Milo Yiannopoulos speech at UC Berkeley canceled after campus protests

[Footface]

@nungesser

Not sure if it was posted here earlier, but — Trump is now threatening to pull federal funds from UC Berkeley

This! This is the story. Not that Trump might pull federal funding from Berkeley, but that Trump thinks he can pull federal funding from Berkeley.

He really does think he’s the king. When will the right take him aside and explain to him what country this is?

Or… maybe it’s “When will they make him king?”

[Ericb]

I feel like this all went exactly how Milo wanted it to.

[Melizmatic]

@wysinwyg

I actually think I’ve been fairly polite and civil through the whole conversation

[generic_name]

Violence is indefensible when it comes to matters of free speech, so I can’t defend those protestors that set fires or broke windows, even if I understand the anger they feel-- I think trolls like Yiannapoulos want there to be violence waged against him so it makes it easier to dismiss his critics. But at the same time Yiannapoulos can’t claim to have some exclusive right to free speech-- protests are free speech too, and if he thinks encouraging harassment is also protected free speech then he should be OK with liberals harassing him.

[wysinwyg]

Then please help me understand how I was incivil?

Edit:

Just went back through the thread. Tales of my incivility have been greatly exaggerated.

I thought gaslighting was a bad thing?

[wysinwyg]

@AcerPlatanoides

Please do not PM me again. I’m all set on my quota for arrogance today, thanks.

For the record, I PMed to apologize.

[lolipop_jones]

@rossleonardy

If I was in the same room as him, the interaction STARTS with me spitting in his face.

Milo couldn’t script a better part for you in his performance art than you just did yourself.

[chgoliz]

I think we need to follow that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion.

While 45’s administration practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view, there should be NO FEDERAL FUNDING from the states.

[wrecksdart]

@the_borderer

Thanks. I usually try to credit them when I use one of the photos there, but forgot this time.

NP!

[TheGreatParis]

On the subject of violence and protest, I think I should bring this up again:

COUP: Under cover of #muslimban, Bannon throws top general and spy off the National Security Council and installs himself in their stead

I’ve been thinking about The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp lately. I never really understood the meaning of the film until just recently. There is a moment towards the end where Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff tells Clive Candy that Nazis cannot be defeated with completely moral ways. This always bothered me because, as Nieche pointed out, you don’t want to become the monster you are trying to defeat. It’s a very long, wandering movie and sometimes it’s hard to keep track of what the point is. …

[SamSam]

@janamaiuri

Anyone who thinks this wasn’t exactly the tactic they were going for is fooling themselves. This was the beginning of a coordinated campaign against sanctuary campuses. The “campaign” isn’t in the speeches. The campaign is the driving trollies. The campaign is footage of “masked terrorists pepper-spraying innocents.”

This was a trap.

Absolutely agree.

I think that the left should protest with all their might, #shutItDown, strike, and everything else, but the right’s way of diffusing that energy, and even draw power from it, is to show videos of burning shop fronts and videos of Trump-supporters being beaten and pepper-sprayed (which are all over the front page of Reddit right now).

That’s going to make people recoil from the movement. Imagine the headlines if the Women’s March had scores of videotaped incidents of violence and rioting.

I don’t know whether it was another anarchist group, or whether it was a deliberate false flag operation (the videos of violence are weird, with people seeming to strike others with metal poles for no reason, and pepper spraying a girl wearing a MAGA hat while she was being interviewed), but I think the protest movement needs to be hyper-vigilant not to let this become the narrative, and to police their own ranks of those (possibly saboteurs) who seek to destroy the message.

(Note: I can simultaneously hold in my head the notion that it’s absolutely ok to Punch a Fascist^TM, and also that those who riot and are videotaped beating people in the street are playing into the right’s hands.)

@Malarkey

Who invited Yiannopolous to speak at Berkeley? Whoever it was knew there’d be a shit storm.

Yup.

[John_Abbott1]

Can you provide links so that we can double-check the facts on this incident?

I’m not saying that it’s not true, I’m saying that we all need to confirm the accuracy of the facts that we’re using to form our decisions, especially these days.

[SenorSchaffer]

@SamSam

Who invited Yiannopolous to speak at Berkeley? Whoever it was knew there’d be a shit storm.

Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes.

[spetrovits]

As much as Milo Yiannopoulos is a disgusting, narcissistic troll who deserves to be forced to espouse his stupid ideas in a Wal-Mart parking lot, rather than a comfy auditorium, this is wrong. Vandalism and violence is not the way to protest dipshits. That only brings us down to their level. I mean, I wouldn’t put it past Yiannopoulos’s sycophants to stage this kind of thing to make his opponents look bad, but even if they didn’t, this sucks. It just gives him a way to look like a martyr, rather than a hateful bigot.

[Enkita]

@John_Abbott1

Can you provide links so that we can double-check the facts on this incident?

Battle of Cable Street

Revisionist historians aside, and the failure of the article to mention other incidents, this agrees with what I’ve been told. But you know…that you ask for links on such a well known historical event does make me wonder if you are perhaps driving trollies me.

[nungesser]

@spetrovits

Vandalism and violence is not the way to protest dipshits.

From the look of things, the folks causing vandalism and violence were the same dipshits who came out to smash windows and limos at the inauguration: black bloc anarchists. People who love any excuse to destroy “the establishment” and throw blame on the protesters who were already there holding signs.

Odd that they never seem to get arrested. Funny, that. Hey Milo, did you send some of your friends black facemasks and tell them to make a mess of campus?

[anon50609448]

@SamSam

That’s going to make people recoil from the movement. Imagine the headlines if the Women’s March had scores of videotaped incidents of violence and rioting.

I don’t know whether it was another anarchist group, or whether it was a deliberate false flag operation (the videos of violence are weird, with people seeming to strike others with metal poles for no reason, and pepper spraying a girl wearing a MAGA hat while she was being interviewed)

But that false flag thing is a big issue. Or what if it was staged and didn’t happen at all?

I’m not even sure that being non-violent is a defense against having video tapes of violence surface.

@nungesser

From the look of things, the folks causing vandalism and violence were the same dipshits who came out to smash windows and limos at the inauguration: black bloc anarchists.

Is “black bloc anarchists” a code phrase for “bored suburban teenagers”?

(I realize there really are anarchists out there, but I think some of this stuff is just entitled assholes)

[JonBristow]

The distrust of the Black Bloc is a side-effect of anarchists marching as one body with black clothes and masks. Masks make it easy for infiltrators and other ne’er-do-wells to be jackoffs.

Also, to address a comment like 100 messages ago, “When does ignoring trolls ever make them go away?” This isn’t usenet. “Trolls” are different now.

[nungesser]

@anon50609448

Is “black bloc anarchists” a code phrase for “bored suburban teenagers”?

(I realize there really are anarchists out there, but I think some of this stuff is just entitled assholes)

It definitely can be. Anyone who wraps a black do-rag around their face and grabs a crowbar can be an instant anonymous “anarchist” and blend in with the crowd to smash stuff for fun.

[tinoesroho]

You fool. Remember Germany, Spain, The Belgian Congo.The Authoritarian Right is every bit - if not more capable - of violence against countrymen as their supposedly leftist counterparts. You err with you suppositions in your desire for applause.