Provocateurs in Berkeley (and elsewhere)?

[American Dream]

That's how class struggle goes, whether you live in the Ghetto or not...


From the IWW Preamble

[brekin]

That's how class struggle goes, whether you live in the Ghetto or not...
From the IWW Preamble

Yes, the working class and the employing class have nothing in common. That is why the working class voted against Trump.
And once the workers of the world unite we will all live in harmony with the earth.
Because having suffered, the working class will magically know how to rule fairly.
Like they did last time in Russia and China.
Yeah, yeah, but they weren't the "real working class".
They never are once they get in power.

Since we are trading comics.

[American Dream]

There is no escape from the reality of class struggle, even if and when we get bamboozled by bosses. Freeing ourselves from mental colonization must be part of the process. Everything lies in the balance: our lives, future generations, the Earth itself.

The fact that Stalinist/Leninist/Maoist revolutions failed miserably and became authoritarian/top down should be a lesson learned and not a surrender from the struggle for a better world.

No matter what, we need economic justice, control of our lives, a sustainable planet, food, housing and health care, to live from from oppression. La lucha continua.

[brekin]

There is no escape from the reality of class struggle, even if and when we get bamboozled by bosses. Freeing ourselves from mental colonization must be part of the process. Everything lies in the balance: our lives, the Earth, everything.
The fact that Stalinist/Leninist/Maoist revolutions failed miserably and became authoritarian/top down should be a lesson learned and not a surrender from the struggle for a better world.
No matter what, we need economic justice, control of our lives, a sustainable planet, good housing and health care, to live from from oppression. La lucha continua.

I agree that we need economic justice, control of our lives, a sustainable planet, etc.
I just think often most radical/revolutionary/insurrectionary rhetoric and tactics don't bring that about.
And is often another mental colony outpost.
Granted, some communities, groups, peoples have to engage in them for sheer self survival at times, fair enough.
But framing everything as a struggle, battle, war, etc. only reinforces the propensity to solve problems by violence.
And if sometimes nothing changes unless there is violence, often nothing has really changed.

[American Dream]

http://www.mediaite.com/online/milo-yia ... g-closely/

Milo Yiannopoulos Warns Universities to Be ‘On Notice’ Because Trump Is ‘Watching Closely’

by Lindsey Ellefson | 3:37 pm, February 2nd, 2017



Last night, a protest against Milo Yiannopoulos was staged at Berkeley and it actually succeeded in preventing the conservative provocateur from making an appearance. The editor and author, who is on his “Dangerous Faggot” speaking tour, responded that by preventing him from exercising his First Amendment rights, those on the left were proving his points about them. (The left tends to classify much of what Yiannopoulos says and promotes as hate speech.)

Today, he texted the following to Business Insider:

American universities should be on notice. The president is watching. The days you could silence conservative and libertarian voices on campus and still expect to collect their tax money are coming to an end. I am the catalyst for this change. I’m confident Trump and his team are watching closely and will act decisively.

Of note is his use of “on notice,” which is a phrase Donald Trump‘s administration has used when talking about dealings with Iran.

Regarding the collection of tax money by universities, Yiannopoulos appears to be referring to a tweet in which Trump threatened to pull federal funding from Berkeley.

More attention to the events isn’t necessarily a bad thing. An anti-fascist demonstrator was shot by a Trump supporter at a recent Yiannopoulos speech.

[8bitagent]

Maybe/possibly there were provocateurs stirring things up last night. Meanwhile, there is abundant evidence that Milo defends Misogyny, White Nationalism, Transphobia etc. through the most vile means.

That's interesting, as actual neo Nazi hate sites and groups continually issue death threats against Milo for being half Jewish, Gay and having a black boyfriend. Scary when the left and neo nazis are on the same page in issuing violence as Im seeing on social media. Seeing people beaten bloody and unconscious by anarchists for waiting to see a speaker, who continually rejects richard spencer and white nationalism as Milo has recently, is odd.

Then again I still don't get why Milo targeted Leslie Jones over Ghostbusters on Twitter, she was the only delightful thing about that gosh awful movie. But masked antifa/anarchists beating random people up is kind of scary and not very progressive in my book

[MacCruiskeen]

Result:



Because, yeah, pepper-spraying women and beating people with clubs is so persuasive. So effectively anti-fascist. Not just ethically A-1, but tactically faultless, a political stroke of genius. What could possibly go wrong?

The indispensable Tarzie minces no words:

LOL at The Macho Left
Posted on February 2, 2017 by Tarzie

You fucking idiots haven’t got a clue, have you?

