I didn't not know that. I thought the Torch relay came from the run from Marathon back in Ancient Greece.

The torch run was the idea from Goebbels.


As far I know the Marathon run has nothing to do with the torch.....only the distance of a Marathon run comes from that ancient run.

The first Olympic Flame in modern olympics was in 1928 at the amsterdam Olympics and it was a resurrection of the Olympic Flame which commerated the theft of fire from Zeus by Prometheus. The torch relay was introduced by Hitler in 1936 BUT it has been a tradition since that time regardless of which country the Olympics was held in. The tradition has carried on well beyond its initial meaning and doesn't represent nor carry the same intent or meaning it did back then.To criticize people who want to see it now as Hitler inspired is a generally ignorant statement also known as a Straw Man. Would you have said the same thing 4 years ago? I don't see you criticizing Volkswagon. Do You?
I feel that China is a very complicated country I will not call China Evil because I don't think it is unlike say Burma or Laos or Darfur or North Korea(Yes I know the China-Darfur link but I say that is less than the Hussein-USA link).

Well I find Darfur, Burma, Laos, and North Korea all evil. I just find the idea of a police state as being evil.

China is far from the police state that those are. Personally I liked the fact that where ever I wnet you could smoke drink gamble. The cops aren't even allowed to carry guns in the places I have been (except Hong Kong where I noticed a few had guns). There are protests even anti cigarette protests in China. The place where China really lags IMO is their legal system, controlled state media, death penalty policies, and some cultral legacies. While the state of China guarantess Equal rights and it does enforce them many people ignore the policies in favor of tradition some places are more lawless than others particular the Rural areas where traditions are harder to eradicate. It is the large gatherings that get in trouble. The Chinese do have a right to assemble but the assembly has to be approved by the goverment. In the US the goverment also has a the ability to control the right to assemble but it si not in the same extreme.

In Laos where I have never been I worked on a Case where real genocide is going everyday(Vao Pang) everyday Hmong villages get fly bys where planes drop loads of yellow chemicals on the populace. Thai people get arrested for staying in Burma after Sundown and have no recourse. Even in thailand another country I know a lot of people in and is a democracy their legal system is just as bad as Chinas at times. Want someone to lose their home throw a bag of coke in their house and call the cops. Sa wat dii Khrup!

The problem with China lies not in the here-and-now, but in the future. My personal experiences in China left the impression of a morally bankrupt country for whom nationalism is the only universal language. Epidemic nationalism is a very dangerous beast. It is true that China has been liberalizing and has been a peaceful, economic, rising power. The same could be said of Japan or Germany in the 1920's -- especially Germany, with its own set of resentments. Nationalistic undercurrents easily combust in times of turmoil; an economic crisis could yet set off God-knows-what in China.

Chinese media is extremely insulated from external influences, and nationalism builds up as in a pressure cooker. Read the type of vitriol posted by ignorant Chinese teenagers, and you would never guess that Western money built modern China. It is profoundly disturbing, from a historical perspective, to see 21st century hatred being justified by 19th century slights.

Inertia does not alter the original purpose of the 1936 relay, which has remained historically static. I can make a qualitative comparison to that particular ceremony if I see fit. The straw man does not apply when a recurring event could in fact, on a qualitative basis, reflect an earlier premise, regardless of intervening events.

Perhaps I should have elaborated a bit more. My 1936 comparisons have little to do with Tibet, and rather with fearing the rise of a potentially fascist superpower. Unchecked nationalism and fascism are separated by a thin curtain.

Ok so they don't prosecute freedom of Speech? They block web sites like You Tube and others when they don't agree with them. Plus people have vanished over the years to who knows where for saying things different than the Government. China is a police state, you have few rights except the ones they decide to give you. I also agree with Angela, I don't like the idea of a growing totalitarian regime being the dominant super power in like 50 years. Now if they decide to have elections and look more democratic I would be less worried.

Only idiots are protesting the torch.

It's nonsense really.

That much is true. Protests do not work. Look at the protests before our invasion of Iraq.

I laugh at those that think technology would help liberalize China. In many ways, the opposite has happened. China's censorship agency is one of the most Orwellian creations in the history of mankind. Orwellian not via brutality, but through pervasiveness. Those figurative telescreens are already reading the minds of Chinese citizens. Emails, SMS messages, blog posts; every piece of electronic communication is filtered. The horror lies not in what currently transpires, but in what could happen at moment's notice when the systems are put to devious use. China's censorship apparatus is bigger than the US State Department.

Will China become a freer country? As long as economic or environmental catastrophe does not strike first, that is very likely. The Internet will play little part in that, however.

Thanks for the tip.

Lest people flame me for ignorance -- being a conservative American lands me a lot of insults in the first place -- I grew up in China in the late 80's, with a large extended family still there.

Just for fun, check out the American and Chinese versions of Google Image Search:
US: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q ... ages&gbv=2
China: http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN ... gbv=2&aq=f

As far I know China is right behind Iran and North Korea when it comes to the cencorship of medias like Internet TV etc.

When it comes to censorship China is definitely up there. I have never said they weren't I even mentioned it. I disagree that China is a police state or this all out evil country. I wouldn't put China in the same group as NK, Laos, Burma and maybe even Iran. Let me be pretty blunt here our media isn't exactly all free either sometimes I have to watch DW TV5 and BBC to get the true story of things that happen. I am not comparing our media to Chinese media I know the our media is more free by a long shot but it is definitely tamed by our government policies.

Our media is completely free. You yourself can publish whatever you want, regarding any topic of choice, right now. Even European nations have historical qualms that hold people back. Us? You can write a whole series on the tragedy of Confederate defeat if you wish. Try waxing poetic about Nazism in Germany; you'll be behind bars. Try romanticizing Taiwanese independence in China; you'll vanish and nobody will know how.

Case in point, you can get the BBC here. More pointedly, you can get Al-Jazeera here, or even the KNCA.

These people are at least bringing attention to something that the media is doing it's ultimate Best to ignore. It's as if people and politicians don't give a rip what China does anymore. It's all perfectly fine and dandy as the long as the flow of goods and free trade is not interrupted. There is no Tibet, China is a democracy and the so-called "democratic" govts can continue to live in a fantasy.

I wouldn't say it is the media so much that is trying to ignore it as they have given a pretty good amount of coverage to the protests (and not necessarily in a negative light either). I think it more the corporate America (aka the Olympic sponsors) and the IOC that are trying to downplay the situation.

The IOC has its justifiable reasons, I mean they are a sporting organization (in theory anyway) and therefore this all a big headache for that. Then again, awarding the Olympics to China anyway was in questionable judgment if you ask me, and I certainly think it deserves to be scrutinized.

If the torch had come to Atlanta, I certainly would have been right there protesting it. Not because of the Olympics, I honestly could care less about sports in general, but I think it is at least bringing attention to what is going on. Maybe short lived, but at least it is putting some pressure on China.

The Olympics are a celebration of the human spirit etc. (insert inspirational phrases here ad naseum) and China has certainly done their best to squash that so they deserve the scrutiny.

Here's a couple of background articles on China and Tibet to provide some context for the current protest-fashionistas (which, of course, no one will read)...

Tibet Through Chinese Eyes (via The Atlantic)

Chinese Geopolitics and the Significance of Tibet (via Stratfor)

I'm reading it damnit. Don't have such little faith dearest Bradleyberry.