And if something did maybe happen, it’s the CIA’s fault

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 month ago

      24 downvotes telling me actually this never happened.

      Also, nobody talk about Grenada in 1983. Or Iran Air Flight 655. Or the MOVE bombing in 1985. Or the police response to the LA Riots. Or the police response to the Iraq War protests. Or the police response to OWS protests. Or the police response to BLM protests. Or the police response to the campus protests in defense of Palestine.

      That’s Whataboutism.

      You can’t just talk about ACAB or discuss the broad problems of a heavily armed carceral state looking for heads to crack. Only Foreign Countries are Bad.

    • problematicPanther@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      maybe you should post it as a separate meme since people are crying about whataboutism. I hadn’t heard of this one actually.

      • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 month ago

        Americans can, and will, openly discuss this stuff, and think badly of their government for it, and won’t get in trouble with the government for doing so publicly.

          • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 month ago

            That is not the same as as the subject at hand, I have already addressed this, multiple times, down further. A more apt comparison would have been Kent State. Which was something that was immediately put on the news.

            • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 month ago

              If you do anything that threatens the powerful in the USA you will be cracked down on just as hard. Your example, Edward Snowden, or even the union wars in Appalachia. All are just as forgotten in US public mind as Tianman Square.

              • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 month ago

                I still see Snowden in the news, and see the information of his documents discussed in mainstream media. Even if it was forgotten, people arern’t being swept away by the feds for talking about online, and on tv.

        • YourShadowDani@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 month ago

          Tell that to the college anti-war protestors getting beat by police for literally using their first amendment right to protest and speak, and NOT blocking movement to classes at all.

          • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 month ago

            Yes, I was going to say that Kent state would be a more apt comparison. But this isn’t the issue at hand. If I go into a thread discussing Kent, the US over throw of Guatemala, etc. I am just saying I choose the evils of the US, and am here to whatabout China as a deflection. You can tell me all this stuff, that I am already keenly aware of, and it still does nothing, but miss the point.

            • AppleTea@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 month ago

              This is an english meme about the one event in Chinese history that gets repeated in english-speaking spaces over and over and over again. This isn’t attempting to make an argument to a Chinese audience. Why shouldn’t we draw comparisons to similar things in the US? What else would we talk about? Just a whole thread of “yeah, that’s bad” again and again? For every time this gets trotted out?

        • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 month ago

          Many of us pretty much do this every day. And we have massive protests about it as well. We’re often not empowered to change much, though. We do what we can, when we can.

          • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 month ago

            Yes, that is the unfortunate state of reality. I am worried we a getting to that impasse where all diplomatic avenues for change have been shut down. This leaves violence as the option at hand.

            • ZephrC@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              1 month ago

              What makes you think fighting against the US military is an easier or more practical solution than protesting, exactly?

              • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                1 month ago

                I didn’t say it was. Protesting has been getting no where. We were burning shit down, and holding police stations hostage, for police reform. Here we are, a few years later, and we have more cops, less accountability, more money per cop spent, few to no structural changes for dealing with mental health issues, and homelessness, less security for the fourth amendment, less transparency, a backlash to the first amendment, etc. Our protests against genocide do nothing, but get people beaten, and put in jail.

                It is not easier to fight than it is to protest, but if protest is pointless, as all other avenues for change are becoming, the options left are fighting, or supplication. Hopefully people will start actually taking voting seriously. Big election, vote for the lesser evil. Local election, vote for change. It is how the minority GOP is able to hold this death grip on the government, if you need proof it works. If we can’t organize to get more of the majority of people who don’t vote, to do so, we will have no diplomatic venues left. If those who do vote don’t start taking the movements of the right far more seriously, the right will kill our power to affect change through the vote If we do affect critical change, and it brings out a government stifling of voting power, we will be similarly fucked. Once we have shown all diplomatic efforts to be ineffective, it is fight, or submit.

                • ZephrC@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 month ago

                  Look, I agree with everything you just said, but I don’t think you’ve really thought about the implications of how you first said it. Our options are find a way to make peaceful protesting and voting work, fight soon and definitely lose, or wait until the US is collapsing, fight then, almost certainly start the most deadly war in all of human history, and still have a pretty high chance of losing. As much as it has been frustrating and unproductive so far, the first option is still the best for a whole bunch of reasons. Saying that protesting is useless and we’ll have to fight is not a good idea. Maybe it will come to that, but we should be doing everything we can to prevent it, not egg it on.

    • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      Nice whataboutism. How hard can it be to understand that China having a shitty government does not mean that the US is perfect?

      • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 month ago

        Whatabwhat? Do you think that’s what I don’t understand? No, I get it. It’s just that, if you are an US American defending your government, I couldn’t care less about your opinion on matters of other nations.

          • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 month ago

            You sure react in favor of the USA government. I mentioned a case of a massacre of hundreds of students in a public square in a completely different country because it is related to the OP. The treatment of this case was the same: “nothing happened here, nothing to see”. The USA, through the CIA, got involved in the whole thing. Your reaction? You accuse me of “whataboutism”, overlooking the fact of the massacre. You do not even mention anything about it with your “nice whataboutism”. Well, it was not nice at all, but it happened. My intention was to show another horrible and similar case of deadly authoritarianism against students. I’m expecting people can hold two or more similar crimes against humanity in their brains for a while.

                • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 month ago

                  Oh, okay. I just made the assumption that you were denying it since bringing up a bad this the USA has done/does as a response to any criticism of China is really common on Lemmy.