This is NOT America Torchbearer ejection tells you so

Majora Carter, Executive Director of Sustainable South Bronx,
was forcefully removed as an Olympic torchbearer yesterday
when she raised a Tibetan flag in solidarity with the people of Tibet.
Photo by Luke Thomas

By Luke Thomas

April 10, 2008

Olympic torchbearer Majora Carter was forcefully removed from the altered Olympic torch relay route yesterday when she raised the Tibetan flag in solidarity with the people of Tibet.

Video by Richard Perri carried by the San Francisco Chronicle shows an SFPD officer literally pushing Carter to the curb of Van Ness Avenue after she was told her right to free speech against the Chinese government’s acts of oppression and human rights abuses around the world are unwelcome.

Such treatment of dissent might be commonplace under a brutal dictatorship – though, at least, Carter is still alive today – but in a city that prides itself on standing up against human rights abuses and defending our blessed constitutional guarantee of free speech, Carter’s ejection should serve as notice to all Americans that we are losing the very principled fabric this great nation was founded upon.

Add warrantless wiretapping, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, CIA torture centers, waterboarding and a President who lied to you about “weapons of mass destruction” so that you would buy-in to his war for oil, it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern differences between the actions of the Chinese government and our very own government.

Luke Thomas

Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me: