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Isn't the point here that this is an example of racist scapegoating,
and so that SHOULD be one of the demands? Should we avoid such
language in the hope that those cops will be drawn to the anti-war
movement? I don't think that the lessons of Vietnam were that you
could take someone who likes to beat up students and turn them into
someone who will join with them--I think most "hard-hats" who came
around did so at least in part in reaction to the violence of some of
their peers. We don't have to deny the racist nature of this war in
order to gain the support of middle america...<br>
<br>
On 10/5/2005 4:05 PM, R Miller wrote:
<blockquote cite="midb4389e9c7886801fef51af2f311ff71e@mindspring.com"
type="cite">Keith,
<br>
<br>
I could not follow your argument at all. <br>
<br>
I don't know what is meant by "hard hats" but if you think racism and
beating on students isn't happening, you are sadly mistaken.
<br>
<br>
Witness the recent pouncing and pounding on of a peaceful Pakistani
student US VETERAN at George Mason University. <br>
<br>
<blockquote>
<blockquote><b><!-- Arial --><!-- B9B7,3331,3533 --><font size="+1"><font
size="+1"><font size="+1">Full
Report: Student Brutalized by Cops, Right-Wing Students, for
Protesting Recruiters At George Mason U</font></font></font></b>
<br>
<b><!-- Arial -->M. Junaid Alam</b>
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->-<b><!-- B9B7,3331,3533 -->
See Pictures of Arrest</b>-
<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lefthook.org/Ground/Alam100505pictures.html">http://lefthook.org/Ground/Alam100505pictures.html</a>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote>
<blockquote><!-- Arial -->A
Pakistani-American who served four years in the United States Air
Force as munitions personnel was beaten and brutalized by right-wing
students and campus police last Thursday at George Mason University in
Fairfax, Virginia.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Tariq Khan, now a junior
majoring in sociology, said he was standing in front of the
recruitment table outside the school student center - as he has often
done before - during noontime with a paper sign reading, "Recruiters
lie, don't be deceived," taped to his shirt. A student approached Khan
and initiated a verbal argument, screaming in his face; he then took
the flyer and ripped it up in front of him, Khan says.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->The student then left
and returned with another student claiming to be a Marine having
recently served in Iraq, and the three continued a verbal argument
that began to escalate, Khan claimed. "I asked the marine, 'So how
many people did you kill?'" Khan said. "And he answered, 'Not
enough.'" The marine student soon ripped Khan's sign off his shirt and
threw it in the trash.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Shortly thereafter, two
of Khan's friends came to his defense, and a college staff member told
Khan he had to leave because he had no permit to table in the area. "I
didn't even have a table to begin with, so I didn't see why I needed a
permit for one," Khan said. "Besides, to have a table, you need to be
a campus group, and we didn't have one," he added, pointing out that
the student council denied an anti-war group's right to exist on
campus earlier because it contained several anarchists.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->The staff member called
campus security, at which point a police officer, Lt. Reynolds,
approached Khan and demanded to see his student ID. Khan said he told
the officer he was not carrying his ID and tried to walk away when the
policeman tried to arrest him and then became violent. "He threw me
into the stage," Khan claimed, referring to a dance area in the
student center left from an event earlier in the day, "and I just sort
of raised my hands to show I'm not violent and tried to get as much
attention by saying, 'I'm being non-violent and I'm being brutalized.'"
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Fellow student and
friend Amie Wells confirmed Khan's account, saying the officer
"grabbed him, put him in a half-nelson headlock," and then "slammed
him into a metal stage," propped three feet above the floor. Wells
added that the officer then slammed Khan into the ground hard,
resulting in his face hitting the surface.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Describing the
atmosphere, Wells said a number of right-wing students were cheering
on police officers who were attacking Khan, exclaiming, "Kick him!"
She claimed most of the crowd appeared to be on the side of the
police. "It was disgusting," she said. Another student who witnessed
events, David Curtis, said some students initially implored the police
to let Khan go, but others soon arrived to support the police,
chanting "Kick his ass!"
