Did Yiannopoulos secretly send more than 100 thugs to Berkeley to break up his own speech?

[DonViejo]

By Paul Cassell February 6 at 9:17 AM

Last week, more than 100 masked thugs invaded the University of California at Berkeley campus and forced the cancellation of a speech by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. All credible reports have suggested that these thugs were not Berkeley students, but were instead outside anarchist agitators intent on keeping Yiannopoulos from speaking. For example, The Post had this description:

The demonstrators included “Black bloc” protesters, who wear masks and black clothing to present a unified front as they disrupt events, making it difficult for police to recognize individuals in the group. They are often seen at protests organized by groups such as Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street, destroying property and setting fires. They torched a limousine in Washington last month on the day of Trump’s inauguration, and a group spray-painted buildings and smashed electrical boxes during a demonstration in Portland, Ore., earlier in January. When a group of them arrived at Berkeley, it swiftly changed the tenor of the peaceful demonstration.

Some students organized to try to protect the campus and businesses nearby, and then to pick up broken glass, scrub graffiti off buildings and clean the campus after the violence.

William Morrow, president of the Associated Students of the University of California, said in a statement that the cleanup effort showed what Berkeley students care about. “Last night was not reflective of that,” he said; students were expecting a peaceful protest, an exchange of opinions and a dance party, “but outside agitators infiltrated our community and didn’t treat it with the respect for our historic tradition of non-violence.”

The agitators set fires and caused more than $100,000 in damage to the campus.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/02/06/did-yiannopoulos-secretly-send-more-than-one-hundred-thugs-to-berkeley-to-break-up-his-own-speech/?utm_term=.6afc3d001502&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

[jmg257]

1. It continues...

So let’s see: Yiannopoulos, who is an outsider to Berkeley and generally unwelcome there, succeeds in secretly arranging for more than 100 thugs to assemble in this city and then invade the Berkeley campus and cause more than $100,000 in damage, all to create a pretextual motive for Trump to alter federal funding for the UC system. And Yiannopoulos manages to do this without a single one of the thugs spilling the beans and tipping off the fact that this violent criminal conspiracy is organized by Yiannopoulos, not his opponents.

To even describe the plot is to make clear how phantasmagorical the whole idea is. Occam’s razor applies here. Or, as medical students are taught, when you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras. There is no way Yiannopoulos organized these protests, subjecting himself to serious criminal liability and placing the fate of his career on the sealed lips of more than 100 conspirators. Instead, the simplest explanation is the correct one: The persons responsible are left-wing anarchists, as the New York Times (among others) has described in this recent article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/anarchists-respond-to-trumps-inauguration-by-any-means-necessary.html?_r=0

But anarchists and anti-fascists, who often make up a small but disproportionately attention-getting portion of protesters, defend the mayhem they create as a necessary response to an emergency.

“Yes, what the black bloc did last night was destructive to property,” Eric Laursen, a writer in Massachusetts who has helped publicize anarchist protests, said, using another name for the black-clad demonstrators. “But do you just let someone like Milo go wherever he wants and spread his hate? That kind of argument can devolve into ‘just sit on your hands and wait for it to pass.’ And it doesn’t.”

Anarchists also say their recent efforts have been wildly successful, both by focusing attention on their most urgent argument — that Mr. Trump poses a fascist threat — and by enticing others to join their movement.

“The number of people who have been showing up to meetings, the number of meetings, and the number of already-evolving plans for future actions is through the roof,” Legba Carrefour, who helped organize the so-called Disrupt J20 protests on Inauguration Day in Washington, said in an interview.

[applegrove]

4. I have no idea who those organized criminals were. But the implication

Yiannopoulous would have had to organize them himself is absolutely ridiculous. The right wing are opportunists. Who is getting all those slurs and robotcalls to Jewish synagogue? Obviously some opportunists who are organized and take advantage of an event, in this case that there are synagogue in lots of places, and organize the crimes. Could be organic. But they are exploiting an opportunity. Yiannopoulous speaking is just such an opportunity. He would have nothing to do with any planning.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

19. Useful idiots are in abundance

People on this very website have said they don't really care if their little public performances are aiding the Republicans.

[Initech]

8. Can he be arrested for that?

If it was proven that he paid those thugs to intentionally disrupt, could he be prosecuted for inciting a riot? The question is how do you prove that?

[jmg257]

10. Doubt its an issue..."There is no way Yiannopoulos organized these protests"...

subjecting himself to serious criminal liability and placing the fate of his career on the sealed lips of more than 100 conspirators. Instead, the simplest explanation is the correct one: The persons responsible are left-wing anarchists,

But what's weird is that no one seems to know for sure who/why they are.

