Artful Dodging

When you're handed someone else's political football, it's best to down the play.

Smart move, San Francisco.

While there's no doubt in my mind there were sincere people on either side of this issue, it looked like a stage for a showdown between Team Xinhua and the Company Team.

Meredith May,Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writers
Thursday, April 10, 2008:

...The Olympic torch no-show along San Francisco's Embarcadero is in the running for the city's biggest protest that never was.

The buildup for the torch's only North American stop had been intense, following weeks of protest over Olympic host country China's human rights record. But when city officials switched the route suddenly Wednesday, the throngs left waiting at the Ferry Building had nothing to protest but one another.

Team Tibet and Team Beijing took turns marching with bullhorns around Justin Herman Plaza, where a stage had been set up to host tai chi performers, lion dancers and Olympic mascots. There was a group opposed to China's involvement in Darfur, another for Burma and a third for Vietnam...

The largest contingent was made up of Chinese supporters who lined police barricades for several blocks north and south of the Ferry Building with billowing red flags. Several said they had been bused in by the Chinese government or sports groups.

Nearly 400 people gathered near Pier 39, including five busloads of torch supporters who said they had been brought in from Sacramento by the Chinese Consulate and a cultural group, the Organization of Chinese Americans. They verbally jousted with Tibetan protesters while police kept the two sides separated.

The Northern California Chinese Cultural Athletics Federation brought 20 buses with more than 1,000 people from the South Bay and East Bay...

Rachel Gordon, Tanya Schevitz, Kevin Fagan,Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writers
Thursday, April 10, 2008:

...(04-09) 20:28 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- It was an Olympic-sized fake-out, and by the end of the day, instead of the violent clashes that some had feared, the Beijing Olympic torch run left only thousands of frustrated protesters on one end of San Francisco and mostly relieved runners and officials on the other.

The finger-pointing is bound to go on for days about whether changing the route at the last minute was right. But on Wednesday, Mayor Gavin Newsom and other officials said that once they got a good look mid-morning at the chanting, surging, flag-waving crowds along the torch's advertised route, they felt they had no choice...

Discretion being the better part of valor, militarists on both sides spoiling for a fight, and the potential for thousands of innocents on both sides being hurt, respect Gavin Newsom for his foresight.

Yes, there are innocents being imprisoned and killed in Tibet. I have no respect for Team Xinhua. There are also innocents being imprisoned and killed in Iraq. When this country becomes a real Republic again instead of a corporate empire, and the CIA quits using agitators to egg on endless war, I'll start to respect the government's global posturing and quit dissing Team Amerika.