Tank Man

Yesterday was the anniversary Tiananmen Square protests in China. I am a day late posting about it, but I just saw a picture and it really made me think. Here at FAKKU we have a huge Chinese audience that visits the site every day. What is it like living in China and looking back on this?

Don't know too much about China, but I can say Tank Man dude's got some balls.

Cheers for being able to stand up for yourself (well, not just yourself) and your independance. Though I don't know a lot about it, I'd say he did the right thing.

I don't know if this is still true or not, but I heard from one of my podcasts(Skeptics Guide to the Universe) that china is a bitch to live in. They censor like a motherfuck and they keep people from talking shit about the government, to keep them in line.

That's communism. But I hear it's becoming more lax there and they're moving more towards socialism.

As for the tank man incident: I always found this intriguing especially because I was born in the same years as when it happened. Not only that, I was only born 2 country away (South Korea) from China. It seemed so weird that such a short distance, (is only about 600 miles from Seoul to Peking which are the countries' the respective capitals) have such different life styles.

i saw a documentary yesterday about it and tanks man's effort and the other thousand who protested were all in vain and nothing came out of it and the sad part about it was the bullets used to kill the protesters was charged to their families and required them to pay...

This Chinese government forced Google to censor their image results.

If I recall correctly, China has a rule where each couple can only have one child. Because of this, while my friend was visiting about 6 or so years ago, he saw dead babies floating in the river because either the child wasn't the gender they wanted or whatever reason.

Don't get me wrong, in NO WAY am I saying that it's a common occurence or something a lot of the Chinese people would even think of doing; I don't even know if it's still the case. I just wanted to share the info I heard with you all.

It's now time for a little lesson in communism.

Just as SenatorAnonymous stated, true communism as Marx (and Engels) envisioned actually has no government. The workers all help each other out under the principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Granted, everyone would have to curb all of their desires for more than what they have, so it's more of a fairytale world.

True socialism, as Marx and Engels originally envisioned it, was only a middleman between Capitalism and Communism, a quick phase in which the government would ensure that production would serve the people, and then all forms of leadership would simply fade away, without revolution; they just wouldn't be necessary.

Thus, there are deviations on these theories, such as Marxism-Leninism, so that the rulers in charge could say that their attempts at Communism weren't failures (since true communism has no government), but rather Socialism was tweaked so that they could actually achieve Communism.

Hopefully this was a helpful insight on Communism (more that a lot of you probably wanted to know). If there are any discrepancies, please let me know.

How come this thread was moved off the front page?

The guy is a good symbol of what just one person can do and not do. While he has made more than a mark on society he really didn’t do much. We all know him sure but it never really sparked anything but small protests. We all know that Chinas still communist and still dose all the things he probably stood against.

Though it also shows how powerful one person can be even to the government. After all of that he not only has caused the Chinese government to cover up his name, but stop the broadcast, and censor everything about this man. While a former high ranking Chinese official said something like “I think he’s not dead” no one can be sure. He has proven that even one person can scare even the most terrifying governments.

He’s got balls no one can say that he doesn’t he is now even used as a symbol of protest maybe one day we will all know his identity and his fate.

One is reminded of Nazi Germany with a simple summary like that. With enough negative dissertation letters, one would be dragged away simply for looking suspicious.

You can reach fakku through the great firewall of china?

My mother moved to Australia when the then-Hawke-government allowed refuge status for chinese students. She lived in Guangzhou which was a long way away from Beijing so she didnt directily experience the crackdown itself. But she told me that she had heard the riots on radio and seen the protest posters on walls.