TheAgitator.com
20 Years
Thursday, June 4th, 2009
It was 20 years ago today that the Chinese government killed 2,000 to 3,000 of its own citizens for the crime of demanding their own liberty. This iconic photo is about all that’s left of them.
George Orwell said, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” He’s all too right. Last century, an estimated 262 million people were murdered by their own government . That doesn’t include the hundreds of millions more killed by opposing governments during war.
Today ought to be a day to celebrate and promote human liberty, and to remember the abuses governments have heaped upon their subjects over the centuries.
So go find your own metaphor for the government tank pictured above.
Then put yourself in front of it.
Watched it on TV when it happened. The bravery shown was amazing.
Couldn’t help but feel that they almost pulled it off. There was genuine fear in the Chinese govt.
Pretty soon it will be the Chinese Repo men comming to take the White House.
How times change.
Well said, sir.
I watched it happen, as well, but Pelosi’s self-righteous rant doesn’t stand up to Ron Paul’s honest remarks. http://tinyurl.com/olvvyx
All you would have Todd, is a dead repo man. It doesn’t work that way.
Good ole Ron Paul. Always right on the money.
A few simple questions. How many Chinese have seen this video? How many even know that this happened and what it was about? Several of the companies that I have worked for have branch offices in China and I have had the opportunity to get to know a fair number of Chinese citizens. This subject has come up several times and with the exception of 3 or 4 people, none of them have the slightest idea of what we are talking about.
The man in front of the tank has been made out to be a hero, in my opinion he was stupid. What if there wasn’t a camera around to record his actions? What would he have accomplished? 99% of the people in his country have no idea that this even happened.
PBS.org has an exceptional Frontline documentary about this called The Tank Man that is viewable on line.
The Tank Man photo is a picture so stunning that the entire world is familiar with it, and yet, when they show it to college students in the China of today, they are completely baffled, having never seen the picture before.
The documentary attributes much of China’s shift to capitalism to the Tiananmen Square uprising and the fall of the Soviet Union. Basically, their contention is that China opened the door to economic prosperity and closed the door to politics.
Land of the Free.
Jim –
Stupid, maybe. But sometimes you just get sick of running away.
There’s been somewhat on NPR, and what stood out for me was that the demonstrators in Tianneman sqiare were shocked that their government would shoot at them with real bullets.
I think the attitude over here is closer to “What did they expect? It was a Communist dictatorship!”, but I wonder if the surprise at the time reflects that the usual practice had become less violent.
Pardon the cyncism, but when I looking at the majority of the people who make up this country and how happy they are to use the government to force their views on others or to rob their neighbors, I have to ask: are they really worth standing in front of a tank for?
I used a Radiohead lyric from “Paranoid Android” as a subtitle for this picture. It is fitting, I think:
“”When I am king, you will be first against the wall
with your opinion which is of no consequence at all”
“So go find your own metaphor for the government tank pictured above.
Then put yourself in front of it.”
I would do exactly that if I weren’t such a pussy.
If you want any support, you had better pick something that everyone else also views as the government tank. Otherwise, the first people to condemn you won’t be the government, but ordinary citizens.
In the U.S., people don’t feel oppressed by the government. They think we have too much freedom here. Most people fear large capitalist corporations far more than government.
The Chinese didn’t have any large capitalist corporations back in 1989 so the people blamed government for everything. So what did China do? They opened the doors to capitalism so there would soon be large corporations. The government feels much safer now that they can deflect criticism and blame all the country’s hardships on capitalism.
I printed that picture and posted it in my office. Everyone who sees it knows what it refers to and are a bit saddened by it. I may just keep it up for a long while.
This pic floats around the internet in one of those black photoshop frames with the caption “BADASS When you are one, you just know”. If anyone wants a copy…
http://motivatedphotos.com/?id=3437
#7: CBC Radio has been featuring several really interesting interviews with people from mainland China and from Hong Kong in the past few days. People in Hong Kong are much more aware of the massacre and regularly commemorate it, while people on the mainland – especially those who are too young to remember 1989 – have never been told about it, or if they have, have heard of it only in terms that are favourable to the government.
I also printed the picture to take home and show my kids. When I was in seventh grade (about 30 years ago) my teacher showed us a painting of two kids throwing rocks at a tank and said, “This is what happens when the government does not let citizens have guns. It could happen here.” Thirty years letter I remember that, but have never been able to find that picture (not the photo of the Palestinian boy throwing rocks at the Israelis). This Tank Man photo comes close to what I am looking for.
