Today In Berkeley, CA

[dales]

Trump Supporters vs. The Masked Hooligans.

[Lord Jim]

Here's the story about the exercise in free speech to which Dale refers:

Arrests made as protesters clash at pro-Trump rally in Berkeley

Violence broke out and at least 20 arrests were made in Berkeley on Saturday as supporters and opponents of President Trump clashed in a public display of the deep-seated tensions still roiling the country since the November elections.

The dueling groups gathered at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, where hundreds of people on each side were separated by a makeshift orange barrier. Several fights broke out even before the noon start of the pro-Trump rally, and multiple people fired pepper spray into the crowd.

Berkeley police said they arrested 20 people on charges that included assault with a deadly weapon, several other felony assaults and two warrants stemming from investigations into violence that occurred at a similar rally last month. The confiscated items including a stun gun, Mace, knives, bear spray, an ax handle, pepper spray and a can filled with concrete. [some folks obviously came prepared to rumble]

“More arrests will be pursued as Berkeley Police review social media and video footage,” department officials said in a statement.

As the protest kicked off, most of the anti-Trump activists emptied onto Allston Way, bordering the park. The pro-Trump demonstrators stayed in the park, where people in the opposing groups threw soda cans, fruit, shoes, bottles and what appeared to be fireworks at each other. Minutes later, the makeshift barrier dividing the sides snapped, and a huge brawl broke out as both sides began punching and kicking each other.

Soon the barrier was re-established and demonstrators once again shouted at each other from a distance.

“You go back to the ’60s,” shouted one man on the pro-Trump side in a live-stream video.

“You go back to the 1400s,” retorted someone on the opposing side.

Trump protesters and anarchists waving red-and-black flags, marched around the park, periodically stopping to clash with the Trump supporters.

Dozens of officers in riot gear monitored the volatile demonstrators and occasionally lined up to block the protesters from moving in certain directions or into the streets. For the most part, however, they kept their distance — an approach local departments have utilized recently to keep heated situations from exploding into riots.

Injured people — many holding ice packs to their faces or flushing pepper spray from their eyes with milk — were ushered away from the crowd by activists who identified themselves as being there for medical support.

At one point, hundreds of pro- and anti-Trump demonstrators marched up Center Street toward Shattuck Avenue, leaving bloody and bruised participants in their wake.

One man clutched his fingers and said he thought they had been broken. Another man, tears streaming down his face, said he had walked into a gas cloud that had been set off in the street and that his eyes were burning. Witnesses said they also had to help one stabbing victim.

Ben Bergquam of Fresno emerged from the crowd with blood streaming down his face. He held a crumpled “Stop Liberal Intolerance” sign in his hand.[How'd that work out for you?]

“I got hit in the back of the head with some sticks,” he said as another activist wrapped gauze around his wound. “I don’t agree with everything Trump says, but I don’t agree with violence.”

Nearby, others gathered around a man who was lying in the grass, blood flowing from his head.

“He knows his name, he knows what day it is,” a protester said as another called for medical help.

Lincoln Smith, a 45-year-old man who came to show solidarity against Trump, acknowledged that some of the attendees were overly intense, including a woman who had accused him of being a Trump supporter because he was wearing red shoelaces.

“I’m here to support the message that hate speech is not free speech,” Smith said.[That's what I call confused thinking; this guy needs to learn what the meaning of "free speech" is]

Police said 11 people were injured and treated by paramedics from the Berkeley Fire Department. Seven were taken to local hospitals. There appeared to be no injuries to people who were not involved in the event and no reports of damage to downtown businesses, police said.

Somes businesses closed temporarily, and nearby banks boarded put their ATMs. BART closed the Downtown Berkeley Station about 1:20 p.m., citing a “civil disturbance.” It reopened at about 4:30 p.m.

Inside the park, the pro-Trump rally continued around a makeshift stage where speakers addressed a crowd of dozens waving American flags and wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats.

The rally follows violent eruptions at other recent conservative or pro-Trump events in Berkeley. In March, 10 people were arrested and many others bloodied and bruised as fistfights broke out between marchers and counterprotesters, including crowds of masked anarchists, at a rally supporting Trump at Civic Center Park. In February, a violent protest forced the cancellation of a speech at UC Berkeley by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

Concern that Saturday’s rally could turn similarly bloody led to the cancellation of the weekly farmers’ market next to Civic Center Park, marking the first non-weather-related shutdown of the popular event in 30 years.

The market’s executive director, Martin Bourque, criticized the rally beforehand as likely to accomplish little more than “shouting matches and bloodshed.”

The demonstration, billed as a peaceful, free-speech rally marking Patriots Day, was organized by a loose collective of conservative and pro-Trump groups.

Speakers included Lauren Southern, a Canadian activist who has said rape affects men more than women, and AltRight.com writer Brittany Pettibone, who has said she believes in Pizzagate, a discredited conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton.

