20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square massacre.

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
It's bad for our national self-esteem. It's in our nature and bias to downplay that in history that does not flatter ourselves.

I remember being taught about things like Jim Crow, slavery, and the Japanese internment in school, and that was public school for 20 years.

We're the Greatest!

(just ask us)

All the immigrants must be showing up for some reason.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: Craig234
I note how some of use condemn the abuse of power whether by China (massively and consistently) with incidents like the murder of people yearning for freedom in this incident, AS WELL AS when our own government has been involved in things such as the overthrow of Democracy in Chile and the installation of a tyrant who tortured and murdered thousands of people wanting freedom there, all for our corporations' interests.

But in years I've yet to see one right-winger condemn our Chile acts. Not one post.

While I disagree strongly with US intervention in other countries insofar as it diverts resources that could better be utilized within our own borders, there is a huge difference between what the US did in Chile (maintaining contacts within a country and providing tactical and logistical, though not physical, assistance to coup leaders) and what China did at Tiananmen Square (send in the military to shoot unarmed students).

Our actions in Chile, insofar as they were used to subvert a truly democratically-elected leader, were absolutely wrong. But it is grossly disingenuous to claim that such actions are on the same order as a country ordering its military to kill its own citizens.

ZV

How do you feel about our support for rightwing death squads in Latin America in general?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_americas

 

[cwjerome]

I am not surprised a topic about Tiananmen Square was quickly derailed into a bash America thread by our leftwingers. Clockwork.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Phokus
How do you feel about our support for rightwing death squads in Latin America in general?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_americas

As usual, you twist the truth.

While some graduates of the School of the Americas did indeed grossly misuse their training, and while some of our "allies" should not have been allies and therefore should not have been permitted to take advantage of the training offered by WHINSEC, that does not equate to WHINSEC being "support for rightwing death squads".

That the WHINSEC training has been abused is certain. That we allowed countries to take advantage of WHINSEC training when they should have never been allies is certain. Neither of those truths, however, equate to an expression of support for death squads.

Military tactics and training are military tactics and training regardless of how they are used. The same tactics and training used by one man to support Democracy may be used by another man to suppress Democracy. Teaching the tactics themselves is a neutral action.

If you want to argue that we need to be much more discriminatory as to which nations we allow to take advantage of WHINSEC training, then I can agree with you wholeheartedly. But if you think that the mere existence of WHINSEC is tantamount to support of death squads then you are allowing yourself to be blinded by your own biases.

ZV

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: Craig234
I note how some of use condemn the abuse of power whether by China (massively and consistently) with incidents like the murder of people yearning for freedom in this incident, AS WELL AS when our own government has been involved in things such as the overthrow of Democracy in Chile and the installation of a tyrant who tortured and murdered thousands of people wanting freedom there, all for our corporations' interests.

But in years I've yet to see one right-winger condemn our Chile acts. Not one post.

Funny thing is, after Pinochet died, a lot of rightwingers (i.e. the National Review) celebrated his life.

That's the difference between American liberals and conservatives.... liberals will decry injustice everywhere while conservatives cheer on injustice when 'their' side does it while decry injustice when the 'other side' does it.

Oh give me a break Phokus.

 

[Atreus21]

Nevermind.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

 

[Schadenfroh]

Probably would be a good time to listen to Watching TV by Roger Waters (a song about the massacre).

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: cwjerome
I am not surprised a topic about Tiananmen Square was quickly derailed into a bash America thread by our leftwingers. Clockwork.

Isn't it ironic?

If the Chinese want their government to "bash themselves" by acknowledging their own acts of tyranny and murder, is that wrong? And if Americans want the same from our own government, is that wrong?

Of course it isn't.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: Craig234
I note how some of use condemn the abuse of power whether by China (massively and consistently) with incidents like the murder of people yearning for freedom in this incident, AS WELL AS when our own government has been involved in things such as the overthrow of Democracy in Chile and the installation of a tyrant who tortured and murdered thousands of people wanting freedom there, all for our corporations' interests.

But in years I've yet to see one right-winger condemn our Chile acts. Not one post.

Funny thing is, after Pinochet died, a lot of rightwingers (i.e. the National Review) celebrated his life.

That's the difference between American liberals and conservatives.... liberals will decry injustice everywhere while conservatives cheer on injustice when 'their' side does it while decry injustice when the 'other side' does it.

