Check Bob Brigham’s photos from the torch relay and the associated protests over the flip.

UPDATE (by Dave): The phalanx of security around this torch relay is ridiculous.  You probably can’t even see the runners unless you’re in a helicopter.  Mayor Newsom truncated the relay from 8 miles to 3 just a few hours before the parade started.  Not sure why he should have bothered at all.  Hundreds of security forces forming a human chain – must be proud, eh, San Francisco?

UPDATE (by Dave): A friend emails:

i just stood out on embarcadero for over an hour while the cops told us “it’s coming, it’s coming right along here.”  meanwhile the torch was already headed at its ponderous pace down van ness.  fucking pissed.

Yes, the route apparently keeps changing.  Apparently the protesters got fairly close to the relay a couple minutes ago, halting it for a short while.  It’s kind of a cat-and-mouse game right now.

UPDATE (by Dave): The torch is not headed anywhere near Justin Herman Plaza, that’s pretty clear.  It’s around Crissy Field right now, headed west toward the GG Bridge.  And I guess there’s an amphibious vehicle out in front of the relay runners.  That torch may be getting wet.

UPDATE (by Dave): Another, better feed here.  Willie Brown was supposed to be a TORCH BEARER for this thing?  It looks like they’re headed to the bridge.

UPDATE (by Dave): AP: “Closing ceremony for torch relay will take place at an undisclosed location.”  Will Dick Cheney be lighting the torch with his eyes, then?

It’s a good thing that the people of San Francisco were honored with the ability to have this ceremony hidden from them.

UPDATE (by Brian): Christine Pelosi has a good post at HuffPo:

For all the big talk of putting on a show, all that free speech obviously overwhelmed the authorities. Instead of braving a peaceful gauntlet of freedom fighters, the torch was secreted away to an alternate route. Encased by police and barricaded by a SWAT team, the torch movement was barely visible to a TV crowd. And what is the ironic takeaway as we await the rescheduled, secluded “closing” ceremonies? The protesters did not extinguish the Olympic flame today — the authorities did.

Supervisor Chris Daly

Stopping a Bus:

Look at all the media punked by the closing ceremonies beyond moved:

Luke Thomas:

Here’s a live feed of the events in San Francisco today, courtesy Students for a Free Tibet. Check it out over the flip.

If you’re on the parade route you’re not likely to see anything, because police officers will form a human shield around the torch carriers.  Which makes you wonder why they’re bothering to do this at all.  The CHP and the US Secret Service are on hand as well.

We’ll have more as it happens…

UPDATE: The House just passed a resolution supporting Tibet and calling on China to end their crackdown.

Students for a Free Tibet has plenty more.

After the jump are a whole bunch of pics. The SFPD set a very laid back tone by leaving the riot gear at home and to date there have been no arrests (there was one arrest, but he apparently was just a regular San Francisco “crazy guy” and while in proximity to the protesters, had nothing to do with them).

I’ll have more from the Candle Light vigil tonight. And if I can catch a ride, then pics from Jackie Speier’s party.

Luke Thomas giving directions to a would-be bride on how to get inside City Hall. On the right is Josh Wolf. I mean, not even Josh was arrested.

Calitician Chris Daly.

Josh Wolf.

Luke and Josh riding in the van leading the parade, either trained professionals or just lazy.

Live streaming video.

San Francisco authorities are justifiably nervous about providing a platform for Chinese propaganda at tomorrow’s Olympic torch relay.  The number and variety of protests are great and go beyond protesting the situation in Tibet.  The Falun Gong will call for religious freedom inside China.  Human Rights Watch seeks to call attention to China’s deplorable human rights record.  The San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition will be massing to call for China’s end to its material support for genocide in the Sudan (you can hear Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s talking about this here).  There are all sorts of reasons to be concerned for China’s ascension to this position of prestige by hosting the Olympics.  And recent events along the global parade route, particularly from the pro-Tibet activists, are having a real impact.

As thousands of pro-Tibet protesters cut short the Olympic torch relay Monday in Paris, a new Zogby Interactive poll finds 70% of likely voters believe the International Olympic Committee was wrong to award this year’s summer Olympic Games to China because of its poor record on human rights. Dissatisfaction with the IOC’s choice is strong across the political spectrum, with 70% of Democrats and Republicans, and 68% of political independents who said they disagree with the decision to have China host the summer games. A Zogby Interactive poll conducted in May 2007 found 44% had a favorable opinion of the IOC’s decision to award the 2008 Summer Olympic Games to China, while 39% viewed the decision unfavorably.

