The Battle of Berkeley

Although it does not seem to have been covered in most media, there is a lot on YouTube about the recent “Battle of Berkeley.”

Somebody held a “Free Speech” rally featuring pro-Trump speakers. Antifa showed up—you have heard of “Antifa”? They’re the guys who show up in gangs all in black, just so everyone knows they’re the bad guys, and wearing masks, so nobody knows who they are, like the KKK, and try to disrupt any right-wing events. The name is supposed to be short for “Anti-fascism,” but they seem themselves to be fascist in their thinking and tactics. Their black and red flag suggests communism and anarchism. I guess they are “anti-fascist” in the same way the Berlin Wall was “anti-fascist.” “Fascists” has long been the communist word for anyone who is not communist.

Whoever staged the rally surely expected Antifa to show up. They always show up, and especially in a place like Berkeley. There have been two previous “Battles of Berkeley,” notably the one about a month ago where a guy was shot and a talk by Milo Yiannopoulos was cancelled. But this time, it seems, the right wing was prepared. They were organized for this, they fought back, and, as they tell it, they drove the Antifa guys off.

And so it begins. The other side has now finally begun to organize. After years of provocation by Antifa and Black Lives Matter and students shouting down speakers on campus. How does this not end in a Weimar Republic, or a Northern Ireland, rival gangs fighting in the streets, situation? Each side, to defeat the other at the next confrontation, must get better organized. They must bring stronger and stronger weapons.

People are going to get killed, and politics will no longer be possible. It will be might makes right. You can see in the YouTube videos that the right wing is now excited. They have tasted blood, and it is thrilling. They want more.

It seems to me almost a certainly that the left will lose. But they brought this on. And the right wing organization that wins is almost sure to involve some elements of fascism, given fascism’s taste for violence. It will not be the religious right, nor the libertarian right, which rises through this.

I swear, I have seen this one coming since the early 1970s. And it was always the left’s doing. This was inevitable as soon as a large body of people embraced moral relativism.