To whoever down clicked me, fuck you. Maybe you should read what Ron Paul said…
“I wonder how the US government would respond if China demanded that the United Nations conduct a full and independent investigation into the treatment of detainees at the US-operated Guantanamo facility?”
Once again, this is the pot calling the stir fry pan black. What the Chinese gov’t did to it’s citizens is awful. But it’s not chinese tanks that are going to run us over, it’ll be armored SWAT team vehicles. How’s that for a metaphor.
[...] the twentieth anniversary: George Orwell said, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human [...]
I remember watching this 20 years ago. You have to watch the video. The tanks try to go around him and he moves in front of them again and again. This is one of the bravest acts I have ever seen.
#7 | Jim Collins — “The man in front of the tank has been made out to be a hero, in my opinion he was stupid.”
There’s only one opinion that matters — one’s own.
Great photo. I have a framed version of it in my bedroom. Who among us would have such courage?
I am fairly optimistic about China’s long-term future. It’s the getting there that could be messy…
??…
The arc of the moral universe is long, but we can bend it toward justice.
……
Jim Collins. Funny you should ask that. My fiance is Chinese and said that at the time the Chinese government spread the image far and wide to show how benevolent they are. See, if they were not benevolent and did nt care about their people, they just would have run him over. And the people have been conditioned well enough that they believe it.
I’ve thought this absolutely incredible since she told me. That there could be two so completely opposite meanings taken from such and extraordinary photo.
#19
That would have been me. Moral relativism is the argument of a weak mind. Let me remind you and ron we have 5 known chinese terrorists we cannot release from Guantanamo back to China for fear of what will happen to them when they get there. You and ron can take your relativism and shove it.
Cynical in CA
I agree with you about opinions.
I just have to wonder, what did HE think that he was trying to accomplish?
Zach.
Spin at it’s finest.
I wonder what would have happened if there was no cameras there to record it? The people giving the tanks their orders knew that it was being recorded and that it would get out of China. You know as well as I do, if there was no camera, that guy would be nothing more than a smear on the pavement.
Note to self: Don’t have Jim Collins watching my back.
“we have 5 known chinese terrorists we cannot release from Guantanamo back to China for fear of what will happen to them when they get there.”
Are you referring to the Uighurs? They are not terrorists, but actually freedom fighters battling Chinese tyranny for their own homeland. Oh darn, there’s that nasty opinion thing rearing its ugly head again. I guess I was wrong — the only opinion that matters is the one backed by the greater force.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_captives_in_Guantanamo
“But it’s not chinese tanks that are going to run us over, it’ll be armored SWAT team vehicles. How’s that for a metaphor.”
@Mattocracy
Except it is highly unlikely SWAT teams will ever do such a thing, and Tiananmen has already been done.
When SWAT teams run over a Tea Party, get back to me.
Guantanamo is populated by very evil people, their indefinite internment is likely no injustice. Tiananmen was nothing but injustice.
Since you can’t tell the difference, you deserve downclicks.
You remind me the restatement of the obvious has sadly become a duty.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp
#30
Call em what you want but the fact is we cannot release them to china from guantanamo. I would never classify any al-queda trained muslim as a “freedom” anything btw.
“I just have to wonder, what did HE think that he was trying to accomplish?”
You’d have to ask him, Jim. I would be interested in knowing too.
I’ve never understood martyrdom, but in studying the photo, I think that is a reasonable conclusion as to his motives.
Everyone dies. Some deaths are meaningless and passive (dying peacefully in one’s sleep), some deaths are meaningful and active (falling on a grenade, saving someone from a burning building). Perhaps Tank Man was resolved to what he believed to be a meaningful, active death?
Whatever the case, scale and scope play a key role in perception. Pull the camera back far enough and Earth becomes an invisible, meaningless speck in the cosmos. Zoom in too close and you’re overwhelmed by what you’re looking at. In Tank Man’s case, focusing on the individual could be the proper scale, rather than pulling the camera back and trying to make sense of a microscopic human’s actions against a vast political machine.
Did Tank Man accomplish anything? Probably not what he set out to accomplish, but I think he did. An immortal photograph, useful propaganda, a conversation piece, perhaps even a thin veil shielding the flickering flame of freedom from the cold gusting gale of tyranny.
From what I’ve read about the incident there were quite a few Chinese protesters who wound up nothing more than smears on pavement, and the official death totals are hugely underestimated.
