posted Friday, 2 June 2006 “4 June 1989 “ is a date that must never be forgotten. It is the day that the Government of the People's Republic of China ordered armed soldiers to march against peaceful protesters, leaving hundreds, possibly thousands, dead, in one of the most infamous events of modern times. The Tiananmen Square Massacre. (The Boston Massacre was **ONLY**8 killed?) For your education and viewing pleasure, a brief video explaining the events that lead to the massacre, and depicting the horror that unfolded as the tanks rolled in, in a way that is still forbidden in Mainland China. Be sure to have your speakers turned up “good and loud“ for the finale. :: http://southern43.blog-city.com,http://a 4. amy left... I remember it was head-line news here in Australia. At the time my eldest son was in Hospital with head injuries. He recovered, your vidio bings back the horrors that could happen else where when the young rebel against the rulers, whether you regard as just or unjust. Might is right, when they can use guns. Ordinary Australian Citizens are disarmed..we are a meek lot...barely a protest & there is plenty to protest about, we just don't discuss it with with outsiders. :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com The Angry Chinese Blogger left... My worry is that by the time people can talk about it freely in China, there will be no living survivers left to tell their stories, and people will just see it in the same way that they see the great masacres of centuries ago. Thursday, 8 June 2006 1:24 am :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com In my experience, if you let attrocities lie, and those who comitted them go unpunished, you tend to repeate them. Just look at what is happening with the rural land riots. Each time, Beijing just sends the troops in. It might not exactly be mass murder, but it's a smaller version of the same thing. If officials knew that they would be held accountable, then they might be more willing to settle things amicably. 13. Newshound left... I just meant that it's difficult to "make people accountable" for things like this without some sort of revolution. Even in democracies, the supposed haven for freedom and accountability, the bad guys (the rich ones anyway) pretty much get away with everything. There have been bloodless revolutions. But I think there are too many different groups in China, all of which will be fighting for a piece of the national pie, for a revolution to ever be bloodless. And just because of the density of the population, if there was a revolt, it might be catastrophic. 16. Newshound left... Thursday, 8 June 2006 7:18 pm If China cracks down on what? The democratic movement? The influx of western culture? Any way you look at it, if China (meaning the government) cracks down any more, there won't be much of a China left. There are too many angry people, and eventually, they'll be able to band together. If the PRC government wants to remain communist, they're going to have to allow freedom of speech and communication. If they do, a lot of the rumblings will die down, because all people really want is to work, eat, and be able to have fun once in a while. Once the news of the atrocities comes out, if they punish the people responsible, that also will blow over. If they continue on this route, I believe that revolution is inevitable, and that is upsetting. er, right.... Actual I just meant cracking down on corruption. Much of the unrest in China right now is over illegal land seizures where corrupt officials have confiscated farm land for industrial development in exchange for money, or where corrupt officials have taken money to ignore pollution that is destroying farm land and waterways. If Beijing were ot crack down on these corrupt officials, it would end a lot of the protests. Give farmers their livelyhood back today, worry about democracy tommorow. http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com World history says otherwise. Democracy is just another way of ruling the people. A dictator can maintain a tight ship and ensure those under him are held accountable, just as well as a democratically elected leader can. Hong kong was never a democracy (it had leader who was apointed by the British Empire), but it has a strong legal system that kept corruption down and public accoutability up. If the Governer of Hong Kong was found taking a bribe, he'd go to jail. Equally, Italy's outgoing leader was so corrupt that he practically offered himself bribes. He even brougt in laws granting himself imunity from prosecution because he was the leader. 21. e left... Thursday, 8 June 2006 10:06 pm Democracy is not just another way. Democracy and freedom are basic human rights and, at the same time, the only way to ensure leaders accountability (real accountability). Even if a dictator could ensure those under him are held accountable it wouldn't be possible to make the dictator accountable (as Tiananmen perfectly shows). More, in a dictatorship potential accountability will always be arbitrary, due to the absence of rule of law. Even if what you say about Italy were right, remember that prime minister was voted out. Democracy, you know. 22. Newshound left... Thursday, 8 June 2006 10:16 pm E, I disagree. Dictatorships can have lots of law, as long as the dictators themselves are also held accountable. Democracy is okay, sure. But under the guise of "the will of the people" just as many crappy things have been done. See Adolf Hitler and the Japanese Empire for good examples of that. They were democracies. 