[Peace-discuss] My experience with the U of I recently

[David Green]

Even though I'm generally opposed to overt disruption of speaking events as a political tactic, the nature of such events as this one, with no opportunity for genuine discourse and no willingness by the speaker to take that seriously, might force me to reconsider.
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On Wed, 9/21/16, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

 Subject: [Peace-discuss] My experience with the U of I recently
 To: "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>, "peace" <peace at lists.chambana.net>, "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
 Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2016, 8:51 AM
 
 I attended what was supposed to be a
 talk on Constitutional
 Law last week at the COL U of I, by Prof. Anil Amar a
 Constitutional Law Professor at Yale University, and the
 brother of the Dean of the College of Law U of I. 
 
 I was planning to raise questions related to the firing of
 Professor Salaita for exercising his "freedom of speech" on
 social media, and bringing in Harold “Killer” Koh, to
 campaign for his client Hillary Clinton only ten days before
 the election in violation of Illinois statues.
  
 It was Poli Sci 101 with Prof. Amar promoting his book and
 Hillary.  Due to lack of time, he only took questions.
 Two people asked questions related to issues and law
 which he addressed with much discussion related to the
 electoral collage, former Pres. Lincoln and Obama, then
 progressing to disparaging third parties, blaming Nader for
 Bush and our current wars. He talked about how awful Trump
 is, and how moderate Hillary is and why we need her, even
 mentioning Tammy Duckworth as someone who should be
 supported.
 I restrained myself from walking out, and raised my hand
 instead.
   
 I asked "how can you support Hillary given her record as
 Sec. of State, responsible, along with Obama, for the death
 and destruction of thousands/millions of people of Libya,
 Syria, Yemen, as well as Iraq?" and then asked again,
 "having heard you speak yesterday on NPR, how can you
 support our Constitutional Law Prof. President, Obama, who
 has broken not only International law, but our laws, by
 extending the Bush wars to as many as 8
 countries”?  Then followed with "I came here
 expecting a conversation on “Freedom of Speech”
 instead I’m hearing a promotion of Hillary and the
 Democrats." 
 
 He responded with “you’re
 exercising your freedom of speech and I’m exercising
 mine.”  He then attempted to defend his position. He
 was clearly
 rattled, and floundering, though he was floundering all over
 the place from the very beginning, now worse. One of his
 most disturbing statements was in relation to his defense of
 Hillary and the destruction of Libya, “only five Americans
 died in Libya, emphasizing with fingers raised, "only
 five.”
 
 I guess to some, only American lives matter. The millions of
 non Americans the US is responsible for killing with
 impunity, and no remorse, sadly, don’t matter.
 
 He was then pulled off to another speaking engagement. 
 
 
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