I can’t be bothered to waste words on how stupid everyone is. Keep it up. Communism is only a few macho LIBERAL spectacles away. Looking forward to your no-platforming a single imperialist or corporate parasite in a spectacularly idiotic way. When’s that gonna happen, by the way?

PS: this means I love milo, and nazis and that I’m a liberal, not that clueless, antfucking juvenile adults addicted to violent television doing PR for reactionaries and begging to be played by the security state disgust me.

https://ohtarzie.wordpress.com/2017/02/ ... /#comments

And from the comments:

Tarzie says:
February 2, 2017 at 8:50 pm

I don’t have a problem with the protest or attempting to impede the talk. I have a problem with taking clubs and pepper spray to would-be attendees. I don’t think everyone attempting to see MY is a nazi. I think if people are going to start clubbing people and shooting women in the face with pepper spray, the case for being a nazi should be a little more open and shut. But then this whole antifa binge has been entirely bereft of anything like political or tactical coherence from the start, maybe, perhaps because it originated with the fascists at the DNC.

I also find a lot of the rhetoric extremely dishonest. For instance, this alleged purge of undocumented students. I have been unable to find any evidence for this. MY claims his talk was going to be about cultural appropriation. Got a source? Or is it enough that someone made a citation-free claim about doxing undocumented students on Twitter and 2000 dipshits faved it?

As is typical with mobs of brain-dead spectacle addicts, suspension of disbelief is mandatory, so there can be no such thing as legit misgivings about this bullshit. Anyone finding any fault with it on tactical or ethical grounds or seeking evidence for claims being made about it is a nazi sympathizer or liberal appeaser, natch.

This is not the basis for a liberating movement. It’s the basis for a Left where anyone talking over a stupid, Marvel comics movie scripted by politically muddled upper middle class, liberal-at-heart poseurs and state provocateurs is a target for abuse. As everyone knows, I’m no free speech zealot, but this shit is authoritarian from top to bottom and just really fucking, cringe-makingly stupid. People issuing wordy, pompous rationales via screenshot for why fucking Milo uniquely threatens civilization would be funny if it weren’t so repulsively idiotic.

Finally, if you think MY lost this round, you’re seriously deluded. As with the stupid Richard Spencer punch, the awesome antifa he-men have enlarged the platform, not reduced it, and look like cowardly, juvenile assholes to everyone but the Laptop Resistance tough guys singing their praises on social media. Breitbart Inc, Milo’s book publisher, the cops and anyone hoping to see reactionary disquiet congeal into something more formidable and self-aware owe you.

Word.

[stefano]

Yeah, word. Although I actually do have a problem with trying to impede the talk. I don't like this no-platforming thing at all.

[semper occultus]

has there been some sort of mission creep on the No Platform stuff ?

I recall at Uni in the 80's there was a no platform policy by the Students Union that was couched in terms of we won't allow someone from e.g. an extreme right party to have or attend a meeting at their own SU venue.....which you can see the argument for......are we now at the stage where if any group hears about someone they disagree with at some random venue across town that they now pile into the mini-bus and schlepp across to start breaking up the meeting ?

....and yeah ....Germaine Greer & Peter Tatchell being "no platformed" by some 18 yr old Red Guard wannabes ( epic face-palms )

[American Dream]

There's no escaping the reality that Milo is a nasty piece of work:

Misogynist, White Nationalist-Defending, Anti-Muslim Bigot Milo Yiannopoulos is Coming to a College Campus Near You.


On the Islamophobic front, Yiannopoulos writes that, “America has a Muslim problem. Notice my wording carefully here. It isn’t a radical Muslim problem.” He defames that the June massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida was “an expression of mainstream Muslim values,” continuing that “Islamophobia, the irrational fear of Muslims, is a nonsense term. Fear of Islam is entirely rational. I can tell you specifically that for gay people, ‘Allahu Ackbar’ is the scariest words we could ever hear.”[2] Yiannopoulos builds on this stereotype by calling Islam “inherently hilarious,” and continuing that,

“Their outfits are hilarious. Ridiculous. Is there anything more comically sinister than the sight of a herd of women swathed in black bedsheets? Anything more unintentionally ironic about a religion that hates gays that gets its men in a room together 5 times a day to stick their asses in the air?”[3]

Yiannopoulos’s misogyny is equally crass. T-shirts sold on his website declare “Feminism = Cancer,” while the Steve Bannon protégé has written Breitbart articles titled “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy,” and “Does Feminism Make Women Ugly?”



