sky

18 🏳️‍⚧️ ⚢
quizbowl, cubing, nerd, leftist
eng/中文/fra

[sky @skysomorphic]

goodbye dorm

[LakeShowYo @LakeShowYo]

Knicks fans are insane 😭😭😭

“My Mayor is Muslim, my bagel is Jewish, my Christian’s Dior… Knicks in 4!!!”

[ＷＩＤＥ ＭＯＯＮＧＬＵＭ @Xintract2]

@clrcusclrcus Reminds me of my portal 2 reviews

[sky @skysomorphic]

@MelxRedgrave https://t.co/zJpF76y24S

[NYC DOT @NYC_DOT]

don’t make us take this down, bro

[sky @skysomorphic]

great post. 六四 aside, i strongly agree with her last paragraph that chinese censorship is often just unproductive and bad for everyone. if the prc wasn’t as strict about it, there wouldn’t be such a blank slate for western commentators to project whatever they wish on to

[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

[sky @skysomorphic]

@Zametovka hello hi hello hallo hi

[sky @skysomorphic]

@venipher i notice one extra new thing every time this comes up on my feed

[sky @skysomorphic]

@geovenera bro why didnt my parents test me for autism like way earlier how the fuck did it take myself to do it

[sky @skysomorphic]

lowkey need that poster tho

[History_of_Geology @Geology_History]

🌈⚒️
(unfortunately I have no idea who originally came up with this meme)

[sky @skysomorphic]

@geovenera when i was a samll child i used to be OBSESSED with the geologic time scale like i could recite that shit from memory

[aria the ninth @An_Aria_Blooms]

This is the only proper response as a c*s woman to someone thinking you're a trans woman btw.

[sky @skysomorphic]

@geovenera ???

[sky @skysomorphic]

@narsata they really just hire anybody

[sky @skysomorphic]

@3n7rpy and then what if we had them drive on rails instead of ground to keep them stable and straight, and then have them drive on dedicated tracks to avoid other traffic 🤔🤔🤔

[Athena ⚢ @DeliciousAthena]

👇

[Aquamareene 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️ @kashei__]

COULD A MORON PUNCH. YOU. INTO. THIS. TOILET?

[sky @skysomorphic]

remember the time there was a bull running around newark penn station

[dubsea @dubseatv]

How does this even happen⁉️😭

A woman somehow drove her car onto Seattle’s elevated light rail tracks at Mount Baker Station on Wednesday evening, bringing train service to a halt. 😳🚆

Witnesses say the driver told people she was “following GPS” after ending up on the tracks and driving a significant distance before getting stuck. The vehicle had to be removed from the guideway, causing major delays for riders across the 1 Line. #DUBSEA

[sky @skysomorphic]

@Zametovka

[sky @skysomorphic]

@Zametovka hallo