[KnowItAll]

>> So we should blame it all on the Indians ??

Might as well get the Indians to join the 2012 boycott along with the Chinese.

Its a pity no one has interviewed the famous Duke to add to the Lord / Knight / Sprinter's comments...

As far as I'm concerned, Brits who've received certain honors, go stark raving mad after a certain age.

[Boris]

Originally Posted by KnowItAll

>>
As far as I'm concerned, Brits who've received certain honors, go stark raving mad after a certain age.

So - your changing the subject to Max Mosley and F1 then ???

[hullexile]

Originally Posted by KnowItAll

>> As far as I'm concerned, Brits who've received certain honors, go stark raving mad after a certain age.

I must have missed the letter giving me an honour then coz I meet all the other criteria (Brit, age, mad)

[goleoboy]

Originally Posted by Lammarite

You have to wonder what you would do if you were rushed by an unwashed hippy protesting about somewhere he has never been and never will. I reckon it be giving boots to the nuts too and wouldn't really care if I was seen as a thug or not.

i totallly agree, especially now that the torch is in SF - hippy capital of the world... honestly, those here in the west who are supposedly so concerned about tibet, most of them can't even point it out on a map. the only thing they know comes from the Dalai Lama's appearance on talkshows and his best-selling faux-zen self help books at barnes and noble... the guy's a hack who basically left his people behind and instead enjoyed his own celebrity status by exoticizing buddhism in the west. he's not a wolf in monk's clothing (like the chinese govt claims) he's just a coward and not a real leader - still not sure where he is right now while this whole thing is unfolding.

i'm not justifying what china is doing in term of violent crackdowns, but from what i've seen in the papers, lots of these tibetian protesters aren't even asian! they have ZERO vested interest in tibet and the region. this makes me wonder, if Tibet actually succeeded in breaking away from China (unlikely i'm sure) and lost all financial investment / support from the chinese govt, would the west really do anything to contribute to the build up the region? or would tibet simply be another 'feather in their cap' and then move on to the next 'trendy cause'/...? unfortunately the west is great at turning on the "we're here to save the day!" propaganda machine and cause a huge racket but usually with very little real action / follow through... and the people who suffers are the locals who thought they actually mattered...

[goleoboy]

fyi... after being gone from the u.s. for about 9 months, anti-chinese sentiments are at an all time high right now here in the u.s. (in new york)... when you watch the news / media it's all how devilish china is - especially with the economy the way it is now, chinese are categorized as selfish greedy spies who don't care about the environment and manufacture tainting products - (no one of course brings up that it's actually american companies that outsource manufacturing TO CHINA...!) p.s. a chinese student was attacked last week at Columbia university and was killed by a car on the upper west side...

[Boris]

Goleboy is this an attempt at a wind up or are you really this naive / uneducated / stupid / FoS / inconsiderate ?

Have you no grasp of world opinion ?
No grasp of real historical facts ?
Ever spoken to a real Tibetan ?
Understand Lammarite ?

After leaning these salient facts an appropriate response can be forthcoming.

[goleoboy]

Boris, why don't you just make your point instead of calling me names? Saying I'm 'stupid' or 'naive' means absolutely nothing to me... I have the right to voice what I think and believe just like others on here... unless this site/forum is as biased and one-sided as the western media... btw, in SF, the pro chinese demonstrators actually out numbered anti-chinese protesters... but for whatever reason NONE of the interviews in articles i've read thus far have interviewed the pro-chinese sentiments / only the protesters, I guess 'filtering' and 'censoring' of news isn't just happening in China... bottom line, make your point and let others make theirs.

[Krad]

Originally Posted by Boris

Goleboy is this an attempt at a wind up or are you really this naive / uneducated / stupid / FoS / inconsiderate ?

Have you no grasp of world opinion ?
No grasp of real historical facts ?
Ever spoken to a real Tibetan ?
Understand Lammarite ?

After leaning these salient facts an appropriate response can be forthcoming.

I don't understand how any of the above preclude him from stating his opinion on the matter. He also brings up a pretty good point: Most of the people protesting are protesting because it's the thing to do, not because of any vested interest in the matter.

I don't really care either way, honestly. Before China took over, Tibet was a theocracy with the lamas wielding power over the heads of the Tibetans. Now it's just a different group of people holding the power.

[chan13y]

Let me start off by saying I don't know any Tibetans, so I don't want to presume to know what they're thinking at all. But I do read a lot of news from many different regions of the world, and I find that there is certainly bias in the Western media against China. I feel that Chinese people are definitely left out of the dialogue on this Tibet issue. Conversely, I feel that Chinese media needs to actually START a dialogue on the issue. All we ever hear are insults being launched from both sides. I see appeals to non-Chinese by Free Tibet protesters and Chinese government appeals to Chinese people. What does this achieve? Absolutely nothing.

Here's a checklist for those that want real progress in Tibet:

* Please respect the sanctity of the Olympics, which is an apolitical sporting event to showcase athletic talent of the highest order. Making Chinese people even more angry is highly inconducive to progressive dialogue.
* Stop yelling at each other from across the barriers, because it drowns out all the dialogue in the middle.
* Walk past your barriers, step into the middle and join (or start) the civil and rational discussion.
* Try to understand each other, because without this key component of understanding, then discussion is pointless.
* Please leave your weapons at home.

[Lammarite]

I was watching the news this morning and they were showing live images of the torch in San Francisco. As expected the protesters were out in force and as a result of them the torch was once again snuffed out and taken to a different location. Another camera panned across to the square where there were thousands of happy people looking forward to seeing the torch and the ceremony surrounding it.
Among the protesters were of course the idiots who have no idea what the protests are really about but have turned out anyway. Also slipstreaming the Tibet protesters were other groups protesting about unrelated things. For instance, there were a group of naturists protesting that the olympics aren't held in the nude anymore in the true tradition of the original Greek games. This sums up the whole fiasco for me, as did the look of disappointment on the faces of the people who were told that the torch had been extinguished and there would be no ceremony.