V 1 N. 14 America's Tiananmen Square, When? Where?

 

America’s Tiananmen Square When?  Where?

George Brose

First there were a small number of National Guard troops in the streets of Los Angeles.  They were few and unarmed.  They served mainly as a show of force and intent by Donald Trump in his faceoff with illegal immigration.  The Guard were approachable, willing to talk, willing to ask themselves why they were in the streets of L.A.  The ICE agents in the background, faces hidden were doing the dirty work of rounding up brown skinned people who looked like they might be illegals.  Since I began writing this a few months ago, ICE has shown its willingness to step in where the Army fears to tread.

 

            Now there are more Guard troops in the streets of Washington D.C. said to be there to help local citizens feel more secure, because the DC police can’t do their job.  Threats of putting troops in Chicago and New York are also being made.  News last night was some of the Guard troops were seen picking up trash.  Nothing was said as to who or what that trash might be.   It was also said that they might be riding public transit vehicles to put law abiding citizens more at ease in their day to day lives.  Regarding trash pick up, I think that may be a good duty.  If anything a young army recruit does get put on trash detail several times during basic training.  Experience matters.  I even remember hearing of a very far-sighted NCO (No Civilian Occupation) who had his lads cut the buds off rose bushes on an Army base before they bloomed  and  the petals dropped on the ground.  His rationale was it would take a lot more time and manpower to pick up the petals off the ground than to cut the flowers before they bloomed.  I’m not sure if that story got up to the brass or what their reaction might have been. 

 

            Now we are being told that the Guard will get weapons to carry on their person.  So we will now be on the proverbial powder keg just waiting for an accidental discharge in a subway, or even an involuntary celibate soldier taking out his sexual frustrations on innocent civilians.  I can personally look back 36 years to China in 1989 when people began demonstrating against corruption in the Chinese Communist Party.  The demonstrations began on university campuses on April 15 sparked by the death of Hu Yaobang, a disgraced Party leader admired by the students.   A trickle of students began placing posters on campuses denouncing the corruption going on in the cities around the country, and denouncing the favoritism  given to members of the Party.  The posters led to gatherings and discussions about the corruption.   Hu Yaobang died unexpectedly, and the students demanded that his reputation be restored post mortem.  Momentum gathered and people began marching in the streets.  The citizens were almost in shock that the students got away with those demonstrations and the momentum continued to build to where students and citizens together began gathering in Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, where Chairman Mao was entombed, where headquarters of the Party at Zhong Nan Hai lay just to the west of the Square, where the Chinese History Museum was located, where visiting dignitaries were received at the Great Hall of the People.  The Party looked at these efforts to confront their power as blasphemy, but they were unable to respond, as they were not sure the Army would go along with the Party Leadership.  Each day in April and then May, the demonstrations continued to grow.  In the evenings after work we would go down to Tiananmen to see how the demonstrations were going.  We were not the only ones who were curious.  Soon all of Beijing wanted to know, and a million people flooded into the Square.

The people, the students and the police and Army began to confront each other face to face, but at that point the Army and Police were not carrying weapons.   I witnessed them getting shoved backwards by students so that marches could continue around the Square.   In the wings, the Party leadership was in a panic and trying to organize units based in other provinces to come in and quell the disorder.  Then a scheduled visit by the Soviet leader Mikail Gorbachev had to be greatly reduced, and he could only get into the Great Hall of the People by the back door.  The students and citizens had blocked the front entrance by their presence in the Square.  This was too much for the Party leadership to swallow.  By the night of June 3- 4, loyal army units had been brought to the outskirts of Beijing, ready to attack the students and anyone else who stood in the way. Signal flares went up west of the Square on Chang An Road.  We thought they were fireworks celebrating stopping the Army once more, but we were so wrong.  It was the signal to attack.   At that point citizens began counter attacking police and then we could hear the sound of heavy vehicles coming our way.  We got off the main road into a hutong or alleyway out of the direct line of fire.  We could hear shooting and the noise probably of tanks and APCs in the streets.  We high tailed it back to campus on our bikes staying in the hutongs where large vehicles would have had difficulty maneuvering.   When we got back to our campus at Beijing Normal University, our once peaceful students were seen making Molotov cocktails and heading for the Square.  Many of them did not come back.  Innocent civilians were shot by the Army along the way going into the Square and many of the students were killed thus ending the movement.   “

 

            Today, the Chinese Communist Party has all but denied the existence of that student movement, that open resistance to their authority.   Is that what we mean today about the word ‘authoritarian’?   You write your own version of history, you write your own rules. As a leader you do not have to obey the laws of the nation to maintain or expand your power?

