Berkeley eases anti-Marines stance

[David]

AP


BERKELEY, Calif. - City council members who were criticized for telling Marine recruiters they don't belong here have moderated their position, saying they oppose the Iraq war but support the troops.

The Berkeley City Council voted two weeks ago to send a letter to a downtown recruitment station advising the Marines they were not welcome.

After a marathon session that stretched into early Wednesday, the council decided against sending the letter, saying it recognizes recruiters' right to be in Berkeley. The council members say they still strongly oppose the war and the recruitment of young people, but "deeply respect and support" the men and women of the armed forces.

Some on the council had pushed for issuing an apology. Others rejected that, saying they just wanted to clarify their position.

Councilwoman Linda Maio said the council opposes recruitment, not the military. "It's behavior that we oppose, not the people," she said.

The meeting drew hundreds of people on both sides of the issue who rallied outside City Hall from dawn until well into the night.

Inside the chamber, scores of speakers addressed the council, some decrying its earlier action.

"You owe our military an apology," said Kevin Graves, a San Francisco Bay area resident who said his son died serving in Iraq.

Others applauded the council's stand.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, said her group supports the troops — "we support them so much that we're desperate to get them back home."

In rallies outside, pro-troop group Move America Forward sponsored one protest, holding signs that said "Stop Bashing Our Boys." On the other side, anti-war group Code Pink held bouquets of flowers and waved signs saying "Peace Now" and "Bring Our Troops Home."

Police estimated the crowd at about 2,000 at its height. A handful of people were arrested for scuffles between protesters, police spokeswoman Sgt. Mary Kusmiss said.

The recruiting office opened in Berkeley in late 2006. It operated quietly until four months ago, when Code Pink began holding regular protests.

[darrels joy]

Code Pink, a radical group of aging leftists, still gets its free parking space in front of the recruitment office and its free noise permit to protest the Marines. And the city staff is still directed to find a way to sue the Marines over alleged violations of gay rights (”don’t ask, don’t tell”).

Three people were arrested. One was a pro-military supporter arrested for brandishing a knife after a horde of Code Pink wackos tried to tie him up with a pink banner and he used the knife to free himself. The other two were teen-agers who tried to pick a fight with military supporters.

[revwardoc]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../BAM9V1H00.DTL

(02-13) 01:33 PST Berkeley -- After a day of enraged confrontation outside Berkeley City Hall between anti-war and pro-military demonstrators, the City Council backed down early Wednesday from its controversial decision to tell the U.S. Marines they are "unwelcome intruders" for operating a downtown recruiting center.

Council members conceded that they had erred in passing a resolution Jan. 29 that condemned the Marines - rather than the war in Iraq - and some council members added that they felt they owed U.S. troops an apology as well the many Berkeley residents who were ashamed and offended by their position.

"To err is human but to really screw up it takes the Berkeley City Council," said council member Gordon Wozniak. "We failed our city. We embarrassed our city."

In the end, however, the council voted against issuing a public apology for its January action.

The officials said, however, that they strongly believe the Bush administration has used lies and deceit to lead the country into a war in which nearly 4,000 American troops have been killed. They also criticized the government for what they said was hiding the horrors of the war behind a "support our troops" mantra.

"We do not want to ostracize our troops," said council member Linda Maio. "They are our sons and our daughters. We care about them. We love them and we want to bring them home."

But Maio added, the war in Iraq is "badly thought out" and she does not support the government's recruiting efforts for this war.

The backdown became apparent late Tuesday night when Mayor Tom Bates and three council members aligned themselves with the two who called on the council last week to rethink its position. The January decision created a firestorm of criticism across the nation from people who called the council's position on the Marines harsh and inappropriate. Others cheered the council as courageous.

Berkeley's critics included six Republican U.S. senators who have vowed to cut federal funding for several Berkeley programs, such as the Chez Panisse Foundation, which provides school lunches at Berkeley's public schools, and the Robert Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service at UC Berkeley.

Council members maintained that they were not caving in to pressure from right-wing bloggers or radio-show hosts in backing away from their January vote.

Protesters began gathering as early as Monday night outside City Hall in anticipation of the Tuesday night meeting. By Tuesday morning, some confrontations had become physical, and police in riot gear moved in to separate the groups. At its peak, 2,000 protesters had gathered outside City Hall, police said.

