[Marxism] A letter from my boss

[DCQ]

I'm with you in principle and in fact.

I don't think a goal of a protest like this should be to "shut down" 
Gilchrist at this point. And I disagree with the characterization of 
the Minutemen as a full-blown fascist organization. Hell, I even take 
exception to the characterization of the Minutemen being responsible 
for the deaths of 3000 immigrants (because when Minutemen start 
actually shooting immigrants--and I have no doubt that that's what the 
harder-right members intend to do eventually if they are allowed to 
continue unchallenged--we need to be ready to step up our rhetoric and 
action against a group that organizes and protects murderers).

What I'm trying to point out is that we need to challenge the 
characterization of this protest as "violent protesters denying free 
speech" to anyone. Of course the CRs, the Minutemen, and the 
administration is trying to characterize this as leftist intolerance. 
But the fact is, the incident wasn't anything of the kind, both in 
intention and in reality.

The one thing that makes it all look "messy" is individual audience 
members jumping up on stage spontaneously when the banner was unfurled, 
and then the violent overreaction by one College Republican thug (it 
may have been more than one--the videographer lost focus and aim at 
this point). Neither of these were under the control of the protesters 
who peacefully stepped on stage with every intention of being ushered 
away by security.

I think activists at Columbia (and all over the US) need to discuss 
this, the lessons they can learn, their tactics, and the nature of the 
Minutemen. But I'm not sure it's the role of activists to try and quell 
or police the kind of obvious and understandable revulsion and 
resulting spontaneous outbursts that a figure like Gilchrist inspires.

And in any case, I don't understand how one can defend or support the 
protesters if he/she thinks their actions were inappropriate or 
unjustified. I defend the protesters because they weren't violent, did 
not have the intention of scaring off Gilchrist, and were not 
responsible for ending his talk.

If, on the other hand, I'm wrong about the essentials of this protest 
and have completely misinterpreted the video and the events that 
occurred, then I may have to re-evaluate my position. If, for instance, 
ISO members were involved in jumping up on stage and instigating the 
chaos, then I'd say that there needs to be a really serious and sober 
discussion at the next branch meeting. If (again if I'm completely 
off-base on my interpretation of the events) the ISO branch leadership 
was involved in encouraging this, then I'd support replacing the branch 
leadership and issuing an apology to the Chicano Caucus. (While I think 
it's understandable for a relatively new activist to do something like 
jump up on stage, I think we as socialists have to hold ourselves to a 
higher level of discipline.) But I don't think any of this is necessary 
or even relevant because the events seem to be pretty clear from the 
video.

On Oct 7, 2006, at 5:22 PM, Mark Lause wrote:

> I'd preface my post by repeating the comment that Louis made earlier 
> about
> the need to defend the ISO comrades.  I've sent my protest and 
> circulated it
> widely to others of my coworkers here.  Whether or not to defend the
> students being investigated is just not an issue.
>
> That said, people going into an action like this should be absolutely 
> clear
> about what you want to do, why you want to do it, what you expect to
> accomplish by it, etc.  The less you decide beforehand, the more you 
> leave
> the outcome to the impulses of members, friends, supporters, perfect
> strangers who happen to be in the right place at the right time to 
> decide
> what an action will do.  My impression is that this incident was hardly
> discussed and planned beforehand.
>
> I get this impression from the fact that the people defending the 
> action on
> this list can't agree on what they're defending....  One of them 
> defends
> storming the stage, and the other defends not storming the stage.
>
> We are left wondering what the action WAS, much less what it achieved 
> or
> what it sought to achieve....  And if people predisposed to sympathize 
> with
> the action are confused, where does that leave others?
>
> ML
>
>
>
>
>
>
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