Directly after council members had finished taking roll call on Tuesday, students from Green Action and Missourians Organized for Reform and Empowerment entered the meeting at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark. The students unfurled a banner proclaiming, “Coal is never clean” and sang, “Clean coal is a dirty lie.”

“Clean coal doesn’t exist, and we’re opposed to the lie that there’s any way to use coal safely without hurting communities,” said Green Action member Harry Alper, a senior.

The group was escorted from the hotel by two officers from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. The Hilton’s head of security had not yet arrived at the event.

According to Officer Mana, the situation was “no big deal,” and students were polite and peaceful as they left the building.

Following the disturbance, the council chose to cancel the meeting, but members stayed to enjoy the private lunch they had already ordered.

The National Coal Council is a federal advisory committee to the U.S. secretary of energy. The meeting, which was open to the public, was intended to review an ongoing study on the use of Carbon Capture and Sequestration technologies.

The CEOs of St. Louis-based Peabody Energy and Arch Coal are both on the council and are members of the University’s board of trustees.

Sophomore Claire Christensen of Green Action urged students in an e-mail to join the rally.

“[T]here is NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN COAL and the coal industry should not be operating AT ALL,” Christensen wrote. “As students of Washington University, we need to ‘clarify’ our position to our Board of Trustees members and let them know we condemn their actions.”

Because of an error on the Federal Register, Green Action arrived to the Hilton more than an hour early and arrived back at campus later than expected.

“I missed the first half of my class on the civil rights movement, but my professor knows I’m there to learn from that movement and apply it to the climate justice movement,” Alper said. “There are other people who have to make much bigger sacrifices than being late for a class.”

After being escorted out, Green Action members continued their protest outside of the Hilton, where they engaged with passersby and various news outlets.

Members of the council declined to comment.

Aviya Lanis | Student Life

If the protest were about gun rights and gun rights alone, their demonstration would have be rather fitting. Like it or not, lining up with guns to protest is a pretty logical response to infringements on gun rights. Lining up on the banks of the Potomac with guns simply because you’re not a fan of anything Barrack Obama has done, conversely, is a horrendous idea.

The more radical elements of the political right have taken guns and elevated them to an iconic representation of liberty. Instead of considering guns as simply another right, in their minds guns are the embodiment of their resistance to the government. Their own paranoid belief is that weapons are the only thing keeping the big, bad government at bay. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What these increasingly dangerous gun nuts are doing is undermining their own credibility and future ability to demonstrate. Right now, they stand on the verge of crossing the line into criminal territory. Do not get me wrong, the U.S. Constitution provides for “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The problem is not that they’re lining up with guns trying to intimidate the government. Instead it’s a question of what’s next. What actions will the rampant paranoia of these people lead to?

The Second Amendment clearly states, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” People ought to be free to purchase a gun to hunt with or use for their own defense. Where rationality diverges from the thinking of these people is the notion that we need guns to defend ourselves from the government. That sentiment will only lead to some mentally unbalanced person causing the gun mob to become violent at the worst possible time: while they’re parading their loaded guns around the borders of the capital.

These so-called defenders of guns and liberty ought to do a little more research into the actual law of the land before they go pushing the boundaries of peaceful assemblage. The Insurrection Act of 1807, twice amended and now restored to its original language, provides the President of the United States the power to use armed forces to suppress demonstrations or rebellious groups who interfere with the ability of the government to carry out the law. So far, the paranoid, gun-toting right wing has yet to break any laws. They just stand in armed opposition to Federal law. But what happens if or when they go too far? Violent acts against congressmen have already happened in retaliation to voting for or against various pieces of legislation. It’s merely a hop, skip and a jump until these people do something really stupid while they’re waving their weapons around and the military is called in.

Demonstrating against the government is a freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, but it must be peaceful. Trying to intimidate Congress and the President with weapons is a recipe for disaster. People need to start thinking with their heads. They may not like what the government has been doing recently—half of America hates what’s going on—but they need to be smart enough to realize that shaking an angry fist and a loaded weapon at the White House is a futile and dangerous idea. Daniel Almond’s gun nuts need to step back a bit. Waving a Sig P226 around in the air will at best accomplish nothing and, at worst, get someone arrested or killed. If people want to protest the government, they need to be rational and non-threatening about it. Right now, the only thing their guns are doing is blowing holes in their credibility and making our nation a little less secure.

