First words that comes to mind..

The_man_at_tienamen.jpg


(Other than Poor Quality.)​
 
Sad. People in China have virtually no knowledge of it happening, and they are way too sheltered by the government.

And the "new" market in china is to interesting for western companies to not follow the government like the rats followed the Pied Piper.

Google, for example, agreed to filter information regarding the Tiananmen Square demonstrations (among other uncomfortable facts) to be able to establish google.cn. So who's supporting this regime and who don't? To me there ain't no natural leaders, only natural followers.

What I cant get out of my head, from this tank Vs human incident, is that the driver (of the tank) stopped and tried to drive around the student, in front of him, as he didn't wanna drive the tank over him. It reminds me that it actually are human acting and decision-making behind most things, and some of them bring hope.

(edit: the poor quality of the picture actually makes it stronger)
(edit2: the "Tank Man"
 
Is that a midget nun?

No, that is the Unknown Rebel. He temporarily prevented the advancement of several tanks in Tienanmen Square. The single man's photo was seen all around the world, and revered. Granted he was eventually pulled away by fellow on lookers and vanished into the crowd.. Every time I look at this picture I can only think of how many things I've just let "slide."

Tank Man - Wikipedia
 
I am not normally in the know.. I watch too many cartoons.

Yeah, but... I mean, what did they teach you in school? Like... Seriously. I mean, even watching TV, Family Guy spoofed it.
Actually, they did it twice... I didn't know about this one, but I can't find the one I did know about!
 
Thanks for the link of info, Watchman!

And Kuzzle.. Anyone who knows me for a while learns that I have little ability to remember history. I'm sure my school did teach us, but the only things I could remember from history were things about cultures, not events. I don't know why but no matter how many times I hear it, I barely can remember anything of historical events. It might be like how some people are good at math and others aren't. Sociology..I'm all there. World history..I'll try, but I'm lost.
 
The first words that come to mind...?

Track Lubrication.

Not at all politically correct, I know.

I served as an Armor Crewman (Tanker) in the US Army for about 7 years total. I remember seeing this on TV back then, and I couldn't help but note how brave the fellow was to stand in front of the tank like that. Brave, and extremely stupid. He survived intact not because of sentimentality of the crew, but more likely a less than clear understanding of their orders in relation to actually harming the civilians throughout the square.

A tank is a massive uncaring killing machine, and as a crewman I would not have hesitated to run the fellow over if I had been ordered to, or if I KNEW he was an enemy (I might have felt bad about it later, but I would have done it). That makes me sound brutal and harsh, and the truth is at that time that is exactly how I needed to think in order to survive as a soldier of the Cold War era. The Soviet Union (our predominant foe of the time) out numbered us 10 to 1 in conventional equipment and troops, if we had fought them we would have had to pull out all the stops.

The tanks were probably brought in to psychologically intimidate the crowd, and it obviously didn't work on that fellow. But he was but one of thousands, so it's my guess he probably had some mental issues and even so much as a death wish. But the media did an excellent job of portraying him as a defiant man willing to martyr himself in the name of (whatever the protest was really about, I've no clue).

Track Lubrication, Crunchies, Squishies, and Airborne Rangers are some of the terms Tankers use to refer to men who are foolish enough to find themselves under the tracks of a 70 ton tank. Running tanks over infantry is a time honored tradition dating back to World War One with the introduction of the tank itself.

As a side note, I had a grade schooler run out in front of my truck yesterday. He just came sprinting out from behind some parked cars to dash across the street. I managed to stop perhaps a foot or two before I would have struck him. He never slowed down, just kept on running, and probably didn't realize how close he came to death just then, although he did see me. His act, while not brave in any sense of the word, was extremely stupid.

So anyway, Track Lubrication comes to mind when I see that picture.

Aelwulfe
 
...as I said, there is no natural leaders, only natural followers...

-"I'ts not my fault, I only followed orders"

Every man is a leader unto himself. Every thing we do, every choice we make is ours alone. No man/woman, in the state known as sanity, ever acts without first deciding too. Even actions taken from fear, intimidation, or coercion, require that final decision to give in.

Such being the case, everyone who decides to follow has first made a leadership decision for himself, to do so. There are no followers without leaders. And if leadership could not come naturally to some, from where did that first leader spring from?

The oft quoted "I only followed orders" line isn't to me so much a leadership/follower issue, but rather an issue of courage and conviction. Men who have stated this in the past lacked both the courage to admit what they had done, as well as the conviction that their actions truly were their own. The statement itself cancels out the prior "It's not my fault", so taken as a whole is nothing less than a confession of guilt; the guilt the man feels for having made a bad decision. But it was still his decision to follow.

Hero and villian are interchangable roles depending on who views any given action. As a freedom loving people we people of the Western world view the acts of the man in the picture above as that of freedom fighter or as a just crusader of a good cause (for we all know that communisim must be fought back at all costs, lest our profit margins fall). To us he seems a hero. But in China he was but a participant in an illegal demonstration. He was a criminal breaking the law, a revolutionary, and bad press to the Chinese government. To them (the Chinese government) he was a villian.

(My source of this paragraphs information is suspect, as its basic facts come from a politically motivated "fact sheet") Noone in the west truly knows how many students died in Tiananmen Square back in 1989. The Chinese official number is 300. The CIA originally reported 2600-3000 dead. Todays western estimate is around 700. Among the soldiers there were an estimated 400 missing or killed. Since most soldiers would have been at roughly the same age as the students, most of those 400 were probably desertions. (My source of this paragraphs information is suspect, as its basic facts come from a politically motivated "fact sheet")

In my previous post I said "and as a crewman I would not have hesitated to run the fellow over if I had been ordered to, or if I KNEW he was an enemy (I might have felt bad about it later, but I would have done it)." I would have also DECIDED to do so, if those criteria fit. I was a hard charging motivated soldier at the time. I was young and thus felt charged with a sense of immortality.

I've mellowed some since then, and feel a bit wiser now. The man in Tiananmen Square, if he still lives, is probably a bit wiser today too. He probably wouldn't step in front of that tank again. But who knows? There is no cure for stupid.

But please, if you will, don't assume to interpret the context of my statements by inserting your own commentary as to MY motivations.

Aelwulfe
 
He was probably not stupid. He knew the international journalist lived outside this hotel. They had a very limited freedom during this demonstration. He might have given up, considering most of his friends was ordered to be killed, but I'm pretty sure he knew what he was doing. So to define stupid here is not easy. Those who accept orders to kill his fellow neighbour or the one standing in front of the armed neighbour. It could be easy. Killing is stupid. But for some reason its not that simple to all. Government have spent years to try justify why its illegal for citizens to kill and why its perfectly all right for them to kill... because we need to kill people, right?

There are no followers without leaders.
The egg or the chicken?
I would say that without the first one saying "I'm following you" there is no leader...
 
Back
Top