 

            Is this our nation now?   When will America’s Tiananmen Square come to be? Will it take place on the Mall in DC or Central Park in New York City in Milwaukee or Nashville, Atlanta or Keeokuk?  What will this regime’s plan be for the Los Angeles Olympics if they take place in 2028, the last scheduled year of the New Authoritarians?  Perhaps we will get that answer much sooner in this Fall's elections after the votes get counted.  If they get counted.

George, 

Interesting account of your experience in Beijing.  A few observations on your political take:

The Chinese people have been governed by totalitarian regimes for five millenia.  Real dictatorships do not allow their subjects weapons, for obvious reasons.   President Trump is the most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president since Theodore Roosevelt.  His administration has actively worked to reduce firearm restrictions on law-abiding Americans.  This hardly squares with the characterization of him as a dictator by the unhinged left.

The presence of armed National Guard troops in Washington D.C. has drastically reduced the homicide rate in that city to record lows.  One of the reasons they carry weapons was recently demonstrated when one of them was killed and another severely wounded by an unvetted Afghan national let in by the Biden administration (Obama 2.0). 

In the thirteen months since Trump was sworn in the national homicide rate dropped to the lowest rate in a century.  No doubt the securing of our borders and the ongoing deportation of criminal illegal invaders has made a large contribution.  Despite the orchestrated chaos perpetrated by leftist agitators funded by George Soros and American expatriate billionaire Roy Neville Singham in Shanghai, People's Republic of China, and the government shutdown authored by the Democrat Party the Department of Homeland Security continues to protect our national sovereignty.  If you're not a Bolshevik terrorist assaulting DHS officers with a vehicle or firearm you have nothing to worry about.

On a side note it's encouraging to see that Canadian provincial governments have largely told Ottawa and Carney to take their latest gun confiscation scheme and shove it.

Have an awesome day,

Jim

Thanks for your comments, Jim.  

I'm also appalled by a story that came out yesterday about an 86 year old French woman in the US arrested while waiting for her Green card to be processed.  She had married an American GI she had met in Europe in the 1950's.  They both had married others, but when their marriages ended, they re-united and she came to the US and they married here.  After her husband died this tragic event of her ICE arrest  occurred.  It would seem that ICE is unable to differentiate dangerous people from useful and nonthreatening people. I think ICE may also be working on a bonus system for however many arrests legal or illegal that they can make.  I don't think a three year old child is a threat to anyone, but there are some in detention camps.   On a personal note my grandmother came to the US from LIthuania (Russia) in 1885, and she never got citizenship.  Although her father did and her husband.  She went on to produce 9 children several who served valiantly in WWII in Europe and the Pacific.  None of them carried guns as civilians. As far as I know she never took a dime of public assistance after she was a widow at age 42 with nine children.  She worked in the court system as a translator as she spoke, Lithuanian, Russian, Polish, Czech, German, and English.   I'm okay with allowing guns in the hands of trained, responsible people and severe penalties to adults whose children shoot up schools or commit other crimes with firearms.  I also wish that the national guard or military had been called out in greater numbers to protect the capital when the mob tried to takeover and nullify the election.  As for Canada and guns, anyone can get a gun here.  It just takes more legal processing.  Canadians who have guns, love them and drool over them as much as any American gun nut, and they keep them locked up at home.     And cases people can also shoot up schools with legally obtained guns.    Look at the events in Tumbler Ridge, BC earlier this year.  My wife was at the U. of Montreal many years ago (1990?) the night that a a guy shot up a class of engineering students singling out women as his victims.   I haven't got any statistics to compare homicide rates between Canada and the US.  I can say that I've lived in a town of 30,000 in BC the last 13 years and the two or three homicides that have occurred in this town were not with guns.  Compare that to any town in the US.  There is just as much personal violence, and drugs here, but the death rate  , due to violence is much lower would be my guess.  I have a hard time trying to find truth in statistical comparisons as statistics can be manipulated in many ways to produce 'truth'.  ref. the book,  "How to Lie with Statistics".   I can shoot my mouth off as much as I want to here, and maybe get beaten up for it, but I'm pretty certain I won't get shot for doing so.      George