So San Francisco ought to be concerned with the scope and force of protests tomorrow.  They actually should acknowledge them by canceling the parade.  What does it achieve?  Will San Francisco cover themselves in glory tomorrow?  The protesters will show that the entire city is a free speech zone, and they will show the importance and power of activism.  But the city will just be giving a platform to the Chinese to sanitize their image and whitewash the deplorable spots in their record.  There’s no reason for this and the potential for some ugly outcomes is growing.  

Authorities in San Francisco, which on Wednesday will host the only North American leg of the relay, said they had closely watched events in London on Sunday and in Paris.

“We have a lot of concerns,” said Sgt. Neville Gittens, a San Francisco police spokesman. “I don’t want to identify them, but this is not a contained route security-wise, and there are lots of opportunities for trouble. We’re watching what’s going on very closely and will make changes to our plans as we figure them out.”

Mayor Gavin Newsom met with Chinese officials in San Francisco on Monday to review security measures, which include requiring all rank-and-file police officers to report to work Wednesday. Meanwhile, at least two neighboring police departments have been asked to provide reinforcements, the California Highway Patrol will be on hand and the FBI is on standby, officials said.

I’m not sanguine about the prospects of this relay tomorrow.  London and Paris were just a prelude.

First in London and now in Paris, pro-Tibet protesters are disrupting the Olympic torch relay, and in the case of Paris, they extinguished the flame on numerous occasions and eventually canceled the presentation.

The flame reaches San Francisco for its only American stop on Wednesday.  Hundreds of police officers are expected to cover the parade, and the route has been shifted and altered in an attempt to outflank the expected protesters.  In advance of this, 3 protesters have placed signs on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge.  SFist has the story and is updating.

Update: (11:42): Nope, all three climbers are staying put. Those descending the suspension cables right now are just bridge workers. This will go on for a while.

KGO is reporting that seven people were arrested so far with regard to this protest.

Update (11:51 a.m.): More flags are being put up. The three protesters–one man, two women–still remain. Newcasters are desperate to know “how this could have happened?”

If you don’t have to go to the Golden Gate Bridge, don’t. It’s heavily congested. Obviously.

The situation is essentially that the International Olympic Committee currently has the most leverage over the Chinese government’s behavior in Tibet, and their human rights record generally.  And so these protests and potential boycotts, most recently discussed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, make more than a symbolic statement.  Hillary Clinton is calling on George Bush to follow suit (which is unlikely, because he digs sports).  Hold Fast Blog has a lot more.

Wednesday should be very interesting.  Our SF bloggers will hopefully weigh in.

We don’t have a state that’s given to paying attention to policy debates in Sacramento.  The political media is woefully thin and getting thinner, people are simply distracted by struggling to stay afloat economically, and any politics that actually does penetrate the state consciousness is national, like what surrogate said what about what Presidential candidate.  So it’s something of a shock to see so many flashpoints on the California budget fight, with particular respect to the potential defunding of education.  As notices about imminent budget cuts go out to state teachers, and school boards set their budgets for the 2008-2009 school year, Californians are waking up – almost entirely at once – to the enormity of this situation.  The idea that we can give pink slips to tens of thousands of teachers without exploring the far more sensible option of reviewing the structural revenue model in the state and making it reflect current needs and collective responsibility has really enraged parents, teachers, administrators and students.

It takes a lot to get California residents and voters interested in state public policy. But we may be on the cusp of something big here-of the magnitude of what led to Proposition 13 on property taxes in 1978 and the recall election in 2003 of Gray Davis that brought us Arnold Schwarzenegger as our Governor. In fact, when it comes to 2003, some are suggesting that Arnold is the same as Gray. If you have a couple of minutes, take a look at this local television news report and see how unhappy the Governor is with the comparison.

California is earthquake country and sometimes the ground moves slowly with a series of barely detectable minor quakes, but sometimes it shakes violently and new fault lines are seen. As the San Jose Mercury News put it:

“…there’s no denying the emotional power generated by thousands of teacher pink slips in schools all over the state.

“It’s difficult for people to grasp a debate over something as abstract as the budget,” said Fred Silva, a budget expert and fiscal policy analyst at Beacon Economics. “But how much your public school is going to have for an arts program, or a reading program, is not abstract at all.”

