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Add an EventSpeech Is Not Free at LGBT Freedom Day
2500 lucky festival-goers at today’s Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Trans Freedom Day celebration received samples of a hot new product from Estee Slaughter Inc. In the first appearance by the San Francisco-based cosmetics shrimp at the LGBTFD celebration (aka San Francisco Pride), volunteers distributed thousands of the “RealityfoldTM” sleep mask. The black mask, tastefully emblazoned in gold with the ES logo and “Make the Occupation Disappear,” bears this explanatory text on its flip side:
“Going to Jerusalem for World Pride?
Worried the sight of so many Walls and Checkpoints will
keep you from getting your beauty rest?
Estee Slaughter’s Realityfolds will protect you from the harsh glow of
Occupation so you can party in virtual peace.
Estee Lauder heir Ron Lauder, the president
of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) is a vocal supporter of illegal Zionist
settlements on Palestinian land. The JNF was founded in 1901 to buy up
Palestinian land for use by Jews only. Since 1948 it has partnered with the
Israeli government to expel over 1,000,000 Palestinians from their land and
deny the refugees their right to return.
World Pride will be held in
Jerusalem in August 2006. 10 minutes away from the march site, Israeli
bulldozers are demolishing Palestinian homes to expand the illegal settlement
of Maaleh Adumim.”
Distributors, wearing the ES logo on newly minted t-shirts, had scarcely begun the giveaway when parade security monitors descended and told them they could not distribute the masks at the festival because they had not paid for a booth. The Slaughter reps responded that this was free speech activity and that they were not disrupting the event. Soon thereafter, the police arrived and said that they work for the parade committee, that the parade committee, by acquiring a permit for the event, had managed to make the entire ten-block area of the festival “private property” and the unauthorized distribution had to stop.
Policewomen told one member of the group that the problem was that rival company, Estee Lauder had a booth at the event and festival organizers were afraid the similarity in products would cause some confusion.
The group eventually agreed to leave, because police were threatening to confiscate the remaining masks (handmade in a very labor-intensive process). They attempted to locate someone in charge of deciding which queers can hand out what literature at the festival, but never could get to talk to anyone. They were repeatedly told to go to the “free speech area,” which they never were able to find.
“Do you think anyone at Stonewall paid for a permit?” one activist asked event staff.
Estee Slaughter is a division of Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT!) www.quitpalestine.org. QUIT! plans to challenge this ultraregulation of a community celebration in a variety of legal and grassroots ways.
Isn't it obvious? The money from mass murderers like Estee Lauder is more important - not just to the police but the the "pride" organizers - than the lives of real gays and lesbians living under fascist occupation.
There is absolutely NOTHING to be proud about at Gay Pride. The moment corporate blood money was accepted, it became just another avenue for people to grind up brown people's children and stuff them into their gas tanks.
What the FUCK is there to be proud of when your festival is swimming in corporate blood and anyone who stands up to say so is shut down?
Divided, we've all been falling for a while, and corporate pride reigns, triumphant.
The supreme irony, of course, is that the shut down group (i.e. QUIT) was essentially advocating the abandonment of another queer population (i.e. Israeli queers) to its fate, for the sins of its geoterritorial entity (i.e. Olmert's Israeli government).
Will the "Indybay" faction of SF Indymedia censor this comment in turn, as it might appear to be somehow pro-Israel? Round and round it goes...
Something to do besides get lost in a 500k-strong herd, silently resenting all the corporate sponsorship, wondering which of 50 "lifestyle" stages will be the least insufferable.
Once upon a time, that thing was a protest. Can you imagine?
I didn't see any Estee Lauder table at Pride. I admit i didn't go everywhere altho i did go to most of the tables-a lot of shlocky merchandise, over-priced and not good street fair food, and some reactionary bullshit like the cops and anti-abortion gays,- and a few important and interesting community groups.
Nevertheless I have a question: Why didn't you pay your dues to the community and get a table yourself?
Further thoughts on this whole event: I heard one person interviewed on KPFA giving us the Democratic Party's usual pitch that Democrat Angelides is good for gay people because he "promises" he will sign a gay marriage law. This is the same Death Penalty Democrat Angelides who proudly stated that he supported the murder of Stanley Tookie Williams. I think all of us who support both the gay liberation movement and oppose the death penalty must make it clear everywhere that we do not vote for any death penalty candidates, which both Angelides and Schwarzenegger are, and if that means gay marriage will have to wait, so be it, and it will not be for long. I do not believe any Democrat's promises, and no movement can advance by stepping on the workingclass. The needs and interests of the workingclass, who are the most adversely affected by the anti-workingclass weapon known as the death penalty must come first. Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party are running candidates for governor who support gay marriage, oppose the death penalty, and support the Palestininan liberation struggle. These are the only viable candidates, and we will achieve gay marriage only by supporting such candidates. Gay marriage will come in California within the decade as it is a generational issue; the younger generations are bigger supporters of gay marriage. Since the March 2000 (low voter turnout primary) election, when 38% voted No on Prop 22, the anti-gay marriage act, the support for gay marriage has increased. We can expect to pass the 50% mark by 2010, and we should have abolished the death penalty by then as well. That would be real progress. We will achieve both of these goals and much more with a labor movement, which experienced a rebirth on May Day, and will again appear, hopefuly bigger and better, on the legal holiday Labor Day, September 4, when there will be nationwide labor-immigration marches. Please join us as the struggle for labor, immigrants, gay marriage, the Palestinians and against the death penalty are all one issue: the liberation of us all.
More
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4848.shtml
QUIT! and other radicals not only have been "paying our dues" to the community, we've been building the community for decades.
One might wonder whether their decision not to continue to get a table, and their apparent call for a sort of abandonment of a queer population by other queers, signals an overall change in the ideological focus of the group, or if this is merely a tactical shift.
Any articulation of the underlying thinking on the part of QUIT/LAGAI would be most welcome.
The reasons for that change of thinking are what's most interesting here.
I don't agree with QUIT.
However, I oppose censorship,
generally AND in this instance.
- Z
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