Letters to the Editor
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I'm appalled at the damage to the Constitution
The runners were surrounded by people in light blue. Do you know who they were? That's right, paramilitaries from the PRC. When one of the torchbearers pulled a Tibetan flag out of her sleeve, a paramilitary pulled her off the torch and forced her out of the run.
PRC 1, 1st Amendment 0
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Torching The Olympics
I would imagine that Gavin Newsome has now realized how out of control his far left constituents are. My my did he interfere with their first amendment rights, shame for shame.
Which goes to prove that the left only likes the the first amendment when it suits their needs.
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@Bridgewerk
Progressives recognize and respect the right of everybody to speak freely, even people with whom they do not agree. A more authoritarian city would have simply fenced off the protester's in a "protest zone", or arrested them and removed them from the scene entirely, then let the camera's roll as the torch moved triumphantly and peacefully through the streets. San Francisco let the protester's and the camera crews mix freely and took the spectacle of the torch elsewhere in order to keep everybody safe. Everybody got to speak, the torch bearer's were safe, and the camera crews got lots of great footage. Everybody won.
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NRALIFER
Which goes to prove that the left only likes the the first amendment when it suits their needs.
No, it shows how badly the left has been harangued and intimidated by the "Law and Order" screamers on the right.
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Get off your high horse
For all the people who decry China's human rights record, try running a country with a billion people for a week, then you'll have the right to point fingers;
For those who say China do not deserve to be a super power nation because of the crackdown on Tibet, maybe you'll want to rewrite American history when slavery was around, or when we claimed super power status even when Jim Crow laws were still the norm.
For all the Burmese people, and the Tibetian people, who have a right to voice their protest, maybe you should remember your Asian heritage. Maybe you should remember how the Chinese culture deals with this type of stuff. Western style protests and confrontations NEVER work with the Chinese culture, and especially not to the Han people, who value face above all else. They would do much better by SUPPORTING the games, with a public pledge to put aside all differences for the duration in the Olympic spirit. This kind of public support will earn a HUGE amount of good will from the communist party leaders, and would have done much more good in the long run than any forceful confrontation ever could.
because this is how the Chinese think;
because this is how Chinese politics work;
because this is who we are.
(and no, this would not work with any other country/culture. seriously, this is something i think would only work with the Han Chinese mentality. it would do well for western politicians and writers to learn more about this, and apply it to future dealings with China. After all, China is second only to Japan as America's creditor...)
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All I know is
You will be saying precisely the same thing in 2012 at the London Olympics. Anyone tainted by the stain of modernism is to be shunned. I think all Olympics from now one must be held either in an Arab Muslim state or South Africa, since jointly they own the phrase "Professional Permanent Victim of Whitey".
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Mayor Newsom and the Olympic Torch
Hello,
I live in Berkeley and work in San Francisco. Mayor Newsom did a fantastic job of getting the Olympic Torch through San Francisco without anyone getting hurt, without the police having to brutalize anyone, without a riot, etc., etc. This was his job on Tuesday; his job on Tuesday was NOT to be certain that protestors had a forum or a stage and an opportunity to turn the Torch Relay into a disaster. The choice of China for the Olympic games is most unfortunate. I wish a different country had been chosen. But, Mayor Newsom worked with the situation he had to work with and did the responsible thing on Tuesday. I am very proud of him. So are a lot of the people who live and work here.
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LET US NOT FORGET BURMA....
In the major rush to protest Tibetans' rights against being surpressed by China's UNLAWFUL HEGEMONY, we have lost sight of Burma's being VICTIMIZED by China indirectly but just as mercilessly by China's support of the dictatorial regime in power in Burma. The deranged retarded chimpanzee commander-in-THIEF Fuhrer George W. Bush has once again proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that as a tin-pot despot and autocratic dogmatist, he is incapable of criticizing or boycotting the despotic outrages perpetuated by China because he is in cahoots with them and supports their oppression of their citizens, because he is doing the SAME THING in America as well, ditto Vladimir Putin and other despotic regimes around the world. At least in America we have the freedom to criticize Bush, Hu of China, Putin of Russia, Kim of North Korea, Mugabe, and other dictatorships' vile, dastardly machinations while in China, Russia or other more TOTALITARIAN regimes, dissent and criticism is stifled with BRUTAL FORCE & VIOLENCE, OFTEN MURDER in order to keep the populace at bay! Gordon Brown of the U.K., and even that right-wing womanizing arrogant creep Sarkozy of France are in one way or another not attending or talking & contemplating boycotting the Peking Olympics, but Nazi-Fascist, Fascist-Nazi CREEP Bush? "Ahm attendin!" says our arrogant ape with his prognathous simian jaw jutted forward, our "proud" moron & imbecile, our commander-in-THIEF, coddling the INSIDIOUS DR. FU MANCHU TACTICS of COMMUNIST CHINA!!!!! IT TAKES A TYRANT TO KNOW AND SUPPORT A FELLOW TYRANT, Nicht Wahr, IRON-TOOTHED & BREASTED NAZI and Peking Olympics toady Angela Merkel of CHER-many?
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Torch protesting
Many Chinese people were bused into SF specifically to confront the protesters. Several of my friends who were there watched large groups of Chinese people verbally abusing the Tibetans, screaming "losers", "China Number One!" and "Dalai Liar" at them -- clearly they had no purpose for being there other than to harass people, unlike others who actually came to see the torch.
It's a little wearisome to hear the "how dare you point fingers at China when the US (or whatever) government has (fill in the blank)." Is everyone in the world supposed to just sit quietly and never protest any sort of human rights violation because every country's government has, at one time or another, been complicit in oppressing somebody somewhere? I don't agree with all of my government's policies either, but at least I don't have to worry about being gunned down in the street if I decide to protest something or having my Internet access censored so that I can't read anything that doesn't agree with government propaganda.
And now the torch will go to China, where it will be carried on its "Journey of Harmony" through the streets of Tibet, where the government killed people who were protesting their oppression. And through Tianenman Square, where the government killed people who were protesting their oppression. Kind of makes a mockery of the whole Olympic ideal, doesn't it?