• I actually did click on it and start reading it, because this has been the most decent response in the thread so far (despite the condescension - the bar is pretty low, to be fair). The loaded language was already quite something. And I tried to find more information on the source. Well, the website doesn’t exist anymore and I’m hard pressed to find any reliable information about it. So… Maybe not the most reliable source.

          • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 day ago

            Buddy, you don’t get to say things like “despite the condescension” when you came in here suggesting that we should take a fantasy you made up in your head seriously as if that was a matter of historical record.

            And it’s not like you deserve it, but here’s an essay from a Chinese scholar and a Canadian-Peruvian Marxist synthesizing together a few dozen first hand accounts and historical documents/articles about the event.

          • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
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            1 day ago

            loaded language

            bourgeois media is filled with loaded language but it doesn’t register to you because of your chauvinism

          • Kumikommunism [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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            And what was the reliable source where you got your current belief?

            That was not the most decent answer, and you are a liar. Someone asked you why you believed he was killed, and you ignored it. Because you know the answer isn’t a good one.

          • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
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            1 day ago

            this piece in the Columbia Journalism Review by a western journalist who was there still has some of the liberal brainworms but solidly shows that the conventional narrative is bullshit:

            The Myth of Tiananmen | Columbia Journalism Review

            The problem is this: as far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square.

            I look forward to hearing how a primary witness writing in CJR is unreliable

            • Most of the hundreds of foreign journalists that night, including me, were in other parts of the city or were removed from the square so that they could not witness the final chapter of the student story.

              Right, all the media was ushered out so that they couldn’t see the peaceful ending. Seems legit. But OK, let’s assume it’s the case. Whatever.

              Hundreds of people, most of them workers and passersby, did die that night, but in a different place and under different circumstances. […] Many victims were shot by soldiers on stretches of Changan Jie, the Avenue of Eternal Peace, about a mile west of the square, and in scattered confrontations in other parts of the city

              What are workers and passersby? Right, civilians.

              • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 day ago

                I’m struggling to see what revelation you’ve identified here that is so scandalous. Yes, the Chinese government killed several hundred Chinese civilians surrounding the Tiananmen Square in the 1989 protests. Has anyone claimed otherwise?

                Your original claim was that the man pictured in the OP in front of the tanks was executed. That claims remains as baseless as China overseas.

                • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  23 hours ago

                  It’s fine to hold China, an actual democratic state, to a higher standard than the US. If anything it makes China look bad that you’re comparing them to the great satan.

                  • MayoPete [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                    22 hours ago

                    I just think it’s ridiculous that China-haters have to go back 30+ years to find one instance of the government doing something awful and in 🍔land we have little Tiannamen Squares on a daily basis.

      • Blakey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Not exactly , and nor do you, but there’s no reason to think he would be allowed to berate a tank commander for iirc ~15 minutes including climbing up on the tank, then be secretly killed later. You believe the CPC had no problem killing however many people openly in the streets, in front of foreign diplomats and journalists, but this one dude had to be spirited away and secretly murdered? Please use a little common sense. I’m guessing you believe there were thousands killed in the protests. I’ll allow that, it’s hard to tell exactly what happened in Beijing over 30 years ago. You also believe I assume that those were peaceful protestors killed in cold blood. I don’t know if you realise this but the events were documented by non-chinese sources including the Belgian ambassador to China - and the government knew that was going on at the time. What makes you think they suddenly became so squeamish around this one guy? Far more likely it’s exactly what it looks like - he was led away by neighbours and the government just let sleeping dogs lie. There’s nothing to be gained from going after him and no evidence that it happened.

        • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          I’m guessing you believe there were thousands killed in the protests. I’ll allow that, it’s hard to tell exactly what happened in Beijing over 30 years ago.

          I wouldn’t go that far. No contemporary sources claim thousands were killed and it’s hard to see how that’s possible. The actual sources that were present at the time are consistent with the official claims of several hundred dead but no more than 1000.

          Even in the Gwangju Uprising only 165 people were massacred, and that was a proper contemporaneous massacre (as opposed to the skirmishes around Tiananmen Square in June 1989 where the protesters were firing back).

      • Staines [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 day ago

        No one knows.

