Reading the major newspapers today has become almost exclusively an exercise in studying cowardice and illogic. And despite contributing to massive ignorance, irresponsible and incompetent journalists posture as if they are some kind of social benefactor. Of course, craven journalists will never take responsibility for contributing to social problems.
For example, consider the dishonest and completely absurd language here in a piece by Dave Weigel of 'The Washington Post'. Weigel would like his readers to believe that 'anarchists' (i.e. those who favor complete freedom of action, and no government), are rioting to stop people from hearing a talk —
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/02/03/milo-yiannopoulos-is-returning-to-white-house-briefing.../
https://archive.is/Fx4NR
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The Leslie Jones incident was rocket fuel for Yiannopoulos's image. He toured college campuses ahead of the 2016 election, live-streaming each speech. Several speeches were canceled by security concerns; the ones that went forward often carried a whiff of danger, as students walked though metal detectors to enter and Yiannopoulos sometimes theatrically ripped off a bulletproof vest onstage.
But the situation in Berkeley, where anarchists using “black bloc” tactics turned a mass protest into a violent conflagration — with made-for-TV images of garbage fires — has been an even bigger boon to Yiannopoulos. On Thursday night, his trip to D.C. began with a friendly interview on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” a show that has ridden anger at left-wing activism into best-in-class prime time ratings.
There was no discussion of what the peaceful protesters in Berkeley had objected to — namely, Yiannopoulos's kick off of a campaign against “sanctuary campuses.” According to a promotional Breitbart story that ran before the event, Yiannopoulos was set to “call for the withdrawal of federal grants and the prosecution of university officials who endanger their students with their policies,” and the ex-radical David Horowitz would keep up the campaign on other campuses.
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According to a professional journalist, the rioters are 'anarchists', as opposed to supporters of statist government policies, and extensive government control of the lives of individuals — such as, what can be said to whom, and when.
And notice the denigrating dismissal of the 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' show in the quote above — according to Weigel, the show's appeal comes from "anger at left wing activism", and has nothing to do with providing any useful content to viewers. Perhaps the 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' show is bad, or perhaps it has ridden to "best-in-class prime time ratings", as Weigel put it, because it provides a refutation of incompetent journalists like Dave Weigel — whatever the reason, you will not learn what it is from the likes of Dave Weigel.
And, of course, you will certainly not get an acknowledgement from Dave Weigel of the possibility that the content he provides is much worse than that provided by the 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' show — however bad that show may be.
It is also fascinating that many seem to believe, including Dave Weigel, that public universities that are largely funded with tax dollars, should be 'sanctuaries' for violating immigration law — Weigel's description implies that any criticism of violating immigration law is somehow grounds for a protest.
Now consider this definition of 'anarchism' from 'Merriam-Webster' —
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anarchism
If you believe Weigel, 'anarchists' now oppose freedom of speech and freedom of association.
It is so odd that all of the supposed 'anarchists' at the Berkeley protest forgot that anarchism is based on the belief that all forms of governmental authority are harmful, and that all human interaction should be voluntary. The notion that any individuals who actually held those beliefs would violently protest a talk is absurd on its face.
It is polite to call Weigel's description here pathetic. Who does he think he is going to fool? Will any honest readers with any familiarity with left leaning protesters believe that violence was not their intention? Protesters who are constantly attempting to silence those they disagree with, while also crying out for government to give them something at the expense of others?
As opposed to those 'anarchists' Weigel is so confused about, who want everyone to be able to freely associate without any government control.
Also notice that the supposed subject of the Berkeley riots — the journalist Milo Yiannopoulos — is a British national, and so has nothing to do with U.S. Government policy. You could not make this up — there could not be a more absurd target for a protest regarding law or government policy in one country, than a foreign national from another, who is a journalist.
And notice Weigel's use of the phrase 'mass protest', as if the intention of these so-called 'protesters' was not to provoke violence — that is why they cover their faces Dave, so they can commit crimes while avoiding being identified, so they can escape penalty. Of course, a journalist like Weigel would like readers to believe that a small group of rioters (Weigel's supposed 'anarchists') were able to take over "a mass protest" by "peaceful protesters", but how would that have been possible, if the rioters were only a trivial minority?
Here are photos from the 'East Bay Times' of that trivial minority, that supposedly took over a peaceful protest. The original captions are included in the images below to show that they contain the usual level of dishonesty, in that they repeatedly refer to the rioters as 'protesters', as if those rioting are somehow victims, and that stopping a talk is somehow a legitimate goal for a protest, never mind a riot —
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/01/uc-berkeley-cancels-breitbart-provocateur-milo-yiannopoulos-event/
https://archive.is/vXZIn
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| Rioters tear down a barricade at UC Berkeley, California, February 1, 2017. |
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| Rioters about to tear down a barricade at UC Berkeley, California, February 1, 2017. |
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| So-called 'peaceful protesters' surround a car at Berkeley, California, February 1, 2017, supposedly in response to Milo Yiannopoulos. |
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| So-called 'peaceful protesters' march at Berkeley, California, February 1, 2017, supposedly in response to Milo Yiannopoulos. Notice what looks like a woman on the left carrying a baseball bat. |
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| A rioter dancing around a fire at Berkeley, California, February 1, 2017, supposedly in response to Milo Yiannopoulos. Does it appear that the large crowd behind the fire approves or disapproves — or do they even know why they are there? |
Perhaps all the protesters should be defined by their tactics and what they fight for, rather than what some of them call themselves (anarchist, or otherwise). Perhaps all the protesters are more aligned with the typical Democrat, and even a good number of Republicans — that is, those who favor government subsidies and restrictions on free speech — i.e. statism.
