39 Comments
Update 7:00 PM: Bwog has confirmed that Kulawik will appear at 9:00 tonight on Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes with Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, while opening speaker Marvin Stewart will appear on the Bill O’Reilly Factor at 8:00 and 11:00 PM. Protesters were asked to appear on The Factor, and one accepted, but declined shortly before the taping.
Campus, city and national media have already spun the Minuteman Brawl of 2006 into a harbinger for Armageddon, and Bwog would like to level the conversation a bit. We’ll start with the source, President of the College Republicans (ex-College Conservatives President) Chris Kulawik himself. In an early morning interview, he told Bwog why controversy follows him everywhere, what he saw, and why he brought members of a vigilante border patrol to campus in the first place.
Over the summer, the Republicans sent out about 40 invitations to different potential speakers and elected representatives. Kulawik said the invitations “got a pretty decent return rate,” and Gilchrist and Stewart got invites because
In anticipation of student reaction, he forwarded a link to the 600+ member Facebook group protesting the Minutemen to Public Safety, which he said must not have predicted the extent to which the event would escalate. “In the wake of Ashcroft, the ISA, protesters, and Chicano Caucus were better prepared to mobilize,” Kulawik said.
When the rumble broke out, “It was really hectic up there,” he said. “I can’t tell you how scared I was…The [protesters] were looking for a fight…I really felt that my personal being was in danger… they literally staged a premeditated attack.”
After the event, Kulawik called an emergency College Republicans executive board meeting and said administrators also had a huge closed door meeting. As of 9:00 this morning, he had not yet had any communication with administrators.
He noted being “concerned” about future speakers deciding not to come to campus, and said he was worried the event would keep others from joining the College Republicans.
“Not only does it set back the university, it sets back the movement of mature debate.”
As for the Minutemen themselves, Jim and Marvin “were really quite upset…I think they really feel bad for my organization and my friends.”
Kulawik also had some warm praise for the conduct of the Minutemen supporters (one of whom was witnessed kicking a student in the face.) “They refused to let protestors drown them out in a forum of debate…they ran out to defend Jim and Martin.”
And he maintains the speakers at last night’s circus “opened some eyes. When people have different ideas, people don’t want to listen to them.”
Kulawik says he still plans on running next week’s event which will feature Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist who now speaks out for
– LBD
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39 Comments
@yeah. gilchrist should have headed back the second this crap went down
@Anonymous mystery solved. apologies to chris. some part of me wonders how a gilchrist knuckle sandwich would have gone over, that would have been interesting.
@about the tug of war i was there and what happened was chris came down from the stage, talked to some other board members in teh front, then headed back to gilchrist in teh back corner stage left to make sure they were safe (they should have departed to the back immediately like security suggested)
the minutemen brought some outside supporters and they were definitely the people who went and tried to retreive the banner
@Only at bwog can people make up whatever they feel like
how’s this one
“Kulawik was on the grassy knoll!”
@Kudos to Mr. Kulawik, who has proven his aptitude for working the public. He has managed to stir up contraversy, and anticipating the response, managed to paint himself as a defender of free speech. Kudos.
@wow So many parts of that O’Reilly segment make me so angry. Why can no one admit that both sides made poor choices and helped fuel the violence. Why must it be one side or the other?
@are you serious the protestors stormed the stage. they provoked this. this also goes for #23. allowing a speaker to speak is free speech
@OldGuy LOL…you mean the part when these idiots rushed the staged…that fuel. What did you expect them to do, wait to get attacked? Morons can’t even protest the right way.
@Anonymous yeah that skinny hipster looking kid did look pretty dangerous with all that finger pointing and fist pumping. I know Chris and Scott were only trying to grab the banner from the protestors because they were planning to make an oragami weapon to unleash on Gilchrist.
@i'm sorry stephen but not being there you don’t understand what it looked like. i was in the first row. after the poster came on, 5 or 6 students ran through the cordon and charged at the stage at an angle towards the stage from the left, which made it look like they were heading towards gilchrist
then after the rope and barracade was knocked down 15 other ran the same way. i can guarantee you anybody in that line felt they were in physical danger. i did.
@Anonymous No i’m sure it was plenty scary. Having a mob of people next to you, charged up, is not something you want to leave to chance for your safety.
