Unreal… Wash U Shuts Down Freedom Memorial on 20 Year Anniversary of End of Communism- It Was Too Offensive (Video)
Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, November 9, 2009, 7:39 PM
The gulag was too offensive.
(Twitpics)
The students of Young Americans for Liberty hosted a rally to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall at noon today on the lawn outside the Ann W. Olin Women’s Building at Washington University.
The students set up a gulag complete with prisoners, guards and barb wire on the Wash U campus.
Students constructed a memorial to the victims of socialism as a stark reminder of the horrors of socialism, and of its victims.
“We’re hoping to elevate the thinking of students about the connection between socialism, tyranny, and murder. Too often, we tend to think about state control in the abstract. This event is an opportunity to show the student body what socialism really is,” said junior Dirk Doebler, student leader of Young Americans for Liberty and lead organizer of the event. “We’re just twenty years away from the collapse of the Soviet Union’s despotic enslavement of hundreds of millions of people, yet everyone seems to forget that socialism killed over 150,000,000 people in the 20th century. All that gets lost in the convenient narrative our professors would have us believe. With this event, we’re striking down false notions. We’re speaking truth to power.”
YAL leader John Burns reported on the event today.
The university shut it down… It was too offensive.
Young Americans for Liberty is a growing student group at Washington University in St. Louis. YAL agrees with Nobel Laureate in economics Frederick Hayek, that socialism leads to totalitarianism. Socialism is a faulty idea that kills. This event aims at showing the horrors of the implementation of that idea.
** There is more video to come of the university shutting down the gulag.
UPDATE: ACORN pimp-daddy James O’Keefe was in town and stopped by the protest. Darin from Reboot Congress interviewed James here.
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Published May 15, 2012 at 8:05 pm - 33 Comments
bg commented:
++
represented too much “doom & gloom” no doubt..
sarc on/
but not to worry, all good IslaMarxists know how to
rewrite history & dumb down future generations..
/sarc off
control freedom of info & speech..
==
ar05075 commented:
Yes indeed, the left finds the truth very offensive.
Larkin commented:
It is now politically incorrect to mock the religion of communism.
Steve commented:
Bravo… to these students for getting the truth out about Socialism and what it is.
jerryl commented:
well if you look at most universities in america they are run by socialist they dont want the studant body to bw able too see what their alll about they take their instructions from chavez castol obama
manateespirit commented:
I just had my senior in high school read this post and watch this video. We talked about what this illustrates…censorship of the truth and the shutting down of free speech. He understands this…I told him to be aware of this type of behavior from a university administration.
Please parents, if you have children, start teaching them what is going on in their schools NOW. Talk to them about current events. Teach them the truth. Give them values from which they will draw their strength when they are challenged. They truly are our future.
I believe if my children were younger I would home school them with all the indoctrination that is occuring in the public AND private schools today.
I am proud of my son and hope he will carry on his conservative values. I am proud of this young man in the video as well. I’m giving him a “shout out”! Hah!
DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH commented:
That’s just how we roll at
http://www.Indoctrinate-U.com
Equality 7-2521 commented:
This is wonderful, The anti-establishment(students) standing up to the establishment (Wash. U). The tide is turning and Freedom and Liberty is sprouting again.
Joanne commented:
The professors are probably all socialists, and they don’t want students knowing that what they promote in the classroom each and every day, socialism, goes hand in hand with the slaughter of millions upon millions of people who opposed what they are promoting in the classroom. It is pretty disgusting that these professors don’t believe the slaughter of millions of people wasn’t that bad.
Mike G commented:
So basically, the university got into the spirit of the thing and helped make it more real.
PeterM commented:
Curious that the folks at First Things care about freedom given that the Catholic church has been such a strong supporter of conservative socialism.
Dean_L commented:
The reason for this is so simple – success is defined differently in the age of Obama. The success in the defeat of socialism, as in the example of the fall of the Berlin Wall, is actually a failure.
Success is now considered any step towards socialism. Failure is any step away from socialism. You can’t glorify failure, now can you?
