Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

OK, so to take just one example, say 50 or so Tiananmens died in the latest US appalling invasion/massacre of Iraq. So that was 50x as horrible and unforgiveable, and should 'forever be held against the USA' in the same essentially horrified way? Something comparable happened every few years of the last century. I get the feeling most people reading this will hold more against me for saying this, than against the US for its countless slaughtered 10,000s. Well, I guess it horrifies Americans because they empathetically imagine the US government not killing brown people in other countries by the million, but its own people, and that is scary.

I don’t disagree with you, but I think the fundamental difference here is that American invasions are a) acknowledged b) considered fairly negatively by virtually everyone, even by those who initially supported them. It is a publically discussed issue with multiple acceptable opinions which range from “expensive quagmire” to “massive human rights violation.”

Tiannamen Square, conversely, was covered up, erased from history and is essentially unknown or uncared about by the majority of the Chinese population.

Right. And the reason we keep historical events like these in mind is so that we learn lessons from them, understand clearly that they are wrong, so that we don't reproduce the political and intellectual climates that allowed them to happen.

> It is a publically discussed issue with multiple acceptable opinions which range from “expensive quagmire” to “massive human rights violation.”

It is publicly discussed, but it is also drowned in a flood of other information.

> should 'forever be held against the USA' in the same essentially horrified way?

Yes! Of course. Do you think those of us who think Tiananmen Square was an atrocity that should not have been forgotten are waving away slavery or the current American prison system as forgiveable?

We’re not. America’s sins are many and we are squaring up to those too.

I have a hard time believing all of you posting this are actual HN readers and not paid political operatives. I don’t know how anyone could read this board and think none of us are criticizing the U.S.

The crimes of all nations will be laid bare to history. No one will be spared. There guilty will pay and then history will move on. Not before.

> I have a hard time believing all of you posting this are actual HN readers and not paid political operatives.

I think there's a HN guideline about assuming good faith.

Not sure what to say to that. I don't know who 'all of you posting this' means. Me? and who? People write stuff you disagree with, so you find it hard to believe they actually think that?

Again, you just mention US internal matters. That wasn't what I was talking about. The US has done its repressing/slaughtering all over the world, at least the last 120 years, not mainly internally, so that's why I talk about that. Americans it seems, as in your comment, prefer ignoring the foreign policy slaughters/bullying/destruction. Well, imagine 9/11 x100 or x1000.

No idea what your last paragraph means. Sounds kind of biblical or something. There's no reason to believe the world has, done or will work like that.

(Edit) Oh, and I forgot to mention - that 'expensive quagmire' is 'acceptable opinion' seems to me obscene. As if the main problem with (among other things) mass slaughter and killing children with uranium bullets that remain and cause birth defects, is how much money it cost! And it seems a lot of Americans think 58,000 people died in Vietnam; that's the main figure for Vietnam War deaths I see in US media.

I am aware of the policy. I didn’t accuse you, I said your comment, and the volume of comments like it made it difficult for me to assume good faith. Which is true. I had to rewrite my comment to leave open the possibility you were being earnest.

I can list horrible things the US has done abroad... regime change in Central America, torture and destruction in Vietnam, thousands of drone killings up to the present day. The U.S. has done things at least as horrible as Tiananmen at home and abroad.

These things are openly discussed in this country every day. They are openly discussed on HN. I resent your accusation that I am ignoring them.

To expand my comment on history: due to the massive amount of data and metadata and metemetata being recorded, there is a class of open evil which will inevitably enter the public record. Maybe not this decade, maybe not next decade, but the information wants to be free. For a certain class of events which are both evil enough and open enough, they will be inevitably exposed.