responding to the Columbia Journalism Review article (by the WaPo’s Beijing bureau chief who was in the square) with an unsourced tone poem inspired by Jorjor Well, you don’t look like a shit-eating clown at all

The actual content of the utterance as it spills out is no more complex or nuanced than “China Bad,” and the elementary mistakes people make when they write out statements of “solidarity” make that much clear. This is not a complaint that these people have not studied China enough — there’s no reason to expect them to study China, and retrospectively I think to some extent it was a mistake to personally have spent so much time trying to teach them. It’s instead an acknowledgment that they are eagerly wielding the accusation like a club, that they are in reality unconcerned with its truth-content, because it serves a social purpose.

What is this social purpose? Westerners want to believe that other places are worse off, exactly how Americans and Canadians perennially flatter themselves by attacking each others’ decaying health-care systems, or how a divorcee might fantasize that their ex-lover’s blooming love-life is secretly miserable. This kind of “crab mentality” is actually a sophisticated coping mechanism suitable for an environment in which no other course of action seems viable. Cognitive dissonance, the kind that eventually spurs one into becoming intolerant of the status quo and into action, is initially unpleasant and scary for everybody. In this way, we can begin to understand the benefit that “victims” of propaganda derive from carelessly “spreading awareness.” Their efforts feed an ambient propaganda haze of controversy and scandal and wariness that suffocates any painful optimism (or jealousy) and ensuing sense of duty one might otherwise feel from a casual glance at the amazing things happening elsewhere. People aren’t “falling” for atrocity propaganda; they’re eagerly seeking it out, like a soothing balm.

https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

Wtf this is literally George Foreman 1989

I thought you were gonna link to a source but instead you’re linking slam poetry you absolute bozo

You get a well-cited post (including a QiaoCollective masterpost with tons of sources) and come back with this thought-terminating garbage? I’ll engage, and then provide more specific sources…

Your “source” (it doesn’t even approach this) is based on, 1984 an anti-semitic pile of garbage written by a Hitlerite colonial cop. Let’s see the evidence: Lutz creates contradictions where they are none (“nobody was killed” is not something anybody says, people were killed in outer areas but not in Tiananmen Square (mayor of Beijing (Chen Xitong) stated in a public report in the same year that “According to the information we have so far gathered, more than 3,000 civilians were wounded and over 200, including 36 college students, died during the riot” (not in Tiananmen Square though as this was evacuated). There isn’t really a piece of evidence or any convincing arguments in the post except for the “martyred soldier” quote, which I copied and google searched to find that the only results were this same article, so that’s out the window. Just terrible work.

Sources:

• Hou Dejian, a Taiwanese national and one of the leaders of the Tiananmen protests, saying he was in the square all night and saw no one killed](https://youtu.be/VSR9zgY1QgU)

• Confidential Cable from U.S. embassy in Beijing showing US knew there was no firing in the square

• There Was No “Tiananmen Square Massacre” - CBS News*

• out of his personal experience the correspondent alleges the government denied death in other areas which we already have proven was false

• Turmoil in China; Tiananmen Crackdown: Student’s Account Questioned on Major Points - NYT

• “Tankman” Actual Footage

• Massacre? What Massacre?

Why does it matter whether the deaths occurred in surrounding areas? 1: It puts a wrench in the Western narrative immediately 2: It strongly suggests that the fight was not a “massacre” but a battle between opposing groups, in which PLA soldiers were burned alive and hung [Content Warning] by CIA-supported and duped protestors (hardly invoking the idea of a massacre)

OP also linked video of police running over protestors in the U.S., which we just learned didn’t happen in Tiananmen Square. There is no equivalence, and this is not a good thing for your position. Now I know you won’t be able to refute any of the sources I linked (judging by the fact that you called a well-sourced thread addressing your exact complaints “astroturfing” because you’re completely incapable of even coming close to a good point), so go ahead with your snarky response. Nobody here is falling for it.