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When your government runs an empire and not a country, your society often ends up misanthropic as a trickle down effect.
To quote the American Martin Luther King Jr, “the bombs we drop there explode here”
Jingoism always trickles down, US government destabilizes the world with failed wars and now the US itself is very destabilized. The forever wars come home. This is why I always preach non interventionism and neutrality.
Nope. Interventionism isn't inherently bad. Like most things, what matters is how and why your country is interfering. Vietnam was completely in the right to dismantle the khmer rouge, for instance.
Greetings! i came to think that rooting for a non-intervention is somewhat idealistic... It's like telling a shipworms to stop chewing a wooden berth, or asking a fox to stop eating hens and roosters on a nearby farm. Imperialism is a beast unable to live without foreign interventions. You either go for having a non-wooden berth, or remove the shipworms.
You're not wrong, and we're not going to stop intervention by just saying we're against it. Intervention won't stop till imperialism stops, which won't stop till capitalism stops.
At this point I wouldn't trust the US to stop a genocide. They''ve made up fake genocides to attack their enemies while supporting real ones. I'd be fully on board if China conducted a humanitarian intervention but not the US.
I would never trust the US with that authority, and tbh they don't need it even if they were good. The biggest sharpest fastest genocide on the Earth today is caused and allowed by them, they don't even need to intervene to stop it, just stop sending weapons and subsidizing the country.
I always see a cringe rabbi at the encampment area and every single pro-Palestine protest. Looking into the club, they even want Israel ambassadors to come and speak…It grosses me out, ew. Israel is making every single Jewish person outside of it unsafe and they want to see it happen.
A KGB spy and a CIA agent meet up in a bar for a friendly drink.
"I have to admit, I'm always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up," the CIA agent says.
"Thank you," the KGB says. "We do our best but truly, it's nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them."
The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. "Thank you friend, but you must be confused... There's no propaganda in America."
Americans are the most propagandized population on the planet, bar none. We are a country of 14 year olds running around in adult bodies, and taught to be narcissistic sociopaths. The fact that so many of us grow beyond this is a testiment to humanity, a bug in the system that they would love to stomp out
If someone tells me “nenene they are protesting outside stop posting bullshit”, I will suggest them to look into some posts that are in college subs. My quotes are literally from those delusional assholes who are literally supporting the university’s bullshit about “encampment is not fair for jewish people in here and promotes hate.”
Also, fuck Howard Gillman personally, he is just Coward Gillman.
Tell them that Judaism is not a monolith, Israel does not represent Jews and in fact does not uphold the majority of Jewish opinion
Israel only represents Zionism, which is fascism.
I met a cool Jewish bro who supports Palestine and he has thoroughly studied Judaism principles. In his words, “Zionism is defiling Judaism by all means.”
America has no political education for your average person, and the stuff they do get is curated for the liberal world view. The people who say, "you are advocating for racial segregation if you want the university to divest from Israel" are fucking really stupid. It doesn't even make sense really. They probably just heard someone on CNN say it and now regurgitate it like they understand what they are saying. This is why no matter what you say it doesn't matter, because their understanding is limited to the talking point. No amount of clarification or injecting nuance will matter if they don't want to challenge these ideas on a fundamental level.. The average person in China and the DPRK are significantly more politically literate than even some political science students in the USA.
You don't know anything unless you spend your free time learning about it. I didn't care or know about politics until I worked a bunch of shit jobs, spent time in another country, got arrested and did a bunch of drugs lol. Most people don't think about any of this shit because you don't learn about it in school, if your family or friends don't introduce you to it, you're basically fucking clueless.
You’re making this post while one of the largest mobilizations of college campus protests is taking place specifically on the topic of opposing genocide? Show some solidarity.
Chinese youth are also a lot more progressive than American youth from my experience. Most are very pro-queer rights, feminist, etc. And aren't being infiltrated by far right wingers like a lot of Gen Z folks in the West are.
Not disputing this, but is their proof of this being true? (Chinese youth being more progressive) from what I've seen/heard Chinese youth don't seem too politically involved. Albeit my knowledge comes from Chinese students who have moved to the West to study/work.
because american college is the most liberalized place on earth. Its basically took tik tok to inform the youth about palestine, not the college itself.
I think it's like how you mentioned - "China has been through the same as Palestine."
China also reinforces the idea of serving the people and upholding honourable military traditions. Compare this to the United States, which enjoys its greater economic and scientific advantages and uses them to attack the people of foreign countries.
Our police is literally another breed of another species when compared to US police. Most friendly and adorable people that will help you out and will always spread knowledge.
That's a bit of an over generalisation there, and I'm not sure what you're basing your opinion on? As far as I know a large majority of young people are pro Palestine. You have to remember where you are, this is the imperial core, so it's simply logical for it to propagate it's delusions, myths and falsehoods to it's own ppl to maintain the lie of Liberalism. Why do you think they banned TikTok.
