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Why I love San Francisco
108 comments
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Seal Bonk Charlie 2 months ago with 4 points
I completely agree. Vancouver, Canada hosting the 2010 Olympics is a disgrace. Not only are Canadians a menace, they have a huge Chinatown population.
And those poor Tibetan seals. -
apropos of nothing: mimes protesting the Olympics
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SamG
Who gives a sh!t about the olympics anyway? Half of the reporting from the Olympics is about lawsuits related to Meds that make 'em run real fast (or whatever they choose to do to stay sweaty).
Now, back to the sign. To make the irony work, Tibetan monks should have a great runner at the Olympics in China. You think they can run dressed in window drapes and drinking Goji juice?
Another thing that does not work in this irony is the ironic bedfellowship between US Turbocapitalism and Chinese Ultrasocialism.
Nazi Germany was touted to be the defender against Russia and their bolshevik bullsh!t, until Hitler installed some railtracks and put up signs that work can make you free. Now, how ironic is that Chinese "capitalism" holds the same promise for masses working for next to nothing? Some socialism.
The real Olypmics and freedom is on Ebay guys. That is the only place on the planet, which is not even on the map, but where Freedom and Capitalism works for everyone - provided you have some sh!t to sell to other people.
Like Fake Steve and his touch-me products. Tactile. -
simon
Just out of frame is another equally ill-informed banner:
'Would we have allowed communist Russia to host the Olympics?' -
I think nazi Germany is completely more worse than China. Jews never did anything bad to people and were unfairly persecuted but the Monks ran a society based on slavery and beyond the grave debt. 99% of normal Tibetans do not want to return to that life. They're just pissed off with the Chinese and Muslims running all the business and making more money.
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jj cale
Muslims??
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Marcel Proust
Perhaps he's referring to Darfur where the Chinese have economic interests that coincide with those of the Muslim government, which is carrying out genocide on the blacks there.
Chinese hackers have attacked the Save Darfur site as well as pro-Tibet sites:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Save-Darfur-Coal...
As for Tibet and "99%" of Tibetans, why wouldn't "99%" of Tibetans relish a foreign dictatorship overrunning their country, looting it, massacring people, crucifying and burning monks, raping nuns, shelling the Potola (which was built in the *Seventh* century), burning books, and doing their best to destroy this ancient and admirable culture?
Why wouldn't Tibetans be all on fire to approve the current round of brutality?
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=11805
Of course they would. It's only logical. -
Corny
Yes, Muslims (which are not ethnic tibetan) in Tibet are making good money. Small to medium business is their thing.
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DT
... was completely worse ... ! There is no Nazi Germany anymore. Thanks
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PJ
No they DIDN'T. It was all shot on the MOON, so that Ben Johnson could run that fast and beat the Germans.
(I gotta stop reading xkcd...) -
Jim Hassinger
Gee, Andrew Sullivan thinks San Francisco is stoopid. I guess that's why he suspected they would have "Fifth columns" against the Great Patriotic Iraq War back in 2002. But now that he's an Obama supporter, I guess we just erase his past as a member of the 99th Fighting Keyboardists. Oh, and he thinks Hillary is just a HORROR too. Just like you, Fake Steve.
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Whoever put up this sign, he or she should have googled it before.
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shiroineko
Ignorant moron. Guess, it was hard for the banner's author to attend world history lessons. I wonder, where did he learn what a nazi is.
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Fun. :-)
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djwanson
Good sign, irony works.
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Anarch
Hell yeah!
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JJ
I feel really bad now... I doubt the human race will survive with such stupidity
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pmlawrence
we're one step closer to idiocracry
http://imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ -
Sue Dunham
Look at the size of that sign compared to the guy holding it. I hope it's not a windy day.
You've been 'shopped -
Harry Bosch
No, you've been punked by FSJ. Jesus fucking christ you people are stupid.
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Dude,
Nazi Germany did host the freaking Olympics.
I feel a smug storm coming.
daKat
Paix -
Hans Larsen
Not only that, but the Olympic Torch was Hitler personal idea... People are protesting against Nazis during a Hitler-legacy event. Ironik at its finest.
