April 15, aside from taxes and teabags; a very important anniv

[SportscarBruce]

Something of historical importance began on this date. It covered several weeks and is monumental in terms of numbers of persons involved, how they were affected, and it involved politics.

First of all, who can guess what it is?

[SportscarBruce]

No takers? Not surprising really. That isn't meant as indictment upon anyone herein, but it can be considered an indictment upon the corporate mass media and Wall Street "globalism".

Year after year this period of time goes by and nary a mention comes forth from the all-knowledgable, all-important cable news pundits. This bothers me immensely. It speaks of where we as a society places the value of human life and the ideals of liberty and freedom. You know, hardly a day goes by without the History Channel airing a series of episodes on the Third Reich, or MSNBC revisiting some mass murderer's awful deed, and so on, and so forth. But nothing on this.

Well, the foreign government financing our government's quicksand bailout package doesn't want it on the web or in the news. Not merely in their country, in OURS. How can we forget? I haven't...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

[Jag_Warrior]

Considering China's prominence on the world economic stage, yes, it's interesting that this incident hasn't been covered by any major media outlet that I'm aware of. Interesting but maybe not so surprising.

I decided to take a break from mixing paint and moving furniture about an hour ago. So I flipped on the set and you know what I was watching before clicking on this thread? It was a show called "View Point" on DirecTV's DTV channel. This episode was called "Chuck's Life in Beijing". It chronicled the adventure of a 66 year old American who moved to Beijing for a year. He spoke no Chinese. He'd never lived alone. He knew no one in China. It was very interesting... really fascinating. But not once in the show was ANYTHING negative shown. Then at the end I saw that's it'd been produced by the Chinese Intercontinental Communication Center, by way of 5CTV (5 Continents Television: "Bringing China to the world and the world to China" ;) ).

But to your point, as China's power and influence grows, it won't surprise me to NOT see things critical of the communist government there. Sort of like with Israel, all it takes is a well connected and financed lobby in the U.S. and you can clean up any potential PR problems. Have you heard, China's not a currency manipulator now? Just a few months ago it was. Rattle the saber and threaten not to continue buying U.S. Treasuries and all of a sudden, you're a team player. Yep, funny how that works.

[Rollo]

Something of historical importance began on this date. It covered several weeks and is monumental in terms of numbers of persons involved, how they were affected, and it involved politics.

First of all, who can guess what it is?

The sinking of the RMS Titanic which forced a change in the regulations as to the required number of lifeboats required on board passenger ships?

The Hillsborough disaster in which 96 people died as the result of a crowd crush, and as a result forced a redesign on all first class stadia in England?

The beginning of the World Trade Organisation?

The publishing of Samuel Johnson's dictionary?

All of which probably of more import than Aiken Drum who also "Came to our town" on this day.

[BDunnell]

In truth, Tiananmen, just like other Chinese human rights abuses, has been neatly glossed over by governments keen to cosy up to China for several years now, and not just by current governments, nor the media as it is today. As I hope we all recognise, the Rupert Murdoch-owned media have been appalling on this score for quite a long time.

And while the the images of Tiananmen, when seen, and the memoirs of experienced journalists who were there, like the BBC's John Simpson, remain extremely powerful, I wonder whether some of those who see and read them today — and are appalled by them — understand that these were not atrocities conducted by some regime of long ago.

[Mark in Oshawa]

In truth, Tiananmen, just like other Chinese human rights abuses, has been neatly glossed over by governments keen to cosy up to China for several years now, and not just by current governments, nor the media as it is today. As I hope we all recognise, the Rupert Murdoch-owned media have been appalling on this score for quite a long time.

And while the the images of Tiananmen, when seen, and the memoirs of experienced journalists who were there, like the BBC's John Simpson, remain extremely powerful, I wonder whether some of those who see and read them today — and are appalled by them — understand that these were not atrocities conducted by some regime of long ago.

Not just Murdoch, the whole world Ben. What China did and how it was treated was unprecedented in how much we turned our backs on those people wanting freedom. Politicians of every stripe from every democracy just rolled over and played dead and they shouldn't have. Now when one tries to make a point with Beijing, the Chinese just roll their eyes and snicker. Proof of that was when PM Harper from Canada brought up Tibet and human rights abuses and threatened to boycott going to the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. The left leaning Libreals and LEFTwing NDP were all over him for that because of the trade implications. It seems no one wants to remember this country basically crushed democracy and killed as many as the USSR's silencing the Hungarians in 1956 or the Prague Spring of 68 and then some. It was on national TV and we all are having amnesia about it.

Well...some of us have....It just makes my opinion of the Chinese government lower and lower when I think of it, but they are too much part of the world economy now for anyone to change things. We are junkies for our cheap fix of consumer products from the pusher in Beijing