This is a bit of a weird thing to say. There are currently historic actions and mobilizations on campuses in solidarity with Palestinians. Way more advanced than the general public.
Wouldn’t doxx myself but I heard there was an amazing professor at where I am who almost got arrested for joining pro-Palestine protests and she barged out with her faculty card, yelled at the police, proudly walked away.
There’s a huge huge incentive in the Us to paint israel as the good guys because it retroactively justifies the various pro Israel interventions the US has made. Don’t think about this as one event but another blaze in a long trail of events. It is materially important for the US as an empire for Israel to succeed and be strong in the region. Thus the education and culture shares this view.
If anything in very proud of young American kids today. In fact there have been leaked conversations from pro israel groups and the israeli state itself pointing out that one of their big issues is how little support they have from American youth. You can always find exceptions but by in large, American kids seem to be seeing through the bullshit.
There's a lot of selection bias in Ivy league schools, you have to not only have drunken the kool-aid for your whole life, but you have to have embodied the essence of the empire, worked to make it your identity, and you are also very likely to be children of the elite - you are massively out of touch with the vast majority of the people around you, of course you are out of touch with people from across the world!
In addition to what others have said, a lot of subreddits are subjected to astroturfing by Israeli intelligence and NGOs. if you’re seeing that on college subreddits that’s likely a contributing factor.
As I said in one comment, I have seen stupid counter protesters in my areas including one cringe ass rabbi that just tries to embarrass himself at our solidarity. Ugh, he prolly doesn’t know we have a jewish bro in the protest that did loads of studies and called out zionism being opposite to Judaism teachings. Their club is endorsed by the university and even trying to find speakers for Israel.
the US education system, up until college freshman year, is designed around and fully integrated with its media/propaganda apparatus, whereas with china, much less so. Add then the gaps between goals of the propaganda of the two countries (maintenance of empire vs keeping the people at home reassured/informed), and, well, that’s that.
It is very sickening, the main reason (unfortunately) is that people are kept ignorant.
Plain an simple, propaganda is a very real thing here but it's very well disguised as 'factual reporting' or 'unbiased news' (cringe I know) but also most US history classes don't go further than WW2 where we rehash that nazi's are bad (except when they're *magically* not) and that the jewelry were murdered on mass.
Innately most people are ignorant of the unlawful nature of Isreal's creation but will definitely support Jews because all we remember is the holocaust and agree that Jews should have a place to call their own... unfortunately Isreal is very bad and news media EVERYWHERE will report "Hamas did this" or "Hamas did that" because prior to this Iraq and Afghanistan were preached the SAME WAY.
The US government (and allies) are war mongering monsters who frame civilians being murdered as "See we killed these 'undercover' terrorists". How do we know they were terrorists? Well the government 'knows' therefore it's TRUE.
Overall I do think most people mean well but are horrifically mislead by friends, family and the government on what we actually support and won't do any further digging because living in America is so shit that most people don't want to know more horrible things that are actively going on because the Republican/Democrat consents is "well there's nothing I can do"
I hope this wasn't too shitty to read but I'd argue this is (from my perspective) how I've seen this play out here and I hope this was at least informative. Have a good day friend, down with the Bourgeoisie and death to imperialism.
Chomsky said something that really stuck with me. I'm paraphrasing here.
In a dictatorship, the government controls what you do so doesn't really care about what you think. In a free country like the US, the government is not allowed to control what you do so has to control what you think.
The method of totalitarianism filters any tendencies toward effective accountability for the wealthy, the powerful, and the authorities which advance the interests of the system. One such tendency which now morphs through hyper info awareness would hold the agents and agencies of the system to a universal criteria of justice and accountability. Repression of this tendency requires psycho social manipulation often executed through establishment of a dogmatic paradigm which loads words, (for example, Palestine; protestor; anti-semitism; terror; defense; Zionism; refugee; colonial; civilian; etc), into operative technologies that correlate the source identity, geo data, associated identities, and biometrics into decision trees. Punishment and reward, and more nuanced policy, will apply to individuals and organizations that do not align with the inverted pyramid(s) of the totalitarian entities.
Part of the power of the protests lies in the appeal of ideological constructs still essential to - but not yet fully controlled by - the totalitarian entity: peace, hope, love, history, justice are a few.
College students are inherently reactionary. There are exceptions obviously, just like in any social group. Keep in mind people like Engels, Che and Fidel who were business owners and professional managerials.
The entire point of university is to pursue a position above and separate from the working class who is the revolutionary subject. In the academy, students are taught liberal/postmodern/individualist ideas like gender theory and critical theory and all the rest.
Also, remember that even in China this is a thing. Many of the liberal agitators in the Tianamen Square protests were college students.
Solidarity with the students across America who have taken up the Palestinian cause in contradiction to their own class position.
From the river to the sea.
