any country that doesn’t suck?
not to my knowledge :(
every time Finland gets awarded the title of the happiest country I wonder how unhappy all the other countries must be
The short answer is that Socialism does work, and continues to work, and that SocDem countries like the Nordics depend on heavy exploitation of the Global South to fund their safety nets and still see shrinking worker power (a process Marxists call imperialism).
The longer answer is that Marxists don’t believe Socialism is better than Capitalism for any moral reason, but because they are Dialectical and Historical Materialists. They track where Capitalism is necessarily heading, ie free competition gives way to monopolist syndicates with internal planning, socializing themselves and making them ripe for public ownership and central planning.
Similarly, the PRC is a Socialist Market Economy. The model is described as a birdcage, the CPC allows markets to naturally develop but only along their guidelines, and increases ownership as competition creates these new monopolist syndicates. Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism is a good article going over China’s economic model. The CPC has the power it has as a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, it needs that power to maintain supremacy over their bourgeoisie. Communism is achieved by degree, not decree.
A good primer is Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” an excellent article that goes over materialist examinations of AES states vs idealist examinations. Another good reference is Blackshirts and Reds. AES is by no means perfect, but it does and did work.
Marxists generally support AES, so instances that are pro-Marxism tend to be supportive of the CPC. I don’t think there are any Syndicalist instances or anything, so you’d have to go to an Anarchist server like dbzer0 or something. Lemmy.world tends to be right-wing, especially because it’s defederated from Marxist instances and some of the mods have ridiculed Marxism in general.
AES?
Edit: Found it, “Actually existing socialism”
Yep! You got it. Cuba, PRC, the USSR (pre-dissolution), Vietnam, Laos, etc.
db0 is pretty neutral while being intentionally left.
I wouldn’t describe it as “neutral,” it’s definitely Anarchist dominant and the admins and users tend to be anti-Marxist. That’s fine for its audience, but if someone wants a Marxist instance dbzer0 isn’t really it.
That’s fair. I find it comfortable, but I’m really weird politically.
That’s fine, like I said! If someone wants an Anarchist server and doesn’t really want Marxists, dbzer0 is probably pretty comfy. Marxists tend to be on Lemmygrad.ml, Lemmy.ml, or Hexbear.net, which is also good. If someone wants to avoid Marxists, it’s better to be on a different instance, one that isn’t federated with them.
I actually enjoy hexabearians but don’t engage in political convos where I don’t agree with them. Db0 works perfectly for that.
That’s fine too!
I have this LINK to the Lefty Memes moderator on db0 advocating against Democracy, is an advocate for the CCP and for people in the USA to tear down the system and abandon NATO.
most communities on ml are fine tho, also I got banned on hexbear because I called the CPC (their official name) CCP
The admins are tankies. It’s just better to avoid it. The smaller their communities the more of a joke it is getting banned for writing a fact.
I don’t have a problem with any of the communities but I regularly catch the instance ban hammer for asinine reasons.
yeah, I mean you’re kinda right
Solarpunk is one. I guess my instance is leftist too, however it is very tiny.
dbzer0 is another one. It’s an anarchist instance to be precise. @AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee
From what I know, dbzer0 is libertarian left and therefore not tankie
but dbzer0 is anarchist?
Yes
If I had to choose between a libertarian and a tankie I’d shoot myself with a rusty spork.
Maybe I should have said “anarchist left”. The term “Libertarian” is overtaken by the Right by now
Libertarian left is very different from “libertarian”
dbzer0 is anarchist, definitely not libertarian
A lot of bad actors on Slrpnk but overall the community is anarchist leaning, anti-dictatorship.
We do. DB0 and Solarpunk.
https://queer-bolshevik.medium.com/the-aes-doctrine-wrong-then-wrong-now-a8666de371da
This is a good read. There is a pretty large socialist movement that seems to have the idea that to reach global socialism we need to defend every self proclaimed socialist state without asking any questions at all and hope they’ll get better over time.
Ultraleftism, found in the author’s Maoist leanings, is also dogmatic. I really like the articles Socalism Developed China, Not Capitalism as well as Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” as both help recontextualize AES from a materialist lens, specifically from the frame of Historical Materialism.
Blackshirts and Reds is a fantastic book, but the other 2 articles are 20 minutes each and Blackshirts and Reds is a full book.
Also, for what it’s worth, you have defended Zionism and believe Israel as a Settler-Colonial project should remain. Not exactly Marxist analysis, is this? Marxists hold firm that Israel cannot exist without its settler-colonialism, and isn’t a “nation,” hence the unwavering support for Palestinian National Liberation (especially the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine).
Doesn’t China advocate for a two state solution too? Even they aren’t arguing for Israel to not exist.
Sort of. The PRC constantly takes the least confrontational stance possible. The correct Marxist take is the One State Solution, but the PRC will always take diplomacy over conflict.
Gotcha, so advocating for the same solution as AES countries do is bad, good to know.
Different AES countries have different stances, the DPRK has always recognized Palestine and never Israel as an example. There’s a difference between just following AES and coming up with solutions to problems.
I love this article while also finding it frustrating. The author seems to be a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, but also goes into detail about how all the ML states have devolved into capitalism. Maybe that should be taken as evidence that ML’s vanguard party is a fatally flawed concept?
The idea that China was socialist under Mao but became capitalist under Deng is a common Maoist take and something that distinguishes them from Marxist-Leninists, it’s kind of in the name.
Sometimes when people call China capitalist, I half-jokingly ask if they’re a Maoist, or if they think the best policy is closer to Mao than what they’re currently doing. Of course, usually, the answer (when I get an answer at all) is no: they opposed what China was doing when it was more state-controlled and they opposed what China was doing when it did reforms and opened up to private investment, if they make moves to hold billionaires accountable to the law or to move more of the economy to the public sector, they’re bad, and if they did the opposite, that would also be bad, but if they stayed steady, that too would be bad.
Maoists and Capitalists are both at least coherent in what they think China should do, in opposite extremes: either undo the reforms and revert to how it was or take it further and become more capitalist. Marxist-Leninists tend to have more nuanced takes about adapting to changing conditions, in line with what they’ve done. But then you have this other category that’s super prevalent on Lemmy that wants to criticize China’s every move without ever offering any kind of coherent idea of what they actually want them to do, economically. I don’t even know what to call that position because it makes no sense to me at all.
Maoists are ultraleftists, they generally deviate from Marxism to an idealist, rather than a materialist degree. I recommend checking out my comment responding to them.
The Vanguard concept isn’t flawed, it has real basis in materialist understanding. The idea that AES states have “devolved into Capitalism” is wrong as well (except the USSR into the various post-Socialist states). I recommend reading both Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” as well as Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism. The Dengist reforms were a reversion back towards Marxism, Mao had tried to achieve Communism through fiat without enough development of the productive forces and as such there were struggles and recessions.
Public Ownership and Central Planning works best on monopolist syndicates aquired by the State, that’s the entire reason why Marxists say Capitalism creates Socialism and that the bourgeoisie produces its own gravediggers first and foremost, this monopolization into internally planned syndicates makes Socialism a natural evolution on Capitalism, not a “better society” to force into existence.
The idea that AES states have “devolved into Capitalism” is wrong as well (except the USSR into the various post-Socialist states).
TIL a country with 814 billionaires isn’t capitalist.
It isn’t, it has a Socialist Market Economy. Marx and Engels repeatedly stated that Private Property cannot be abolished all at once in lower-stage Communism (which modern Marxists call Socialism). The economy of China is over 50% publicly owned and centrally planned, and there is a cooperative sector as well, meaning the Private Sector is a minority. On top of this, the Private Sector is still centrally planned.
The PRC employs a “birdcage model,” where competition in the markets eventually leads to monopolization into large syndicates, which the CPC then folds into the public sector steadily as it increases control by degree.
This is exactly why I linked you the article Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism. If you aren’t going to read Marx and Engels, and you aren’t going to study Historical Materialism, surely you can read a 20 minute article, right?
I’ll leave you with an excerpt from The Principles of Communism:
Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?
No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society.
In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.
I bolded the section where Mao made an error in judgement and socialized the economy dramatically before the productive forces were developed enough.
Bruh, it’s a losing battle in here. I got downvoted to hell for saying the same thing.
Because the PRC is Socialist, and following Marxism.
It has a Socialist Market Economy. Marx and Engels repeatedly stated that Private Property cannot be abolished all at once in lower-stage Communism (which modern Marxists call Socialism). The economy of China is over 50% publicly owned and centrally planned, and there is a cooperative sector as well, meaning the Private Sector is a minority. On top of this, the Private Sector is still centrally planned.
The PRC employs a “birdcage model,” where competition in the markets eventually leads to monopolization into large syndicates, which the CPC then folds into the public sector steadily as it increases control by degree.
This is exactly why I linked you the article Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism. If you aren’t going to read Marx and Engels, and you aren’t going to study Historical Materialism, surely you can read a 20 minute article, right?
I’ll leave you with an excerpt from The Principles of Communism:
Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?
No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society.
In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.
I bolded the section where Mao made an error in judgement and socialized the economy dramatically before the productive forces were developed enough.
Genuinely there are a lot of people that would like that. Maybe start with a community first before an entire instance.
Yeah .ml will be enough
A grad is being sent to your location
I wonder if there are comments here that I’ve blocked
I don’t know if this is the case for other apps or anything, but on Jerboa I end up seeing blank posts (like a post but without any user or instance attributed to it) that just say “there is no record of this comment” whenever it’s someone I’ve blocked.
That is hilariously in-line with the joke at play
there is 1 user you have blocked.
you have not blocked any users.Ssst! Don’t tell them it’s all just a joke, a trope even. Some people take this stuff very seriously.
Hexbear will flood this post if they find it
Hexbear
Post on .world
…
They have alts on lemmy.ml.