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->According to Khan,
Wells, and Curtis, one of the right-wing students who had earlier
harassed Khan joined the cops in forcing him on the ground. Curtis
asked the student what authority he was exercising, and the student
backed off.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->However, Curtis says, a
university employee who stood about six feet eight inches and weighed
around 300 pounds began helping the cops to further subdue Khan. "He
performed jujitsu moves on me while the cops held me down, and the
cops let him do it," Khan said. "Frankly, the cops were doing just
fine without him, but this huge guy came and put [Khan's] free arm in
a Kamora," Curtis said, referring to a jujitsu maneuver in which the
arm is painfully bent backwards. "You could see on his face that it
was really hurting him," Curtis said of Khan.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->A police officer claimed
the university employee was an "auxiliary police officer," but Wells,
who works with the man in the computer store, said she had never seen
him in that capacity.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Khan said he was then
dragged off by two officers toward a police car but was reluctant to
get in. He says one cop was preparing to spray him with mace. "He held
the can straight at my eyes, about five inches away from my face,"
Khan said. "So I started yelling, 'Hey, this cop is trying to mace me,
someone take a picture if you have a camera!"
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Wells quickly took out
her cell-phone camera and began snapping pictures. "After I did that,
the cop put away his mace can and said, 'Okay, no one's going to get
maced today.' I mean, clearly, he knew he was doing something wrong,"
she said.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Khan says Officer
Reynolds told him he had to arrest him because, "What with 9/11 and
everything else, we didn't know what you would do." Khan also says
another policeman told him that "You people are the most violent
people in the world." Before being hauled off to the Fairfax County
Jail, Khan was warned by the police who were questioning him that "If
you even look at [cops] the wrong way, they'll hang you up by your
feet."
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Officer Reynolds asked
the handcuffed student if he needed medical attention or desired an
attorney, Khan claims, but says he was granted neither medical
attention nor an attorney after expressly asking for both.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Released after two
hours, Khan was charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing on
campus - even though Khan is a student and police found his ID when
they searched him.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->The student protester
says he is planning to sue the school, the police, and the right-wing
students who attacked him. "I went with my wife and my mother-in law
to file a complaint at the police office right afterwards, and had
pictures taken of all my cuts and bruises," he says.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->In response to the
incident, the university issued a statement to Khan recognizing that
he was staging a peaceful protest and insisting it was committed to
students' rights to free speech on campus; it also said it will
conduct an internal investigation into the conduct of the police
officers and the other students who were involved in Thursday's events.
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Khan, however, is not
impressed. "They haven't even contacted me yet," he said. "I'll
believe them when I see results."
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Asked what motivated him
to begin his protest against military recruiters on a campus where
there is no organized anti-war movement, the former Air Force enlistee
said, "For four years, I was making bombs. Then I started wondering
where those bombs were actually going." After reading and learning
about the bombing of Kosovo and ongoing destruction of civilian
facilities in Iraq, he came to his conclusion: "I asked the questions
and I wasn't happy with the answers We were bombing civilian plants."
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->Speaking at a rally held
on October 3 that was attended by 150 to 200 supporters at the
university, Khan sounded a defiant note: "I will not be bullied or
intimidated into silence…The university authority's actions against me
last Thursday were their way of telling me to shut up. And my answer
to them is, no, I will not shut up...The power-mongers in this country
are using 9/11 and terrorism as an excuse to trample all over our
individual rights. A friend of mine recently said, 'When we've traded
in all our freedom for security, we'll find that the only thing we've
secured is our own incarceration.'"
<br>
<br>
<!-- Arial -->M. Junaid Alam, 22, is
co-editor of
<b><!-- 8A88,1715,1917 -->Left
Hook</b> and a Journalism
student at Northeastern University. He may be reached at
<b><!-- B9B7,3331,3533 --><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:alam@lefthook.org">alam@lefthook.org</a></b>.Yahoo!
for Good
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<blockquote><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:O29@massglobalaction.org">O29@massglobalaction.org</a>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://massglobalaction.org/mailman/listinfo/o29_massglobalaction.org">http://massglobalaction.org/mailman/listinfo/o29_massglobalaction.org</a>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On Oct 5, 2005, at 3:36 PM, Keith Rosenthal wrote:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote>Hey All,
<br>
<br>
I just wanted to throw a couple of thoughts out there regarding the
vote and discussion at Monday's O29 meeting concerning demands for
this protest -- specifically the demand: "Stop the racist scapegoating
of Arabs and Muslims" also, since the political discussion around the
demand was short and choppy in the meeting, i wanted to respond to
several things here.
<br>
I think it was a mistake that this demand was voted down in a tie
vote (9-9), and some of the justifications presented for why it should
be voted down have the potential to set a bad precedent for our
movement. it was stated that we "don't want a radical protest, which
will only draw 1,000 people," "that we have to reach out to middle
America," and that we should learn the lesson of the Vietnam antiwar
movement which, "got the hard-hats to stop beating up the students,
but instead join the students." i think this perspective is erroneous
and somewhat mythical.