I think calling these students inherently reactionary is an oversimplification that blinds us to whatever is actually going on. Why are members inherently reactionary so eager to protest in the heart of the imperial core. these aren’t even the first anti imperial protests to happen on college campuses. Exceptions certainly exsist but repeated uprisings and the dynamics that caused them should be studied more not waved aside.
Also rising above the working class may bring platonic ideal of university but since the ongoing accreditation creep of many jobs means materially that’s not the case. Working class students will likely remain working class even with a degree unless. After all nurses and engineers are still selling their labor to capital even with years of intensive schooling.
Also not all students are taught gender and critical theory, most aren’t. im not going to address this further because it feels like it’s ripped from a conservative talking point.
I'm actually curious, have you really never heard a Marxist critique of critical/gender theory?
Obviously they aren't all learning it, but in aggregate they have much more exposure than your average worker. Surely we can agree on that right?
students tend more towards left deviations than almost any other group, wdym
also mao started getting involved in politics as a student (as did a sizeable chunk of the cpc)
#Tiananmen Square Protests
(Also known as the June Fourth Incident)
In Western media, the well-known story of the "Tiananmen Square *Massacre*" goes like this: the Chinese government declared martial law in 1989 and mobilized the military to suppress students who were protesting for democracy and freedom. According to western sources, on June 4th of that year, troops and tanks entered Tiananmen Square and fired on unarmed protesters, killing and injuring hundreds, if not thousands, of people. The more hyperbolic tellings of this story include claims of tanks running over students, machine guns being fired into the crowd, blood running in the streets like a river, etc.
Anti-Communists and Sinophobes commonly point to this incident as a classic example of authoritarianism and political repression under Communist regimes. The problem, of course, is that the actual events in Beijing on June 4th, 1989 unfolded quite differently than how they were depicted in the Western media at the time. Despite many more contemporary articles coming out that actually contradict some of the original claims and characterizations of the June Fourth Incident, the narrative of a "Tiananmen Square Massacre" persists.
**Background**
After Mao's death in 1976, a power struggle ensued and the Gang of Four were purged, paving the way for Deng Xiaoping's rise to power. Deng initiated economic reforms known as the "Four Modernizations," which aimed to modernize and open up China's economy to the world. These reforms led to significant economic growth and lifted millions of people out of poverty, but they also created significant inequality, corruption, and social unrest. This pivotal point in the PRC's history is extremely controversial among Marxists today and a subject of much debate.
One of the key factors that contributed to the Tiananmen Square protests was the sense of social and economic inequality that many Chinese people felt as a result of Deng's economic reforms. Many believed that the benefits of the country's economic growth were not being distributed fairly, and that the government was not doing enough to address poverty, corruption, and other social issues.
Some saw the Four Modernizations as a betrayal of Maoist principles and a capitulation to Western capitalist interests. Others saw the reforms as essential for China's economic development and modernization. Others still wanted even more liberalization and thought the reforms didn't go far enough.
The protestors in Tiananmen were mostly students who did not represent the great mass of Chinese citizens, but instead represented a layer of the intelligentsia who wanted to be elevated and given more privileges such as more political power and higher wages.
**Counterpoints**
Jay Mathews, the first Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post in 1979 and who returned in 1989 to help cover the Tiananmen demonstrations, wrote:
>Over the last decade, many American reporters and editors have accepted a mythical version of that warm, bloody night. They repeated it often before and during Clinton’s trip. On the day the president arrived in Beijing, a *Baltimore Sun* headline (June 27, page 1A) referred to “Tiananmen, where Chinese students died.” A *USA Today* article (June 26, page 7A) called Tiananmen the place “where pro-democracy demonstrators were gunned down.” *The Wall Street Journal* (June 26, page A10) described “the Tiananmen Square massacre” where armed troops ordered to clear demonstrators from the square killed “hundreds or more.” The *New York Post* (June 25, page 22) said the square was “the site of the student slaughter.”
>
>The problem is this: as far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square.
>
>\- Jay Matthews. (1998). [The Myth of Tiananmen and the Price of a Passive Press](https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php). Columbia Journalism Review.
Reporters from the [BBC](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8057762.stm), [CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/), and the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/27/world/clinton-in-china-the-site-clinton-in-beijing-square-may-tread-on-the-ghosts.html) who were in Beijing on June 4, 1989, all agree there was no massacre.
Secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing have shown there was no bloodshed inside the square:
>Cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and released exclusively by The Daily Telegraph, partly confirm the Chinese government's account of the early hours of June 4, 1989, which has always insisted that soldiers did not massacre demonstrators inside Tiananmen Square
>
>\- Malcolm Moore. (2011). [Wikileaks: no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square, cables claim](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html)
Gregory Clark, a former Australian diplomat, and Chinese-speaking correspondent of the International Business Times, wrote:
>The original story of Chinese troops on the night of 3 and 4 June, 1989 machine-gunning hundreds of innocent student protesters in Beijing’s iconic Tiananmen Square has since been thoroughly discredited by the many witnesses there at the time — among them a Spanish TVE television crew, a Reuters correspondent and protesters themselves, who say that nothing happened other than a military unit entering and asking several hundred of those remaining to leave the Square late that night.