The flood has started below. And indeed it is a bunch of @lemmy.ml, surprising nobody.
There was one when I looked before. Oh wow there’s… more than one now. 😵💫
Then that would be .ml users. Semantics yes, but considering that .world never federated with Hexbear, I feel it relevant for accurately describing things.
hexbear.net is known for discussion of what goes on in the rest of the Fediverse (I went and found a recent example to show you: https://hexbear.net/post/3645205). Whereupin people with accounts that are able to often brigade places that if we take the narrowest view of who “hexbear” users are, they would not have access to. It just goes with the territory of (a) being passionate about a subject, along with (b) caring not in the slightest bit about the consent of the recipients.
I myself have multiple alts, and went to some trouble to ensure that it is barely recognizable which I am using (identical name and icon). I started on Kbin, and before it went defunct it got slower and slower so I switched to StarTrek, but it got slow for a bit too so now I made my final home on Discuss.Online. And when possible I will love to try out Sublinks, and probably I’ll try Piefed too then.
If someone switches from their hexbear.net account, where they heard about this post, to their Lemmy.ml one for the express purpose to downvoting and trolling this post with their “commentary”, I would call those hexbear users. If you read hexbear posts, it won’t be all that long before you find people not only admitting but being outright proud of doing precisely that. Here’s a very tame one to get you started: https://hexbear.net/post/272530, here’s another: https://hexbear.net/post/277508, and another: https://hexbear.net/post/280770, and there are links from there and available by searching.
That’s a fair way to look at it, yeah. I blocked the instance a whole back after being the target of the dunking culture and classification of statements like “peoples historically oppressed by a country can be reasonably expected to turn to terrible geopolitical powers, if faced with existential threat from said historical oppressors without other recourse” labeled as “fascist apologia” (referring to the USSR’s invasion of Finland, a country that was occupied and used as a battleground and colony by Sweden or Russia for centuries, leaving them with few options but the nazis to try to maintain a semblance of independence that they had previously won from the Russian Empire). If one can’t examine the mistakes of the past, they aren’t serious about trying to avoid them in the future and I ain’t got time for that shit.
There are lots of REAL leftists here on Lemmy. I haven’t researched enough to even know if I am truly one, but anyway it’s obvious that they are children (of whatever physical age) merely playing at philosophical and political concepts.
They constantly claim to be the victim, citing how “unfairly” they are treated, always conveniently ignoring that it’s not their political beliefs that turn people away, but their abusive toxicity. Using tactics such as controlling the conversation, which apparently works on their instance, but can’t hold a candle when talking with a real adult.
However, since anyone who even so much as politely asks (if not sufficiently obsequiously enough) the wrong sort of questions there are promptly removed, the ones who remain are absolutely convinced in the rightness of their cause, seeing nothing first-hand to counter such a claim. Echo chambers can really be dangerous.
Hexbear users are just like Maga conservatives, only on the other side of the spectrum - or at least claiming to be.
Lemmy.ml users on the other hand, are a much more eclectic bunch. Some are great to talk to, though conversely whenever I receive the most batshit insane replies, even after blocking Lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net sth like 99% of the time it is a user from lemmy.ml. I find it highly relevant that a LOT of hexbear users went over to Lemmy.ml when Lemmy.world defederated from the former. So after resisting for a long time and even arguing with others against doing it, I finally relented and just blocked Lemmy.ml too. I find my sanity greatly improved as a result:-).
They even explicitly stated in one of their old federation threads that their sole purpose in federating with other instances is to “dunk” on anyone they disagree with and send brigades. This has been a longstanding problem with them, nothing they do outside of their instance is in good faith.
Multiple of those links say that yeah. And the one where the admins took the vote, then ignored it and did the opposite of what the community asked. They are so toxic that they’ve even run off their own developers (I’m not sure if that really meant admin, but seeing as how iirc hexbear predates Lemmy it does make sense as actual developer too).
Some hexbears have left hexbear bc they were kicked out - too toxic for them even - but also some were not toxic enough, as in even they could no longer stand it there.
The only thing we absolutely must be intolerant of is intolerance.
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The spirit of hexbear will flood this post if they find it
I use these posts to tag people, so I can disregard and ridicule them in different posts.
It was a relief when I started tagging them since I realised it’s just a small handful of people that are usually all over the comments so it looks like there’s way more of them.
You can always rely on alcoholicorn to show up and say something stupid, for example. Ever since I tagged them I’ve seen them everywhere, always heavily downvoted for coming up with inane nonsense.
Surprisingly I didn’t have a tag for them yet. Fixed now.
Lol, the .mls are mass downvoting now. Such fragile individuals!
Next best thing after being banned by them. A badge of honour.
Instead of blocking them I should start tagging them so I can still clown
Who wants to risk it and repost this to memes in .ml?
Risk what? Would anything of value be lost?
“you dont understand! nothing happened INSIDE the square! (ignore that masses were killed beside the square)”
Well, to be perfectly clear, here in Mexico happened a students massacre in the Three Cultures square in 1968. The CIA was involved.
