Progressive Incoherence in “Radical” Berkeley

[marmar]

from Dissent magazine:



Progressive Incoherence in “Radical” Berkeley
By Zelda Bronstein - August 1, 2013




In the fall of 2011 Occupy caught the world by surprise, as tens of thousands of Americans, led by youth no less, took to the streets demanding economic justice. In Berkeley, California, Occupy upset expectations of a different sort. That city, my home for thirty-three of the past forty-six years, is widely regarded as a prime redoubt of the American left. But in the East Bay and, for a few weeks, the entire country, the epicenter of Occupy materialized in front of Oakland’s, not Berkeley’s, city hall.

To hear the media tell it, Berkeley’s default came out of the blue. “The Occupy movement,” wrote Carolyn Jones in the San Francisco Chronicle, “has been surprisingly quiet in Berkeley, which prides itself on a long history of rabble-rousing.” The quiescence surprised the alternative press as well. “Why,” wondered Zaineb Mohammed in a piece posted on the New America Media website, “is (sic) the city and college that ignited the mass protests of the ’60s barely a blip on the radar now?”

Media puzzlement at Berkeley’s truancy was predictable. For decades the press has disseminated the myth of radical—or leftist or liberal or progressive—Berkeley; take your pick, the terms are used interchangeably. With few exceptions, reporters cite sporadic “rabble-rousing” as evidence of a tenacious civic activism while disregarding numerous signs of a rightward turn within city hall, political disengagement outside it, and ideological disarray all around.

But Berkeley’s enduring radical image is not simply the creation of an unobservant media. It’s also the work of the city’s political class and its constituents. Not that twenty-first-century Berkeley politicos call themselves radical or leftist or even liberal; their label of choice is “progressive,” a contested term embraced by political actors with diametrically opposed views. ........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/progressive-incoherence-in-radical-berkeley

[NYC_SKP]

1. There are a lot of sell-outs in the city of Berkeley. The place has lost it's way.

"Incoherence" is a compliment compared to the reality of the politics there, at the city level and among those in power in the UC system.

It's a shame, really.

[Arctic Dave]

2. Berkely is nothing more then nostalgia for 60's radicals.

Todays Berkeley is nothing but the shell of that time used as a prop for repugs to bash liberals.

It is about as liberal/radical as a kid dressing up as the caricature of a hippie on Halloween.