protest
I am interested in what OP folks think about the disruption Tuesday evening at the University of the planned talk by Tom Tancredo, preventing him from speaking. I hope we don't see this as a campus issue isolated from the rest of local progressive politics, because it raises fundamental questions about freedom of speech and liberalism.
To me this seems very simple. Tancredo's views on immigration may be loathsome, but he had a right to speak. I am repeatedly appalled, I have to add, at the lack of appreciation of this basic point among some of my fellow progressives and liberals. Free speech applies even to people who are wrong.
The sit-in at South Building (offices for the UNC administration) which began last Thursday has now entered its tenth day and second weekend. Seven students are currently locked-in for the weekend, under constant police guard, demanding that Chancellor Moeser join the 42 universities nationwide which have adopted the Designated Suppliers Program. The DSP is an improvement on the anti-sweatshop policies which UNC adopted in 1990 after another sit-in, and would guarantee that factories producing UNC logo apparel paid their workers a living wage, and that workers at those factories had some sort of collective organization.
Students are keeping their own blog about the sit-in at http://dsp4unc.wordpress.com, with daily video updates.
The DSP has been endorsed by 18 campus organizations, both the Chatham and Orange County democratic parties, UNC's Progressive Faculty Network, the North Carolina AFL-CIO, Black Workers for Justice, North Carolina's UE-150, and the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, among other groups.
Curious to know if anybody on here wants to join in with WILPF/UNC or organize Orange Politics own form of demonstration. It's time to take a stand and not let another year of this war slip through the cracks.
The annual community celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr.,
a rally with speeches and song, will begin at 9:30 a.m. at the Peace
& Justice Plaza at the Franklin Street Post Office. At 10:30 a.m.,
participants will march west on Franklin Street to First Baptist Church
of Chapel Hill, located at 106 N. Roberson St., for the annual service
commemorating King’s life.
The Rev. Curtis Gatewood, former president
of the Durham Chapter of the NAACP, is the featured speaker at the 11
a.m. service.
Date:
Monday, January 21, 2008 - 4:30am to 8:00am
Location:
Franklin Street Post Office
I've heard some folks call them the David Price Six, which has a nice ring to it. But it's also notable that Representative Price has requested to drop the charges against the six protesters who occupied his office in an effort to get him to more vigorously oppose the war.
Six local protesters go on trial this afternoon on trespassing charges in connection with an anti-war demonstration in U.S. Rep. David Price's office in February.
On March 26, the six -- Laura Bickford, Ben Carroll, Alisan Fathalizadeh, Sara Joseph, Dante Strobino, Tamara Tal -- pleaded not guilty to the charges. They had called on Price to oppose all further funding for the war and to seek an immediate withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq.
Since then, Price has written a letter to District Attorney Jim Woodall asking him to drop the charges against the six, protester Carroll said in a release.
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