At the Saturday rally, Southern told Berkeleyside, a local online news site, that people should “stop supporting antifa,” using a slang term for “antifascist.”

“You see them all over the media saying, ‘Should we punch Nazis? Yes, we should punch Nazis,’ when their interpretation of Nazi is anyone to the right of Marx,” she said, adding: “I totally support progressive free speech 100 percent.”

Several liberal groups organized the counterprotest in the park, promising to shut down the pro-Trump event.

Defend the Bay, a group that says it opposes the “alt-right” white nationalist movement, had suggested that protesters bring food to share, along with a mask or other covering to conceal their identity from police.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/P ... 075595.php

I couldn't find one single story about this that indicated which side had started the violence, but in most of these melees it's the anti-Trumpers that first start the rock and punch throwing...

In addition to the "anarchists" who attend for the sole purpose of raising hell, you have a lot of self-righteous nincompoops (like the confused fellow whose quote I highlighted in the article) who show up at these things not to express their views, but for the stated purpose of preventing others from expressing theirs...

These dolts seem to believe that "free speech" only applies to speech that they approve of, and they consider themselves perfectly qualified to serve as the self-appointed vigilante enforcers of what may and may not be said in the public square...

Apparently "Hate speech is not free speech" has become the code word rallying cry for later day storm troopers to justify trying to prevent views that do not have their stamp of approval from being expressed...

Whenever I hear that phrase being spoken, or see someone carrying a sign with that written on it, my reaction is, "There stands an intolerant person who is choosing to broadcast to the world that they are utterly ignorant of what free speech is all about."

[dales]

How times have changed for the worse!

[Econoline]

Meanwhile in ~200 other cities around the U.S. there were peaceful protests demanding that Trump release his tax returns...in which nobody was assaulted, nobody was hurt, and nobody was arrested. My wife and I were at the one in Chicago. And no, Mr. Trump, we were not paid.

[Lord Jim]

And no, Mr. Trump, we were not paid.

He just can't resist tweeting stupid, thin skinned petty shit that further demeans himself and his office...

there were peaceful protests demanding that Trump release his tax returns...in which nobody was assaulted, nobody was hurt, and nobody was arrested.

Well this always happens, and I really can't blame the media...

The one place where the violence occurs (disproportionately somewhere in the Bay Area ) is always going to get a disproportionate amount of coverage, because images of rock throwing, fist fights, people bleeding, tear gas and cars on fire just makes for more compelling television then people peacefully walking along with signs...

The phrase "if it bleeds it leads" is a truism...

Mayhem gets more coverage because it draws better ratings...

[Gob]

The confiscated items including a stun gun, Mace, knives, bear spray, an ax handle, pepper spray and a can filled with concrete. [some folks obviously came prepared to rubble]

FTFY!

[Gob]

Could be worse, you could live in Chicago...

[Lord Jim]

demanding that Trump release his tax returns...

I think that Trump's tax returns will ultimately become public...

But not because he will choose to release them...

One or more of the current investigations into the Trump-Russian connections will subpoena the returns (it's impossible to imagine how you could have a proper investigation into Putingate without looking at them) and after that they'll eventually be leaked...

Maybe his tax filings show income from Russian oligarchs that he doesn't want publicly known, maybe they show that he hasn't paid federal income taxes for years, maybe they show he's been exaggerating his wealth, maybe they show that he's been lying about his charitable contributions...

Or some combination of the above...

The one thing we can be absolutely sure of, to the level of metaphysical certitude, is that whatever they contain, they don't make him look good...

If they did, they'd have been released long ago...

[rubato]

It's called "free speech" and it's worth every nickel.


yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

That's another oversimplification, rubato.

Here's a really good article that provides much of the context—which most of the media missed—for those Berkeley demonstrations last Saturday. Apparently it was *NOT* "Trump Supporters vs. The Masked Hooligans" as Dale asserted in the OP; it was more like "Masked Hooligans vs Masked Hooligans". (Go to the link in the title for photos and more links.)

The Violent Clashes In Berkeley Weren't 'Pro-Trump' Versus 'Anti-Trump'
The media's oversimplification of what happened during Saturday's rally risks obscuring a long-brewing and fast-escalating conflict between the far left and the far right.
BY NATASHA LENNARD | APR 16, 2017

According to reports in mainstream news outlets like CNN, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, Saturday saw pro-Trump demonstrators clash with anti-Trump protesters in Berkeley, California, while more placid "Tax Day" marches took place around the country calling on the president to release his tax returns. The news stories offer largely the same account and framing as that given by the LA Times: "hundreds of pro-Trump demonstrators and counter-protesters clashed Saturday at a 'Patriots Day' rally… Both groups threw rocks and sticks at each other and used a large trash bin as a battering ram… Twenty-one people were arrested… Eleven people were injured."