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Pete
Nazi Germany DID host the Olympics. Americans are sheeple if they don't know that!
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silverstream
So it *is* true - Americans don't do irony.
Would it help if there was another sign next to it that said "if we'd known then what we know now?"
I realise there are some people too stupid to know about the 1936 Olympics, but they aren't the ones campaigning for basic human rights in China.
They're the ones sitting on their fat asses whining about keeping politics out of sport. -
TimK
Sure Americans "do" irony. But not irony for its own sake. I think we expect irony to have a point, which this example does not manage to do.
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Coln
No, really. Most Americans have their irony glands removed at birth, thus you never really understand irony. You certainly don't "do" irony - it's why your comedy programs have canned laughter - it's the cue for everyone to spontaneously break out in laughter because the joke was just soooooooo funny.
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Anarch
Really? Do you see how much of a meme this image has become? The sigh relies on people being smart enough to know that it's wrong so they tell all their friends about this funny sign they saw. It's perfect.
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Hi. I took the photo. They were not being ironic. They were being serious. See those little bits on the top of the sign? Tibet prayer flags. If they were ironic, they would not have done that.
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TimK
Thanks, that's exactly my point. Whether this is photoshopped or a real sign -- and if it is a real sign, whether or not it's being held by a torch protester -- the sign is a distraction from the issue. Sure it's funny...a little, anyway. But it's pointless, which restricts how funny it can actually be. Real comedy, ironic or not, has a point of some kind.
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silverstream
The sign draws attention to the issue, gets people talking about it. So it has a point, and it works.
The not very brights can feel clever for a moment, because *they* knew (because they read it on a blog somewhere) that Germany did host the Olympics during the Nazi regime.
The slightly more clever ones can stop and think for a moment, hey, what *is* the difference here? Are we still trying to reward human rights abuse, in the hope that the world watching will encourage China to allow freedoms we take for granted? Is being nice to China the same as appeasement in the 1930s? -
TimK
Your post raises those issues effectively. The sign is too short, and too context-free, to do so.
If "the slightly more clever ones" are the only people you're interested in communicating with, you need to stop and think what you're trying to accomplish. "The slightly more clever ones" are probably already on your side; if they're not, they could be more effectively reached by a clearer message.
(later addition)
On further reflection, your assertion that it's the "not very brights" who can feel clever because they know Nazi Germany did host the Olympics is nonsense, and it highlights the problem with this kind of "irony."
The biggest problem with the sign, which I hinted at above by referring to its lack of context, is that as receivers of its message, we know nothing about the person behind the message. There is no particular reason to assume, as your "not very brights" do, that the person is ignorant of the relevant fact; there is also no particular reason to assume, as your "slightly more clever ones" (and presumably, by extension, you as well) do, that the person is aware of the relevant fact. We simply don't know, and this is the biggest reason why the irony doesn't work: we don't know whether it's actually irony or not.
That's why I described the sign as "pointless": it may have a point, but we can't tell, so effectively it is in fact pointless. -
Totally wrong man. The irony works beautifully. Just admit you are one of the 'not very brights'
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And to clarify, the irony is effective because it makes us answer, 'yes we did allow it' which begs the quesion why, and would we still, knowing what we do now? how will we feel about appeasing the Chinese 40 years from now after more atrocities toward human rights have been committed?
Most important of all...how might history have changed HAD we and others boycotted, stood up to the Germans in 1936?
I dunno, I got all that from the sign. Not so pointless after all is it? -
G. Burdell
This is what you get when kids in K-12 get a laptop instead of an education.
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G Webster Wormleigh
...well, at the spelling and syntax are acceptable...probably a Berkeley doctoral candidate....
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Marcel Proust
That is so funny, FSJ.
And, apparently, the torch carrying that is currently causing so much "controversy" was instituted by the Nazis:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=...
Quote from Adolf himself:
"Sporting chivalrous contest," Hitler declared just before the torch was lit, "helps knit the bonds of peace between nations. Therefore may the Olympic flame never expire."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7330949... -
Nancy
w
