Send a message to the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago

Drop the Charges against Videographer!

Wednesday Nov. 18, the videographer arrested while filming Sunsara Taylor, goes to court in Skokie, IL.

We are calling on everyone to contact the Board of the Ethical Humanist Society-Chicago.

Urge EHSC to drop the charges against the videographer arrested while recording Sunsara Taylor on Nov. 1st.  First, the ESHC acting unethically in disinviting Sunsara after inviting her to speak on “Morality Without Gods.”  Then, in their attempt to cover up and justify their actions, they had the videographer arrested as he was documenting Sunsara Taylor's statement on November 1st before the start of their Sunday program.

Read more about it here

In one of the statements to the Board of EHSC calling for the charges to be dropped, Paul K. Eckstein, Assistant Professor, Philosophy and Religion at Bergen Community College in New Jersey, wrote, "Pressing charges will only compound the errors yet again, and insure that the stain on your record of adherence to humanist principles will not be erased."

As Sunsara herself said, "These days, there is all too much self-censorship and acquiescence to the curtailment of unconventional discourse in academic and intellectual life, in political discourse, and on matters of morality and ethics. The decision of the Society must be seen in the context of, and as contributing to, this broader chill and this is why it is unacceptable."

Act now:

1)  Contact EHSC and demand these charges be dropped.  Write to  office@ethicalhuman.org or call: 847-677-3334.  (Send copies to sunsaratour@yahoo.com so it can be spread more broadly).

2)  Invite Sunsara Taylor to speak in your community, before your ethical humanist group  or campus organization.  Contact sunsara_tour@yahoo.com

3)  Contribute whatever you can to the costs of the videographer's legal defense by sending a check, earmarked "videographer defense," to Frankel and Cohen, 77 W. Washington, Suite 1720, Chicago, IL 60602

Some of the messages to EHSC Board…

To the Board of the Ethical Humanist Society – Chicago:

I’m very saddened by the reports I have been hearing about your response to Sunsara Taylor and her protest regarding your cancellation of her lecture.  To hear that you invited police officers into your space to beat a person documenting her comments is shocking and makes me embarrassed to have ever referred to myself as a humanist.  I hope you will drop all charges and make a full apology to her, her videographer and the larger community.

Further, you should re-invite her to speak and this time follow through.

Sincerely,

Fred Lonberg Holm
jazz musician, Chicago

To the EHSC:

The 'disagreement' about whether the 'disinvitation' to Sunsara Taylor was morally legitimate (a disinvitation I urged you previously to rescind) has now reached a new and most unfortunate stage.  As you well know, bad moral judgments have consequences, and the consequences of yours now include the stain of placing a man in legal jeopardy (not to mention the physical harm he has already suffered).  Once again, I am writing you a letter:  This time to urge you to drop the charges against the videographer, and stop this process before the damages you have done escalate further.

I want to be very clear:  Though, as I previously indicated, I know Sunsara Taylor and have shared a platform with her on several occasions, I am not writing this letter on behalf of any organization, or even on Ms. Taylor's behalf.  I am writing this letter as someone who considers himself a humanist, and who is saddened by the steps your organization has taken that are so inconsistent with humanist principles as I understand them.

You shame yourselves and all humanists by calling in the 'strong arm of the law' to deal with what amounted to a dispute about 'who should speak where and when'.  This act, in and of itself, speaks volumes about your ignorance of the role that the criminal injustice system plays in the United States, a system to which all humanists should be in opposition.  May I remind you that the United States currently has more people in prison than any other country in the world?  This distinction is one we should clearly not be proud of.  Or how about this:  "There are just over 100 people in the world serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed as juveniles in which no one was killed.  All are in the United States.  And 77 of them are here in Florida....The state's attorney general, Bill McCollum, explained the roots of the state's approach....'Florida's problem was particularly dire, compromising the safety of residents, visitors and international tourists, and threatening the state's bedrock tourism industry'."  [Adam Liptak, "Weighing Life in Prison for Youths Who Never Killed," The New York Times, Sunday, November 8, 2009, p. 4.]  Anyone who doesn't see how this is an example of protecting property at the expense of people is simply naive.  Anyone who knows anything about how criminal injustice works in the U.S. would think twice about calling on 'law enforcement' unless 'lives were at stake' (and, even then, depending upon the political context, with extreme caution.)  If you have any doubts about the political dimension of the system here in the U.S., I urge you to consult the work Let Freedom Ring:  A Collection of Documents from the Movements to Free U.S. Political Prisoners, edited by Matt Meyer, and published by PM Press).  That you resorted to enabling/encouraging police intervention in what was essentially a free speech issue is unconscionable.

Make no mistake:  This was a free speech issue.  Even if your 'right' to determine who gets to speak at your meetings is not in question, this is NOT the issue under discussion here.  The issue under discussion is whether you resorted to an agent of force, which ethically should be used only as a last resort, long before all other options had been exhausted.  Even if you considered Ms. Taylor's presence 'disruptive' (which, from descriptions I've read, I don't see how you could), patience and reasoned conversation to resolve the matter would not have been an inappropriate response from a 'humanist' organization.  Given the way things have turned out, from an ethical perspective, it would have been far preferable for you to allow Ms. Taylor to speak and then to move on, even if there were some at your meeting who would have felt that their 'property' rights (in the sense of their right to decide who gets to speak at the meeting and who doesn't) were being violated.  A first principle of humanism:  People are more important than property.  Apparently, this principle, in your case, doesn't extend to videographers exercising journalistic prerogatives.  That you chose the route you did makes a mockery of all you supposedly stand for.

As a humanist, I am going to urge that this issue be taken directly to other humanist groups throughout the United States, and ask that you be roundly condemned for your actions.  Once again, I urge you to reconsider what you are doing, and stop the compounding of your error because of false pride and emotional investment.  Think clearly, presumably also a humanist value, about what has happened here.  End a sad chapter and move on.  Pressing charges will only compound the errors yet again, and insure that the stain on your record of adherence to humanist principles will not be erased.

If you do not drop the charges, I call on your membership to abandon your organization or dismiss its leadership.  Your behavior is simply intolerable to anyone who takes a commitment to humanism seriously.

Sincerely,

Paul K. Eckstein

Assistant Professor, Philosophy and Religion

Bergen Community College, Bergen, NJ

Dear Ethical Humanist Society-Chicago,

I am SHOCKED that your organzation would call law enforcement in to BRUTALLY ARREST  someone for VIDEOTAPING your November 1st gathering which censored Sunsara Taylor from speaking. Since when is it EITHER  "humanism" OR "ethical" to use armed agents to enforce censorship and a lack of transparency in an allegedly progressive organization? It was bad enough that you reversed your invitation to and censored Ms.Taylor to speak based on an UN-democratic process. But, to ADD INJURY by having the videographer arrested is a GROTESQUE ECHO of what we saw by THE BUSH-CHENEY ADMINISTRATION AND THE FAR RIGHT-WING. It's certainly NOT in any way progressive, humanistic or ethical.

As a journalist and First Amendment activist, I intend to put the word out on EHSC's actions as far and wide as I can. I strongly urge you to DROP THE CHARGES against the videographer now.

Lydia Howell

journalist, KFAI Community Radio,* Minneapolis, MN

To whom it may concern,

I am a frequent reader of P.Z. Meyer's blog, Pharyngula, where I have been following the story of Ms. Sunsara Taylor's involvement with your organization with regard to her invitation and "dis-invitation" to talk to your members.  I have been reading of the arrest of Mr. Gregory Kroger who was documenting a statement Ms. Talylor was giving at your facilities.  Admittedly, the website where I am getting my information from is opposed to your actions, so in the interest of being fair minded and wanting to be open to hearing your side of events, I visited your web site to see if there was an official response to the events being reported and to read your view of the events.  I have not found anything, so if you have posted something I have missed please point me in the right direction.

I have read your response to Dr. Meyer's on his blog.  If you were so worried of possible disruption/conflict to have requested a plain clothes police officer be present, I am certain you must have videotaped the meeting to ensure your legal and ethical actions were accurately documented.  Please post the video as soon as possible or an explanation as to why you will or can not do so.

At this point, I have seen no evidence to have justified the arrest of Mr. Kroger.  I am not saying it does not exist, I am just saying I have not seen any.  Many people have become interested in this and are deeply concerned that a society that calls itself ethical and humanist at the very least appears to be avoiding acting in an ethical and humanist manner.

I am an American living in Japan and I teach at a small public college.  I sometimes have questions from my students, mostly young adults who on average have a much greater naivete of the world than their American counterparts, about the role religion plays in the lives of people living in the US and I try to present as balanced a view as possible.  I try to present the fact that there is an incredibly varied spectrum of views and beliefs including the view that morality and justice and morality can be achieved with reason based in compassion for people with views that are diverse and even in disagreement.

