March 21, 2008
No Torch For Chinatown
Mayor Gavin Newsom released a few details yesterday regarding the Beijing Olympic Torch jog throughout the city . The route will include areas around the Ferry Building and AT&T Park, but not Chinatown. Why? Well, according to the Gate, "the density of Chinatown and the small streets running through the historic neighborhood make it logistically difficult to include the neighborhood on the route." (But it would look soooo pretty going to Chinatown!) Newsom announced the flame's path after yesterday's attack at the Chinese Consulate, where someone tried but failed to immolate the building, and before the Board of Supervisors had to sit and listen to "4 1/2 hours of public testimony mostly critical of China's human-rights record."
Newsom went on the say that when the Olympic Torch comes to SF, "cheering crowds will outnumber protesters '10 to 1.'" But protesters who arrive without a permits "would be allowed in the so-called free-speech zones."
For those of you fraught with tension and self-righteousness over the Beijing Olympic Torch's SF pit stop, the Tibetan Freedom Torch will travel stop at San Francisco's United Nations Plaza on April 8. Also, a Human Rights Torch event "is planned at Union Square on April 5." Whatever your point of view, there's a flame made just for you.
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and to all those who expressed disagreement when I've been saying all along that Newsom is just a slightly more articulate Bush, I do my little "toldja so" dance.
"free speech zone," indeed. Because nothing affirms our freedom of speech like being herded into a cage like friggin cattle.
And I'd love to see Newsom's little permit-granting process. Perhaps he took the rules from Bull Connor's playbook.
darfur!
LOL, free speech zones. Are those like the out-of-the-way, slightly hidden designated smoking areas in airports and theme parks? Let all the disagreeables linger there.
In all fairness designated smoking areas are specifically designed to put an activity that most find objectionable to be around (i.e. second-hand smoke) out-of-the-way. Being inconvenient does not diminish in any significant way your ability to smoke there.
"Free speech zones" are just a way to corral protesters to a place where they won't be able to effectively protest by both limiting the chance of anyone being able to see them and by penning them in to reduce their apparent numbers to a very small footprint.
In his defense I'm willing to bet that Newsom really is right: people happy to see the torch will be in a very dominant majority. These are also the same people who voted him back into office by a landslide because they don't bother to read the news and somehow think he's been doing a great job. This isn't about appeasing the majority or even doing something that's going to get China to notice or care. It's about principles and making a symbolic statement.
In all fairness designated smoking areas are specifically designed to put an activity that most find objectionable to be around (i.e. second-hand smoke) out-of-the-way. Being inconvenient does not diminish in any significant way your ability to smoke there.
"Free speech zones" are just a way to corral protesters to a place where they won't be able to effectively protest by both limiting the chance of anyone being able to see them and by penning them in to reduce their apparent numbers to a very small footprint.
In his defense I'm willing to bet that Newsom really is right: people happy to see the torch will be in a very dominant majority. These are also the same people who voted him back into office by a landslide because they don't bother to read the news and somehow think he's been doing a great job. This isn't about appeasing the majority or even doing something that's going to get China to notice or care. It's about principles and making a symbolic statement.
Mayor Newsom is a cheerleader for corporate Hillary. What do you expect from corporate America? They love Chinese Communist dictatorship. A little ironic, no?