23. e left... Thursday, 8 June 2006 10:23 pm Newshound, sorry but I think you don't know what you're talking about. First of all, of course dictatorships have a legal system but it's an arbitrary one because repressive and because not legitimated by people. Second, only a fool could seriously say that Hitler regime and Fascist Japan were democracies. If you meant that Hitler was appointed after elections, of course. He used democracy to destroy it. 24. Newshound left... Thursday, 8 June 2006 10:46 pm E, don't be sorry, maybe I don't. I'll freely admit that. First, dictatorships ARE arbitrary, but not necessarily repressive. There is plenty of historical precedent for this, you can find a lot online. Second, this fool has read a lot of history books, in English, German, and Japanese. This fool has also spoken to not only western veterans of WWII, but Japanese, German, Austrian, and Korean. All had the same thing to say. The people of those nations were whole-heartedly behind the actions of their governments. They were voted in by the people, run by the people, and therefore legitimized by the people. They regret their actions now, but they were behind them before. Or at least, the majority was. Is a dictator voted in by democracy means any less democratic? Just because something is "legitimized" by "the people" doesn't mean it is okay. The converse is also true. Not jumping to conclusions about systems you don't understand is the lesson here. 25. e left... Thursday, 8 June 2006 10:58 pm Sorry again, but you're confusing a lot of different concepts. Vote (free vote) is a basic element of democracy but it doesn't exhaust the concept of democracy. Democracy is vote, respect of human rights and basic freedoms, rule of law, leaders accountability etc etc... When a man or a party achieves power through democratic elections and then eliminates opposition and establishes an authoritarian rule, democracy dies. But you can't blame the victim for being murdered, you should blame the executioner. The fact that democracy can be suppressed by an authoritarian coup is a big reason to defend democracy, not to attack it. To say that, because democracy could be suppressed by authoritarian methods, the solution is to back dictatorship is a bit silly, don't you think? 26. Newshound left... Thursday, 8 June 2006 11:17 pm E, Excellent job of quoting the dictionary, but you didn't address the point. I'm neither confused nor silly, I'm just considering all possibilities. Something you'd be better off doing as well instead of just quoting the Democratic Party Line. Society evolves. Eventually. Democracy may not always be the only answer. I didn't just randomly choose this viewpoint, it comes from quite a lot of consideration. And on second thought, you're right. I may be silly, but I'm certainly not confused. 27. e left... Thursday, 8 June 2006 11:23 pm Peraphs you should go through the dictionary as well... 28. ACB left... Friday, 9 June 2006 1:40 am :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com Just to throw my 2 cents worth into the ring. I believe that democracy should be the goal of society, but I see it as simply being a method for choosing who runs your country, and as being wholy seperate from the issue of a just and free society. You can have a good system without a good leader, or a good leader and a bad system. You can have a dictator who oversees a country with a strong and fair legal code and who ensures that the people have freedom of speech. This was the case in Hong Kong up until the Chinese handover. Hong Kong had an impartial civil service that worked for the good of the people and an independent legal system that was as free from corruption as its western counterparts. Freedom of the press was assured, as were human rights. However, the leader was an unemocraticly selected foreigner with almost no knowledge of the Asian way of life. This proves that democracy is not essential for a civil society to be free. Equally, there are many democratically elected leaders who are elected into corrupt systems, like in Africa and Latin America, and many leader who are elected but who then refuse to go and become dictators. For example, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe was elected and he inherited a (comparitievely) free and fair legal system and press, but he became a dictator and destroyed them. "Muggy" led confiscation from Dutch farmers just as Zimbabwabian as blacks, Muggites killed them, then country starving bec. Muggites do not farm well. This is why Communists are so Klingon warlike. Their regime destroys producers then attacks producer neighbors to take their production in order to sustain itself. East Germany was looted and polluted by Russia then released to West Germany which seemingly uncomplainingly unpolluted and rebuilt what Communism destroyed and sacked off to Russia. The term freedom and fairness are also highly subjective. For example, Ameirca and Britain are both democracies. The US president is elected directly by the people and this is considered the only fair and democratic way to do this. However the British leader is not selected by the people. He is selected by members of the dominant political party (which is selected by a multi party electoral system), and you can only join that party if you pay an anual fee. Another example is that America and Japan both have independent judicieries, yet America considers Japan's system to be unfair because Japan outlawed trial by jury in 1943 and has only just brought in legislation to bring it back in a limited form (and not due for full introduction for a while yet). However, many Japnaese consider the Ameircan system to be unfair because juries can be tricked or fooled by smart lawyers or crying 'victims'. Similarly, EU nations often consider both the Ameircan and Japanese legal systems to be backwards because they still have the death penalty. Which Europe outlawed for being a cruel and unusual form of punishment. Another example is free speech. Both America and Germany say that they have free speech, yet in America Hate Speech is legal, which Jews say is unfair because it means that the Nazi can say whatever tey want, but it is illegal in Germany for the Nazi, which the Nazi say is unfair. 