Comments on: San Francisco Asians fret over insult to Olympic torch

By: John

John — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:21:25 +0000

Bo – hey, John Stewart on The Daily Show just mentioned that fact – that the olympic torch relay tradition was started in 1936 for the Nazi Germany hosted Olympics by Hitler himself.

By: Ernie

Ernie — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:35:38 +0000

The first images and sounds broadcast in space was of Hitler as well; doesn't mean we shouldn't broadcast images into space anymore. But anyway. As an American of Chinese ethnicity (O RLY?) I think what kinda makes me uneasy is this one sentence quip that was in the article about the protests in Paris:

Outside, a few French activists supporting Tibet had a fist-fight with pro-Chinese demonstrators. The French activists spat on them and shouted, "Fascists!"

That breaks my heart, because violence was resorted over two sides, completely blinded by the others view. And I don't have enough faith in humanity to say that won't happen in San Francisco on Wednesday.

By: Bo

Bo — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:01:50 +0000

I may be in the minority but I hope every single Olympic Torch procession is interrupted in very non-violent but ubsurdly public and disruptive means. London and Paris set excellent examples. The Chinese gov’t will try to use these games much as Nazi Germany did in 1936 to paint a false, glossy, pretty picture of a country that is marred in horrible human rights violations. These protests are one of the rare public outlets for the world to express their outrage at the horrid gov’t policies of communist China. Embarass the bejesus out of the communist leadership, I say. The protesters and the cities won’t appear poorly – China will. And the whole “saving face” argument…do you really want to save face on something like human rights violations?

BTW, little known fact – the olympic torch relay tradition was started in 1936 for the Nazi Germany hosted Olympics by Hitler himself as a PR gimmick. Well, you can’t say that the IOC hasn’t made mistakes in the past.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 01:34:42 +0000

The Communist party leadership has shown that it could care less about pressure from foreign governments, foreign NGOs, the UN, its promises to the IOC, and certainly even less about the welfare of its own citizens.

One thing that they do care about is loss of face, so disrupting the Olympic torch relay and embarrassing the Chinese government on the world stage is one of the very rare opportunities to get their attention.

By: Toro

Toro — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:42:47 +0000

I could see myself having this conversation with my mother. It’s always about appearance. What will the neighbors think. The neighbors will think I’m a bad mother. I’m quite sure we could have this conversation till I was blue in the face and never come to any agreement.