UC Berkeley Free Speech organizer Mario Savio, speaking from top of campus police car, surrounded by thousands of students. 1964
This Is Not an Issue of “Free Speech” for a White Nationalist with Connections to the White House
Risking becoming the lone voice in today’s wilderness, we say today that somebody has to say “thank you” to the UC Berkeley students and community members who demonstrated against the white nationalist Breitbart News senior editor back on Wednesday, February 1st, and helped cause the campus to cancel the talk by Milo Yiannopoulo.
So, thank you.
The whole incident has now blown up, with claims the protesters violated free speech, with Trump threatening to cut off funds to UC Berkeley – which he cannot do unilaterally – and the subsequent push-back against him from school and California officials.
We also have now seen the requisite editorials in the LA Times and San Diego Union-Tribune decrying the violence and assault on freedom of speech by the protesters (it’s almost laughable now, but prior owners of the U-T had a thing or two to learn about free speech), and how it’s so shameful at the “birthplace of the free speech movement” blah blah blah, and the ubiquitous claims of ‘it’s all the fault of those outside agitators’.
So, a couple of points.
This citizen journalist has been around a while and I’ve seen via television and first hand many demonstrations in front of Sproul Hall in the main plaza at UC Berkeley over the decades.
And the demonstration the night of Feb. 1st was large and militant – but it wasn’t all that violent. A few windows were broken, a small fire was lit, a few things were thrown, some rubber bullets and teargas were shot at the demonstrators. Some businesses were vandalized.
But the scale of Wednesday night’s violence really is dwarfed by those of the Vietnam War era, where there were full-scale rioting at Berkeley, protesters in the streets – some famously throwing tear gas grenades back at the police, where the campus came to a halt and where blocks of the city were shut down.
Or when the National Guard teargassed the entire UC campus from helicopters circulating above in 1969.
Or when during protests in Berkeley, police shot and killed a rooftop onlooker, James Rector, during the People’s Park campaign.
The violence Wednesday night was against property. One Trump supporter was reportedly roughed-up and there were a handful of arrests. But it really was against property.
San Diego’s free speech movement, 1915.
We, as Americans, have a long history of violence against property which includes a long history of militancy. Remember the Boston Tea Party? The Underground Railroad prior to the Civil War? Or the breaking of windows by women suffragettes? Or the sabotage of company equipment during strikes by workers fighting for the right to organize unions. Or during the Civil Rights movement when pickets and boycotts brought businesses to a halt.
Don’t forget that San Diego had its own Free Speech movement a hundred years ago, where firehoses and fierce beatings met people trying to exercise their right to speak in downtown San Diego. It was a huge fight, and some lost their lives – while City officials outlawed soapbox speeches in a large area in downtown. Free speech was won – finally – but it took outsiders using their influence.
America witnessed this militancy during the Black Power movement, during as noted the anti-Vietnam war period, and during the anti-nuke movement in the early-1980s with massive numbers of people being arrested.
The lighting of fires in trashcans along Newport Avenue in OB during a 1972 anti-Vietnam war protest. It’s a long list.
So Wednesday night was small potatoes.
Actions like these are always blamed on “outside agitators” – it’s never the good students or the good people or the Good Germans. They would never act that way. (Bizarrely, Robert Reich claims without evidence that the agitators were actually right-wing trouble-makers. There is an active Black Bloc of anarchist militants in Oakland and the Bay Area – why couldn’t it have been them?)
What about the free speech issue.
Let’s be clear – Milo Yiannopoulo’s free speech was not violated. This racist has connections not only to his own press, but has connections that run right up into the White House, where his buddy Steve Bannon advises the President and who now permanently sits on the National Security Council.
This is not about the free speech of the elite. There’s always ‘free speech’ for those at the top. The elite – whether political or economic or social – always have access to the press and are freely able to exercise their speech.
Free speech is the issue for those at the bottom. Those without access to the press or whose voices are not heard or recognized or even suppressed.
Those who were about to be maligned by Milo.
It turns out that Yiannopoulos was planning to use his speech at UC Berkeley to target UC students who do not have documentation and who live in the US.
Berkeley University officials warned Mr Yiannopoulos, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter, was planning to use the talk to target students who do not have documentation to live in the US.
“We are deeply concerned for all students’ safety and ability to pursue their education here at Cal beyond Milo’s speech,” the university’s Office of Student Affairs said in a letter sent to Berkeley College Republicans, the students hosting the event, on Tuesday.
“Milo’s event may be used to target individuals, either in the audience or by using their personal information in a way that causes them to become human targets to serve a political agenda.”
Milo has denied these claims. Yet, there is plenty of supporting evidence that he was.
