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TechnoratiBerkeley Finds a New Way to Make War Politics Local
BERKELEY, Calif. - While the City Council here has little - read, no - sway over foreign policy and distant wars, local parking is a different matter. And so it was that a parking space directly in front of the recruiting station here for the Marine Corps was awarded on Tuesday night to an antiwar group in the hope of running the Marines out of town.
Having failed in recent years to impeach President Bush and stop the war in Afghanistan, members of the City Council approved a resolution that encourages people to nonviolently "impede, passively or actively," the work of the recruiters.
To that end, the council awarded the group, Code Pink, exclusive use of the parking spot for four hours one afternoon each week, for the next six months, to stage its protests. "If you're going to join the Marines, you're going to join the Marines," said Zanna Joi, an activist with Code Pink, which favors cotton-candy-colored garb and in-your-face tactics. "But you don't have to join the Marines from our town."
In taking on the Marines, the council also directed the city attorney to investigate legal means of ousting the recruiting station, calling the Marines "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" in this bastion of liberal politics, 1960s free speech and high-minded nonbinding resolutions.
Tom Bates, the city's mayor and a former Army man himself, said the vote represented his constituents' longstanding - and frequently vocal - distaste for current military activity.
"Berkeley has been opposed to the Iraq war since the beginning; it's overwhelmingly unpopular in this community," Mr. Bates said. "And people feel this is an opportunity to express their discontent."
One of the nine council members, Gordon Wozniak, opposed the resolution and the parking spot.
"I believe in free speech, and I certainly respect the right of Code Pink to protest," Mr. Wozniak said. "But I'm also concerned we treat all sides fairly, and I think the Marines recruiters are just doing their job. They're not evil people."
Mr. Wozniak, a retired nuclear scientist who opposes the war in Iraq, added that those advocating the parking spot were engaged in the same type of selective treatment that many war opponents object to.
"A lot of the same people who voted for this felt Bush bent the rules," Mr. Wozniak said, referring to the president's unfounded claims that Iraq had chemical, nuclear or biological weapons.
This is hardly the first attempt by Berkeley's civic leaders, many of whom fondly remember the city's antiwar heyday in the 1960s, to express their unhappiness with the whole concept of war. In 2006, the City Council and voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure calling for the impeachment of Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, citing "high crimes and misdemeanors" related to the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism.
In 2001, the City Council also called for an end to the bombing of Afghanistan just weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, something that earned some council members anonymous death threats.
Despite the vote on Tuesday, Mr. Bates said it was not clear if the city could actually force the Marines to move out of town.
"They still have a year and a half on their lease," he said.
That said, the resolution also calls for the city attorney to look into possible violations of the Berkeley municipal code regarding sexual discrimination by the Marines, and asks the city manager to write the Marine commandant and tell him that Semper Fi fans are "not welcome in our city."
Maj. Wes Hayes of the Marine Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico, Va., said the corps had not immediately been aware of Berkeley's actions, but added that they would have no effect on recruiting efforts.
"It's business as usual," Major Hayes said.
Inside the Berkeley office, a small storefront a block from the University of California campus, a pull-up bar sits near the window as does a pile of weights, part of the physical fitness test for any potential leathernecks. A poster on the wall reminds recruiters not "to fear the winds of adversity."
After being open earlier in the day, the front door was locked and the window blinds drawn on Thursday afternoon, at least for a while, as Code Pink protesters chanted happily outside.
Brandon Rousseau, an information technology consultant who works across the street and has a cousin in the Marines, said both sides had a right to go about their business.
"Even if that were a Nazi recruiting station," Mr. Rousseau said, "they have a right to do that in America."
© 2008 The New York Times
14 Comments so far
Show AllI am an armchair activist. But Im proud of my Humboldt compatriots who every so often go out to the public square, dressed from head to toe in black, and stand facing the street to protest the war. They don't do anything they don't make any noise or bother anybody but their message is
unmistakably clear, we ARE a nation at WAR and the ultimate reality of this war is DEATH.
No we can NOT forget that we ARE at war. Yes we can drive in our nice automobiles to the store and adjust the temperature to our liking, we can enjoy nice meals and watch television... but we can not forget, that as citizens of this nation, every action we do is intertwined with the economy and thus our military and thus the WAR. And when I see the protesters out there I remember this. Maybe it doesn't make me want to fly over to Iraq with RED CROSS... maybe there is more I could do... maybe I lack the courage... but at least it IS on my mind and it IS something I remember when I see these people.