Frank Russo details the number of protests that have broken out statewide, mostly from grassroots groups.  When they line up with the growing coalition of traditional interest groups (education, labor, public safety, environment, health care and social services), the pressure on the Governor and legislative Republicans to recognize that California is worth paying for and that the public would be furious at across-the-board cuts will be enormous.  Just yesterday school superintendents, parents and kids rallied on the Capitol steps, and Jack O’Connell found something else to emphasize (over):

By the time Jack O’Connell, California’s state Superintendent of Public Instruction, made his way through the crowd to speak, he was greeted with thunderous applause and a warm hug. He fired up the crowd, telling them what they already knew-but his words were clearly destined for those in legislative session inside the building and to Governor Schwarzenegger, who was in Fairfield, delivering a speech on carpenter apprenticeship programs. He charged the Governor with an “abdication of one’s responsibility to set values and priorities” in proposing a 10% across the board set of budget cuts and characterized the $4.8 billion of cuts to education as a “hostile suspension of Prop 98,” noting that the voters in passing that measure had supported educational funding and had confirmed that priority 3 years ago-a reference to their rejection of a ballot measure in Schwarzenegger’s special election of 2005 that would have weakened it.

O’Connell was just one of the speakers who tied education to our future, our economy as a state, to reductions in imprisonment and crime, and to moral values. He said: “If you want to invest in the future, you invest in public education. If you want to shortchange the future, then you shortchange education. The cuts being proposed would be devastating to education. It would be a great step backwards.”

He directly challenged the Governor and Republicans on the framing of this issue: “We don’t have a spending problem. Our problem is with our priorities. When you hear people say we have a spending problem, you tell them we have a values problem. We have a problem with or priorities. That is why we need to make sure that the public policy document for the state of California is one that invests in the future.”

This is an unusual moment, where street-level organizing and grassroots action is really dominating the news.  The last time we saw this was when the Governor’s special election initiatives were thoroughly defeated in 2005.  A more confrontational politics is a direct result of a more confrontational grassroots.  Lines in the sand are being drawn.  This is an interesting time to be covering state politics.

This is a really big deal.

Hundreds of students have walked out of their classes in Alameda in a protest over the state’s proposed budget cuts.

Students from Encinal High School marched off campus and straight to the school district’s headquarters.

Tuesday night, the district school board voted to cut $200,000 out of sports programs and to increase class sizes on some campuses to save money.

This got national cable news coverage today, by the way.

I’m not saying this is akin to protesting the draft in the Vietnam War era, but the similarity is that when you threaten the livelihood of a whole mass of people, you awake a sleeping giant.  And society actually has a compelling interest in providing a full platter of school programs to create a well-rounded and engaged class of young people.  It won’t be long before these students are joined by teachers and parents on the streets.

Republicans can keep their heads in the sand or they can take note.  The governor’s already flopping like a fish, bringing it down to the “it depends on what your definition of tax increase is”.  He knows that his political legacy is on the line and that you’re going to anger the whole state if you try to balance the budget on the backs of students.  Democrats need to simply defend the principle that the state is worth paying for.  The public will be with them.  The ghost of Howard Jarvis is being slain.

I’ll be in Dana Point on Friday to track down Mitt Romney as he hits up the big Orange County Republican donors for money. So how about you? It would be great if we had a Southern California group that tracks down these Presidential hopefuls as they visit the super-rich donors and spend time with them, and it would be even BETTER if this group were to ask these candidates why they don’t talk to all the rest of us about their plan to get out of Iraq, or about their plan to provide health care coverage to the 47 MILLION PEOPLE in this nation who have none, or simply why they spend all this time with a select few when ALL OF US plan to be voting next February as well…

(More after the flip)

So why don’t we start one ourselves? Can you join me in sending a message to ALL THE CANDIDATES that they need to pay attention to ALL THE VOTERS in California? And can we especially send a message to these GOP candidates visiting our fine state that we won’t support ANYONE next year who plans to continue this war in Iraq? We the people need to step up and make our voices heard, and I hope you can join me on Friday when we try to do precisely that.

I’d like for all of us to meet earlier in the afternoon to prepare to confront Romney. Do any of you in the Dana Point/Laguna Niguel area have any suggestions of nearby areas to meet up? I’d love for us to meet up beforehand, and finalize our plan of attack as we specifically confront Romney about his “kaleidoscopic view” of the war that he supports when it suits his purpose, yet refuses to send his own family members to fight in. I look forward to meeting up with many of you on Friday as we send a “very special message” to Mitt.

So can I count on you progressive activists in Southern California to join me at the St. Regis Resort on Friday to give this message to Mitt?