From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:ucbesvax!turner
Newsgroups: net.college
Title: Re: Kirk at Berk - (nf)
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.720
Posted: Mon Feb 28 18:24:23 1983
Received: Tue Mar  1 06:49:47 1983

#R:rlgvax:-105700:ucbesvax:2900009:000:3481
ucbesvax!turner    Feb 28 03:10:00 1983


    to thekid -

	Without disagreeing with all you say here, I nevertheless take
    exception to the following (in point 7 above):

	....i know some very dedicated people (here in DC) who are working
	for El Salvador groups.  they march, they protest, they form church
	groups, they raise money, they write congressmen, they canvass ...
	they DO NOT cause riots in college auditoriums.

	SAINTES is no less dedicated.  They feel, however, that they have
    just about exhausted marching, protesting (of the "polite" sort), forming
    church groups, raising money, writing congressmen and canvassing.  They
    have done all those things, and the administration CONTINUES on its course.
    There is a limit to what can be done "constructively" when you don't
    have the resources of the government, which itself makes no more than a
    pretense of acting "constructively".  It is, in fact, this pretense which
    is the source of the rage that led to heckling Kirkpatrick: an awful
    abuse of the trust implicitly placed in her.

	So what is "the better way", here?  Can you think of one that hasn't
    been exhausted?  To suggest that we simply persevere, that we did wrong
    by losing our patience, places the burden totally on us.  Innocent people
    will go on being maimed, killed and imprisoned because WE stepped outside
    the bounds of PROPRIETY?!  I respectfully and politely request a big,
    fat break.

	The second thing that irked me about point 7 is this: I have seen
    riots.  I have lived in Berkeley most of my life, and seen most of the
    worst disturbances, and let me tell you: what happened in that auditorium
    was nothing like a riot.  There was no provocation of the kind that I
    witnessed in the late 60's and early 70's on the part of both the police
    and ultraleft terrorist/provocateurs.  You implicitly and wrongfully put
    SAINTES in the latter category when you talk of "riots".  Please look
    this word up in a dictionary.  Then skip toward the front and find the
    word "apologist".  (The word "apology" will be right near by, if you feel
    a sudden need for it.)

	Or did you intend this meaning ?  What do you think of the recent
    incident at a Seven Sisters college where Kirkpatrick was "denied a
    forum" because the administration there could not guarantee the police
    protection that Kirkpatrick wanted?  Which is to say, protection against
    heckling.  Are the faculty members at Vassar who signed a petition of
    protest against Kirkpatrick's appearance threatening the same thing that
    happened to her at Berkeley, and thus effectively "inciting to riot"?
    The newspapers are willing to play up the "riot" view uncritically.  So,
    to avoid bad treatment at the hands of editors, we'll just slog on,
    marching, canvassing, forming church groups...

	In 1968 in Germany, the student movement was heavily slandered by the
    main newspaper publisher, Axel Springer.  Students were "drug addicts",
    "perverts", "bums".  During a state visit by the Shah of Iran, a student
    died at the hands of a rightist assassin during the obligatory protest. 
    The killer was gleeful to have gotten one of the "perverts".  Shortly
    afterward, the printing plants of Springer were surrounded by an outer
    ring of enraged students and an inner ring of machine-gun nests.

	If it comes to that here, I know where I'll be.  And you?

	Afraid, But Only A Little,
	    Michael Turner