29. e left... Friday, 9 June 2006 2:41 am First. "Elected" leaders in corrupt systems are not "democratically elected leaders". Lukashenko and Mugabe were "elected" but nobody can serioulsy call them "democratically elected leader". The same for Ahmadinejad. In these countries "elections" are unfair because manipulated or because unpleasant opposition candidates aren't allowed to participate. They "vote" but they don't have a democracy. Second. A non-elected leader who grants civil freedoms and human rights is not a dictator. I can't find many examples in history but, buying your Hong Kong example (before the handover), of course it wasn't a democracy but nobody would seriously call it a dictatorship. Once again. The voting-issue is an essential element, but you can't base the distinction between democracy and dictatorship only on that element. There's a set of factors (some of them I listed before) you have to consider to make a correct evaluation. You can't separate the concept of democracy from the issue of a just and free society if you don't want to fall in sophistry. 30. ACB left... (We HOPE and PRAY noble, brave ACB is not DEAD or devastated in prison. Site was "pulled by ?) Friday, 9 June 2006 3:15 am :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com There are a great many world leaders who were elected in genuine elections (not rigged) that occoured in corrupt systems. "Democratically elected" simply means that they recieved more votes than their opposition, and didn't do anything unaceptably underhanded to get those votes. No ballot box stuffing, no intimidation of voters, no banning of opposition candidates. There are many many examples. for the record, Mugabe WAS democratically elected the first time. It was only later on that he fixed the election and became a dictator. Which was why I used him as an example. "The voting-issue is an essential element, but you can't base the distinction between democracy and dictatorship only on that element." Oh yes you can. Democracy is ONLY the means that a leader comes to power. Having freedom and justice is preferable to not having them, but you can have a democracy where the people have few human rights. You are right, Hong Kong wasn't a dictatorship, it was a colonial dictatorship. It had rule by foreign political appointment. The people had no right to choose their leader. If this isn't a dictatorship, what exactly is it? 31. e left... Friday, 9 June 2006 3:50 am You treat democracy as if it were an empty shell. But democracy is full of substance. You're talking about it in mere "legalistic", theoretic (and often incorrect) terms, I'm talking about it in political terms. Anyway, we have been going around the same concepts for a lot of time in this thread. I don't want to repeat myself. Best. 32. Newshound left... Friday, 9 June 2006 7:25 am Democracy in and of itself is an empty shell. There is nothing incorrect about what we've been saying. That't why places like Zimbabwe, Germany, Japan, and Korea can take advantage of it in a bad way. What you are doing is imbuing democracy with some sort of "holy" substance that it doesn't inherently have. Look at Korea today. It's a fine example of democracy, yet they still have historical revisionists in power (like Japan and China), they censor the internet and shut down websites that go against the party line, there's a draft, very strict "loyalty laws", etc.. Not really very "democratic" according to your definition. Just because something is a democracy doesn't mean it's good. Doesn't mean it's bad if it isn't either, it just means there are more ways it can go wrong. Don't deify political systems. THAT'S what happens just before they go horribly wrong. 33. ACB left... Friday, 9 June 2006 3:52 pm :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com Actually, I would say that Japan is the complete opposite of China. The Japanese government does not partisipate in revisionism, instead it refuses to prevent revisionists from doing what they do, and rather than making up its own version of history, it refuses to intervien and ensure the purity of history. This allows revisionists to opperate with near impunity, but it also allows writers like 本多勝一 (Honda Katsuichi is a Japanese journalist and author most famous for his writing on the Nanking Massacre) and men like 東史郎 (Azuma Shiro) to refute them. (A.S.was a Japanese soldier who openly admitted his participation in Japanese war crimes) People might be able to publish revisionist text books, but people can also publish true ones. In fact right now there is only one real revisionist text book in circulation, and that is considered to be a joke in Japan. Only 0.04 percent of schools use it, and even then people don't actually believe it. As for Korea, during the early days the Korean government wasn't really a democracy, it was a puppet government that took its orders from vested interests, rather than the will of the people. Even today it is very young, and you cannot expect such a young government to be as free and fair as an old government like America's. You need a period of stability first. Get things working with freedom in mind, then bring the freedom in. If you start out trying to be free and fair, you often end up with a complete mess like in Africa. Too many voices, too many conflicting interest. It meant that the