Terrorism and Lawlessness by BAMN

The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights, and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (BAMN, or CDAAIIRFEBAMN) was recently in the news bemoaning the fact that the Federal Bureua of Investigation (FBI) had mentioned them in passing during a symposium in Lansing on domestic terror threats in Michigan. In fact, while the FBI documents mentioned them in passing only because the Michigan State Police noted one publicly-known 2002 protest in Lansing, their presence in an FBI file is warranted based on the facts and open threats the group has made. "Terrorism," by most definitions, is the use or threat of force for political ends. BAMN's very name suggests this threat - but their actions make it clear. It's purpose is to destroy democracy - "affirmative action" and race preferences is just a "transitional issue," as Trotskey would call it (the group openly admits to "Trotskeyism").

This page is an archive of stories documenting the lawlessness, violence, and open communist activities of the group. Zarko Research's most recent Dec. 2005 video evidence of BAMN flipping over a table in what is clearly an illegal riot is shocking evidence of the group's lawlessness.

This is ongoing project of ZR, and we will accept submissions of news sources, original stories of encounters, photos, and other information. If you send another news source, please include the link, source name, and entire text of the piece.

Websites dedicated against BAMN by other self-described "Progressives."

Rob Goodspeed's http://www.nobamn.com and http://www.goodspeedupdate.com/bamn/home.htm
Nathan Newman's http://www.nathannewman.com/bamn/
Below is an article I recently published about BAMN in the Progressive Populist, March 15, 2003 www.populist.com. As I note, they have a long history of physical assault and seeking to destroy groups they work with, experience I have first hand since I was personally assaulted by them and watched them beat up 18-year old freshmen at Berkeley.-- Nathan Newman

http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1997/sep/09-30-97/news/news1.html

Four arrested at hearing on affirmative action

"(BAMN) marginalizes and demeans the cause. That's the only thing I agree with David Jaye on." Leslie McIntyre, U-M senior. "This did not have to happen this way at all ... disruption of a meeting to me is not the same thing as disorderly conduct." Alex Johnson, member of BAMN.

By Jeffrey Kosseff
and Katie Plona
Daily Staff Reporters

SHELBY TWP. - Pepper spray filled the Shelby Township city council chambers last night as police arrested four people protesting a hearing on the University's affirmative action policies.

About 20 protestors stormed the hearing, which was organized by state Reps. David Jaye (R-Macomb) and Greg Kaza (R- Rochester Hills), two of the four legislators who are attempting to organize a class action lawsuit challenging the University's affirmative action policies in admissions and financial aid.

"We're not here just to hear David Jaye," said Renee Brunk, a member of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary, the group that led the protest. "We're here to bury his attempt to resegregate the schools."

When Jaye announced his attempts last night to pass a bill similar to Proposition 209, the California law that eliminates racial preferences, the protestors told Jaye to change his name tag to George Wallace and shouted other insults. They chanted l

The legislators fired back with insults.

"Do you behave like this in the classroom?" Jaye asked. "Do your parents know how you're behaving?"

The police contend that they asked the protesters to leave. When BAMN members didn't comply, the officers began to forcibly break up the protest. The scene ended with the arrest of LSA senior Jessica Curtin and three other BAMN members who are not University students. All four were charged with disorderly conduct.

The protestors allege that Lt. Larry Huyghe, who was not in uniform, did not identify himself as an officer.

Huyghe, however, said he identified himself before restraining the protestors.

To evacuate the room, police officers sprayed pepper spray, which caused some of the more than 50 people attending the hearing to cough persistantly and even to vomit.

"I tried to talk to them, but they wouldn't listen," Huyghe said.

Jaye said he gave the protesters an opportunity to voice their opinions.

"I went through extraordinary lengths to be fair," Jaye said. "Also, I don't believe these students are representative of most University students."

Because of the lingering pepper spray, the hearing was moved to the hall outside of the chambers, and people were given a chance to speak about affirmative action at the University.

The protestors who were not arrested moved outside the municipal hall and continued to protest, chanting, "We demand an education, we won't take resegregation."

Each of the four arrested protestors posted $100 bond and were released after the hearing ended.

Miranda Massie, one of BAMN's three attorneys, said she and her colleagues will look into filing a lawsuit against the Shelby Township police department for excessive force and violation of First Amendment rights.

BAMN member Alex Johnson said he was sprayed in the face with pepper spray and received bruises to his forehead from the force exerted by an officer.

"This did not have to happen this way at all," Johnson said. "Disruption of a meeting to me is not the same thing as disorderly conduct."

Kaza said that because of the protest, he plans to introduce legislation in the state House today that will uphold a speaker's free speech rights when individuals, such as protesters, attempt to prevent the speech.

"They're punks," Kaza said. "It's important to stand up to them and tell them they don't intimidate me. Their actions caused these innocent people to be in a room filled with tear gas."

Under Kaza's proposal, individuals who prevent others from speaking would be able to be sued in a civil court.

Law first-year student Jodi Masley, a BAMN member, said the legislators' attempt to gain support through the hearing was not effective.

"David Jaye's turnout was nothing, and I don't think it's what he wanted," Masley said. "It proves he has a fight on his hands."

Kaza and Jaye, along with Reps. Michelle McManus (R-Lake Leelanau) and Deborah Whyman (R-Canton), have contacted the Center for Individual Rights, the Washington, D.C.-based law firm that won the groundbreaking Hopwood affirmative action case last year at the University of Texas.

CIR and the legislators are working together to interview potential plaintiffs for a class action lawsuit against the University. People arguing on both sides of the issue regarding the University's admissions policies and the potential lawsuit were present at the hearing.

LSA senior Lesley McIntyre said that while she believes affirmative action must remain intact at the University, she does not agree with BAMN's method of protesting.

"Look at the Constitution. Who wrote it? A bunch of white slaveowners," McIntyre said. "I can't believe anyone can say racial tensions are not rampant.

"(BAMN) marginalizes and demeans the cause. That's the only thing I agree with David Jaye on."

Steven Smith, a Shelby Township resident, said he attended the meeting to support Jaye's anti-racial preference crusade because he believes his son may have been rejected from the University because he is not a minority.

"I feel that under other circumstances he might have been accepted," Smith said. "I think that a person should be judged on his merit and nothing more. This is just reverse discrimination."

Philosophy Prof. Carl Cohen, who has done extensive research to argue the University uses race as a factor in admissions, said the University is currently undergoing tremendous racial tensions.

"Race relations on the campus of the U of M are worse now than they ever have been," Cohen said.

Jaye said he plans to hold another hearing in Macomb County within the next three weeks, and he added the meeting last night was a success.

"Even these protestors didn't succeed in stopping us," Jaye said.

Vice President for University Relations Walter Harrison said the University is taking the representatives' threats seriously and therefore has looked to outside council.

"I generally take people at face value and David Jaye said they are going to sue us," Harrison said. "What else are we supposed to think? It's a little unusual. Usually we don't retain counsel unless we're sued, but since these people have been so public we thought it would be better to retain the firm now."

- Daily Staff Reporter Heather Kamins contributed to this report.
MARGARET MYERS/Daily
Philisophy Prof. Carl Cohen speaks at last night's meeting against racial preference policies.

MARGARET MYERS/Daily
BAMN protesters (right to left) University first-year student Monique Gifford and Detroit resident Tanya Troy chant in defense of the University's affirmative action policies in the Shelby Township city council chambers last night.

09-30-97 ©1997 The Michigan Daily

http://www.nathannewman.org/archives/003155.shtml

Hijacking the Affirmative Action Movement
Progressive Populist
by Nathan Newman
March 15, 2003

Back in 1995, when the University of California Regents voted to end affirmative action in the university system, an incredibly vibrant, multiracial student-led group emerged called Diversity in Action. For the first time in a number of years, Berkeley would see mass political mobilization from across the campus, including eventually a 5,000-person rally on Sproul Plaza.

Thuggish Sectarians: However, within weeks of forming, that broad-based student affirmative action group was under assault, not by the cops or the administration, but by a thuggish and violent band called By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a grouplet created by a Detroit-based sect called the Revolutionary Workers League (RWL). The RWL had sent out a number of their leaders to create their BAMN front group, whose members proceeded not just to disrupt the student-led coalition meetings, but to physically assault the students, snatch the microphone from them at rallies, and bring their own megaphones to drown out their speakers.

In 20 years of political organizing, I have never seen such violent and thuggish behavior, a step beyond the worst sectarian acts I had ever imagined. The student coalition leaders pushed on gamely for a few years, but it was obvious that the young students were traumatized by these attacks, and many left off organizing, a bit bitter and disillusioned by these physical assaults that had undermined their work. Across the country, in southern California, Michigan, and other areas, this group By Any Means Necessary would disrupt student-led organizing around affirmative action, claiming it was the true civil rights leader and that all alternatives had to be destroyed or subordinated to BAMN.

Fast forward to 2003 and I was horrified to recently hear that By Any Means Necessary, having attacked and destroyed other affirmative action groups in the 1990s, had "mainstreamed" themselves in the last couple of years and gotten broad-based endorsements for an April 1 march in Washington, D.C., tied to the upcoming Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. Suddenly you have groups ranging from the National Organization for Women to major unions endorsing a rally led by thugs who had committed violent assaults against teenagers.

How had this happened?

Unfortunately, after talking with leaders at a number of the endorsing organizations, most of them hadn't bothered to even research the group they were endorsing, even though the simplest Google search would have yielded up much of this violent history. A number were horrified but also seemed to feel in the short-term, with the Bush and Supreme Court assault on affirmative action, they just had to grab at the mobilization that was available.

Which is what sectarian thugs like BAMN and the RWL count on in their violent strategies. If they can destroy alternative coalitions at the grassroots, they can count on lazy or ignorant national leaders to endorse them as the only available game in town. There is a bit of Hamlet in this sectarian story, as violence is used to kill off a rival leader, just so the killer can step into their place, and the watching population, either ignorant or swallowing their suspicions, allow it to happen for fear that the kingdom will be left leaderless with enemy troops at the border.

A History of Violence: But the mainstream groups are to blame for this situation, both for their own failures to support stronger independent grassroots student organizing on campuses, and for their failures to do even the most minimal research that is easily available in the electronic age. Even as recently as 2001, the national progressive newspaper In These Times reported that in Oakland, "[BAMN] organized a rally at Berkeley to protest university affirmative action policy … which ended in a melee of fistfights and looting."

And a 2001 article in the East Bay Express, a progressive weekly based in Oakland, detailed the divisive intervention of BAMN into the local teachers union and how their violence on campus had alienated a whole range of students from activism. AsianWeek, in a 2001 profile of BAMN, quoted the pro-affirmative action student regent, Justin Fong, on the group: "[BAMN] have … been a disruptive voice in terms of student activism. They have been a source of frustration for a whole generation of student activists."

Other articles readily available detail violent assaults by BAMN leaders on police in southern California and an even longer history of violence by their parent sect, the RWL, during the 1995 Detroit newspaper strike and other venues around the country.

Repeating a Pattern: What is most frustrating is that major progressive groups seem continually to fall into this pattern of endorsing thuggish sectarian groups, instead of building real democratic coalitions of their own. It was only recently, with the major Feb. 15 mass marches against war in Iraq, that mainstream peace organizations formed a strong national alternative to the Workers World Party front group, ANSWER, which had seized leadership of peace rallies for nearly a year.

Hopefully, just as ANSWER is being marginalized by new democratic antiwar coalitions, BAMN will be marginalized in the affirmative action movement as mainstream civil rights groups realize what a thuggish organization they have gotten into bed with.

See www.nathannewman.org/bamn/ for more info on BAMN and its history.

Nathan Newman is a long-time activist on community and union issues and a vice president of the NYC National Lawyers Guild. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the NLG's national or local leadership's view. Email nathan@newman.org or see www.nathannewman.org.

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/36206/48946.html?1120261002
Posted on Wednesday, June 29, 2005 - 10:09 pm:  When BAMN worked out of Detroit, they worked as agent provocateurs of the Newspaper Strike, the Strike To Win committee while they made our situation worse, they were Justice for Malice Green committee before then. They are best described as a Trotskyist front cult organization. Too bad that kid was killed, BAMN can bite me. Friends of mine were fired from the papers because of those vicious little f<expletive deleted>s. I noticed that they are linked to the Sparticist Youth League ... a group that I remember from my WSU days ... Basically a small cult-like group of rabid parrots.