How’s that for pretzel logic?
Alex Bensky commented:
Well, “confusion” is my existential state, but particularly here. “Diversity” and “divisive” come from the same root, don’t they? I thought we were all in favor of diversity.
Did the university offer any particular reasoning behind “too divisive?”
D. Smith commented:
This is too funny. I went to Wash. U. and I remember almost running into a large, wooden wall constructed across a walkway.
It was to show us what is was like to be a Palestinian and not be able to move about freely or some such nonsense. If only the Russian leaders and oligarchs had been Jewish, then maybe the university would have allowed them to be shown in a poor light.
I will never give a dime to that place. Their YAL chapter on the other hand….
Go MO Red commented:
Perhaps this was just WU playing along to show what the future will really be like when the socialist-Marxists take over.
monkeyfan commented:
PeterM; So the maintenance of your default ‘narrative’ trumps the reality of their actions?
egoist commented:
Well, YAFL, you really have my admiration. Way to go.
bg commented:
++
DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH @ 8:23 pm #9
excellent.. (thumbsup)
(will pass that around for sure)
==
Mike commented:
That’s because the university administration are themselves communists. They take it personally!
Aitch748 commented:
There’s always some third-party jackass who has to come in and try to disrupt the conversation, stop people from talking about whatever it is they’re talking about, and make them justify themselves. Can’t have commenters on a blog hosted by a Catholic website talking about a pro-freedom/anti-socialism rally being shut down by a university when some Catholic somewhere on the planet “strongly supports” “capitalistic socialism.” Yeah, I’m looking at YOU, PeterM.
Marty commented:
Mike G–excellent!! Instapundit picked it up.
manateespirit–Totaly agree. My kids are out of college but they bring a decent level of skepticism to all things political–daughter pretty liberal, son conservative leaning libertarian, but they both survived college with minds of their own, and we did what you describe, it sure helped.
Opus #6 commented:
They must censor this kind of education.
Like they censor me on Twitter. Because I am patriotic, Twitter has “screened” my account, meaning nobody can search and find any words in my posts.
http://mainfo.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-have-been-blocked-off-of-twitter.html
Ron commented:
The deeply embedded Marxism in the Society of Jesus shows itself again. A celebration of freedom from Marxism doesn’t fit the narrative.
Rosemary Woodhouse commented:
Quite apropos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwJHg9UBNPE
Derak commented:
I’d strongly recommend any currently unemployed conservative adults re-enroll in college and start monitoring what these professors are doing. My 34 year old nephew just graduated from a Jesuit institution with his first undergrad degree. He tells hair curling stories about the socialism group think being taught, and how he had to manipulate his papers/thinking in order to maintain his “A” average. These professors don’t like the older ones. Too big of a challenge.
Maybe if they are faced with a majority of informed adults as their “consumers”, they’ll back off. Just a thought.
bic commented:
Oh, that’s just Perfect!
The neo-Marxist professors came out to censor the students… demonstrating exactly why Marxism really, really sucks.
I wonder if the professors appreciate the irony.
.
waicool commented:
cool pic of the dude with the bloodied head.
Steve J. commented:
YAL agrees with Nobel Laureate in economics Frederick Hayek
From “Why I am not a Conservative” in The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960):
Let me return, however, to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty. In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule – not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them
Bill commented:
Let’s see.. students were creating a memorial to the destruction of the Berlin wall by creating a realistic Gulag.. a place where political dissidents were imprisoned.
Hmmm. and the University stops such a memorial because the leftist faculty complains that it is too “controversial”? What the… More like .. the students were effectively showing the tyranny of Marxism/Communism and that can no longer be tolerated on an American campus anymore.
Anyone else see the irony?
regis49 commented:
Political correctness puts a lie to the notion that fascism is a conservative right-wing ideology.
WestWright commented:
SteveJ, another Lefty Troll trying to change the subject. This Troll actually thinks it knows what Conservative/Libertarians are about, it actually picks out A Hayek quote about Cons….my, my what a crafty little Troll.