I encourage and plead for you to present your view and justification for the events that have transpired.  If the information I have read is correct, a Mr. Matt Cole has charges pending against Mr. Kroger.  I truly hope he drops these charges as I can see no positive result of pursuing them, and indeed may horrendously negatively affect a man's freedom and life.  Does Mr. Kroger have a history of trouble with the law.  Go to his blog and he documents it quite extensively.  That does not justify his arrest if he did nothing to provoke it.  Again, please post your video supporting your actions.  Even if he did provoke his arrest, I would like the society to explain what positive results will occur to pursuing the charges against him, not that you wouldn't necessarily be legally justified in pursuing them.  I would just think that an ethical humanist society would be yearning to find room for forgiveness and discussion in the interest of furthering the state of human affairs.

I consider myself a humanist, although I do not belong to a formal society.  I attempt to live an ethical life, although I am well aware that I often fall short of my own ideals.  At this point, however, I am thoroughly disgusted by what I have read of the EHSC and its actions and I feel ashamed and saddened that such a society with which I would presumably share much in common would violate its own principles and standards so openly, blatantly and unjustifiably.  If I am wrong in this accusation, please put me in my place by publicly positing the pertinent information, including your must-be-in-existence video.  if this email in any way contributes to a positive resolution then it was worth the time and effort.

Sincerely,

Michael Beamer

To the members and board of the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago,

I am taken aback but the blatant hypocrisy of the 'Ethical' Humanist Society in Chicago. That the board-members of this society and those in attendance on Sunday would sacrifice the freedom and well-being of an innocent man in order to cover their own unscrupulous behavior is shocking and horrifying.

The fact that the police sargent on the scene at the arrest of the videographer distanced himself from the actions called for by the EHSC, saying “These people here are doing this. It is not us," says something about the depths to which the EHSC has sunk. (recorded via lawyer's statement of events)

The society has gone to great lengths to exclude and discourage rational thought, critical engagement and principled debate. They are contributing to the current state of US society, one where there is a dire lack of engaged discussion on important ideas.

I join with the demands of others that the EHSC drop the very serious charges levied upon the videographer and extend apologies immediately to both he and Sunsara and to its own congregation for hastily denying them the opportunity to engage with critical and crucial thought on morality without gods.

Dana Harvey

Berkeley, California

* for identification purposes only

Lotta Asks Students to Reconsider Communism

[Article from The Maroon, newspaper of University of Chicago]

 

Lotta criticized current scholarship on revolutions in Russia and China, and presented a favorable analysis of Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

By Aviva Rosman
Published: November 13th, 2009
 

In a talk that was part history and part Sosc class, scholar and activist Raymond Lotta spoke to a packed room in Kent Hall Wednesday, advocating the return of communism to the intellectual agenda.

Lotta, on a “Setting the Record Straight” tour organized by Revolution Books, criticized current scholarship on revolutions in Russia and China, and presented a favorable analysis of Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

The tour is meant to “challenge the conventional wisdom that communism is a failed project,” said Sunsara Tayor, a writer for Revolution newspapers and the talk’s moderator.

“Some of you want to stop the imminent environment emergency, teach in an inner city school, create art,” Lotta said. “But no matter your passions and convictions, you cannot escape a capitalist logic that shapes everything around us.”

He added, “We need a different system—a total revolution. Exactly at a time when capitalism is in crisis, at this moment we are told we can’t go beyond capitalism but can only tinker around the edges. It’s as if there is a warning label affixed to the discourse on human possibility.”

Lotta said he wanted to “clear away confusion” about socialism and communism. “It’s amazing what passes for intellectual rigor on communism,” he said.

In one paper Lotta presented, Mao was quoted as saying that in order to modernize China, “half of China would have to die.” Lotta traced the quotation back to Mao’s original speech, claiming Mao was making an argument for slowing the pace of industrial projects in China in order to preserve life.

Lotta chose to speak at to University of Chicago because it’s a place where questions of capitalism are openly debated, Taylor said.

In the question-and-answer session, audience members interrupted Lotta to respond to him. According to Taylor, the question-and-answer session here was the most heated of Lotta’s campus tour.
“The University of Chicago is right in the thick of it,” she said.

In response to a question about people emigration under Mao, Lotta said, “Compulsion is not a bad thing.”
“There is a positive side to compulsion in social policy,” Lotta said, citing the end of segregation. “This is what a society needs to function.”

Watch Miles Solay spit this piece -- [click this title bar]

Dear Basement,


On October the 24th
Jen walked to the dance.
Was blood on her mind?
Not even a chance.


