protest

Trigger Warning: Gate of Heavenly Peace, Tiananmen

6/4/89 is the Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. As this is being posted the whole of the USA is engulfed in violence as police have been called out and they have acted to brutally suppress peaceful protests against endemic police violence.

They just piss away their revolutionary history. Blank stares. Red Haikou. Hope of the world. Revolutionaries came from all over the world to the bustling streets. But if you ask about it today they look at you with blank eyes. They don’t understand it anymore. Their own history. Gone. In the wind.

Or it’s become so garbled as a memory it is now meaningless. “Foreign advisers on matters industrial.”

Thanks to Hennie Stander for sharing their work on Unsplash. (photo)

I came here only because they are evacuating foreigners from Beijing. It was by chance I was where I was, in a hotel across from Tiananmen Square, with the window looking straight down. A western journalist specializing in the history and economics of the communist systems. My name is Harrison E. Salisbury.

When I left for China, I said that the People’s Army was different than any other in the world. They were of the people. And would not strike out at the people. But I later learned that the army had been forbidden to read or listen to news broadcasts from months before. For pain of court-martial. I said they would not but they did. I saw it from the window. I heard the shots, repeating. Excessive. Terror shooting. They will obey orders to kill their own children. Gun them down in the street. Roll tanks over them. Officially they’re saying a few soldiers have been hurt. Some equipment damaged.

An announcer on the radio shouted thousands had died and was then immediately yanked off the air.

They refer to the students as “bandits,” what Chiang Kaishek used to call Mao’s forces. But what is there to steal in the public square? What is there that is not open to all? A common treasury. Fought over.

The students were supporters, like the sailors of Kronstadt, of a democratic communism. The Square encampments were festooned with red flags waving in the breeze.

But they are gone now. I saw the last I shall ever see, walk dignified toward some men in fine attire, speak to them in a dignified manner to no response, as if he were invisible, and then he turned and walked away with his head high. I do not know what became of him. He slid between cars and was gone in the heat.

I talked to some locals. They saw the military coming, guns, tanks. They shouted at them not to go to the Square. Not to harm their own people. These were the residents, out in the night, smoking, talking. Bullets rain down on them. The Emergency services came quickly to get the wounded. They did not have room for the dead. They had been told to give no aid, to let the protesters die, but they came anyway. But they had no room for the dead. And the Hospitals were overflowing. The dead must care for their own.

The students had held a vote the night before, to stay or go. A minority voted to stay. So everyone stayed. Many were weak from hunger, and it is easy to imagine they did not move as the tanks came in the night, bodies wrapped in sleeping bags, they knew death was coming. Defeat. They were on a train with no more stops, on a crash-course with no possible exit. Their only hope is that their remembrance will one day…

There can be no peaceful transition. Of Power.

They just used bullets to prove they were nothing to be laughed at. In desperation.

In the morning a man danced in the street, one-on-one, his partner cold as steel. He led the tank, back-and-forth. A dance on the street with heavy arms. Confusion. He climbed onto his dance partner. To have a conversation. To whisper in an ear receptive. He left. I do not know what happened to him. He looked like anyone. Out of place. Like he did not belong here. And then he left.

Quickly news spread like a wildFire. Here is how:

In the end, no hope, runners split up in all directions. They walked far away. They went to places where they were not known. Better to not be traced. They appeared in front of strangers. Mysterious. They told their story. Like ghosts. To be believed or not. Then they disappeared. Repeat. In this way sparks branch out across the countryside, starting many brushFires, left wild to burn, unstoppable. It is as Mao wrote in his Little Red Book.

This was explained to me by a woman I met in a province who told me of the student’s gambit. A tactical move meant to keep their idea going as long as it was required, until they would raise the struggle from the ashes.

🔥

“That was a long time ago,” says the attendant.

“It depends on how you measure time,” says the Griot. “I take a long view, myself.”

“How long did this go on, these sparks?”

“Comrade! It is still happening now. Have you not heard? Have you not heard?”

Reign of error

Hark, dear friends, a terrible fate

America ran down the sewer grate

Beavers shouted “damn!” But it was too late

They were attending a party at 10,000 a plate

“What to do?” said the otter to its mate

“Why I otter…” was the reply-but it was too late

The Dragon said, “We’ll consolidate!”

“We can own this parched landscape if we concoctitrate!”

“If anyone tries to stop us we’ll denunciate!”

“Berate. Sublimate. Keep both eyes on Homeplate. Trust in me and I will make this land again great!”

“The first thing we’ll do is seal up those drains.

So we can keep all the water when it rains.”

And the creatures sang the dragon’s grand refrains

And they praised his renowned business brains

So they sealed up those drains

And muddied those plains

And reminded that only a traitor complains

About the mixture of clean water with sewer drains

And how drinking sewage causes stomach pains

But complaints, the dragon, he disdains

For it is his golden reign.

Let it rain golden showers.

Let it rain. Let it rain.

There is nothing civil about this war

Since Bree Newsome took down the Confederate battle flag isn’t she a war hero? A living civil war veteran?

Only non-racists get to eat ice cream.

Only non-racists get to eat ice cream.

She, with the help of Jimmy Tyson scaled the flagpole at the capitol of South Carolina and removed the Confederate battle flag placed there because the state of South Carolina is unhappy that they are forced to live in a multicultural society. A group of supporters observed from the ground. But the state of South Carolina put the flag back up less than an hour later. In time for an important rally for white supremacy. They actually had a rally for white supremacy scheduled that morning. It was on the schedule. Someone called and said, “We’re coming for a rally for white power on the capitol grounds. Is the Confederate battle flag still waving proudly?” And the clerk in the South Carolina office of white supremacist coordination and battle flag raising said, “The Confederate battle flag is waving proudly every day here. This is South Carolina.” Then he (or she, they’ve come a long way in South Carolina) said “White Power!” And the rally organizer answered “White Power!” And they each hung up.

Taking down the confederate battle flag, on the other hand, was an unscheduled act. So the state of South Carolina have arrested Bree Newsome and Jimmy Tyson and charged them with “defacing monuments on state capitol grounds” regardless of the fact that someone already defaced the state capitol by flying the battle flag of the Confederacy, the historic enemy of the USA, like the Third Reich or ISIS. And until Bree Newsome and Jimmy Tyson came along, no one had the civic pride to do something about it.

Would it have made any difference if they called ahead and scheduled the clean up? I’m just confused about what it is that is really bothering South Carolina. I don’t think most states would mind if I went to their capitols and helped dispose of some trash, on my own time. Depending on the state I might even be awarded some sort of civic pride badge.

So, South Carolina is holding Bree Newsome and Jimmy Tyson, US civil war POWs, and threatening them with up to 3 years in prison as political prisoners and up to a $5,000 fine for non-littering.

But isn’t South Carolina insisting on flying the Confederate battle flag treason?

But the important thing is that the white supremacists had a nice rally at the capitol. The confederate battle flag was waving. There was some potato salad and other white foods, like white bread and mayonnaise. And everyone had a nice time and nobody got killed.

Supporters of the Confederate battle flag, claiming they are being misrepresented would now like to have a national discussion about that flag and what it really means. What it means is, if that is your flag, you are a loser.
The US already fought the civil war. If some southern states insist on fighting it again they will go down in history as two time losers.

This will not end well. Except for Bree Newsome and Jimmy Tyson. They are going to get veteran benefits dating back to May 09, 1865.

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/DropTheFlagDropTheCharges/

* The comparison of some southern states to Germany is a flawed analogy, I admit. Germany is ashamed of its disreputable past.