NewU Commentary: UCIPD Went Overboard at Ayn Rand Event

And yet another piece from this week's NewU, this one from the author of last week's article, giving more insight into his experience at the controversial event:

Link to article

Opinion
UCIPD Went Overboard at Ayn Rand Event
Commentary
By Paul Backus

Here in the United States, we like to think that our laws and law enforcement help to protect the innocent. People should have the peace of mind of knowing that before they can be arrested, they must commit a crime of some kind.

On Monday, Nov. 6, however, the UC Irvine Police Department arrested 15 people after they began singing to protest a guest speaker, an action which, according to Chief Paul Henisey, would not usually warrant arrest. But the singers were members of the LaRouche Youth Movement, which had previously heckled a guest speaker at the University of Southern California by throwing condoms and raw meat.

And there was one little detail omitted from the article I wrote last week (“Fifteen Arrested at Ayn Rand Club Event,” Nov. 13). UCIPD also threatened to arrest me for trying to get interviews at the scene.

When the arrests began, I was interviewing LYM members, but was asked to step aside for “right now.” I complied and, once the detainees were sitting down and everything was calm, I tried to find a UCI student among the LaRouche members to interview. Here’s what happened, transcribed word for word off of my digital recorder:

Me: Hey, are any of you guys students here by any chance?

UCIPD: We need you to leave! You’re interfering.

Me: OK, sorry. Sorry sir.

UCIPD: And if you interrupt again, you’re going to be arrested. Do you understand?

Me: OK.

UCIPD: You’ve been warned two times now!

Me: OK, I’m sorry. Could any of you guys go on record after, after whatever you’re…

UCIPD: Two times you’re warned. You’re gonna go to jail next time!

Me: OK.

UCIPD: Step away farther!

Me: All right.

Just to make sure I’m crystal clear, this happened while the LaRouche members were seated on the ground, under arrest. There was no plausible way that communicating with the protestors could have hindered the officers’ ability to control the situation.

The fact that this whole incident went unmentioned in last week’s front-page story demonstrates a rule of “objective journalism” that sometimes drives me crazy. Since it happened to me, it couldn’t be included in the article because I’m not supposed to mention myself.

If there had been another reporter being bullied by the campus cops, I could have reported his story as news, and readers of the article could have had a better grasp of the level of criminal activity for which our local authorities are willing to send someone to jail. Unfortunately, it happened to the only writer at the scene.

But let’s get back to the LaRouche arrests. USC’s student paper, the “Daily Trojan,” quotes their Department of Public Safety chief, Carey Drayton, as describing the condom-throwing incident as “very peaceful.”

The authorities present in Los Angeles when the situation occurred did not see a need to take any action beyond ejecting the protestors, because they left when asked.

But Henisey said last week that UCIPD considered that event, plus the singers’ apparent plans to keep on singing, sufficient grounds to arrest everybody involved.

In my mind, there’s no doubt that the LaRouche folks are kind of crazy. While discussing these shenanigans with some buddies last weekend, one of my friend’s new roommates told me that she knew someone who had joined the LYM and had virtually disappeared off the face of the earth shortly thereafter. This type of cult-like behavior on the part of LYM members is a common accusation. But I’m far from convinced that they did anything that warranted their arrest on that historic Monday night.

We may never get a satisfactory answer as to what exactly triggered the handcuffing spree on Nov. 6. A review of the weekly police logs this year reveals that even activities like loud indoor jogging can be considered reportable offenses here in Irvine, and since Los Angeles has a lot more actual crime, this could be a factor in the drastically different action taken by USC’s campus police in response to protesting.

I wonder what else you can get arrested for around here. Maybe the next time some abandoned papers are littering the campus grounds, tree-huggers can at least hope that the delinquents who recklessly committed this offense against our Mother Earth were caught in the act by the proper authorities and are now serving some serious time.

Then again, pollution is more of a liberal concern. The tree-huggers should make sure they criticize the litterer very respectfully, or they could wind up in jail, especially if they’ve ever been in a protest before.

Paul Backus is a third-year literary journalism major.