Nice whataboutism. How hard can it be to understand that China having a shitty government does not mean that the US is perfect?
Whatabwhat? Do you think that’s what I don’t understand? No, I get it. It’s just that, if you are an US American defending your government, I couldn’t care less about your opinion on matters of other nations.
I am not a Yank, and I sure as hell aren’t defending them.
You sure react in favor of the USA government. I mentioned a case of a massacre of hundreds of students in a public square in a completely different country because it is related to the OP. The treatment of this case was the same: “nothing happened here, nothing to see”. The USA, through the CIA, got involved in the whole thing. Your reaction? You accuse me of “whataboutism”, overlooking the fact of the massacre. You do not even mention anything about it with your “nice whataboutism”. Well, it was not nice at all, but it happened. My intention was to show another horrible and similar case of deadly authoritarianism against students. I’m expecting people can hold two or more similar crimes against humanity in their brains for a while.
So you agree that the Tianmen Square Massacre truly happened and is just as inexcusable as the other example you brought up?
Americans will post a meme about Tianimen Square while eating a Chiquita banana.
Americans can, and will, openly discuss this stuff, and think badly of their government for it, and won’t get in trouble with the government for doing so publicly.
Tell that to the college anti-war protestors getting beat by police for literally using their first amendment right to protest and speak, and NOT blocking movement to classes at all.
Let’s never forget that Jerry Seinfeld paid counter protesters over the genocide protest at UCLA.
https://www.newsweek.com/jerry-seinfeld-wife-donates-pro-israel-ucla-rally-1895409
Yes, I was going to say that Kent state would be a more apt comparison. But this isn’t the issue at hand. If I go into a thread discussing Kent, the US over throw of Guatemala, etc. I am just saying I choose the evils of the US, and am here to whatabout China as a deflection. You can tell me all this stuff, that I am already keenly aware of, and it still does nothing, but miss the point.
This is an english meme about the one event in Chinese history that gets repeated in english-speaking spaces over and over and over again. This isn’t attempting to make an argument to a Chinese audience. Why shouldn’t we draw comparisons to similar things in the US? What else would we talk about? Just a whole thread of “yeah, that’s bad” again and again? For every time this gets trotted out?
if you have nothing to say on the subject, don’t say anything. This goes both ways. If someone is talking about, say, Kent state, and admonishing the US, and all you have is we may have shot a couple college kids, but in China they ran a bunch over with tanks, just fucking move on, and don’t comment. These additions aren’t valuable.
Or, maybe, bring up the point you make here? Like discuss the specific concept of the english speaking world spreading that as a meme at this point. That would be way more valuable a contribution than, yet another, whataboutism.
Tell that to Chelsea Manning.
Sure, the US is mostly freer with information than a country that is unabashedly authoritarian. But ask Ron DeSantis what he was doing at Guantanamo, or the CIA what they did in Latin America. If you don’t think the US hides plenty from its citizens, you haven’t been paying attention.
Our Tianimen Square was Kent State, or maybe the MOVE Bombing, or all of the documented police violence against protesters and marginalized people. Fat lot of good it does that we can talk about them when nothing changes.
I think it makes more sense to hold our government to account than point out the flaws of people we don’t like.
I don’t recall Kent State protesters killing anyone.
Yes, I was actually going to say that a more apt comparison would have been Kent state.
If the subject is Kent state, or the US para-military manipulation of south America, and all you do is come into the comments whatabouting China’s bullshit, you are there because you sided with the US, over China. This is what is happening here, in reverse. You can tell me all the long history of shit, that I already am keenly aware of, that the US have done. You are still missing the point.
Well, sort of.
Many of us pretty much do this every day. And we have massive protests about it as well. We’re often not empowered to change much, though. We do what we can, when we can.
Yes, that is the unfortunate state of reality. I am worried we a getting to that impasse where all diplomatic avenues for change have been shut down. This leaves violence as the option at hand.
What makes you think fighting against the US military is an easier or more practical solution than protesting, exactly?
I didn’t say it was. Protesting has been getting no where. We were burning shit down, and holding police stations hostage, for police reform. Here we are, a few years later, and we have more cops, less accountability, more money per cop spent, few to no structural changes for dealing with mental health issues, and homelessness, less security for the fourth amendment, less transparency, a backlash to the first amendment, etc. Our protests against genocide do nothing, but get people beaten, and put in jail.
It is not easier to fight than it is to protest, but if protest is pointless, as all other avenues for change are becoming, the options left are fighting, or supplication. Hopefully people will start actually taking voting seriously. Big election, vote for the lesser evil. Local election, vote for change. It is how the minority GOP is able to hold this death grip on the government, if you need proof it works. If we can’t organize to get more of the majority of people who don’t vote, to do so, we will have no diplomatic venues left. If those who do vote don’t start taking the movements of the right far more seriously, the right will kill our power to affect change through the vote If we do affect critical change, and it brings out a government stifling of voting power, we will be similarly fucked. Once we have shown all diplomatic efforts to be ineffective, it is fight, or submit.
