MEChA Swipes Newspapers

This just in from WND:

Police at Pasadena City College in Southern California say they have no suspects in the theft of 5,000 copies of the campus newspaper despite a claim by students identifying themselves as members of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan – MEChA – saying they were responsible.

Kris Calnon, the Campus Courier's distribution manager, noticed an empty newsstand on his way to the newspaper office, then a student reported seeing someone take a whole bundle from a different newsstand.

While Calnon left to investigate, Courier photographer Daniel Lottes stayed behind. A few minutes later, four or five people entered the office carrying large black garbage bags.

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The woman handed him a letter, saying, "This is for the Courier staff – it will explain everything in the letter."

The letter accompanying over 2,000 torn copies of the Courier read:

We were very dissapointed at the lack of coverage based on our high school conference. It has dishearted us to see no full length article, and a photo that did not represent our program.

Months of hard work went into our high school conference, and it was our hope to see recognition of our hard work in the campus newspaper.

We see this as a representitive example of the attitude the Campus Courier has toward higher education, and towards MEChA.

As students of P.C.C., we can not accept this issue of the Campus Courier.

– MEChA

I am still in America, right? "We can not accept this issue of the Campus Courier?" WTF???

I can't be surprised, mind you, given my own recent personal experiences with people who want to squelch the First Amendment rights of people who don't say what they want to hear. Or my own recent personal experiences with people trying to intimidate me -- twice last week --because I have the guts to stand up for what I think is right.

MEChA has been accused before of stealing newspaers at other colleges.

In 2002, MEChA was implicated in the theft of thousands of copies of conservative newspapers at U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Davis after articles critical of the organization were printed.

MEChA members were accused of taking 7,500 copies of the campus paper at the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley and returning them in garbage bags.

I guess if your goal is to take over a large portion of the southwestern United States, taking over the editorial rights of a few college newspapers is no big deal.

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