Tiananmen Square - June 1989
By Gordonskene Thursday Jun 04, 2009 3:00pmYou can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!
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( . . and then the screens went dark.)
The final few days of the Democracy movement in Tiananamen Square. After seven weeks, it ended quickly with a death toll still disputed but varying from 300 to 20,000. The crackdown came, the organizers and sympathizers were located, rounded up and imprisoned or executed and China tried desperately to pretend it never happened and hoped everyone would forget.
Twenty years later, they're still trying.
A postscript: Right after publishing this entry I got a note from John Amato pointing me in the direction of a Chinese-American guest blogger who covered for her students after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. I urge you to check it out. G.S.
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This is such a huge issue for China, becoming a democracy. People will never forget the lives that were lost in a human rights struggle for the ages.
you mean "people can't remember"
This is America, 50 years of dumbing down is very effective.
I bet 80% of Americans couldn't find China on a map!
So far, so good for the communists since then. They've only gained support from us Americans, who buy loads and loads of Chinese crap like it's going out of style.
Sadly, only to tighten the hand around the throats of those that would speak out, those that wanted freedom. What did it change? China's government is the biggest problem in the entire world, the biggest threat to mankind with its pollution and total disregard for human life. You would think that a people so ancient would be... I don't know, different some how. Don't tell me it's the government and not the people cause when you got 1.3 or 4 billion people you certainly can stand up to the government. The sad little rebellion changed nothing. Even today the government turned away real news media. It changed absolutely nothing but the lost lives.
I abhor the rest of the world for standing idly by as time has passed and letting this lumbering giant roll over whenever it wanted. We will all pay the price for the global indifference towards this devourer of all resources and freedoms.
We worry about Iran, North Korea, fanatics and extremists, and we take our eyes of the true threat to mankind's future. (off my soap box)
Afghanistan and the hundreds of military bases around the globe that it secured by force. They're an absolute menace.
Good job Lazy!!!
China can't be that bad can it? Thousands of American corporations apparently think its a nice safe (corporate friendly) place to set up factories.
(snark)
and is president of there chamber of commerce
And everyone reading this blog has a house FULL of Chinese products.
I buy as much as I can from yard sales and thrift stores...old stuff
that says made in USA on it. I wear Carhartt clothing that is
UNION MADE here in the states. This site promotes boycotting FOX.
I have been boycotting China since 2003!
hadn't put down the protests, they would have had to give human rights and wouldn't have been able to use slave labor to produce all of those products and their economy wouldn't have grown as much.
I think it is physically impossible to boycott China. (I betcha) I could find something made in China in your house.
(smiles) I have pretty much boycotted Exxon since the Valdez incident. although I can't say that for China though.
Maybe one fine day I will be able to say I boycott China...maybe when the corporations move back (not)...or when I go on a permanent camping trip.
republicans like cottingboys.
they are so patriot
I was getting some Chinese lunch when I heard about it.
Once, I got some Japanese lunch. (they helped me out and I wanted to return the favor)
And they will replace us as the worlds greatest superpower, with our blessing and assistance, of course.
Someday freedom may become more integral to Chinese society, but only if necessity or profitability forces the issue, otherwise it will be repressed in a communist empire that cares little of what the world thinks of it.
is almost as ridiculous as the men with umbrellas.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/0...
I ask my 7th graders every year on 5/4 "what is today the _#______ Anniversary of?" No clue.
Duh!
Nice job, Moms and Dads.
Ignorance truly is bliss.
Hey, what is that tank doing rolling down my street?
I was a teenager when this happened and I will never forget. I will never forget the lone man standing up to a line of tanks and I will never forget that without media coverage we will never know the true cost to the Chinese people that day.
What it shows me more then anything is that when you have no honest media coverage then you can have no true accountibility and no true justice in the world. This, more then anything, is why we need to fix Americas 4th estate. Our media today barely qualifies for that title. And we as the American people are responsible for allowing it to happen.
...was the large "anti-corruption" element within the protest.
A Chinese friend, who was at Tienamen Square but left before the attack, told me a lot of folks were pissed off more at rampant official self-dealing than anything else.
that is left out of almost all reporting. I've listened to the various reports and commentary about this over the last few days, and there are a lot of missed points. One is that while the protesters aims were honorable, they made a huge mistake, and that was making the Chinese leaders lose face, one particularly major instance being in front of the Soviet Union when Gorbachev visited during the protest. Ironically, this ignorance or flouting of tradition was probably in part due to changes that came with the Communists' gaining power in 49.
While that may not seem reason enough, it's because the power structure is very different there. If you embarrass a person in power, he may kill you for it if he can. A sad truth and not one likely to change any time soon.
And everyone reading this blog has a house FULL of Chinese products.
"I buy as much as I can from yard sales and thrift stores...old stuff
that says made in USA on it. I wear Carhartt clothing that is
UNION MADE here in the states. This site promotes boycotting FOX.
I have been boycotting China since 2003!"
AS SHOULD WE ALL, Leadership, AS SHOULD WE ALL.
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