Remembering Tiananmen Square 20 years later

By Steve Buckstein
In: Measure 37
Wednesday June 3, 2009

Twenty years ago this week the Tianamen Square Massacre unfolded in Beijing, China. Perhaps the most memorable image of that week was the man in the white shirt who stopped a line of tanks heading to the square. He didn’t stop the eventual massacre, but he did take a stand, and he helped focus the attention of the world on what was happening.


As I related here one year ago, our plight in Oregon is not comparable, but sometimes I imagine free-market, limited government types being men (and women) in white shirts. The tanks represent our current political establishment.

In the last year a lot has “changed.” In response, more “white shirts” seem to be taking stands, namely at tea parties and events like the Defending the American Dream Summit that I spoke at last Friday in Salem and the Liberty Summit to be held in Salem this coming Saturday where other Cascade analysts will participate.

Watch the video and remember that those who forget history may be doomed to repeat it.

Steve Buckstein is founder and senior policy analyst at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research center.

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