Gregory of Yardale commented:
How much do you wanna bet that if students had erected precisely the same exhibit and labeled it “Gitmo,” the university administration would have nodded approvingly?
Mousey Tongue commented:
Gulag Girl looks kind of hot, whats her phone number?
Is that her boyfriend with her? I hope not.
Betsy Ross commented:
University big wigs to students:
Free speech for me but not for thee.
Welcome to the USSA.
waicool commented:
I was a student at Washington University in the seventies and the experience actually opened me toward a libertarian anti-socialist view of society. Still, it amazes me that a WU student group in this day and age would stage an event with an anti-socialist message, let alone being allowed to do it. It astounds me that the fascist administration at Washington University would take the bait and suppress this particular expression of thought. This event goes on record as a prime example of the libs becoming the fascist oppressive establishment they all thought they were protesting against in their youth. Let’s just hope these academic elitist don’t remove Ann Rand from the bookstore as their next totalitarian act. Offensive, ha ha, what a joke Wash U.
Martha commented:
YAL deserves kudos! I wager most hard-working, taxpaying parents don’t realize they’re paying to have their kids indoctrinated by theis silos of socialism. The statist education system has been in place for a long time. When my brother attended Harvard 30 years ago he was considered a freak due to his conservative views.
YAL, you have a lot more support than you might imagine!
bg commented:
++
Rosemary Woodhouse @ 10:07 pm #29
reminded me of The Children’s Story
by James Clavell
[The teacher got up shakily. "I, er, I - good morning." Her words were faltering. She, too, was trying to get over the shock. And nausea.
[..]
Miss Worden saw the New Teacher’s smile but she wasn’t touched by its compassion. She tried to stop her knees from shaking.
“Good-bye, children,” she said. The Children made no reply. they were too terrified by the sound of her voice and the tears that wet her face. And because she was crying, some of the children cried, and Sandra fled to her.
[..]
Johnny put up his hand. “It’s our flag,” he said fiercely. “We always pledge.”
“Yes,” the New Teacher said. “It is a very pretty one. She looked at it a moment and then said, “I wish I could have a piece of it. If it’s so important, I think we should all have a piece of it. Don’t you?”
“I’ve a little one at home,” Mary said. “I could bring it tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Mary dear, but I just wanted a little piece of this one because it’s our own special classroom one.”
Then Danny said, “If we had some scissors we could cut a little piece off.”
“I’ve some scissors at home, Mary said.]
btw, anyone note Google’s Sesame Street
display all week.. no tribute to America..
nor the jubilation of those on both sides of the
BONDAGE wall replaced by FREEDOMS call!!
==
bg commented:
++
Steve J. @ 11:41 pm #33
i know comprehension & context are the bane of
liberal progressives, but lets add some anyways..
”I am certain nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after the mirage of social justice.”
“I have come to feel strongly that the greatest service I can still render to my fellow men would be that I could make the speakers and writers among them thoroughly ashamed ever again to employ the term ’social justice’.”
~ Friedrich August von Hayek
[standard disclaimer: source Wkipedia]
re: [“Why I am not a Conservative”]
Hayek and Conservatism
[In that postscript, Hayek observes that conservatism is only as good as what is conserves. In Europe, conservatism tends toward the conservation of the aristocratic order. In the United States, conservatism tends toward the conservation of institutions which happen to be fundamentally liberal institutions. (By "liberal," Hayek means oriented toward human liberty).
To avoid this confusion, Hayek refers to himself as "an Old Whig," along the lines of Edmund Burke. Hayek disdains the term "liberal" as confusing, because it has been taken over by illiberal socialists. He similarly disdains "classical liberal" and "libertarian" as cumbersome. (Ignore, for the moment, that "Old Whig" is not exactly a clear label.)
Hayek’s work, he explains, is not about "conserving" anything, but about re-stating the principles of the philosophy of freedom to a generation which has nearly lost the very concept of freedom. Hayek observes in The Constitution of Liberty that the West was fighting a Cold War against Communism, but that most people living in the West had no idea what about the West was worth defending. Hayek, then, also disdains the label "conservative" because it does not imply that he is actively working for human freedom.]