They mangled her body,
Life crushed down inside.
In the dirt, in the leaves, in the darkness,
Laughing, those jolly twenty guys.


Every third minute it happens again.
Just like Sally, Jen asks,
"When will this end?"


A soul-singer, her voice is,
One in a million.
Like a slave, her beaten-face is,
One of three billion.


The blood and the tears,
Fists and the liars.
Acid washing of skin,
The burning of fire


This is a curse on all of religion,
This system is livid, imprisoning women.
Every last person is held down and enslaved
When half of humanity is some sort of sub-human race.

From the Hellholes of Incarceration to a Future of Emancipation

New special issue of Revolution Newspaper -- analysis of the exponentially mushrooming prison system in this country, exposure of the wide-spread use of rape by prison guards to control prisoners, coverage of the growth of Christian fundamentalist indoctrination behind bars, and voices of the revolutionary prisoners who struggle through all this to set their sights on something much higher.

Take some time with this special issue -- you won't feel the same afterwards.  Contribute to the Prisoner Revolutionary Literature Fund -- info on the revcom.us website.

To give you a taste of what you will find in this issue... an excerpt from one of the prisoner letters:

“I am no stranger to struggle and hardship. I grew up in just one of the many, many slums in Chicago. I ended up in prison by the age of 13. I am 30 now. I have been raised by cold steel and concrete which I do not wear as a Scar of Honor but as an indictment against a system that has been built on genocide and slavery, and has continued to insist on throwing away its 'undesirables' generation after generation. However, let me be clear, I am in search of the truth and not pity. My struggle is linked with the struggle of millions across the globe.”

Raymond Lotta is Speaking at University of Chicago Wednesday!!

Everything You've Been Told About Communism Is Wrong!
Capitalism Is A Failure
Revolution Is the Solution

University of Chicago
7 pm, November 11th
Kent Hall Room 107

The truth about Sunsara Taylor and the “Ethical” Humanist Society

IN THREE PARTS
1. a statement from Sunsara:
On the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago, or... Why I Was Dis-Invited, Why I Did Not Just Shut Up And Go Away, and Why It Still Matters

My invitation to speak at the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago traces back to a talk that I gave on a panel at Columbia College last year entitled, “A Communist, A Buddhist and a Priest Sit Down to Discuss... Morality to Change the World: With or Without God(s)?” [which you can listen to here and here].

The diversity of views among the panelists, along with robust challenges and deep questions from the audience, made this an exhilarating evening. I spoke openly of being a communist. Drawing from Bob Avakian's book, Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, I brought alive how his further development of communism places great importance on the need for the methods and means of all who struggle for liberation to be rooted in, and consistent with, our ends. In other words, if we want a world where the needs of humanity are valued above individual gain, where women are fully liberated, where all peoples and a diversity of cultures are respected and valued, and where critical thinking, the unfettered search for the truth, and individuality are fostered – then we must begin to live this morality now and we must struggle to bring that world into being. Others spoke from their own perspectives. Hundreds of students and others stayed long after the scheduled end, standing in the back and squeezing in on the floor in front.

That night, a member of the EHSC Program Committee approached me and let me know that he intended to approach other members of his Committee and invite me to speak. (MORE)

2.  a statement from Sue B who coordinated Sunsara's tour and worked closely with the EHSC
The True Story of Sunsara Taylor and the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago

Since the cancellation of Sunsara Taylor's long-scheduled talk at the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago [EHSC] and the subsequent brutal arrest of her videographer on November 1st at the EHSC, there has been an avalanche of lies and distortions spread by members of the EHSC. While there are simply too many lies to refute them all, in this letter I will take apart the core elements of the mythology surrounding these events that has been constructed by the EHSC.

I believe that part of the reason EHSC is persisting in deliberately misrepresenting what happened and spinning a story that fortifies an untruthful account is because they don’t want to confront the reality of how ugly this whole thing has been, how much it goes against their own principles. (MORE)

3.  a statement from a lawyer providing an eyewitness account attesting to the peacefulness of the videographer and the brutality of the police

I am a lawyer licensed to practice law in the state of Illinois for the last 23 years.

I was present at the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago [EHSC] on November 1st. I personally witnessed the entire incident leading to the arrest and can lay out the salient facts of what occurred at EHSC that day. (MORE)

Sunsara Taylor on the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago, or...

