"Free" Speech rally next Saturday - cancelled! (updating/reposting)

[ceelove]

UPDATE: This event is a no-go! Many thousands of people expressed interest in counter-protesting, most of the speakers cancelled, and Mayor Walsh released a statement that the event was not welcome here.

I expect there will still be a rally against Nazis and white supremacist terrorism that day, and also there are related things like a "teach-in" (presumably about direct action and safer protesting) referenced in links in comments.

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Some of the same groups that fomented white supremacist hatred and terror in Charlottesville today will be in Boston next Saturday.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheNewRight/comments/6r4e3h/boston_free_speech_rally_august_19th/

Comments

[kathmandu]

Wheee! A counter-protest so powerful, it doesn't even have to take place!

[kelkyag]

Do you have a reference handy for the cancellation, perchance?

[siderea]

http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/08/organizers_tweet_boston_free_s.html

Honestly, it sounds so poorly organized, nobody can tell if it's cancelled or not.

ETA: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/08/14/speakers-far-right-rally-dropping-out/yNOrTdKhl9up3osadFfUzK/story.html

One of the headliners is still intending to show up as of that piece, but three have cancelled.

[gingicat]

Here's Walsh's statement:
http://www.wbur.org/news/2017/08/14/boston-common-free-speech-rally

One of the things he said was that *no* permits were pulled for Saturday. Anti-hate rally organizers should do that as well.

[desireearmfeldt]

NPR this morning sounded like maybe something was still going on, it was hard to tell...

[secretlyironic]

Finally, some good news.

[mem_winterhill]

Yeah, I heard that. Nobody can get valid information it seems. So murky.

I just saw another piece that said it's still on: http://www.masslive.com/news/boston/index.ssf/2017/08/boston_free_speech_rally_will.html

[kelkyag]

I'm not so surprised by the lack of clarity. Once the word is out there, the momentum for a rally is no longer entirely, or possibly even much at all, under the control of the original organizers.

ETA: At least one statement of non-cancellation from ... I'm not actually sure if these are the original organizers, but it's plausible from their twitter stream? Also retweet of an un-cancellation from one of the speakers the Globe article said had cancelled.

ETA2: "Boston ‘free speech’ rally going ahead despite defections."

[aislingk15]

Seems to definitely be still on: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/08/16/boston-free-speech-rally-white-nationalists-john-medlar-charlottesville-alt-right-fight-supremacy/amp/