Berkeley’s Vast Anarchist Conspiracy? (Robin of Berkeley)

If you’ve been watching the news lately, you’d think that Berkeley is the national hub for anarchism. You can see photos of ski-masked anarchists all over the place. Masked bandits are breaking windows, starting bonfires, and robbing and looting banks, stores, restaurants, and the like. (1)

But there is one problem with this narrative. There aren’t any anarchists in Berkeley.

OK, maybe there are a few UC Berkeley professors who call themselves anarchists. But while they talk the talk, they don’t walk the walk. This elite group only gets their hands dirty when they are in their leafy backyards, composting.

But after decades in Berkeley, I’ve never met a single, true blue anarchist. And my unscientific poll of other Berkeley-ites — young, old and in the middle — elicited the same reaction. No one knows any violent revolutionaries. Everyone is scratching his or head to figure out who are all of these people.

You see, over the years, Berkeley has become wealthier, more gentrified, and more bourgeois. Some of those two-bedroom shacks Berkeley-ites purchased in the 60s for $20,000 are now worth a cool million. Despite its reputation, Berkeley is a moneyed community.

Current day locals may be progressives and liberals . .but they are armchair radicals. They voice passionate political opinions. But they do so while enjoying a fine bottle of Cabernet from their wine club. They become most spurred into fierce political action when their neighbor uses a leaf blower.

So if the anarchists in our midst aren’t homegrown. . then who are they? And where did they come from? Here are some theories making the rounds.

Many people postulate that the sudden influx of anarchists is coming from San Francisco. Given that there’s this strange disconnect between the East Bay and SF (people on each side only cross the bridge when they absolutely have to and do so quite miserably), it’s easy to just assume that “it’s those people over there.” But this theory makes absolutely no sense.

First off, it’s even more expensive in the City; it costs about $4,000 a month to rent some modest digs. So unless the anarchists are Google executives by day and bandana-ed vandals at night, the anarchists aren’t crossing the bridge.

Popularized by the MSM, some believe that the anarchist epidemic is due to Berkeley old-timers taking it to the streets for one last shot at revolution. Like aging rock stars taken out of moth balls for a final reunion concert, these 60s relics are making a trip down memory lane to plunder 7/11s. But this theory is totally absurd.

First of all, our senior citizens can barely locate their keys, much less their old machetes. Plus: our septuagenarians fall into two categories: 1. The well-heeled, who live prosperous, cushy lives, or 2. The burnout cases who save most of their moral outrage for when the local dispensary runs out of pot brownies.

A couple of folks offered that maybe the anarchists are drawn from our homeless population. But this is laughable. Our homeless are a sluggish bunch; they sleep in; eventually they park themselves prostrate on some sidewalk for several hours to collect spare change, and then after a hard day’s work, they return “home.” It’s hard to believe that they are pulling off an insurrection.

Some people believe that the anarchists are being bused in from out of state. They are flocking here from compounds in Idaho; centers of radicalism, such as Ann Arbor; and various parts unknown. This theory is given credence by the fact that apparently the lion’s share of anarchists being arrested have out-of-state IDs.

However, there are problems with this theory as well. For one, there aren’t enough anarchists in the whole country to explain all the rioting and looting in Berkeley. And anarchists everywhere are suddenly dropping everything to bus into Berkeley?? And where are all of these visiting anarchists staying anyway — Courtyard by Marriot? Unless there is some sort of Vast Anarchist Conspiracy of massive proportions that nobody knows about, this theory doesn’t pass muster.

Now, there is one final theory: Theory Five. My friend, Patricia, the conspiracy theorist, swears by this one.

In this theory, the anarchists are getting paid. Most of them are out-of-work actors, transported in by shady characters connected to the New World Order. The idea is to create social unrest, paranoia, and racial anomosity all over the country. According to this theory, while some of the players are real (e.g. the Berkeley college students and the street thugs), the leaders and shakers creating most of the damage aren’t real anarchists.

This theory is offered some validity by some of the quotes by the anarchists. One female anarchist was quoted in the news as saying, “We are here to destroy capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, racism, the police, and the military.” If these aren’t the rantings of some B list actress, I don’t know what is.

However, there’s a hole in this theory as well. Is this gig so well paying that the faux anarchists are willing to get tear gassed and arrested? Or are the police actors too? And, anyway, this theory is too creepy crawly to even contemplate.

So given all the possibilities, what do I think? I haven’t a clue. (2) I just wish that things would return to normal, or at least as close to normal as we get around here. I’d like to be able to go to Trader Joe’s without possibly ending up in lockdown.