Three protesters were arrested for minor scuffles with other demonstrators - and a fourth for allegedly slapping a police officer - in what was one of the largest demonstrations in the city in years.

Tuesday evening, many demonstrators squeezed into the council chambers - some telling the council to stand firm, others urging the council to apologize for insulting the military and the men and women who are serving their country. The council allowed public testimony to continue into the early morning Wednesday before making a decision.

"Berkeley doesn't speak for America," said Eve Tidwell of Columbus, Ga., who flew into the Bay Area on Tuesday after watching news accounts of the uproar over the Marines in Berkeley. "If terror came to Berkeley, the Marines would come to protect the people here."

Tidwell, whose son-in-law is in the Navy, wanted the council to rescind its objection to the Marines and the recruiting office they opened on Shattuck Square a year ago. She encouraged others to boycott Berkeley businesses until the council backed down.

But Susan Killebrew, a Berkeley mother who brought her twin 7-year-old daughters, Aria and Sophia, to the demonstration, said she wanted the city to stand firm against the war and the recruiting center.

"We might have to suffer (negative publicity) as a result of it," she said before the meeting Tuesday, "but not as much as the children in Iraq who are traumatized by the constant military presence there. My heart is broken by this war. I marched against it before the invasion. It makes me sad that so many have died."

Council members Betty Olds and Laurie Capitelli called last week for the council to retreat from its position on the Marines and instead make clear that while the city opposes the war, it supports the troops.

Olds and Capitelli opposed the council's resolution, passed by a 6-3 vote, to send the objection letter to the Marines. The city manager had not yet prepared the letter and was awaiting the results of Tuesday's council meeting.

As the meeting got under way, three other council members, Max Anderson, Linda Maio and Darrell Moore, and the mayor offered yet another resolution that was similar to the Olds-Capitelli one, rescinding the letter and supporting the troops.

During the meeting, protesters could still be heard shouting outside Maudelle Shirek City Hall. They had spent the day yelling, singing, chanting and flag-waving along Martin Luther King Jr. Way. At times, the arguments grew intense, as protesters stood face-to-face screaming obscenities at one another.

A 49-year-old man from Rocklin (Placer County) and two Berkeley teenagers were arrested in separate scuffles, police said. About 1 p.m., a man supporting the Marines ventured into an encampment by the anti-war group Code Pink and drew a knife. Police arrested Keith Donald Salvatore for brandishing the weapon. He told police he had taken out the knife in self-defense after war protesters wrapped him in a pink banner, said Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, a police spokeswoman.

Police arrested the teenagers, boys ages 13 and 15, for scuffling with Marines supporters.

At around 4 p.m., police arrested Luisa Romero De Los Angeles, an 18-year-old Berkeley resident who they say slapped a police officer who told her to back away as she demanded they release the two boys who had been arrested earlier.

Code Pink activists said that even with the council backing off, they intend to place a resolution on the local ballot to oust the recruiters.

"We want voters to be able to decide ... just like they have a say whether a liquor store or porn shop opens near a school," said Jodie Evans, a Berkeley yoga studio owner who co-founded Code Pink.

Evans, wearing a pink crown that said "I Miss America," sat on a lawn chair outside of City Hall in the chilly night air listening to testimony from the meeting inside, which was being broadcast to the hundreds who couldn't fit inside the building.

Iraq war veteran Javier Tenorio of Berkeley was also listening outside of City Hall. The former Army infantryman who served two tours of duty called the ballot proposal "ridiculous."

"Even if they achieve it, it's going to be voted down," Tenorio said. "There are enough people in Berkeley who support the military, including university Republicans. We're going to beat this."

[Seascamp]

At best there could be some thought about wiser minds prevailing but more likely there was the demonstrated reality that there was a no BS confrontation at hand. Then possibly someone got the notion that the Council’s alleged heroine; Medea Benjamin, had already established bloodletting and body count ‘credentials’ in Seattle. It’s a bad place to be when politicos enable that one and get her running amok. We’re talking a real firebrand that has zero respect for life or property once she gets the mob blood up. Apparently that is her jingle and shake chime set.

Now then there is a sidebar that takes hypocrisy to new lands somewhere over the visible horizon. Recall that Benjamin and code pink were all about harassing and bullying wounded Iraq Vets at Walter Reid hospital, belligerently and destructively so, and not all that long ago.

Now guess what, eh. Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, said her group supports the troops — "we support them so much that we're desperate to get them back home."
Ya right, and when pigs grow wings, they will beat the flies to the garbage.

