San Francisco Olympic torch run collapsing

[brooklynite]

The torch run started about 20 minutes ago, and the the first runner immediately ran into a warehouse and hasn't emerged. KGO is reporting that officials may have to move the torch by boat because the Embarcadero is completely blocked by protestors.

Live coverage here

[Freedomofspeech]

1. Yea!,,,,,but why aren't they protesting our involvement in Iraq, also?

[devilgrrl]

3. I have a even better question. Why aren't you?

Huh, smarty pants?

[Freedomofspeech]

16. Excuse Me? I have attended every peace march....

in DC and Pittsburgh. I even started a Peace group in our area.

[devilgrrl]

20. Then why aren't you marching now?

You haven't a problem suggesting what others should be doing with their time.

:popcorn:

[NYC Liberal]

4. There have been plenty of Iraq protests tho

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=san+francisco+iraq+protest&m=text

But I am loving watching them get humiliated, having to hide the torch, carry it by boat :rofl:

[leftofcool]

7. Because anti war people don't really have to protest

They aren't being asked to sacrifice anything, there is no draft. Most of the college crowd that says they are against the war, say it, then go shopping. During Viet Nam, people literally chained themselves to buildings. There were massive protests everyday on college campuses across the US. Everytime the ROTC marched on some campus somewhere, there were twice as many out to march in protest. People burned their draft cards. Eventually, there will be a draft, then we will see how loud the anti war cry really is.

[MzNov]

2. It's being blocked by thousands of people

not necessarily protestors. The supporters are very angry because they changed the route.

[Ian David]

5. We really don't have any basis to claim the moral high ground anymore, do we?

I'm boycotting Major League Baseball, The NFL, The NHL, and American Gladiator.

[leftofcool]

10. And American Idol too

[Ian David]

21. The only thing I watch on Fox is House and American Dad. n/t

[Freedomofspeech]

18. I agree with you totally....

with what we have done to Iraq, we are no better than anyone.

[brooklynite]

6. Update: Willie Brown reporting torch is leaving in a bus...

[Vilis Veritas]

8. I heard it was with this guy on a bus...

[brooklynite]

9. Is that one of the exhibition sports?

[AlCzervik]

14. i'd like to see Chinese "Security" running down Lombard street and watch them

fall on their collective asses.

[brooklynite]

11. Torch has appeared elsewhere in San Francisco

on Van Ness Street west of Downtown.

It appears that the goal is simply to say they had a torch run, rather than given anyone (pro-, anti- or neutral) a chance to see it.

[Vilis Veritas]

13. It is interesting to see...

I suppose it is for the best...reminds me of OJ...for some odd reason...

[tekisui]

12. How lame. Homeland Security is on it! WTF!!???!

[NYC Liberal]

19. Don't you know Osama is protesting - he's the tall one holding a FREE TIBET sign!

:rofl:

[brooklynite]

15. Torch now moving north on Van Ness

Caucings lots of traffic tie-ups because nobody was expecting it there.

[PATRICK]

17. Hilarious

The news coverage is worthy of an Onion award. Why don't they just fake a torch run or show old footage?
Instead the news is sympathizing with the waiting crowds blanketed with Red Chinese flags. I don't know how that plays in London or Paris but it is something of a culture shock bordering on theater of the absurd.

News coverage less sympathetic would have truly awful consequences simply mentioning outsourcing, the presence of paramilitary thugs(which is how they were somehow sympathetically described) dressed in safer less antagonizing blue(the color of the UN which will further inflame the Red Dawn segment).

The lifeline to a giant pro-corporate degraded myth is a person carrying a roch along a route. The Olympics are a strong symbol of the reality of the entirely messed up world we live in. The Greeks could operate under civil war, invasion and everything else. This century, supposedly civilized, smart, global,
is exposed by this arcane little show of unity as phony, in extreme turmoil and so riddled with absurdity and hypocrisy as to make the actual simplest demonstration a needle to the balloon. The Olympic Ideal was created by people who had little relation to what that historic phenomenon really meant and what our times really are. They certainly did not make peace back then and being oversold and corrupted into convenient fantasies the torch has been met by another flame entirely, one that cannot go out and needs no protection and is not a mere show.

The torch has been passed. The protesters ARE carrying it.