Yiannopoulos was notoriously photographed in Los Angeles with a sign declaring, “Rape Culture and Harry Potter: Both Fantasy.”



In a July 2016 Breitbart about the online harassment of women, Milo wrote,

“Here’s my suggestion to fix the gender wars online: Women should just log off. Given that men built the internet, along with the rest of modern civilization, I think it’s only fair that they get to keep it…They [women] could go back to bridge tournaments, or wellness workshops, or swapping apple crumble recipes, or whatever it is women do in their spare time. I, Donald Trump, and the rest of the alpha males will continue to dominate the internet without feminist whining…[Y]es, we will certainly let women onto the men’s internet a few times a year, as long as you follow a few basic rules… your vagina is not a qualification for a job, for political office or for special treatment…Secondly, Tits or GTFO [Get the F— Out] is the second commandment of the male internet.”[4]

Unsurprisingly, Yiannopoulos preceded his time at Breitbart by playing a role in “Gamergate,” a campaign harassing women attempting to address sexism in the gaming community. He would later be suspended from Twitter for his role in a racist and misogynist online campaign against Leslie Jones, the African-American actress cast in the female-led remake of the movie Ghostbusters.

Yiannopoulos’s defense of the “alt-right” at Breitbart has been his biggest service to the politics of organized white supremacy – in particular, white nationalism. In a now infamous March 2016 Breitbart article, Yiannopoulos answered commentators describing the “alt-right” as a vehicle for “anti-Semites, white supremacists, and other members of the Stormfront set” by declaring, “They’re wrong.” Stormfront is the online forum started by neo-Nazi Don Black. Yiannopoulos accuses conservatives of having “thrown these young readers and voters to the wolves.” Of white nationalist groups such as VDARE, American Renaissance, and Richard Spencer’s AlternativeRight.com (see below), he blithely states, “All of these websites have been accused of racism.”

In an interview by British Channel 4 host Cathy Newman, Yiannopoulos said of the alt-right, “It’s a very young, vibrant, exciting new movement of conservatives in America. They are populists, they’re nationalists…They care about immigration, they care about trade, and they really hate political correctness.” The exchange continued,

Newman: “But they’re [alt-right] too extreme even for you, then.”

Yiannopoulos: “No, I wouldn’t say that…We’re fellow travelers on some issues, but you know, I’m very pro-Iraq, very pro-Israel. There are all sorts of points of difference, I think.”[5]

What, then, is the nature of these “fellow travelers” who are not “too extreme” for Milo, at least as understood by he and Breitbart?

In two words, they are white nationalists.

Yiannopoulos begins his March 2016 Breitbart article by attempting to draw a distinction between “old-school racist skinheads” and the alt-right, the former consisting of “low information, low IQ thugs driven by the thrill of violence and tribal hatred;” conversely, the alt-right represents “a much smarter group of people…They’re dangerously bright.” In typical absurd and offensive Yiannopoulos fashion, he declares these “low IQ thugs” as “the equivalent of the Black Lives Matter supporters” and feminists.

Of importance, Yiannopoulos draws no real distinction between the core ideas of the racist skinheads and the alt-right. In fact, he does little more than confirm the difference between armed vanguardists and mainstreamers discussed by IREHR President Leonard Zeskind in Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. As Zeskind describes in detail, vanguardists strive for a dedicated elite to violently overthrow the U.S. government and institute some variety of white nation; mainstreamers, meanwhile, seek to garner a mass constituency and vie for control of the state – for instance, the way Steve Bannon carved a place for defending white nationalism at Breitbart News.

Yiannopoulos’s description of the founders and current make-up of the “alt-right” makes beyond clear that he is talking about white nationalism. For instance, in a section of the article titled “Intellectuals,” he casts as precursors to the movement Sam Francis and “the paleo-conservative movement that rallied around the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan.”

The “media empire of the modern-day alternative right,” he continues, “coalesced around Richard Spencer during his editorship of Taki’s Magazine” and later Spencer’s AlternativeRight.com. Other members in this “eclectic mix of renegades” includes Steve Sailer, VDARE and American Renaissance. As the examples below demonstrate, these “intellectuals” have given voice to the white nationalist ideological triumvirate – proclaiming whites the core of American society, calling for a change in governing institutions to match this idea, and espousing biological determinism – the long-discredited idea that genetics determines racial differences in IQ scores, socio-economic achievement, criminal behavior, and other characteristics:

