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

[C. G. Estabrook]

Preventing anyone from speaking - even Nazis and Democrats - almost always militates against the True and the Good.

But large demonstrations against such speakers can have the opposite effect.

That’s why the powers that be want to characterize such demonstrations as ‘denials of free speech.’

—CGE

> On Sep 21, 2016, at 10:05 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> 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.
> --------------------------------------------
> 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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