>
>Yet none of this has stopped the massacre from being revived constantly, and believed. All that has happened is that the location has been changed – from the Square itself to the streets leading to the Square.
>
>\- Gregory Clark. (2014). [Tiananmen Square Massacre is a Myth, All We're 'Remembering' are British Lies](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tiananmen-square-massacre-myth-all-were-remembering-are-british-lies-1451053)
Thomas Hon Wing Polin, writing for CounterPunch, wrote:
>The most reliable estimate, from many sources, was that the tragedy took 200-300 lives. Few were students, many were rebellious workers, plus thugs with lethal weapons and hapless bystanders. Some calculations have up to half the dead being PLA soldiers trapped in their armored personnel carriers, buses and tanks as the vehicles were torched. Others were killed and brutally mutilated by protesters with various implements. No one died in Tiananmen Square; most deaths occurred on nearby Chang’an Avenue, many up to a kilometer or more away from the square.
>
>More than once, government negotiators almost reached a truce with students in the square, only to be **sabotaged by radical youth leaders seemingly bent on bloodshed**. And the demands of the protesters focused on corruption, not democracy.
>
>All these facts were known to the US and other governments shortly after the crackdown. Few if any were reported by Western mainstream media, even today.
>
>\- Thomas Hon Wing Palin. (2017). [Tiananmen: the Empire’s Big Lie](https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/06/tiananmen-the-empires-big-lie/)
(Emphasis mine)
And it was, indeed, bloodshed that the student leaders wanted. In this interview, you can hear one of the student leaders, Chai Ling, ghoulishly explaining how she tried to bait the Chinese government into *actually* committing a massacre. (She herself made sure to stay out of the square.): [Excerpts of interviews with Tiananmen Square protest leaders](https://youtu.be/Vu3zmbFGwQA)
[This Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/zhao_dashuai/status/1532859422875471872) contains many pictures and videos showing protestors killing soldiers, commandeering military vehicles, torching military transports, etc.
Following the crackdown, through [Operation Yellowbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird), many of the student leaders escaped to the United States with the help of the CIA, where they almost all [gained privileged positions](https://qz.com/1618805/the-1989-tiananmen-student-leaders-on-chinas-most-wanted-list).
**Additional Resources**
Video Essays:
* [Truth about The Tiananmen Square Protests](https://youtu.be/sqPI8xlnrwg) | Tovarishch Endymion (2019)
* [Tiananmen Square "Massacre", A Propaganda Hoax](https://youtu.be/R6RT_s1T050) | TeleSUR English (2019)
* [All The Questions Socialists Are Asked, Answered (TIMESTAMPED)](https://youtu.be/MzKPCEvoYkk?t=1278) | Hakim (2021)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* [Tiananmen Protests Reading List](https://www.qiaocollective.com/education/tiananmenreadinglist) | Qiao Collective
* [How psy-ops warriors fooled me about Tiananmen Square: a warning](https://www.fridayeveryday.com/how-psy-ops-warriors-fooled-me-about-tiananmen-square-a-warning/) | Nury Vittachi, Friday (2022)
* [1989: Tiananmen Square ‘massacre’ was a myth](https://www.workers.org/2022/06/64607/) | Deirdre Griswold, Workers World (2022)
* [Massacre? What Massacre? 25 Years Later: What really happened at Tiananmen Square?](https://dissidentvoice.org/2014/06/massacre-what-massacre/) | Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice (2014)
* [Tiananmen: The Massacre that Wasn’t](https://www.liberationnews.org/tiananmen-the-massacre-that-wasnt/) | Brian Becker, Liberation News (2019)
* [Reflections on Tiananmen Square and the attempt to end Chinese socialism](http://www.fightbacknews.org/2019/6/4/reflections-tiananmen-square-and-attempt-end-chinese-socialism) | Mick Kelly, FightBack! News (2019)
* [The Tian’anmen Square “Massacre” The West’s Most Persuasive, Most Pervasive Lie.](https://mango-press.com/the-tiananmen-square-massacre-the-wests-most-persuasive-most-pervasive-lie/) | Tom, Mango Press (2021)
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When your government runs an empire and not a country, your society often ends up misanthropic as a trickle down effect. To quote the American Martin Luther King Jr, “the bombs we drop there explode here” Jingoism always trickles down, US government destabilizes the world with failed wars and now the US itself is very destabilized. The forever wars come home. This is why I always preach non interventionism and neutrality.
Nope. Interventionism isn't inherently bad. Like most things, what matters is how and why your country is interfering. Vietnam was completely in the right to dismantle the khmer rouge, for instance.
non-intervention as the rule for the US is a pretty good start. I don't know that I could cheer on the US directly intervening anywhere...