I believe in peaceful protest, it is a form of free speech. However, if it goes too far it may backfire. This is raw material for the right wing commentators and they will use it to their advantage. You have to ask what you hope to accomplish before carrying out these activities. If it is to get media coverage, it might not work. Since Reagan, the media has become more consolidated in the hands of few corporations. They can chose to cover or not cover whatever they want.
Well said loverofpeace - Everyone has a right to an opinion and a right to object. Arson is crime not a protest.
wishfullthinker: your idea sure is quite the nonviolent act! We shall never, never overcome violence by using the same tactics as the violent. Grow up, please!!
Matti
If recruitment centers provided all the information needed to make an informed choice hundreds of soliders and veterans wouldn't be taking thier own lives. Thousands with life-long disability from dismemberment of there arms and legs. The brutal reality of killing or be killed. Naw, if those women want to stand outside and make an objection it's ok with me, It's actually a dam fine idea.
All Code Pink needs is a posters of the war deserter, and now war criminal george bush and a poster of the draft dodger and war criminal dick cheney, and a simple question." is your life worth giving up for these two lying cocksuckers?
Shouting people down for peace!
This site is too damned funny today.
Could treating Military Recruits the way the Wacko fake "christians" treat Family Planning and Abortion seekers possibly backfire? Oh, just maybe.
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Here's a quiz:
The "Liberal New York Times" publishes an article about the "Liberal City of Berkeley" granting the "Liberal Code-pinkers" a Shouting Spot for one afternoon a week, specifically for the purpose of harrassing Recruiters and potential Recruits. With the writer careful to include the NIMBY quote from the Code-pinker -that uses the same language as the Anti-Choice Activist Shouters use- above the fold, and later to focus on the Reasonable-sounding "anti-war" councilman who opposes this tactic.
So, given this, the question:
What is therefore the result of the publication of this article, and this City of Berkeley Council vote?
A)-Bush and Cheney read the article and see their mistakes clearly now. After isolating themselves in the Oval Office, they spend an entire evening and night, brainstorming a way out of this mess. They emerge, bleary-eyed, somber, but with a certain lightness in their steps, for a morning press conference in the Rose Garden. After a short and surprisingly sincere prayer, they quietly apologise to the American People and the World, and like the Samurai of old, commit ritual disembowlment as a shocked but happy White House Press Corps looks on and the camera shutters whir.
Later, after a shaken but newly confident President Pelosi has been sworn into Office, she finds three manilla envelopes on the President's Desk in the Oval Office.
The first and thickest contains a detailed plan for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq and Afganistan, the phased closure of all Military Bases abroad, the reorganization of the Military into a National Defense force, the end of the Military-Industrial Complex, the decentralization of the power grid, and a vague handwritten outline of a plan for the equitable redistribution of Wealth.
The second envelope contains new Last Will and Testaments from both the newly dead Executives, witnessed by their secretaries, the documents are identical, instructing that both men's Estates are to be liquidated, and the money ear-marked for "Healing the wounds we have inflicted upon the people, the planet, and the Peace, may Merciful God forgive our souls."
The final envelope contains an account from both men- hastily written in a nervous hand with many redactions and addenda -of all the corrupt, illegal, greedy, horrible crimes they have witnessed or been party to, in both government and in business. They name Names, provide important details, and suggest avenues of Resolution. Cheney's account in particular is substantial in length, and full of the kind of minutae and verbatim quotes that can only come from audio recording, and, in fact, includes at its end the location and combination of the private vault where these tapes and other records -strecthing back nearly fifty years- can be found.
As Nancy Pelosi sits back in the President's plush leather office chair, trying to absorb the magnitude of this all, she finds herself recalling the last words of Richard "Dick" Cheney, just before the former President assisted him in pulling the short blade across his broad mid-section,
"In my life I have done uspeakable things, with my death, I hope not only to free myself from the consequences of my actions, but to, in some small way, take the first step toward freeing the Human Race from them as well. You were always Shouting, if only I had Listened before now. ...George,...I'm sorry,...you'll have to help me, son..."
Pelosi is returned to the present by a polite but firm voice, "Madame President?" She looks up to see her aide at the door to the spacious white room. "The press conference, Madame President?" The former Speaker of the House spares one moment for a slight smirk at the young man's pride as he says those words. Then it is time for Action.
"We'll have to delay. Get me our people, AND the opposition, oh, and the former Bush staffers too. We've got a lot of Work to do, and we don't have time for any more Games."
or,
B)-This bold example of Local Action and Leadership, taking on Global issues such as war, inspires the Nation. The Common People, from all walks of life, from all ethnic and cultural backgrounds, of all political persuasions take up the cause of "Shouting at People who aren't doing what We Like"!
Schoolchildren begin Shouting Down their teachers, customers begin Shouting Down lazy teenage fastfood employees, so many people spend so much time Shouting at Each Other on the freeways that they forget to drive to work!
