Comments on: Texas State vs. Turning Point USA https://austinautonomedia.noblogs.org/txst-vs-tpusa/ Keep Austin Criminal Sat, 13 Apr 2019 15:12:17 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 By: SpokenNothing https://austinautonomedia.noblogs.org/txst-vs-tpusa/#comment-425 Fri, 12 Apr 2019 03:01:57 +0000 http://austinautonomedia.noblogs.org/?p=873#comment-425 In reply to Labobine.

Thank you for contributing to the discussion around these events and shedding some more light!

First, we think AnMarcos would undoubtedly be delighted to hear about this, and it might be fruitful to continue the strategic conversation with them. They may also interest you to work with as comrades, if you find you share an affinity or common political ground.

I (the admin currently speaking) feel similarly about trusting any legal means to ban fascist speech, especially given the risks of Universities using the same justification to ban anarchist/revolutionary politics. We published this piece to provide a perspective on the happenings at TXST, without necessarily endorsing all the analysis in it. We do find the contrast with our conditions at UT, where Student Government & the administration are happy collaborator with the far-right, to be intriguing.

If you wanted to write a response piece, with updates about what happened + critical reflections, we’d be more than happy to republish it as part of a dialogue about what’s unfolding at Texas State. Regardless of our specific position on the issue, we think the events are important to reflect on and engage with.

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By: Labobine https://austinautonomedia.noblogs.org/txst-vs-tpusa/#comment-419 Thu, 11 Apr 2019 00:51:11 +0000 http://austinautonomedia.noblogs.org/?p=873#comment-419 A few factual corrections first:
Although it was indeed said that the legislation “would go higher up on the chain, through the grad house, the faculty, and then the President”, the chain does not include faculty nor the grad house, but only the student body president, and various administrative echelons who will most likely shut the legislation down (in particular theDean of Student and the Vice President for Student Affairs).

The wording of the resolution was not “from banning to placing TPUSA on suspension pending review”. This change has been proposed and rejected.

Finally, and most importantly, about 40 minutes after the resolution was announced to be defeated for the reason you present (“not a true-enough majority”), some student government members did check the rules and regulations of the Senate, only to find out that abstainee should not be included when counted for a majority. As result, the resolution did in fact pass, and the chair of Senate did declare (not without any embarassment) that they had been wrong and that the resolution had passed. Of course, although the meeting was not over when they made the statement, pretty much all the public (and probably the author of the piece) had left the room because the matter was thought to be over. This actually led to a pretty funny scene, where the Dean of Students came back from announcing the failure of the legislation to the press, only to learn that they had to go back to announce the exact opposite…

Finally, as I am also an anarchist and an anti-authoritarian, I find myself a bit puzzled by this attempt to use the government/the administration (albeit a joke-version of government that the administration let students play with) to ban an organization. I do not really believe in free-speech, at least not in the “constitution” version of free-speech, and I very much desire that TPUSA be effectively rendered inoperant on campus, but I feel a bit uneasy rejoicing to the fact that so many leftists (and aparently anarchists) feel that using “the law” to do so is a good thing…

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