``So, did any bay area people end up at that Horowitz event, and actually get in? I was there with my flyers - I'll affix the text below. I work in that building and the whole thing was a big headache for the building security manager. I thought the republican club (see how bright they are http://www.calpatriot.org) really mismanaged it by having all this security, but they really knew how to play the media. There were at least 15-20 organizations there, including at least 6-7 cameras- Channel 5, fox news, etc.. I got to talk to a Chronicle reporter for about 5 minutes who seemed pretty interested...'' Christine Petersen
-------------
I got off my ass after work, cancelled a dinner arrangement, and hiked over to action central. Walking on campus is always an historical tour. The Haas Pavillion is actually old Harmon Gym done up in what I think of as riechtstaat drag--bad pomo archecture--its all lit up and I wasn't on familiar ground until I crossed the creek on the back side of Dwinelle in the parking lot where everything was suitably dark, run down, and vaguely trashy. I could hear ranting on a megaphone coming from the grassy knoll behind Life Sciences. I got to the central path leading up to California Hall and looked up at its roof and vaguely remembered standing up there stripping tiles.
Ah, there on the steps on the back of Life Sciences (the original LS architect presumed this was the front of the building, but its actually at the back)---the steps are were kids practice skate boarding and roller blading down the little ramps that abutt the stairs. There is crowd of maybe a hundred people or more people standing waiting. On the tier above is a collection of noisy, picket waving demonstrators. These must be the Sparts that Mike announced.
I go up and watch as fifteen to tweny people march in a circle with pickets chanting. The signs read Protest David Horowitz Racist Rightwing Ideologue, or something like that. Down on the steps the other crowd of maybe a hundred, are oddly sandwiched between barricades and construction tape waiting to get inside LSB's main lecture hall which used to be LS 1, but now is probably called something like Merke Hall.
I can't see in the dark if these are the fascist insects preying on the life of the people, or if they are the evil throng of Stalinists getting ready to smash our cheerished freedom of speech. So, I flop down on the grass and watch and try to figure out whose who. It is about twenty to eight. Whoever is on the megaphone is doing a good job, ranting on about Horowitz and stopping their diatribe to lead the faithful in chants. I noticed that the chants are more complicated than they used to be, and you have to listen carefully in order to figure them out. Something about China, something about the Palestinians, on like that.
Nothing much is happening and I am wondering if I should go down and stand in line or stay up on the knoll and add to the visual impression that there is an actual protest going on. I am trying to figure out if anybody around me looks like they might be a Christine Peterson or Michael Pugliese. I have no idea what either look like, but I keep an eye out anyway.
I stay up on the hill. Next to me are two college kids (boyfriend-girlfriend) in their early twenties who look middle eastern, maybe Indian or maybe Latino, but its somewhat dark against a lighter background---they are in a darkened profile. The boy (with an accent) asks me if I know anything about Horowitz. I laugh. Yeah. Are you guys taking a break from Moffitt (undergrad library/study hall) or are you here to protest that racist dog motherfucker. They laugh. They actually are taking a study break and were attracted by the noise and crowd. Campus is usually quiet at night.
So we start talking. Suddenly I am on the spot---its teach-in time. How do I explain what this was about? I start in, Horowitz was a leftwing writer and editor for a radical magazine called Ramparts, back in the Sixties.... then he joined the Black Pathers, ... and finally turned rightwing and joined the Reagan revolution as an extreme anti-communist...blah, blah... It gets hard to keep it snappy enough to hold their interest. I am stumbling. I ask, so what's your major, trying to find some common ground. Biology and business for the boy and psychology for the girl. (I realise I am thinking of them as kids, since they are younger than my kid--be careful chuckie, don't be insulting). Alright, biology and business, something to work with. Do you realize that plant biology was sold to a drug company? Huh? Yeah, all their research is owned in advance by Novartis.... This gets a reaction. What? You mean...? Yes, that's right...
Now to weave this thread with global economic exploitation, WTO, AIDS, etc, etc... They are listening with open mouths and wide eyes. The boy is taking Public Health Policy and this makes instant sense. He brings up India's manufacture of AIDS cocktails, and I go back to the PMB deal with Novartis to link that up with what he is learning in class with the use of patent and copyrights as public health policy methods for economic control, etc, etc. He introduces his girlfriend and gives me his name, we all shake hands, and continue on.
Meanwhile the chanting is going none-stop. Suddenly its eight-twenty and the crowd on the steps is finally going inside. I am afraid of sounding too crazy and over dosing them with political babble. It seems just right to leave. I say my good-byes and hope they got something to chew on. I go over to the marching circle and ask some one holding a sign but not in the circle if anybody up here has gone inside. He is vaguely dismissive. Oh well. Probably thinks I am undercover cop or a crazy. I debate about going in and decide not to bother. Just then the chanting and diatribe on the megaphone stops. Thanks are announced to all for showing up. They are packing up the signs in a plastic bag, picking up papers and minor trash so as not to leave a mess---this is nice gesture, sort of good camping ediquette. I turn around and start walking back. Just then the channel seven news van pulls up. Hopefully they were just collecting their crew down by the entrance.
I think, man I am glad the Sparts showed up, because without them there would have been no noisy notice at all. I hope Horowitz was a bore and the crowd inside was light.
On the way back in the Dwinelle parking lot and through the darkened trees, I think, jesus, how can you explain it all to those kids. There's too much and it all sounds like some insane rant. Then I think, that's what the noon rallies were for, an endless teach-in.
I stop for a moment and look back up at Life Sciences. The east facade still looks the same in the dark, but its been completely remodeled. I remember my father-in-laws lab windows down at ground level, its lights burning in long ago nights when me and my ex-wife, then girlfriend would sneak up and peer into her parents lab--we were loaded and giggled at her mother and father working.
I think about the bronze grill work above the side entrances. I climbed those once with a friend. We snuck up to the building in the dark so the campus cops wouldn't see, and climbed it all the way to the third floor and overhanging concrete friese. The grill was made of bass sheeting with a bronze patina and soldered together to look like heavy cast renaissance-like gratings.
There on the bridge over the creek heading toward Bancroft and coming into the bright lights gleeming down from Haas Pavillon I go by the Alumni House and remember to get my library card updated. I try to re-imagine the feelings I had when several thousand people could hold this place in a state of siege on a few hours notice. How could you ever communicate that feeling of solidarity to those kids tonight taking a study break? They wouldn't believe it, because they couldn't imagine it. I mean, I think they wanted to imagine it, or at least get a sense of some political tradition, because they were there sitting on the grass watching. They seemed eager to hear something that might make sense to them. But still, the image I had in my mind would have blown them away.
Chuck Grimes