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Dear Left Hook Readers,

November is almost over and we still have a long way to go to hit our second anniversary fund drive goal- if we don't meet it by the end of this month, we'll have to severely curtail and scale back our work here.

Left Hook started out as and remains the only independent leftist youth journal in this country. And by leftist, we don't mean the kind of "pander to the conservatives" politics you see from the Democratic Party and its hangers-on.

From the very beginning - far before it became popular - we took a principled stand against the war in Iraq, predicting the emergence of serious resistance early as November 2003. We've been publicizing and projecting the anti-war movement from the front lines, publishing countless ground reports, highlighting cases of abuse, interviewing student anti-war activists and veterans of the Iraq war, and demolishing pro-war arguments.

Young writers here have taken up a much wider range of important issues as well: from the oppression of Palestinians to the drastic costs of higher education in America, from the administration's malice in Katrina to the larger role of capitalism and neoliberalism in producing such tragedies, it's all been covered here in political analysis, cultural commentary, interviews, ground reports, and more.

And our material here is fresh, original, and from a unique youth perspective: not the same standard fare stuff reprinted and recycled all over the internet.

Of course, you already know all that - otherwise you wouldn't be reading this space right now, where we receive hundreds of visitors daily thanks to word of mouth and larger sites constantly linking to our material.

But you undoubtedly also know that, as a small, independent leftist site, we cannot continue without the financial support of our readers - that means you! There's just two of us students here at the helm, and though the cost of Ramen noodles remains relatively stable, we have to maintain our (pretty modest) funding goals to keep bringing you the quality and content you've been regularly enjoying here.

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Sincerely,
The Editors
Derek Seidman and M. Junaid Alam

Tariq Khan Speaks

October 3 Rally

First of all I want to say that what happened to me last Thursday is not an isolated incident. More and more this society is moving in the direction of rampant militarism and vicious authoritarianism. At at least three different colleges in the last week alone - the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Holyoke Community College in Massachusetts, and here at George Mason University - students engaged in non-violent counter-recruitment were met with police repression.

At UW-Madison 25 students were threatened with arrest if they continued to peacefully protest military and CIA recruiters at their school's career fair, even though no police officer or administrator was able to show them a campus rule they were violating.

At Holyoke Community College, on the very same day that I was arrested, police and the College Republicans assaulted and battered 30 students engaged in a peaceful picket of the Army National Guard recruiting table in the school's cafeteria. A campus security officer snatched a sign out of a student's hands, then four other officers lifted him off the ground and assaulted him. When other students came to their friend's defense, an officer grabbed one of them, put him in a headlock, and sprayed mace in his face.

Around 20 state police armed in riot gear and gas masks showed up fully prepared to use chemical weapons against non-violent students trapped in the school cafeteria. While the assault was taking place College Republicans lined up behind the police to cheer on the attack, calling the men "fags" and the women "dykes" and "bitches". Gotta love those College Republicans [sarcasm]. One student anti-war activist was wearing a pin of a gay/lesbian organization, and a cop who saw it laughed at him and said, "you'll have a great time in jail!" as College Republicans laughed and called the student a "fag". The student who the police maced is now banned from campus indefinitely. Many students who participated in Thursday's protest did not attend classes the next day for fear of harassment from right-wing students and police.

And here at GMU I was harassed and assaulted by police and right-wing vigilante wannabe's simply for standing in the JC with an 8x11 sign taped to my chest that said "Recruiters lie. Don't be deceived." Then I was charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct. While the police and vigilantes were brutalizing me, other right-wing students were cheering them on and shouting "Kick his ass!"

This is the climate we're going to school in. It isn't a learning environment. It's a police state. Politicians say they had to send troops to Afghanistan and Iraq in order to "liberate" the Middle East. But we don't even have something as fundamental as freedom of speech on our own college campuses. The fight for freedom isn't in Iraq. It's here at home. How can the U.S. military give liberty to another country when they don't even have it themselves?

They went to war for a lie and now they've got recruiters in our schools lying to students, deceiving students into becoming a cog in their insidious death machine. Then when I stand next to a recruiter wearing a sign on my chest that says he's lying, I get brutalized, abused, and arrested while jingoistic students cheer gleefully, hatefully.

Officer Reynolds, the goon who arrested me told me that he had to handcuff me because of 9/11. He said, "I didn't know who you were, and what with 9/11 and all, there's no telling what you'd do." So because he didn't know me, he had to assume that I'm a terrorist. Another officer at the GMU police station shouted at me, "You people are the most violent people in the world! You're passive aggressive!" What does that mean? Who are "you people"? All I was hearing come out of the policemen's mouths was ignorance, fear, and hate. And those same guys are given badges and guns and are paid to walk around this campus.

When I was finally released from jail, the adult detention center they call it, Officer Reynolds told me that I'm banned from campus until I hear otherwise. Later that evening a police captain called me to let me know that I will be permitted back on campus, however, and he stressed the however, I will not be permitted to cause any more disturbances.

Now I've got a message for the police, and GMU authorities, and for all of the right-wing goons who helped the police brutalize me or who cheered them on. If by "don't cause any more disturbances" they mean don't tell students the truth about the military, then I will continually cause disturbances. I will not be bullied or intimidated into silence, I will not respect or obey any order that tells me I can't exercise my own inalienable rights. I will continue to stand against war, militarism, occupation, and authoritarianism. And I will not acquiesce to fear tactics, and bullying, and stupidity, and hate. The university authority's actions against me last Thursday were their way of telling me to shut up. And my answer to them is, No, I will not shut up! They don't want me to say recruiters lie. Well I'm going to say it, Recruiters lie!

The power-mongers in this country are using 9/11 and terrorism as an excuse to trample all over our individual rights. A friend of mine recently said, "When we've traded in all our freedom for security, we'll find that the only thing we've secured is our own incarceration."

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