Olympic Torch Protest
San Francisco, 2008
In 2008, the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, China generated protests over China's human rights policies. One such protest occurred in San Francisco, which was on the route that the Olympic flame took from Greece to Beijing.
In 1936, a tradition began of carrying the Olympic flame from Olympia, Greece, site of the ancient Olympics, to the current Olympic site, passing through other cities on the way. The Olympic flame was scheduled to pass through San Francisco on April 9, 2008.
Being San Francisco, three of the protesters were naked. Above is actor/director/screenwriter Bret Carr stripping for the protest.
The second protester is George Davis.
He's holding a large simulated torch marked "Human Rights."
And here's the third protester, Rusty Mills, holding a "torch" made from a toilet plunger.
Here are the three of them together.
Other protesters in the background are holding signs protesting China's support of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.
And other protesters held signs protesting China's conduct in Tibet. In March 2008, peaceful protests in Tibet against Chinese treatment of Tibetans were brutally suppressed by the Chinese government, resulting in at least 400 deaths. The Chinese government blamed the violence on the Dalai Lama in exile, which was transparently false, as the Dalai Lama always preached pacifism. One of the signs in the background here says, "China: listen to the Dalai Lama."
Previous protests against China had occurred when the Olympic flame was carried through Paris and London. So, without telling anyone, Olympic organizers changed the route of the flame in San Francisco to bypass the protesters altogether. One security guard said, "Looks like we all got punked."
9 comments:
What's amazing to me is how many people have already forgotten Darfur.
The man with the baby carriage is quite hot.
Correct, just like people conveniently forget the slaughter of millions of natives in the Americas.
The other two are Randy M and Lloyd. Both men frequent the South Market area and wear hats when nude to show that they aren't either crazy or homeless. Randy is quite a lovely man but Lloyd has a foreskin so he gets my vote.
Thanks, Wild Bill, but I did a little more research, and the men appear to be George Davis and Rusty Mills, both of whom were also active in protests when San Francisco banned public nudity.
Actually I think it’s Bret Carr, the youngest who has his foreskin still. See the second and sixth pictures - the same young man. Not that the other two aren’t (imho) equally attractive men.
In the case of Darfur, it's basically talkies infantilizing the perpetrators, and really wanting oil. That's what I'm getting at.
Of course, that leads to public health questions. Many of San Francisco's nudists refused to wash for fetish and/or neopagan reasons, which led to the bank.
*tankies
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