Oh give me a break Phokus.

http://corner.nationalreview.c...U1MGJlYzU5OGU2ZGQyZTg=

http://article.nationalreview....MzNTkyNDQ2YmYzMTU3ZTU=

Yeah, it's certainly a stretch that the right whitewashed and even celebrated pinochet after his death :roll:

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: Phokus
How do you feel about our support for rightwing death squads in Latin America in general?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_americas

As usual, you twist the truth.

While some graduates of the School of the Americas did indeed grossly misuse their training, and while some of our "allies" should not have been allies and therefore should not have been permitted to take advantage of the training offered by WHINSEC, that does not equate to WHINSEC being "support for rightwing death squads".

That the WHINSEC training has been abused is certain. That we allowed countries to take advantage of WHINSEC training when they should have never been allies is certain. Neither of those truths, however, equate to an expression of support for death squads.

Military tactics and training are military tactics and training regardless of how they are used. The same tactics and training used by one man to support Democracy may be used by another man to suppress Democracy. Teaching the tactics themselves is a neutral action.

If you want to argue that we need to be much more discriminatory as to which nations we allow to take advantage of WHINSEC training, then I can agree with you wholeheartedly. But if you think that the mere existence of WHINSEC is tantamount to support of death squads then you are allowing yourself to be blinded by your own biases.

ZV

If you think about it, arming and training rebels is, in a way, an even greater evil to what can sometimes happen during war because there is no accountability. We don't like a particular government because of an economic system they want to implement, do you honestly believe the American public would have supported a war over that? No, we engage in war by proxy. With no accountability, we train killers who commit various human rights abuses. If we went to war with Chile to overthrow their government, for example, at the very least, there would be some semblance of accountability. But these were savages we had trained who intentionally murdered civillians. There's no military command and a government to force them not to do these evil acts. Even if we told them not to, they sure as hell wouldn't listen.

War by proxy is one of the greatest evils that's never really talked about and one of the greatest white washes when it comes to America's legacy in Latin America. Unsurprisingly, conservatives will either deny or celebrate Reagan's involvement down there.

 

[cwjerome]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: cwjerome
I am not surprised a topic about Tiananmen Square was quickly derailed into a bash America thread by our leftwingers. Clockwork.

Isn't it ironic?

If the Chinese want their government to "bash themselves" by acknowledging their own acts of tyranny and murder, is that wrong? And if Americans want the same from our own government, is that wrong?

Of course it isn't.

Of course it isn't, and it's what people do everyday in this country and on P&N. Did you somehow think I was saying this shouldn't be allowed? :roll:

 

[Thump553]

To try and nudge this thread remotely close to being back on topic, I note that we are also coming up on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall-something I never expected to happen (at least not peacably) during my lifetime.

Tiananmen Square was then, and remains to this day, a huge event. At the time it strongly looked like Red China was going to abandon communism as a failed idealogy. In my view it probably would have collapsed but for the enormous financial cushion granted China by Nixon's establishing commercial relations with it.

Our obsession with cheap VCRs, etc. enabled the Communist Party in China to continue their monolithic hold on that government long after it should have collapsed.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: Craig234
I note how some of use condemn the abuse of power whether by China (massively and consistently) with incidents like the murder of people yearning for freedom in this incident, AS WELL AS when our own government has been involved in things such as the overthrow of Democracy in Chile and the installation of a tyrant who tortured and murdered thousands of people wanting freedom there, all for our corporations' interests.

But in years I've yet to see one right-winger condemn our Chile acts. Not one post.

Funny thing is, after Pinochet died, a lot of rightwingers (i.e. the National Review) celebrated his life.

That's the difference between American liberals and conservatives.... liberals will decry injustice everywhere while conservatives cheer on injustice when 'their' side does it while decry injustice when the 'other side' does it.

Oh give me a break Phokus.

http://corner.nationalreview.c...U1MGJlYzU5OGU2ZGQyZTg=

http://article.nationalreview....MzNTkyNDQ2YmYzMTU3ZTU=

Yeah, it's certainly a stretch that the right whitewashed and even celebrated pinochet after his death :roll:

No, that's not what I was talking about. It was the whole "liberals are good, conservatives evil" baloney that was ridiculous. You of all people can't be that idealistic.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: Craig234
I note how some of use condemn the abuse of power whether by China (massively and consistently) with incidents like the murder of people yearning for freedom in this incident, AS WELL AS when our own government has been involved in things such as the overthrow of Democracy in Chile and the installation of a tyrant who tortured and murdered thousands of people wanting freedom there, all for our corporations' interests.

But in years I've yet to see one right-winger condemn our Chile acts. Not one post.