NewU Opinion: Political Cult Invades UCI: Don’t Be Deceived

Related to this opinion is this letter to the editor in the same issue of the NewU:

Link to article

Opinion
Political Cult Invades UCI: Don’t Be Deceived
By David Syatt

You see them on campus with signs proclaiming the evils of the Bush Administration. You listen to their words and believe that they’re preaching freedom and liberty. And now, after being arrested during a protest at UC Irvine, you think that they’re martyrs for the First Amendment. However, do not be tricked by the LaRouche Youth Movement, a radical political cult fueled by conspiracy theories.

It is easy to look at the pictures of President George W. Bush as a monkey on their booths and think to yourself, “That’s funny. These people must be pretty cool.” But these little displays are just attempts to lasso in ignorant college students who think of themselves as liberals.

If you go up to one of these recruiters and tell them that you’ve heard of their leader, Lyndon LaRouche, a look of surprise and hostility will appear on their faces, because they know that if you’ve heard of him and are not waving one of his pamphlets around with ecstatic glee, then you are against him.

Lyndon LaRouche has run for president in every election since 1976, but he has never been nominated as a candidate for any party. This is because of the disturbing beliefs he insists are true.

First of all, LaRouche scoffs at “the mythical ‘six million Jewish victims’ of the Nazi ‘Holocaust’” in his 1978 article, “New Pamphlet to Document Cult Origins of Zionism.” In the same article, he says that only about 1.5 million Jews died in Nazi Germany and holds that “what the Nazis did to Jewish victims was mild compared with the virtual extermination of gypsies and the butchery of Communists.”

Recruiters will tell you that LaRouche has never been an anti-Semite and has, in fact, written many pro-Jewish articles (which is true). However, if you look at the cover of the booklet that is now being handed out on the UCI campus (“Is Joseph Goebbels on Your Campus?”) you’ll see pictures of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and… Lynne Cheney. Now, I’m liberal. I did my part to give the Democrats the majority in Congress, but do I believe that Dick Cheney – let alone his wife – can be compared to Hitler and Goebbels, two of the most evil people in history? Of course not, and neither should any rational person. This just shows how LaRouche and his followers trivialize the Holocaust.

Yet, LaRouche’s views on the Holocaust show his more tender, cuddlier side when compared to his views on AIDS and homosexuality. LaRouche presents his solution to the AIDS epidemic in his 1986 article, “The End of the Age of Aquarius?”:

“Yes, we must destroy AIDS. It’s going to destroy everybody, … which means we’re going to have to put away every carrier until they can no longer carry.”

Later, LaRouche writes, “Children are going to playgrounds, they go in with baseball bats, and they find one of these gays there, pederasts, trying to recruit children, and they take their baseball bats and they beat them up pretty bad. They’ll kill one sooner or later. … Children go out with baseball bats and beat them up—which is perfectly moral; they have the civil right to do that! It’s a matter of children’s civil rights!”

To end AIDS, people should attack gays with baseball bats? Followers of LaRouche may say that he has changed his views since 1986, which makes perfect sense. After all, he wrote this when he was 64, so I am sure that he’s matured since that young age.

Why does anyone – especially liberal Southern Californian college students – support LaRouche, given views such as these? The youth who follow this man are victims of deceit and should not be blamed.

Yaron Brook, head of the Ayn Rand Institute and the speaker that the LYM recently protested at UCI, basically wants to see World War III happen in the Middle East and compares Islamic regimes to the Axis powers of the past. So it is no wonder that a liberal-minded young person would want to challenge him. LaRouche targets controversial figures such as Brook in order to attract followers. The Ayn Rand Institute is a petty organization. Even the Muslim Student Union, which disagrees vehemently with Brook’s views, declined to protest the event because they felt that it wasn’t worth their time.

LaRouche wants people to think he’s a liberal saint and to believe his inane theories, which compare members of the Republican Party to Nazis. He is a burned-out, 84-year-old man who has been desperately trying to get noticed by real politicians since 1969. Keep this in mind next time one of his recruiters approach you with an inviting smile and you’ll be safe.

David Syatt is a second-year literary journalism major. He can be reached at dsyatt@uci.edu.