I just thought it was amusing because news organizations are labeling this as a riot, or some other super violent activity, and when they show the video it kind of looks like a party.
And to oldguy, actually I did rush a stage at a concert and got to sing along with the lead singer. But… different circumstances. I think the protestors were quite clearly in the wrong.
@yeah same poster who you replied to. riot is too strong a word. there really wasn’t significant physical violence. it was a scary and sad display, but not a violent one.
@It's so easy to make things up – Chris was no where near the banner. He was on the opposite side of the stage.
@Anonymous I’m just going by video evidence, and there is a figure that looks a whole lot like Chris that walks right to left on the video to the smaller white banner near the center of stage and joins a tug of war on the banner.
He was no where near the banner? And I quote Chris on FOX news: “I was actually standing right next to Jim”. Since Jim is stage left and the tugging occurred stage left, Chris must have been stage left.
None of this is really important other than the fact that SOMEBODY, actually 2-3 somebodies, started doing a tug of war with the protestors.
So… did I make something up? Wait for the videos from the three official cameras, I think you’ll see i’m right.
@ummm Watch the video. The banner is stage right. The podium is stage left. Thats why they have to swing the camera to the left (house left = stage right) in order to see it.
@Anonymous there are two banners. the action all went down stage left by the smaller banner. they should release the official videos so we can see what really happened and not speculate on who picked up and body slammed who.
@yah he’s right. there was a yellow and white one–2 banners.
i think univision and a couple others have videos, as well as people using cameras on their cell etc. hopefully they’ll come out soon
@Oldguy I counted more than one skinny hipster…maybe that is your problem. I suggest you try rushing a stage at a concert and see what happens. The security was deplorable and there was absolutely NO reason to get on the stage…period. The good news is that my two preteen kids got to see how NOT to stage a protest presented by an Ivy League schoool… nice job!
@Anonymous troops redeployed to NYC to counter the insurgency
@wow so now, we’re domestic terrorists
@he was referring to the kids who stormed (and they weren’t all kids, a lot were outside folks) as constituents of the new ‘domestic terrorists’
overblown rhetoric and gilchrist came off as silly. scarily kulawik almost sounded reasonable and actually looked under control
@Its on right now
@there's still time they keep previewing it before commercial breaks and there’s 15 mins left…why would you say it’s been canned?
@hannity and colmes seem to have canned gilchrist and chrissy k.
they’re rolling a taped james baker interview…
cu had it’s 15 minutes, errr, 93 seconds of fame
@joey what the hell is wrong with you liberals? claiming free speech but you mob dissenters? Wow, french revolution anywhere? you guys are freaking animals. thanks for tarnishing columbia university’s name for all of us. animals.
@Anonymous I liked how Bill O’Reilly implicated the Columbia faculty in what happened last night too, as if they were there punching people. Then Marvin Setwart busting out the inflammatory lies backed up by “I was informed that…”. Talk about journalistic integrity.
@olbermann wow. o’reilly just tried pwning bollinger. and failed. failed miserably. but he did call columbia a radical leftist university. and failed at that too.
@marvin steward arabic writting on banner denied holocaust!!!!
FUCK YOU MARVIN
@Far and away... the funniest bit was when he flashed Presbo’s picture for one second and said he was hiding under his desk. It was still enough time to appreciate the magical Presbo hair though.
@the real question is why Bwog posted a 9 am interview at 5 pm…
@Anonymous HOLY SHIT! He claimed the arabic said “the holocaust did not exist”. WOW.
@marvin stewart claims columbia students called him “nigger”
WTF???
he’s and effing liar
@um? according to foxnews, the board of cr will be on ‘the factor’ and not h&c. any thoughts?
@ugh bwog, mark my words, if you dont upload the videos of this shit when it gets on the internet, im never reading you again.
@it looks like the transcript hasn’t been released yet http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ldt.html
@kid my parents called to tell me lou dobbs was talking about columbia.
bwog has transcript?
@how about some of that footage of kulawik kicking someone in the face
@yeah right kulawik never kicked somebody in the face. the only thing i’ve heard is he clipped someone while trying to rush off thee stage when about 20 savages were rushing at him
@was bwog just knocked out for a little while by an instalanche? i know that instapundit only recently linked onto a post which ends up at bwogs coverage.