Never Forget 06-04-89

[Pekka]

Go ahead, praise your idol, I've written extensively about Gandhi and I hate him because he was a bad person.

But let's not go there, this thread is about tianamen square. I wonder how they just ... didn't escape, I mean you figure what's going to happen when the tanks kind of crush the first people and they just seems to continue going at it. I figure these people are heroes, even though what they need is recognition it happened. But we know it happened, so they never died in vain. Courage I can't say I'd do the same.

[Verto]

Tijuana-what?

[Solly]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Chinese communists ran over a couple thousand people with tanks then pretended it didn't happen.

Why do we not see pics of this and just that one of that silly dude with a placcy bag?

[DRoseDARs]

[DRoseDARs]

Happy now? Something different...

[Barnabas]

That guy was brave....

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
To the people who stood up to be counted at Tiananmen Square:

Tanks a lot.

What was gained by their sacrifice? Looks like business as usual to me.

[molly bloom]

Democracy

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Wezil
What was gained by their sacrifice?

A Pulitzer Prize photograph.

[Wezil]

True.

[Japher]

material for the running spearman vs. tank joke

[lord of the mark]

from walt whitman, Leaves of Grass



170. To a foil’d European Revolutionaire


1

COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister!
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv’d, whatever occurs;
That is nothing, that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any number of failures,
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness,
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes. 5

Revolt! and still revolt! revolt!
What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents, and all the islands and archipelagos of the sea;
What we believe in invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,
Waiting patiently, waiting its time.

(Not songs of loyalty alone are these, 10
But songs of insurrection also;
For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel, the world over,
And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him,
And stakes his life, to be lost at any moment.)

2

Revolt! and the downfall of tyrants! 15
The battle rages with many a loud alarm, and frequent advance and retreat,
The infidel triumphs—or supposes he triumphs,
Then the prison, scaffold, garrote, hand-cuffs, iron necklace and anklet, lead-balls, do their work,
The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,
The great speakers and writers are exiled—they lie sick in distant lands, 20
The cause is asleep—the strongest throats are still, choked with their own blood,
The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;
—But for all this, liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the infidel enter’d into full possession.

When liberty goes out of a place, it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go,
It waits for all the rest to go—it is the last. 25

When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,
And when all life, and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth,
Then only shall liberty, or the idea of liberty, be discharged from that part of the earth,
And the infidel come into full possession.

3

Then courage! European revolter! revoltress! 30
For, till all ceases, neither must you cease.

I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself, nor what anything is for,)
But I will search carefully for it even in being foil’d,
In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment—for they too are great.

Revolt! and the bullet for tyrants! 35
Did we think victory great?
So it is—But now it seems to me, when it cannot be help’d, that defeat is great,
And that death and dismay are great.

[Kuciwalker]

Why couldn't he write proper English?

[Japher]

because he was American... duh!

[aneeshm]

I await China's inevitable rise, and even more inevitable fall with patience.