Jamieson Group Brings Out the Kooks

Here's a pretty amusing little article on Les Jamieson's latest event at St. Marks.

April Fools’ Day fell this spring on Palm Sunday and it was a solemn occasion at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery. There, after Sunday services, some 300 apparent true believers packed the sanctuary in the early afternoon and heard politically charged conspiracy theories surrounding the fall of the World Trade Center five-and-a-half years ago.

Ralph Schoenman, the militant left-wing co-host of WBAI radio’s “Taking Aim” program, was the draw for the varied crowd of aging beatniks, East Village couples and singletons and assorted punk anarchists and antiwar activists in black T-shirts. They paid $8 apiece to be told that the tragic events of that day represented an “inside job” and “terror at the top” of the U.S. government.

And guess who introduced Schoenman?

He was introduced by Downtown radical lawyer Lynne Stewart, out on bail while appealing a 2005 conviction for aiding a violent Islamic group on behalf of her convicted terrorist client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind and diabetic Egyptian cleric. She embraced Schoenman and referred to him in biblical terms as “Our Jeremiah.” He, in turn, said Stewart was among the government targets “who spoke the truth about 9/11 and then were deprived” of their liberty.

Yep, they managed to get one of the few American citizens convicted of aiding and abetting terrorists! Of course, the rest of the movement is trying to do the same thing.