From:Steve Wagner <lakemerrittneighbors@yahoo.com> To:change-links@egroups.com After the demonstration in Berkeley opposing Benjamin Netanyahu's message of intolerance & hate on November 28th some people who described themselves as "Free Speech Movement veterans" wrote a letter denouncing the demonstrators that was printed in several Bay Area newspapers. In today's Oakland Tribune there is a short "My Word" article called "What Really Happened During Netanyahu's Visit?" by Matthew MacLean, a UC Berkeley journalism student who was there to cover the demonstration on November 28th. He ends his article with this excellent rejoinder to the FSM letter: "Several of the indignant ticket-holders I interviewed said they had once been free speech demonstrators during the '60s, and that these new demonstrators had little understanding of what real free speech means. "But I wondered if their bitterness wasn't actually an expression of dismay -- the uncomfortable realization that they've crossed over the police lines to join a sort of establishment, now feeling the sting of the kind of activism they once embraced. Unwilling to accept this, they prefer to characterize the event in terms that portray themselves as the true guardians of free speech."
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