damn propaganda in all its glory
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For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
As an American I think it's helpful to put this into some sort of perspective.
Things the US won't forget:
- Tiananmen Square (thousands dead)
Things the US will forget:
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Korean War (3mil civilian dead)
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Vietnam War (2mil civilian dead)
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Iraqi War (1mil civilian dead)
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Violent overthrow of East Timor (widely considered a genocide)
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Violent overthrow of Afghanistan (twice, over 1 mil dead)
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Violent overthrow of Nicaragua
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Violent overthrow of Grenada
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Violent overthrow of Panama
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Violent overthrow of Libya
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Coup d'etat of Guatemala
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Coup d'etat of Iran
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Failed Coup d'etat of Syria
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Failed Coup d'etat of Indonesia
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Many failed Coup d'etat attempts on Cuba
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Coup d'etat of Congo
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Coup d'etat of Laos
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Coup d'etat of the Dominican Republic
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Coup d'etat of Iraq
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Coup d'etat of Brazil
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Successful Coup d'etat of Indonesia (1 mil dead)
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Coup d'etat of Chile
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Multiple Coup d'etat of Bolivia
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Coup d'etat of Haiti
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Multiple Coup d'etat attempts on Venezuela
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Coup d'etat of Palestine
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Mass civilian casualties, destabilization of many governments, people subject to a lifetime of torture without a trial, all under the War on Terror
This list could be so much longer, but I gotta get to work.
Things the US will forget:
Korean War (3mil civilian dead)
Vietnam War (2mil civilian dead)
Iraqi War (1mil civilian dead)
Imagine thinking that the US has forgotten any of these when they're a constantly pressure on the cultural zeitgeist even literal decades later. Or, for that matter, that the Korean War is in any way comparable.
Violent overthrow of Afghanistan (twice, over 1 mil dead)
Twice? Christ, tell me you aren't talking about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Not to mention that the 'overthrow' of 'Afghanistan' the second time would rely on recognizing the Taliban, and not the democratically-oriented Northern Alliance which was fighting them at the time, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
Yeah, just recently I rewatched Apocalypse Now. And I've never been to the U.S. or Vietnam. I agree, this is pretty much alive in cultural memory, not forgotten.
This makes perfect sense, it's one thing for Taiwanese and Chinese people to remember it but its absolute hypocrisy for the west to comment. Especially as they fund the genocide in Gaza and Western Liberals make excuses for it.
No, it doesn't. Only people who are full shit use and defend this fallacy. People who have principles call out shitty behaviors and actions whenever they see them, that's because principles are universal. If you selectively choose when to apply them, then you don't believe in them.
Some commentators have defended the usage of whataboutism and tu quoque in certain contexts. Whataboutism can provide necessary context into whether or not a particular line of critique is relevant or fair, and behavior that may be imperfect by international standards may be appropriate in a given geopolitical neighborhood. Accusing an interlocutor of whataboutism can also in itself be manipulative and serve the motive of discrediting, as critical talking points can be used selectively and purposefully even as the starting point of the conversation (cf. agenda setting, framing, framing effect, priming, cherry picking). The deviation from them can then be branded as whataboutism
Wow. Fascinating. Thanks for the link.
And we know the extent of US involvement in these coups and conflicts because the US declassified the info, becauase all info becomes declassified eventually.
When is the Dictatorship of China going to admit that this happened, when will they declassify the internal documents about this atrocity they were responsible for?
That's the problem people have with the Chinese government. They can't even acknowledge reality because they seek to eventually change the records of what really happened to pretend they did no wrong.
Hey, hey, hey...
- Korean War (3mil civilian dead)
- Vietnam War (2mil civilian dead)
They at least got hit movies and TV shows! ;)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAS*H_(film)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAS*H_(TV_series)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platoon_(film)
WHATABOUT.
Name a more iconic duo than tankies and misinformation.
That shit gets brought up all the fucking time, in their own threads. Notice how people don't bring up Tiananmen Square, Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, the Uyghurs, or the many other atrocities the CCP has committed whenever an American atrocity gets mentioned.
Most of that looks right, but
Violent overthrow of East Timor (widely considered a genocide)
Ok, this was Indonesia, with murican quiet assent, but still, don't give other countries a pass on these things to make them look clean.