==
bg commented:
++
testing 1, 2, 3..
==
bg commented:
++
Steve J. @ 11:41 pm #33
i know comprehension & context are the bane of
liberal progressives, but lets try for it anyways..
”I am certain nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after the mirage of social justice.”
“I have come to feel strongly that the greatest service I can still render to my fellow men would be that I could make the speakers and writers among them thoroughly ashamed ever again to employ the term ’social justice’.”
~Friedrich A. von Hayek
[standard disclaimer: source Wkipedia]
re: [“Why I am not a Conservative”]
Hayek and Conservatism
[In that postscript, Hayek observes that conservatism is only as good as what is conserves. In Europe, conservatism tends toward the conservation of the aristocratic order. In the United States, conservatism tends toward the conservation of institutions which happen to be fundamentally liberal institutions. (By "liberal," Hayek means oriented toward human liberty).
To avoid this confusion, Hayek refers to himself as "an Old Whig," along the lines of Edmund Burke. Hayek disdains the term "liberal" as confusing, because it has been taken over by illiberal socialists. He similarly disdains "classical liberal" and "libertarian" as cumbersome. (Ignore, for the moment, that "Old Whig" is not exactly a clear label.)
Hayek’s work, he explains, is not about "conserving" anything, but about re-stating the principles of the philosophy of freedom to a generation which has nearly lost the very concept of freedom. Hayek observes in The Constitution of Liberty that the West was fighting a Cold War against Communism, but that most people living in the West had no idea what about the West was worth defending. Hayek, then, also disdains the label "conservative" because it does not imply that he is actively working for human freedom.]
==
bg commented:
++
oh, okay, the post i entered (#45) finally popped up after my test post (#46 – ex #45), ergo, my retry post should pop up a tad sooner before &/or after this post..
==
Lee commented:
Have they made morals illegal yet?
I know it’s illegal to be a white man.
Todd commented:
I guess it’s only censorship if the liberal professors can’t get published for their outlandish ideas.
Comrade commented:
The students that produced this have more integrity than the gutless liberal professors that teach at that school.
Freedom of speech can only be allowed when it does not offend these Marxist Idiots. This philosophy has resulted in untold suffering and death throughout the world, yet the progressives still worship at the altar of socialism. It is no less evil than nazism and we will see soon see it reek the same kind of damage and misery.
Kyle commented:
Strange? “Who” would this memorial offend?! The university administration? The professors? (was a Muslim wearing “traditional garb” thrown in the gulag too?) I guess they should have propped up a cross with Jesus nailed to it and took turns urinating on the savior? That would have been defended immediately without question by the faculty and university as protected art and free speech. Right?
Perry commented:
This little skit had the campus professors freaking out. These students have tapped the Left’s Achilles heel – its long, long record of enslavement and mass murder. (The USSR murdered 61,911,000. The People’s Republic of China murdered 35,236,000. Left wing Cambodia murdered 2,000,000.) What could be a more entertaining way to shed light on these horrifying facts than having left wing appoligists trying to deny and censor them on college campuses. Bull’s eye!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide#20th_century_democides_causing_more_than_one_million_deaths.
Ed commented:
I was there and it was a blast!!! I walked over to the Cafe to get some bread and water for detainees and found out it was Feminism Awareness week and Wed. They are going to have a Masturbation Station with a Demo! No Kidding!!!!!!
John in the Land of Louis commented:
Fake blood, chicken wire = memorial?
This blog has spiraled downward.
Megan commented:
Stalinism killed those people, not socialism. Actual definitions of actual words never really matter in these kinds of conversations, though.
Dirk Doebler commented:
I’m the president of the Wash U Young Americans for Liberty and we appreciate ALL the support! It’s great to know that people outside of Wash U are rational enough to see the good in this event. To help support more efforts like this go to http://www.campusgulag.org and make a donation, or please donate to us at washuyal@gmail.com on Paypal. You can also email us with any questions you have.
-Dirk