What is your opinion of this? Personally it pisses me off.

What is your opinion of protesters putting out the olympic torch? Protesters are planning on doing the same in San Francisco.

Article:

Security officials snuffed out the Olympic torch and carried it through Paris in the safety of a bus at least five times Monday as chaotic protests against China's human rights record turned the relay into a chaotic series of stops and starts.

Despite massive security, at least two activists got within almost an arm's length of the flame before they were grabbed by police. A protester threw water at the torch but failed to extinguish it and was taken away. Officers tackled numerous protesters and carried some away.

At the start of the relay, on the Eiffel Tower's first floor, Green Party activist Sylvain Garel lunged for the first torchbearer, former hurdler Stephane Diagana, shouting "Freedom for the Chinese!" Security officials pulled Garel back.

"It is inadmissible that the games are taking place in the world's biggest prison," Garel said later.

The procession continued but a crowd of activists waving Tibetan flags soon interrupted it by confronting the torchbearer on a road along the Seine River. The demonstrators did not appear to get within reach of the torch, but its flame was put out by security officers and put on board a bus to continue part way along the route.

Less than an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a traffic tunnel by a woman athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was halted by activists who booed and chanted "Tibet." Once again, the torch was temporarily extinguished and put on a bus.

The third time, security officials apparently interrupted the procession because they spotted demonstrators ahead. After the torch was put on a bus, protesters threw plastic bottles, cups and pieces of bread at the vehicle and at a male wheelchair-bound athlete.

The torch disappeared back inside the bus a fourth time shortly after a protester approached it with a fire extinguisher near the Louvre art museum. Police grabbed the demonstrator before he could start to spray.

The flame was whisked into a bus again outside the National Assembly, where protesters gathered. A session of parliament was interrupted and a banner on the building read: "Respect for Human Rights in China." City Hall draped its building with a banner reading, "Paris defends human rights around the world."



My opinion: Leave the torch alone. It has nothing to do with the issues being protested.
Let me see if I can put this the way it is in my mind....

China's stupid policies





Olympic torch and games



See the space between them? That is because they are two completely seperate issues. You want to protest China More power to you. But leave the Olympic torch and games alone. That is a group of atletes who are trying to be the best that they can be.

Protest all you want but leave the torch alone.

I agree. And if countries decide to boycott the games, thereby destroying the dreams of countless athletes who have worked their entire lives for the opportunity to compete, it will be interesting to see if those same countries will also refuse to trade with China. I would imagine not. So why make the Olympics the big statement? It would be an empty gesture, and it's not fair to the athletes involved.

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I agree as well. If you want to protest China's treatment of its citizens, stop doing business with them. When the 1980 summer olympics in Moscow were boycotted the only folks impacted were the athletes who had trained all their lives to participate.

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Reading:

The Spartacus War - Barry Strauss
Slow Death - Jim Fielder
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon

Well, I do agree that extinguishing the flame is hurting the athletes. I don’t think the power in China gives a hoot about the flame being extinguished other than the culprits should be heavily punished. Has that not always been China’s trademark? Endure and obey through heavy discipline and if you waiver from that thin line prepare to suffer heavy consequences.

China’s problems and the Tibet atrocities or infringements on human rights are nothing new. We are not talking about a few years of history here, but a couple of decades. It is sad that the Olympics are being blemished to enforce these issues, when they have been critical for so much longer. People shrug their shoulders, go about their lives, and now, all of a sudden, let us boycott the Olympics for this cause. Gimme a break!

If we wanted to do something, why not react earlier like when the Olympic hosting run was underway. Why not sanction China from being the host at that time. Send letters to the embassy of your country based in China, to the Federal Government to initiate proper action.

I find that tempering with the flame is atrocious, but having China host the Olympics is just as bad. The only difference is that I was upset when they were nominated and nothing was being done then. Having China hosting the Olympics is equivalent to when Nazi Germany hosted the games in Berlin of 1936. There were so many bad things executed by Germany at that time, and the whole world decided to ignore it and shed Germany in a good light.

Now, we do the same thing.

Anyway, this whole things does tick me off, but it should come as of no surprise, especially nowadays that the Olympics are on an International plateau with the eyes of the world upon them. Historically, the games have always seemed to drive some kind of political goal. Here are some that I picked up from a Britannica Encyclopedia at a quick glance:

1) Attempts to politicize the Olympics were evident as early as the first modern Games at Athens in 1896, when the British compelled an Australian athlete to declare himself British
2) the Nazi propaganda that pervaded the Berlin Games of 1936
3) the Soviet-Hungarian friction at the 1956 Games in Melbourne, Australia, which followed shortly after the U.S.S.R. had brutally suppressed a revolution in Hungary that year
4) the forbidden, unofficial, but prominent contests for “points” (medals counts) between the United States and the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War
5) the controversy between China and Taiwan leading up to the 1976 Montreal Games
6) the manifold disputes resulting from South Africa's apartheid policy from 1968 to 1988
7) the U.S.-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games (in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979), followed by the retaliatory boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Games by the Soviet bloc
8) the murder of Israeli athletes by terrorists at the 1972 Games in Munich, West Germany
9) in 1968 in Mexico City, where, shortly before the Games opened, Mexican troops fired upon Mexican students (killing hundreds) who were protesting government expenditures on the Olympics while the country had pressing social problems

I agree too,i always think that people making protests don't have anything else to do well not all of them but i hope you know what i mean.

In their attempt to protest China's current and past atrocities, the only people they wound up dissing were the athletes, the host countries for the torch, and(I believe) the chinese people.

That torch means something to all of us. That's why it makes the trip it does. Just because China's hosting the games doesn't mean they own the torch too.

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Reading:

The Spartacus War - Barry Strauss
Slow Death - Jim Fielder
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon

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FLASH VIRUS: EPISODE ONE (always free)

FLASH VIRUS:EPISODE TWO ($1.99)

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Reading:

The Spartacus War - Barry Strauss
Slow Death - Jim Fielder
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon

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Reading: "Under The Dome"


Listening:
RUSH
Vertical Horizon
Porcupine Tree

So what the hell is wrong with Chyna anyway?

_________________
FLASH VIRUS: EPISODE ONE (always free)

FLASH VIRUS:EPISODE TWO ($1.99)

_________________
Reading:

The Spartacus War - Barry Strauss
Slow Death - Jim Fielder
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon