Memory Wiped

Comments

• cm0002@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  You have been site-banned from .ml

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• Carrolade@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It is kinda weird. We don’t have any problems talking about our historical atrocities, unless your community is really, really conservative. I first learned about the Trail of Tears in elementary school, we even took a field trip to a historical location on it. That’s some heavy shit for a little kid. We didn’t go into all the gory details, but the wide scale of the suffering and betrayal we committed was covered.

  Even into current events, American bombs falling on Gaza was a big deal.

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  • Krono@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I think there are many events in American history that could be analogous to Tiananmen.

    Were you ever educated on the 1985 MOVE bombing? The destruction of black wall street? The house un-american activities committee? The battle of Blair Mountain?

    Were you ever taught about any of the coups we did to overthrow democratic governments in latin america? The death squads we trained? The authoritarians and fascists we put into power, and the oppression and death they caused?

    Or, in general, the 70-or-so countries we invaded since WWII? I think most Americans can only name Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam.

    And that’s just the stuff I can name off the top of my head, I’m sure there are countless American atrocities that I am unaware of.

    Personally, the American education system taught me none of that. Many of these subjects are not discussed in broad American culture.

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    • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Fun question for Americans: how much were you taught about the struggle for labor rights?

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    • Strykker@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      It not being taught is not quite the same as the outright denial / suppression that China does though.

      Like there are only so many hours in the school day, you can’t teach literally every historical event.

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    • Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      You’re right those usually aren’t taught but that’s very different than denying they happened. Honestly, it’s more effective too probably. China denying it is part of why it keeps being brought up. They’re in too deep now, but if they had just said “yeah, it happened and it’s regretful” then people probably wouldn’t bring it up all the time.

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    • ReporterCivil1937@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I didn’t even know about the Bonus Army until yesterday.

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    • Carrolade@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I learned about around half of that in junior high and high school. Where did you study? That has a lot to do with it, our education system is controlled at the local level by individual school boards.

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  • Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    We don’t? Aren’t conservatives fighting hard to whitewash history, and aren’t they winning? Teaching the truth about historical racism is “Critical Race Theory.”

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    • Carrolade@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yes, it is very much an ongoing battle, that’s for sure.

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    • Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      We also, for some fucking stupid reason, allowed Texas to be the arbiter of textbooks. Wtf.

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  • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Really? The censorship is nowhere near as bad as China.

    But there are so many things that just aren’t commonly taught that are atrocious. From the forced sterilisations of disabled people upto the 70s, to US war crimes against civilians, to things like COINTEL PRO.

    Sure comparatively (US wise) far left communities seem to be aware of them, like on lemmy, but it’s nowhere in the mainstream US discourse.

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    • ShareMySims@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      From the forced sterilisations of disabled people upto the 70s,

      Still happening, both in US and EU (couldn’t find a good source on the UK, though I don’t doubt it happens, instead have this horrible statistic Disabled people’s Covid-19 death rate as much as 11 times higher than non-disabled people because we’re not seen as worth saving), and certainly in most other countries too.

      And this is just disabled people, Indigenous people (in Canada too, of course), immigrants in detention are still being forced/coerced sterilised, as well as several other marginalised groups targeted in different ways (like systemic racism that leads to higher mortality rates of Black birthing parent and babies during and after pregnancy, UK US Canada).

      And to go back to what the op of the thread said, the Trail of Tears, is like the tiniest tip of a monstrous iceberg of ongoing genocide, and that monstrous iceberg is just one of many floating in the American ocean of white supremacist atrocity (and before the Americans get defensive, Yes, other countries do atrocities too, yes citizens there/here are also taught a whitewashed version of history that serves to maintain the state, you may not be alone, but you’re absolutely no better than anyone else).

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    • Carrolade@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      We also had discussions on war crimes, though that wasn’t until high school.

      This was before 9/11, so the War on Terror had not happened yet. It was mainly focused on Vietnam. We did learn about some of the covert stuff, but most of it was not covered.

      I agree none of it is part of mainstream US discourse, but neither is the vast majority of the things covered in history class. This reflects American anti-intellectualism overall imo.

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    • Draces@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Its a long list of atrocities and only so much that can fit into a curriculum. Also wildly different standards school to school. My public school in the North East was pretty good about it

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    • JTPorkins@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Just depends on the school I guess. We learned about the massacres of the natives, Vietnam war crimes, the Tuskegee study, etc. Those were off the top of my head but there were more.

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  • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    History in British schools is often the civil war, often corn laws and the agricultural revolution, often Romans, but never Empire.

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    • Carrolade@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      … really? Even we learn a fair bit about the British Empire, though I suppose Anglo-American history is somewhat intertwined, so it makes sense. We covered Magna Carta, 100 Years War, Henry VIII, then some British Empire. And the World Wars of course.

      We don’t really go over the Commonwealth nations that much, but we definitely touch on Britain quite a lot. Though we did cover Indian Independence a little bit, Gandhi and all that, if memory serves.

      Glazing over the largest empire ever created on our planet seems a little odd to me though, especially when its your own. That’d be like Greek kids not covering Alexander.