Sam Francis was a leader in the paleoconservative movement that emerged in the 1980s, a coterie of racist “intellectuals” that paved the way for today’s white nationalists. In a 1995 article written for the white nationalist American Renaissance (see below), Francis wrote, “[R]ace is necessary, because no other race or people seems able to replicate or adopt the concepts on which white civilization is based… If whites wanted to do so, they could dictate a solution to the racial problem tomorrow — by curtailing immigration and sealing the border, by imposing adequate fertility controls on nonwhites and encouraging a higher white birth rate, by refusing to be bullied into enduring ‘multiculturalism,’ affirmative action, civil rights laws and policies”[6]
American Renaissance is an Oakton, Virginia-based organization headed by veteran racist Jared Taylor. The group unabashedly promotes white nationalism and biological determinism. The “Our Issues” section of the group’s website reads in part, “If whites permit themselves to become a minority population, they will lose their civilization, their heritage, and even their existence as a distinct people…It is widely accepted that genes account for much of the difference in intelligence between individuals, but many people still refuse to believe genes explain group differences in average intelligence. This blindness leads to futile attempts to eliminate ‘achievement gaps’ between the races…The legal framework of the United States has changed considerably with regard to race. School integration, “civil rights,” racial preferences, the franchise—all have evolved in ways that undermine the ability of whites to lead their lives as they wish.”[7]
Richard Spencer, who heads the Whitefish, Montana-based National Policy Institute (NPI), coined the term alt-right in an effort to rebrand white nationalism. The NPI was founded in 2005 by Sam Francis (see above) and William Regnery. The NPI recently made national headlines when Spencer shouted “Hail Trump” and conference attendees threw up Nazi salutes at the group’s November 19 conference in Washington D.C. In a 2016 article, Spencer wrote, “Some people perceive [genetic racial] differences in intelligence and the ability to achieve economic success as unfair. It would be more accurate to say they are neither fair nor unfair… they are a natural product of different evolutionary histories…If it were generally understood that Whites are not responsible for the inability of most Blacks to match average White levels of academic and professional achievement, racial tensions in America might be greatly eased.”[8] (For more on Spencer and NPI, see Who is Richard Spencer?).
VDARE is a white nationalist group with a nativist bent that has published articles by white nationalists Sam Francis, Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer, among others. In 2010 VDARE’s Peter Brimelow helped white nationalist Richard Spencer launch the website AlternativeRight.com. In response to an IREHR article on white nationalism at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference, Brimelow wrote, “My question: don’t whites a.ka.[sic] people known until the 1965 Immigration Act as ‘Americans’ have rights too?” (See IREHR Part of “Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy”).
Steve Sailer is a leading “thinker” among advocates of so-called human biological diversity (HBD). HBD in Sailer’s hands is little more the a re-branding of biological determinism. Sailer compares race to familial relationships and argues that racial discrimination is natural: “[E]thnocentrism, nationalism, and racism are essentially the flip side of nepotism. If people discriminate in favor of their relatives, they are going to discriminate against their non-relatives.”[9]
In addition to placing white nationalists and biological determinists at the center of the alt-right, Milo drives home that he is talking about white nationalism in a description of the mass base he sees this movement coveting:

“Natural conservatives can broadly be described as the group that the intellectuals above were writing for. They are mostly white, mostly male middle-American radicals, who are unapologetically embracing a new identity politics that prioritises the interests of their own demographic…Their instinctive wariness of the foreign and unfamiliar is an instinct that we all share – an evolutionary safeguard against excessive, potentially perilous curiosity. They prefer familiar societies, familiar norms, and familiar institution.” [Italics added].

And, as if it has not been clear enough to this point, Milo continues that

“The alt-right’s intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race. The alt-right believe that some degree of separation between peoples is necessary for a culture to be preserved. A Mosque next to an English street full of houses bearing the flag of St. George, according to alt-righters, is neither an English street nor a Muslim street – separation is necessary for distinctiveness.”

The melding of culture and race, and their link to a movement with political aspirations is the very definition of racial nationalism – in this case, white nationalism.

In this context, Yiannopoulos declares that “the rise of Donald Trump, perhaps the first truly cultural candidate for President since [Pat] Buchanan, suggests grassroots (sic) appetite for a more robust protection of the western European and American way of life.”

http://www.irehr.org/2017/01/06/who-is- ... nnopoulos/

[coffin_dodger]

Tarzie:

But then this whole antifa binge has been entirely bereft of anything like political or tactical coherence from the start, maybe, perhaps because it originated with the fascists at the DNC.

