berkeley burns.....

[Econoline]

...and I suspect you're WRONG about that. (If I'm one of the ones you suspect, I can tell you unequivocally that you're wrong about me.) I also suspect there may be a bit of projection going on in your case...

[rubato]

"...
Because while they won't admit it (even to themselves), I suspect many here SUPPORT the quashing of opposing political views.

It confounds sense to suggest that people who come to a board where they are certain to hear opposing views would want to quash them.


yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

I'm going to get more popcorn. Anybody else want some?

Is it buttered? Sure, I'll have some.

thanks.

[rubato]

Some valuable thoughts from Brad DeLong:

http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/02/ ... .html#more

Last night, February 1, while I was teaching, a number of people came to the Berkeley campus to hear a speaker invited by the Berkeley College Republicans. A larger number came to peacefully demonstrate against the speaker--to express their belief that the speaker was not invited because people thought that he had great and important insights about politics and moral philosophy, but rather because he is a specialist in making Asian, Hispanic, African-American, Muslim, and other minorities feel small and unsafe.

About 20 "anarchists" used violence to upset this peaceful civil society gathering, and the police decided that the danger to life and limb was too great to allow the talk to proceed. This is a great loss: a university is, first, a safe space for ideas, and if members of the university to whom it has delegated the power to invite speakers do invite a speaker, that speaker should speak. This is part of a pattern of protests in Berkeley being disrupted by "anarchists" with goals unrelated to those of the university and its community. This is a shame. You cannot learn anything except by listening to the great insights of people who think differently from you: that is what a university is for. The "anarchists" do not understand what a university is.

A university is both a safe space in which ideas are to be expressed and a space in which those ideas are to be evaluated. When one sets forth ideas or causes ideas to be set forth in a university, one is doing so because one believes that these ideas are--potentially, at least--great ones. In so doing, members of the university are accountable only to, as Berkeley Professor Ernst Kantorowicz said in the 1940s, "their conscience and their God".

If the members of the Berkeley Republican Club believe that their invited speaker has ideas about politics and moral philosophy that are--even potentially--great, I really wish that they would explain why they think they are great. They have a duty to the university to do so. But perhaps they invited their speaker because they hoped he would make African-American, Asian, Hispanic, Muslim, and other minority members of the university feel small and unsafe. If so they need to examine their consciences and pray to their gods, and think hard about whether they understand the purpose of a university.

For a university is not just a safe space for ideas to be expressed, and a place where such ideas are then to be examined and assessed, but it is also a safe space for scholars. All members of the university have a duty to make all other members feel welcome, and feel that they belong. Violations of that basic courtesy also cast doubt on whether people understand the purpose of a university, and, indeed, whether their time ought to be spent outside one.
* * * *

We will see if I get to say this, or if I get pushed off by Trump and the Australian Prime Minister.

[Econoline]

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc

(This tactic also makes it harder to tell the legitimate protesters from the agents provocateurs. Just sayin')

[Joe Guy]

That's probably enough.

Thanks....

[wesw]

fascists in black shirts.

where the hell were the boys in blue?

[Bicycle Bill]

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc

(This tactic also makes it harder to tell the legitimate protesters from the agents provocateurs. Just sayin')

Not really.
Legitimate protesters are the ones who have the same viewpoint as your own.
Agents provocateurs are those other guys.

-"BB"-

[Econoline]

...and just how, pray tell, do you discern the viewpoint of the small group of people wearing (to quote from my Wiki link) "black clothing, scarves, sunglasses, ski masks, motorcycle helmets with padding, or other face-concealing and face-protecting items"--the ones smashing windows, burning cars, and getting way more media attention than the thousands of peaceful demonstrators who are NOT doing those things?

[Long Run]

Legitimate protesters are the ones who have the same viewpoint as your own.
Agents provocateurs are those other guys.

Are you just joking? This has become a significant problem where the vast majority of protestors are well within their 1st amendment rights but the hooligans use them as a screen to commit their crimes. It is actually one of the big challenges in organizing a protest because as Econo notes, the story becomes about the criminals and not the protest.

[Bicycle Bill]

Legitimate protesters are the ones who have the same viewpoint as your own.
Agents provocateurs are those other guys.

Are you just joking? This has become a significant problem where the vast majority of protestors are well within their 1st amendment rights but the hooligans use them as a screen to commit their crimes. It is actually one of the big challenges in organizing a protest because as Econo notes, the story becomes about the criminals and not the protest.

Partly joking, partly not.  Maybe one of us is unclear as to just what an agent provocateur (provoking agent) is.