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

The People’s Settlement is a five-day event in which participants camp out at Poelker Park at night and participate in demonstrations during the day on issues ranging from LBGT rights to environmental ethics.

This series of demonstrations draws from a variety of local activism groups and fosters a collaborative effort to combat what participants identify as “frustrations with corporate control of politics.”

Around 20 organizations are involved in the demonstrations, and hundreds of people are expected to attend throughout the five days.

Some of the participating activist groups include Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), Climate Action St. Louis, Washington University Co-Op and the Catholic Action Network.

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

Students and community members camp out at Poelker Park as a part of a five-day event filled with protests targeted at corporate power and influence.

Junior Harry Alper, who plans to stay at the settlement all five nights, said the environment at the settlement is equally important to the event’s mission as are the demonstrations.

There will be free food and some forms of entertainment each night.

“I am really excited about the settlement itself, the bonding opportunity and the knowledge-sharing opportunity, and learning how a settlement like this operates,” Alper said.

Sophomore Deanna Parrish said she decided to attend the nightly planning meeting on Wednesday because she was interested in activism in the St. Louis community.

“I am interested as to how the few mobilizers on campus have been interested in expanding outward into the city and city movements and what [activism] is like outside of campus,” Parrish said.

Sophomore Mariana Oliver had never participated in an activism event before and was encouraged by Naomi Klein—an activist known for her criticism of corporate globalization who spoke on campus Wednesday afternoon—to become involved.

“I have never been part of an activism movement before, this is my first time and I figured it’s an awesome way to start it,” Oliver said.

The People’s Settlement started with a sit-in at Bank of America to protest the recent foreclosures. Protesters chanted in the lobby and demanded that an executive come down and speak with two customers whose homes were being foreclosed.

MORE Organizer Hannah Allison said the event was successful and the bank’s national office agreed to send someone from Washington, D.C., to St. Louis to meet with people and explain their practices.

“We were able to secure at least the beginning of our demands—the beginning of our process of how to meet these demands,” Allison said.

On Thursday morning approximately 35 people protested outside Laclede Gas Company’s office on Olive Street to speak out against the company’s LGBT policies.

According to a survey conducted by the Human Rights Campaign, Laclede Gas tied with Exxon Mobile in 2009 as the worst company in the nation for gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people to work for.

On Friday the demonstrations will continue with a protest against Peabody Coal—the world’s largest private-sector coal company.

According to participants, it is important for people to be engaged with the community because St. Louis is the home to many major corporations. Demonstrators said that these companies feel they can get away with unethical practices because there is not yet a strong movement in St. Louis that will stand up against them.

“[Students] are in this city and we are purchasing customers of these companies in this city,” sophomore Arielle Klagsbrun said. “A lot of people don’t know that St. Louis is the hub of corporations who do a lot of not-so-awesome things.”

The People’s Settlement schedule of events:

All demonstrations start at Poelker Park at 13th and Market streets
FRIDAY, MARCH 26
11 a.m.-1 p.m. • Peabody Coal Action
3:30-5 p.m. • Anti-War Action

SATURDAY, MARCH 27
11 a.m.-1 p.m. • Race to the Top and the Privatization of Public Education Teach In
1-3 p.m. • Privatization of Education Bake Sale

SUNDAY, MARCH 28
1-3 p.m. • Faith-Based Action Catholic Action Network
3:30-5:30 p.m. • Labor History Tour

Matt Mitgang | Student Life

Sophomore Emily Piontek stands inside of a gulag created by Wash. U. Young Americans For Liberty. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

Members of the Washington University chapter of Young Americans for Liberty erected a mock Soviet prison camp, or gulag, in front of the Women’s Building Monday morning, but were later told by a representative from Event Services to disassemble the display.

The University said in a statement Tuesday that the students had not mentioned the display when requesting the space and built the display using power tools without permission and without oversight from the facilities office. YAL members said the display was not in violation of Event Services’ policies and that while the students did use an automatic drill, Event Services did not specify in its policies that students could not use power tools.

“We feel that this was more of the administration and faculty getting upset about the display than it was about safety issues,” said junior Dirk Doebler, president of the University chapter of YAL.