Funny thing is, after Pinochet died, a lot of rightwingers (i.e. the National Review) celebrated his life.

That's the difference between American liberals and conservatives.... liberals will decry injustice everywhere while conservatives cheer on injustice when 'their' side does it while decry injustice when the 'other side' does it.

Oh give me a break Phokus.

http://corner.nationalreview.c...U1MGJlYzU5OGU2ZGQyZTg=

http://article.nationalreview....MzNTkyNDQ2YmYzMTU3ZTU=

Yeah, it's certainly a stretch that the right whitewashed and even celebrated pinochet after his death :roll:

No, that's not what I was talking about. It was the whole "liberals are good, conservatives evil" baloney that was ridiculous. You of all people can't be that idealistic.

Liberals aren't necessarily good (for example, the few that support the war). And conservatives aren't necessarily evil (i.e. the paleo-cons/ libertarians/moderates who reject the war and torture).... of course those same paleo-cons/libertarians/moderates are the fringe group in your ever shrinking tent. On the whole, with a few exceptions, however, conservatives are 'evil' at the very least. If i had to make a suggestion, perhaps mainstream conservatives should reject unjust war and torture and maybe, just maybe, you wouldn't be labeled 'evil'.

It's a complicated topic... but the biggest problem is tribalism (or as you might call it, 'patriotism') that conservatives tend to engage in and liberals don't (when it comes to foreign policy at least)... i've been meaning to make a thread about it for a while.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Thump553
To try and nudge this thread remotely close to being back on topic, I note that we are also coming up on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall-something I never expected to happen (at least not peacably) during my lifetime.

Tiananmen Square was then, and remains to this day, a huge event. At the time it strongly looked like Red China was going to abandon communism as a failed idealogy. In my view it probably would have collapsed but for the enormous financial cushion granted China by Nixon's establishing commercial relations with it.

Our obsession with cheap VCRs, etc. enabled the Communist Party in China to continue their monolithic hold on that government long after it should have collapsed.

Kruschev said the capitalists would sell the communists the rope with which they would hang the capitalists - meaning the capitalists were so blinded by short-term profit that they would take it rather than notice the effect of the business. He had a point, when you look at the American corporatocracy's close relations with Nazi Germany and other similar terrible foreign policies.

This 'funding China by wanting cheap VCR's' seems to fall right in line with that.

However, there are tradeoffs - the fact is, globalization is also doing a lot more than other things can to reduce poverty in the world, and the globalization advocates' point about growing the markets has some truth to it. The problem is that the way we're going about it is racing towards China-like authoratarianism, not a more liberal, liberty-oriented structure.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Craig234
I note how some of use condemn the abuse of power whether by China (massively and consistently) with incidents like the murder of people yearning for freedom in this incident, AS WELL AS when our own government has been involved in things such as the overthrow of Democracy in Chile and the installation of a tyrant who tortured and murdered thousands of people wanting freedom there, all for our corporations' interests.

But in years I've yet to see one right-winger condemn our Chile acts. Not one post.

Probably because a large % of this msgboard wasnt even born when this happened nearly 36 years ago. Not a hot topic on the P&N msgboard.

That's not why. There's plenty of condemnation of historical wrongs (the Holocaust was well before Chile for the obvious example), and it's been discussed numerous times.

The problem lies in the right's misguided ideology to be apologists for the wrongs, not in the timeliness of the topic.

I haven't seen one right-wing condemnation of the US involvement in the coup against Chavez - even if we say 'assuming the role was large' - in 2002 for a recent example of where the right refuses to get on the side of democracy, and instead is silent in the face of wrong.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: Phokus
How do you feel about our support for rightwing death squads in Latin America in general?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_americas

As usual, you twist the truth.

While some graduates of the School of the Americas did indeed grossly misuse their training, and while some of our "allies" should not have been allies and therefore should not have been permitted to take advantage of the training offered by WHINSEC, that does not equate to WHINSEC being "support for rightwing death squads".

That the WHINSEC training has been abused is certain. That we allowed countries to take advantage of WHINSEC training when they should have never been allies is certain. Neither of those truths, however, equate to an expression of support for death squads.

Military tactics and training are military tactics and training regardless of how they are used. The same tactics and training used by one man to support Democracy may be used by another man to suppress Democracy. Teaching the tactics themselves is a neutral action.

If you want to argue that we need to be much more discriminatory as to which nations we allow to take advantage of WHINSEC training, then I can agree with you wholeheartedly. But if you think that the mere existence of WHINSEC is tantamount to support of death squads then you are allowing yourself to be blinded by your own biases.

