On Monday afternoon about 100 people came marching down the sidewalk on Van Ness Avenue.
They were protesting China's heavy-handed occupation of Tibet, now in its sixth decade.
The expatriate California composer Daniel Wolf is proposing a personal boycott of all things made in China and he's probably on the right track (click here for the whole post on his brilliant blog, "Renewable Music.")
However, it's hard to act morally superior as a nation after what we've just done and continue to do to the sorry ex-nation of Iraq.
I'm not sure where the crowd of protestors were headed, though City Hall was probably the target..
The other day there was a crowd of about 50 people marching in a loop around City Hall chanting slogans protesting the invasion of Kurdish areas by Turkey.
In many respects, our world hasn't outgrown World War One and the weirdly reconstructed borders that came out of that disaster.
I wish we were further along in the story that Arthur C. Clarke told in "Childhood's End," where the overlords simply demand, "Stop war and then let your civilizations evolve."
Great photojournalism!
ReplyDeleteThe expatriate California composer Daniel Wolf is proposing a personal boycott of all things made in China and he's probably on the right track
ReplyDeleteHe's on the right track, but the Chinese manufacturing base is so woven in to our economy, it's probably also a futile one. I'm reminded of this, by that Bard of the Salford Lads Club, Morrissey:
Oh, very nice, very nice
But maybe in the next world
Maybe in the next world.....
I wish I were going to be in town when the Olympic torch arrives on April 9 and folks here meet Newsom's clampdown on protest. Might make the war protests look pretty tame. Least I hope we San Franciscans are offended by the idea that our speech should be hidden away to please Beijing.
ReplyDeleteThe problem in China is a lot more than just Tibet. There is no comparison between the torture done in China, to the war in Iraq. Please understand, I am not a supporter of war, in any fashion, but there is not a direct 1 to 1 correlation.
ReplyDelete