At Delaware Street and San Pablo Avenue about 7:30 p.m., the marchers were face-to-face with a line of about 100 police in riot gear who turned the crowd back toward downtown, more than a mile to the east.
“You’re f—ing cowards,” screamed one skateboard-carrying young man, his face hidden by a black bandanna. “You don’t represent us,” a woman shouted at police.
“This is supposed to be about stopping violence,” said Francesca Rivera of Berkeley, who was marching with the protesters. “There seem to be a number of very young people who don’t [know] how to channel their violence.”
December 7, 2014
"Police use tear gas on Berkeley protesters."
Last night.
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96 comments:
Another reason to avoid Berzerkley.
Color me amused...
There appears to be a loosely confederated team of agitators that roam the west coast. They always arrive in time to hijack the agenda. They like to break windows at Starbucks.
There seem to be a number of very young people who don’t how to channel their violence
Yes, they do. They're channeling their violence against the fascist pigs who defend the X*-capitalistic state by militaristic violence against the vanguard of the people's will.
Jeez, I don't believe this stuff, but unlike the clown who was quoted, I actually do read what the protestors say about themselves & think that they are sincere, if deluded, in their beliefs.
* Fill in favorite identity politic complain here (e.g. Gaia-raping, patriarchal, hetero-normative, etc).
Number "00" buckshot works better and marks rioters as evidence.
"Police use tear gas on Berkeley protesters."
Happy days are here again,
The skies above are clear again...
Maybe some 'Febreze' along with the tear gas could be useful.
I am Laslo.
Ah the days,
The scent of tear gas in the air wafting over Sather Gate and the Plaza...
Oh we had a little party down in lakeport...
I was chewed put the other night on social media after I was critical of the protests shouting out public events and shutting down public transit, as if I was defending police brutality.
I can be against police brutality and for keeping public ways open. I don't have to choose between the two.
a few points.
1) See black folks? The cops will even use tear gas on white protesters from Berkely. SO then maybe its not racism that is guiding the use of tear gas, but how the protest is being conducted.
2) The protesters seem to want all the benefit of the protest but none of the responsibility. They want to confront the cops, vandalize cars, act like asses for 5+ hours, but don't want to face the repercussions of tear gas when the mob gets too unruly.
Spoiled protest kids are pussies. Whah, my eyes burn!
"Police arrested five adults and a juvenile on unspecified allegations, said Officer Jennifer Coats, a Berkeley police spokeswoman. Coats said protesters vandalized police vehicles and threw various objects at officers, including bricks, pipes, rocks and bottles. Some threw back smoke grenades that had been lobbed by officers, she said. One officer suffered a dislocated shoulder after being hit by a sandbag, she said."
Aww she was hit by a sand bag! Poor poor protester. IF that was my car she was vandalizing I hope she got hit with TWO sandbags AND a tear gas canister. Nothing fatal of course.
The lefties who are going to the theater are sympatico with the whole thing. And they're complaining that they're getting tear gas in their eyes. But rather than blame the protesters they blame the cops.
I’m not sure that’s necessary,” said Elaine Dunlap, 74, who had just attended a Paul Dresher concert at Zellerbach Playhouse. “I think people have a right to protest, certainly for an issue as big as this"
WHen I was getting driven home from work I had to put up with an hour of blocked traffic because people wanted to snarl traffic. If I have to deal with the repercussions of their protest, then so should you sweetie.
There's always that person. The ones who simultaneously are violent but haven't been exposed to enough violence. To quote Chris, "Nobody's above a good ass whuppin." I doubt any of those children have had so much as a bloody nose in their lives.
Once you start vandalizing shit, don't complain when you get hit with tear gas. You have no respect for the property of others, and think it's there for you to destroy. Society needs to have cops step in and protect property from anarchsists. And if that requires tear gas, so be it. If it requires rubber bullets so be it. If it requires real bullets so be it. I'm tired of entitled brats thinking their grievance allows them to destroy property or go after the whites in the crowd because they happen to be driving while white (referring to Reginald Denny).
If you want to sit and sing Kumba Ya My Lord on the ground more power to you. But once you start throwing rocks and bottles you deserve some tear gas in your eyes.
"YOu say you want a revolution
well you know, we all want to change the world.
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out" (Yes, in the better version he also said "In". but Lennon at that time was starting to become a lefty twat who couldn't help but undermine his own message with inconsistency)
jr565 said, "The protesters seem to want all the benefit of the protest but none of the responsibility."
100%. I have long said that if judges gave maximum sentences for the crimes associated with protest (trespass, disorderly conduct and the like) we'd soon separate the agitators from the aggrieved.
@Althouse: No protests at the "Berkeley of the Midwest"?
actually just noticed it said one officer was hit with a sandbag and dislocated her shoulder, not one protester. My condolences for the officer. The person throwing the sand bag should have had rubber bullets fired at him.
"Number "00" buckshot works better and marks rioters as evidence.:
Actually, in my grandfather's day they loaded shells with rock salt. It doesn't kill but leaves long memories as the salt slowly absorbs.
Since when are police officers supposed to "represent" somebody? Or -bodies?
It's the coddled, well-off suburban white kids who can be counted on to behave the most badly during these things. It's an echo of the 60's and 70's. We have to go through these things once in awhile so that folks can get into the Radio Shack and supplement the trust fund with some good shit.
"That's all right. These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one." - Peter Clemenza
- Krumhorn
"“You don’t represent us,” a woman shouted at police."
No, they don't. That's not what they're there for. They are there to stop you from damaging people and property.
I though the whole point was to get them to use the tear gas. How else would they get on the news?
Number "00" buckshot works better and marks rioters as evidence
I like the sentiment, but personally I prefer salt loads for this purpose.
@ David
So correct.
A Christmas Tree Lighting is a non-news story, only if there are protests to drown it out for attention.
Laslo Spatula said... [hush][hide comment]
Maybe some 'Febreze' along with the tear gas could be useful.
I am Laslo.
AVAILABLE THROUGH AA AMAZON PORTAL
Nasal Nausea is a unique liquid which exudes a harrowing, assaultive stench so foul that it can overwhelm anyone in its vicinity.
The proprietary formula is so powerful that it is classified as a military-grade putricant.
Deploy only with utmost caution and discretion
More apropos the previous posts about Michael Brown, Eric Garner, etc.
I was born and raised in Norway back when it was unheard of for police constables to carry firearms, or any other kind of weapon for that matter. Yet it was also understood that if you acted in a manner to threaten the public peace and/or resisted arrest, you most certainly would be restrained one way or another.
The constables knew how, and would do it. Many also patrolled with their own well trained German Shepherds, which there was no reason for a peaceable citizen to be afraid of, but you certainly would not want to be taken down by one.
Resisting arrest is a very bad thing to do, and how minor the original complaint against you was, is entirely irrelevant.
I was attacked by the "protesters" on Shattuck, about a block from the Berkeley BART. They saw me taking pictures, and didn't like it. I was surrounded, screamed at, horse collared as they tried to take my camera, and hit on the back of the head with a blunt object as I ran away.
I put quotes around "protesters," because I didn't see any signs, candles, or anything else indicating they were engaged in a protest. They were goons, and they acted like goons.
“You’re f—ing cowards,” screamed one skateboard-carrying young man, his face hidden by a black bandanna.
It was brave of him to show his face. Oh, wait.
“You don’t represent us,” a woman shouted at police.
Got it right in one guess! They represent us. You know, the taxpayers who want to go about their daily business.
I'm as much against police brutality as anybody else is, and I would have joined a peaceful march, if only to take pictures. I wasn't doing anything provocative. But it went from "standing around taking pictures, mostly of the police" to "surrounded by an angry violent mob" to "running away bleeding" in about 30 seconds.
More misdirection from the actual issue - US cops kill vastly too many citizens. It's not complicated folks, yet Althouse continues to disgrace herself.
And, before the racists get started, the majority of citizens killed are white.
My route downtown passed the vandalized Radio Shack and Trader Joe's, and the group I was taking pictures of was throwing trash cans in the street, so I was probably mirroring the route of one of the "splinter groups" mentioned in the article. I never saw the group of legitimate protesters.
I'd like to see the police just not show up. Let the protesters scream at the air. When things get out of hand, let the smarmy, peace-loving Berkeley elite calm things down.
Maybe they could hire the Hell's Angels to run security like the Stones did at Altamont.
Darn those racist, ignorant, violent Teabaggers!
Oh, wait. . . .
I am surprised the business people and government officials of downtown Berkeley didn't welcome some looting and burning. Shocking!
The full Berkeley experience! Brings tears to the eyes.
Does anyone have a better article than the SFGate one on this? People outside the area need to have some geography. San Pablo is the major north-south non-freeway route in Berkeley and the towns north. Shutting it down is a major stoppage of transit. And mostly inconvenences the people of ElCeritto and Richmond who would have to travel by bus on San Pablo(No better choice exists).
Telegraph and Durant is one block down Telegraph from Cal. Classic location for a confrontation. Much 60's stuff happened at that intersection. But it is a long way up hill from San Pablo and Delaware.
Zach: is that the Trader Joes on University? Also a long way from San Pablo and right across the street from KPFA. Coincidence? Hard to tell.
Note that none of these are in "downtown" Berkeley. More are any of them close to theaters except Zellerbach and that is on the UC campus.
More misdirection from the actual issue - US cops kill vastly too many citizens. It's not complicated folks, yet Althouse continues to disgrace herself.
That's a bullshit graphic in so many ways...let us start with:
1) The cops in England (and I believe Japan) don't carry guns. Most criminals don't either, given their countries' draconian gun laws. (The people in both countries are notably subjects, not citizens)
2)The populations of the countries are vastly disproportionate.
3) Really want to impress me? Show a similar graphic comparing the number of cops who died on the job last year.
Gahrie said...
Show a similar graphic comparing the number of cops who died on the job last year.
Why are you so lazy? Being a cop is quite a safe job. Everyone who knows anything about this topic knows this. Apparently you know nothing about this topic.
The homicide rate for cops is below the national average. There is no excuse for their trigger happy ways.
" Apparently you know nothing about this topic."
Talk's cheap ARM. How many cops are killed each year ?
It's not hard for a bright guy (?) like you
Even deaths from gunfire.
There are svn statistics about blacks killed by police.
Of 1,265 murder victims in St. Louis between 2003 and 2012, 1,138 (89.9 percent) were black, according to University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist David Klinger, a former police officer.
About 90 percent of the black decedents (1,025) were slain by other blacks, his research indicates. Thirty-two were killed by police officers, 22 (1.93 percent) by white cops.
Between 1976 and 2011 across the United States, 7,982 blacks were murdered each year, on average — 94 percent by other blacks, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. About 227 blacks (2.8 percent) were shot by police each year, according to a study by Pro Publica (which pointed out that national statistics on police shootings are difficult to assess because of differences in how police departments report them).
See how easy that was ?
ARM so what would you do? I can see a case for removing guns from normal police, but there are issue that need to be addressed since the populace has guns. We could go the British route and make using a gun a major offense, but we are close to that now and have overloaded prisons.
So ARM, in all your anger, what do you suggest?
For those who want more detail on the Berkeley protests, a fairly decent account at some level is available at
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/12/06/breaking-post-ferguson-demo-in-downtown-berkeley-march-continues-to-berkeley-police-hq/
DougWeber said...
So ARM, in all your anger, what do you suggest?
How about an honest conversation, rather than distractions with race, taxes and protesters, none of which have any causal relationship to the fact that we have a police force primarily intent on saving their own skin and all too comfortable when their actions result in the deaths of the citizens they are paid to protect.
The good news is that police killing people is down as is people killing police.
The crime rate has dropped significantly in the last 25 years.
The current hysteria by some is not backed by the data.
ARM A "conversation"? That is your solution? We all sit down in a Kubaia circle and talk? See how well that has worked for the last 50 years? If the cops are racists to the core, this is a waste.