George Ciccariello-Maher, a professor at Drexel University, claimed reliable sources believed Mr Yiannopoulos was planning on outing undocumented students. “Reliable sources say Milo planned to publicly name undocumented students @UCBerkeley. Debate over: shutting him down was necessary & good,” he wrote on Twitter.
Just a day before the event, Milo’s white nationalist news site Breitbart published an article saying Yiannopoulos would use the Berkeley talk to claim US universities have become “sanctuary campuses that shelter illegal immigrants from being deported”.
“Backed by the Freedom Center (Mr Yiannopoulos) will call for the withdrawal of federal grants and the prosecution of university officials who endanger their students with their policies, starting with UC President and former Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano and Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks,” reads the article.
So much for his free speech issues.
Remember, free speech is the issue of the little people at the bottom. It’s never granted freely. Even during colonial days as our foreparents tried to fashion a new government and constitution, the people at the bottom refused to approve it without guarantees of a free press and of free speech, what became the very first amendment to the Constitution.
During the Sixties Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, free speech had to be won by the students. It wasn’t just handed to them by the administration. Today’s commentators are bemoaning its supposed death due to the “rioters” on campus the other night. But that’s just turning history upside down.
The free speech movement was ignited because college students back then had no rights to hold rallies, speeches or even set up political tables on campus, and after a long battle, the administration was dragged to the bargaining table screeching and flailing. It was a very militant movement that won.
So, what’s more violent?
What happened Wednesday night or a 1,000 students surrounding a campus police car which held a free speech movement organizer who had been arrested – and not letting the car move an inch, with people getting up on top of the car giving speeches? This happened during the Berkeley Free Speech Movement in 1964. This was the famous moment during the FSM when organizer Mario Savio climbed on top of the patrol car and delivered his famous “put your body on the gears” speech.
What’s more violent? Wednesday or 4,000 students in May of 1970 blocking traffic into the Naval Electronics Lab on Catalina Boulevard in protest of the military and Nixon’s expansion of the war into Cambodia?
What’s more violent? Wednesday or hundreds of anti-nuke protesters sitting down on Rosecrans Boulevard in front of Point Loma’s nuclear sub facility at Ballast Point and being arrested by the dozens back in the early 1980s?
Back to the present.
Let’s try to understand the historical context. It’s the utmost of hypocrisy for Trump to complain about Milo’s free speech being supposedly violated, when the Tweeter-in-Chief has called for a war on the press and the media, calling them the “opposition party” – attempting to undermine the entire concept of a free press and the very conveyor of free speech.
So, thank you UC Berkeley students and faculty and community for stopping this racist, this white nationalist, this fascist. Maybe if enough Germans had stood up against Hitler and his minions back decades ago ….
{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
Violence is not speech. Shame on those protestors who took it too far. Their actions are indefensible. When they are identified and prosecuted they will become “former” students.
Guess you didn’t get the gist of my post. Violence against property is not violence against people. Trump’s immigration edict has cancelled 100,000 visas – now that is violence. The students or whomever were not as violent as the patriots who dumped all that tea into the Boston harbor.
And the Iraq invasion was less violent than WW2. So what? Who’s property are they destroying? Did they make sure the building was unoccupied before starting fires? There’s no reason to justify their violent actions just because you agree with their political stance. Violence is not a political position.
Trying with some difficulty in jostling people’s traditional ideas of what violence and free speech are.
A small minority of the thousands of students and community people demonstrating the other night at Berkeley who used militant tactics does not debase the meaning and significance of what they all accomplished.
Speak truth to power. When the establishment or presidential candidates use or endorse violence, it’s okay, but when a couple of dozen anarchists set one main fire – oh my god! Off with their funding, off they go to the dungeons.
One of the main lessons from history is that when the people on the bottom are oppressed, they will utilize a variety of tactics from letter-writing, to elections, to boycotts, pickets, blockades, sabotage, dumping valuable tea, tar-and-feathering unpopular tax officials, vandalism … all the way to outright rebellion, and even revolution.
To call this small incident violence is to hide the true violence that the new regime is perpetrating on our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, what’s left of our democracy, the free press, and thousands of citizens, legal immigrants, green-card holders and visa holders and their American families.
Familiarize yourself with American history and don’t just gobble up the narrative of the corporate media and the Trump authoritarians.
I’m offended that you assume that because I don’t condone their violence that I somehow gobble up any old bullshit that comes out of Trump’s mouth, or his minions. The media deserves the criticism, but Trump’s statements regarding the press are unnerving given his position. And his threat to pull funding from the university over this is plain ridiculous.