And, even worse, the anarchists are corrupting the minds of all of those sweet, innocent university students who are joining in the pandemonium. The conversations of our cute young coeds have morphed from, “Why doesn’t Justin text me?” to “We are here to destroy capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, racism, the police, and the military.”

Maybe some of us need to start a counterrevolution. Ours would be peaceful and lawful. And what would be our clarion call? Anarchists Go Home!

1. Blessedly, the rioting has cooled down, possibly because of the rain, and things at the moment have been restored to “normalcy.” Please pray that this continues.

2. What do I think is going on? Again, I don’t know. But the official story makes no sense. I don’t think this “spontaneous” protest/rioting movement has been so spontaneous. Interesting, isn’t it, that the riots just so happened to coincide with one week that the UC Berkeley students have off before finals? And though I’ve been here for decades, there’s never been anything like it — yes, a riot up on Telegraph every few years, but never in downtown, never involving thousands of people, and never a takeover of a freeway, Amtrak, etc. etc. This whole thing feels planned and engineered. But by who and where? That is the million dollar question.

I was turned to Robin from Berekely by a post here at FR and think she’s great.

But, she totally misses the mark and seems to have now clue about the Bay Area youth sub-culture.

East Bay Scum. Veterans of the scene will know that reference.

They’re Anarchists-In-Name-Only: They don’t believe in private property, and believe that natural resources and the “means of production” must be distributed equally. But neither of those requirements can be met other than by using the power of the state. Which is why they aren’t really anarchists.

Robin, Robin, forget the idea of a “counter revolution”. We tried that in the ‘60s and it didn’t work. The rioting just went on and on. We fled to Piedmont in ‘68 until the nonsense started invading the Piedmont school. Then we moved to TX and never looked back.

10 years later, my daugher (now grown) went back to Piedmont and SF to meet up with old classmates and she couldn’t believe what they had become. She came home happy that we had taken her and her siblings out of that craziness that is CA.

or at least as close to normal as we get around here

Key phrase. I lived in and around Berkeley for years. Went to school there during FSM. No anarchists when I was around. Thugs and commies and radicals, though. Two friends mugged there, William Mandel giving storefront lectures, lies about communism, Mario Savio doing his thing at Ludwig's Fountain.

From the article: “Maybe some of us need to start a counterrevolution. Ours would be peaceful and lawful.”

We (the TEA Party) having been protesting peacefully and lawfully since 2008, and we even pick up our own trash and leave the protest sites cleaner than when we arrived, only to be labelled as racists, bigots and terrorists.

My brother has a theory about Berkeley students. He says the average Berkeley student is a preppie Asian kid (majoring in pre-med or computer science) wearing a Brooks Brothers knit shirt and driving an expensive sports car.
The theory isn't true, of course, but its a nice story.

All you need these days is one of those creepy Guy Fawkes masks ($2.35 on Amazon - support capitalism today!), so if you’re inclined to raise a little hell you just put one of those on, do your thing, and be sipping a latte at Starbucks when the fire trucks roll up and be back in Mom’s basement by bedtime. Call it revolution as a spectator sport.

Part of the youth subculture in the SF Bay Area is a total lack of respect for private property and law enforcement. They don’t have to be hard-core philosophical “anarchists”; there just needs to be critical mass of enough people willing to don masks and black clothing and engage in petty acts of vandalism under the cover of whatever the latest cause du jour happens to be. If there are a couple of hundred thousand or so youths 16-24 in the surrounding areas, and half of them generally subscribe to the prevailing anti-private property, anti-police ethos, and five percent of those are willing to risk arrest in order to set things off, that’s 5000 “anarchists” ready and willing at any given point in time. It’s a home grown problem and until people in that area start to inculcate the youth with a greater appreciation and understanding of the foundations of civil society — namely respect for private property and the rule of law — you’ll continually get more of this every time there’s a flashpoint.

They are getting paid. There have been ads in the Twin Cities City Pages (one of those free weeklies) offering “employment” as “working for change and social justice”. These are the paid protestors with professionally made signs and choreographed rant chants. Follow the money, much goes back to Georgy Schwartz.

Who says anarchists have to be violent? All that's needed to be an anarchist is to oppose the existence of governments. You can be entirely philosophical about it, and try to convert people to your view peacefully.

"There's no government like no government."

Commie University professors were behind organizing Occupy Wall street. The State Department and CIA were behind organizing the Arab Spring according to WikiLeaks memos via the State Department.

Would they do it to us? You bet. The New World Order won’t put up with us “right wingers” and that musty old constitution getting in the way anymore.

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