YAL members built the mock gulag to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and to condemn Soviet communism and socialist regimes. The display was a four-sided wooden structure with fake barbed wire on top and Soviet Communist propaganda posters on its sides. A large sign on the structure read “Peaceful Justice Social Reeducation Clinic.”

Several students who were dressed as prisoners stood inside the mock gulag, some of them with fake blood on their clothing. Other YAL members who were dressed as Soviet soldiers patrolled around the structure. Students played Russian opera music at the display.

YAL members at the display also handed out fliers to students that detailed the history of gulags and included a passage on resisting tyranny.

After the students had finished building the display, a representative from Event Services told them they had to disassemble it.

The University statement said the display was shut down because it had not been approved and was unsafe, not because it was controversial.

“The University has a long history of accommodating disparate and often unpopular points of view and continues to support the rights of its students and faculty to express their differences and opinions, as long as the venue has been reserved, described accurately and deemed safe and free of physical risk to themselves and others,” the statement said.

Sophomore Emily Piontek, a member of the YAL who posed as a prisoner in the mock gulag, said the main purpose of the display was to raise awareness about problems with Soviet communism that are connected with the Berlin Wall. Piontek said another reason for the display was to raise concerns held by some members of the YAL that U.S. government health care reform is bringing America closer to socialism.

“I think it was mostly about the Berlin Wall, but I think certain policies that are going on today and certain things in the government, and mostly the health care plan, were reasons that we wanted to host the event,” Piontek said.

But James Wertsch, the Marshall S. Snow Professor and director of International & Area Studies, said that the emergence of communism and socialism are not big issues today and that new forms of nationalism are currently greater issues for America.

However, he said that it was appropriate for YAL to commemorate the gulag since huge numbers of people suffered in these prison camps.

“If I would have stopped and talked to them and seen that it was a gulag exhibit I would have been interested, but for the reason of commemorating it, not because I’m afraid that communism is coming back,” Wertsch said.

John Burns, an area resident who is not a student but who is involved with the Washington University YAL and participated in the display, said he felt the University censored students in a manner similar to Soviet communists.

“I guess the students at Washington University were in a gulag all along, and the administration proved it through their stifling of free speech,” Burns said.

With additional reporting by John Scott

Students hold their fists in the air in protest of the America’s Energy Future conference hosted by Washington University Monday. Green Action organized a flashmob to encourage the energy executives in attendance at the conference to go to a student-led energy symposium on alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power held the same day.

I went to the St. Louis Tea Party on the 15th with very high hopes for the protest’s potential. The gathering was not, however, anything close to what I expected. Originally formed in opposition of excessive government spending, the Tea Party quickly devolved into a rant against the government and a very misunderstood economy. Let me break up my analysis of the protest into two sections. First, I will address why I went to the protest and what it ought to have been. I will then discuss why it was such a disappointment.

My motivation for going to the protest centered around the tax increase that Obama has promised. Perhaps you were duped by the president’s campaign promises that rang of “Read my lips: No new taxes!” Obama has, however, decided to raise taxes. Covering his story by saying that these will only affect the wealthiest 2 percent of taxpayers is a specious argument. Consumption, an integral part of GDP calculations, is dependent in part on the amount of free income available in the economy. In other words: People can help the economy function better by spending some of their money. This does not work when the government is taking said money out of the pockets of potential consumers. Additionally, the people with the most disposable income to spend in the economy are the wealthy. People living paycheck to paycheck are not out spending in the consumer-discretionary sector, the wealthy are! Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not and would never suggest increasing taxes on the poorest Americans. That’s a terrible idea. However, raising taxes on the wealthiest won’t help anything either.

We need a more responsible government that spends less. The latest round of economic “stimulus” was all but pointless. Think of it this way: A battalion of infantry armed with $100 bills cannot do a job designed for a sniper with a roll of quarters. Small-scale interventions into specific markets could have been useful. Conversely, throwing bags of money at the economy doesn’t help. It was for these reasons, taxes and unchecked spending, that I attended the demonstration.

There was a stark difference between what I hoped for and what I witnessed. Upon arriving, I was overwhelmed by the size of the crowd and the idiocy of the protest’s master of ceremonies. Roughly twenty minutes after my arrival, the M.C. called for the crowd to chant “No More AIG…” I can understand that it didn’t make for great press coverage when American International Group was forced to borrow in excess of $150 billion from the Federal Reserve. The money was, however, absolutely necessary. While the crowd was busy spray-painting over the AIG logo on an English Manchester United football jersey, I took the time to chant (softly) “Richard Jesse Markel for public understanding of basic economic principles and the credit derivatives market.”