All of this did happen. But such accounts missed the most crucial aspects of what was at stake in the Berkeley clashes, and thus fail to explain why there were aggressive altercations at all. To frame Saturday's events as a fight between supporters of the president and his denouncers roundly misses the key tensions undergirding the confrontation: that of anti-fascists versus white nationalists.

This is not to say that each or even the majority, of the hundreds of pro-Trump attendees sympathize with the Venn Diagram of white supremacist, alt-right, anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi groups which intersect with the president's broader support base. But as firsthand testimonies, numerous images and videos shared on social media can attest, explicitly racist groups and individuals were present in force, some having traveled from out of state to attend. Equally, the masked, black clad anti-fascist protesters did not amass in Berkeley to confront a gathering of people who just happened to vote for Trump. Their presence followed calls to action, which had named the specific far right and neo-Nazi alliances that were planning to attend, and indeed helped organize, the "Patriots Day" rally. The violence from both the far left and far right rested on a fulcrum that, while emphasized in the Trump era, far predates his presidency; anti-fascists have long met white supremacists with force in the streets.

Media reports relying on the "pro-Trump versus anti-Trump" framing missed some glaring and more subtle cues about the nature of Saturday's protests. Multiple demonstrators, some of whom donned Make America Great Again hats, performed Nazi salutes in full public view.

The sign reading "Da Goyim Know" is no dog whistle—it's an anti-Semitic foghorn. And it was not a lone nut job carrying the sign to express his own fringe hate. The placard was a part of a series of banners made and carried by dozens of people, all in the same design and style, but some with more veiled messages, such as "Defend America."

Images from the day shared on Twitter also show the presence of numerous flags featuring Pepe the Frog (the alt-right mascot), as well as the flag of "Kek," an alt-right, meme infused appropriation of the Nazi Ensign. A group of anti-fascist street medics who go by "Pastel Bloc" on Twitter told me that they saw members of the so-called pro-Trump crowd throwing bagels at counter-protesters as an anti-semitic taunt. One neo-Nazi, raising his right arm to Heil for the camera, carried a flag bearing the black sun of Odinism, a paganist symbol common in Nazi mythology.

The Proud Boys, an alt-right subset boasting a philosophy of "Western Chauvinism," handed out recruitment fliers and posed for pictures with members and leaders from the white supremacist group Identity Evropa, which preaches that America belongs to the white race.

The group's leader, Nathan Damigo, who was convicted in 2007 for pointing a gun at and and robbing a Muslim cab driver he believed to be Iraqi, made his presence known on Saturday. He was caught on video sucker punching a small, female-presenting anti-fascist protester in the face. Damigo has stated that, "black people are inferior to whites, genetically."

"The far right is holding it down in Berkeley right now," tweeted Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer, who was at the scene, posting an image of demonstrators swaddled in Trumpist, patriotic and explicitly far right symbolism. "Hail Victory!" tweeted neo-Nazi Richard Spencer in response.

Bauer also noted that a number of Trump supporters expressed discomfort at their co-protesters' racist and anti-semitic views and demonstrations. But it was not for these more moderate Trump supporters that the anti-fascist and anarchist groups came. As was the case in two previous instances in Berkeley since Trump's inauguration, anti-fascists were responding specifically to the presence of white nationalists and neo-Nazis. First, militant protests shut down a talk planned by far right troll Milo Yiannopolous, and then anti-fascists disrupted a March 4 rally organized by the alt-right Proud Boys.

In advance of the "Patriots Day" demonstration, anti-fascist news and watchdog site It's Going Down published a story detailing the connections between the organizers of Saturday's rally and the right's racist (not-so-)fringe. A group going by the name Liberty Revival Alliance called for the event in a YouTube video, and chose the venue—MLK Civic Center Park (of all places to beckon the far right). The group claimed to be non-violent but prepared to "defend" patriots. In a promotional flier, the group named a series of planned speakers, most of whom, according to research from It's Going Down, have strong alt-right affiliations and have espoused white nationalist views.

Brittany Pettibone, for example, is a contributor to AltRight.com, a white nationalist hub. Another, Tim Treadstone, who goes by the pseudonym Baked Alaska, once tweeted "Me: Upon research, I noticed Jewish people run 95 percent of American media that is very interesting; Internet: Why do you want to gas the Jews?" and has even been deemed too much of an explicit neo-Nazi for far right conspiracist Mike Cernovich. The white nationalist figure known as Based Stick Man, real name Kyle Chapman, was arrested at the event. It's Going Down noted that Identity Evropa and the Proud Boys were planning to join the rally.

It's Going Down, a relied-upon source for anti-fascists around the country, warned that the event—which was not the first and will not be the last iteration of such tensions—would be a "crucible for a new fascist movement" hidden in the "smokescreen" of a diverse Trump support base. The issue is not whether the rally crowd also drew Trump supporters of color, or many Trump fans who claim to despise white nationalism. A media narrative that overlooks significant white supremacist presence de facto demonizes the counter-protesters who came to confront it.