To me, the guy who waits for all hell to break loose so he can take advantage of the breakdown of law and order for his own purposes is at best an opportunist and at worst a good-for-nothing scumbag criminal.  On the other hand, an agent provocateur is someone who urges or incites criminal or rash activity.  He's the guy who rouses the rabble to march on the Bastille, or occupy the Dean's office, or block the streets in a protest march, or even encourages you, after that seventh Jack and Coke on the night of your bachelor party, to get that big old heart with your fiance's name in it tattooed on your arm.

Take the American revolution.  John Hancock, Thomas Paine, and many of the other members of the First Continental Congress who encouraged and fomented rebellion against the Crown were quite likely thought (by the British, who were ostensibly in charge) to be agents provocateurs; we Americans — or at least those who thought that casting off the British yoke and engaging in armed conflict against the British with the goal of becoming an independent nation was a good idea — looked at them more as 'freedom fighters'.  It all depends upon whose ox is being gored.  And, since the colonists eventually emerged victorious (and because history is written by the winners), the peccadilloes of Messrs. Paine, Revere, Adams, et al are excused and they are today considered "founding fathers" rather than "criminal rebels".

Then too, when it comes right down to it, the guy whose business got looted, or his car burned, or merely has to sweep up the glass and replace his broken windows probably doesn't much give a damn WHO was throwing the rocks or the Molotov cocktails or the reasons why; he's just pissed that he got caught in the middle and would just as soon hang 'em all from the nearest streetlamp.

-"BB"-

[Scooter]

Agent provocateur carries the implication of someone working for the other side e.g. someone employed by the police to incite violence at an otherwise peaceful demonstration so the cops have an excuse to move in and break some heads. In this case, agent provocateur would suggest someone from the Breitbart camp posing as protestors committing mayhem in order to discredit the opposition to Milo's presence.

[Joe Guy]

I'll go with Scooter's description since that's the actual definition.

[Lord Jim]

In this case, agent provocateur would suggest someone from the Breitbart camp posing as protestors committing mayhem in order to discredit the opposition to Milo's presence.

Which would be just as ridiculous as saying that all the violence and vandalism committed by people claiming to be Trump supporters was actually committed by Trump opponents...

(Which wes seems to believe...)

[Guinevere]

UC Berkeley booked Milo to speak that night. The university believes in free speech, from all sides and all viewpoints. Note also it was the Berkeley Republicans sponsoring the event. If the University didn't support diverse viewpoints would such an entity even exist?

The University had little to no control over the people who protested, even less so if there were those in the crowd paid to incite and indeed engage in violence (who should be arrested and punished, no matter who they are).

Par usuel, the little minion missed the point entirely.

[Lord Jim]

This has become a significant problem where the vast majority of protestors are well within their 1st amendment rights but the hooligans use them as a screen to commit their crimes.

righto...

What is a Black Bloc? The tactic that unleashed chaos in Berkeley

Swarms of people dressed in black invaded what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration against right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulous on Wednesday evening.

The group tossed smoke bombs, set fires and started fights on the University of California - Berkeley campus where Yiannopoulous was slated to speak. He never would.

The protest's organizers, the Berkeley Against Trump coalition, said the peaceful acts of the 1,500 demonstrators were marred by 50 to 75 anti-fascist Black Bloc protestors.

Outside of Berkeley, media outlets have linked Black Blocs to a number of modern protests, most recently in efforts opposing President Donald Trump. The Nation credits a Black Bloc protestor with punching alt-right leader Richard Spencer in the face on Trump's inauguration day. The Washington Post said Black Blocs were involved with violent protests in Washington, D.C. on inauguration day and in Portland following Trump's election win.

On Wednesday, Twitter users used the term in describing the protesters at Berkeley.

Black Bloc, is a tactic, not a group. Those who practice it often wear black and cover their face with masks. They usually leave a wake of destruction.

In a 2015 article published in Police Magazine, author Kory Flowers said anarchists use protests such as the ones in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting death of Michael Brown, to launch their signature "chaos- and havoc-laden tactics." The article described Black Bloc strategy as "throngs of criminal anarchists all dress in black clothing in an effort to appear as a unified assemblage, giving the appearance of solidarity for the particular cause at hand."

Black Bloc gained attention in the United States in 1999 after violent protests at a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, according to a 2001 history of the tactic on the anarchist news website, A-Infos. The reason for the dress, wrote the history's author Daniel Dylan Young, was to "fend off police attacks, without being singled out as individuals for arrest and harassment later on."

Hundreds of people were arrested in the Seattle riots, which involved anarchists vandalizing businesses.

Young said Black Blocs spread in Europe in the 1980s as a "popular resistance to the police state and the New World Order." About 3,000 people engaged in a Black Bloc protest in 1987, according to A-Infos, when President Ronald Reagan visited Berlin.

