David Juncker

Biomedical engineer, scientist, curious. Orthodoxy no thanks. Tweets on science, then covid tests, now genocide. My opinions. ❤️ & RT not endorsement.

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

Ms Rachel: “Why don’t people care about kids who were born in certain places? You could have been born there. Your kids could have been born there.”

[Middle Eastern Affairs @OpsHQs]

Brazilian legend Ronaldo Nazário drops a bombshell:

'What is happening in Gaza is not a war... it is a systematic extermination of a people trapped in a cage.'
'The silence of the world is frightening... and staying silent about this brutality is a moral failure.'
'I will not be silent... I will never be silent. I stand with Gaza.' 🔥🇧🇷🇵🇸"

[Angelica 🌐⚛️🇹🇼🇨🇳🇺🇸 @AngelicaOung]

I was a rather precocious nine-year-old in Taipei on June 4th 1989. In my childish mind's eye...helpless students were kettled into Tienanmen square like animals in a pen before the tanks rolled over them, creating a kind of bloody, dense, student-patty. It was a flashbulb moment that represented the evil of the communist party of China and the destruction of the flower of China, the best of the best, by the worst of the worst.

Growing up sometimes means finding out the fairytales of your childhood is far more complicated than you thought.

This is Tienanmen Square 1989, as I understand it today. There was no bloodshed in the square. Dissident leader Liu Xiaobo (who subsequently won the Nobel Peace Prize) negotiated the peaceful withdrawal of demonstrators as the troops moved in. By the time the iconic Tankman stood in the way of PLA tanks, the crackdown was basically over. If you watch the video all the way through, you'll see tankman block the tank a few times, climb on top of it, before being led away.

This is not to say, of course, that there was no bloodshed. They mostly happened in clashes between violent demonstrators and PLA troops off the square. The "peaceful protestors vs brutal regime" picture is inaccurate and incomplete. The crowd ambused, mutilated, lynched, disembowled and burned the corpses of PLA soldiers. This is when the shootings happened: not in the square, not on the students.

You have to understand, in 1989, China didn't know how to deal with protests. They had no riot police. They rolled out the tanks and the troops not because they were determined to exterminate the crowd, but becauses they were unprepared. Since then, it's been largely a hushed and censored topic in China, which I think is a mistake. Because once you go through what actually happened, June 4th was a tragedy, not a crime.

It was Deng Xiaoping that made the decision to initiate the crackdown. He knew he'd bear the infamy. But looking at China in 2026, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that Deng did the right thing. The students in the square might have been truly idealistic and only wanted the best for China, but if the Chinese government have given in to their demands, China would not have been a democratic paradise but might have fallen into a chasm of chaos. We all saw what happened when the people of Russia cast off the Soviet Union only to be plunged into decades of pitch black despair. Had China done what the students asked, could the results have been any better? Already almost in retirement...Deng, who already saved China with his reform-and-open-up, arguably saved it again.

Most ordinary Chinese people I know now sees June 4th as an example of a failed color revolution, or an externally-driven attempt to destabilize China from the outside. They don't percieve the crackdown as the government oppressing the people, but of China asserting its sovereignty.

I know this is a controversial topic, and will probably draw a lot of condemnation from the usual crowd. So let me end with a criticism of the Communist Party of China: Stop censoring and shielding the history so much, and be frank about the past. When you try and erase June 4th, it means you yourself cannot tell your side of the story. The cultural revolution, for instance, works far less well as an anti-China talking point because the mistakes of that era are widely acknowledged and digested in China itself while June 4th still seems too raw to touch.

Below you can find the full "tankman" video. It only takes two minutes to watch. Try and watch it as if you're seeing it for the first time. What do you see? See less

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

Here is a quick hypothetical question for you.

A friend calls you: "So there's this guy in my neighborhood. He keeps insulting me in public, slapped me around a few times, and told everyone he might take my garage. Last month he tried to annex my neighbor's yard. He now wants me to join his "club" where I can only buy groceries from his store, even if the shop across the street sells the same thing for half the price. He named the club "The I Want to Dominate This Block Association." I hate this guy and desperately want to get away from him... Should I join the club?"

