this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.

Rule 3: No sectarianism.

Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome

Rule 5: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)

Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.

Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.

Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this. Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml

Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

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[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 95 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (38 children)

@seahorse@midwest.social you're being rightfully called out in this comments section.

https://archive.is/gaR4u

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html

https://redsails.org/another-view-of-tiananmen/


CBS NEWS: “We saw no bodies, injured people, ambulances or medical personnel — in short, nothing to even suggest, let alone prove, that a “massacre” had occurred in [Tiananmen Square]”

BBC NEWS: “I was one of the foreign journalists who witnessed the events that night. There was no massacre on Tiananmen Square”

NY TIMES: In June 13, 1989, NY Times reporter Nicholas Kristof – who was in Beijing at that time – wrote, “State television has even shown film of students marching peacefully away from the [Tiananmen] square shortly after dawn as proof that they [protesters] were not slaughtered.” In that article, he also debunked an unidentified student protester who had claimed in a sensational article that Chinese soldiers with machine guns simply mowed down peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square.

REUTERS: Graham Earnshaw was in the Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3. He didn’t leave the square until the morning of June 4th. He wrote in his memoir that the military came, negotiated with the students and made everyone (including himself) leave peacefully; and that nobody died in the square.

200-300 people died in clashes in various parts of Beijing, around June 4 — and about half of those who died were soldiers and cops..

A Wikileaks cable from the US Embassy in Beijing (sent in July 1989) also reveals the eyewitness accounts of a Latin American diplomat and his wife: “They were able to enter and leave the [Tiananmen] square several times and were not harassed by troops. Remaining with students … until the final withdrawal, the diplomat said there were no mass shootings in the square or the monument.”

Numerous military buses, trucks, armored vehicles, and tanks being burned by the “peaceful” protesters. Sometimes the soldiers were allowed to escape, and sometimes they were brutally killed by the protesters. Numerous protesters were armed with Molotov cocktails and even guns.

Wall Street Journal: In an article from June 5, 1989, the Wall Street Journal described some of this violence: “Dozens of soldiers were pulled from trucks, severely beaten and left for dead. At an intersection west of the square, the body of a young soldier, who had been beaten to death, was stripped naked and hung from the side of a bus.”

The official report of the Chinese government from 1989 (translated here) shows that more than 1000 military and police vehicles were burned by rioters. And 200+ soldiers and policemen were murdered. Just imagine how much restraint the military and the police had shown.

Wait, how could the protesters kill so many soldiers? Because, until the very end, Chinese soldiers were unarmed. Most of the times, they didn’t even have helmets or batons.

What exactly happened in Beijing in 1989 that lead to this bloody affair?

The answer lies with two key figures: General Secretary Hu Yaobang, and Ambassador James Lilley.

Hu Yaobang was a member of the communist party of China and was one of the three major rightist-reformers that set China on the path its on today, the other two being Zhao Ziyang, and Deng Xiaoping respectively. Hu Yaobang as a reformer was also a spokesman for the intelligentsia and by the end of his life was well-beloved by the youth of China (we're talking below 30 here, folks) therefore when he passed away the youth of China organized public grieving events with the largest occurring in Beijing. This is to say if Hu didn't die from old age that year, none of this would've happened that year. This is to also say this event had nothing to do with "freedom" or "democracy" or whatever pigshit your favorite rush limburger propagandist spoon feeds you, it was a funeral service that was hijacked to unseat the Chinese government - which so coincidentally is a speciality of the agency the second person we're talking about.

Ambassador James Lilley, the son of an american expat oil executive for Standard Oil, was a CIA agent operating in east Asia from 1951 to 1981 with little officially known about him (I know for a fact he's fucked around Korea and Laos, so it's not a stretch to say he's likely been involved with every conflict that occured during his official career). In his "post" CIA career he's acted as a diplomatic liason to the provice of Taiwan, a teacher to future state department ghouls, and "helped" South Korea end its military dicatorship by helping the military win the election "democratically", and abruptly five days after the death of General Secretary Hu Yaobang James Lilley was appointed as the US Ambassador to China by also former CIA ghoul and president of the United States George H. W. Bush. What an astounding coincidence.