Why does the media deserve criticism from Trump? Or are you agreeing that the media deserves criticism because of its service to the corporations that own them?
You don’t have to condone the tactics in order to understand its historic and social context.
The pathetic quality of the mainstream media coverage is more of a reflection on us viewers than anything else, but it’s pathetic nonetheless. A president however needs to lead, not get embroiled in every pointless controversy then play schoolyard bully. The principal of freedom of the press is still sacred, even if the outcome is often tabloid level trash.
I don’t have an opinion yet if their cause was noble or not, but I question whether the violence was necessary to get the intended result. Their violence may have done their cause more harm than good. Assuming of course it was not done by imposters.
@triggerfinger do not waste your time with the left and their hypocritical views. They seem to think that if you are not with the left… than you must be a Trump supporter! As a libertarian who did not vote for Trump and who is all for social freedom, the left is dead wrong on this issue. This was a violent protest that discouraged free speech and anyone that does not understand that is purely ignorant! Additionally @Frank, changing immigration policy is NOT even close to violence and anyone who thinks so is also ignorant. If you really believe this you should answer a simple question, how many people should the US allow in each year? should we just open the border to everyone? As a sovereign nation we have the legal right (and I believe a moral right) to choose which foreign citizens can enter our country, which can obtain citizenship and to do what is necessary to enforce those laws. Almost every other country on the planet does this.
We all have the right to free speech as long as it is approved by the left.
And once again the hate and violence is coming from the left.
I can’t let that one go, the hate and violence are coming from the left? How about a few for instances? One of the many obvious differences between the left and the right is that the left prefers non-violence and the right prefers violence. I marched in the 1969 peace march in Washington, DC, still the biggest anti-war protest ever held, and it was peaceful, 500,000 peaceful people. The violence that trump and his collection of deplorables is doing to this country is the opposite of the caring shown the country during the last eight years. Hate and violence from the left, give me a break.
Extreme wealth in politics is a form of violence against our democracy, corrupting the principle of one person, one voice, one vote. SCOTUS understands abstract concepts that empower corporations and wealthy contributors, but seemingly does not understand abstract concepts that empower individuals and protect democracy.
While I honor you your right to an opinion, this is a ridiculous piece. In sum, you argue that because violence was more pronounced in years past, this wasn’t violence. That’s like arguing that because a murderer shot one victim six times, he didn’t do anything wrong this time because he only shot this person one time. And then it’s not really violence because it’s only “property”. Tell that to the uninsured merhant whose plate glass windows were smashed, or the uninsured mortorist whose car was trashed. I have little doubt your opinion would change if it was your car or your home. And then your final point is that because this guy has other avenues of speech, his free speech rights were not infringed. That is simply not the law. Moreover, it ignores the rights of the people who had come to hear his speech. Also, I’m pretty sure you don’t really want to get into a discussion of limiting his speech rights because of the content. Not one of your better pieces.
The first amendment provides no guarantee of speech free from protest or even violence. With that said, anyone that is using violence or threat of violence to suppress speech is not deserving of praise.
Well, let’s round up the suspects, and start with the US military, the Russian military, the Chinese military, with Trump – as during the campaign he advocated threats and worse against dissenters, the media, Hillary Clinton – yes, you seem to have a blind eye toward the real perpetrators of violence and threats of such.
Harry, it’s almost like you didn’t read the piece but got caught up in an emotional side of it.
This small incident is nothing compared to the violence being done to our Constitution, Bill of Rights, our frail democracy by the new Trumpian dictator. And nothing compared to other more significant events – and I use the Boston Tea Party as an example, because we won the war, we get to call them heroes and patriots. The British called them terrorists.
This is, again, not a matter of free speech for the elite. I know what the law is, my friend, I am a lawyer licensed to practice in the highest courts of the land, and I also know that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are the highest law of the land.
This guy who you defend was about to deliver a hate speech, outing undocumented students on campus and avow discrimination against Muslims, women and people of color. Hate speech, Harry.
First, keep your focus. We’re talking about Berkeley, not the Revolutionary War. Second, I’m a lawyer too, but I don’t use that to bolster my arguments. Third, maybe in Germany, “hate speech” is proscribed, but not the US. Fourth, maybe he was going to speak hatefully, maybe burn a flag, who knows, because we didn’t get to hear him. As a newspaper writer, I find it simply astonishing that you are defending, if not advocating, prior censorship.
