For the sake of combating the narrative, this album shows the truth of what happened during the student protests in China in 1989, including the context of the "Tank Man" photo:
The lie that no one was killed by the CCP should be repudiated at every opportunity.
The CCP would prefer that you are only aware of the "Tank Man" photo, that you don't fit it into its larger context. They would prefer that you not discuss the horrific brutality they created when they used their military to suppress the voices of their own citizens, or the absolute disaster that Maoism brought to China. They would prefer that you forget that they repeated that brutality in Hong Kong. They would prefer that you forget the whole thing.
General consensus is that there wad no massacre on the square. Once had a tankie bringing all the sources that says "Nothing happened on Tienanmen square but PLA killed thousands of people outside of it".
They're delusional. There is little use in trying to engage with them. Convince other people who may unironically be convinced by them but don't engage with them.
I don't think that's a consensus at all. Most of the reports I have seen suggest that the violence started in the square when students were attacked minutes after they had agreed to leave, as soon as they had broke ranks, as it were. The violence then spread throughout the city afterwards as various groups attempted to reorganize in different places.
Honestly didn’t realize there were that many photos. I’ve only seen Tank man and photos of protestors. I had no idea the violence was so well documented
Tankies with a few more braincells than the others will know about these pictures and insist there were only a few hundred killed and most were not in the square. They flatly deny the massacre and instead paint it as a riot being put down or... Something to that effect. I forget the specifics.
I will remember the man in the white shirt, quietly standing in the path of a CCP tank, with grocery bags in his right hand. We don't know what they did to him after that, but he matters. He will always matter.
The first one is hilarious. So even if the tank was heading away from Tianemen square, that still means it was there before. How does that make anything better. Just say no one died if you want to lie about it.
They're interchangeable tankie fuckwads. It doesn't matter what their names are, they all regurgitate the same lines. Besides, I'd rather not fuel their persecution complex.
The first is comical. The second I don't get. That looks like sarcastic satire to me.
I hate the word tanky though. It has no clear definition. It is often used here as a subversion of opinion.
Most of my comments, especially political comments, are intended in the abstract/sarcastic/satirical light. It's mostly the frustration of my situation with physical disability and how depressing it is to deal with the US government knowing every article about homeless or food deficiency is my future while I'm barely able to take care of myself with a little help right now but slowly getting worse. Like who has the right to label and discredit that frustration?
Feel free to call me out. I don't like to argue, but I love to learn and expand my horizons. Just don't try to belittle me with some niche subculture label in an attempt to subvert my opinion. That is predatory and prejudice.
I won't speak for others, but I've been called a tanky here and I find it offensive and toxic. Like I'm on here a lot when I'm hurting too much to do anything else. I try my best not to be negative towards other people. If anyone is offended I'll gladly step back and apologize or try and clarify my thoughts. Why ostracise people that see things differently unless those things are comically wrong? Maybe if someone can answer that I'll STFU.
The word "tankie" does have a definition though, and a long history behind it.
Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support acts of repression by such regimes or their allies. More specifically, the term has been applied to those who express support for one-party Marxist–Leninist socialist republics, whether contemporary or historical.
The first is comical. The second I don’t get. That looks like sarcastic satire to me.
It's not. They go on to justify East German guards gunning down escaping civilians as 'preventing imperialism' and a host of other questionable things.
Why ostracise people that see things differently unless those things are comically wrong?
You see the issue, or part of it. Some people overuse the word 'tankie' to mean 'left person I don't like', but actual tankies - typically MLs or MLMs - hold incredibly vile and wrong views. I went onto lemmy.ml the other day to see, out of morbid curiousity, what they were saying about the war in Ukraine. A lot of "NATO PROXY WAR" and "UKRONAZIS" style discourse. Heinous shit. That's not the kind of stuff you say "Agree to disagree" about, it's not the kind of thing you give any sort of respect or legitimacy to; it's the kind of thing you shine a light on and scatter whenever you see it.
I've never seen that kind of stuff on .ml. Now grad is a whole different story, but even with my account on .ml, I don't see much grad stuff. It could be that I export my block list from here over to there and I block a lot.
I actually joined grad at random in my first attempt to check out Lemmy 2 years ago, glanced at it twice, rolled my eyes, and never used it.
I think I'm going to dive into this with AI tonight. I lack the vocabulary to express why I don't like the term and want better ways to describe this type of subject. Thanks for the inspiration. Maybe I'll make a Word of the Day post if anything interesting stands out, not that anyone cares or would change.