Truth Tuesdays at UCLA

Truth Tuesday

February 18 2014

On the front steps of the Powell Library at UCLA it was a gray day and the crowds streaming by were beginning to make me wonder if I wasn’t wasting my time. Then some serendipitous things happened. I called the Daily Bruin student newspaper to make them aware of my presence. Five seconds after I hung up, as in a badly written play, a young man came up and said, “I’m with the Daily Bruin. I’m preparing an article on free speech at UCLA and would like to ask you some questions.”

We talked on the phone the next day.

Next serendipity. A young man (I would guess Jewish) walked by me and said “F… you!” I said loudly what I usually say, “Another intellectual! You make a cogent point for your point of view.” In the future I might start saying: “Are you threatening male rape?” I did add: “Is that all you have to say?” He stopped about 30 ft. away and used up the remainder of his stock of profanity. This is a “college man”? I never swear back and I don’t hate them. I know they have the same beliefs and attitudes on controversial issues that I had before I studied those matters. “They have been carefully taught.”

A young woman (presumably Jewish) got in my face and said, “I came back to tell you the same thing he did. F… you!” I remarked that what she said wasn’t ladylike. She started walking away and kicked one of my placards. I yelled for security and asked bystanders if anyone would like to serve as a witness. Of course I got no positive responses.

Now comes another serendipity. Three young men, who must have heard and seen what just happened, told me they were working on a project dealing with how people use words to communicate. They asked to come back and set up sound recording and video equipment to document my interactions with people. We plan to do it next Truth Tuesday, Feb. 25. I will email Shoshana Hertz, the Chief Operating Officer of the UCLA branch of Hillel, the national Jewish student organization. It will be about a quotation I use from Ari Shavit, Haaretz, May 4, 2003: “The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 Neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history.”

If anyone reading this is in the LA area, please join me at UCLA’s Powell library from 1 to 4 PM on a Tuesday. Email first to see if I will be there. I need someone to videotape what happens. I want to get something on my Wise Old Man YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/1wom

Truth Tuesday

25 February 2014

I’m late with this report so I will make it brief. The primary event was that students from an anthropology class came by and sound recorded me doing my thing for more than two hours. They put a recorder in my shirt pocket and recorded my barking and conversations with people. The Project they were working on is how people use words to communicate. They’re thinking of doing this every two weeks.

Truth Tuesday

March 4, 2014

Having done a similar one man demonstration outside the Oscars two days earlier, I used the same placards and flyers at UCLA today. They related primarily to the current “Hate Whitey” movie, “Twelve Years a Slave.”

On the Lincoln steps I met a young Jewish student named Zach who would talk to me as one human being to another. We shook hands as we parted and I told him that meeting him was a Mitzvah. There was also a middle aged Jewish man who fell into that same category.

I acquired an anthropology student named Brian who tried in various ways to “queer my pitch.” His challenges helped me come up with evidence for my views. He was useful in that our exchanges sometimes drew small crowds. He promises to return. Though only a few stopped, they all heard me say:

“When you come by here, you’re in danger of learning something. Like Jews were the big slave traders but they don’t put that in their slavery movies. Do you suppose they are trying to propagandize you?”

At the end of the day, I hobbled over to the History Dept. and spoke briefly with Cullin Johnson, the Assistant to the head of the department. I gave him a selection of the flyers and information I hand out. I asked him to pass them on to a faculty member or a student. Çullin said he would. I said the material might be useful in a study of what information and views people get from the internet, bypassing main-stream media. And so to bed and dreams of overturning the accepted order of things.

If anyone reading this is in the LA area please join me at UCLA’s Powell library from 1 to 4 PM on a Tuesday. Email first to see if I will be there. I need someone to video tape what happens. I want to get something on my Wise Old Man YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/1wom

Truth Tuesday

March 11 2014

I got taken again by a young Jew who asked for flyers, tore them up in front of me and dropped the pieces in a handy trash basket. Cost me 36 cents. I saw him go back to a confederate and bump fists. That got to me and I headed right for them. He saw me coming and went into the library. I had no idea what I was going to say to him and I’m glad I didn’t have the chance to say anything.

This is what I think I will say if this happens again: “I am here in this academic setting to discuss my views and why I hold them. Instead of having a discussion with me, you lie to me, destroy my property and congratulate yourself on your behavior. If I resent your actions and tell people about them you would call that Anti-Semitism. Don’t you see that Anti-Semitism is caused primarily by the actions of Jews?”

A clever young Jewish woman student asked if she could ask me some questions. None of her questions were related to the subjects I was dealing with. The questions were all ad hominem attempts to get my goat (I will have to get a new goat). She wouldn’t take a flyer either. I told a few people: “Take a flyer and take a flyer!” They didn’t get it. Lesson learned.

With antagonists, I will only talk about issues at hand. With sincere people, I will discuss anything. In our talk, she mentioned all the awards Jews get. I should have pointed out the Nobel Peace Prize received by Menachim Begin, the monster who led the attack on the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin in 1948.

I will end on a pleasant note. Students at UCLA do come up to me and tell me they agree with me. One young man asked me to keep doing what I am doing. That helps. It can get discouraging seeing how clueless Americans are.

Zan Overall, the Wise Old Man.
www.youtube.com/1wom