Stephen Colbert On Occupy Berkeley: 'When They Say It's Crunchy, I Didn't Realize They Meant Students' Rib Cages' (VIDEO)

America's favorite satirical funnyman commented on U.C. Berkeley police's use of force to subdue a gathering of protesters during last Thursday's episode of "The Colbert Report," noting that "occupy has finally spread to the hippie haven."

Playing the now-widely-watched footage that shows campus police using batons to beat back a line of demonstrating students, Colbert declared that "Berkeley university officials did the right thing. They told the students to leave, and for some reason, these free-thinking Berkeley students did not obey authority. So the university called in a team of skilled crisis managers to diffuse the situation with a rap session."

"I've had some harsh words for this slow food, locavore, patchouli, super-fun granola dump site, but today, I am changing my tune," he added.

Continuing a long-standing tradition of protesting, hundreds of U.C. Berkeley students and faculty converged on the campus' Sproul Hall last Wednesday as part of the statewide "Occupy Cal" movement to rally against rising tuition fees and cuts to the state's higher education programs. The ensuing video of police officers forcefully clashing with demonstrators sparked nationwide outrage.

"You know, when they say Berkeley is crunchy, I didn't realize they meant the students' rib cages," Colbert quipped. "And spearing a small asian girl in the spleen first shows Berkeley's admirable commitment to diversity."

Take a look at the segment in full below.

WATCH:

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Comments

[Michael Lee Smyth]

06:10 PM on 11/15/2011

It amazes me that people have forgotten that the civil rights period of the 50's and 60's has been far from the only time local powers that be have used the police as their personal bully boys. Let us look to the sit down strike against GM in the 30's. The corporate controlled police were more than happy to brutalize women and children until the feds stepped in. The coal mining industry has a long and horrid history of violence against workers and the communities thet were raping. Again enforced by the local police. Now the use of rubber bullets is on the rise. Welcome to the corporate states of America.

[realpragmatist]

11:01 AM on 11/15/2011

It is not the rising Chinese power or any other country that poses the greatest threat to America's preeminence and its greatness, in my opinion.
It is the erosion of those great American values that made America the admiration of the world that poses the greatest threat to our freedom and hence our democratic way of life. Using violence against a peacefully demonstrating small Asian-American girl is certainly not American. The Oakland police, and now the Berkeley police should be ashamed of themselves. I again hope that the guilty is held accountable and severely punished.

[phantom power]

08:56 AM on 11/15/2011

unfortunately, i foresee the people fighting back soon. fighting violence with violence is not going to end well...

[m362000]

10:11 PM on 11/14/2011

A proud moment in Americas history~~~~~~~~~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQZjXDuGh6Y&feature=related

[m362000]

10:06 PM on 11/14/2011

It takes a brave man to butt end a 95 pound chinese girl!
I am so pleased America is proud of the law enforcement!
I am so proud of the freedome we all share! I am so proud that my grandfather came to this country so the Polica in Italy would never do this to his children!
are you not proud too?

[basta]

05:30 PM on 11/14/2011

Violently holding hands! The nerve of those anti-social hooligans.

[Alan Ray]

04:13 PM on 11/14/2011

These draconian police measures only encourage the demonstrators. Every time the police mistreat demonstrators, more join in on OWS. At this point it's getting too big for it's detractors to stop it.

[bbrown37]

04:04 PM on 11/14/2011

Little lesson to the police of this nation.

If you beat-up a transient in a park, the chances of litigation coming against you are minimal.

If you beat-up some activists in a park, your chances increase. One of them may actually have a job or know a lawyer.

If you beat-up students protesting on the campus of ONE OF THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE WORLD, you'd better get the check book out and raise the traffic ticket quota.

[SabeWhat]

02:45 PM on 11/14/2011

Just how high could the tuition go before there was a push back from the students? I am surprised it took this long.

[SelfCentered]

02:27 PM on 11/14/2011

How many police officers were there, because that's at least how many attorneys it will take to defend this action in the courts.

[Wild Turkey]

11:02 AM on 11/14/2011

UC police Capt. Margo Bennett on Occupy UC Berkeley: "The individuals who linked arms and actively resisted, that in itself is an act of violence...I understand that many students may not think that, but linking arms in a human chain when ordered to step aside is not a nonviolent protest."

Right, just like these violent people;

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/mediaManager/?controllerName=image&action=get&id=516676&width=628&height=471

[bloglogger]

11:29 AM on 11/14/2011

Linking arms is violence according to the police? How about holding hands?

[LightBeam]

12:16 PM on 11/14/2011

Did this police captain graduate high school? Because most people with a basic high school education have learned the tenets of non-violent protest via the methods advocated by MLK, Ghandi and others.

This statement combines a questionable use of the english language and a warped sense of logic.

[beardown]

10:15 AM on 11/14/2011

All violence needs to be stopped with violence!

[bassface49]

10:10 AM on 11/14/2011

Are you a policeman or a corporate-pig?
That question is being shoved dowm the throat of our first responders.
The pig with the baton has made his choice, what say the rest of you?

[Nec V20]

09:36 AM on 11/14/2011

If this keeps up then at some point the protesters are going to turn up armed and if any Governor tries to call up the National Guard he or she will find out that most of them are among the protesters.

Then all of a sudden there will be a hand wringing and the media will say, "How did we get to this point". The reason why is that people will only take so much brutalising by the police until the final straw is reached.

Police have to be told to stand down now, before the line is crossed.

[bbrown37]

04:08 PM on 11/14/2011

Couple that with very public police assaults on military veterans and you have yourself a powder-keg.

[Fretslayer]

09:13 AM on 11/14/2011

When I was a kid, during the 1980s footage like that was what they used to tell me how evil Communism and Fascism were and why as an American, I would NEVER have to worry about that evil happening here.

[Lynwood Walker]

09:40 AM on 11/14/2011

How funny for you to grow up and realize that what you saw in the 90s was not a product of the inherent evil of Communism or Fascism, but rather the regimes that enforced the economic system. Capitalism has every bit as bloody a past as Communism, more so by any fair count, and the US has long practiced fascism with much more gusto than a truly blind capitalism.

[Rjchinook]

12:59 PM on 11/14/2011

Agreed, this is link to new book about the 1% Vultures Picnic & its very scary what the 1% will do for money & power: http://www.gregpalast.com/vulturespicnic/

[bbrown37]

04:11 PM on 11/14/2011

My wife and I had a discussion about that recently.

When we were growing up, all of the warnings about how Lesser countries treated their citizenry and national media eschewed journalistic values.

As it turns out, it doesn't matter What sort of government you have or Who owns the media...