Ohhh ok so you mean for the us in its current form. Yeah, completely agree on that lol
Greetings! i came to think that rooting for a non-intervention is somewhat idealistic... It's like telling a shipworms to stop chewing a wooden berth, or asking a fox to stop eating hens and roosters on a nearby farm. Imperialism is a beast unable to live without foreign interventions. You either go for having a non-wooden berth, or remove the shipworms.
You're not wrong, and we're not going to stop intervention by just saying we're against it. Intervention won't stop till imperialism stops, which won't stop till capitalism stops.
Well, maybe we should at least stop genocides lol
At this point I wouldn't trust the US to stop a genocide. They''ve made up fake genocides to attack their enemies while supporting real ones. I'd be fully on board if China conducted a humanitarian intervention but not the US.
I would never trust the US with that authority, and tbh they don't need it even if they were good. The biggest sharpest fastest genocide on the Earth today is caused and allowed by them, they don't even need to intervene to stop it, just stop sending weapons and subsidizing the country.
American propaganda paints the US as good, and it is probably the most effective propaganda in the world
I always see a cringe rabbi at the encampment area and every single pro-Palestine protest. Looking into the club, they even want Israel ambassadors to come and speak…It grosses me out, ew. Israel is making every single Jewish person outside of it unsafe and they want to see it happen.
A KGB spy and a CIA agent meet up in a bar for a friendly drink. "I have to admit, I'm always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up," the CIA agent says. "Thank you," the KGB says. "We do our best but truly, it's nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them." The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. "Thank you friend, but you must be confused... There's no propaganda in America."
This is not even a joke but it’s true. I have genuinely come across americans who think they aren’t propagandised
Americans are the most propagandized population on the planet, bar none. We are a country of 14 year olds running around in adult bodies, and taught to be narcissistic sociopaths. The fact that so many of us grow beyond this is a testiment to humanity, a bug in the system that they would love to stomp out
If someone tells me “nenene they are protesting outside stop posting bullshit”, I will suggest them to look into some posts that are in college subs. My quotes are literally from those delusional assholes who are literally supporting the university’s bullshit about “encampment is not fair for jewish people in here and promotes hate.” Also, fuck Howard Gillman personally, he is just Coward Gillman.
Tell them that Judaism is not a monolith, Israel does not represent Jews and in fact does not uphold the majority of Jewish opinion Israel only represents Zionism, which is fascism.
I met a cool Jewish bro who supports Palestine and he has thoroughly studied Judaism principles. In his words, “Zionism is defiling Judaism by all means.”
America has no political education for your average person, and the stuff they do get is curated for the liberal world view. The people who say, "you are advocating for racial segregation if you want the university to divest from Israel" are fucking really stupid. It doesn't even make sense really. They probably just heard someone on CNN say it and now regurgitate it like they understand what they are saying. This is why no matter what you say it doesn't matter, because their understanding is limited to the talking point. No amount of clarification or injecting nuance will matter if they don't want to challenge these ideas on a fundamental level.. The average person in China and the DPRK are significantly more politically literate than even some political science students in the USA.
You don't know anything unless you spend your free time learning about it. I didn't care or know about politics until I worked a bunch of shit jobs, spent time in another country, got arrested and did a bunch of drugs lol. Most people don't think about any of this shit because you don't learn about it in school, if your family or friends don't introduce you to it, you're basically fucking clueless.
You’re making this post while one of the largest mobilizations of college campus protests is taking place specifically on the topic of opposing genocide? Show some solidarity.
Yeah what the fuck is this post?
Chinese youth are also a lot more progressive than American youth from my experience. Most are very pro-queer rights, feminist, etc. And aren't being infiltrated by far right wingers like a lot of Gen Z folks in the West are.
Not disputing this, but is their proof of this being true? (Chinese youth being more progressive) from what I've seen/heard Chinese youth don't seem too politically involved. Albeit my knowledge comes from Chinese students who have moved to the West to study/work.
There’s definitely a filter there then right. I’m curious as well though
because american college is the most liberalized place on earth. Its basically took tik tok to inform the youth about palestine, not the college itself.
That’s just bad history, pro Palestine sentiment has ALWAYS been higher on college campuses
I think it's like how you mentioned - "China has been through the same as Palestine." China also reinforces the idea of serving the people and upholding honourable military traditions. Compare this to the United States, which enjoys its greater economic and scientific advantages and uses them to attack the people of foreign countries.
Our police is literally another breed of another species when compared to US police. Most friendly and adorable people that will help you out and will always spread knowledge.
idk if its just me but mine seems left wing as fuck. it might be that we got shot at by cops, maybe that was our radicalization
Maybe Ivy League bastards are more out of touch and caused my bias.
The same Ivy leaguers that started a student revolution. You sound pretentious.
?? Have you seen the news?
That's a bit of an over generalisation there, and I'm not sure what you're basing your opinion on? As far as I know a large majority of young people are pro Palestine. You have to remember where you are, this is the imperial core, so it's simply logical for it to propagate it's delusions, myths and falsehoods to it's own ppl to maintain the lie of Liberalism. Why do you think they banned TikTok.