Posted on Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 2:53 pm: Oldredfordette, do you mean that these little punks were the same ones who were antagonizing the cops in sterling heights by tossing stuff at them?

Posted on Thursday, June 30, 2005 - 3:20 pm: Yes. We used to call them "Eat To Win" because they would show up at rallies, eat all the food we used to provide to strikers, than insult our leaders and try to incite everyone to violence. One of our guys, in a legendary night, finally snapped, picked Luke Massie up and slammed him down on a parked car. I don't like violence, but that was a beautiful thing to see.

Their favorite thing was to appear behind a striker, throw a projectile and duck back down. Like I said, many many people were fired because of them, and the stupid ass television news fell for it again and again and again.

BAMN/RWL/STW/JFMG have also infiltrated Detroit Public School teachers, the guy who is always on the radio screaming is RWL. Steve Cohn I think is his name.

[Stephen Conn filed an "affidavit" in the BAMN v. MCRI Board of Canvassers hearing, and BAMN reports that he is a large contributor according to campaign finance reports].

http://www.asianweek.com/2001_05_11/opinion1_letters.html

5/11/2001
BAMN’s Bad Behavior

Dear Editor: This regards BAMN’s behavior (“No Compromise,” April 26).

I am a strong supporter of affirmative action and am always dismayed to read the same misinformed, popular white mythology in opposition to affirmative action as “reverse racism.”

However, it did not surprise me that — unlike all other diversity rallies at U.C. Berkeley — violence against Telegraph Avenue area shops and people by mass-imported high school students, was associated with “a BAMN event” rally back in March. According to one observer, who strongly supports affirmative action, but opposes violence, a BAMN speaker implicitly encouraged the violence that day as part of some “world-wide revolution.”

BAMN has had a very unsavory, and even slimy, background in recent years on the Berkeley campus. No group supporting diversity ever allied themselves with BAMN. In fact, diversity groups used to note at the bottom of all their posters: “Not BAMN Affiliated.” Ego-driven BAMN used to practice a grossly unprincipled “rule or ruin” behavior, whereby, if BAMN couldn’t commandeer a diversity group, it would try, repeatedly and shamelessly, to disrupt it.

Such behavior caused, in particular, bewildered white students less familiar with diversity issues to shun any diversity involvement at all. BAMN also tried to claim as its own, the successful events of other groups.

BAMN might as well have been secretly working for some right-wing elements or as police provocateurs. Former Black Panther David Hilliard was once asked such a question about BAMN. His response was that if some group is behaving that way, or if everywhere they go they sow confusion [and] disunity … you should treat them just the same … as though they were intelligence provocateurs, and just move on without them.

So, BAMN finally got its “mass rally.” It’s unfortunate that the campus has lost a generation of pro-diversity and pro-affirmative action students, who were all too well aware of BAMN’s unprincipled tactics. Now, BAMN collects those uninformed into their ranks.

I am not absolutely opposed, in theory, to strategically and symbolically attacking well-documented and well-known symbols of corporate or state oppression.

But we at Berkeley are not in that situation: We are not in the time or place for this. I am opposed to mindless attacks on property — and certainly on innocent people. I am opposed to threatening the workers inside offices and small businesses — the workers BAMN declares it loves so much. While most high school students that day were not attacking anyone, there should have been internal monitors (at least not encouragement) to manage the unruly.

BAMN attempts to glamorize itself by using Malcolm X’s words (“mass, militant, worldwide … revolution”). But when Malcolm X said, “by any means necessary,” he meant by disciplined means necessary. He didn’t mean that you should go out and do whatever you want. He certainly didn’t ever go out and physically attack members of other groups during their rallies, as BAMN has done.

Malcolm knew that … there are moral issues if a movement must resort to “violence.” Instead, any “violence” should be “principled armed struggle,” and as Nelson Mandela said, as “a disciplined fighter for liberation.”

BAMN — a loose cannon — will ultimately be a counterproductive dead end.