Look, I agree with everything you just said, but I don’t think you’ve really thought about the implications of how you first said it. Our options are find a way to make peaceful protesting and voting work, fight soon and definitely lose, or wait until the US is collapsing, fight then, almost certainly start the most deadly war in all of human history, and still have a pretty high chance of losing. As much as it has been frustrating and unproductive so far, the first option is still the best for a whole bunch of reasons. Saying that protesting is useless and we’ll have to fight is not a good idea. Maybe it will come to that, but we should be doing everything we can to prevent it, not egg it on.
Unless they are whistle blowing something important
That is not the same as as the subject at hand, I have already addressed this, multiple times, down further. A more apt comparison would have been Kent State. Which was something that was immediately put on the news.
If you do anything that threatens the powerful in the USA you will be cracked down on just as hard. Your example, Edward Snowden, or even the union wars in Appalachia. All are just as forgotten in US public mind as Tianman Square.
I still see Snowden in the news, and see the information of his documents discussed in mainstream media. Even if it was forgotten, people arern’t being swept away by the feds for talking about online, and on tv.
, people arern’t being swept away by the feds for talking about online, and on tv.
Because it can no longer affect real change.
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And making Dole pineapple upside-down cake with Imperial Sugar.
maybe you should post it as a separate meme since people are crying about whataboutism. I hadn’t heard of this one actually.
I don’t think I can do memes of crimes against humanity, but thank you for the suggestion. Getting people to know, or be more aware, about the hideous activities of entities like the CIA is enough for me.
fair
24 downvotes telling me actually this never happened.
Also, nobody talk about Grenada in 1983. Or Iran Air Flight 655. Or the MOVE bombing in 1985. Or the police response to the LA Riots. Or the police response to the Iraq War protests. Or the police response to OWS protests. Or the police response to BLM protests. Or the police response to the campus protests in defense of Palestine.
That’s Whataboutism.
You can’t just talk about ACAB or discuss the broad problems of a heavily armed carceral state looking for heads to crack. Only Foreign Countries are Bad.
You’re right. TWO culturally shocking things happened that year.
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There’s a huge difference between “the famine never happened” and “The widespread crop failures caused famines in some regions due to ineffective policies, bad estimates grain production, and local conflict”.
The former is just as wildly ahistorical as the “Stalin did holodomer because he was evil” that’s taught in schools.
While that might work for someone whose only interest in the event is demonizing (or eulogizing) the USSR, if you actually want to know how and why things happened, a deeper understanding is necessary.
It certainly true that “Stalin did holodomer because he was evil” would be a stupid thing to say. Good thing very few people are actually saying that then.
The actual point is that when the crop failures started happening Stalin decided to make sure it disproportionately hurt non-Russians, especially Ukrainians. Whether that’s technically genocide or not depends how severe it was and what else they were doing to try to Russify the area at the time, but frankly, if we’re talking about the subtleties of the definition of genocide I hope we can agree that whether it crosses that threshold or not what happened was not okay.
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Yes, as a matter of fact I did know that Stalin was Georgian. So? He didn’t care about that. He wanted the Soviet Union to be easier to rule, and right or wrong he thought making it less ethnically diverse would help with that goal. He didn’t want the USSR to become more Russian out of some kind of ethnic superiority garbage like the funny mustache guy from around the same time. He wanted it to further cement his control. That was pretty much the primary motivation for everything he did. Motivation isn’t really the issue with that kind of thing though, is it?
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The whole nation starved due to policies in places and people in power.
As in Stalin and stallinist party.
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They felt the same way the Kent State Students felt before the attack.
That tens of millions of people across the nation were about to be slaughtered, broadcast on tv around the world?
It wasn’t tens of millions deaths if that’s what you’re implying. An atrocity but always good to stay to the facts.
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Very legit sources. Everyone I know goes to prolewiki and johnmenadue.com lol
Well I can’t exactly quote CNN for you to show you the counter to Western propaganda, can I? Tell me a “legit source” that isn’t skewed by Western media.
All legit sources are members in a conspiracy to discredit China. Only the studious journalists at prolewiki and johnmenadue dot com will tell you the real facts.
I mean, if you need a legit journalist saying it, here’s a Western journalist that used to work for the Washington Post:
https://www.hnn.us/article/jay-mathews-the-myth-of-tiananmen
But, ultimately, there’s not going to be a new York Times article saying that China didn’t slaughter people for no reason because that’s against their goals as Western journalists. I guess you’d just have to believe that the news lies about things. But I guess you believe that the news always tells the truth and that they’re infallible.
“A lot of people died but not in that particular spot,” extremely helpful.
You suck
I’m sorry, I’m afraid that if I do not use an illegal VPN, my government will punish me for clicking those links
/s
What a funny way to ignore information that counters your viewpoints.
If only there were extensive images and videos of what happened.
That video literally shows the people that’re rioting and throwing Molotovs at military vehicles. This is also outside the square. Tankman is also the day before the riots and the tanks are leaving the square, not going into it.