strongest people rose to power and became dictators. Compared to China, Korea is the model of democracy. (Also Taiwan, Formosa or name chosen by ChiComs.) The problem is that as someone posting from Japan it's automatically assumed that I am Anti-Korea and Anti-China. Because of this, when I comment on the things that I see here regarding Japan's whitewashing, regardless of evidence, I'm called biased. I ain't biased. I think everyone's stupid, including myself. If someone shows me evidence that something is a lie, I change my mind. That's how I started being more on Japan's side, previously I followed the Korean platform. Anyway, back on topic, I agree. You can't go from dictatorship (20 years ago), to a completely free nation quickly. Ideals and culture have to evolve, and those things can't be forced. That's why Russia is so screwed up. (SECRETLY so foreign aid still misappropriated for GRABBING.) 35. tortoise1313 left... Friday, 9 June 2006 10:46 pm :: http://chinacommunistparty.blogspot.com PLEASE SPREAD '9 ping' (writing of the evil Chinese Communist Party from EchoTimes) to all your friends, and stop the evil killing acts of CCP!!! To download ‘9 ping’ 《九评共产党》- http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/4/12/13/n746020.htm (Source: 9ping.com) http://chinacommunistparty.blogspot.com http://chinesecommunistparty.blogspot.com Read it while you can, this message is going bye bye later on. With ONLY salvage from wayback to dredge it from censorship...ONE copy found Jon Mcgrauton's painting of Obamanation...also GONZO as in GONE. 37. anonymous left... Saturday, 10 June 2006 3:12 am What's the point of a video like that in English? English speakers are already convinced it happened. 38. ACB left... Saturday, 10 June 2006 3:37 am :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com So that foreigners don't forget. Tiananmen is not taught in schools, and most of them can't be bothered to sit through something unless it is in their language. TRAGEDY TWEETS TWITTER TOUGHER President Obama comments on his reelection I (CENSORED) you nekkid you hapless, stinkin' - Repiglickins! Seriously tho, thanks for the lame loser you always run against me! Special THANKS to John McCain for the incumbancy and Willard (Mittens) Romney for not mentioning unmentionables that would have doomed my re-election. Romney was PERFECT! He undercut all the GOP candidates and kicked their onions. He said nothing about Andersonville, my certified birth certificate, my "08 draft notice or the college transcripts nobody can see. Thanks Romney for ignoring my human faults while I helped you with every flaw you ever had and every possible sin you might have put on people. You killed the right people when you shepherded their companies by firing them. You overlooked my flaws like a good drinking buddy even though you never touch the "stuff". For being an all-around sweetie, you can go through "my junk" anytime and I promise I will not muss your impecable beautiful HAIR. The economy is roaring, GOP bad boys of Congress are all HELPING ME by VOTING AGAINST MY plans so the Repiglickin's will always be second best. They are MUCH TOO STOOPID to just vote "PRESENT" and let everything pass of my wildest dreams 233 to ZERO and 61 to ZERO. Remember to oppose the Tea Party, evangelicals, and NEVER,NEVER say socialism is bad. Some fragmentation is to be expected and even encouraged. Who needs that "RIGHTIST CONSERVATIVE INPUT anyway! After all, the whole world knows I modeled my Obamacare after ROMNEYCARE, the stimilus was a complete success, and I have something for EVERYBODY STOCKING this year. Gonna get rid of nasty coal-fired electricity, get the price of electricity UP, cancel drilling in any kind of water, bash evil corporations, small business ALWAYS needs MORE regulations, RULES, and TAXES. And the RICH are going to pay all the bills this country has and will have. “RIP Avalanna. i love you” - Justin Bieber AKA Jasmen Beaver TJ Lang : O-Damit it NFL.. Fine me and use the money to pay the regular refs.” While losing and not liking it during Seatle Seabuzzards - Crammers (Affectionately called "Peckers")AKA Seattle Seahawks-Packers Football Game in September,2012. 山寺宏一 @yamachanoha AKA O-Dam you and the rigged election you rode to golf and vacationland in on. Ah- You are surprised I spick yo lang-waaage! ANYHOW, Nice hair and life-time happiness with blushing new bride and "home full of smiles!" TEAM GB congratulated its athletes while Team USA (was there a TEAM USA on Twitter?) said a few words and a few tweets. GB had the "home team" advantage so why should self-involved Americans root for people who tried and failed or GOT a record 104 medals. Encouragement is for Dancers and Singers on TV. The athletes will do OK with their own and family encouragement. Look in the mirror people and say,"GOOD EFFORT, you won the GOLD!" OR SILVER or BRONZE". We cannot support people who look like us, what would people THINK! They would THINK we are all GUNG HO at the GOGO for our team! Or that we are RACISTS! We save that cheering for persons of color on the football field! As Americans, we are justifiably proud after witnessing this year's Summer Olympics. America took home a total of 104 medals — 46 gold, 29 silver, and 29 bronze in many sports. Archery Athletics Badminton Basketball Beach Volleyball Boxing Canoe Slalom Canoe Sprint Cycling - BMX Cycling - Mountain Bike Cycling - Road Cycling - Track Diving Equestrian Fencing Football Gymnastics - Artistic Gymnastics - Rhythmic Handball Hockey Judo Modern Pentathlon Rowing Sailing Shooting Swimming Synchronised Swimming Table Tennis Taekwondo Tennis Trampoline Triathlon Volleyball Water Polo Weightlifting Wrestling PHELPS Michael Swimming