Well, your friend pretty much described the EU joining America's "Pax Silica" - which they apparently just committed to (https://t.co/lgsGnujfdt)

Starting with the name. Typically, when great powers set up an initiative that is imperialistic in nature, they pick a name that says the opposite: “alliance for progress,” “partnership for peace,” etc.

This time, evidently in no mood for euphemism, the US straight up called their initiative the most imperialistic name conceivable, directly inspired by the Roman Empire (Pax Romana). Literally the equivalent of naming your neighborhood club "The I Want to Dominate This Block Association."

And it's exactly what it, quite explicitly, sets out to do. It's written right on the tin (https://t.co/H29HAID4Fo): countries sign up, align their supply chains with Washington, shut out Chinese products - however good or cheap - and buy American. The neighborhood bully grocery store clause, basically, except it's for the most strategic technology of the century: the entire AI stack.

Worse still, as I explain in my article, not only is the EU voluntarily locking itself into even further dependency on the very power it keeps saying it needs to break free from, but it's doing so in a way that will make it all the more difficult for them to compete in the layer of AI that will matter most - the application layer, where the actual value of AI will get built.

That’s the fundamental con behind “Pax Silica”: on the one hand the declaration they wrote (https://t.co/H29HAID4Fo) affirms that “the 21st century will run on compute” just like “the 20th century ran on oil and steel,” yet on the other hand they’re building a system that makes that very resource scarcer and more expensive for every member of the club - everyone, that is, except for themselves who get to sell it.

On top of ensuring, if we keep using their "oil and steel" analogy, that members of the club don’t drill their own oil wells or build their own steel mills.

In short Pax Silica is not a wall against China, it's really a cage to keep America's "partners" in - dependent on American tech, and unable to build their own.

To understand the full argument and how Europe is making - yet again - another massive strategic mistake that will set it back immensely for the most consequential technology of the future, it's all in my latest article titled "The Pax Silica Con": https://t.co/1cih3ZnHkN

[Dimitri Lascaris @dimitrilascaris]

It’s bad enough that this motion was defeated. The fact that it was defeated by a wide margin highlights the degeneracy of Canada’s political elite. They have no moral authority to criticize the human rights abuses of anyone.

@yuenpauwoo is an honourable exception.

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

People show you examples of discrimination against Jews and it’s somebody wearing a watermelon pin or saying “from the river to the sea”. People show you examples of discrimination against Arabs and it’s families being burned alive in Palestine and Lebanon with western backing.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This shows that Germany obviously still doesn't get it: their "historical responsibility" isn't to support Israel even as they commit genocide.

When the lesson of Nazism is obviously a universal one about justice, they instead think it's a blood debt to a particular people.

Which is, when you think about it, the Nazi way of looking at it: hierarchizing peoples and assigning collective responsibility - or collective impunity - on that basis.

[Kristiana Bruneau @GumptionAndCo]

According to @MarkJCarney I am not allowed to be against this because it hurts Jewish feelings.

[The Vibes Ruiner™️ @BrainsNGrenades]

"Cuba’s infant mortality rate for Black children is the same as for white children. Its Black population has life expectancy equal to its white population. No other nation in the Americas can make that claim...

[Nora Loreto @NoLore]

Here is a list of extremist murders in Canada.

https://t.co/A2LQCvpTUN

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

Invading a sovereign nation, slaughtering civilians, targeting medics, forcibly expelling people and demolishing their homes isn’t a “strategy,” it’s a list of war crimes.

[yu_007 @YVaw123]

South African 🇿🇦 -Canadian author Kagiso Lesego Molope was heckled and ejected from the Writers’ Trust of Canada “Politics and the Pen” gala - packed with Canada’s most powerful elites -after highlighting that 31% of children under two in Gaza suffer acute malnutrition.
Her powerful response: “I don’t want to break bread with people who are happy to know that children are dying.”

