Anniversary: In Remembrance of Protests We Honor In Spite of the Dictators

(Update: Many thanks to Infidel753 for including this article on Crooks&Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please take the time to look through this long-running blog which I admit is a far better effort than trump ever made bwhahahahaha... sorry, had to rub it in)

This is June 4 again, a reminder that in 1989 the calls for democracy in China were silenced by the gun and tank:

A combination of college-age, labor groups, and retired Chinese had gathered in key spots - eventually joining up in the major center of Beijing called Tiananmen Square - demanding political reforms to coincide with the economic reforms the post-Maoist government was trying to implement during the 1980s.

It went along with a growing protest movement in Eastern Europe, where Soviet Russian control was slipping away as Gorbachev's government could no longer afford the massive military and political buildup of the Soviet Bloc.

For a month, the Chinese leadership tried their best to keep a lid on it all, but international media coverage made that impossible, and the Communist regime itself had fissures between reformists and statists vying for control of the whole government.

By June 4, someone along the official chain of command decided "Fuck it," and unleashed the Army into Tiananmen Square.

The official accounts minimized the casualties. The unofficial accounts put the death toll in the thousands...

There is a terrible conflict at play here. China's international role is growing - unavoidable due to being the largest populated nation on the planet, its military strength, its economic engines - but its accountability to the world hampered by its own paranoia and sadism...

And the sad truth is, the rest of the world powers let it go, because they dare not press China - a military and economic behemoth - about their darkest sins. The Western powers especially Great Britain - which had insisted on Hong Kong remaining independent from Mainland China's sway - have let the bosses shut down protests there (via James Griffiths at CNN):

For an event that happened almost 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) away, the Tiananmen Square massacre has become deeply embedded in Hong Kong's psyche. That's because for the past three decades, Hong Kong was the only place where major commemorations were held, including marches, church services, and huge candlelit vigils in the city's Victoria Park.

After Hong Kong became part of China in 1997, the continuation of these events was always seen as a major litmus test for the city's ongoing autonomy and democratic freedoms, supposedly guaranteed until 2047 by its de facto constitution, the Basic Law, under the principle of "one country, two systems."

The 30th anniversary in 2019 saw one of the biggest turnouts at the Victoria Park vigil, with organizers claiming some 180,000 people joined the commemoration (though police said it was closer to 40,000). That anniversary came amid escalating tensions over a proposed extradition bill between Hong Kong and China: just five days later, over a million people marched against it, and in the months that followed, the city was consumed by increasingly violent protests and police crackdowns.

In the wake of those protests, Beijing introduced a national security law for Hong Kong, bypassing the city's semi-democratic legislature to criminalize secession, subversion and collusion with foreign powers. That law has been used to crack down on a host of political activity, and almost every prominent pro-democracy politician and activist is either in prison -- or headed there.

As talk of the law rumbled ahead of its abrupt passing on June 30 last year, many saw June 4, 2020, as potentially the final opportunity for a major commemoration. Despite authorities banning the Victoria Park vigil on pandemic grounds, tens of thousands still turned out to mark the event peacefully, and police took a hands-off approach -- though subsequently arrested and charged a number of activists deemed to have "organized" the protest.

This year, the gloves are off. The city's Security Bureau said Saturday that any rally on June 4 would be deemed an unauthorized assembly, and "no one should take part in it, or advertise or publicize it, or else he or she may violate the law."

Offenders could face up to five years in prison, while those promoting the event could be jailed for up to 12 months, the bureau added.

China isn't getting better about its responsibilities as a global power, the ruling elite are getting more violent. And it's not just in Hong Kong. What the Chinese government is doing to the Uyghurs is literally genocide... and nobody else is doing a damn thing to stop that.

I lament the possibility of Tank Man, a sole protestor who stood against the tanks back in 1989, ever survived China's bloody crackdown, I lament the possibility I will ever meet the man and greet him like a lost brother.

Freedom should matter, everybody. Tiananmen should remind us of that.