        You simply have a fantasy that aligns with how you see the world - have declared that to be the absolute truth - and hold that anyone who doesn’t also indulge in same fantasy for the same reason must be the enemy; pure evil. What a whimsical way for the human mind to work.

          • krolden@lemmy.ml
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            1 day ago

            We were taught in school that the video ended with the guy standing there and that no other footage made it out of the evil dictatorship.

            I only more recently learned the video goes on for some time

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            I just read some of the comments in the first thread you linked and whew. It’s just thoughtless lib regurgitation countered by pages of material analysis which elicit no response or the most milquetoast “interesting!” from people who will clearly never click a single resource linked

            All I can say is, infinite flowers for the comrades posting on the frontlines of the war on brainworms

            • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              This particular exchange will live in my head rent free forever.

              Presents basic argument

              Receives basic response justified by very simple theory

              Goes on rant about how the concept of even having political theory at all is bad and limits your perspective

              Academics hate this one simple trick to never having to read anything: have you considered that thinking about things ahead of time and writing down your observations is tyranny?

              • peeonyou [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                49 minutes ago

                rofl… perfect libbrained response… I, a man of culture, do not subscribe to any particular viewpoint at any given time as that would limit my mental gymnastics

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                Why do these people always have the same insufferable tone of “I refuse to engage with your arguments, not because I don’t understand them or don’t have anything meaningful to respond with, but because I am at a higher level of evolution than you simpletons. Having no opinions is the ultimate proof of intellectual rigour” grhshahhshd

                • Damarcusart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  22 hours ago

                  Because they think intelligence and being a “good person” are inherent traits that they are born with, and the NPCs on the internet forum they are arguing with are just bad guys who need to be “beaten”. They don’t examine their own position and consider it because they don’t have a position, they are just inherently correct.

                • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  They even ask rhetorical questions as if to suggest a specific argument that they don’t want to make outright, but then never have the courtesy to type out the argument they wanted to make once their questions are answered. Like, they asked “So China and Russia aren’t authoritarianisms? [sic]” implying that they do think China and Russia are authoritarian, but when faced with a counterargument they don’t try to explain why the thing they believe stands up against that counterargument and make the implicit thing from the question explicit; instead they just start mocking the interlocutor without offering any response or counterargument. So exhausting and annoying.

                  • built_on_hope [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                    I’m pretty convinced that most of the worst internet behaviour is linked to poor dopamine regulation. They just want that sweet hit of satisfaction from the “gotcha” moment, the feeling of “winning” without having to expend any effort. When it’s called out they have nowhere to go other than trying to “win” again with a more extreme/absurd “gotcha”.

      • corvidenjoyer [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        2 days ago

        You certainly don’t but you heard rumors that still confirm whatever bias you wanted to keep from before you knew a video was “hiding in plain sight.”

      • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Look I already replied but it would mean a lot to me if you could explain what the point of leaving these 2 comments was. Are you trying to convince anyone by saying what you imagined happened with literally 0 evidence? Are you just performing something where you get to interact with people and contradict them just to feel smarter? Like what was the plan here?

      • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Do you have the blueprints for the time machine you used to go back to 1989 and stalk tank man and find out what happened? Why have you not shared this technology with the rest of the world?

      • godisidog [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        Tank Man was hauled off (by either fellow civilians or plain-clothes cops, we’ll never know), and the tanks drove home.

        The violence was the day before.

        • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          I think they’re suggesting that the government then extrajudicially executed the tank man.

          One would wonder what the government would stand to gain from killing a nameless man who stood in front of some tanks, delaying them for a few seconds. Wanted to stop him from standing in front of more tanks?

          • Damarcusart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            22 hours ago

            One would wonder what the government would stand to gain from killing a nameless man who stood in front of some tanks, delaying them for a few seconds.

            Going to stop you right there. They did it because they needed a moment of individual brutality that makes the audience feel bad for the people the villains are oppressing, so it is satisfying when the heroes go in and stop the evil dictatorship at the end of the movie. I would’ve preferred if they showed a scene with tank man’s loving family before he was brutally killed to inspire the good guys, but they probably had to leave that on the cutting room floor so the overall flow of the scene worked better.

          • BananaOnionJuice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            I think it’s easy to get to that conclusion if you only have the image to go by and haven’t researched more into what happened.

            Good on china if they were lenient on the guy.