Pacifica Forum schedules controversial speaker again at University of Oregon

By Joseph A. Lieberman

article created on: 2010-02-16T00:00:00

The first two weeks of February brought dramatic changes in Eugene’s struggle against resurgent bigotry and anti-Semitism, not all of them for the better.

Before sunrise on Feb.1, University of Oregon janitors found swastikas spray-painted on a carpet, a computer and a television screen of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Alliance office in the Erb Memorial student union building.

This is the same building where in December Jimmy Marr delivered an inflammatory presentation before the Pacifica Forum that sparked weeks of protests, UO policy reviews and student senate confrontations.

During that appearance by Marr, a half dozen individuals from Portland and elsewhere in Oregon who were believed to represent the National Socialist Movement shouted “sieg heil” in unison prior to a showing of slides and videos of NSM rallies.

Pacifica member Valdas Anelauskas claimed the LGBTQA swastikas were more likely done by anti-Pacifica Forum student protestors “as a publicity stunt to make it look like a hate crime and falsely blame us.”

The UO Department of Public Safety was investigating.

Five days later someone left a note with an anti-Semitic slur taped to a locker at the School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

Orval Etter, the 94-year-old founder of Pacifica Forum, whose status as a UO emeritus professor gives him access to campus facilities, reacted to the swastika incidents by inviting Marr to return on Feb. 12 to deliver a lecture titled “Can Myths Harm Indigenous Peoples?”

Even some core participants of Pacifica Forum thought the newly announced event unwise. Anelauskas, Billy Rojas and Barry Sommer vowed to dissociate themselves permanently from Pacifica Forum if Etter did not rescind his decision. Rojas wrote that several members “are fearful that a Marr presentation will provoke an extreme reaction against not only him, but Pacifica.”

Rojas—a recent Pacifica Forum Speaker—said, “It’s a safe bet Jimmy will not be trying to make a point about the effects of British story-telling upon natives in New Guinea. One guess is that he might use as a theme Zionist myths and the harm they supposedly cause to Aryans in European or American cultures—this would be consistent with his world view.”

Marr had stormed out of a proposed Jan. 15 debate between himself and Rojas on the meaning of swastikas because only his wife and one other supporter were in attendance amidst an angry crowd of student opponents. His sole utterance was a shouted series of “sieg heils” as he left the campus facility.

In contrast, Marr was scheduled to be backed up on Feb. 12 by NSM supporters from Portland and other Oregon communities, according to Rojas. Rojas said, “Jimmy wants NSM people to be on the scene and has made some kind of plans in connection with that. “

In an email circulated by Pacifica Forum, Marr denies any such intent. “I have gleaned that [Rojas’] latest obsession concerns some hypothetical relationship that might exist between my upcoming presentation and National Socialist Movement. There is none...The fact that a few members of NSM have expressed an interest in attending my lecture is not an indication that any material I will be presenting has any bearing on NSM or vice-versa.”

Joseph A. Lieberman is author of “School Shootings—What Every Parent and Educator Needs to Know to Protect Our Children” (Citadel Press).