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The Olympic Torch was in San Francisco today, where about 80 people got to carry the torch throughout ‘part’ of the city.  The original route had the torch going down the Embarcedero (near the baseball stadium), but due to large groups of protestors, the city pulled a bait and switch and re-routed at the last second going through the middle part of the city down Van Ness and into the Marina (by the Golden Gate bridge).

It was an interesting experience to say the least – protestors abound with philosophies on what is wrong with the world – human rights, animal rights, free speech rights, internet rights, save darfur, free tibet, free burma, pro-china, protest beijing, support the olympics, end sweatshops.  It presented the very problem that marketers face all day every day.  Clutter. 

Everyone with an agenda was there to shout about it.  Most people were there to find their opposing group, and shout at them telling them why the other group is stupid or biased or just plain wrong.  It is commendable though that many young people were out supporting causes like Darfur.  Passion is good. 

The two major protesting topics were Tibet and Darfur. 

In Tibet, while there is some international debate about the current human rights status, there is no debate that China occupies their country, and they have gone through 50+ years of oppression.  The Free Tibet protestors aim to shed light on the human rights abuses against the Tibetans.

China, with its population size and global trade strength, has tremendous leverage it can use to either support or discourage behaviors.  At the moment, China is Sudans largest oil customer (among other things), and has done nothing to discourage their government to end the genocide in Darfur.  In 2007, China’s trade imports doubled from Sudan.  This shows China is supporting the Sudanse Government and ignoring the genocide.  That is wrong.  And the world is speaking out. 

For more information you can go to the following sites:

www.studentsforafreetibet.org
www.sfteamtibet.org
www.savedarfur.org
www.darfursf.org

Here’s what it was like from my vantage point:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.