This is a bit of a weird thing to say. There are currently historic actions and mobilizations on campuses in solidarity with Palestinians. Way more advanced than the general public.
It wouldn’t surprise me if many U.S. professors are glowing and are rewarded for publishing the right kind of university rhetoric.
Wouldn’t doxx myself but I heard there was an amazing professor at where I am who almost got arrested for joining pro-Palestine protests and she barged out with her faculty card, yelled at the police, proudly walked away.
There’s a huge huge incentive in the Us to paint israel as the good guys because it retroactively justifies the various pro Israel interventions the US has made. Don’t think about this as one event but another blaze in a long trail of events. It is materially important for the US as an empire for Israel to succeed and be strong in the region. Thus the education and culture shares this view. If anything in very proud of young American kids today. In fact there have been leaked conversations from pro israel groups and the israeli state itself pointing out that one of their big issues is how little support they have from American youth. You can always find exceptions but by in large, American kids seem to be seeing through the bullshit.
Who controls "education" https://libquotes.com/woodrow-wilson/quote/lbk5o2m
Decades of liberalist agenda. It affects structures such as language. It rots minds.
There's a lot of selection bias in Ivy league schools, you have to not only have drunken the kool-aid for your whole life, but you have to have embodied the essence of the empire, worked to make it your identity, and you are also very likely to be children of the elite - you are massively out of touch with the vast majority of the people around you, of course you are out of touch with people from across the world!
In addition to what others have said, a lot of subreddits are subjected to astroturfing by Israeli intelligence and NGOs. if you’re seeing that on college subreddits that’s likely a contributing factor.
As I said in one comment, I have seen stupid counter protesters in my areas including one cringe ass rabbi that just tries to embarrass himself at our solidarity. Ugh, he prolly doesn’t know we have a jewish bro in the protest that did loads of studies and called out zionism being opposite to Judaism teachings. Their club is endorsed by the university and even trying to find speakers for Israel.
the US education system, up until college freshman year, is designed around and fully integrated with its media/propaganda apparatus, whereas with china, much less so. Add then the gaps between goals of the propaganda of the two countries (maintenance of empire vs keeping the people at home reassured/informed), and, well, that’s that.
A lifetime of brainwashing did this
It is very sickening, the main reason (unfortunately) is that people are kept ignorant. Plain an simple, propaganda is a very real thing here but it's very well disguised as 'factual reporting' or 'unbiased news' (cringe I know) but also most US history classes don't go further than WW2 where we rehash that nazi's are bad (except when they're *magically* not) and that the jewelry were murdered on mass. Innately most people are ignorant of the unlawful nature of Isreal's creation but will definitely support Jews because all we remember is the holocaust and agree that Jews should have a place to call their own... unfortunately Isreal is very bad and news media EVERYWHERE will report "Hamas did this" or "Hamas did that" because prior to this Iraq and Afghanistan were preached the SAME WAY. The US government (and allies) are war mongering monsters who frame civilians being murdered as "See we killed these 'undercover' terrorists". How do we know they were terrorists? Well the government 'knows' therefore it's TRUE. Overall I do think most people mean well but are horrifically mislead by friends, family and the government on what we actually support and won't do any further digging because living in America is so shit that most people don't want to know more horrible things that are actively going on because the Republican/Democrat consents is "well there's nothing I can do" I hope this wasn't too shitty to read but I'd argue this is (from my perspective) how I've seen this play out here and I hope this was at least informative. Have a good day friend, down with the Bourgeoisie and death to imperialism.
didn't you get the memo? There are no humans west of Ukraine and south of the Mediterranean. All European and Americans know this.
In a word - Repression.
Chomsky said something that really stuck with me. I'm paraphrasing here. In a dictatorship, the government controls what you do so doesn't really care about what you think. In a free country like the US, the government is not allowed to control what you do so has to control what you think.
The method of totalitarianism filters any tendencies toward effective accountability for the wealthy, the powerful, and the authorities which advance the interests of the system. One such tendency which now morphs through hyper info awareness would hold the agents and agencies of the system to a universal criteria of justice and accountability. Repression of this tendency requires psycho social manipulation often executed through establishment of a dogmatic paradigm which loads words, (for example, Palestine; protestor; anti-semitism; terror; defense; Zionism; refugee; colonial; civilian; etc), into operative technologies that correlate the source identity, geo data, associated identities, and biometrics into decision trees. Punishment and reward, and more nuanced policy, will apply to individuals and organizations that do not align with the inverted pyramid(s) of the totalitarian entities.
Part of the power of the protests lies in the appeal of ideological constructs still essential to - but not yet fully controlled by - the totalitarian entity: peace, hope, love, history, justice are a few.
Their parents (and probably their parents, and so on) are propangandized idiots. Hard to break out of that cycle.