Tankers have a word for civilians: “Squishies” – I’m sure Chinese Tankers are familiar with that. The Chinese Government also claimed that protesters were shot because they had been killing people – in a police State where personal arms are outlawed, with what, swords?
Wow definitely check out the CNN (attempted) video. Plainclothes officers are hilarious:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/06/03/vause.chang.tiananmen.anniv.cnn
Let’s see:
Murders by the US government through unconstitutional wars
- 58,000 murdered by the US government during the 60s and 70s
- over 600,000 murdered by the US government 1860s
- 36000+ murdered by US government in early 1950s
- 4300 and counting murdered by US government after 2001
- approx 120,000 murdered by US government 1917-8
There are more but these are a good start.
“Are you referring to the Uighurs? They are not terrorists, but actually freedom fighters battling Chinese tyranny for their own homeland.”
sure. . . if you believe the Uighur homeland is in Afghanistan, and Afghanistan was full of PLA soldiers. Any evidence, other than their own self-serving words after they were captured, that they ever lifted a finger to fight the Chinese occupiers?
While they dispute that they were fighting the USA, they were in Afghanistan and receiving training from the Taliban and al Qaeda. Wrong time, wrong place to be in bed with our enemies. Tough luck for them, they saddled the wrong horse.
#33
Not sure who to give credit to this quote but it popped in my head when I read your post:
“Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees”
fwb – you don’t have a clue what “constitutional” means.
here’s a hint to get you started: The constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war, but it does not require a declaration of war. The founders themsleves – who wrote the Constitution and know it better than us – fought undeclared wars from the very beginnings of the nation: the Northwest Indian War under the presidency of George Washington, the Quasi War with France under the presidency of John Adams, and the First Barbary War under Thomas Jefferson. All funded and supported by the Congress with no formal declaration of war.
@#27 | Tokin42 |
Moral relativism is the argument of a weak mind.
Oh, it’s the moral relativism argument. Weak minds and all that. It’s like you read a Rand book, saw “moral relativism” and think you can just toss it up whenever someone says something you can’t agree with. Forgive my rolling eyes.
Whatever. Calling someone weak-minded is a nice skirt away from the argument. Shouting “moral relativism” in this context shows you aren’t reading between the lines.
Mattocracy is not saying “it’s ok because the Chineese can do what they want to its own citizens.” He means “why should we support our oppressive, violent, and amoral government in their condemnation of oppression, violence, and amoral governments?”
What if the general running Guantanamo came on TV and said “the Chinese have secret prisons where they hold prisoners without trial and that’s wrong!” Does that make any sense? Is is morally relativistic to say “I agree, but you can shove it because you are a huge damn hippocrate!”
Mattocracy is actively rejecting the moral relativism supported by those who want OUR government to tell everyone else how to act while their house is not clean in any way.
You too are a moral relativist, otherwise, you would be fighting in the streets against ANY oppression, here and abroad.
I think more Chinese people know about this than it may look like. Chinese people are used to the government monitoring every thing they do. They’re not likely to talk about sensitive topics (like Tiananmen) to foreigners.
I think I can put that last comment more succinctly:
Pelosi is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is the problem with her statements.
Omar,
I tried to stay out of this thread because…well, I’m not a “L”-iberterian and I don’t agree with the idea that our moral obligation to those willing to die for their freedoms is to sit on the sidelines and cheer em on. I’ve been more than vocal about that here and didn’t want to continually climb on my high horse about it.
Now, here I was called out and I was responding directly to Ron Pauls statement which boiled down to “take the beam out of our eye before we worry about the splinter in theirs” which is absolutely moral relativism. Anyone, including ron paul, who tries to compare our actions to those of a totalitarian dictatorship willing to run down their own people with tanks is making an ignorant argument and needs to be told so. Just because we may not always agree that what our nation does is “right” doesn’t change the fact that we should be able to discern that running over students with a tank in order to remain in power is wrong and should be roundly criticized.
@#31 Tom Perkins Except it is highly unlikely SWAT teams will ever do such a thing, and Tiananmen has already been done.
When SWAT teams run over a Tea Party, get back to me.
http://sagamorejournal.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/branch_davidian_compound_with_tanks.jpg
They drove tanks over women and children with tanks. If you can stomach it, the following is an autopsy picture from that carnage:
http://www.wizardsofaz.com/waco/bentcorpse.jpg
@#35 fwb
You need to have a better definition. It looks like you’re just counting US military deaths during a war, and not applying any sort of judgment on who killed these people. If a guy volunteered to fight in Vietnam, for example, and a Viet Cong sniper shot him, why put that in the “murdered by US government” column? Shouldn’t that be “killed by VC in combat” column? What about the civilian victims at My Lai?
