Microblog Memes

the US government’s officially acknowledges 9/11

The Chinese government officially acknowledges 1989. The dispute is over who was responsible for the deaths and whether the government's subsequent response was appropriate.

A better analogy would be terminally online Chinese power posters who spam “Americans don’t know about the MOVE bombing” all day.

The US government officially acknowledges the MOVE bombing. The catch is that the Chicago PD considers their actions justified.

If you want to talk about the protests leading up to Tienanmen, you're going to need to know more than that "Tank Man Photo Exists". Most Americans have no idea why the protests occurred (outside a vague, Americanized conception of "They wanted democracy"). They don't know about the Dengist land reforms. They don't know who was leading the protests, who - in the CCP itself - tacitly supported them prior to the riot, or the degree of violence in Beijing immediately prior to the tanks rolling in. They don't know the history of the 1950s Revolution or the policy changes between Mao and Deng that culminated in protests. They don't know the inherent conflict between urban industrial workers and rural agricultural workers that had been tearing the country apart going back to the Qing Dynasty.

In the same way, you're not likely to have a lot of Chinese citizens with a deep working knowledge of US Cold War politics in Afghanistan, the British/US propping up of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia as a means of securing oil exports and establishing the petrodollar, the significance of Mecca and Medina or the chronic social pressure that US military bases within their proximity creates, the significance of the Twin Towers as a visual landmark equivalent to Wall Street investment banking, the history of Operation Cyclone, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike America", the Cheney-Era neocon movement and the Project for a New American Century, or any of the global politics that precipitated the attacks.

The analogy is, ultimately, two groups of dumbshit onliners shouting "People In The Other Country Are Stupid" to each other, without any real idea of what they're smugly asserting they know about.