Hate speech is defined in many countries. Like Canada. As far as I can tell RAV v St Paul in the US protected the rights of cross burning over defining hate. But I’m no lawyer. The cancelled speaker has many avenues of exercising free speech. Rights to free speech dont guarantee a venue. You can get on a soap box in the town square and start talking, it doesn’t guarantee you access to a certain venue. Do I have the right to post a story on Breitbart exercising my free speech? No. Does a school teacher have the right to teach kids the holocaust never happend? In Canada we decided they dont. The property destruction is unfortunate and counter-productive but could have been perpetrated by people from either side of the debate. It is hardly above an attention-seeking provacatuer. Property violence is not human violence. When my car window gets smashed to steal something, I’m angry, out money and might have higher insurance rates after. But that is not the same as getting punched in the face. The play this story has got is out of proportion. The media coverage seems to me what is motivating people to draw the contrast. Living in a country involved in multiple foreign wars, drone strikes, police and gang violence, terrorism etc and this is the ‘violence’ we’re focused on?
To go along with Marc’s point, sadly, about how the media focused on the violence, I can say the same thing happened in Washington DC in 1969. Half a million people marched peacefully. But, somewhere on some side streets, there was a skirmish that involved a few hundred people and some tear gas. What do you think got attention out of proportion to the hugely peaceful backdrop even in 1969? I think Frank was trying to put the violence that occurred in Berkeley into perspective, not necessarily applaud it.
“Tell that to the uninsured merhant whose plate glass windows were smashed, or the uninsured mortorist whose car was trashed.” Huh? If the motorist was uninsured, that’s against the law. A merchant has to have insurance unless they own the building outright and have no outstanding loans. What kind of a comment was that?
A car owner has to have LIABILITY insurance, i.e. Damages done BY the car. A car owner does not have to have COMPREHENSIVE insurance that covers damage to the owners car. I can’t speak to what a lessor has to insure but I can say that plate glass insurance is extremely expensive, given the graffiti etching problems we have, and so large deductibles are common. And maybe our hypothetical owner does own the building; does that make his losses acceptable?
Depends on the car, Harry. If it is financed, it has to have comprehensive – I think your caps key was stuck on this word – as well as liability insurance on the car. There is no telling what the insurance status was of any of this, including the merchants. I was reacting to what you wrote “Tell that to the uninsured merhant whose plate glass windows were smashed, or the uninsured mortorist whose car was trashed.” Now, I see that you agree with me, we don’t really know, so we should not be making statements we aren’t sure of.
Actually we don’t agree. And I am sure. You seem to think because a loss is insured, there is no harm. That’s wrong. Insurance is not free and claims result in personal and societal loss. It’s just spread over a larger pool.
I never said because a loss is insured that there was no harm. What I was reacting to was your affirmative assumption that the merchant and the motorist were uninsured, thus making the cost of the violence more tragic in an attempt to enhance your view about what happened. I simply pointed out that your statement was unsubstantiated.
San Diego had it’s own anti-Nazi riot on March 8, 1962 at San Diego State. American Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell was invited to speak. About 3,000 students were there. At one point he invited audience members to come up and use the microphone. Ed Cherry, a 22 year old foot ball player and Jew, talked until Rockwell told him to leave. Ed punched Rockwell twice in the face, breaking his glasses. Rockwell proceeded to retreat to a building under a shower of rocks, eggs. When he tried to leave the demonstrators trashed his car. Google “George Lincoln Rockwell San Diego State March 8, 1962” for the SDSU archive item. You can find pictures of it there on the SDSU archives, too.
Want a second Trump term? This is how you get a second Trump term.
What I can’t understand is who is the arbiter of what is OK to say and what is not OK to say? It seems as though the left has decided that “It’s my way or the highway.” I suppose they have gained this right by the superior intelligence and moral superiority they have demonstrated over the years.
Could be wrong here, but I don’t recall the Left setting up “free speech zones” so the elite can crowd protesters into a corral to let them exercise their free speech. As I recall there was an incident during the Bush the Village Idiot fiasco where Michael Moore couldn’t speak at Cal State San Marcos, so organizers had to move the speaking event over to the Del Mar Racetrack; and that’s where the fucking pigs set up another set of “free speech zones.” To just enter the zone citizens had to sign some sort of document. Some people resisted, of course, & arrests were promptly made. The “free speech zone” was a corral of concrete Jersey barriers guarded by uniformed occifers.
As a matter of fact, I just signed a similar document the White House requires me to sign each & every time I log onto the OB Rag. Every time I sign it, I’m rewarded w/ a government sponsored tattooist who shows up at my back door at midnight & tattoos a special number on the back of my head right above the hair line. They’re running out of room, & it pisses them off.
What the hell are you talking about?
I don’t know either but I really liked it. I just wish he’d change his blog name…
Sorry guys, yea, a little obscure there w/ that near-doggeral & satirical after the “As a matter of fact” phrase.