Go read this for a better evaluation of government killing people:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide
@#37 omar
Could you let Mattocracy explain what he meant, rather than presuming to speak for him?
@#37 omar You too are a moral relativist, otherwise, you would be fighting in the streets against ANY oppression, here and abroad.
Please explain. That makes no sense. I suspect you don’t understand what “moral relativism” means, considering what you write about it.
No one has an obligation to solve other people’s problems. I’m disgusted by how the Chinese treat their citizens, and also disgusted by how a man down the street beats his wife. So long as I don’t help the victimizers, my lack of action for them has no bearing on my own situations. Consequently, I don’t demand that those people help me solve my problems.
Furthermore, the fact that you don’t “fight in the streets” against oppression doesn’t mean you’ve given any sort of moral approval. A woman confronted by a rapist with a gun doesn’t have to fight him physically and risk being shot to demonstrate that she does not consent. Being physically coerced negates any semblance of consent.
The government always backs up its demands with deadly force, even if all you see now is a paper citation. Eventually, if you don’t give in, they will kill you.
Tokin,
If you really think that our actions that violate human rights are not in the same realm as other countries that have violated other people’s basic human rights, that kind of double standard is the worst kind of ignorance there is. Seriosly, you just need to be fucking told so.
Our government might not run over government protestors with tanks, be we shot a bunch of them at Kent State.
Our government may not call Tibetans a bunch of terrorist, but supporters of Ron Paul, Baldwin, and Bob Barr are.
Our government didn’t exile the Dhali Lama from his homeland, but we kidnapped a bunch of Arabs because we thought they were terrorists with almost no evidence of it for most of them.
If you really think the USA is on some kind of moral high ground, I guess you and Tom Perkins are so deep in your own bullshit you can’t even see it for what it is. It pisses me off that so many people make excuses. It’s that mind set that encourages our politicians to keep doing the bad things that they do. No matter what, people like Tom and Tokin will forgive and make excuses because they don’t want to admit that the good ole’ usa is not the shining city on a hill that it once was.
I don’t want to sound like a Michael Moore America basher. Am not. I love everything that America used to stand for. Life, Liberty, Individualism. Those values have been corrupted. There was a time when the US Gov’t had the moral high ground compared to the PRC and the like. But in post W. America, we need to make amends for a while before we get that status back. The Tiananmen Anniversary should make our politicians reflect on their own past behavior. But they have failed to do that, and their cries of indignation are hollow.
I was at home watching it as well. One of those days where I didn’t feel like going to school, probably. But it left an indelible mark and as horrible as the event was, I am glad I witnessed it. I have seen the extent to which a government will go to control its citizenry. It’s why I am such a radical and why civil liberties are of the utmost importance to me.
Not one single dime to or even my hand set to a signature for the IRS since 1977.
Know what? It’s been a long time since I thought about the prospect of summary arrest. I used to live with that all the time.
It’s that I haven’t been productive enough for them to bother with, you see. Ruined my career behind it.
Lived a whole grown-up life in front of it, Radley.
@#42 | Steve |
Please explain. That makes no sense. I suspect you don’t understand what “moral relativism” means, considering what you write about it.
You are correct – that last line didn’t make sense. That was the incorrect use of the term, and I took my argument too far out of what I was talking about and it weakens the rest of the argument. Damn furious hands!
Again my bad. I should have said “What I read from what Mattocracy wrote” and not “what he’s saying”. Again, furious hands. I have no problem with you calling me out on these things; I surely wouldn’t hesitate to do the same.
But I think the rest of my post stands on its own. It’s not moral relativism to throw verbal rotten vegetables at someone, even if you agree with them on this one issue, if they are spewing hypocrisy.
An analogy if you will…Do you endorse crimes when you call the police criminals, even if the non-state criminals commit more crimes?
@Tokin42
Just because we may not always agree that what our nation does is “right” doesn’t change the fact that we should be able to discern that running over students with a tank in order to remain in power is wrong and should be roundly criticized.
True. I do discern. But please don’t confuse “we” with congress. I criticize. You criticize. You and I aren’t in the oppression business. In this case, They are hypocrites who deserve ridicule along with every other state who would stand up and say “shame shame shame.” I’m sure not gonna’ take Those People seriously on this issue. If the Russian government condemned Tienamin Square, we would laugh at them for obvious hypocrisy. There are a lot of people laughing at Us right now.
