Rushinbear said:
01Bear said:
joe amos yaks said:
santacruzbear said:
How unsporting. The attacking perp (and his servile friend) is a dumb-a_z.
The episode could not have been staged much better even if they tried (unless weapons were involved): pick a visible venue at a University constantly in the free speech spotlght -- Sproul Plaza on a weekday at noon; add two+ derogatory words -- "c__t", "a_z-ho_e" -- from the clueless idiot and his toady, and finish with a cowardly sucker punch or two.
Good grief, who needs normative politics? Just arrest and prosecute the perp for assault. If guilty, ban him (them) from campus for an indefinite period of time.
I'm guessing bone of this was an accident. Rather, the Trumpian provocateur probably intentionally picked Cal, which is indelibly linked to "liberal" or "liberalism" in the minds of many who have no affiliation with the school, with the hope that it would spark some sort of confrontation.
No
I urge those of open mind to review the opinions expressed in this thread. Notice the minimization of the confrontation. "I'm guessing..." Probably..." "Staged..." "(if guilty) ban them from campus for a period of time."
Doesn't matter what the smaller guy said, the big guy clocked him twice. Did the little guy hit the big guy first? No speculation, please, or wishful thinking.
As to Sproul as an isolated venue picked out by conservatives to provoke national attention, recall the Antifa attacks, riots and burning on Sproul. Were those ginned up by conservatives to hoodwink the Left and the press?
How does my use of the phrase "I'm guessing" to acknowledge that I do not know for certain that this went as planned minimize the confrontation? That's some faulty reasoning there.
Also, you realize I stated the Trumpian provocateur chose Cal to stage his event, I never limited it to Sproul Plaza. There's a reason for that; it's the same reason the right-wing media doesn't report the events as haopening on Sproul Plaza, but rather state that they took place at Cal: right-wing radicals have a hate boner for Cal. They know that if they say publish that something happened at "Berkeley," it'll capture eyeballs and confirm the biases of their readers. On the other hand, substituting "Sproul Plaza" for "Berkeley" will not have the same impact, since not all of their readers connect "Sproul Plaza" to "Berkeley."
Also, the Antifa attacks you feferenced did not occur in a vacuum. Rather, they were a response (albeit disturbing and started by outsiders to the Cal community) to the presence of another radical right-wing provocateur, Milo Yiannopoulos, who also saw the benefit of using the Cal campus to burnish his credibility with his audience. It was a win-win-win situation for Mr. Yiannopoulos, as he would either (1) denounce Cal at Cal (and thereby show how badass he is to his hatemongering followers), (2) be stopped from speaking (thereby giving him an opportunity to play victim and pretend to be an champion of free speech while portraying Cal as anti-free spech), or (3) incite a riot (thereby showing Cal is some radical anarchist paradise).
So while I wouldn't say the riots were "ginned up," they certainly were what the radical right-wing provicateurs hoped would or expected to happen.