Whilst agreeing that this 'antifa binge' probably originated with the DNC (and thus Deep State) - I do not agree that it's been bereft of political or tactical coherence.
On the contrary, it has become the central tenet of everything a good leftist believes - to whit; agree with our doctrines or you are a Nazi.
AD has been practicising this art of for years - unimpuned and untouchable - because it is State sanctioned. This has made an awful lot of people in the US genuinely believe they are living amongst Nazi neighbours. Happy Times.

[Searcher08]

So Milo shouldnt be allowed to speak because... labels?
Describing him as an "anti-Semitic racist homophobe" was the funniest one I've heard.

Thing is, regardless of what he promulgates or not, the progressive response to him has been to push the trope that "hate speech is not free speech". This is a very slippery slope - the question "who defines what hate speech is?" becomes "Well, WE, (the snowflakes) do."
Or some expert governmental panel or Open Society Foundations group.
This actually is a thing, because fascistic idiots like Riley Denis and Everyday Feminism are pushing hard notions that 'misgendering' a person is an actual act of violence.

The progressive approach to Milo is putting out a small fire with a gasoline powered hose.
Milo will not be defeated until the left produces a high class, telegenic, humour-filled, fact based debater - and the chances of that seem precisely zero. Who wants to do that when you can pepper spray a woman who wears a bitcoin hat and then beat them with a flag pole, because she might hurt someones feelings with her words?

Phillip defranco has five million subscribers on youtube. I find him very even handed. The footage of the woman being pepper sprayed (from behind) then being beaten with a flagpole was disgusting.

Maybe/possibly there were provocateurs stirring things up last night. Meanwhile, there is abundant evidence that Milo defends Misogyny, White Nationalism, Transphobia etc. through the most vile means.

That's interesting, as actual neo Nazi hate sites and groups continually issue death threats against Milo for being half Jewish, Gay and having a black boyfriend. Scary when the left and neo nazis are on the same page in issuing violence as Im seeing on social media. Seeing people beaten bloody and unconscious by anarchists for waiting to see a speaker, who continually rejects richard spencer and white nationalism as Milo has recently, is odd.

Then again I still don't get why Milo targeted Leslie Jones over Ghostbusters on Twitter, she was the only delightful thing about that gosh awful movie. But masked antifa/anarchists beating random people up is kind of scary and not very progressive in my book

[Searcher08]

So Milo shouldnt be allowed to speak because... labels?
Describing him as an "anti-Semitic racist homophobe" was the funniest one I've heard.

Thing is, regardless of what he promulgates or not, the progressive response to him has been to push the trope that "hate speech is not free speech". This is a very slippery slope - the question "who defines what hate speech is?" becomes "Well, WE, (the snowflakes) do."
Or some expert governmental panel or Open Society Foundations group.
This actually is a thing, because fascistic idiots like Riley Denis and Everyday Feminism are pushing hard notions that 'misgendering' a person is an actual act of violence.

The progressive approach to Milo is putting out a small fire with a gasoline powered hose.
Milo will not be defeated until the left produces a high class, telegenic, humour-filled, fact based debater - and the chances of that seem precisely zero. Who wants to do that when you can pepper spray a woman who wears a bitcoin hat and then beat them with a flag pole, because she might hurt someones feelings with her words?

Phillip defranco has five million subscribers on youtube. I find him very even handed. The footage of the woman being pepper sprayed (from behind) then being beaten with a flagpole was disgusting.

Maybe/possibly there were provocateurs stirring things up last night. Meanwhile, there is abundant evidence that Milo defends Misogyny, White Nationalism, Transphobia etc. through the most vile means.

That's interesting, as actual neo Nazi hate sites and groups continually issue death threats against Milo for being half Jewish, Gay and having a black boyfriend. Scary when the left and neo nazis are on the same page in issuing violence as Im seeing on social media. Seeing people beaten bloody and unconscious by anarchists for waiting to see a speaker, who continually rejects richard spencer and white nationalism as Milo has recently, is odd.

Then again I still don't get why Milo targeted Leslie Jones over Ghostbusters on Twitter, she was the only delightful thing about that gosh awful movie. But masked antifa/anarchists beating random people up is kind of scary and not very progressive in my book

[stefano]

There's no escaping the reality that Milo is a nasty piece of work:

So is your position that 'nasty pieces of work' deserve to be deprived of platforms? Whose judgement of nastiness is to be the operative one (see the ridiculous Peter Tatchell example)?

[American Dream]

I'm undecided on the fine points. I've never had to/chosen to participate in a physical confrontation with fascists in my life. I don't love violence but I also know there are some extremely violent and hateful people on the far right. So I think it's a judgement call and- since "Antifa" can be anyone and everyone- talking about them in very broad brush strokes makes for a lot of bullshit.