Majora Carter, 41, was one of the Olympic torch bearers as the flame made its way through San Francisco. During her run, she pulled out a small Tibetan flag “to condemn China’s human rights abuses in the Himalayan province.” (source)
Some people prefer that China continue its genocidal and illegal occupation of Tibet. They have a right to that opinion. However, here is what pisses me off… the Olympic Torch is accompanied by a Chinese Paramilitary Squad — right here on our own soil.
The government that gave us the Tiananmen Square massacre, a disgust for freedom of expression that would even offend the Bush family, and a virtual dim sum cart of human rights abuses has its thugs running security on American soil!
This cadre of gang members honed their expertise in martial arts, marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat, and are trained to brutally suppress demonstrations and farmer’s uprisings in China which routinely result in the slaughter of scores of protesters who dare stand up to the Communist police state. (source)
In the U.K., the group came under criticism for its heavy-handed tactics used to suppress criticism of the Communist Chinese regime (source). I’m infuriated enough when I think of Chinese brown-shirts suppressing expression on the streets of London, but I have enough American pride that I presumed it wouldn’t happen here.
No such luck.
It is bad enough that we’ve been sucking the Chinese national cock economically and politically for at least 20 years, but now we have gone so far as to let their goons attack our citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights.
When Carter pulled out the Tibetan flag, the Chinese goons “pounced”, took away the flag, and handed her over to police. (source)
Communist Chinese-style political oppression came to San Francisco on Wednesday when police, acting on the orders of Chinese paramilitary cops, removed and shoved to the sidewalk an Olympic torch bearer for displaying a Tibetan flag, as the woman’s pleas that she had the right to free speech as an American citizen fell on deaf ears.
After seizing the Tibetan flag, the blue tracksuit-clad specially trained Chinese paramilitary police thugs who manhandled protesters in London made the torch bearer known to the San Francisco police were all too willing to do their dirty work for them. (source)
Naturally, the above-quoted source is as biased as I am. Nevertheless, the event happened. On American soil, Chinese goons attacked an American citizen for exercising her First Amendment rights and then, even worse, gave orders to American police that were complicit in the act.
Who is to blame? I blame our own people. We have gone from land of the free and home of the brave to the land of the mewling cowards.
Fellow torch-bearer Richard Doran, 57, a retired FDNY firefighter, called Carter’s maverick move “disgusting and appalling.”
“I think she dishonored herself and her family, and if she wanted to do that, she should’ve given up her spot to someone else,” said Doran, 57, who carried the torch wearing his Rescue 4 helmet to honor firefighters killed on 9/11.
Retired NYPD cop Jim Dolan, 64, who also carried the flame, agreed, saying, “That was not the time and place to do it. We were there to represent the best of American citizens.”
Coca-Cola officials, who invited Carter to participate in the relay, were also chagrined.
“It’s unfortunate that Ms.Carter used an invitation to participate in the torch relay as a platform to make a personal, political statement,” company flack Kelly Brooks said. (source)
Lets break it down, a firefighter who was honoring the memory of Americans killed on 9/11 thinks that it Carter’s conduct was shameful, but has nothing to say about the Chinese thugs. A cop pig doesn’t realize that when we support the human rights of others, we ARE representing the best of American citizens. Hell, even something as American as Coca-Cola is anti-freedom.
This isn’t the first time that this kind of thing has happened. Last summer, during a soccer match at the University of Utah involving a Chinese team, fans were ejected for waving Tibetan flags. (source) Don’t believe me? Watch the video.
Does anyone know how to say “yes, massa!” in Chinese? We had better practice.
Japan and Australia, on the other hand, are still apparently sovereign nations. (source)
Jim Dolan, Richard Doran, and Kelly Brooks, you get ass-hat awards, while Majora Carter gets a First Amendment Bad Ass nod.
UPDATE: Jon Katz has an excellent post on this story here.
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The Legal Satyricon 
lovely. classy move calling a cop a pig. Ms Carter has every right to speak her mind, and i concur with her stance, (though i feel that the Olympics should not be the venue for such expression). However, signing a contract that includes a code of conduct, and then letting Coke pay her way there is shortsighted and unethical. She should have declined the offer to be a torch bearer, declined the free flight and accommodations, and then protested with everyone else. By showing that she is unwilling to abide by an agreement and a contract with sponsors, she has now hurt Sustainable South Bronx, because a potential sponsor would be foolish to give her money for fear that she’ll accept it and then cross them the moment the check clears. She’s entitled to her political opinions (with which I generally agree), and she’s entitled to express them. no one is suggesting otherwise, so please don’t pretend that this is a freedom of speech issue. Accepting an invite and sponsorship and signing a contract and then speaking out is not bad ass or defending the first amendment – it’s just plain disingenuous.
Fair enough. If you think that Ms. Carter is unethical for breaching her contract, I can live with that opinion. See This Post
If Coca Cola wanted to pull her sponsorship, or even send her a bill for the flight and the accommodations, I wouldn’t be so critical.
If you can, just for a moment, put on your “I can read at a fifth grade level or above” hat, you should re-read the post. It isn’t about praising her actions (although I do praise them), it is about … well, go read it, dipshit.
great – cops are pigs, those who think she should have picked a better venue to speak up are asshats, and i’m a dipshit. Apparently you’re not so big on respectful disagreement. If you really think that she’s a badass for choosing that venue or that my criticisms of them have anything to do wanting suppress her first amendment rights, then it is you who is not paying attention.
Have a pleasant day.
Billy, I’m fine with respectful or disrespectful disagreement… go read the post and come back with disagreement over the actual substance of the post, instead of hand-picking your own personal axe to grind and trying to re-frame the issue. If you lack the intellect to do so, go listen to Rush Limbaugh or masturbate looking at your personal collection of Mao-Tse Tung commemorative dinner plates, but don’t waste my time by coming here.
You’ll find that if you pick through the comments on this blog, I welcome disagreement. I love it. I just don’t suffer morons easily. Perhaps I should. I’ll work on that personality flaw. You go work on your reading comprehension skills and we’ll talk after we’ve both succeeded in improving ourselves.
It takes true courage to speak up in the face of adversity. Some folks don’t understand that and never will. Perhaps it is because they cannot see the adversity.
Word
“Who is to blame?”
I concur that the citizenry bear the brunt of the responsibility for kowtowing to the Chi-Com corpocratic overlords. We must also assign blame to Henry Kissinger for selling us down the river in the early 70’s, and Michael Chertoff for shirking is responsibility by allowing the yellow/brown shirts to run roughshod on our city streets.
And, lets not forget the Clinton administration… sad, but true.
Marc, do you know where I can get some of those Mao-Tse Tung dinner plates?
(ROTFL)
Yes, but they need to be washed! Ewwww!
Not every day that a party to a contract dispute can get foreign security personnel and local LEOs to assault and batter the other party for breach!
If your beef is in contract breech, you still have NOTHING to criticize what she did. Contracts are breached all the time … its a common business practice. The common solution is to pay damages. Not get someone beat up or arrested.
Sounds like she had a lot more class than her poor misguided critics. This country’s best moments are usually perfomred by private citizens standing up to do what the government ought to have done in the first place. Too bad so many “good citizens” are embarassed (or worse, critical) of criticizing blood-thirsty dictatorships. That embarasses me.