Olympic Torch Run Protests

…all the respect it deserves

In the wake of China’s crackdown on civilians and Buddhist monks and priests in Tibet, its links to Myanmar’s military rulers and genocidal juntas in Sudan’s Darfur region, this year’s Olympic Torch Run is meeting with anti-PRC protests along its route. Protests last week in London and Paris turned violent and were met with crackdowns of their own. The flame arrived in San Francisco Wednesday morning, a city with the largest number of Chinese residents in the US, and it was met with protesters.

The Dalai Lama told reporters outside Tokyo on Wednesday that he supports China’s hosting of the Summer Olympic Games, but insisted no one has a right to tell protesters “to shut up.”

The torch run seems a particularly good target for protest of China’s dismal record on human rights. The run was invented for the 1936 games in Berlin by Carl Diem, leader of the German Olympic Committee as a favorable propaganda vehicle for Hitler’s Third Reich.

So don’t be fooled by right-wing denunciations of the ongoing protests as the torch makes its way across the globe. It is a spectacle that never occurred in ancient Greece, but was invented to serve Adolph Hitler and announce him to the world he was about to throw into massive, murderous turmoil with his dreams of conquest and hatred of ethnic minorities and Jews. Linking the torch run to its notorious beginnings is apropos as a vehicle of protest against China’s brutal policies and involvement in ethnic and religious violence across the globe.

REMINDER: Don’t forget, kiddies - This is Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, brought to you again this year by the David Horowitz Freedom Center!

Filed under Marketing, Protests, History, China, Foreign Policy, Propaganda | Comments (2)

Scary 80-Year Old Terrierist!

Police arrest anti-war protester, 80, at mall

Oooohhh, scary! Don Zirkel, an 80-year old church deacon was arrested last weekend in the food court of Smith Haven shopping mall in Lake Grove, where he was drinking coffee with his 77-year old wife. His offense was that he was wearing a t-shirt that had the death tolls of American military and Iraqis in the war, saying “Enough.”

He’d been passing out protest pamphlets when mall security told him to stop and to turn his t-shirt inside out. He stopped passing out the pamphlets, but didn’t turn his t-shirt inside out before stopping at the food court. So the mall security goons placed him under “civilian arrest” and called police. When they arrived and Zirkel refused to stop drinking his coffee they picked him up, put him in a wheelchair, and wheeled him out. He was arrested for criminal trespassing and resisting arrest.

“Eighty years, and I have never been arrested before for fighting injustice,” said Zirkel. During those 80 years he had served in the U.S. Army, edited The Tablet, the Diocese of Brooklyn’s newspaper, and worked for the state Division of Human Rights under Governor Mario Cuomo.

A PR company representing Simon Property Group, owners of the mall, said in a statement to the press -

…In keeping with our Code of Conduct, it is our corporate policy not to allow protests or demonstrations of any kind to take place on mall property regardless of the topic.

Unfortunately for Simon, there were two opposing protest groups at the mall that day, vocally sparring with each other - one anti-war, one pro-war. Zirkel said he wore the shirt to show his support for the anti-war protesters. None of the protesters in either of the two groups were arrested.

Maybe they were young and fit, and the mall security goons were afraid of enforcing policy on them. I’m sure an 80-year old looked like a much safer target…

Oy!

Links:

USAToday On Deadline Blog
Raffello Network
CommonDreams

Filed under Protests, Anti-War, Humor | Comments (4)