We are all marked & tagged w/ our SS #’s, & cell phones, & facebook & social media, & even old school fingerprints, so Big Bro can track us & our opinions. With new technology every right wing bull dog & his brother the rabid German Sheppard are tracking our every move. So my point is that even when we can exercise free speech, it is being tracked, collated, stamped, categorized & filed away for future use. The NSA Utah Data Center is probably watching my keyboard as I type these very words. I think it has been up ‘n running for 3-4 years, so they probably already have a profile on mr unwashedwallmartThong.
A good article can be found at Motherboard.vice.com; it’s entitled The Data That Turned the World Upside Down.
Regardless of how little damage they did compared to protests/riots in the past, it’s still not ok. I agree with the protest itself but people like this make all liberals look bad and they are not helping the cause. Somehow I have serious doubt that the small # of “Anarchists” all decked out in black, faces covered, etc are feeling oppressed. More likely, they are engaging in behavior like this simply to be part of something and give meaning to their lives more than any concern for social justice. I have doubts they are even students at all but if they are, I won’t be losing tremendous amounts of sleep if the legal consequences result in them kicked out of school and whatever damage being kicked out of school will do to their future.
Violence against property is OK Frank?
As long as it’s other people’s property I guess. But I bet it wouldn’t be so cool if your own property is destroyed in the name of somebody else’s protest.
Wow, a new low in The Rag.
Again, we can try to understand what happened and not condone or condemn it and place it within a socio-historic context. The vast majority of the demonstrators didn’t carry out what little vandalism there was and we certainly thank them for standing up to the racist.
Imagine if Milo had worn a white sheet and pointy hat, would that have been okay? So, who is being low here – condemning a little vandalism and blowing up the incident, while ignoring the real violence towards thousands of people.
This is vandalism. Rufus, and you haven’t gauged it in the context of 60-100,000 visas revoked. Think of the hardship of what just one family went through, now multiply that by 60K to 100K – now that is violence.
Pathetic piece. But our criticisms will fall on deaf ears. Funny how real activists I know in Berkeley that were peacefully protesting that night have ALL massively condemned the violence that occurred. Those weren’t protesters, those were savagely immature and selfish children.
Tyler, you are failing to understand what happened in its scale and historic context. (See my response above.)
I enjoyed the perspective in this article, even if I don’t agree with the opinion that the violence was justified. It’s possible to hold several overlapping and conflicting opinions on this topic. One being that the protests were good and the cancellation of the speaking event was a good result. A second being that the violence was not justified and counterproductive. And a third being that we can also extend some empathy to the people that broke windows and take their actions in a longer historical context. It’s okay to hold all three of those views at the same time, independent of one another.
We all have free speech, that does not mean UC or it’s students have to accommodate you or anybody in their free speech efforts. Also, if I don’t like what you’re saying and tell you to stop talking, that is not a violation of free speech. If the government doesn’t like what your saying and tells you to stop talking or be punished, THAT Is a violation of free speech. The stifling of free speech by government is a violation of free speech. Me just preventing you from talking by shutting down your arena is not a violation of free speech. How they shut this guy down may have been by vandalism, or disturbing the peace, which are punishable by law. But, individuals can not be arrested for violating free speech, it is not in the penal code and carries no penalty. It isn’t until your government does it that it carries a penalty if you win in court.
they should have let the ass speak to an empty room.
Saw this on my FB feed: http://www.policemag.com/channel/patrol/articles/2015/01/understanding-the-black-bloc.aspx
Thank you Frank. Violence? Come on. Who was critically injured or killed. And this protest got a little more coverage because someone had the nerve to set a fire in the street
and break some windows. The hate crimes that trump and his cronies has unleased is horrible. That’s violence. His executive orders have caused violence and suffering for so many. So who started this fight? Hey, it sounds like a lot of commentators for this article like “alternative facts”. The really sad thing is if this “trump regime” or whatever you call it doesn’t get any better, violence will get worse.
All the comments about ‘the left’ being the arbiter of free speech. Now outraged Republicans have demanded his CPAC speaking engagement and book deal be cancelled. Free speech at Berkley but not CPAC? Oh the irony. Guess moral outrage is not owned by either ‘side’.
As Kellyanne Conway said of Milo Yiannopoulos demonstrators at Berkeley, “I don’t know if they know what they’re protesting. Is it the free speech? Having someone on your campus who has a dissenting point of view or wants to present an alternative point of view?”
Some “points of view” are universally repugnant to decent people.
Here here. “While I’m all for free speech, there is such a thing as vile, hateful speech that does not deserve a platform,” – Ned Ryun, American Conservative Union