YAL at SF State tomorrow (Thursday, noon-2pm) - Student Center, Rosa Parks room D

Jim & Marcy,

  I'm hoping one or both of you may be able to join me in attending the YAL meeting at SFSU tomorrow, since you live in the neighborhood. (Jim, Niike mentioned that you showed up last Tuesday at SF State when they were tabling. I believe he initially told me their meetings were Tuesday, but it's possible I got it wrong. Anyway, if you were expecting the meeting instead and were disappointed, sorry about that. As you evidently discovered, Tuesday is the day they do tabling, and they meet on Thursdays -- I have to change the meeting info on the Meetup sites and add the tabling on Tuesdays as a separate regular Meetup.)

  I went to their meeting last week, and it was only me, Niike, and two other students (an older woman named Ruth and a younger guy Evan), both of whom seemed possibly more conservative than libertarian! But Niike said turnout was light, so hopefully there will be more students there tomorrow.

  I've started an email list for the chapter (YAL-SFSU@yahoogroups.com), so that we can have a forum to discuss campus activism and to hopefully build communication and cross-pollination between members of the student group and the larger local libertarian community. So far it's just me, Aubrey, Marcy, and Ruth (who just joined Tuesday) on the list. Niike seems to be somewhat techno-phobic, although I assured him it was very easy to sign up; he may need some more urging. :wink: Jim, I hope you will join as well. None of the other four YAL'ers for whom I have email addresses and sent invites have joined as of yet, but tomorrow will be another opportunity to urge folks to do so. Of course other LP members and libertarians are welcome to join too.

  My next step in this project of cross-pollination and helping YAL grow and expand its presence at SF State will be to design a new flier, or fliers, promoting the group to put up around campus, that also mention the LPSF, Golden Gate Liberty rEVOLution, and Free Exchange. I expect to be getting $50 from the LPSF budget for this purpose (making copies), as discussed at the LPSF meeting last Saturday, and hope to get students to do some of the fliering and continue to distribute the fliers on an ongoing basis.

  Naturally I plan to talk about both of these efforts at the YAL meeting tomorrow. Having a couple more libertarian voices there to speak in support could help. I continue to think that campus activism is one of the more important things the libertarian movement can do, and that we should do everything we can do locally to ensure that we have an active libertarian group at SF State on an ongoing basis.

  Niike tells me that he will be graduating, but plans to stay in the area and continue his involvement with the group, and will also be heading the California affiliate of YAL, and has promised to send me contact info for other YAL groups in the Bay Area as well.

  He and I had a good time on Tuesday at the April 14 protest against police abuses, as I think I mentioned briefly in a previous post that evening. I particularly enjoyed standing on top of the security checkpoint desk *inside* City Hall and ranting into my megaphone about police injustices and the nature of the system in general! (See this story for some of the better news coverage -- http://sfciviccenter.blogspot.com/2015/04/police-murder-protest-at-sf-city-hall.html . I'm sorry I didn't remember sooner the Board of Supervisors meeting and get inside soon enough to take part in that.) I haven't seen any images or mention of either of us in the stories I've seen so far, although I did get briefly interviewed by several TV reporters.

  Niike earlier managed to piss off a number of leftists at the rally at 24th and Mission to the point of nearly getting physical, by shouting limited government slogans on his own megaphone, evidently while the main speakers were trying to talk about communism. I'm sure it was particularly painful for them to hear coming from a black man. :slight_smile: (To the extent the demonstration was organized, a few people from some small radical left-wing fringe party seemed to be more or less in charge.) I tried to be more cooperative and conciliatory toward them and focused on the shared agenda while throwing in libertarian slogans and plugs for the LP here and there during the march, and generally feel that to be a more effective approach than confrontation, but probably we'll have a chance to discuss all that tomorrow too.

Love & Liberty,
                                 ((( starchild )))

Hi Starchild,

Thanks for your outreach with YAL. I am committed to attending a couple of meetings a month, but not more, so I cannot include YAL meetings in my schedule.

Marcy