Joseph Anderson
Berkeley, Calif.

http://www.michiganreview.com/article.php?id=129
MLK Day 2002: Violence, Censorship, and “Diversity”
YAFer thrown from precipice
By Ruben Duran

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man who embraced peace, unity and, above all, equality among the races. It is with this mentality that many events at the University take place during the MLK holiday. One annual event, however, that does not follow King’s example is the Rally and March sponsored by the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). The ever-present pestering group of Detroit-based Communists capitalizes on King’s message of equality for all, and distorts it to fit their evil goals. The group held a March and Rally on the 21st of January to support their cause, garnering the support of a dozen or so University students, and bussing in many more Detroit high school students to artificially inflate their numbers. BAMN wanted to let the world (read: Ann Arbor) know that King’s message reflected the goals of the University’s affirmative action policies.

There is one group on campus, however, that disagrees strongly with BAMN’s position. The Young Americans for Freedom know that Racial Profiling of any kind, no matter how noble the intent, restricts freedom. It is in this spirit that members of this group expressed their beliefs in protesting the BAMN rally. Roughly a dozen anti-affirmative action protesters arrived at the staging area for the march, which proceeded down South University and essentially circled the Diag. Harassment of the protesters began the moment they arrived, as mutterings of “racist,” “bastard,” and “what are you doing here” echoed across South U.

The procession itself started out strong, with the protesters dashing in front of the mob of already-angry marchers. No sooner had the YAFers taken positions, when several older high school students ran to the front of the group, and began berating the protesters. Taunts of “I’m gonna getcha!” and “Gimmie that sign!” egged the mob to march faster. At several points, the YAFers were running just to stay ahead of the group. Any YAF stragglers were quickly surrounded, and their personal space violated until they could reach a safe distance. The abuse, however, of the peaceful (and harrowingly quiet) protesters would soon go far beyond verbal battery.

The protesters, tired of having to move faster to stay ahead, simply formed a line and began slowing their pace. When the angry marchers finally moved within reaching distance, several of the signs were ripped from the hands of the YAFers, and torn to shreds—much to the delight of the crowd. YAF, knowing from past experience that this would most likely occur, came to the event equipped with several bright neon signs reading “First Amendment” and “Freedom of Speech,” which they quickly deployed after the first signs were destroyed. In possibly the greatest showing of irony BAMN has ever expressed, even these signs were not safe from the wrath of the “mass militant civil rights movement.”

The march concluded at the steps of East Hall, where members of the marching party came to the microphone and lauded the University’s fight to keep racial preferences in admissions. To stand up against this tirade of racist lies, a lone student stood on a concrete ledge beside the speaking area, with his inflammatory sign. Not to be outdone, one of the high school students ascended as well, and with one quick lunge, pushed the student, Justin Wilson, from the ledge. Dazed but otherwise unharmed, Wilson returned to the main group of YAFers.

There are few who do not know of King’s “I have a dream” speech, in which he spoke of dreaming of the day when his children would no longer be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. YAF realized King’s dream, and did what it could to remind BAMN of that. They learned, however, that Communists learn many things, but reason is not one of them. MR

BAMN's Luke Massie Threatens Violence in United Kingdom

Town hall chiefs' clash of evidence
Jul 16 2003
By Richard Evan

THE chief executive of Lambeth council is on collision course with the authority's deputy leader after claiming under oath that he wanted to get a union official sacked.

She said: "In the course of one of our briefing meetings, he [Cllr Whelan] said he wanted disciplinary action taken against Alex Owolade and that there would be cross-party support for his dismissal.

"I was surprised and concerned by his approach and attempted to explain to him I did not consider it appropriate to consider dismissal until the facts as reported were proved to be correct."

The meeting had followed alleged comments made by Mr Owolade after the fatal shooting of Derek Bennett by police in Brixton.

But earlier in the hearing, Cllr Whelan said it was Ms Boardman who brought up the subject of Mr Owolade.

He said: "She indicated the council was looking to effect the dismissal of Alex Owolade."

At the hearing, Ms Boardman also claimed she had been threatened by Luke Massie, one of Mr Owolade's legal team.

She said: "He said they would target me and my family until I went or Alex Owolade was let back in. His approach felt very threatening - he physically pinned me in a corner near the entrance door."

Mr Massie denied either pinning her to the wall or mentioning her family.

Ms Boardman also alleged that Cllr Whelan had a meeting with the Movement for Justice, the campaign group fighting for Mr Owolade's re-instatement, and a sentence she had used to Cllr Whelan 10 days previously was later said back to her by Mr Massie.