this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
64 points (82.7% liked)

Memes

45894 readers
1008 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

My personal definition would be "authoritarian communist (or """communist""") regime supporters/apologists". I think a good litmus test is, if the topic of the Tiananmen Square massacre comes up, and their first input is "Ok, but, how many zeroes did the number of dead civilians really have", they're probably too far gone to bother engaging much with

Too many anarchist/commune types consider the authoritarians to be their allies because they also hate the capitalists, right up until the point they're next on the list of undesirables destined for the wall

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My personal definition would be "authoritarian communist (or """communist""") regime supporters/apologists".

What does this actually mean? Is Nelson Mandela a "tankie" to you? You might think I'm being facetious, but I'm serious. I'll link some photographs and quotes from Mandela that a lot of the capitalists in charge want you to forget:

"I read works by and about Che Guevara, Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Castro. In Edgar Snow’s brilliant Red Star Over China I saw that it was Mao’s determination and non-traditional thinking that had led him to victory."

“The revolution in China was a masterpiece, a real masterpiece. If you read how they fought that revolution, you believe in the impossible. It’s just miraculous.”

"From its earliest days, the Cuban Revolution has also been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of the vicious imperialist-orchestrated campaign to destroy the impressive gain made in the Cuban Revolution."

"Within that international support for our struggle the Soviet Union and other socialist countries stood out. The governments and peoples of the socialist bloc gave material, moral and political support to our struggle in a manner and on a scale that we will never be able to repay."

So again, does this make Nelson Mandela a "tankie"? If so, what does it say about "tankies " and the west, in that the so called "tankies" supported Mandela in the fight against apartheid, while the west did not. In fact, the west often supported apartheid. Even Antony Blinken admitted to that recently.

"The Soviet Union was supportive of the freedom forces in South Africa, and of course unfortunately, more than unfortunately, the United States was much too sympathetic to the apartheid regime, so that history also doesn’t get erased, you know, overnight, it's a process," Blinken said.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

👏 Then 👏 read 👏 the 👏 Wiki 👏 page 👏

Because that will tell you the answer is 1. One zero. Because the number of dead civilians in the Tiananmen Square Massacre is zero. No civilian deaths there. Nada. Read the wiki page, it will tell you no deaths. This information brought to you by such Commies as:

  • the US Government,
  • the Washington Post correspondent (who was there all night),
  • the CBS correspondent (same),
  • and more!

Were there a limited number of deaths in protests elsewhere that wasn't Tiananmen? Yep, about 2-3 hundred across a few hundred cities. And that's bad! But is also pretty dang small relative to the protest size, and happens in all major protests in all countries everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is and has always been a red herring. It's irrelevant if people were killed in the square or in the streets around the square. People were killed in Beijing by the Chinese military in order to suppress the protests. End of story.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, A massive, purposeful, misinformation campaign by the western governments and news sites that had claimed that there were no deaths in the square in the past and then changed their narrative all of a sudden, would, to me, suggest that these entities might also be misreprenting or lying about the other events. The story obviously does not end there.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, Western media can definitely not be trusted. Better to get the real story from the secretive, authoritarian government that heavily suppresses speech and directly controls its major media outlets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Dang I hate secretive governments, can you direct me to a western government that exposes all of its internal communications and doesn't have a huge amount of "former" state agents in major media publications?

edit: folks, I have had my weekend water on a Monday

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You're right, there isn't a single Western country that has a freer press than China. In fact, China may be the world's last bastion of open information and free speech.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Well if western media were trustworthy it would probably be very easy for you to back up your claims with actual sources that haven't been debunked.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sources from around the world say China behaved badly; Chinese state media says China did not behave badly. Sources debunked!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Post the non-debunked sources then, it shouldn't be difficult.
Edit: Yet again I ask a lib for sources and they disappear. It's incredible. I responded within a minute, and they have nothing lmao. It's always like this

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Except China doesn't squeal about how free their press is all the time- that's America and the west at large, all of whose media is owned by wealthy people. thinking-about-it

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There were some Western news outlets that lied about the events and propagated false information, and there were some that that did not.

The fact that Western media outlets cannot be blindly trusted does not mean that the Chinese state controlled media can. The Chinese state has a lot more incentive to lie about the events than independent news orgs do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You should read Manufacturing Consent.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have and I think that there is validity to the propoganda model.

But the propoganda model does not say that all reporting by Western media is false, only that Western media has a hidden bias. But while Western media has an underlying bias to shape a narrative that fits the interests of the wealthy, Chinese state media has an overt and explicit bias to push the narrative in a direction that fits the interests of the state.

So why would I be more skeptical of western reporting on the incident?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

But while Western media has an underlying bias to shape a narrative that fits the interests of the wealthy, Chinese state media has an overt and explicit bias to push the narrative in a direction that fits the interests of the state.

Wild, when I read or watch literally any popular western media I find the bias overwhelmingly explicit and overt. It's almost like you're too deep in the propaganda to claim any perspective outside of it. thonk

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

you really think their bias is in your favor?