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  • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    How many Americans know about the Indonesian genocide?

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• _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I’m just here to see the tankies flip out in the comments.

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  • possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    🍿

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• liyunxiao@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It’s taught in every single school, information about it is online. It’s just not the western lie invented in the 2000s that it was unarmed peaceful kids versus tanks that were called in for no reason… They literally stole military weapons and massacred civilians then took over and barricaded themselves in a local school.

  The famous tank man photo? That guy wanted the tanks to stay to make sure the area was safe. He was protesting them leaving. There’s video of him that I guarantee people like you haven’t seen despite it being on YouTube.

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  • kuato@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Why watch the video when one photo and a lifetime of anticommunist propaganda tells me everything I need to know? 😐
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq8zFLIftGk

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  • Plastic_Ramses@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Yes, college kids with automatics chased away an entire column of tanks 🙄

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    • liyunxiao@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Nice strawman, try again.

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  • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    You think the story was invented in the 2000s? This was the story coming from press that were supposedly there or in touch with people there. We were hearing this after just after it happened.

    In the West we know little about what happened before other than protests that went on and were eventually suppressed by state violence.

    I doubt that whatever propaganda you were exposed to is any more reflective of the truth.

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  • possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48445934

    According to the BBC little is known about the guy in the photo

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    • liyunxiao@sh.itjust.works ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The BBC also says trans people are mentally ill and Israel is a peaceful democracy. Let’s not deal with hostile state corproganda

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  • mlg@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The famous tank man photo? That guy wanted the tanks to stay to make sure the area was safe. He was protesting them leaving. There’s video of him that I guarantee people like you haven’t seen despite it being on YouTube.

    Aye man cmon not even the most patriotic Red White Blue American believes the IRS are good guys lol

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    • liyunxiao@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      That’s because you don’t have a democracy.

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• prototype_g2@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I’m just gonna link this here.

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq8zFLIftGk

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMtopY3pcZs

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  • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I guarantee you nobody who believes Tank Man was run over, and then the military boxed everyone in and machinegun’d tens of thousands of protesters is going to watch this. Why would they? They already know exactly what happened.

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    • kuato@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      And they think it is the Chinese who are “brainwashed” NPCs, whilst they swim in propaganda and question nothing.

      People not only don’t know what’s happening to them, they don’t even know that they don’t know. — Noam Chomsky

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  • JPAKx4@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m going to link this here as well

    archive.ph/2020.07.12-074312/https://…/AIIbbPs

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• hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  “Oh so bombing Hiroshima was okay?? Is that what you’re saying?? You know all that is American propaganda right?? I’m the most illiterate fuckwit incapable of understanding that two governments can be bad at the same time!!”

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• audrbox@beehaw.org ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Is it so hard to believe simultaneously (a) that a powerful, authoritarian state entity did a violent, fucked up thing that it doesn’t want people to know about and (b) that western media has a vested interest in making Chinese communism look bad so probably significantly exaggerated parts of their reporting of it? I don’t understand why this causes a whole fight every time. I’d argue most states have done something as terrible, if not more so, so why does this particular event need to be both attacked and defended so heavily?

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  • Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Honestly, this.

    Speaking as a “tankie,” people go too far if they deny that anything happened at all. It was a significant and controversial event, enough that Deng Xiaoping himself resigned over it. But what I don’t get is why people are so obsessed with it, when the shit that happened under Mao was way worse, and this happened so long ago. I think people are just uneducated and disinterested in Chinese history, so they’re vaguely aware of like to three events from it that they name-drop endlessly to own the tankies. It’s such a tiresome and repetitive subject, and the obsession shuts down more intelligent, nuanced discussion about China and global politics.

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    • Kacarott@aussie.zone ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The reason I think it is somewhat of a big deal is less the fact that it happened, but rather the fact that the Chinese government seems like it tries to hide it, or at least downplays it a lot.

      Compare with Germany, where some of the most horrific events in history took place. But Germany acknowledges it and actively teaches people about how bad it was.

      The current Chinese government still seems to be trying to cover up for the mistakes of a previous government. (At least, as far as I am aware)

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    • Zpiritual@lemm.ee ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I’ll keep “obsessing”/highlighting over how a atrocious thing was done and then ignored after the fact. If this shit that happened in the middle of the main square in the capital for all the world to see isn’t fully recognised by the leadership and government what other potentially vastly more horrible things are being executed in their name elsewhere?

      The answer is we don’t know and as long as what obviously happened isn’t fully acknowledged we have no reason to even give them any benefit of the doubt in any related matters based on anything they claim. That’s what is being "oppsessed"about.

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• possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  en.wikipedia.org/…/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests…

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  • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    “In general, state media from the west reliable portrays its geopolitical adversaries” is one hell of a take regardless of your opinion on this topic

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• Prandom_returns@lemm.ee ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Hmm, so many tagged accounts in the comments… It’s like the same handful of dudes under each Tiananmen mention… Hmm, what could that mean? I wonder.

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