Many of these also involved the local elites going to the US for help. e.g. The draft UN resolution for the no-fly zone in Lybia was produced by the Arab League and backed by the African Union, which pressured russia and China not to veto it.
"Never forget" is great and all but from a German perspective it seems to not be enough. It is much more important to make sure the same or very similar things do not happen again, not by China and not by any other nation. Otherwise you end up like we did here in Germany where decades of "never forget" lead to very similar sentiments being expressed by a new major party but since things are slightly different (e.g. the "never forget" was always phrased to be about Jews, this is more about foreigners in general) people seem to allow themselves to ignore them.
"Never again":
- ❌ "We must never do what we did to the Jews in WW2 again".
- ✅ "We can never allow what we did to the Jews in WW2 to happen again to anyone".
US currently working on ways to top it.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. I feel like we’re months away at most
Was genuinely thinking of walking in front of Trump’s military parade.
Meanwhile Oklahoma telling kids the 2020 election was rigged under state law.
Tankies and whataboutism, name a more iconic duo (pro tip: you can't)
The capitalism capital of the world probably shouldn’t be preaching about human rights.
Boy, you sure did get 'em. No pointing out bad behavior unless your history is unblemished, I guess.
US history is a little more than unblemished, though. Hell, not even history. They are literally arming a genocidal state as we speak.
Tankie bot says what now? Get lost.
Every now and then I follow up and ask tankies what their actionable alternative is. They just never have one. Just making perfect the enemies of good. Tankies are deeply un-serious.
Whataboutism.
This is just my personal experience:
~I was talking to a few young Chinese. They were after born after the massacre happened.~
"Why are Hong Kong people are so full of themselves and rebellious? They think they are better? (Derogatory comments....", cheating among themselves, happily.
I couldn't help and interrupted, "Some young promising Hong Kong students were murdered, beaten and kidnapped under the mainland China. You can't blame them for not being defensive."
Immediately they resorted to their memorised response, "Do you have any resources to back up what you said? The official death count was zero."
Of course there was no "official" news resources. China suppresses the news media.
"It is the same as Tiananmen massacre. You won't find any "official resources " but everyone knows people were killed."
Another one retorted, "The official number is zero. What official resources you have to backup your claim?"
It was useless to talk anymore at that moment. I left. My encounter probably would be on their "report."
Not contesting there was a violent crackdown, but didn’t the video for this moment end with the tank just stopping the entire time, the briefcase guy climbing onto the tank, then getting shuffled away by fellow civilians?
Everyday we see way worse shit happening on the streets of the US. Somehow the crackdown back then on anti-communist academics is an enshrined moment, but people on our streets getting arrested, detained, or killed is just business as usual.
And we also act like our country doesn’t call academics “indoctrinated”, beat the living crap out of both students and academics, and doesn’t want to kill them. Amazing.
The were about 8000 people killed iirc. I once saw on reddit a link to a photo archive of the day and especially night. There were some very explicit photos. Like intestines falling out of opened bellies and bodies with half a head left.
Tankies talking about Tiananmen Square without whataboutism:
Challenge Level = IMPOSSIBLE
downvotes are from tankies
Let's not forget Faris Odeh
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faris_Odeh
A picture of Odeh standing alone in front of a tank, with a stone in his hand and arm bent back to throw it, was taken by a photojournalist from the Associated Press on 29 October 2000. Ten days later, on 8 November, Odeh was again throwing stones at Karni when he was shot in the neck by an Israeli soldier.
You could pick so many more things to criticize China for especially from its past, verifiable events, yet the west always picks Tiananmen Square, making sure to pick the image of the guy standing in front of the tank, but somehow always forgets to show the video of the guy climbing on top of the tank, asking soldiers to turn around to where the protesters are, and somehow forget mentioning that literally half the casualties were soldiers that were set ablaze. Even diplomatic cables at the time either leaked or declassified prove that.
The Tiananmen square massacre is a verified event. We literally have videos and pictures documenting the entire massacre. How much of an idiot do you have to be to believe low level Chinese propaganda about this being fake or a good thing?
Love the propaganda around this. Its very dramatic and all. But here in the west its held up as some big thing. The rest of the video never gets played.