[Igel]

14. Somebody knows.

They're just not saying.

At this point, to speak out would be to invite shame. They accomplished their mission and feel good about themselves; why invite shame and ridicule?

Somebody was killed at a convenience store a mile from where I live. The police have physical evidence, but nobody's coming forth to say who the killers were. But somebody beside the killers themselves knows. Yet if they're caught, you can be sure that the kids' mothers will be saying how good their boys are and they never did anything wrong.

Listened to this one guy on the radio talk about the turmoil he had in turning in his brother for murder. He thought about it long and hard, and took weeks to come to a decision; it was being at traitor to his family, to his parents, to community solidarity. He finally reported his brother to the police, and has had a difficult time living it down in his family and community. Avoidance of shame very often beats out morality and truth.

[jmg257]

15. Agreed. Which I think here leads back to the LE - 150 people causing absolute chaos and NO arrests

of even 1 black bloc participant? (not a conspiracy, just a WTF?!?)

I am surprised whatever is going has been kept so secret - how these guys organize w/o giving it away is beyond me.

[Eyeball_Kid]

27. Eh... I don't buy the anarchist angle. I don't see motive for using a peaceful protest

against Trumpy serving as an opportunity to show the "anarchists'" dislike of... Trumpy. The violent contingent of protesters, to an individual, is fully cognizant of the political reactionaries' knee-jerk blaming of Berkeley students. But what's the point?

And there IS a point. People who get dressed up in black and cover their heads in masks to hide their identity while they destroy property are doing nothing if not trying to make a point. But the dynamics of this Berkeley event, among others, shows a different motive that can be answered by asking, "Cui bono?"

Who benefits? People are risking their physical safety when they turn violent. Why were these people risking their personal safety?

They worked as a team. When you work as a team, you normally rehearse your planned behavior. So they had time to prepare before the event, what, during lunch breaks at the office? No, this stuff takes a little time and coordination, so I'd suspect that these people don't practice during lunch break, but instead are getting paid to pull off events during protests. Anarchists? Nonsense. They're getting paid by a political operative. I'd sure want to find out who in the media first used the word, "anarchist", and/or who they interviewed who used that word.

[politicat]

30. It's really not that hard to organize a bunch of MRAs. They've done it before.

Private reddit channels, Discord and Slack make it fairly easy. They understand cells, too. There's a significant overlap between MRA, alt-right and body-building -- MRAs are not universally bitter, middle-aged divorced men. Rather few of them, in fact.

Are there anarchists in that group? Sure, some. Lots of authoritarian libertarians and social arsonists, too.

These assholes have been gearing up for this for almost three years -- they started with G'Gate, which so many in progressive-doom refused to take seriously -- just a bunch of geeks being jerks online, right? Not at all. They were stalking, doxxing and directly threatening hundreds of people. They're organized. They've had practice.

[ornotna]

2. Like the man said

"I wouldn’t bet against it."

[Dallasdem1988]

3. Not right wingers

I don't doubt that we have seen and will continue to see government instigators try and discredit resist like they did occupy. But as with occupy anyone who spent any real time protesting(I camped with occupy Austin for weeks) black bloc anarchists are the extreme nasty left.
They make the BoB's seem tolerable. They believe now is the time for violence against what they see(maybe correctly) as a fascist take over.

The problem is they will give trump a very real reichstag fire if we don't shut these people down. They are as impossible to reason with as wingnuts and see us as complicit and therefor part of the problem.

[bettyellen]

22. I think from what I saw in NYC it is a mix- some infiltrate and push

Others to the brink- encourage them to go on. Same as they do with the trolling, it's just easier to see the patterns when they troll.

[Dallasdem1988]

24. That's a good point

They could have infiltrated and radicalized them further. I can't speak for Berkeley but the black bloc types I have met in real life are disgusting.

[bettyellen]

25. When it's political there almost always some out there recruiting weak minded "angry young men"

Because if they are aimless and angry, they're more easily converted into cannon fodder by being manipulated into feeling like they are "doing something". If their handlers get it right, those are the ones that get busted while they live to troll another day.

[ck4829]

6. Mr. Yiannopoulos has borderline personality disorder, playing the victim and projection are key

We have the motive and some of the things sound just a little bit too convenient.

Question is - Can Breitbart get organized enough to pull something like this off?

[2naSalit]

29. Sure they could.

No doubt about it. They have $$ to throw around, I wouldn't be surprised if they were paid. But they certainly have a large and passionate enough audience where it would probably be pretty easy to recruit a small mob who could get into smashing stuff and lighting fires, etc..

