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The Situation

Immediatly after the opening ceremony the torch disappeared. The rumor in the crowd was that the torch had boarded a boat at pier 48, and departed into the bay for destinations unknown.

The crowd

I find it notable that there was a large contigent of chinese commies that showed up with flags, bullhorns, signs, and all the tools that an organized protest group would employ. Despite the organization of the chinese, they were totally outnumbered by the many independent contigents of pro tibeten, anti sudan, antii authoritarian americans, and even a few tinnemin square revolutionaries who all showed up.

The pictures

Picture 1. Rumor had it, and everyone in the crowd that I talked to believed that every chinese student studying in the western US had been bused in to attend the torch run. Although I cannot verify the rumor, it appeared to me that there was an organized effort behind the "counter-protestors" who showed up to support china.

2. The crowd believed that the torch was taken from the opening ceremony directly to a boat near mccovey cove, and rumor had it that the boat landed at crissy field. What in fact happened was that the first runner headed towards pier 48, made a fake-out move, and was then secretly bused to pine and van ness, where the run actually began. It was the perfect fake out. Nobody in SF got to see the torch, let alone support or protest the games being held in china.

check out the map of the actual torch route

late story from the sf chron

3 The unintended consequence of changing the route was that the embaradero was left empty of automobiles and full of people.

4 So, when the torch failed to make its run down the embarcado, the cops stopped blocking off the street, and people filled the void. It was a bit like a fair with a political flair. When the opposing groups collided, demonstration wars broke out, each side armed with bullhorns, banners, and battallions of chanting followers.

5 As you can see from these photos of tibetan groups above and below, the throngs moved in large loose groupings. Pictures one and two above are of chinese groups.

6 Around the perimiter of the groups were masses of observers.

7 Most people were not actually observers, as everyone I talked to took a side on the chinese olympics. Judging by the signs, buttons, t-shirts and every other type of regalia imaginable that people wore, or didn't wear, indicated that everyone there had a side. There were a lot of digital photographers who appeared to be there for the shots, rather than a cause. Overall, the overwhelming majority of the partisans/observers were vocal, vehenement, and peaceful.

8 As I said, some people (two) expressed themselves by what they didn't wear. Hey, it's san francisco.

9 one of the circulating groups was composed of the people who are pissed about china's supports of sudan. I believe we (the us) have gone in late and light on the sudan genocide because of two factors: our power play in east africa, and sudan's provision of muslim intelligence agents for our use in iraq and across the middle east. After I finish these captions I will provide links to supporting evidence.

11 The cops were let off the hook, totally relieved I belive, that the route switcharoo negated their having to protect the torch. The cops just stepped back, and the embarcadero became a large civic forum. And they collected massive overtime with out having to beat or be beaten.

12 There were a lot of chinese flags. It was inspirational. I wanted to march in massive ranks, and study the party line.

13 Commie flag foreground; US Bank background. Damn, have worlds not collided?

14 The "commies" (I've got to put commie in quotes. What the hell is china?) seemed to be uncomfortable in protest. They had an interesting approach in both group and during one to one interaction. They felt that if we were properly informed and educated, we would defer to their position. But they were also ready to match the tibetens, or anyone else, chant for chant.

15 The pro-china groups did a bit of marching

16 And little Parades!

17 Demonstrator war! Notice that the left side is under tibetan flags, while the right side is under chinese flags.

18 the demonstration war developes.

19 A free tibet parade

20 chinese commies with american flag

21 Big Yellow Star!

22 These guys are what made america strong. I met a whole lot of people who were very intelligent and politically aware. It was as if the torch had brought people together, opened them up to each other, and gave them the oppertunity to share their ideas.

25 a great sign, and a cool dude

26 Yet another great dude-great sign combo

27 This group came over in response to the guy and sign in #22 above. They realised he would not be educated, and took to oberving.

28 They had marched, tried to educate, and now they were going to watch.

29 Note how the chinese flags are completely dominating the twe tibeten flags in the middle, with an olympic flag in the foreground.

30 I wore my old worn-out red fleece. When I got there I realised that my color choice mattered.

31 The Boys in Blue

32 If my old camera was not so slow, I would have caught these guys cracking up after an interesting dude started yelling crazy shit at them. They were off the hook, and didn't give a shit about the fool. They just cracked up.