<br>
First of all, i don't think we should have a laundry list of
demands on the flyer, nor do i think we should talk about everything
under the sun on the flyer. but i don't think a demand around arabs
and muslims is "beyond the pale," too radical, or will bring less
people out to the march. in fact, i think it can draw in more people
pissed about the Patriot Act, Guantanamo mistreatment, and, of course,
will draw in Arabs and Muslims, who just recently have been making
pleas to Romney to stop the plan to wiretap local Mosques! where is
the antiwar movement on this question of the supposedly imminent and
overwhelming threat that "Muslim and Arab extremists" pose to "our
freedoms"? the demand around Palestine at the September 24th protest
certainly did not make that historic march any smaller, so why would a
demand to stop anti-Arab racist scapegoating make our march any
smaller?
<br>
Second, we ought to be less afraid right now of being "too
radical." the single-most important figure in revitalizing mass
antiwar activity recently has been none other than that "raving
radical" Cindy Sheehan, who supports Palestine, the Iraq resistance to
occupation, refuses to vote for pro-war Democrats, and calls the
current war "imperialist." she is resonating with people because the
reality is that right now, in the aftermath of the sinking occupation
of Iraq and the Hurricane Katrina disaster, most regular people are
growing increasingly fed up with this war and with everything having
to do with the current government. right now, people are increasingly
fed up with even the Democratic Party for not taking a firm enough
stand against Bush and the war because of their concern to not
alienate "swing-voters in middle America."
<br>
Finally, who is this mythical "middle America," and how do we win
them? the reality is that right now, a majority of people are against
the war and against Bush. according to polls, 1 out of 3 people
consider themselves <b><i>part</i></b> of the antiwar
movement -- that's 100 million people nationwide. in boston, that's
roughly 200,000 people. once we get these people organized, it will
be easy from there to win the other antiwar 1/3 to our side. also,
who are we trying to win to this movement? soccer moms (like cindy
sheehan)? sure! arabs, muslims, blacks, gays, women, students,
latinos, workers, etc., (i.e., the majority of people)? we must!
<br>
And if i may ask, which hard-hats are beating up antiwar students
today? it's my understanding that the AFL-CIO is against the war in
Iraq (this includes organized construction workers, i believe).
remember, <i>we are the majority</i>! soldiers and military
families are increasingly on our side. now is not the
time for conservative, cautious moderation, but rather for bold,
confident, and aggressive steps forward.
<br>
During the vietnam war, these so-called "hard hats" (do you mean
workers, soldiers, what?), were not won over to the side of the
"students" because the "students" moderated their message. rather,
they were won over to the antiwar movement because they simply grew
more and more disgusted with the war and the government and felt they
simply had to do something about it. in other words, people were
going through a process where they were beginning to think much more
critically about the government, if for no other reason than because
of the increasing reality of what the government was doing to the
Vietnamese people and to the US soldiers. this is precisely what is
happening right now. the way we are going to win these people is not
by moderating our message, but by taking every opportunity to expose
every lie, smokescreen, and brutality that this government is carrying
out in the name of this war . . . and in all of our names. in so
doing, we will give expression to growing millions of people disgusted
by the government and simply waiting for someone to confidently
address the government's barbarity, blow-for-blow (e.g., Cindy
Sheehan).
<br>
<br>
In conclusion, i warn against the broader framework, justification,
and implications used to defeat the demand on anti-arab racism at
monday's meeting. it sounds dangerously similar to the logic employed
by Kerry supporters in the last election that we have to moderate our
message to appeal to "swing-voters in middle-America" in order to
win. not only did that strategy, in fact, lead to a defeat for our
side, but it also taught movement activists how to hold their tongues
instead of raising their voices. as the 2006 congressional elections
begin to be talked about, we would do well to remember this lesson,
and refuse this time around to repeat our mistakes. the way to grow
is to confidently fight for our principles and to win more people to
them -- in tandem with their own developing criticisms of the war and
the government -- and not by "moderating ourselves," "politically
disciplining ourselves," or "holding our noses."
<br>
Again, this is not to say that we should have a laundry-list of
every possible demand on the flyer. but this is to say that we have
little to lose and much to gain by adding clearly relevant demands and
letting our movement take an increasingly critical posture towards the
government's various policies and ideological buttresses. and we
ought to be wary of making arguments that would set a precedent for
our movement to balk and moderate itself in order to appeal to some
mythical "middle-America" at the expense of standing up for our
beliefs and for those who are most oppressed and victimized by this
war and this government.
<br>
<br>
<br>
Solidarity,
<br>
Keith Rosenthal
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Yahoo! for Good
<br>
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</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
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