ZV

If you think about it, arming and training rebels is, in a way, an even greater evil to what can sometimes happen during war because there is no accountability. We don't like a particular government because of an economic system they want to implement, do you honestly believe the American public would have supported a war over that? No, we engage in war by proxy. With no accountability, we train killers who commit various human rights abuses. If we went to war with Chile to overthrow their government, for example, at the very least, there would be some semblance of accountability. But these were savages we had trained who intentionally murdered civillians. There's no military command and a government to force them not to do these evil acts. Even if we told them not to, they sure as hell wouldn't listen.

War by proxy is one of the greatest evils that's never really talked about and one of the greatest white washes when it comes to America's legacy in Latin America. Unsurprisingly, conservatives will either deny or celebrate Reagan's involvement down there.

Well said. Imagine some nation far wealthier than the US offering hundreds of thousands of US people $500,000 a year to sell out their fellow citizens and work in death squads, paid for by that foreign power simply to keep its corrupt policies in power in our country - go along or be tortured and disappear.

That's about the equivalent of what happens in a lot of these situations, which not only cause tyranny to rule for foreign exploitation, but rips the country apart as the citizens serve the foreign power against their fellow citizens because of the money the corporations can afford to spend.

Just as a lot of poor youth think that joining a gang is better than working for minimum wage, a lot of people in poorer countries jump at the chance to be part of the ruling militia, rather than to be poorer and under its thumb. You pretty much never see these issues covered in our news.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: Craig234
I note how some of use condemn the abuse of power whether by China (massively and consistently) with incidents like the murder of people yearning for freedom in this incident, AS WELL AS when our own government has been involved in things such as the overthrow of Democracy in Chile and the installation of a tyrant who tortured and murdered thousands of people wanting freedom there, all for our corporations' interests.

But in years I've yet to see one right-winger condemn our Chile acts. Not one post.

And I don't remember seeing a post by a left-winger condemning the Kent State shootings, but I'm not going to take that as an endorsement of the gov't's actions in that incident.

Huh? The left has always condemned the Kent State shootings of war protestors by the guard unit, for which no one hss ever been convicted. Did you mix it up with something?

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: Craig234
I note how some of use condemn the abuse of power whether by China (massively and consistently) with incidents like the murder of people yearning for freedom in this incident, AS WELL AS when our own government has been involved in things such as the overthrow of Democracy in Chile and the installation of a tyrant who tortured and murdered thousands of people wanting freedom there, all for our corporations' interests.

But in years I've yet to see one right-winger condemn our Chile acts. Not one post.

While I disagree strongly with US intervention in other countries insofar as it diverts resources that could better be utilized within our own borders, there is a huge difference between what the US did in Chile (maintaining contacts within a country and providing tactical and logistical, though not physical, assistance to coup leaders) and what China did at Tiananmen Square (send in the military to shoot unarmed students).

Our actions in Chile, insofar as they were used to subvert a truly democratically-elected leader, were absolutely wrong. But it is grossly disingenuous to claim that such actions are on the same order as a country ordering its military to kill its own citizens.

ZV

The US *ordered* the coup. US corporations wanted it and contacted Nixon, who ordered Kissinger to ensure it happened. While the first attempt - to get rid of Allende after he was elected but before he had even taken office - failed because the head of the Army was approached to join the coup, but refused on the grounds of loyalty to the Chilean constitution's democracy, and the attempt to kidnap him resulted in his being killed, a little later the next attempt did work. Allende was killed.

Pinochet put in charge of the economy Milton Friedman followers (and worked with Friedman himself) - in conjuction with the US-trained thugs to torture and murder citizens.

You seriously need to learn your history. Read the chapters on Chile in Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" for a great history on this.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
It's bad for our national self-esteem. It's in our nature and bias to downplay that in history that does not flatter ourselves.

I remember being taught about things like Jim Crow, slavery, and the Japanese internment in school, and that was public school for 20 years.

You must mean the 'liberal' schools the right constantly whines about. And yes, race issues are now finally 'ok', since they now 'orove' how great we are that we got past them.

If you ever want to see the sort of thing the right is ok with admitting our mistake, look for an issue where we brag we got past it and can attack an enemy who 'still has the issue'.

If gay marriage were legalized nationally tomorrow, 24 hours later you would see the right citing how it proves how great our nation is for it while Iran still executes gays.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Tab3076

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Can you post something that you thought of yourself instead of just repeating everything said by Ron Paul??

Coming from the guy who's never posted something of original thought.

WWYBYWB?