#47 | Steve — “The government always backs up its demands with deadly force, even if all you see now is a paper citation. Eventually, if you don’t give in, they will kill you.”
Amen. Can’t resist a shout-out to Mike Gogulski, coiner of the phrase, “The penalty is always death.”
http://www.nostate.com/116/the-penalty-is-always-death/
This is the very essence of the State. Champions of government, even “limited,” should always be aware of what they are defending.
Not too sure what you mean Steve. I have never let anyone down ………yet. I’d be interested in a further explaination of your statement.
Wayne. I think your picture was taken in Hungary in the early 60′s. Was it a tank or a BTR?
fwb. Those are small numbers compared to the number of their own citizens killed by the USSR and China in the 20th century.
Jim Collins,
I don’t know if it was a tank or a BTR, but I’m pretty sure it was a painting. Will keep looking,
thanks,
#48 mattocracy,
Let me see if I’ve got this right…A panicky, poorly trained reservist at kent state is the same thing as running over dissidents with tanks and what we’ve done in Guantanamo is just as bad as what happens to members of the falun gong in china. Am I getting your argument correct?
You are free to spout whatever hatred and anger you have for your elected officials while those in china have to be very careful about what they say for fear of “disappearing” but our government is just as bad, right?
No system is blemish free but ignoring intent and the historical evidence of all the good this nation has done and tried to do is arguing from a disingenuous position. Again, if you and Ron cannot agree that running over students with tanks is wrong and should be criticized, who exactly are the ones with the blinders on? What more, exactly, does another nation have to do before we can all agree it should be criticized?
[...] Radley Balko No TweetBacks yet. (Be the first to Tweet this post)SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Never forget: Tiananmen Square”, url: “http://fr33agents.com/never-forget-tiananmen-square/” }); ← Agorist Class Theory Now in Audio! — Tom [...]
A difference in degree, not a difference in kind. Just because our government hasn’t yet got the top score for number of people directly and intentionally murdered doesn’t give it some kind of moral high ground.
#58
You’re right, and since we all agree we should go ahead and toss intent out the window when dealing with our own local criminals. Theft is theft, and killing is murder, and speeding is a crime so lets treat moving violations like robbery, all the same right?
You and Matt have finally convinced me. In that vein maybe Radley, as a known agitator, should go into hiding and you and matt should march yourselves down to your local PD and turn yourselves in for your anti-government speech. You can send me a post card from one of the many re-education camps our government runs. Why should you have the right to criticize when the chinese don’t, it’s all the same.
If you want any support, you had better pick something that everyone else also views as the government tank. Otherwise, the first people to condemn you won’t be the government, but ordinary citizens.
Funny you should say that, DaveKrueger…. for recently I’ve really gained an appreciation for a really nasty truth: that the tank I’m going to be placing myself in front of these coming years, is the ideological mainstream, whose ignorance of the true nature of liberty is damn near monolithic.
@#58 Zargon A difference in degree, not a difference in kind.
Actually, the Chinese had days of planning the Tiananmen massacre, a premeditated slaughter ordered from the top. Kent State was categorically different, in that respect.
I’d compare Tiananmen to Waco. The tanks had the same purpose in both cases.
Jim Collins should read; “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” by Vladimir Bukovsky if he wants to understand how significant and important the gesture of the “Tank Man” is.
I remember watching the protests back when I was a teenager. one of the things that went through my mind was that if every one of those protesters had a rifle it wouldn’t have been as easy to slaughter them wholesale. At least they would have had a fighting chance. Instead of standing in front a tank they could have been offing troops, storming government offices, commandeering government vehicles, seizing armories and such. Sure beats standing around getting slaughtered and run over by tanks.
[...] “So go find your own metaphor for the government tank pictured above. [...]
One point thathas to be made is that the protests started when university graduates with high test scores were not given jobs they had earned, and in their places the sons and daughters of Communist Party members were getting the plum positions. This Communist corruption was at the heart of the protests and has never been resolved.
Mikee that doesn’t seem to be the case. It seemed to stem from violence between African students and Chinese students. The Chinese students were apparently pissed about the government failing to punish some African students who assaulted some Chinese students.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/29/world/nanjing-students-vow-nightly-protests.html
[...] Radley Balko requested last year, “So go find your own metaphor for the government tank pictured [...]
[...] tip to Radley Balko for commemorating the 20th anniversary of the above iconic image. Tagged as: evil, The Greatest Killer Leave a [...]