If AIG failed, the economy would have come to a screeching halt. The sheer amount of money that would have been lost by AIG’s counterparties, had it failed, would have crippled the money supply. Having read the work of renowned Chicago economist Milton Friedman, I can safely say that history shows a clear correlation between drops in the money supply and economic catastrophes. That crowd should have asked itself whether it enjoyed being employed or being able to pay for their children’s food. If the answer is “yes,” then perhaps they ought to reconsider their position on AIG.

Fiscal policy is unwieldy—that much is clear. This does not mean that the government should spend recklessly. However, on the other side of the equation, it does not mean that masses of people should stand up against a policy that they do not understand. I won’t go as far as to say that it’s un-American. It is, however, dumb. Protests succeed when people are informed. This one failed because of a lack of understanding.

There were no chairs and, to make matters worse, some people had dressed for warmer weather. But no one seemed to care. First, a young man spoke, presenting careful quotes from Dr. Pipes to let everyone know what it was we were objecting to. Yes, we were all dedicated to the freedom of speech. But hateful speech can incite violence (just as the recent distribution of the movie “Obsession” in Ohio was followed by attacks on a Mosque). An off-campus participant, who introduced himself as a local Egyptian American, thanked the Safe Zone representative who had brought a message of support from the LGBT community. He said, as a Muslim, “I would like to express my support for the safety of the gay community because tolerance cannot be a selective gift. It has to be extended to every single member of the community.” There was applause.

By the time my turn came to speak, I was already energized with the warmth emanating from the group. No one had been angry. No one had said anything nasty about Dr. Pipes. No one had even spoken with a slightly raised voice. It was all about making sure everyone was allowed into the safe zone of a community free to extend its umbrella of safety. I looked at the young and bright faces forming a semi-circle around me and said, “You are the hearts and minds of tomorrow!” I don’t even know how I thought of the metaphor, but it made perfect sense. I was looking at the face, rather faces, of tomorrow—the tomorrow I was hoping to see. I said that the invitation to Dr. Pipes and the distribution of free copies of the film “Obsession” happened because Missouri is a swing state, and we are about two weeks away from the election. Our real problems, I added, are world poverty, rampant corporate greed, the economic crisis and the climate change. “These are the problems we need to solve to save the planet in our safekeeping. And to solve these global problems,” I concluded, “we need each other’s help, not hate.”

Many others spoke, including a Jewish student anxious to point out that hate speech against Muslims should not be done in the name of support for Israel. “This is not right,” she insisted, “and [it] is not going to help Israel.” Then others spoke. I cannot describe every one, but I must mention the soft-spoken Muslim student in an elegant hat and scarf. She shared the recent memory of praying in an interfaith camp. “The water had run out,” she said. “And Jewish and Christian women brought us water in jugs so we [could] perform our ablution before the prayer.” She told us that that gift of water transformed her prayer.

“I do not know what you achieved inside the hall where you spoke, Dr. Pipes” I thought on the way home. “But out here, on the lawn, we came together and celebrated the tolerance and diversity which has given Washington University a distinct character. I do not know how you define yourself either. But we know we are the faces of tomorrow!”

Prominent conservative activist and Middle East expert Daniel Pipes took the podium last night in front of an audience of more than 50 people inside the Laboratory Sciences Building with a speech titled “Vanquishing the Islamist Enemy and Helping the Moderate Muslim Ally.”

Pipes’ views on the threat of Islamism—or the view that Islam is not only a religion but also a political ideology—have been met with controversy from people across the political spectrum.

According to sophomore Caleb Posner, the events manager for the Conservative Leadership Association, which hosted the speech, Pipes’ words are always truthful.

“What he says is 100 percent grounded in fact and is the product of incredible scholarship,” Posner said. “However, what he says is often politically incorrect at times.”

Pipes’ address centered on what he believes is the immediate need to confront radical Islam before it significantly impacts Western democracy and the Western way of life.

Pipes quickly made the distinction that not all Muslims are Islamists and that to classify all as such would be erroneous. He later did state, however, that based on his research and surveys, one in every eight Muslims worldwide is an Islamist, equaling about 150 million Islamists.

