The Trump baby-blimpers should learn from Tiananmen’s Tank Man what fascism really is

Jun 5, 2019 by Jill

by Julie Lynn, The Conservative Woman:

IT IS exactly thirty years since the Chinese government under Deng Xiaoping decided enough was enough. On June 4, 1989, the tanks rolled into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and opened fire on the tens of thousands who were part of the student-led demonstrations calling for democracy and an end to corruption. It was a brutal crackdown that shocked the world.

Those of us who watched the weeks of escalating unrest felt a mix of hope, anxiety, admiration and awe as we witnessed it on our TV screens, including Tank Man, the slender young man carrying shopping bags who stood in front of the military hardware crawling towards him. Even before this particular brave soul became an iconic image, we knew we would never forget him.

What happened next, turning the feelings of the world to horror, fury and revulsion, is well known however much the Chinese Communist Party may pretend nothing happened. Move along, nothing to see here. It has never been possible to verify the numbers, but the toll of those massacred by the Chinese communist authorities is widely believed to have been in the thousands. Nobody knows what happened to Tank Man, but it wouldn’t have turned out well. Life was cheap in China then, as far as the Communist authorities were concerned, and there is nothing to suggest things have changed on that score. The sheer brutality and bloodshed of the crackdown on the Beijing Spring, the willingness of the Chinese leaders to have their soldiers and tanks mow down and crush dissent, has ensured there won’t be a repeat any time soon. Especially now that so many in the population can be kept happy with just enough stuff: smartphone, apartment, wheels.

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