Debbie Stabenow was on CNN's State of the Union this morning and made the case for the public option.

STABENOW: Well, my first choice and very strong choice is a public option. And I have to say, Wolf, that what my friends are saying, Senator Gregg and Senator Alexander really are scare tactics that have been put forward by folks that don't want to change the system because they make a lot of money off the current system right now.

The reality for families today is if there's an insurance company bureaucrat between you and your doctor telling your doctor what they're allowed to do because of what they'll pay for, telling you what they'll pay for, putting you through all kinds of bureaucracy to try to figure out if you can get care, assuming you're not dropped if you get sick or can't get insurance if you have a pre-existing condition. So what we're talking about is putting somebody on your side, being able to make sure that the insurance company, the for profit insurance company won't provide you with a low cost insurance policy for your family that you have another choice.

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(It seemed like a great idea at the time)

Twenty years ago this month, hot on the heels of Glasnost and Perestroika within the Soviet Union, Chinese students tried for the same thing - a reform of government, an idealogical shift from hardline Mao-styled Communism to a more democratic approach, a relaxing of rigid policies and a free exchange of ideas and enterprise.

It was a little like a movement in the former Czechoslovakia twenty years before that. Prague Spring in 1968 and the liberal experiment of Alexander Dubcek. The climate in the Soviet Union was different that time, and the movement was quickly extinguished.

But it was thought since the mood had changed so much in the Soviet Union in those twenty years, why couldn't the mood change in China as well?

Lofty expectation but sadly, no. Or not in 1989 anyway.

Here are some clips from May 13-15 1989. As the confrontation wears on into June, I will add those to give some sort of timeline sense to the events that took place.