Milo Yiannopoulos plans to return to UC-Berkeley
Good for him: On Saturday Milo Yiannopoulos announced that he is planning to return to UC-Berkeley to give the speech that got shut down last week by leftwing fascist thugs.
I suspect that the university and the Democratically-controlled governments of California and Berkeley will work to try to stop him, but I give him credit for refusing to back down to bullies.
Update: Meanwhile, the members of the Republican club that had invited Yiannopoulos initially find that they are being harassed and threatened in the week since the riots.
Members of the student group that invited alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to UC Berkeley say they have been physically assaulted and targeted online in the days since Wednesday’s fiery protests. “We’re probably the most harassed group on campus right now,” said Naweed Tahmas, a member of the Berkeley College Republicans. He noted that the club needed a security detail for a meeting last Thursday, a sign that tensions between the group and the area’s liberal-leaning majority may have hit an apex.“I’ve been spit on, my friends have been punched … our pictures have been posted online,” Tahmas said. “I’ve been followed when I was walking back from campus. Some guy came up to us and said, ‘I’ll catch you in the shadows.’ That sounded like a threat to us.”
In addition, there have been threats to publish publicly a list of people who had expressed interest in the club, with the intent to intimidate those people for daring to have a dissenting opinion.
All in all, Berkeley seems to me to have become an outright fascist state, aimed at oppressing all opposition to leftist dogma. Note also that the link describing this story repeats the outright lie that Yiannopoulos supports “racist, transphobic and misogynistic views,” so in a sense it is joining in on the oppression and intimidation.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Good for him: On Saturday Milo Yiannopoulos announced that he is planning to return to UC-Berkeley to give the speech that got shut down last week by leftwing fascist thugs.
I suspect that the university and the Democratically-controlled governments of California and Berkeley will work to try to stop him, but I give him credit for refusing to back down to bullies.
Update: Meanwhile, the members of the Republican club that had invited Yiannopoulos initially find that they are being harassed and threatened in the week since the riots.
Members of the student group that invited alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to UC Berkeley say they have been physically assaulted and targeted online in the days since Wednesday’s fiery protests. “We’re probably the most harassed group on campus right now,” said Naweed Tahmas, a member of the Berkeley College Republicans. He noted that the club needed a security detail for a meeting last Thursday, a sign that tensions between the group and the area’s liberal-leaning majority may have hit an apex.“I’ve been spit on, my friends have been punched … our pictures have been posted online,” Tahmas said. “I’ve been followed when I was walking back from campus. Some guy came up to us and said, ‘I’ll catch you in the shadows.’ That sounded like a threat to us.”
In addition, there have been threats to publish publicly a list of people who had expressed interest in the club, with the intent to intimidate those people for daring to have a dissenting opinion.
All in all, Berkeley seems to me to have become an outright fascist state, aimed at oppressing all opposition to leftist dogma. Note also that the link describing this story repeats the outright lie that Yiannopoulos supports “racist, transphobic and misogynistic views,” so in a sense it is joining in on the oppression and intimidation.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
So, what is Berkeley doing about it all? The administration told us that they are in favor of free speech, but are they doing anything to ensure that their own students feel free to speak, or were those just words to them?
The lack of action and abundance of talk from the University disturbs me greatly, as their words about free speech on campus ring hollow. They should be using this as a teachable moment, telling their students that fascistic intimidation and violence are absolutely not acceptable. The best way to make this clear is to find a way to punish or humiliate the entire student body in order to put the pressure on the fascists to pipe down rather than give tacit approval that these bad guys may continue their campaign of evil.
There have been days in which classes have been devoted to a specific topic. Even when I was there, those many years ago, many classes discussed the TV movie “The Day After” the day after it aired. Even engineering and science classes. What a waste of a good lesson plan, and no, they did not refund any money for the lost class time. The university should make it a mandatory day that all classes teach what free speech means and why it is necessary, as the students clearly have no idea. Obviously, they need to teach liberals civil discourse and to shame all who stood by as their school and their community were ravaged and all those who have participated in thuggery, intimidation, and violence since.
I’m not holding my breath.
Assault is a crime that should include jail time. Where is law enforcement?