Now the item on NPR by the LA based woman who used to sue the police was interesting. Her take is that this is a question of fear. The police fear black youth and black youth fear the police. In a fight or flight situation, for both these groups, fight wins.
Now more interaction between the police and the black youth would help. They might learn to trust each other a bit. But it will take time. The black youth culture will have to accept that being dissed by the man is part of life.(Even white men do not have fun interactions with modern cops when there is even a traffic stop involved). Police have to find a way to defuse situations. But when anyone thinks his life is on the line and he has the ability to fight, he will fight. That is humanity.
DougWeber said...
So ARM,... what do you suggest?
Clearly there is an inherent conflict of interest when a local prosecuting attorney is responsible for an investigation into homicides by police with whom he/she regularly works. At a minimum, there has to be greater distance between the police and those responsible for investigating their alleged or actual malfeasance. This is just simple commonsense.
Zach: is that the Trader Joes on University? Also a long way from San Pablo and right across the street from KPFA. Coincidence? Hard to tell.
Yes. I live on University and went outside because of the orbiting helicopter. There was a police roadblock on University which was eventually disbanded. I walked downtown on University after the roadblock was disbanded, so I was probably walking on the same route at about the same pace as the San Pablo group.
I don't think it was the same group that vandalized Trader Joe's, because I was walking at about the same pace, and Trader Joe's was already vandalized and blockaded by shopping carts when I arrived.
I figured that the main protests would be near the campus and possibly in the Telegraph district, but I never made it that far.
Like I say, I don't think I saw any legitimate protesters at all, aside from a couple of people holding signs at the roadblock. These guys weren't protesters who got too emotional; they were looking for trouble and found me.
To the extent that I noticed, the group that attacked me was all white, by the way.
DougWeber said...
We all sit down in a Kubaia circle and talk?
Are you trying to be a cocksucker?
Obvioiusly if every time this topic comes up the real issue is overwhelmed with distractions like race etc. then nothing is achieved. The majority of cop homicides are of whites. Not sure how 'inteeractions' with black youth is going to help that.
Cops kill too many people, period.
Another "asshole magnet."
My son is a grad student at UC Berkeley and lives above the Trader Joe's vandalized last night. Unfortunately as he and his fiancee were returning from an early date the traffic stopped as protesters advanced. He got out and told his fiancee to remain in the car. His timing was unfortunate because they had just started vandalizing Trader Joe's. As he put it:
"I happened to be on the street corner as this climaxed and began videotaping with my phone. After about 30 seconds I was punched in the back of the head and my phone was stolen out of my hands. At that point, I was surrounded by 10-15 black men who proceeded to punch and assault me. Repeatedly I heard them shout racial slurs, like "White Faggot". Not a single person in this angry mob tried to stop these people from basically beating me senseless. I honestly believe I would be in the hospital right now if it weren’t for my fiancee coming from out of nowhere and shouting stop. People didn’t realize we knew each other and her shouting “STOP” caught everyone off guard. I was about one minute away from being very, very hurt."
ARM there are clearly problems with our current prosecutorial system. Too much power in the prosecutor's hands and too little oversight. Not sure how to change it. Too many plea bargains but to reduce that means more trials and expenses.
If you follow all the threads you will find that it is not that simple. We have multiple processes in this country from elected prosecutors to appointed ones. Not sure if there is any difference in the end.
Do we need private prosecution options as used to exist in England? But then the harassment suites will go ballistic.
Easy to say, not easy to do.
"Clearly there is an inherent conflict of interest when a local prosecuting attorney is responsible for an investigation into homicides by police with whom he/she regularly works."
I don't disagree with this but you have to be practical. Who would want to be in the business of investigating police except an antipolice activist and then you have the opposite bias.
I have had unpleasant experiences with police but nobody was interested.
1. I admitted a guy who had been shot in the back buy the police. I kept getting phone calls about where the wounds where, in front or back, etc. Finally, I went to the family and asked permission to photograph the wounds. Entry and exit wounds are pretty identifiable. They refused permission. Even the family lawyer refused.
2. I operated on a guy who had been shot by a cop who had been an innocent bystander. Long story but he was absolutely innocent. I got to know him pretty well over the years as I cared for his spinal cord injury. Finally, about five years later, I testified for him at his lawsuit trial against the cops. He got nothing. About two years later, Rodney King, a fleeing felon got millions.
The first guy was white, the second black.
I don't like the EPA and the Dept of Education having SWAT teams but that is probably something you approve of, ARM.
"Are you trying to be a cocksucker?"
Great argument ARM. Every time I start to take you seriously, you do something like this.
Here's the picture of Trader Joe's after.
My son mentioned today that just before the assault he saw the workers at Trader Joes (the checkouts are right by the front windows). They all looked terrified,
Heh - I've lived in Berkeley nearly all my life - it's so liberal here (and non-sensical) that it drove me to the Republican Party the minute I turned 18.
The scenery and history here is wonderful. Beautiful hills, beautiful views of SF and wonderful parks. The high price of housing and expensive Alice Waters restaurants have driven much of the underclass out. Lotta rich gentry liberals here.
This "protest" is mostly for show. The police here are nice guys, many blacks, many gays. The south side has a lot of impoverished blacks. Not advisable to hang out there at night. The aged hippies and rabble rousers can gin up a protest every now and then, but nothing major. Last night was small potatoes.
Bezerkeley!
ARM -
It doesn't seem intuitively obvious that 409 is such a large number. About one per day in a country of 320 million. How many of those killed were shooting back? Just throwing out a number doesn't do much to advance the debate. What do you think the "right" number should be and why?
It is clear that the actions in Berkeley last night were filled with nuance. Unfortunately the national press seems to only see nuance as a useful adjective without content. If this had happened anywhere except Berkeley, it would never have made NPR and the reporting on NPR was clearly inadequate.
DougWeber said...
Easy to say, not easy to do.
First of all the alternative, the status quo, is no longer acceptable. Second, there appear to be viable paths forward, here and here.
If Althouse was any kind of a lawyer she would have been contributing to this debate rather than promoting red herrings.
"To quote Chris, 'Nobody's above a good ass whuppin.'"
But apparently the police are above a good accountin' for themselves.
"I doubt any of those children have had so much as a bloody nose in their lives."
Well then by all means, the police ought to bloody them up.
What, really, did you think you were contributing anyway? I'm genuinely curious.
Michael K said...
I don't like the EPA and the Dept of Education having SWAT teams but that is probably something you approve of, ARM.
Every time I start to take you seriously, you do something like this. :)
ARM the problem seems to be that we conflicted in what we all want the police to do, both white and black populations. When we need to be protected say from crime we want a police department that stops and even prevents. That means giving the police very large powers. Better 10 innocent men are arrested than that my house is robbed. Better 1000 innocent men be arrested than my daughter be raped.
No one(I repeat no one) wants innocent men killed. The problem is we are not born with neon signs above our head saying if we are innocent or guilty. We ask average intelligence people to make this judgement with insufficient knowledge and on a split-second timing. Some of those judgements are going to go wrong. Sorry. It will always be. We can reduce police powers but then we must accept that they are not a able to protect us. Do we want people to protect themselves more? Some accept that as the solution but you do not like these people.
It is not a simple situation here. Unless you think all police are racist pigs who put the good-old boys of Jim Crow south to shame, there is not clear and complete solution.
ARM: special prosecutors to examine police misconduct accusations might help. There are two problems that worry me on that.
First, most big city police departments have independent internal investigation units. They are at least presented as relentless by movies, being frequently the people responsible for keeping good cops from doing their job. Will an external group be any different?
Second is the problem we saw with federal level special prosecutors. Once they exist, one finds that they work hard to justify their existence by finding misdeeds. While there is plenty of criminal conduct so that normal prosecutors have not incentive to create crime to justify their jobs, is there enough police misconduct at a level worthy of such special prosecution that such people will have enough work to not have incentives to manufacture issues? Not sure. But history shows us it is an issue.