Scamp

[darrels joy]

Berkeley council becomes home to intolerance
By Craig Lazzeretti, Berkeley Voice editor
Article Launched: 02/13/2008 1251 PM PST





I have no doubt that the members of the Berkeley City Council have acted with conviction and sincerity in their actions relating to the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting center the past two weeks. I have met many of the members of the council, and honestly believe they are good, honorable people.

But that doesn't change the fact that many on this council are, to steal a line from John McCain, agents of intolerance. It was a term coined to describe members of the far right-wing in this country who espouse a moral superiority over all who see the world differently, but the Berkeley City Council has proved sadly during the Marine furor that the phrase applies equally well to the far left.

First, it's important to understand what the council did and didn't do early Wednesday morning. It retracted the incendiary statement it made Jan. 29 calling the Marines "unwelcome and uninvited intruders" in the city.

Instead, it acknowledged the obvious -- that the Marines have a right to operate a recruiting center in Berkeley and people have a right to "protest or support that presence." It also reiterated that it opposes "the recruitment of our young people into this war."
But while the council retreated on the symbolic aspect of its actions from Jan. 29 (it never was in a position to make the Marines leave), it ignored the practical -- giving a free parking space and noise permit once a week to the protest group Code Pink to harass people at the station; and encouraging people in the city to impede the Marines' recruiting mission.


Therein lies the intolerance and sense of moral superiority.

To illustrate, let's take a hypothetical scenario involving an equally controversial issue in a very different city far, far away. Let's assume for a moment there is a small, conservative city called Perkeley somewhere in Alabama. Say there's an abortion clinic in this city. The members of the Perkeley City Council all believe abortion is tantamount to murder and that Roe v. Wade represents an assault on the most defenseless among us.

The City Council passes a resolution calling this abortion clinic and the people who work there "unwanted and uninvited" intruders and gives a free parking space and noise permit to a protest group called Code Black to harass people trying to enter that clinic.

After a national outcry, the Perkeley City Council changes the language of its motion to acknowledge that the abortion clinic has a right to operate in the city. But it reiterates that it "opposes the murder of unborn children in this city" and continues to encourage residents to impede the activities of that clinic. Code Black gets to keep its special parking place and noise permit.

I wonder what would be the reaction of the Berkeley City Council members who are trying to drive the recruiting station out of town upon learning of these events? More to the point, what would they do if Code Black came to Berkeley and tried to shut down an abortion clinic here?

If they would grant the anti-abortion activists the same encouragement and preferential free-speech treatment they have given Code Pink, I would take back what I said about them being agents of intolerance. But we all know what their reaction would be to Code Black, don't we?
Some will argue that these council members are elected to represent the will of the people of Berkeley and pursue actions that further that will.

Well, let's assume for the sake of argument that the people of Berkeley agree with their position on the recruiting center, something I find highly doubtful given the level of outrage expressed over the past two weeks by many residents.

The council's job is to enact policy decisions that reflect the values of its constituents; not to afford special rights and privileges to groups that share those values at the expense of organizations that have a legal right to conduct business in the city. What if a Republican-controlled Congress had granted special parking and noise privileges to demonstrators who supported the Bush administration's Iraq policy in the months leading up to the 2003 invasion? Would liberals have supported such action based on the argument that these Republicans represented the will of the people who elected them?

For most of the 20th century, cities in the South were dominated by people who believed African-Americans were an inferior race. Were the city councils in those cities justified in taking actions designed to segregate and discriminate against African-Americans? What if the City Council in Perkeley, Ala., had given a special parking space and noise permit to those who wanted to demonstrate in front of a civil rights office?

So what conclusion can we come to regarding the events of the past two weeks? That the Berkeley City Council is home to the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of the left? It's unfortunate but true.

These council members may be able to look in the mirror today and tell themselves that they did the right thing, that they made an important statement about this war and took action to bring it to an end. They will say they followed their conscience.

And that will all be true. Along with the fact that, in their own way, they have become the same agents of intolerance that they deplore on the right.
Craig Lazzeretti is editor of the Berkeley Voice. Reach him at 510-262-2724 or clazzeretti@bayareanewsgroup.com
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_8251276

[melody1181]

I can't remember where I read but read somewhere that there was Flag burning in berkley over this whole thing. What a bunch of a-holes they are. Butt crack of the country.