There is a right time and place for protests, I just don't think that the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco was one of them. What did these people accomplish? Did the help change China's view of their policies? No. Did they change anybody elses? Well, they may have turned people away from their causes through their actions. All these people did is yell and shove. That's it. They didn't present an argument, they weren't even considerate to anybody else around them, which includes people who might be protesting for a different cause. And the actions of some of the Free Tibet people I saw were downright offensive and racist towards anybody Chinese. So what did they accomplish? They made it so people who earnestly wished to see the olympic torch couldn't, and demonstrated that their only real goal is to propagate hate. Well it worked for me...right now I hate protestors.