In 1964, the University
of California at Berkeley was ground zero for the activist crusade known as the
Free Speech Movement. Students protesting about political issues had been
banned from fundraising or advocating for political causes and platforms on
campus, other than within the college’s own Republican and Democratic school
clubs.
In September 1964, a
number of students began challenging the school’s draconian policies, and mass
demonstrations forced the university to finally allow “free speech” on campus
across the entire political spectrum.
Fast forward 52 years to
February 2017, and UC Berkeley has become a political flashpoint once again,
but for just the opposite reason: a young conservative speaker was scheduled to
give a speech at the school, but masked protesters fomented violence, rioted
and attacked police, leading to a cancellation of the speech and warnings from
the school administration to students to “shelter in place.”
Ironically, today, it’s
liberal and progressive students who are leading the charge to limit free
speech on the school’s campus — the very same condition that they had fought
for more than half a century ago.
The speaker in question,
Breitbart News senior editor Milo Yiannopolous, is well known for his
conservative views on topics from immigration to President Donald Trump. But
Yiannopoulos is also loose, witty and flamboyantly homosexual, qualities that
until recently were more identified with the liberal left than the conservative
right.
In covering the
incident, the mainstream media described Yiannopolous in extremely unfavorable
terms, labeling him “racist,” “misogynistic” and “a white nationalist,” despite
Yiannopolous repeatedly decrying all of those terms.
MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson
attempted to summarize the events, saying “This protest developed overnight out
at Berkeley because Milo Yiannopoulos, sort-of noted troll, sort-of
flamethrower, if you will, was set to speak.” In the background while Jackson
spoke were images of the masked protesters starting fires, looting a Starbucks
and smashing ATMs on the campus, leading to viewer confusion about just who was
setting the fires — was Yiannopolous the cause?
Further confusing the
issue was NBC, which reported that the university said fires were set,
including one caused by a firebomb that ignited a generator-powered spotlight,
and commercial-grade fireworks were thrown at police. NBC Bay Area showed a
group of people grab a metal barricade and smash it against a door.
“The violence was
instigated by a group of about 150 masked agitators who came onto campus and
interrupted an otherwise non-violent protest,” UC Berkeley said in a statement.
Some people were attacked and police treated six people for injuries, the
university said.
But all three major
television networks failed to describe the perpetrators of the violence with
any terms other than “demonstrators” or “protesters” — no indication of what
their political leanings were was given.
In fact, like NBC’s,
many reports of the incident attempted to portray the rioters as people who
were not students at the university. The chancellor of UC Berkeley, Nicholas
Dirks, said in an email that the college “condemns in the strongest possible
terms the actions of individuals who invaded the campus, infiltrated a crowd of
peaceful students, and used violent tactics to close down the event. 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.”
Dirks said that the
school went to “extraordinary lengths to facilitate planning and preparation
for this event” but that it was stymied by “100 armed individuals clad in
Ninja-like uniforms, who utilized paramilitary tactics to engage in violent
destructive behavior designed to shut the event down.”
It should be said that
this is not the first time progressives have caused violence at a Yiannopolous
speaking event, nor is it the first time that they have caused violence at a Yiannopolous
speaking event at a school in the UC system; protests at UC Davis canceled a
Yiannopolous speaking event there.
For his part, President
Donald Trump condemned the riots at UC Berkeley and tweeted a statement aimed
at garnering the public’s thoughts on taking away the school’s federal funding.
President Trump tweeted, “If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and
practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO
FEDERAL FUNDS?”
Currently, the school
gets approximately $370 million yearly from the federal government, which
represents roughly half of the school’s annual budget.
Various pundits have
weighed in on the event, with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich claiming the
rioters were “in cahoots” with Yiannopolous and Breitbart News.
Conservative radio host
Rush Limbaugh ridiculed Reich’s claim. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Haaaaaaa! Do you hear how
enthusiastic he is? Do you know any right-wingers capable of this kind of
behavior? I mean, go to Ferguson; go to Baltimore; go to San Bernardino; go to
Watts. Take any protest — any violence. Go to Oakland any time you want. Any
time there is violent protests, it’s always left wingers bought and paid for by
the Hillary campaign, the Democrat Party or George Soros, and never once have
the Democrats ever condemned them, ’cause they’re proud of them,” claimed
Limbaugh.
Indeed, Limbaugh’s claim
about Soros is true of the Berkeley riots too; according to a story in The
Daily Caller, a group called Refuse Fascism, which took part in the protests,
received $50,000 from Soros’ Tides Foundation through its Alliance for Global
Justice affiliate.
Yiannopolous has
subsequently promised to return to Berkeley to give the speech he was unable to
deliver. Similar riots on a
smaller scale have occurred at overtly liberal New York University when
conservative speaker Gavin McInnes gave a speech there. Intolerant leftists
pepper-sprayed McInnes and were promptly arrested by police. McInnes actually
made it inside the building where he was to speak; however, loud protesters in
the hall where he was delivering his address drowned him out, and he was unable
to finish.~ Conservative Zone
Comments
The
American Communist Party started the “free speech” movement at Berkley to get
Communist propaganda approved as deserving of taxpayer support. This was
actually the beginning of the end of free speech on US college campuses. Communists
used student protests in Russia and have used them ever since. They love
violent riots. Now Trump needs to get
the US universities to allow free speech that isn’t Communist propaganda.
Should we
reinstate the House on Un-American Activities Committee? I bet the Communists and Muslims would go
nuts.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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