Erica West, a Berkeley grad student and a member of the Berkeley Against Trump coalition, stressed the group doesn't support the violence.

"We didn't anticipate the violence," she said, adding she was disappointed that "the media attention has been skewed so heavily toward that."

However, the group is happy Yiannopoulous' speech was cancelled, which was the coalition's goal. West said the group, formed in the fall semester, gathered support for the Yiannopoulous protest during an inauguration day demonstration. For weeks, West said, the group urged the school's administration to cancel the event.

In a statement, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks condemned the violence, which he said was committed by more than 100 armed people using paramilitary tactics. Campus administration pulled in dozens of extra police officers to help control the event, but weren't prepared for the "unprecedented," he said.

Dirks assured the campus is committed to free speech.

"We deeply regret that the violence unleashed by this group undermined the First Amendment rights of the speaker as well as those who came to lawfully assemble and protest his presence," the statement read.

But West slammed Dirks for denouncing the violence, something she said he could have avoided.

"It's extremely frustrating that he's condemning the violence when he had every opportunity to cancel the event and stop this from happening," she said.[So in Ms. West's view, the fault for the violence rests with the University administration for failing to cancel the speech... ]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /97393870/

So apparently the objective of the Berkeley Against Trump coalition was not just to protest against the speech or the ideas of Mr. Yiannopoulous, or to show community opposition to his beliefs, but to shut the event down, and prevent him from speaking...

They had different tactics than the cowardly Black Bloc thugs, but they shared the same objective...

[Bicycle Bill]

I am a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles (look us up ... http://www.foe.com).  Every year we have a national convention somewhere within the United States.  Not that it's likely, but if President Trump (I still throw up in my mouth a little bit every time I type or say that phrase) would be asked to be a keynote speaker I would respectfully request that this invitation be rescinded.

Not because I don't support Trump, or because I (currently) have strong Democratic leanings, or because I think he's a nitwit, but because the four cardinal principles of the Fraternal Order of Eagles are Liberty, Truth, Justice, and Equality.  Trump certainly does not exemplify 'Truth' or 'Equality', and with him as our president 'Justice' is on the critical list (he seems to be OK with 'Liberty', as long as it's for the "correct" people).  He may indeed be the POTUS and due all the respect that the office commands, but in terms of Trump as an individual I have no use for him in any manner.

Now, if the Grand Aerie officials persisted in their intentions to allow him to speak, I would not disrupt the proceedings.  At that point I would be free to choose not to attend (not that I would likely be missed), or to attend in stony silence and refuse to participate in any applause or other show of honor or respect.  And maybe that's the same thing that should have happened in Berkeley.  There can be nothing worse for a speaker and nothing that shows disapproval more clearly than for someone to be speaking to empty chairs or a silent audience with their arms folded across their chests.

-"BB"-

[Burning Petard]

BB, another effective tactic that is completely non violent is to stand and face away from the speaker. The supporters may object that the standees are blocking their view, but it is non-violent. The two times I have participated in such a demonstration, the speaker found it very disconcerting. 'Course, the speaker was not all that experienced with gatherings of opponents either. The second time he just walked off the platform when we stood.

An observation I would like to make is that most all of these 'tactics' are ineffective, when it comes to changing the views of the majority of the community. I think that is the objective and I am ignorant of how it is done. The NY Times, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post have all been united in an editorial view-point that opposes private ownership of firearms for at least 60 years. This long-term, concerted effort from what many identify as the influential information media in the nation has been ineffective. Usual mass marketing assumptions do not work. When cigarette ads were banned from tv, cigarette sales did not change. That is a dirty little secret of the advertising industry.

On the other hand, It is an interesting puzzle to observe GLBT marriage in America. The consensus view on this seems to have changed very quickly. Here in Delaware it went from absolutely no, to legal partnership, to just get a marriage license like anybody else in less than three years.

snailgate

[rubato]

UC Berkeley booked Milo to speak that night. The university believes in free speech, from all sides and all viewpoints. Note also it was the Berkeley Republicans sponsoring the event. If the University didn't support diverse viewpoints would such an entity even exist?

The University had little to no control over the people who protested, even less so if there were those in the crowd paid to incite and indeed engage in violence (who should be arrested and punished, no matter who they are).

Par usuel, the little minion missed the point entirely.

Berkeley Republicans endorsed Yiannopulous (SP?) The national organization endorsed Trump. Quite the record they have going there.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Wow rube, that's quite a bit of news...

Do you have a link to where either the Berkeley CRs or the National CR organization "endorsed" Yiannopoulos?

Or are you just lying your ignorant, dishonest, smearing ass off again?

I'm going with Door # 2....