June 4, 1989, the 24th anniversary of the crushing of the Tiananmen Square student led protests with PLA tanks and troops. Since somebody thought it would be a cute stunt to remove the link to the original TransGriot June 4, 1989 post and reroute it to some game site, bad move. All you did was piss me off and ensure I'd circle the date on the calendar to make sure I'd write another post reminding my readers here in the States and around the world about the day Chinese tanks and troops slaughtered their own citizens participating in a peaceful protest.
Besides, I don't ever forget that June 4 date because it happens to be my late grandmother Tama's birthday.
It was a five week protest by students and concerned citizens simply asking for government reform and an end to corruption in their government that captured the world's attention.
The Chinese government answer to those demands came in the late evening of June 3 and the early morning hours of June 4. The plug was pulled on the television feed for the international foreign news networks broadcasting the event and PLA troops backed up by tanks began firing on and running over the people in the square to break up the demonstration. Casualties were estimated between 200-1000 people dead.
As I said in last year's post, those PLA tanks and troops may have crushed the demonstration, and the Chinese government may continue to try to erase and deny what happened, but the video, photographic and written evidence is still out there and it's always going to be a part of world history.
Neither can you crush the root of freedom from which democracy will inevitably flower once it has taken root.
So on this day international community, remember the people who died in the name of freedom and democracy in their homeland's capitol city.
We also need to on this day in the United States, remember that freedom requires eternal vigilance from the enemies inside and outside our borders who seek to exterminate it.
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