For the record, my tendency is to want to compartmentalize police force options. Maybe remove guns from the street police. But give them cameras to record incidents. Be restrained in sudden unexpected occurrence but allow for powerful actions when the situation is clear and controllable(excluding SWAT teams. they are overkill now)
Police Use Tear Gas in Berkeley
It's like the 60s never ended. Good times, good times...
More misdirection from the actual issue - US cops kill vastly too many citizens. It's not complicated folks, yet Althouse continues to disgrace herself.
And, before the racists get started, the majority of citizens killed are white.
That's an absurd statement from a number of perspectives. In a nation of over 300 million, the number of people killed by police each year in the US represents less than .000002 of the population. We have a far greater percentage of nut cases than that which is a testament to the restraint of the police in general.
As for the racists, your comment should be directed to the lefties who try to use any such event as another example of white cops killing blacks.
Yours is a particularly idiotic statement when you figure that the only alternative is for the police to take more risks and subject themselves to more of funerals of their colleagues. As it is, about 50 policemen are killed in the line of duty each year. That's 50 too many, but you apparently would prefer that the gentle giant had been successful in his effort to raise the number to 51.
- Krumhorn
The homicide rate for cops is below the national average
That's not the issue. What is the homicide rate for American cops as compared to English and Japanese cops?
You started the comparisons to them, not me.
"Cops kill too many people, period."
ARM just because you say so doesn't make it so. Unless you list everyone that was killed by cops in a given year and the situation that resulted in the killing you have nothing but your opinion and no facts.
Remove guns for street police? Gee, great idea. Why don't you volunteer to walk along with a cop in one of hundreds of high crime areas on a Saturday night. Maybe Chicago. Odds are you'll survive.... that night.
I'd like to see the police just not show up. Let the protesters scream at the air. When things get out of hand, let the smarmy, peace-loving Berkeley elite calm things down.
Maybe they could hire the Hell's Angels to run security like the Stones did at Altamont.
12/7/14, 12:52 PM
This is so awesome.
"hat is probably something you approve of, ARM.
Every time I start to take you seriously, you do something like this. :)"
So, the two comments are equivalent ?
You just have not shown yourself to be a serious person so, end of discussion.
"I'd like to see the police just not show up. Let the protesters scream at the air."
Well, though this comment was pitched as a police-friendly "thought," it accidentally hits on something interesting anyway.
There is something very odd about particular police depts. controlling protests and events specifcially aimed at themselves and their own misdeeds. It is awfully hard to think that these police would actually be fair to the protestors in such a case. Not impossible to do, but damn near, as the evidence from Ferguson, Berkley, and New York (just three recent examples) show.
In any case, the behavior of police at protests should be monitored more closely (and much more critically) than the behavior of the protestors themselbes.
Not a single person in this angry mob tried to stop these people from basically beating me senseless. ...I was about one minute away from being very, very hurt.
In my case, it escalated so quickly that there was basically no opportunity for anybody to intervene. Stepping into the middle of a circle of violent people is beyond the call of duty for a good Samaritan. Several people shouted out "Just run away!", which was good advice in the circumstances.
I don't think most people are prepared for a situation where there's so little inhibition to violence by a group of people. Usually, people are looking for an excuse not to fight. I'll bet the surrounding people were just as surprised as your son at how quickly things happened.
Gahrie, the English have armed cops now and criminal gun violence has skyrocketed since the ban, as usually happens.
harrogate said...
There is something very odd about particular police depts. controlling protests and events specifcially aimed at themselves and their own misdeeds.
No, I think you're imagining that.
@ARM: Please stop linking to Ta-Nehisi Coates as the solution to any "racial" problems. He's part of the problem.
And please tell me how the the Garner incident was "racist." Also, please include the role of the supervising officer or STFU.
This is right up there with "Don't Taze Me Bro!" and that the UCLA Student tasered in the library.
chickelit said...
@ARM: Please stop linking to Ta-Nehisi Coates as the solution to any "racial" problems. He's part of the problem.
And please tell me how the the Garner incident was "racist." Also, please include the role of the supervising officer or STFU.