“It is an enormous mistake to say that all Muslims are terrorists,” Pipes said. “One in eight Muslims seeks application in its totality of Islamic law.”

Pipes frequently compared the scope of danger of radical Islam to that of communism and fascism. Although Islamists have no official state, Islamism has a larger following than communism and fascism and an evolving ideology.

“It is the third great ideological movement of our time,” he said. “They [Islamists] have shown in a way that communism and fascism have been unable to; they have shown an ability to evolve.”

According to Pipes, there are two options for defeating the threat of radical Islam—cooperation or confrontation.

“The problem is that we can’t address their grievances because they seek to change who we are. Confrontation is the inevitable path,” he said. “We have to win using all the methods at our disposal.”

In order to defeat this ideology, Pipes said, the moderate Muslims will have to play an important role by offering alternatives to Islamists and showing that radical Islam is a failed ideology.

“It is Muslims who will provide the solution to this problem eventually,” Pipes said.

Pipes’ visit was funded by the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Leadership Institute at a cost that Posner would not disclose because it was a negotiated price. Part of the contract stipulated that Pipes must be provided with a bodyguard during his stay in St. Louis.

“It would have cost considerably less than Karl Rove, and we did not seek funds from the school,” Posner said.

Not everyone on campus welcomed Pipes’ visit. The Washington University Peace Coalition, Pride Alliance, College Democrats, Amnesty International, Students for a Democratic Society, Safe Zones and the Muslim Students Association all participated in a vigil-style protest outside Lab Sciences during Pipes’ speech.

“I’m protesting because the man speaking is perpetuating a general misconception about Muslims,” freshman Ali Karamustafa, a Muslim and Safe Zones member, said.

With the theme “Stop Hate,” the protests kept a somber tone to show respect for the gravity of the issue, according to junior Becky Hufstader, vice president of the College Democrats and a member of the Peace Coalition.

“He preaches hate and fear as a way of reaching political ends. His major message is about the dangers of Islam and we just feel that that is really inflammatory and unnecessary,” Hufstader said. “Our goal isn’t to antagonize him so much as to educate the people who may be attending the event.”

Posner, however, said that it is not beneficial, and even hypocritical to their causes, for certain student groups to protest Pipes, because one of Pipes’ main goals is to help the moderate Muslims who are “silenced by the threat of violence.”

“Dr. Pipes at no point decrees all or even most Muslims as radicals or terrorists,” Posner said. “If the Muslim Students Association wished to claim that Islam is a religion of peace and that they are a group of moderate interpretation of their faith, then it would behoove themselves to align themselves with Dr. Pipes.”

In response to Pride Alliance’s participation in the protests, Posner said that Sharia—the legal code that Islamists support—seeks the death penalty for homosexuals.

Junior Audrey King, co-president of Pride Alliance, said that members of the group came out to protest because they have been used as a wedge issue before.

“It’s really important to have a coalition effort with other people who experience the same kind of discrimination,” King said.

Junior Joel Wood, a prior service Marine, attended the speech and said that Pipes is not actually a radical thinker and that he provides a “pretty even-keeled approach.”

“It really echoed what I saw in Iraq,” Wood said. “The few extremists tend to make a bad name for the mass of moderates.”

Before the speech at 9 p.m., Wood and four other students had the opportunity to talk with Pipes over dinner at Ibby’s Bistro in the Danforth University Center.

According to Wood, Pipes said that although his life has never been seriously threatened, he is constantly protected by a bodyguard and places himself in danger to deliver his message.

“[This] points to how serious and how touchy the subject is,” Wood said.

After the speech, there was an open question-and-answer session in which students asked more specific questions or tried to challenge Pipes’ stance.

Pipes was unrelenting in his responses and said the rise of Islamists is an unparalleled phenomenon that needs to be defeated.

“I don’t see this radical Islam as parallel to anything in Christianity, Judaism or any other religion,” he said. “Ultimately, it is a battle of civilization versus barbarism like it was with communism and fascism. Will we be free or will we be slaves?”

—With additional reporting by Michelle Merlin

Correction
An earlier version of this article incorrectly quoted peace coalition member Becky Hufstader as saying that Dr. Pipes’s message was “inflammatory and necessary.” In fact, Hufstader called Dr. Pipes’s message “inflammatory and unnecessary.” Student Life regrets the error.