The resultant acceleration of Economic Collapse gives everyone more fresh and exciting things to Shout about.
All this Shouting does little to actually solve any problems, but it distracts people from making things any worse until the sheer screeching cacaphony of it all awakens Gaia from her long slumber.
Seeing the entire scope of the problem in mere seconds, the Earth-Goddess dispatches her Magical Wing-ed Pixies to spread Healing White Energy Stuff throughout the Land.
Under the influence of this White-Energy Pixie Magic Stuff, polluters become beyond-organic gardeners, soldiers drop their guns and pick up knitting needles, the U.N. Security Council votes unanimously to decide all future international disputes with winner take all, Inter-Gender Nude Disc-Golf Tournaments, and Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton renounce their Corporatist Donors, unite to form the new Peace and People Power Party, and sweep to a landslide victory in November.
Eight years later, at their final, joint "State of the Peaceful Nation" address to the People's Assembly of the United States and Indigenous Nations of the Americas, Co-Executives Clinton and Obama conclude by stating- in the five official Languages and the seventeen Respected Sub-Cultural Dialects of the U.S.I.N.A.:
"In the last eight solar cycles, we have come far, but we still have a long way to go to fufill the promise of the Pixie Magic Power Stuff and the Earth-Goddess' wishes for her Human Children and their Animal and Plant and Fungal and Microbial Co-Existers. As we continue, peacefully, to work, peacefully, as one Peaceful People, toward these (peaceful) Goals, we should remember that it all began with Shouting at People who were Doing Things we didn't Like, peacefully."
or,
C)-The Right-Wing Corporatist press uses this as fuel for their hideous Obsfucation and Confusion machine. Not only exposing the tactical Hypocrisy of the Left, but using the stereotyped labeling of this "Liberal" City and Group, and Newspaper, to further turn the People away from "Liberal" ideas essential to the maintenance of their Rights and their Power as Democratic Soveriegn of this Nation-State, and toward a false "Patriotism" that is opening the door for Explicit Fascism in the U.S. and/or covering the plan for Capital Flight by the Oligarchies and abandonment of the Economy.
This Action won't even have the desired effect locally, as the article implies, since the recruiters will simply close shop on the one afternoon a week the Code-pinkers are allowed their Shouting Space.
This is yet another action that will fail to do anything other than allow the participants to Vent their Frustration, thus leaving them calmed and more easily handled by the Powers that be, while simultaneously giving a boost and a talking point to every Rightist Jackass on TV or Radio.
This will harm Solidarity when that is what is most Needed.
The failure to frame the Story of this Action, and the petty vindictiveness of its premise, will do more Harm than Good.
Shooting the Wounded, and Mob tactics never play well with the People, and such will be the case with this.
or,
D)None of the Above. And this post is way, WAY, too long. And Matti sucks.
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Please pick your Letter Answer and then follow with an Explanatory Essay.
When you are finished, please pass your Test Sheets and Answer Sheets to the front, so I can through them in the Garbage, and we can get back to the Inter-Gender Nude Folf Tournament.
-matti.
When rightists (e.g.,"Voice of Sanity" above) start monitoring progressive sites and tossing out insults such as "children's chat room" and "carry on kids", anonymity becomes cowardice.
At least the hate radio jockeys, with their "moonbat", "feminazi", "ecowacko" charges id themselves.
"I'd only be serving the interests of Halliburton and other corrupt corporations that drain the wealth out of everywhere, pouring it into the huge salaries of CEOs, while leaving even our streets full of potholes."
Which is exactly why we need to protest the Marine recruiting office. But a sampling of the comments by readers of the local rag that passes off as a newspaper (the SF Chronicle) is enough to make the most ardent protester fear for their lives !
The intelligence quotient in Berkeley is much higher than the national average. The graffiti on the bathroom wall at the Mediterranean cafe beats ABC,CBS,and NBC all combined.
When I turned 18 I joined the USMC and served four years. That was decades ago, and back then I had no concept of the damage that imperialism of all ages has done in this world. But now I realize that if I were a young Marine in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere today, I'd only be serving the interests of Halliburton and other corrupt corporations that drain the wealth out of everywhere, pouring it into the huge salaries of CEOs, while leaving even our streets full of potholes.
run the evil white racist out of dodge.
Ooops, I must have stumbled into the children's chat room ... and forgot to wear a strait jacket ... that's fine ... carry on kids ... and don't put anything you find on the floor in your mouths
The City Of Berkeley as always wears its heart out on its sleeve. There is a reason we love this town !! But of course the attacks will inevitably begin ....