People who hate this country are speaking on campus ““ and you’re paying for it.
Beginning Jan. 16, the Undergraduate Students Association Council general representative office has been hosting a weekly Social Justice Speaker Series.
According to the online UCLA campus events calendar, the series brings “some of the most prominent activists, advocates and intellectuals of the current global social justice movement.”
I recently attended one of these events, which featured anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, and in order to recoup my contribution of student fees which went to fund the event, I consumed several sandwiches and pizza slices at the catered lunch.
In her speech, Sheehan asserted that she knew the real reason for the war in Iraq. She said that, as with other wars, the reason is “for corporate colonialism, to make the countries safe for our corporations.”
In the past, Sheehan has been quoted making similar statements, including calling President Bush the world’s greatest terrorist.
In light of such statements, I asked Sheehan during the Q&A session how she could claim to love America, while publicly allying with avowed enemies of America, such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. She responded that her only problem is with the U.S. government.
But at the speech, Sheehan compared Bush to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Why invade Iran “just because their leader is crazy?” Sheehan asked. “Our leader is crazy, too.”
She justified possible Iranian attempts to acquire nuclear weapons on the grounds that the “U.S. has thousands of nuclear bombs. Israel has hundreds.”
Sheehan removed any doubt of her anti-American slant when she urged speech attendees to make sure that no one joins the U.S. military.
I asked General Representative Samer Araabi, who created the speaker series, why he would bring an essentially anti-American speaker to campus to represent the anti-war side. Araabi responded that the event is not an endorsement of Sheehan’s views.
“People from all sides of the political spectrum bring speakers to campus,” Araabi said. “We’re college students, and we’re capable of digesting information for ourselves.”
The whole series cost several thousand dollars, according to Finance Committee Chairman Michael Miller.
“(Araabi) spent between $18,000 and $21,000. I know he spent $17,000 on honorariums this quarter,” Miller said.
According to Araabi, the figure for the series is closer to $13,000.
Miller added that the money for the speaking event is “pretty much coming directly out of each student’s pocket” in the form of mandatory student fees.
These fees funded another speaker named Sherman Austin, who was convicted of distributing bomb-making information on his anarchist Web site. The flier for the speaker series referred to Austin as a political prisoner and “first American to be prosecuted under the USA Patriot act.”
But Sherman had said he was proud to be a terrorist to the U.S. government, even posting on his Web site that he would “burn” the 2002 Olympics.
According to Araabi, Austin was convicted for information he did not author.
“Austin had an open source Web site, so someone posted on that Web site, and he linked to someone’s information. The person’s whose Web site that was didn’t get in trouble, but Austin did,” Araabi said.
But the act in question is distribution of bomb-making information. In an interview with CounterPunch Newsletter, Austin said he knowingly hosted that information on his site, linking to it as a resource for the site’s readers.
For representatives of UCLA’s student government to pay a domestic terrorist like Austin to speak, and to lionize him as a political prisoner, is truly alarming.
The choice of Sheehan and Austin lends support to misconceptions of all anti-war activists as being unpatriotic.
And the planners’ selection of Sheehan and Austin as representative of movements that do have advocates that are reasonable and who do not hate this country is telling of their own loyalties.
The event flier also revealed several other speakers with similar views of America.
Other speakers include rapper Mark Gonzales, who alleges imperialism on the part of the U.S. and Israel, and Chris Crass, anarchist and sworn enemy of “global capitalism and U.S. imperialism.” Cornell West, radical professor and similar enemy of U.S. “imperialism,” was also slated to speak.
However, these speakers ““ some, unabashed opponents of capitalism ““ have no qualms collecting thousands of dollars of our student fees in the form of honorariums for their speeches.
Our student government officials cheapen a potentially rich debate by choosing fanatics such as Sheehan and Austin to represent their social justice advocacy. In doing so, these elected representatives cater to a small sliver of the campus body, on your dime.
If you want your student fees refunded, e-mail Lazar at dlazar@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.