The Try-Works

(Updated ad nauseum.)

So I opened my email this morning to find a missive from Adam Jung. Mr. Jung, you’ll recall, is the organizer from Tent State University who has been making the rounds of the local media for the last month or so, trying to paint Re-create 68 as bad,violent protesters and his organization as good ‘uns.

To his email.

1) You are attributing a qoute to me, one that is also attributed to me on Slapstick politics, that they seem to have got from a comment on Drunkablog by a user named “Adam”. I have never said anything like that, I have a lot of respect for Unconventional Action and had you done some research you would realize this. You are also damaging not only the case the ACLU is fighting on behalf of both Recreate 68 and Tent State, as well as ten other organizations. I have forwarded your and their URL’s on to the ACLU cooperating attorney’s that represent both R68 and TSU and asked them for our legal remedies.

Okay, well, where to begin. Yeah, the commenter on the Drunkablog never specified he was Adam Jung. I assumed as much given the tone of the comment. As such, I apologize. (However, I find the similarities between that comment and this email interesting. Such as, for instance, the numbering of each substantive paragraph.)

As to damaging the ACLU case on behalf of Re-create 68, let me point out that I ain’t a member of Re-create 68, nor any other group. I’m an interested observer. But, that said, how am I damaging the case? I’d like some specifics, because, frankly, I think you’re trying to have it both ways: declaiming other groups to the mainstream media as the fancy strikes you, then whining like Mel Gibson at closing time when someone dares respond to one of your idiot statements.

And good luck seeking a legal remedy. I’ve been threatened with lawsuits by everyone from Dan Caplis to Vernon Bellecourt. Hell, thanks to the anti-Churchill pinheads I’ve even been investigated by the University of Colorado legal team. Nothing sticks, nothing’s going to, it ain’t against the law to poke at insufferable little shits.

2)In every media interview I do I have refused to say R68 is going to be violent, and have tried to avoid the Conversation. The quote concerning Cuba or the Revolutionary War was not directed towards Glenn or R68. I was asked why Tent State was tactively non-violent. That was my response. their was no reference to R68 when I was asked that question. Chuck apparently decided to do some creative writing.

Well, I certainly wouldn’t put it past the local media to misquote someone, but I’m having trouble buying it. The thing is that you’ve positioned yourself as the go-to guy to talk shit about Re-create 68, and you’ve done everything but start tapdancing for interviews outside of Clear Channel in order to fulfill that role.

I don’t know if you have some ulterior motive in destroying local movements, or if you’re just dumb enough to allow yourself to be used by the media, but in the immortal words of Ward Churchill, you don’t have to be a pig to do a pig’s work.

And you’re a liar. You hustled your way onto Caplis and Silverman, to provide one example, solely to have the “Conversation” about Re-create 68’s “violent imagery.” You got a little mealy-mouthed in the midst of the conversation, but the context was apparent. Any of our readers who wants to verify that can listen to the audio right here.

3)I have to wonder how much “self-defense” has helped you. I have had the shit beat out of me, I have been hit by both rubber bullets and pepper spray balls, I’ve been beat in jail, and I’ve been maced point blank. But tactivly it doesn’t do me any good to fight back. I’m going to lose, and the media and the police will have the excuse they needed.

That’s not the point. As I said here over the weekend, I think one ought to avoid tussling with the police whenever possible. It tends to get one seriously fucked up, legally and physically. But I don’t negotiate rights, and I sure as hell don’t condemn others for exercising ’em.

Nor do I dictate to the oppressed how they’re to resist their oppression. I consider that the worst kind of hypocrisy. It always reminds me of Tolstoy’s wonderful formulation: “I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means — except by getting off his back.”

4)The article doesn’t say the Street Medics are not working with R68, it says they are members of the new coalition, as is Code Pink. And I didn’t say shit about ethier of those organizations. That information came from somewhere else.

Glad to hear you draw the line somewhere.

Do some research, man. Read the media pieces again. They only group that is consistently bashed is Tent State, usually by Glenn trying to make a connection between Tent State and Kent State. And don’t help the state by posting a bullshit quote that hurts everyone, both legally, and politically.

Again, I’d like you to clarify how your pandering to the local media in the interest of painting Re-create 68 as a gang of violent extremists is constructive, while my calling you full of shit for doing so is, like, “helping the state”?

You initiated this story. You created it. You issued a press release declaiming Re-create 68 for violent rhetoric and imagery, went crawling to the media in support of said press release, and then you took your horseshit routine on no less a racist, rightwing outlet than Caplis and Silverman. You sure as shit don’t get to whine now about others “helping the state”. Hell, you might as well be doing Hickenlooper’s laundry at this point.

And a final note. People engage in non-violence ethier out of principal or as a tactic. As a tactic it has been used by groups that are in no way pacifists. Bobby Sands, one of my personal heros and a sniper for the Irish Republican Army went on hunger strike in 1981. 66 days later he died. The deaths of 9 more hunger strikers would follow. These men are held up as heros by the Irish Republican movement, and their actions are credited with turning international pressure on england and with eventually forcing england to the table. Currently, the hated militarized police in the north of Ireland ware on the verge of being put under the control of a former IRA soldier, and their authority greatly curtailed.

