30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warns: Never Forget

Re:30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warn... by areoform on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @08:32PM (#20035813)

If you would like a truly disturbing look into the massacre, read through the diplomatic cable sent home by the British ambassador - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_... ;

> 5. FACT. ON ARRIVAL AT TIANANMEN TROOPS FROM SMR HAD SEPARATED STUDENTS AND RESIDENTS. STUDENTS UNDERSTOOD THEY WERE GIVEN ONE HOUR TO LEAVE SQUARE BUT AFTER FIVE MINUTES APCS ATTACKED. STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS.

...APCs then ran over bodies time and time again to make "pie" and remains collected by bulldozer. Remains incinerated and then hosed down drains.

I can never get this image out of my mind. A global future led by the same people involved in continuing such atrocities is terrifying.

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Re:30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warn... by maxxxxx on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @08:50PM (#20035906)

I always find it amazing how easy it is for governments to find people who will commit atrocities for them. This should be a warning for us thinking “I would never do this”. Most of us probably would go along

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Re:30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warn... by mattmanser on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @09:01PM (#20035965)

I don't. As sickening and distressing the words are above you, I don't. Most people want to be safe and when the absolute worst is happening, they want to survive it. I know you are insinuating/thinking the same, but I want to be explicit.

Can you, in all honesty, blame them?

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Re:30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warn... by throwaway1997 on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @09:52PM (#20036202)

I think the second point of the cable helps explain this:

> 60 PERCENT ILLITERATE AND ARE CALLED PRIMITIVES... THEY WERE KEPT WITHOUT NEWS FOR TEN DAYS AND TOLD THEY WERE TO TAKE PART IN AN EXERCISE. A TV FILM WOULD BE MADE OF THE EXERCISE WHICH PLEASED THEM.

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Re:30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warn... by maxxxxx on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @09:56PM (#20036220)

Don't be arrogant. A lot of "smart" people would go along as well.

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Re:30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warn... by throwaway1997 on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @10:38PM (#20036418)

My point was that they isolated a group of people, who had never been educated, from the outside world then bribed them with something they wanted. That is not arrogant.

You do not live in China so it's probably hard for you to understand how our government controls the flow of information and then uses the ignorance to is advantage.

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Re:30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warn... by maxxxxx on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @11:19PM (#20036582)

My point was that a lot of people decide to play along with this stuff. This is not limited to uneducated people.

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Re:30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warn... by throwaway1997 on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @11:21PM (#20036587)

Your assumption is that I am using "uneducated" as an insult rather than a fact.

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Re:30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warn... by maxxxxx on Wednesday May 29, 2019 @12:44AM (#20036919)

That's how it's usually used.

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Re:30 Years After Tiananmen, a Chinese Military Insider Warn... by areoform on Tuesday May 28, 2019 @09:00PM (#20035960)

At the risk of bringing out the worst in all of us, I'd like to point out that this is as natural as the human tendency to divide into in groups and out groups. The next "logical" step always seems to be a demand to punish the out-group.

It reminds me of the now famous quote by a person who later said about their vote to a certain controversial individual; “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this, [note: government shutdown] I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”

People sometimes foist leaders into power to hurt others in a bid to help themselves. But they often forget that the boundaries for in groups and out groups are fluid. And that those who are in can also be out and the new ones who are in can do the same to those who are out.

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