Why are people so laser-focused on this one event that happened over three decades ago?
Are people in China or on Chinese social media allowed to talk about it today?
Being able to talk about the genocide of the Palestinian people doesn’t seem to change anything. Turns out freedom of speech is happily granted when your speech is powerless.
You asked why people care about it so much, and I’m pretty confident the reason is because we’re allowed to talk about it here. If we don’t, someone will forget about it. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.
Furthermore, what we’re remembering is a moment when people who were trying to make their voices heard were silenced. By making our voices heard and remembering that they lost their lives in the name of their voices is in itself an act of remembrance that honors their memories.
Lastly, for the low hanging fruit, asking why people are “laser-focused” on an event from a long time ago is a stupid fucking question when today there are nazis and fascists on the fucking ballot. That’s why we remember the past.
And yes, to your point, those do who know history are doomed to watch others repeat it but remembering it is nonetheless valuable, and honoring people who died for something noble is also valuable.
You speak of nobility and remembering the past but I’ve only seen this used as a cheap way to score political points on lemmy.world (and upvotes) for what that matters.
Someone casually browsing who doesn’t know the event would only glean that the CCP is bad, but they would have no idea what the students were even protesting about. So much for remembering the past.
As for nazis on the ballot, we have two presidential candidates and both fully support israel’s campaign of genocide and lebensraum.
Well you didn’t ask why the OP was laser focused on this event, you asked why “people” are and I gave my best guess as to why it keeps coming up. It also could be that people just like to do things they’re told not to do
Yeah, that’s fair.
No speech is powerless. That’s exactly why the CCP supresses it.
That just proves my point. If bringing it up didn’t matter then the CCP wouldn’t bother surpressing it.
Are you for real? Should we forget the people that are silenced in this world?
No, just wondering why the obsession with this one event. This particular event gets brought up more on lemmy.world than perhaps any other historical event. I would ask the same if people kept bringing up the great molasses flood and cracking the same old “slow as molasses” joke.
Because it’s a world famous event that is virtually unknown in the host country. There are usually examples for each country.
The US doesn’t know anything about the war crimes exposed by wikileaks.
Russia knows almost nothing true about the Ukrainian war.
The UK has superembargos (usually about celebs and royalty) which is only reported on abroad.
Thailand doesn’t gossip about its royalty.
Etc.
Every single person in China knows about this event. And the average Chinese person’s understanding is closer to reality about it than that of the average Westerner. Sure Chinese people’s understanding of it is overly sympathetic to the government, and they scrub internet posts about the event, but Americans have a completely cartoonish propaganda view. Listen to the reporters who were there, not random redditors with a hate boner.
Sure they scrub any mention of it, it’s totally fine
Every single person in China knows about this event
How does everyone in china know all about it if the CCCP scrub internet posts about the event?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2024/06/what-is-the-tiananmen-crackdown/
In the 35 years since the crackdown, all discussion of the incident has been heavily censored in China, as authorities have effectively attempted to erase it from history. Public commemoration or mere mention, online or off, of the Tiananmen crackdown is banned.
Regularly since 1989, activists in mainland China have been detained and charged with “subversion” or “picking quarrels” if they commemorate those who were killed, call for the release of prisoners or criticize government actions during the Tiananmen crackdown.
The government has never accepted responsibility for the human rights violations during and after the military crackdown or held any perpetrator accountable. With each year that passes, justice becomes ever more elusive.
Amnesty is probably a capitalist lib propaganda group or something to them.
good news! YOU have the power to post about other tragedies.
Because there is a real effort by a government to prevent people millions of people from remembering.
I don’t know anyone who is laser focused. But anyway, do you think important historical events exist? If so, what are your top ten of the last half century?
The idea of Tiananmen Square being one of the top ten most important historical events in that time period is wild to me. Just in terms of death toll, the highest estimate mentioned on Wikipedia of 10,000 comes from a US ambassador citing an anonymous “friend,” and is many times higher than any other estimate - a more realistic generous estimate is closer to 1,000 (the official number is 300). Let’s compare that to the lowest estimates from the list of genocides page:
- Gaza: 38,000 (ongoing)
- Darfur: 98,000 (2005)
- Congo (Effacer le tableau): 60,000 (2003)
- Congo (Massacre of Hutis): 200,000 (1997)
- Rwanda: 491,000 (1994)
- Bosnia: 31,000 (1995)
- Somalia (Isaaq): 50,000 (1989)
- Iraq (Kurds): 50,000 (1989)
- Cambodia: 1,386,000 (1979)
- Indonesia (East Timor): 85,000 (1999)
- Uganda: 100,000 (1978)
The same year that Tiananmen Square happened, two separate genocides were ongoing that, even by the most ridiculously generous comparisons possible, each killed at least 5 times as many people. Searching “Isaaq” on either .world or .ml gives exactly one hit which is a comment listing off a bunch of genocides, like I’m doing now. Entire cities were leveled and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee the country, but nobody ever talks about it (myself included, until today).