I’ve never said non-violence ain’t a useful tactic. I have no idea what the fuck your point is. Except that you might want to re-read Bobby Sands’ autobiography.

Fetishing non-violence is a problem, but so is fetishing violent revolution. In the case of Ireland it has been a combination of both that has helped them take power.

Fetishizing any tactic is asinine. But I’m not the one playing to a hostile media to demonize those who exercise tactics I disagree with.

That’d be you. And I recommend that if you don’t want to be treated like a sleazy little asshole, you stop acting like one.

Update: I asked Mr. Jung if he was accusing of Chuck Plunkett of the Denver Post of lying when wrote that Mr. Jung had expressed “concerns about Spagnuolo’s insistence that he would resist police.” I also asked if Mr. Jung had requested a retraction. His answer was as evasive as you’d expect:

I think he lied to both me and Glenn when asking questions and attempting to goad activists into talking shit on the other. And I think he used my statement on why TSU is non-violent to make the connection to R68’s stance on self-defense. I didn’t refer to R68 at all, nor would I.

I also responded three different times with “Well if Glenn told you that, then that’s want he told you, I’m not talking about that.” He repeatedly said “Well Glenn said the other difference between your organizations and R68 is the stance on resisting police.” If Glenn said that, which I doubted at the time, though some ofhis comments make me wonder, it is a horrible statement. Esp. when we are trying to prevent the characterization of a non-violent and a violent coalition. That is what happened in Miami, and I was there to see the results of that.

I havn’t asked for a retraction because I don’t want the story to continue, and we have placed a blackout on the media until all the spokes, myself included, can go through a quick media training.

Again, horseshit. Adam Jung is the greatest source of “the characterization of a non-violent and a violent coalition.” It’s a wonder he hasn’t sprained his tongue repeating that line of shit, which is the reason he’s become the go to guy for the media whenever they need an idiot to connect the dots in that regard for their readers.

When I pointed that out to him, noting his press release, the media barrage, the Caplis and Silverman appearance, and the Rush Limbaugh mention, I got this response:

I will say we released a press release because R68 was (and still is) claiming we were a member of R68. I spent a week talking with Glenn about our concerns, as did other activists in R68 who are no longer with them, we were all dismissed.

Our message was being hurt and lost and we couldn’t make it work any other way. However, their were only two stories in the papers concerning the seperation and one appearance on Caplis which I felt I did a good job of refusing their baiting. The Rush mention was him reading the rocky mountain story, no control over that, and it followed a number of references to Recreate 68 over the previous weeks.

I don’t care if you like me or trust me. I’m open to grabbing a beer sometime if you’d like to meet me. But, regardless, you have no basis for that quote. It was written by someone named “Adam.” Do you have any idea how popular that name is!?

And I want it the stories to go away because I want to talk about the war. We don’t want an image of infighting and you are contributing to that.

So, got it, because the press release only got picked up by two papers, it wasn’t like you were really trying to smear other activists. Right.

Only problem being, the two papers were the only two daily papers in Denver. Meaning, you got one hundred percent pickup in the local market.

And as to your having no control over what Rush Limbaugh does, I have to remind you that you sent out a fucking press release providing, as you put it, a “characterization of a non-violent and a violent coalition.” Just out of curiosity, who the fuck did you think the story would appeal to but the rightwing radio junket?

And, yeah, I’ll admit there was some soft-peddling on your part on Caplis and Silverman, but that’s because you’d already set the fucking context with your press release. Or didn’t you know that’s why they asked you on their show?

Like I said above, I’d be happy to chalk some of this up to your immense naiveté, but for the fact that you’re still doing it. There are only so many times one can claim ignorance before the rest of us start wondering if you ain’t spent a little too much time sucking lead paint chips.

Let me make a recommendation. You don’t need “a quick media training.” You need total immersion, years of study, and, I’m guessing, a few rounds of electroshock therapy.

Or, perhaps, a new badge number and assignment.

Update II: By the way, anyone else note the irony in being called a “little man” by John Martin? It’s kinda like being called a “fat man” by El Presidente, or “a man who smells like horseshit” by Jim Paine. Or, say, a spastic, creepy, squirrely little fuck who’s only about one huff of spraypaint away from kidnapping a college girl and forcing her to chilled vodka on his nipples for the rest of her short, duct-tape laden life by, well, John Martin.

Update III: Michael J. Smith of one of my favorite blogs, Stop Me Before I Vote Again, has this to say about Code Pink and United for Peace and Justice split with Re-create 68.

And of course it’s always nice to see UFPJ and Code Pink running true to Democratic lapdog form. At left, Medea Benjamin; below, Leslie Cagan.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. The only contribution Coke Pink’s made to the anti-war movement is to ensure most of us who consider ourselves anywhere left of John McCain cringe a little bit every time we turn on Saturday Night Live. Or, for that matter, if we have the misfortune of accidentally happening upon the Denver/Boulder chapter’s MySpace page.

From what I’ve seen of the two, Medea Benjamin and Leslie Cagan share one brain.  Pink’s, actually. (You’ll excuse me whilst I rip my ears from my skull and nail them to a fucking stump.)

And it goes without saying that the only contributions United for Peace and Justice is interested in are, well, yours.