Why I Was Dis-Invited, Why I Did Not Just Shut Up And Go Away, and Why It Still Matters

The woman who coordinated my speaking engagements in Chicago has written an account of what transpired leading up to and on the day of my cancelled talk, November 1st, 2009. This includes a robust eye-witness defense of my videographer who was brutalized and arrested. Please read her statement here: [http://sunsara.blogspot.com/2009/11/true-story-of-sunsara-taylor-and.html] as well as the statement from a lawyer who was present here [http://sunsara.blogspot.com/2009/11/statement-from-attorney-martha-conrad.html] and join in demanding the charges be dropped!

My invitation to speak at the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago traces back to a talk that I gave on a panel at Columbia College last year entitled, “A Communist, A Buddhist and a Priest Sit Down to Discuss... Morality to Change the World: With or Without God(s)?” [which you can listen to here and here].

The diversity of views among the panelists, along with robust challenges and deep questions from the audience, made this an exhilarating evening. I spoke openly of being a communist. Drawing from Bob Avakian's book, Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, I brought alive how his further development of communism places great importance on the need for the methods and means of all who struggle for liberation to be rooted in, and consistent with, our ends. In other words, if we want a world where the needs of humanity are valued above individual gain, where women are fully liberated, where all people and a diversity of cultures are respected and valued, and where critical thinking, the unfettered search for the truth, and individuality are fostered – then we must begin to live this morality now and we must struggle to bring that world into being. Others spoke from their own perspectives. Hundreds of students and others stayed long after the scheduled end, standing in the back and squeezing in on the floor in front.

That night, a member of the EHSC Program Committee approached me and let me know that he intended to approach other members of his Committee and invite me to speak.

Anyone who googles “Sunsara Taylor” can see quite easily that when I speak of morality I speak as a communist. I expose the immorality of a global system based on profit, a system that has patriarchy and the oppression of women woven into its very fabric, a system that thrives off of wars of aggression and legalized torture.

In one of the easiest talks of mine to find online, an exchange with Chris Hedges entitled, “Atheism, God and Morality in a Time of Imperialism and Rising Fundamentalism,” I began with the story of Placide Simone, a Haitian woman who – like millions around the globe – was struck hard by the recent global food crisis. I quoted news coverage, “'Take one,' she said, cradling a listless baby and motioning toward four rail-thin toddlers, none of whom had eaten that day. 'You pick. Just feed them.'” I made the connections between this real world nightmare and the “need” people feel for the illusory comfort that religion provides in the almost unimaginably unbearable condition of vast swaths of humanity under imperialist globalization. I further argued that religion, the weight of tradition and superstition (including the notion of “sin”), only adds to this suffering.

I speak publicly on these and other matters not, as some now claim, out of a desire to “be in the spotlight.” I do this because I understand that even people who today often close their eyes to truths that seem too difficult, too big, too disturbing to confront, can be won to open their eyes, to think, and to act. To find that part of them that, together with others and the irrefutable evidence of both what is wrong and of the possibility of change, can be part of making those changes to this world and to ourselves in the process.

All of this is informed by my worldview as a communist. At the same time, because this communist worldview is rooted in confronting the world as it actually is and as it actually can be, there is tremendous room for others, coming from their own worldviews but similarly committed to the betterment of humanity, to be enriched through an engagement with these views on morality.

From all this, it is clear that the EHSC knew I was a communist from the very beginning. But, as the date of my long-scheduled talk approached, some began a drive to cancel my talk exactly because of these views.

In his objections to allowing my approved talk to go forward, Anil Kashyap, the co-chair of the Program Committee of EHSC on October 13th wrote, “we specifically stipulated that it [her talk] was NOT supposed to focus on the revolutionary communism.” The actual focus of my talk, as it was clearly described and submitted to the EHSC, was to look at the profound changes that have been brought about by imperialist globalization and the moral crises this has contributed to, to look at the resurgence of virulent, fundamentalist religions in this context and to explore how this can be countered with a secular morality. Of course this was informed by my perspective as a communist.

In further arguing to cancel my talk, Anil Kashyap, who is also a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, wrote, “A talk that claims morality is inconsistent with a global economy is nonsense. The first order fact that cannot be ignored is that the greatest anti-poverty program in history is the growth in China over the last 30 years. That was only possible because of globalism. That transformation has lots of problems, but more starving and desperate people have been lifted up faster than ever in human history.”