Everything you wrote here is stupid. I specifically avoided all the racial issues, which are largely irrelevant. The majority of deaths by cop are white men.
Stop bringing your own prejudices into discussions without making at least a minimal effort to understand what others are saying.
"In any case, the behavior of police at protests should be monitored more closely (and much more critically) than the behavior of the protestors themselves."
So, how many businesses did the cops loot ?
Jeez !
I am not fan of cops but try to sound reasonable.
ARM,
How do you know the majority of police officer deaths are caused by white men?
mccullough said...
ARM,
How do you know the majority of police officer deaths are caused by white men?
Although poorly phrased, I said that the majority of victims of homicide by police were white men.
The majority of police deaths are not felony killings but more prosaic things like car and motorcycle accidents.
Berkeley, Ferguson, et al need more Roof Koreans and fewer cops, apparently.
the majority of citizens killed are white.
The majority of citizens period are white. ARM's mastery of the obvious never disappoints.
Firing work boots and push brooms instead of teargas would do more to disperse the looty mobs and without the potentially fatal bronchial side-effects.
There is something very odd about particular police depts. controlling protests and events specifcially aimed at themselves and their own misdeeds
Since when did police depts start placing their precincts inside of Radio Shacks and liquor stores?
Ah dear old Berkeley and the numb nuts mindless protestors who live there. It's an intereestig city. I went to law school there; my younger brother went to Cal undergrad and on to grad school at Cal. He and his wife stayed in Berkeley where she taught at Berkeley High School for 40 years. I visited them frequently over the years.
There's definitely a lower town and gown split in the community. Professors and somewhat affluent professionals live in the hills above and north of the campus. Black and working folk live down on the flats--e.g. close to San Pablo Avenue. Many of the academic crowd have been softened by advancing age--tough to get out and march when your arthritis is acting up. But they're still "down" with the movement.
Cal has become very expensive tuition, room and board wise. Many kids who might have been able to afford Cal twenty or thirty years ago can't do it these days.
So there's a lot of frustration. And there's a sort of nostalgic memory of the glory days of protests at Cal in the 60's and 70's. That is the current crop believes that those were the glory days when protests meant something and were about "real evils" versus today's "whaddya got" protests.
But there's been gentrification and yuppification of areas close to campus where students used to live. In the mid 1960's when my wife and I lived there, we shopped at the Co Op on Telegraph and Ashby --hey that's what the politically correct (or impoverished students) did. Times have changed and Telegraph Avenue is no longer protest central. And the Co Op store? It's now a Whole Foods. Hey an aging progressive has to eat doesn't she or he?
Delaware and San Pablo? A bizarre location to be protesting. What on earth?
Skeptical Voter,
But there's been gentrification and yuppification of areas close to campus where students used to live. In the mid 1960's when my wife and I lived there, we shopped at the Co Op on Telegraph and Ashby --hey that's what the politically correct (or impoverished students) did. Times have changed and Telegraph Avenue is no longer protest central. And the Co Op store? It's now a Whole Foods. Hey an aging progressive has to eat doesn't she or he?
Oh, that's been a Whole Foods for ages. Close to twenty years, I think. The TJs on University is since my time, though. Typical of the "protesters" to raid that and Radio Shack. Let's attack the vaunted Symbols of White Privilege -- namely, banks and university offices. No, strike that, what was I thinking? I meant "good, cheap food and consumer electronics." No bias here!
I think the answer to racism is that any one with a race should be able to do whatever they want and the police should respect this decision to exercise their God-given free will. Otherwise the police are infringing on the rights of people that have a race.
Later we can deal with people who have behaviors, maybe after 400 years of non-racial policing.
furious_a said...
Firing work boots and push brooms instead of teargas would do more to disperse the looty mobs
I could see that.
Roll a 12 pounder into the middle of Telegraph. Load it with a mix of broom handles and rock salt.
Let fly at 100 yards. I understand from reading my O'Brien and Forester, that 6 inch wood splinters are particularly nasty...
a Whiff of broomhandle as it were...
I've noted elsewhere that in the 1906 SF earthquake both the police and the Army were given permission to shoot looters on sight and no one batted an eye.