[Yipeng Ge 葛义朋 @yipengGe]

I keep thinking about this photo taken yesterday.

Prime Minister of Canada, @MarkJCarney, stands in front of an Israeli flag speaking about how hate against any group of peoples is wrong. While, the International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid and illegal occupation in the West Bank and genocide in Gaza against Palestinians. This is hate and discrimination translated into systematic legal injustice and mass death and slaughter.

There is an obligation for Canada as a third party state to not be complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity and violations of international law.

Standing in front of a flag of a state committing apartheid and genocide, while still sending weapons to Israel to commit these crimes, should demonstrate to all humanity and peace loving people in Canada to seriously question our politicians and confront this current reality for what it truly is.

Canada is deeply committed and embedded in the structural oppression against Palestinians, entrenching the systematic colonial rule of Western settler colonial states in a world where the rich and powerful can choose to continue to break all the international laws and obligations because they know consequences are beneath them.

I know so many good and decent people who refuse such a world and reality where impunity is enjoyed by the war criminals. Rather we fight for a world where human rights for all is defended without exception. Where our obligations to international law and the global community actually means something.

[Craig Murray @CraigMurrayOrg]

According to the Gospels of both Matthew and Mark, Jesus himself visited Tyre. The Christian community there is certainly 2000 years old.

Israel has been killing Tyre Christians for a month.

There is a shrine and church in the hills where locals believe his mother Mary waited for him while he was in Tyre and Sidon.

I visited with Laith Marouf and we interviewed the priest who strongly supported resistance to Israeli occupation.

[Kristiana Bruneau @GumptionAndCo]

Does that include Canadians that volunteer to go and commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes while serving in the IOF?

What about Canadians that violate international law when they buy real estate on stolen and illegally occupied land?

What about Canadian companies that violate international law by selling weapons to a state committing plausible genocide, violating Canada's responsibility to the Rome Statute in not heeding the advice the International Court of Justice.

What about the Canadians, including you, that support an ideology that is no different than Nazism: a belief in ethnic supremacy and righteousness to dehumanize, erase, to steal, to torture and to rape, to ethnically cleanse, to terrorize, occupy, colonize, to genocide and to commit Apartheid?

What if that 'hatred' is already here and YOU are actively enabling it by saying and doing absolutely nothing about it. In fact the opposite; you coddle and protect the feelings of the community that support and participate in it every day.... right HERE in Canada?

YOU are an agent of that hate you speak of, @MarkJCarney. YOU.
@liberal_party @CanadianPM @MarcMillerVM

[nameless @deadtired9999]

No one voted on or for this, yet it’s forming a core part of political and economic policy for the country.

[Yuen Pau Woo @yuenpauwoo]

My motion calling on Canada to examine its risk of complicity in grave violations of international law in Gaza was defeated 40-12.

Here is the exchange that preceded the vote:

[Alex Cosh @AlexCosh_]

A Canadian Sumud Flotilla participant explains that on April 29-30, Israeli forces fired a shot between 2 crew members, held and searched them at gunpoint, and then destroyed the boat's engine and communication systems before setting them on course towards a storm.

"Please let me be clear. The intentions of the Israeli military was to kill us and the crews of two other boats."

[Jason Toney @jasontoney_]

CBC keeps citing B'nai Brith's annual audit of antisemitism, saying that the "Jewish advocacy group" documents "anti-Jewish hate."

In reality, B'nai Brith is a pro-Israel group that conflates antisemitism & anti-Zionism. I complained—@CBCNews editors refuse to make a change.

[Nico Lagan @RealNicoLagan]

Bill C-9 = Defines what you can and cannot say, the consequences of hurting people’s feelings

Bill C-22 = Provides the government with the proof (metadata) they need to go after you for hate-speech.

Bill C-8 = Gives the power to our government to cut you off the internet and prohibit Internet Service Providers from selling you services.

Unlike what they want you to believe, these bills are not separate, they are interconnected.

The government wants to put in place the legal framework to spy on us and use AI to keep us in check.

This is not about safety; this is about crushing dissent.