1st Amendment Principles or Tyranny?

A communique from a very small non-violent group attacked at a San Francisco book fair by some of the same types of violent r@dicals who currently frequent certain TESC events indicates a continuing trend. There’s reason to believe similar miscreants will be attending many of the TESC events scheduled by Abolish Prisons and Cops, a student group putting on a series of presentations/workshops considered news worthy and deserving coverage.

Whether TESC will have at least two campus police officers on duty during these particular events, possibly a plain clothes LEO in attendance as well in an effort at public safety remains to be seen. An incident in the Bay Area resembles the same kind of violence/bullying that has taken place at Portland State and TESC in the recent past. There’s no evidence this intolerance and hostility is disappearing. Rather, it appears to be intensifying. Not so coincidentally, the George Jackson Brigade (there will be presentations by one-time members of the same) bombed 2 branches of the Rainier National Bank in the mid 70’s because, as they stated in a communique where they gave their reasons for doing so, the bank had connections with the owners of the Seattle Time, a newspaper the GJB characterized as bourgeois. The same hostility to 1st Amendment principles remains evident in student @colytes of lifestyle (A)narchy today, as the following reveals:

An Open Letter to Bay Area Anarchists

An ugly precedent has been set by the episode of crude authoritarian behavior at the 2014 SF Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair. The screaming, the threats of harm, the physical intimidation directed at us personally, as well as the vandalizing of the books and magazines on the CAL Press/Anarchy magazine table by a dozen or so people associated with the Quilombo social center was out of line. Such bullying, harassment, and intimidation should not be tolerated at anarchist events or in anarchist spaces merely because other anarchists might have unpopular ideas and use words that may not align with a particular perspective on identity politics.

So far, this bullying has not just been tolerated, in fact it has been rewarded; by choosing the safest path and walking away, we have helped to encourage it. The biggest vindication for those who instigated these antics is that, despite their threats of inflicting physical harm on other anarchists, and despite their refusal to talk about what they found so upsetting about our presence — even with those who, despite their best efforts, were unsuccessful in de-escalating the conflict — they were not asked to leave the bookfair.

Those from Quilombo who menaced us no doubt feel justified in targeting us, but the three of us individually, our project, and our six year old son are not actually their enemies. We have spoken to several people who are their comrades, and have expressed our willingness to engage in a mediated resolution to this conflict. We urge anyone who was frightened, appalled, or annoyed by the disruption at the bookfair to stand in favor of verbal mediation and against physical intimidation.