Perhaps those, such as journalists like Dave Weigel, who wish to pretend that violent rioters are aligned with supporters of freedom of speech and association (i.e. anarchists), do not want to acknowledge that they themselves are most aligned with what the violent rioters are actually doing — trying to put down the people that they disagree with.
That is, associating a movement that supports freedom with violent rioting is an expression of an agenda. It is an attempt to dissociate oneself from the most basic expression of one's beliefs — the pretense that your initiation of force is moral. The rioters are perfectly aligned with all of the statists among us — they just have the consistency to commit the acts of violence required by their agenda themselves.
Statism requires the initiation of force, not anarchism, so it is no surprise that many would attempt to conceal the glaring fact that the rioters are an expression of statism.
In that regard, notice what happened to Eddy Bruck, who had the courage to challenge some of the rioters for trying to silence others. Not surprisingly, Bruck was assaulted.
Eddy Bruck stated what may be the most insightful characterization of the Berkeley rioters that you will hear — good luck finding such honest assessments from most journalists —
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/01/uc-berkeley-cancels-breitbart-provocateur-milo-yiannopoulos-event/
https://archive.is/vXZIn
Eddy Bruck — "They are afraid of free speech, so what do they do? They want to silence it all."
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| Notice the absurdity of the original caption from the 'East Bay Times' — it reads as if Bruck's face just happens to bleed. |
To add to the absurdity of Dave Weigel's 'Washington Post' piece, partially quoted at the top of this post, here is a quote from Weigel's blog from January 2, 2017. Notice that Dave Weigel fancies himself as dispensing some kind of wisdom to the rest of the world, and "rumbling their worldview" —
http://daveweigel.com/
https://archive.is/JDEyk
The arrogance in the quote above deserves to be emphasized —
"But 2016 was, as the documentarian Adam Curtis put it, a defeat for journalism, in which people like me were reminded how little people want to hear information that rumbles their worldview."That is what it means to be inside the mind of Dave Weigel — he is 'rumbling those worldviews' with his dishonest euphemisms about world events, such as when people are assaulted, because they wanted to attend a talk by someone a group of rioters disagree with.
And notice that when you challenge Weigel's obvious ignorance, he wants no part of it. I re-tweeted his misrepresentation regarding what it means to be an 'anarchist', and of course, just as you would expect from a craven, agenda driven journalist from a newspaper like the 'Washington Post', he immediately blocked me. This from a journalist who fancies himself as 'rumbling worldviews' —
https://twitter.com/MaxAutonomous/status/823021137902780419
And it is no surprise that Weigel — a professional journalist at a major U.S. newspaper — is not alone in attempting to pretend that the tactics of the rioters are diametrically opposed to the political label being used to describe them.
Here is an article from the 'San Francisco Chronicle', dated February 5, 2017, entitled 'Why UC police let anarchists run wild in Berkeley' —
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Why-UC-police-let-anarchists-run-wild-in-Berkeley-10908034.php
https://archive.is/AvgFw
Here is an article from 'The New York Times', dated February 2, 2017, entitled 'Anarchists Respond to Trump’s Inauguration, by Any Means Necessary' —
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/anarchists-respond-to-trumps-inauguration-by-any-means-necessary.html
https://archive.is/NPkEp
At least the article from 'The New York Times' included a photo of a rioter painting the anarchism symbol on the wall, indicating that at least one rioter actually thinks he is supposedly fighting for an end to state power, even though the photo was taken at a protest to end freedom of speech — so obviously that rioter is either lying, or profoundly confused (not to mention the journalist that wrote the title for the article).
And this article from a local television station, 'CBS 6' in Richmond, Virginia, is even more ridiculous. Here a government employee — a female firefighter — is described as being a member of an 'anarchist group'. I guess she still has not discovered that anarchists oppose all government —
http://wtvr.com/2017/01/26/henrico-firefighter-reassigned-after-being-arrested-for-rioting-in-dc/
http://archive.is/8oubH
If you are at all interested in the truth in any of this, you will not get it from journalists at any of the major newspapers — and certainly not from someone such as Dave Weigel at 'The Washington Post'.
If someone built a large Peace sign with steel pipe, and attached it to the end of a baseball bat, and then went around clubbing people to death with it, would journalists at all the major newspapers describe that person as a 'protesting pacifist'?
Here is the story from two victims, of what intrepid journalists like Dave Weigel like to call 'anarchists'. Notice that one woman was pepper sprayed while giving an interview to a journalist — she was fortunate that she was turning away just as it happened, so the spray largely missed her eyes. But did anyone among those 'peaceful protesters', or the journalist and his crew try to stop it, or express any concern afterward? Well, of course not —
And here is J.D. Tuccille, Contributing Editor at Reason, pointing out that the tactics of the rioters at Berkeley align them solidly with Nazis — as much as that label has been projected onto Milo Yiannopoulos, among others —
"It’s tough being a heroic anti-Nazi street fighter when you’re the closest thing to a Nazi around."
http://reason.com/archives/2017/02/07/thugs-indulge-their-weimar-dreams-and-be
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