This notion, that the last thirty years of capitalist restoration in China has been the “greatest anti-poverty program in history” is one I would have gladly disputed in an open exchange. I probably would have pointed out that between the years 1949 and 1976, under the leadership of Mao Tse-Tung, life expectancy in China rose from 32 to 65 years, medical care was brought to the vast country-side, women were brought into education, the workforce, and public life, and for the first time in the history of China the food problem was solved. I would probably have pointed out that since capitalism was restored in 1976, 200 million peasants have become displaced and now cast about through the country, vulnerable to the grossest forms of sweatshop exploitation and that by some estimates as many as 20 million women have been driven into the sex industry for mere survival. Kashyap might have challenged me and I would have responded. In my view, this would have been great – giving people the chance to compare and contrast and form their own views.

Rather than air his very different and strongly-held views on these issues, Kashyap and others argued for the cancellation of my speech. This is in keeping with, and contributes to, a broader chill on discourse that challenges the status quo and it is in keeping with a particularly virulent resurgence of anti-communist McCarthyism.

A member of Obama's team was recently pilloried for having once quoted Mao Tse-Tung, Glenn Beck regularly rants about so-called “communists” and “socialists” that are packed into the administration, and Obama himself is targeted as a “socialist” for considering any form of healthcare reform.

To be clear, I am no supporter of President Obama and Obama himself is no socialist or communist. But I am a communist and this has everything to do with why my talk was cancelled.

To the degree that this cancellation was driven by the fear of any association with an actual communist at a time when such associations are being used to discredit people and drive them from their jobs, this is neither ethical nor practical. One does not stop anti-communism and repression by capitulating to it. Such behavior only fuels the hysteria, encourages those on the witch-hunt, and intimidates others. To the degree that those who suppressed my talk did so out of fear that my challenge to the morality of capitalism might have resonated at a time when so many are experiencing such a profound crisis of confidence in capitalism, this is also indefensible. This cuts against stated principles of the EHSC as well as basic ethical standards.

Today, people everywhere are groaning under the weight and the horrors associated with the current world order. The female half of humanity is routinely beaten, raped, disrespected and demeaned in a thousand ways and from every side. Millions have been displaced and hundreds of thousands of lives have been stolen by U.S. wars just in recent years, with no end in sight. Hundreds of millions of children are caught up in life-draining labor, with no chance of a childhood and no prospects for a future of anything more than continued suffering. Here within the U.S., millions are forced out of their homes by foreclosure, an epidemic of police murder and brutality stalks the lives of Black and Latino youth, and the government routinely spies on its citizens emails, phone calls and public spaces. All of these, and countless other unnecessary nightmares, are part of the great moral dilemma of our times.

Yet, out of fear of conflict, out of fear of sacrifice, out of fear of standing out and having to struggle for one's principles and ethics, these and other crimes continue, even though millions disagree.

It is the phenomenon described so saliently in a poem by Yeats, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

All too often these days, people voice their disagreement with these wrongs... but then they go about their lives. They acquiesce. They tell themselves that they couldn't have won anyhow – but we can never really know that. Such “wise council” might have told the same thing to the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement, the soldiers who refused to fight in Vietnam, or the women who won the right to abortion.

Today, progressive and radical thinkers across the country are routinely dis-invited, their speech is routinely suppressed, they are pressured to self-censor, they are fired or denied tenure, and the discourse of this society is routinely kept within “safe” limits that do not challenge a bloody status quo.

To go along with this, and to contribute to this, is to do great harm. Indeed, the ideas that are allowed to circulate in society and the ideas that are suppressed, have everything to do with whether the crimes of this world will be allowed to continue or whether these will be called out, resisted and stopped.

I ask that each of you reading this now add your voice against this act of suppression. Spread this letter. Send statements to the addresses below. Help open up a platform to these all-too-infrequently heard ideas by inviting me to speak. Write and call the EHSC and the Skokie police department to demand that charges be dropped against my videographer.

Contact the EHSC at: office@ethicalhuman.org and 847.677.3334.

Send copies of your letters, and make contributions to the legal defense by contacting: sunsaratour@yahoo.com

To all in the Chicago area, join me this Sunday at the Best Church Of God: http://www.bestchurchofgod.org/.god/

And, because you really have been lied to about communism, join me in catching Raymond Lotta at U of Chicago on Wed, November 11th, 7 pm Kent Hall Room 107. “Everything You've Been Told About Communism Is Wrong! Capitalism Is a Failure. Revolution Is the Solution.”

The True Story of Sunsara Taylor and the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago

From Sue B., Volunteer Tour Coordinator for Sunsara Taylor in Chicago

Since the cancellation of Sunsara Taylor's long-scheduled talk at the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago [EHSC] and the subsequent brutal arrest of her videographer on November 1st at the EHSC, there has been an avalanche of lies and distortions spread by members of the EHSC. While there are simply too many lies to refute them all, in this letter I will take apart the core elements of the mythology surrounding these events that has been constructed by the EHSC.

