The university posted a streaming video of the complete speech here
The San Francisco Chronicle covered the speech, and mentioned the protestors' allegations that Barak spoke "lies" and "propaganda", but didn't include any substance to support the protestors' claims.
The Daily Californian reported on the audience members who wore T-shirts with the word LIE written on them and added that "Their actions were met with applause from many in the audience" (it wasn't that many). But again, there is no substance to indicate which of Barak's remarks were supposedly lies or what the truth was supposed to be. The best part of the DailyCal story was this item
"Barak is an evil man, he is a violent man, a racist and a liar," said rhetoric professor Daniel Boyarin.Excuse me, but I would expect a rhetoric professor to say something more interesting than just the PC multi-culti equivalent of "big fat poopy-pants doodie head"
The Daily Cal also had an exclusive interview with Barak, which they discredit by including a picture of the unexplained "LIE" T-shirt people at the top of the page.
A Berkeley student named Lev ruthlessly fisks the Daily Cal's coverage of the event.
The anonymous tinfoil hat denizens of SF IndyMedia posted a thread, which includes a bunch of pictures of protestors that are similar to the pictures that I would have posted had I not been relieved of my press freedom by a young Muslim performing an act of Peace. There is a hilariously distorted version of the camera theft incident:
After the talk was over, a proIsreal fanatic attacked a Palestinian woman and after a small scuffle he dropped a disposable camera and yelled for the police. A Palestinian man who may have pushed him was then arrested and is being held on felony charges for stealing and damaging the man's disposable camera…The woman was not Palestinian, but East Asian, I did not attack her, nobody pushed me, there was no scuffle, I didn't drop my camera, somebody threw it; I never identified myself or my position on Israel, so I have no idea why they assumed I was pro-Israel, even though I am. And Israel is spelled Israel, not Isreal, but it is real, which is the main thing that most of these people seem to have a hard time accepting.
The man whose first name is Omar, a Palestinian, was arrested by campus police, and put in jail for "stealing and vandalism" after he took away the disposable $10 camera from a pro-Barak Zionist who was flashing it in his face as a taunt, and stepped on the camera.Again, I have no idea why he assumed I was pro-Barak Zionist instead of a pro-Sharon Zionist, but I'm not an Israeli citizen so I don't endorse any Israeli parties or candidates. I did not flash the camera in anybody's face, I did not taunt anybody, and he did not step on the camera, he threw it to the ground.
I see that some other brave anonymous soul in the IndyMedia thread called me the "attacker" (that should have been spelled P-H-O-T-O-G-R-A-P-H-E-R) and posts my home phone and address. My response: give me a call sometime, I'm always happy to chat with folks who are willing to be civil and rational.
Cal Student Kevin Deenihan happened to see at least some of the camera incident, and says that I gave too much credit to the police.
David Foster mentions me, along with several other recent incidents, in his essay BE AFRAID: The Rise of Political Violence and Intimidation in America
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 21, 2002 07:15 AMYou are famous now, even if it's with the wrong crowd. Can you record callers' phone numbers, in case you get any threats?
Posted by: Ralf Goergens on November 21, 2002 03:31 AMI wouldn't fret over the negative and false coverage by the IndyMedia crowd. This is par for the course as far as their factual accuracy goes.
One of the IndyMedia sites, the SF one if I remember correctly, posted an article in the wake of the Bali bombing that claimed that it was a Mossad operation, conducted with the tacit approval of the CIA. IndyMedia is the refuge of tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists, who are no different than the Black-Helicopter-style Militia crowd who were regularly and rightly condemned by the mainstream press back in the mid-'90s.
The fact that these extreme leftists cannot see what they become, which would be the very sort of crackpots they were criticising just a few years ago, is probably the saddest part of their long slide into irrelevance.
Posted by: Gregory Litchfield on November 21, 2002 07:52 AMStefan: The Chronicle article that you link to mentions that Edward Said will speak on Feb. 19 (presumably, next year). I'd suggest you cover that too, and see if the level and tenor of protest is the same.
Gregory Koster, if you are reading this, as an addendum to my comment on the previous post, another reason I read blog accounts of campus incidents is that it's important for someone to point out the differences between demonstrations at pro-Palestinian speeches and pro-Israel speeches. Even if the word only reaches the converted. (And the odd straggler, like you.)
Bland journalistic accounts always gloss these differences over, but the differences are quite stark. You may disagree with what Stefan did, but his account of the Barak speech conveyed quite well the hysterical, hateful, bully-boy atmosphere of the demonstrations at the Barak speech. Look, these little bums think they own the campuses, and when someone comes along who exposes their little game, they go bonkers.
Do you believe for a moment that there will be a parallel atmosphere at Said's speech? Get real. There'll be a very well-behaved contingent of "Jews for Love and Peace" and everybody will go home and no cameras will be smashed.
Posted by: diana on November 21, 2002 08:35 AMOddly enough you seem to correct the reader's information about the Asian woman, but you fail to correct the fact that Omar is NOT a Palestinian but in fact an AMERICAN born in Ohio!
Posted by: Dema on November 26, 2002 02:49 AM