Company Sportsmanship

One cannot help but wonder who was on whose payroll:

PARIS - What was supposed to be a majestic procession through the French capital for the Olympic torch turned into chaos Monday as thousands of people from around Europe, many with Tibetan flags, massed to protest the relay and deny China the promotional boost it hoped for in the runup to the games.

The torch went out several times, and police officers had to bring it onto a bus to try to protect it as demonstrators swarmed the security detail. In the end, organizers canceled the final leg of the procession, deciding to have the torch transported by bus.

Despite heavy security, at least one activist got within a meter of the pack of Rollerblading police officers crowding around the torchbearer. On several occasions, officers were seen tackling protesters. A police official quoted by The Associated Press said 28 people were arrested.

It was the second time in two days that the torch relay had been disrupted in a European capital. About 3,000 police officers — on foot, horseback, Rollerblades, motorbikes and even boats in the Seine — had been deployed in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the scenes played out in London on Sunday, when the relay turned into a tumult of scuffles and dozens of people were arrested.

But the Paris leg proved just as chaotic. At the start of the relay, a man identified as a Green Party activist was grabbed by security officers as he headed for Stéphane Diagana, the president of France’s national athletics league and a former world champion in the 400-meter hurdles, who was carrying the torch from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. The man was tackled before he got close to Diagana.

An event that was supposed to burnish China’s image around the world has turned into a public relations nightmare — not only for China, but also for the nations along the torch’s route...

These protestors don't exactly look like headstrong kids or human rights activists:



This one, either:



These don't look like idealistic kids.

Somehow I'm reminded of the "democratic Orange Revolution" at the end of 2004 that smelt of CIA funding in the guise of the free marketeers.

Not that the Company is trying to increase tensions with China or anything. Not that a Cold War would be to their advantage, particularly to all the Western corps that would love to stiff China, their major leinholder.

Hard.

Of course, the Chinese government isn't very nice. Neither is the American government, these days. And like America, if a cold- or hot- war breaks out, it won't be the government that suffers.

It will be the average, hardworking people who will suffer, and fight, and die for reasons they never understand for a profit they never realize.

That's just how the Game is played.