Well, aside from that violence does still exist outside of states as you say, it was to explain my earlier comment about all states being violent, since their role is to mediate class antagonisms, which has historically manifested as the owning classes keeping the bulk of the working classes in a state of desperation for the sake of manipulating bartering power.
It always frustrates me a little when people look at a problem and say “that’s just how things are.” Here it’s the thing about humans being violent. In a trivial sense, that is true, but I think that obfuscates that in most situations violence has a set of politically-meaningful sources, even if it’s personal violence. Being beaten as a child, being forced into crime, being taught that violence is appropriate to protect your “pride”, the Other being dehumanized, the list goes on.
There’s a difference between a country that has a monopoly on violence and can use that for enforcement, compared to a state that responds to people just making their voices heard with cannons and guns. A cat nipping my fingers is annoying. A lion gnawing my head off is deadly.
The crackdown wasn’t against the peaceful protestors who they let just kind of do their thing under supervision for somewhere around 6 weeks despite it basically being the equivalent of the section of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. The CPC became less friendly as it became aware of NED bullshit and, critically, unarmed soldiers being immolated and lynched by militants who were using naive protestors as cover. The CPC nonetheless gave everyone some time to clear out (I forget the time table but I think it was 24 - 72 hours) and even once it was over the deadline they didn’t just start blasting.
The problem with this is that we don’t really know if it’s true. It’s the CPC’s official story, but they’ve created an atmosphere so hostile to truth or transparency that it’s not trustworthy.
I do. Where’s the Chinese equivalent to the FOIA that allows citizens to force officials to release documents? There isn’t one, because the CPC doesn’t value that type of accountability.
That goalpost was moved so far the astronomy should go into that. There’s a lot of links posted here, but from previous conversations you have unique ability of completely ignoring everything, so what’s even the point?
See, this is a sort of epistemic nihilism that is used for question-begging the western narrative. I give you a counterproposition and you say “Well the CPC is so untrustworthy that we just can’t know that that’s true!”
Which part do you doubt? That the protest had been going on for many weeks? We have contemporaneous reports. That the CPC wasn’t very hostile to the protestors for most of that period? We have footage of the protestors and unarmed soldiers coexisting – sometimes even having something of a fun time together, each group singing songs!
We have photographs of the lynched corpses, with the protestors idly looking on (because what else could they do?). We have contemporaneous reporting on the CPC setting a deadline for the square to be fled. We have footage of one of the more radical student leaders, Chai Ling, saying that she will deliberately direct her clique to stay (even as she flees) so that they will shed blood.
We have a smaller amount of footage of the night itself, but that tells us many things. For example, there was a protestor (not a student) who was on a high-profile hunger strike. He negotiated the peaceful evacuation of a group of students who didn’t quite realize what they were signing up for by staying. We also have some distant footage of the fighting in the surrounding area (because the square itself didn’t see violence, as even western journalists confirmed).
The 1984 narrative Reddit spoonfeeds people is incredibly flimsy, even if all you do is look at reporting from Brits, Americans, and Germans.
Speaking of, have you ever watched the full Tank Man video? You can find it on Youtube quite easily. If you haven’t seen it, please do me a favor and predict what happens and write it down for yourself – no need to show anyone else, myself included. Then, watch what happens and compare that to your guess. I think you will find it to be an interesting exercise.
All states are fundamentally violent, what are you imagining to be a “decent” country where there is no violence by the state?
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In a Marxist sense, any class society has a state, but that’s a little beside the point.
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Well, aside from that violence does still exist outside of states as you say, it was to explain my earlier comment about all states being violent, since their role is to mediate class antagonisms, which has historically manifested as the owning classes keeping the bulk of the working classes in a state of desperation for the sake of manipulating bartering power.
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It always frustrates me a little when people look at a problem and say “that’s just how things are.” Here it’s the thing about humans being violent. In a trivial sense, that is true, but I think that obfuscates that in most situations violence has a set of politically-meaningful sources, even if it’s personal violence. Being beaten as a child, being forced into crime, being taught that violence is appropriate to protect your “pride”, the Other being dehumanized, the list goes on.
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There’s a difference between a country that has a monopoly on violence and can use that for enforcement, compared to a state that responds to people just making their voices heard with cannons and guns. A cat nipping my fingers is annoying. A lion gnawing my head off is deadly.
The crackdown wasn’t against the peaceful protestors who they let just kind of do their thing under supervision for somewhere around 6 weeks despite it basically being the equivalent of the section of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. The CPC became less friendly as it became aware of NED bullshit and, critically, unarmed soldiers being immolated and lynched by militants who were using naive protestors as cover. The CPC nonetheless gave everyone some time to clear out (I forget the time table but I think it was 24 - 72 hours) and even once it was over the deadline they didn’t just start blasting.
The problem with this is that we don’t really know if it’s true. It’s the CPC’s official story, but they’ve created an atmosphere so hostile to truth or transparency that it’s not trustworthy.
Really? West have been blatantly manufacturing atrocity and you say China created “hostile atmosphere”?
I do. Where’s the Chinese equivalent to the FOIA that allows citizens to force officials to release documents? There isn’t one, because the CPC doesn’t value that type of accountability.
That goalpost was moved so far the astronomy should go into that. There’s a lot of links posted here, but from previous conversations you have unique ability of completely ignoring everything, so what’s even the point?
See, this is a sort of epistemic nihilism that is used for question-begging the western narrative. I give you a counterproposition and you say “Well the CPC is so untrustworthy that we just can’t know that that’s true!”
Which part do you doubt? That the protest had been going on for many weeks? We have contemporaneous reports. That the CPC wasn’t very hostile to the protestors for most of that period? We have footage of the protestors and unarmed soldiers coexisting – sometimes even having something of a fun time together, each group singing songs!
We have photographs of the lynched corpses, with the protestors idly looking on (because what else could they do?). We have contemporaneous reporting on the CPC setting a deadline for the square to be fled. We have footage of one of the more radical student leaders, Chai Ling, saying that she will deliberately direct her clique to stay (even as she flees) so that they will shed blood.
We have a smaller amount of footage of the night itself, but that tells us many things. For example, there was a protestor (not a student) who was on a high-profile hunger strike. He negotiated the peaceful evacuation of a group of students who didn’t quite realize what they were signing up for by staying. We also have some distant footage of the fighting in the surrounding area (because the square itself didn’t see violence, as even western journalists confirmed).
The 1984 narrative Reddit spoonfeeds people is incredibly flimsy, even if all you do is look at reporting from Brits, Americans, and Germans.
Speaking of, have you ever watched the full Tank Man video? You can find it on Youtube quite easily. If you haven’t seen it, please do me a favor and predict what happens and write it down for yourself – no need to show anyone else, myself included. Then, watch what happens and compare that to your guess. I think you will find it to be an interesting exercise.
Oh you mean the way your country does regularly at home and abroad?
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