I’ve had it.  Once again I’m wound up and I need to vent.  This time it’s not funny though.  I have a real problem with the Olympic Torch Relay Protesters.   What Big E?  You mean you support the horrible Chinese regime?  Of course not, read on.

First of all, yes China has a despicable human rights record.  It might go with the territory when you govern about 20% of the world’s population but it doesn’t excuse it.  From the Long March to the Cultural Revolution to Tienanmen Square they have perpetuated some of the worst crimes against humanity east of Hitler and Stalin.  I’m not excusing that.  And of course Tibet and Darfur are two of the worst tragedies going on right now.

Here’s my problem:  the focus of the protesters is completely misguided and selfish.  WHAT?  SELFISH??  Yes selfish.  In case you missed it, let me get you up to speed.  The torch was lit in Greece as usual and there were protests.  Then it went on tour to London and there were protests and then to Paris where there were more protests.   Now if it was just people standing on the relay route and yelling and screaming and waving banners then great, knock yourselves out.  But no, these people were actually ATTACKING THE RUNNERS!  They were trying to grab the torch and extinguish it.  In Paris they sort of succeeded because they had to put the torchbearers on buses to get them away from the angry mobs (I bet King Louis wished he’d had that service available in 1789) and they had to put the torch out and re-light it.

Then it came to San Francisco.   San Fran has a huge Asian population and a history of protest so big things were expected.   So big that at the last minute they changed the relay route, faking out the protesters but also faking out most of the people who just wanted to see the torch.  Great!  What if we held a torch relay and nobody came?  Did it really happen?

So why is it selfish?  Well, what did they accomplish?  Did they stop the human rights abuses in Tibet?  Nope.  In fact there’s evidence that the Chinese government may have cracked down even harder.  They stopped issuing visas to foreigners to travel to Tibet.  They may cancel the torch relay leg that was supposed to go there thus making the situation even more opaque as no news gets out other than the party line. 

Here’s what they did accomplish.  Most people who run legs of a torch relay in any given Olympic year are picked because of lifelong dedication to a specific Olympic sport or to the organization itself.  It’s a way to honor athletes who sacrifice countless years of their lives to compete for their country.  Most don’t win medals.  A lot don’t even make it to the games themselves.  But we can honor them by letting them carry the torch for a ¼ mile or so in an event that is supposed to link us all around the world.  Well congrats protesters, those are the people you screwed.  These people who were going to have 5 minutes of glory and a great memory instead got a big sh** sandwich and a memory that will make them shake their heads and wonder if it was all worth it.  I hope you’re proud.

But still, why is it selfish?  Well, let’s examine other ways to protest a government.  What if instead of attacking some poor schlep carrying the torch, we decided not to use any Chinese goods?  Might that work?  Oh I know, so much stuff is made in China.   It’s too expensive to buy stuff that isn’t!  Well isn’t that the point?  Protest isn’t about screaming and acting like a jerk.  It’s about doing things that actually might accomplish something (ask Gandhi and King, oh right you can't.  They died for their causes).  If we as a nation decided not to buy things made in China what would happen?   Well, here’s an assortment of dog toys given to Maria Milito for her new dog Carmine the Big Ragu:

         
[Don't buy this one, even though the lobster is kinda cute]

      

[The resemblance to blue balls notwithstanding, this is made in China too]



[Hard to make it out but this one is from Golden, Colorado, home of Coors!  MMMMMMMMMmmmmm.......... Dog beer..........]

As you can see the first two are Made in China, the third is from Colorado.  Well Carmine may like squeaky lobsters but let’s face it, he’s a dog!  If it squeaks and he can chew it he’s in.  So don’t buy the lobster and the blue bone and instead buy the weird rubber thing.  Now multiply that transaction by 300 million people in the U.S. and then multiply it by the hundreds of transactions we each make year.  Pretty soon you might be affecting something, you might even bring our trade deficit back into a manageable range.  You’d stopping shipping MONEY to the government doing these horrible things too. 

It’ll never happen though.  Why?  It requires sacrifice and we as Americans have forgotten what that is.  We’ll add our names to an e-mail petition.  We’ll send angry form letters to our congressmen.  What we won’t do is spend more of our hard earned dollars on things we buy to make a difference (charity notwithstanding, but that’s another blog altogether).  We won’t insist on better fuel efficiency because the cars would cost more.  We won’t pay for Solar or Wind Energy because the investment is too much.  And we sure as hell won’t cut off Chinese goods because we don’t want to pay more than $10 for a t-shirt.   It’s sad.  It’s selfish.  I’m just as guilty as anyone.  But you won’t see me attacking a 50 year old former Olympic Badminton player just because they are a part of something I disagree with... that Badminton is an Olympic sport of course!