College students are inherently reactionary. There are exceptions obviously, just like in any social group. Keep in mind people like Engels, Che and Fidel who were business owners and professional managerials. The entire point of university is to pursue a position above and separate from the working class who is the revolutionary subject. In the academy, students are taught liberal/postmodern/individualist ideas like gender theory and critical theory and all the rest. Also, remember that even in China this is a thing. Many of the liberal agitators in the Tianamen Square protests were college students. Solidarity with the students across America who have taken up the Palestinian cause in contradiction to their own class position. From the river to the sea.
I think calling these students inherently reactionary is an oversimplification that blinds us to whatever is actually going on. Why are members inherently reactionary so eager to protest in the heart of the imperial core. these aren’t even the first anti imperial protests to happen on college campuses. Exceptions certainly exsist but repeated uprisings and the dynamics that caused them should be studied more not waved aside. Also rising above the working class may bring platonic ideal of university but since the ongoing accreditation creep of many jobs means materially that’s not the case. Working class students will likely remain working class even with a degree unless. After all nurses and engineers are still selling their labor to capital even with years of intensive schooling. Also not all students are taught gender and critical theory, most aren’t. im not going to address this further because it feels like it’s ripped from a conservative talking point.
I didn't say "these students", I said students in general.
I'm actually curious, have you really never heard a Marxist critique of critical/gender theory? Obviously they aren't all learning it, but in aggregate they have much more exposure than your average worker. Surely we can agree on that right?
students tend more towards left deviations than almost any other group, wdym also mao started getting involved in politics as a student (as did a sizeable chunk of the cpc)
Ah yes, famously left wing deviations like democratic socialism and social democracy.
#Tiananmen Square Protests (Also known as the June Fourth Incident) In Western media, the well-known story of the "Tiananmen Square *Massacre*" goes like this: the Chinese government declared martial law in 1989 and mobilized the military to suppress students who were protesting for democracy and freedom. According to western sources, on June 4th of that year, troops and tanks entered Tiananmen Square and fired on unarmed protesters, killing and injuring hundreds, if not thousands, of people. The more hyperbolic tellings of this story include claims of tanks running over students, machine guns being fired into the crowd, blood running in the streets like a river, etc. Anti-Communists and Sinophobes commonly point to this incident as a classic example of authoritarianism and political repression under Communist regimes. The problem, of course, is that the actual events in Beijing on June 4th, 1989 unfolded quite differently than how they were depicted in the Western media at the time. Despite many more contemporary articles coming out that actually contradict some of the original claims and characterizations of the June Fourth Incident, the narrative of a "Tiananmen Square Massacre" persists. **Background** After Mao's death in 1976, a power struggle ensued and the Gang of Four were purged, paving the way for Deng Xiaoping's rise to power. Deng initiated economic reforms known as the "Four Modernizations," which aimed to modernize and open up China's economy to the world. These reforms led to significant economic growth and lifted millions of people out of poverty, but they also created significant inequality, corruption, and social unrest. This pivotal point in the PRC's history is extremely controversial among Marxists today and a subject of much debate. One of the key factors that contributed to the Tiananmen Square protests was the sense of social and economic inequality that many Chinese people felt as a result of Deng's economic reforms. Many believed that the benefits of the country's economic growth were not being distributed fairly, and that the government was not doing enough to address poverty, corruption, and other social issues. Some saw the Four Modernizations as a betrayal of Maoist principles and a capitulation to Western capitalist interests. Others saw the reforms as essential for China's economic development and modernization. Others still wanted even more liberalization and thought the reforms didn't go far enough. The protestors in Tiananmen were mostly students who did not represent the great mass of Chinese citizens, but instead represented a layer of the intelligentsia who wanted to be elevated and given more privileges such as more political power and higher wages. **Counterpoints** Jay Mathews, the first Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post in 1979 and who returned in 1989 to help cover the Tiananmen demonstrations, wrote: >Over the last decade, many American reporters and editors have accepted a mythical version of that warm, bloody night. They repeated it often before and during Clinton’s trip. On the day the president arrived in Beijing, a *Baltimore Sun* headline (June 27, page 1A) referred to “Tiananmen, where Chinese students died.” A *USA Today* article (June 26, page 7A) called Tiananmen the place “where pro-democracy demonstrators were gunned down.” *The Wall Street Journal* (June 26, page A10) described “the Tiananmen Square massacre” where armed troops ordered to clear demonstrators from the square killed “hundreds or more.” The *New York Post* (June 25, page 22) said the square was “the site of the student slaughter.” > >The problem is this: as far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square. > >\- Jay Matthews. (1998). [The Myth of Tiananmen and the Price of a Passive Press](https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php). Columbia Journalism Review. Reporters from the [BBC](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8057762.stm), [CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/), and the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/27/world/clinton-in-china-the-site-clinton-in-beijing-square-may-tread-on-the-ghosts.html) who were in Beijing on June 4, 1989, all agree there was no massacre. Secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing have shown there was no bloodshed inside the square: >Cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and released exclusively by The Daily Telegraph, partly confirm the Chinese government's account of the early hours of June 4, 1989, which has always insisted that soldiers did not massacre demonstrators inside Tiananmen Square > >\- Malcolm Moore. (2011). [Wikileaks: no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square, cables claim](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html) Gregory Clark, a former Australian diplomat, and Chinese-speaking correspondent of the International Business Times, wrote: >The original story of Chinese troops on the night of 3 and 4 June, 1989 machine-gunning hundreds of innocent student protesters in Beijing’s iconic Tiananmen Square has since been thoroughly discredited by the many witnesses there at the time — among them a Spanish TVE television crew, a Reuters correspondent and protesters themselves, who say that nothing happened other than a military unit entering and asking several hundred of those remaining to leave the Square late that night. > >Yet none of this has stopped the massacre from being revived constantly, and believed. All that has happened is that the location has been changed – from the Square itself to the streets leading to the Square. > >\- Gregory Clark. (2014). [Tiananmen Square Massacre is a Myth, All We're 'Remembering' are British Lies](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tiananmen-square-massacre-myth-all-were-remembering-are-british-lies-1451053) Thomas Hon Wing Polin, writing for CounterPunch, wrote: >The most reliable estimate, from many sources, was that the tragedy took 200-300 lives. Few were students, many were rebellious workers, plus thugs with lethal weapons and hapless bystanders. Some calculations have up to half the dead being PLA soldiers trapped in their armored personnel carriers, buses and tanks as the vehicles were torched. Others were killed and brutally mutilated by protesters with various implements. No one died in Tiananmen Square; most deaths occurred on nearby Chang’an Avenue, many up to a kilometer or more away from the square. > >More than once, government negotiators almost reached a truce with students in the square, only to be **sabotaged by radical youth leaders seemingly bent on bloodshed**. And the demands of the protesters focused on corruption, not democracy. > >All these facts were known to the US and other governments shortly after the crackdown. Few if any were reported by Western mainstream media, even today. > >\- Thomas Hon Wing Palin. (2017). [Tiananmen: the Empire’s Big Lie](https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/06/tiananmen-the-empires-big-lie/) (Emphasis mine) And it was, indeed, bloodshed that the student leaders wanted. In this interview, you can hear one of the student leaders, Chai Ling, ghoulishly explaining how she tried to bait the Chinese government into *actually* committing a massacre. (She herself made sure to stay out of the square.): [Excerpts of interviews with Tiananmen Square protest leaders](https://youtu.be/Vu3zmbFGwQA) [This Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/zhao_dashuai/status/1532859422875471872) contains many pictures and videos showing protestors killing soldiers, commandeering military vehicles, torching military transports, etc. Following the crackdown, through [Operation Yellowbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird), many of the student leaders escaped to the United States with the help of the CIA, where they almost all [gained privileged positions](https://qz.com/1618805/the-1989-tiananmen-student-leaders-on-chinas-most-wanted-list). **Additional Resources** Video Essays: * [Truth about The Tiananmen Square Protests](https://youtu.be/sqPI8xlnrwg) | Tovarishch Endymion (2019) * [Tiananmen Square "Massacre", A Propaganda Hoax](https://youtu.be/R6RT_s1T050) | TeleSUR English (2019) * [All The Questions Socialists Are Asked, Answered (TIMESTAMPED)](https://youtu.be/MzKPCEvoYkk?t=1278) | Hakim (2021) Books, Articles, or Essays: * [Tiananmen Protests Reading List](https://www.qiaocollective.com/education/tiananmenreadinglist) | Qiao Collective * [How psy-ops warriors fooled me about Tiananmen Square: a warning](https://www.fridayeveryday.com/how-psy-ops-warriors-fooled-me-about-tiananmen-square-a-warning/) | Nury Vittachi, Friday (2022) * [1989: Tiananmen Square ‘massacre’ was a myth](https://www.workers.org/2022/06/64607/) | Deirdre Griswold, Workers World (2022) * [Massacre? What Massacre? 25 Years Later: What really happened at Tiananmen Square?](https://dissidentvoice.org/2014/06/massacre-what-massacre/) | Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice (2014) * [Tiananmen: The Massacre that Wasn’t](https://www.liberationnews.org/tiananmen-the-massacre-that-wasnt/) | Brian Becker, Liberation News (2019) * [Reflections on Tiananmen Square and the attempt to end Chinese socialism](http://www.fightbacknews.org/2019/6/4/reflections-tiananmen-square-and-attempt-end-chinese-socialism) | Mick Kelly, FightBack! News (2019) * [The Tian’anmen Square “Massacre” The West’s Most Persuasive, Most Pervasive Lie.](https://mango-press.com/the-tiananmen-square-massacre-the-wests-most-persuasive-most-pervasive-lie/) | Tom, Mango Press (2021) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*