In addition to that list, if we’re talking about events in general, then we should also look at the list of interstate wars (again, lowest estimates):
- Persian Gulf War: 29,000 (1991)
- War in Abkhazia: 25,000 (1993)
- First Congo War: 235,000 (1997)
- Kosovo War: 16,000 (1999)
- Eritrian-Ethopian War: 53,000 (2000)
- Second Chechen War: 20,000 (2000)
There’s ongoing conflicts in Myanmar, in North Africa, in Mexico, and in Sudan, and more, each of which has left more dead than Tiananmen this year and the year’s not even over yet.
So it doesn’t seem especially significant in terms of raw numbers, but you could argue that it’s more significant because of the effect it had on Chinese politics, as the controversy led to the resignation of the head of state, Deng Xiaoping. Except that I never ever see anything like that discussed. Either way, it didn’t change the broad direction of the reforms.
I could give my own reasons as to why it’s given such a high position of importance, but I’m genuinely curious to hear your own explanation of why Tiananmen would warrant a spot on a top ten list of important events, compared to any of the other events I’ve listed.
I don’t know anyone who is laser focused.
Really? You haven’t seen the many posts on this one event on lemmy.world? Hell, this is the shitpost community, not even a political one.
Because Lemmy is considered and made by communists.
Communists, tankies who will always rush in to defend the CCP and suppress the atrocities committed by the CCP, without fail. It’s both hilarious and madening.
Basically what shitposting is all about.
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“After several weeks of standoffs and violent confrontations between the army and demonstrators left many on both sides severely injured, a meeting held among the CCP’s top leadership on 1 June concluded with a decision to clear the square.[15][13][14] The troops advanced into central parts of Beijing on the city’s major thoroughfares in the early morning hours of 4 June and engaged in bloody clashes with demonstrators attempting to block them, in which many people – demonstrators, bystanders, and soldiers – were killed. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded.[16][17][18][19][20][21]”
When you go to Wikipedia, click on those numbers in the brackets
As I said, there were clashes at major thoroughfares surrounding the square, there was not tanks gunning down masses of protesters inside the square.
Who said anything about tanks shooting people? Did you just make that up and denied it yourself? Lmao.
Student protesters where shot up and killed. Indiscriminataley. I could not fucking care less what type of pew pew was used.
Yeah but if you don’t know what exact bullet they used or what they had for breakfast that morning then your argument is invalid I’m afraid /s
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ACAB
If that’s the cops’ response to being attacked then they (like all cops) deserved it. ACAB
I hope you didn’t read “cops responding with indiscriminate murder” to imply anything else.
Idk what to read from you, if you think cops responding with indiscriminate murder is bad, why the ccp apologia?
Like clockwork you’re here to deny the many atrocities of authoritarian despots.
What do you even get out of constantly getting your metaphoric-cock beaten into the dirt 2 dozen times a day?
What exactly do you think happened, and what do you think I am claiming happened?
Please don’t deflect.
I am not deflecting, I am trying to understand what you think I am denying.
Everything I’ve said happened, protesters lynching police and police gunning down protesters in the streets surrounding the square, is reflected in the wikipedia article, the only thing that I’ve denied, that masses of unarmed students were gunned down and run over by tanks in the square, is proven false in the tankman video, which I linked.
Wait I also denied that China claims nothing happened at Tienanmen square, that’s also proven false by the official Chinese account of what happened in the Wikipedia article.
Deflect away, coward.
No, I’m not playing your games.
Answer the question:
What do you get out of having your metaphoric-cock beaten into the ground 24 times a day?
Only when someone denies the massacre do I link to these horrific NSFL photos.
You do know that the pictures support what he said right? There’s pictures of dead soldiers because they weren’t given ammo when marching into the city. Once they started getting killed, they gave them ammo and they just started shooting everybody. Before then the protesters smashed their heads, stripped them, and burned them.
The ones who stayed in the square were mostly the peaceful hunger strikers and not the fighters so the square itself was cleared without much trouble compared to the march into the city.
Armed troops and tanks made their way to the square on the night of June 3 and into the morning hours of June 4. They soon shot those who stood in their way and crushed those who wouldn’t move out of it.
Once again, that’s not out of line with what he and I said. There were barricades and fighting in the streets of Beijing and the army killed whoever got in their way to the square, but the people occupying the square were negotiated with and peacefully dispersed. They then once again took all the ammo from the soldiers.
I don’t understand why you think it’s important to insist that nothing happened precisely inside Tiananmen Square, but you are perfectly happy for a massacre to have occurred in, say, Changan Avenue.
Anyway, to respond to the original challenge rather than argue your questionable morals.
A tank set ablaze by protesters burns in Tiananmen Square on June 3.
Because it’s what happened. It’s not a point of morals or anything else. The other poster is making a value argument that I don’t particularly agree with, but when it comes to the reality of what happened, they’re grounded. Go read the Wikipedia article.
