Come one come all to the Lemmy-verse! It's nice and cozy here, we do have some "bad parts of town" but you can do an instance block and not deal with them lol
their admins (the maintainers of the lemmy codebase) are tankies (authoritarian communists who believe the USSR was justified in quashing Hungarian protests against human rights abuses with violence). they take any criticism of the people's republic of china's government as sinophobia and have some weird opinions about the fascist government of the russian federation (effectively their explanation is that moscow achieved communist utopia in 1918 and therefor cannot backslde into a worse form of government despite overwhelming evidence that the potato shaped dickhead who sits atop the throne of skulls in moscow is maybe possibly perhaps a war criminal)
I'd recommend visiting it or joining an instance that federates with it at least. The liberals like to make it out to be a communist propaganda machine but most of the content is memes, oss, and general left wing / anti-US stuff. They will ban you on some communities if you bring up tianemen square or uyghurs though, so that sucks, but otherwise most of the content / users on there are decent.
Because the Tiananmen Square and Uyghur claims have all been debunked. Even the intelligence orgs admitted they don’t have any evidence. Why allow the same debunked propaganda to be reposted by bots over and over?
I mean, I was alive when the pics came out. Been aware of the censorship. Had friends from China and friends who worked there tell me about the complete avoidance of the subject.
Oh, and I’m not a bot, though you could be protecting your psyche by saying everyone who pushes back on this is.
It is just as foolish to not admit to the atrocities done by one government as it is for any other.
You can acknowledge that the narrative presented by western media about these events is exaggerated without going full tilt into denial.
Something did happen in Tiananmen Square. People were killed. The government of China does censor discussion of the events.
These are facts, and when you try to deny them it only reveals that you are more concerned with protecting your worldview than with adhering to the truth.
Western media has an incentive to exaggerate, China has an incentive to downplay. Perhaps the truth which lies somewhere in between would be easier to arrive at if China didn't heavily censor all discussion of the events.
I think about what happened in Tiananmen Square with equal revulsion as I do for, say, the battle at Blair Mountain, and I approach the topics with equal caution in determining the details. You seem to have no such caution with regard to the Chinese state narrative of what occurred in Tiananmen Square.
Actually, I’m deferring the western journalists who were present and disputed the US propaganda of what happened. Even the major media outlets at the time disputed US claims.
I don’t trust China, but I do reflexively disbelieve anti-China propaganda from the US. It’s worked so far.
I honestly think we are in agreement on most of the details here, but though I reject the US propaganda stating that a massacre of tens of thousands of peaceful protestors took place I remain skeptical of the Chinese state's claims that the PLA was entirely unarmed prior to June 4th, that only around 300 people died (most of which were soldiers), and that the student protestors were the instigators in every case of violence.
First and foremost, however, I take issue with the ongoing censorship of all discussion of the events surrounding the protests in Tiananmen Square. I'm sympathetic to the goal of combating disinformation, but the simple fact that we could not be having this discussion if we were in China is one of the reasons it's so difficult to overcome the US propaganda surrounding these events. If the only counter-narrative Americans have access to is the official narrative presented by the CCP it's nearly impossible to get through to them with the truth.
Saying this as an American myself who had great difficulty trying to unravel what actually happened in Tiananmen Square and who still has a lot of skepticism towards the very simplistic narratives I keep seeing parroted around by those on either side of the issue.
Yeah, I haven't had issues with them generally speaking myself, if you're a leftist you'll find comrades. But also, it's important to remember that every instance is essentially its own little fiefdom, so you'll have to follow whatever arbitrary rules they have.
I caught a ban on .world for mentioning Jury Nullification. That was a fun time, from the people who complain about freeze peach constantly.
Also, you can go-to !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works and check out the pinned posts, Nutomic lead dev, Tankie, and .ml head admin is basically a transphobe on top (receipts in the second pinned post)
They'll also remove posts and ban you under their favorite catch-all "Rule 1 Bigotry" for anything critical of China/Russia
If you talk Ill of them, even on other instances comms they'll site-ban you. So basically like how Reddit mods of ol used to ban you for participation in unrelated subs.
yes of course, trump won because of a few hundred people on a website no one’s heard of and not, yknow, the sheer racism of the average white person (the only demographic that voted in majority for trump, btw)
I mean it is true. They did help elect Trump. Before the election there were a ton of .ml accounts doing their best to get progressives to be politically apathetic. They were indistinguishable from right wing saboteurs.
Existing in those spaces heavily, I disagree that the push was towards not voting, the heavy criticism I saw was towards that only see political action as voting. Further, acknowledging the reality that interests of the ruling class, or palestinians, is not on a ballet.
It’s possible. But actively pushing the narrative that there is no point in voting on on Lemmy only helped Trump win.
This just seems so far from impactful. The narrow slice of people that exist on lemmy, were in the set of states that actually decide elections, and also are politically influenced by it enough to change their vote, is such a tiny number of people. Do you really find it to be a worthwhile point to attack rather than the failures of democrats to recognize and push back against the decades long project of fascism that has been built by the republicans?
I strongly agree that it was ultra low impact. But in the results where the same. It has the exact same impact as would a right winger saboteur saying the same. The same end goal would be helped. And this case the right wing benefits.
I think a better approach would be for those left wing (in the non American sense) spaces to push voter apathy in right wing spaces.
Then on top encouraging action and organization of the left.
I don't think the approach is to sway voters, and wasting time trying to salt right wing forums into helplessness seems like a poor use of time. The reason folks posted it here is that they were recreationally and airing their grievances, as well as pushing the idea that political action and thought needs to exist outside elections to those that are closer to them, but are otherwise politically disengaged in non-election years.
Oh you didn't like Harris' . . . what. Appeal? Her . . policy positions? And in the face of all of the insanity and horror you'll now experience and all the pain you'll watch people go through, you're still fussy about it huh?
Is it still confusing? Is it? That's a shame. It could not be a simpler choice. Hit yourself and the people you love in the head with a brick, or have some okay ice cream. You still wanna complain about the ice cream.
Sure, I’m not a fan of Harris. I wouldn’t support anyone who will arm a genocide.
But this isn’t about my position. This is about years of polling showing that Harris was always unpopular. You claimed people other than the Dems were to blame. So again, how did anyone trick the Dems into running a nominee who couldn’t win?
This is about years of polling showing that Harris was always unpopular.
No. No, it's not.
This is about letting trump win by not supporting his one probablistic victorious challenger.
that's all this is about. Anything about Harris is beyond irrelevant. If you want to talk about the DNC today, or whatever party you prefer today, fine. That's a different conversation. But that's not what this particular line of criticism is about.
My point is that there was one act everyone needed to do by a certain date to prevent a very preventable horror that will soon engulf the world. One simple thing. One binary choice. And many people here, based on thier comments before the election and even some after, did not do that thing.
They are cretinous fools and useful idiots. They have - despite a chorus of warnings and explanations - opened the door to a generation of chaos.