Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

Post by tw04 » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 3:45 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #34

hux_ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup in contrast the American regime has about 1000x [1] the death toll but at least those people weren't bulldozed and it didn't make you and me feel too bad. Calling the other side evil is easy. Spotting hypocrisy is easy. Doing something about hyprocisy is much harder. It involves admitting to ourselves that all of us are capable of doing dumb shit. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

A couple things to unpack here: Firstly, I'm not sure we're reading the same article, but by my summary count, the total death toll for all combined US war crimes detailed in that article isn't much more than 10,000. Next, the veracity of some of those claims is questionable at best. Finally, it should be noted that the Tiananmen Square protests, were, in fact, protests. This was not an action against civilians durin…

Post by glenstein » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 3:50 PM UTC

LV-426 wrote: post #60

mutteraloo wrote: post #35

Lest we forget, this is still the same government that mowed down 10,000 innocent lives, that still runs China today. They've gotten better at hiding behind marketing, propaganda, and strong arming other countries, but they're still ruled by a small, powerful group of elders that control every aspects of Chinese people's lives. It's sad that we keep feeding this dangerous psychopath which threatens democracy and free…

Leaving Tiananmen Square aside - since nobody can disagree it was a terrible, indefensible crime - can you explain further how you think China is threatening democracy and freedom "worldwide"? They're certainly a threat in Hong Kong, where they have a degree of control and influence, but how and where else? While they lay claim to Taiwan, what harm do you think they are going to cause to South Korea and why would the…

Post by yesenadam » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

ralmidani wrote: post #69

zizek23 wrote: post #45

In a previous naive world intoxicated by dreams of global citizenry and humanism it would be easy to get sanctimonious and posture about evil. But cultural divides are real and are not going away. And these kind of events and stories simply become opportunities to target other countries weaknesses, reassert a jingoistic sense of superiority and perpetuate existing comfort zones. Or there would be protests daily in we…

> Or there would be protests daily in western capitals about the sheer unimaginable scale of destruction, devastation and millions of families destroyed and lives lost in the middle east starting from Iraq to Libya and now Syria done purely to further geo-political and financial interests. My parents and wife were born in Syria. I lived and studied there for 5 years, and spent some time in then-liberated Eastern Alep…

Post by tw04 » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

lozenge wrote: post #68

tw04 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to stand here and say China doesn't have a TON of human rights issues. But on what planet can you say "this is the same government that mowed down 10,000 people"? You might as well say the current government in the US is the "Same government that mowed down innocent college students at Kent State". It's actually not the same government. Some parts of it are significantly better, some parts of it are sig…

It is the same government. Those in power at the time chose who would succeed them, and so on to this day.

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 3:54 PM UTC

dghf wrote: post #32

This bit confused me: > China bans all activists' commemorations and highly regulates online discussion of the incident, including censoring criticism. But it is marked annually by activists elsewhere in the world, particularly in Hong Kong and Taiwan. [Emphasis added.] Hong Kong is part of China, albeit as a special administrative region. So does the ban not apply in HK? Or does it apply in theory, but in practice i…