The other poster is trying to claim nothing bad happened inside Tiananmen Square itself, and it was the protestors that were the real aggressors.
This is bullshit.
The situation escalated because reserves from outside Beijing were drafted in, who had no friends or relatives protesting.
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So we are now trying the, it’s only 300 people so it’s not a massacre argument. Seeing as you bring up the 10,000 number, let’s look at the source.
Combined with the above photos, this seems closer to the truth than the official 300 Chinese story.
ACAB 😄🖕
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Your comment after being imported into China:
The chinese narrative isn’t thatnothing happened, it’s that there was a battle outside the square, including protesters lynching and burning cops and cops gunning down unarmed protesters on bikes from their trucks. This is corroborated by videos and pictures.The western narrative
of tanks going into the square and gunning down tens of thousands of protesters (after getting delayed by tank man)is blatantly false,as you can see in the uncut tankman video pans over to show the square the tanks are leaving was emptyexcept for some bikes.Fuck you.
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Thanks, it’s called a typo.
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Yes, I did. Tianmen square massacre deniers make me mad.
It should make you mad as well, if you were a decent person.
Wikipedia indicates there wasn’t a massacre in Tiananmen square: “Several people who were situated around the square that night, including former Beijing bureau chief of The Washington Post Jay Mathews[f] and CBS correspondent Richard Roth[g] reported that while they had heard sporadic gunfire, they could not find enough evidence to suggest that a massacre took place on the square”
“In 2011, three secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing agreed there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square.[244] Instead, they said Chinese soldiers opened fire on protesters outside the square as they fought their way from the west towards the center.[244] A Chilean diplomat who had been positioned next to a Red Cross station inside the square told his US counterparts that he did not observe any mass firing of weapons into the crowds in the square itself, although sporadic gunfire was heard. He said that most of the troops who entered the square were armed only with anti-riot gear.”
While they do provide sources that say the student death toll was likely high, most sources estimate around 500. (Again, not in the square itself)
I’m just trying to be factual- the students were funded and supported by Western forces including the United States, probably not to help the students and spread democracy and capitalism, but to create division. The students clashed with China’s fucked up communist government and military. There’s not too many possibilities when a civilian force clashes with a state military.
I support you if you oppose China’s actions here, I just think saying there was a massacre in Tiananmen square is insincere.
Okay, that’s Wikipedia that I quoted
Don’t have a hissy fit about someone else’s emotions. It’s just a comment.
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No nuance, only china bad evil commees who kill their own people because they hate freedom.
Nah, China kills it’s own people because the ruler can’t ever tolerate handing power to anyone else.
Nice try tho 🤡
And how long do you think Winnie’s reign will be?
Well he’s incredibly popular, so probably quite long unless he starts fucking up or gets coup’d by capitalists in the party ala Yeltsin.
Unlike Hu Jintao’s path, he isn’t struggling to manage the contradictions between the interests of the national bourgeoisie against those of the working class.
Easy to seem popular when you make people who are against you disappear
Well he’s incredibly popular
Of course the authoritarian cunt who mandates his servant-citizens like him is “popular”. It’s illegal for him not to be lmao.
Hitler is popular as well, I suppose that means he deserves our respect right?
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You’re never going to convert sinophobes. It’s like trying to convert white supremacists, except even more unlikely to work since there is zero pressure to not be sinophobic in society.
Criticizing a regime isn’t racism against the people living under that regime.
The people control that regime in a much more robust democracy than the US has.
This has nothing to do with what I was saying. Try again.
Criticizing a “regime” run by democracy, both direct and representative, is criticizing the people. It’s also criticizing a race, in this case, as you people never evolved past the “sneaky Chinaman” stereotype in your criticisms.
No, again, it’s not. Once elected the government can go against the people’s will. Try again.
Every communist state to my knowledge has instant recall; if an elected official isn’t doing what you want, you can get signatures to force a recall vote.
So because you assume China to be a democracy, other people are racist for criticizing the government?
So any criticism of the U.S. is racism?
Let’s agree that both are bad. What is your goal with this whataboutism?
The implication of what they’re saying is that the Chinese government’s actions generally represent the will of the Chinese people so you can’t just separate them like you can with America.
Do you agree with this implication or did you just explain it to me? Because I would never equate the actions of the government of a nation state with the people who happen to live there
I would if the people overwhelmingly support that action, yes.
Imagine knowing what words mean.
At this point I should ask for a delicious cookie recipe…
This is no different from calling critics of Israel antisemites even though plenty of us Jews do it too.
There are a huge number of Chinese people not living in China who are very open about their contempt for Xi’s regime.
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Oh, well that changes everything then /s
Someone think of the poor tanks that were trampled into paste that had to be hosed off into the sewers.
Those poor, forgotten tanks.
With a detour over some dead people.
suuuuuuure
Here’s the entire Tank Man video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq8zFLIftGk
You can see the square in the background.
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The bootlicker is the person repeating the propaganda of the government actually oppressing them, even when the video disproving it is right there in front of them.
Tanks have the right to self-defense, too!