In an article from Vancouver Sun (17 Sep 1992) described the role of the CIA: “The Central Intelligence Agency had sources among [Tiananmen Square] protesters” … and “For months before [the protests], the CIA had been helping student activists form the anti-government movement.”

Credit to @Alaskaball@hexbear.net for the second part of this comment.

[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 45 points 5 months ago

skeleton-wave I have been summoned from the void

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[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 90 points 5 months ago (45 children)

@ringwraithfish@startrek.website Oh yeah you come on in here too since I assume it was you who reported me motherfucker.

The eye of sauron doesn't miss asshole. Come on defend your position you cowardly piece of shit

[–] jack@hexbear.net 71 points 5 months ago (1 children)

hell yeah I love picking fights, fucking get em

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 64 points 5 months ago

All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don't laugh!)

These mfers banning me while I am out partying with my new Columbian comrade is incredibly funny.

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[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 87 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (12 children)

@seahorse@midwest.social You should reign in your fragile mods that ban users for simply pointing out uncomfortable truths about western propaganda cuz this is a really bad look.

Edit: nevermind it was you that banned me lol

You're a coward, a liberal and a western chauvinist piece of shit and I will advocate immediate defederation if you do not answer for this bullshit.

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 70 points 5 months ago

I'm told by world this is censorship and terrible, wait that's only when done by tankies

[–] davel@hexbear.net 54 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Seahorse is not going to see this because they banned you from the site for a year.

A weird artifact of Lemmy v0.19.4 & v0.19.5 is that, when an admin bans you from their site, you also automatically get banned from every comm you’ve participated in for the same amount of time.

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[–] ikilledtheradiostar@hexbear.net 42 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)
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[–] emizeko@hexbear.net 60 points 5 months ago
[–] booty@hexbear.net 59 points 5 months ago (1 children)

yeah i saw that shit right after it happened, i actually laughed. evil tankie bbc is just xinhua in a trench coat

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 56 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Wait till they find out I'm our token anarchist lmao

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[–] ProfessorOwl_PhD@hexbear.net 57 points 5 months ago

I went looking to see what prompted this response and the book they linked fucking agrees with you. Ngl the guys "first hand witness" credentials are suspect (the books mainly discusses the political situation rather than any account of the protesting), but he specifically says there wasn't a massacre in tiananmen square.

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 56 points 5 months ago (1 children)

@QuietCupcake@hexbear.net Thank you for pointing this out because this is funny as fuck even if kind of annoying.

[–] QuietCupcake@hexbear.net 48 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No prob! I get a kick out of reading the modlog and was kind of in awe when I saw this massive line of bans filling a page-height with what amounted to "Nakoichi BANNED for being an EVIL TANKIE!" Naturally, I was curious what heinous, egregious thing you had said, but I couldn't find any removed comments of yours in the log. I thought it must be some new mod with an old grudge or something. Then I happened on that post to see that your great unforgivable sin was to mention that the BBC didn't consider Tiananmen Square to be a massacre.

walter-shock rage-cry How dare you?!

Then I laughed. Tbh, I thought about posting it to the dunk_tank, but 1) I figured it would probably get removed for being low-hanging fruit, and 2) I wasn't sure if you wanted attention called to their dipshittery but regarding you. Glad to see that wider hexbear gets to point and laugh at them too now.

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[–] emizeko@hexbear.net 49 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Columbia Journalism Review has an article as well, still a whiff of "China bad" but makes the key point that no one died in the square

https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php

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[–] WorkingClassCorpse@hexbear.net 44 points 5 months ago (7 children)

What a huge disappointment, I used to consider midwest.social to be one of the better instances

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[–] ashinadash@hexbear.net 43 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 42 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I woke up this morning and chose violence.

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[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 40 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Midwesterners really putting emphasis on "mid" this year aren't they

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