I believe that part of the reason EHSC is persisting in deliberately misrepresenting what happened and spinning a story that fortifies an untruthful account is because they don’t want to confront the reality of how ugly this whole thing has been, how much it goes against their own principles.

The unethical behavior of the EHSC began with the motivation of some on its program committee to cancel Sunsara's talk based on crude anti-communism and disagreement with its content. In order to obscure these scandalous motivations, Sunsara's words were taken out of context so as to invert their meaning and cause confusion. When many respected voices began to disapprove of the EHSC's dis-invitation of Ms. Taylor, the EHSC shifted their rationale for this to a discussion of “process” and their “right to choose” who their speakers will be. When Sunsara continued to insist that the record be set straight on the real basis and motives of this cancellation, as well as the broader chill in society that it fits in with, the EHSC began to go after and slander her character. They whipped up a whole atmosphere of fear, justified only by the hysteria and the rumors that they themselves had created. Then they called in the police and set in motion events that would lead to the brutalization of a volunteer videographer and a situation where he is facing serious charges.

Are they really willing to put a man away in jail to justify this and cover their mistake? Just how disposable is a person's life, their freedom, and their reputation to these “ethical” people?

Read more »

Statement from Attorney Martha Conrad Regarding November 1st at the EHSC

I am a lawyer licensed to practice law in the state of Illinois for the last 23 years.

I was present at the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago [EHSC] on November 1st. I personally witnessed the entire incident leading to the arrest and can lay out the salient facts of what occurred at EHSC that day.

That morning, I entered the building behind Ms. Taylor and others about ten minutes before the 10:30 am program was to start. No one at any time told Ms. Taylor, the videographer or anyone else that they could not enter the event, which was advertised as being “free and open to the public.”

I was close to Ms. Taylor and the videographer the whole time. Ms. Taylor entered the auditorium and sat down. A man, who I later learned was the director of EHSC, came over to talk to Ms. Taylor and told the videographer who was videotaping the interaction to turn off the video camera. He did so. At no time, did the director or anyone else ask Ms. Taylor or the videographer to leave. After talking briefly to the director, and before the official EHS program was to start, Ms. Taylor stood next to her chair and began making a short statement challenging the decision by the EHS to “disinvite” her. At no time during her statement was she told to stop. After approximately two minutes, the police came into the auditorium and Ms. Taylor stated, “I’m going to be leaving now.” At that time the videographer appeared to be recording Ms. Taylor’s statement with a cell phone. I then saw a uniformed police officer and a man in a baseball hat grab the videographer by each arm. I didn’t hear either give any instruction or warning. They proceeded to roughly pull on his arms as they took him out of the room. (Later, the man in the baseball hat identified himself to me as a police officer who had been hired to be there.)

I followed them to the hallway, and saw officers repeatedly batter him. I turned away for a moment, and when I looked back the videographer was down on the floor. The police pulled him down the hallway and out of my sight. I pushed past some other people in the hallway and entered the foyer. I saw 4-5 officers piled on top of the videographer as he lay face down on the floor. I loudly announced I was a lawyer, and called out to them that the man had done nothing illegal. I demanded that they stop battering him.

There were so many officers on top of him that it was difficult to see him. But I did see the officers bash his head against the floor at least twice. They twisted his arms behind his back and handcuffed him. A couple of minutes later, after the officers had taken the videographer outside and were putting him in the police car, I observed that one side of his face and neck was scratched up. One of his eyes was violently red and tears were pouring out of that eye and down his cheek.

At no time was the videographer aggressive toward the police officers. At no time did he resist arrest.

A sergeant on the scene approached me and claimed, gesturing to EHSC and the EHSC people in front of it, “These people here are doing this. It is not us.”

I went to the Skokie police station, where the videographer was taken. When I arrived I saw an ambulance there. I identified myself as a lawyer, announced my concern for the videographer’s medical condition, and demanded to see him. I was not allowed to do so. The same sergeant who I had seen at EHSC came out and spoke to me in the waiting room. He told me he had called the ambulance due to the videographer’s injuries. The videographer declined going to the hospital in the ambulance and flushed his own eyes of a chemical spray they had used on him.

