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DAVID HOROWITZ'S INSTINCTS were right in attempting to take out an ad in the Daily Californian. If you're a conservative, paying for your right to speak is just about
------------------- I was at the Dan Flynn talk and can describe that. First, I want to tell you about yesterday's Critical Mass ride. Usually it is really boring and they just go to frat row and ride around the traffic circle for a while and act annoying (maturity challenged... but, it's 7pm friday night!). Yesterday is was really cool because Thursday, a bunch of high school teachers brought their 9th grade classes to the affirmative action rally (which is kind of stupid. the government shouldn't enforce political positions) and 14 year olds often have maturity issues. So a lot of them took off and then went and looted the same shoestore across from Sproul plaza that the out of control fraternity party looted (along with the Gap, mr rags) three months ago. They also beat up a couple employees. The news helicopters were dispatched immediately and got some good footage. And so today, the #1 story on several stations was 'live on the scene' from the Berkeley BART station where the monthly critical mass was taking off, and they were interspersing images of the kids yesterday and interviewing shopkeepers shutting up early because violence and looting was imminent. Which was patently absurd. We had a birthday theme, and everyone was running around with pink helium balloons and blowing party horns in the reporter's ears. They had satellite trucks set up by the shoestore on telegraph and were following us the whole time. I was laughing the whole time. attention is exactly what we want.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/03/10/MNE157138.DTL
Okay.. DAn Flynn. The organizers put up a bunch of flyers saying 'mumia must fry' all over campus. I saw those and decided to go and to grade papers in the back, because it is clear it would be a bloodbath... don't you agree? The organizers, the college republicans, aren't too bright. I was working with one named Kelso to bring Horowitz here for a debate. Actually, I noticed just now that Horowitz *is* in fact coming here on March 15, but he's acting like he has to fear for his safety. It won't be a debate though http://frontpagemag.com/horowitzsnotepad/2001/hn03-09-01.htm
(Horowitz is paranoid. I criticized him to his face at frontpagemag, and also at the Daily Cal bulletin board, and when he heard, he had to go to the bulletin board system (which no one uses except these right wingers presently) and blame others for why he isn't debating. he's still not debating)). Their Heritage fund supported magazine the Patriot is here: http://www.calpatriot.org They can't edit or punctuate, and they have a weird obsession with student government politics, and the black guy on the student paper (who isn't that offensive). The Daily Cal has never been anything that liberals or the left is so happy with.
The patriot is also hypocritical because they love and promote this idea that they are such censored victims, but sometimes almost within the same paragraph or essay, they promote the same. Look at the article on the Palestinian mock blockade where they advocate kicking those students out of school.
Anyway, coming in to the room they reserved, their members were taking away signs that people brought, and one was photographing everyone who entered in a rather brusque way. They hadn't structured the event as a debate or even planned a discussion or Q&A at the end, which was a big mistake. I mean, they have the right to host speakers like that, but those flyers clearly invited the people who feel the most strongly about the issue to come, and if there wasn't any chance for them to speak, they were definitely going to speak at any time they felt like rather than waiting for the discussion at the end. That's not particularly civil, but the way they structured their event was not 'free speech' promoting. The crowd was mostly from off campus, and it looked like a lot of people had come in from people's park. There weren't many students. Dan Flynn clearly has something for the works of Ayn Rand, and he started shouting out key phrases from the beginning 'You're weak!. you're an intellectual weakling'. He looks like Henry Rollins. I kept wondering when he was going to actually start speaking because he was clearly enjoying yelling at the relatively small number who were yelling and cursing at him. Then a homeless guy went to the front and mooned him. The photographer mentioned earlier and some of the college republicans were photoing people and screaming to call the police (more promotion of free speech). The police were already there in the back sort of laughing. It really started to degenerate by this point. He wasn't starting his speech, and more and more people started to get into the disorderliness, wandering around the room and trying to write stuff on the board so that they could be heard about the noise, and then either a republican or leftist would erase that and write their own thing. then they started fighting over the erasers and the chalkboard. I have some pictures of it if you wanted me to scan it in.
my overall opinion is that the only reason the college republicans set up this event was to bait people. Why would they ever host a speaker on this particular topic and only expect their own people to show up and hold an intellectual discussion purely on the merits of the issue. The only reason they would ever care about Mumia abu jamal is because leftists care. The people who were being loud and outraged at first were easily baited, because it was so clearly a set up so that the republicans could turn around and pretend to be victimized when the uncivil leftists showed up to try to 'silence' them. They should have been civil, but they weren't trying to shut it down or block him from coming there. All in all, the event was pretty fun and most people were laughing by the end.
Christine