Below is a comment from the former Mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, on what’s going on with free speech across the Bay in Berkeley -
The battle over free speech in Berkeley has flipped the two sides in the old generation gap.
When the Free Speech Movement got rolling at UC Berkeley in the 1960s, the whole point was winning the right to speak out about civil rights, sex, the Vietnam War or anything else on your mind.
It was youth versus “the man.”
Now it’s youth demanding the shutdown, and the man expressing outrage at the death of free speech.
And the cops being sent in to protect it.
How’s that for a reversal?
And what are these kids upset about? Ann Coulter? Milo Yiannopoulos? David Horowitz? All second-string cable commentators at best.
The descendants of those who fought for free speech now say there shouldn’t be speech unless it fits their own political agenda. If it doesn’t, then it’s not free speech, it’s hate speech — and it must be stopped, even if it means violence and damage.
How the hell do you get away with that?
The Free Speech Movement was born in Berkeley, and now, it seems, it’s being buried in Berkeley.