Today only teargas? Our ancestors seem to have been made of sterner stuff..
I think many of the protestors with Guy Fawkes masks are white college kids with frequent flyer miles from jetting to flash-mob protest sites.
I drove by the Trader Joe's that was hit on University Ave in Berkeley. The windows on the north side on Univerisity Ave are all boarded up with plywood after having been smashed. But the store was open! Many shoppers there!
The Berkeley PD has closed off Old Grove St (now MLK Jr.St. ) and there were police choppers buzzing about, but it was mild. I had my teenager and his friend in the car to regale them off the protests in the 60s & 70s, when Governor Reagan called out the National Guard to tear gas the protestors down University Ave. The spirit of the 60s is NOT alive and well in Berkeley. That's probably a good thing.
The looters *are* the protesters. In Berkeley, they always have been. The idea that there's some sort of separate group of "anarchists" or just plain criminals that are separate and distinct from the leaders of the "legitimate" protests is ridiculous.
We're back in the 60s - a Democrat-run police force is tear-gassing a bunch of spoiled kids, and they're right to do so.
More misdirection from the actual issue - US cops kill vastly too many citizens. It's not complicated folks, yet Althouse continues to disgrace herself.
So, in your world, it's not possible to agree with the concept that cops kill too many people and utterly loathe how protestors go about their business of making asses of themselves?
There is something very odd about particular police depts. controlling protests and events specifcially aimed at themselves and their own misdeeds. It is awfully hard to think that these police would actually be fair to the protestors in such a case. Not impossible to do, but damn near, as the evidence from Ferguson, Berkley, and New York (just three recent examples) show.
Police are there because asshole protestors aren't always concerned with who they are fucking over.
See Joe, Trader's for an example.
In any case, the behavior of police at protests should be monitored more closely (and much more critically) than the behavior of the protestors themselbes.
The cops normally (I know it wasn't the case during Katrina) aren't the ones wrecking and stealing other people's property.
It's the Left-wing protestors who do that.
" we shopped at the Co Op on Telegraph and Ashby"
Somewhere there's a book in what happened to the Berkeley Co-Op.
As far as I know, it failed because it let its costs get out of hand. Its managment had bright ideas like a free babysitting co-op in the front of the store, for which there were never enough volunteers and therefore needed paid staff (In a for-profit store these square feet would have earned a profit, but at the Co-Op it was an expense). And there were the endless battles over whether the store should carry foods that were being boycotted, or even junk food if/when "better" alternatives were available.
The business of supermarket retailing is all about high volume and low margins; thus, it doesn't take all that much increase in costs to become uncompetitive. Although unions were part of the story here, as a declining union grocery must retain its most expensive employees (because high seniority) while letting the least expensive ones go, and thus average labor costs rise inexorably as a chain declines. And not surprisingly, the Lefties on the Co-Op board were temperamentally incapable of any hard negotiating with the union.
(Not that negotiations would have worked. When virtually all supermarkets were union, the union representing supermerket employees had no reason to care if one went out of business, as grocery sales are mostly a fixed pie in which one store's loss is another's gain.)
As the Co-Op failed its prices rose well above those of its for-profit competition, and guilty radicals began furtively buying stuff elsewhere (Oh, the disgrace of being seen shopping at a for-profit store instead of the Co-Op!). Although there were a few store-trashing raids on competing for-profit stores, in which "protesters" would run into a store, sweep everything off the shelves, and leave before police responded.
So, is Berkeley better now, or just crazy in different ways? And how does the Berkeley PD even begin to maintain order in the political climate that is Berkeley, CA?
So much wasted effort coupled with a near total lack of coherent thought. The lack of revolutionary expertise is quite disappointing.
It's almost enough to make one wade in there and show those idiots how to do it. "Here, this is how you make a proper bomb." "No, fool, you let the students without police records up march front to take the casualties." "Make sure your snipers scout out good overwatch locations ahead of time."
There's no real dedication with these kids.
Cops kill too many people, period.
Yes, they do. They also steal too much shit which isn't theirs.
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