The videographer is charged with criminal trespass to property, resisting arrest and battery on a police officer. These are very serious charges and totally unwarranted. Later that afternoon, the videographer was released after a collection was taken up to pay his bond. Immediately upon his release, he went to Skokie Hospital where doctors treated his multiple injuries to his head, chest and wrists. His case is set for November 18th, and I ask that you join in demanding that these unfounded charges be immediately dropped!

Martha Conrad

Newsflash from Chicago

Cameraman brutally arrested while filming Sunsara Taylor making a statement Sunday 10:30 a.m. at Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago


On Sunday, November 1st, plainclothes and uniformed police who had been called in earlier by officials of the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago (EHSC) dragged out, maced and arrested a man for videotaping Sunsara Taylor as she stood near her seat and made a statement before the start of that morning’s program about the shameful cancellation of her long planned talk to EHSC that day on the topic “Morality without Gods.”

The shocking incident took place at the insistence of the president of EHSC. About 40 people witnessed the videographer being brutalized by the police in the foyer of the facility. An attorney demanded that the police stop brutalizing him when five officers piled on him as he lay face down on the floor. 6 police cars arrived within minutes.

The day before, during a workshop on the same premises which the president and other board members of the EHS were at, Sunsara explained very clearly that she would be attending the opening of the EHS's Sunday gathering and giving the EHS the opportunity to do the right thing and allow her talk to go forward, up until the last minute. If the EHS still refused to let her give her talk, she explained that she would leave and give her talk in “exile” at the nearby home of one of the EHS members. [this statement can be viewed on http://sunsara.blogspot.com/2009/11/call-for-ethical-humanist-society-of.html]

In her brief statement at the EHS on Sunday morning, Sunsara Taylor challenged the very wrong decision to cancel her speaking engagement and pointed out how this is contributing to a chilling atmosphere in society as a whole and has happened all too frequently to people who challenge the dominant narrative (like Ward Churchill, Noman Finkelstein and the director of Milk who was recently “disinvited” from Hope College, etc.). Taylor stated that while the group had the “bureaucratic right” to disinvite her, it didn’t make it any more “right” than the voters in California passing Prop 8. She also invited those who wanted to hear her speak to come to her “talk in exile” at the home of a member of the EHSC.

At no point during her brief statement was Sunsara asked to stop speaking or to leave the premises. And at no point was anyone who was there to support her, including the photographer, asked to leave. It is telling that the only person singled out by the police, at the request of the president of the Society, was the man documenting what Sunsara was saying.

The videographer was simply trying to document and guard the truth of what Sunsara was saying in her brief statement. Sunsara’s words had been grossly distorted and taken out of context by some members of the EHSC who were the driving forces behind canceling her speech.

What kind of ethics and morals is the EHSC upholding and modeling through the great lengths it has gone to in suppressing Sunsara Taylor’s talk on Morality without Gods? A number of their own members expressed disagreement with the cancellation and a number of prominent people from around the country wrote statements in support of Sunsara’s speaking and called on EHSC to rectify its wrong-headed decision. Instead, the board fortified and increasingly defended its decision and created an atmosphere of anti-communist hysteria, fear and rumor-mongering that had no relationship to reality.

The EHS had no legitimate basis to feel the police needed to be there in the first place, except for the rumors and hysteria that they themselves had created. Then, by choosing to set the police upon the person filming they went after the one person who was documenting the truth of Sunsara's words and the fact that Sunsara and others there to support her were acting in no way to disrupt the replacement talk the EHS had planned.

What kind of Ethical Humanist group would create a situation that led directly to the brutal arrest of someone simply for filming Sunsara giving a statement at that point with simply a cell phone? In their zeal to suppress Taylor they went repeatedly against the stated purpose of the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago which includes “the supreme aim of human life is working to create a more humane society...Our commitment is to the worth and dignity of the individual and to treating each human being so as to bring out the best in her or him.”

This attack was in stark contrast to the day before at the EHSC where Sunsara led a well-attended and lively discussion with much audience participation on "Women’s Liberation and the Emancipation of Humanity." This whole program was videotaped by the same volunteer photographer.

To call upon the EHSC to drop charges against the photographer and to continue to express their disagreement with their decision to dis-invite Sunsara Taylor contact: office@ethicalhuman.org
847-677-3334.

To find out how to make contributions to the legal defense, contact: sunsaratour@yahoo.com.

Link to video of Sunsara's statement on Oct. 31st at EHS-Chicago. http://sunsara.blogspot.com/2009/11/call-for-ethical-humanist-society-of.html

Call for Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago to Reverse Their Decision to Dis-Invite Sunsara Taylor