[Raster]

7. Milo will do ANYTHING to pump up his importance....

...these were definitely OUTSIDE AGITATORS, and NOT Berkeley students.

Bannon's Breitbart Brownshirts.

[anneboleyn]

9. I really wish UC B would investigate this as I have suspected this about Milo for a long time

It has been a rumor for some time now that Milo hires agitators in order to get attention (as his "talks" attract agitators who seem to "mysteriously disappear," which is exactly what happened in this case). Milo gets the attention he desperately, wildly, recklessly, craves -- including a fucking threat towards Berkeley from the (so-called!) president. Other alt-righters have been accused of this recently, like Richard Spencer (who was punched by a person during the inauguration protests that he *may* have paid -- that is a rumor anyway). In Spencer's case it backfired; it is time for Milo to be held accountable for his bullshit.

UC Berkeley lost $$$$$ and has to deal with damaged property and now ridiculous threats from the idiot Orange. They should investigate, and if there is ANY truth to it, they should sue that asshole Milo for every dollar they can get.

[jmg257]

12. The article posted in the OP actually said there was no way Milo did it.

[Dr. Strange]

35. Someone at Discussionist claims to have found one of the culprits--a Berkeley employee.

http://www.discussionist.com/10151160754

[aidbo]

11. Betteridge's law of headlines

Betteridge's law of headlines is one name for an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist,[1][2] although the principle is much older. As with similar "laws" (e.g., Murphy's law), it is intended as a humorous adage rather than always being literally true.[3][4]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

[MarvinGardens]

13. I can believe the antifacists did it.

We are all against fascism here, but the "antifa" make it their mission to disrupt all fascist, alt-right or neonazi organizing. In my area, they are quite adept at disrupting klan rallies and the like. Sometimes they cross the line and get arrested, though I've not heard of them burning things down. I admire them in a way, but I'm not ready to join them...yet. Could antifa have done this? It's possible.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

16. I don't know about all that but the supposed "pepper spraying" of that girl looked like bullshit.

[mopinko]

17. black bloc- often seen. never arrested. things that make you go hmmm.

[starshine00]

20. wikipedia says they've been infiltrated in the past

cui bono people, that is all I have to say...people need to be a little bit more paranoid maybe

[rickford66]

18. They are never arrested in the acts of violence.

Peaceful protesters are arrested all the time. None of this violence happened at Tea Party rallies. I'm trying to connect the dots.

[former9thward]

21. Yet another CT without a particle of evidence.

The OP is full of falsehoods. No these people are not "outsiders". Berkely is full of anarchists, some students, some not, as anyone who has been to the city knows. Do right wingers commit violence? Yes. And so do lefties as anyone in their right mind knows.

[Eyeball_Kid]

28. Cui bono?

That should be the first question. Anarchists with masks and a black uniform are burning street trash and furniture to express their displeasure of Trump in a massive peaceful protest to express... displeasure of Trump? What are ANARCHISTS doing in uniforms???
Come on. These folks are in training to upend nonviolent protests with violence so public sentiment turns against the resistance movement. It's counterinsurgency work at its most basic. It's always done in third world countries.

Let's snap out of it. There's more at stake in undermining the resistance than we realize.

[jmg257]

34. They aren't uniforms though - black/dark jeans, work boots and Vans sneakers, hoodies.

Nothing special.

If someone told a bunch of us to show up & "wear black", I'd have on the same outfit, with Sketchers work boots instead of Vans.
(I'm older, not a millennial...don't do Vans)

[wildeyed]

23. Follow the money...

Who benefits from riots? Breitbart! They are pathological attention whores who are willing to lie, cheat and steal. They perceive themselves as master manipulators. OF COURSE they would use agent provocateurs and then go whine about how mean they are on Fox as a way to get at their political enemies.

[Starry Messenger]

26. Some of them probably.

I'm tempted to say all of them, since the effect is the same. But a lot of them are young punks who like drama and lighting things on fire and don't care about consequences.

[Jim Beard]

31. From what I could see on CNN, it could not have been more than a dozen doing the damage.

[diane in sf]

32. Probably hired Blackwater thugs provided by Eric Prince, De Vos's brother

[Warren DeMontague]

33. Would not surprise me one bit.

The vehemence with which some supposedly on the "left" want to silence and shut this guy down leaves me scratching my head, to be honest.

While he's a troll, his statements and views are certainly no worse than, say, Ann Coulter's.

And yet he seems to magically be able to generate these almost textbook examples of pro-censorship left wing authoritarianism that he rails against. I doubt it's anything as elaborate as a plot to do away with federal funding of universities, but it certainly will sell more of his books.