Many thanks to all of you who have expressed support for the USMC Officer Recruitment Office at 64 Shattuck Square, Berkeley. I'm happy to say I may be in a race to publish the whole story (from my perspective as one who never wears pink) before the Berkeley City Council finds a way to wiggle out of their initial, completely unacceptable, statement of nonsupport. The City Council was surprised at the level of angry response they received in the first few days after their remarkably cavalier and thoughtless resolutions were passed, a week ago today. Some members have explained the response away by calling those who emailed them "Right wingers" and "Not from Berkeley". As of this morning the Chamber of Commerce had received mail and phone calls from 146 individuals planning to boycott the City in any way they could. A Councilmember dismissed those angry people as "probably" not from here or planning come here, anyway. If you want details from that part of the story, email me and I'll look up the link.
For those of you without a scorecard, this is the current run down. Within the City Council, Gordon Wozniak gets the points for never supporting either the anti-marine or pro-Code Pink resolutions. Betty Olds and Kris Worthington objected to the sending of a nasty-gram telling the Marines we don't like them, but yes on the rest. Betty Olds and Laurie Capitelli are the Council members now officially calling for the undoing the vote. Linda Maio and Max Anderson sponsored the resolution giving Code Pink a parking space and noise permit for the next 26 Wednesday afternoons. While Maio says the wording was poor and should be reconsidered, Max Anderson stands by his votes, as do Dona Spring and Darryl Moore. Tom Bates, the Mayor of this town, not only voted for both resolutions, but made a statement before they passed that has been repeated in several different sources, "I believe in the Code Pink cause. The Marines don't belong here, they shouldn't have come here, and they should leave," said Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates.
The thing about a statement like that out of the City's Mayor, is that it really makes his subsequent call for a gentler rewriting of the resolutions sound ingenuous and false. Better he should fall on his rubber sword as a man of integrity, who was just WRONG -- to apply his personal opinion to a City issue. Code Pink is complicit in all this because they are loud and fairly consistent in their loudness. This blog is in part my penance for having tolerated Code Pink and The World Cant Wait in silence, long enough that Tom Bates could believe their opinions were popular, mainstream, or even rational. Like Mayor Bates, Code Pink is entitled to its opinions, but not to assume that they represent the rest of us.
Of course, the resolution to boot the Marines started with Steve Freedkin, Chair Emeritus (since 2/1/08) of the Peace and Justice Commission. There was much made at the Council meeting of the fact that this was Freedkin's last meeting as Chair, and there were several items from the Commission before the Council that night, ranging from boycotts, recall of National Guard Troops from Iraq, to Declaring Berkeley a Sanctuary City for users and providers of Medicinal Cannabis. The URL for the Agenda is here: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=11042 There is also a video of the whole meeting. Trust me, its REALLY LONG. From the above link you can find the text of the Peace and Justice Commission's recommendation to the Council. They also take liberty with facts vs. opinions...stating the latter as the former. Its sad, but a learning experience for the rest of us. I will not stoop to that --- but cannot expect any more than that from those who would damage this City, and more importantly this Country.
I need to go make eye contact with my 6 year-old right now, so will stop for awhile. I urge you to look around for information on Code Pink and The World Can't Wait while I'm gone. There are a couple of amazing YouTube videos related to all this, plus one on Breitbart.com (and probably YouTube by now) showing the WCW (orange prison jumpsuits) chained to the doors of the USMC Recruiting Center on Friday. I had seen still photos, but the video really makes a point about reasonable behavior. Try to be kind to the "neutral" police officer. He was following orders from a City Council almost entirely absent from the scene, and a Mayor whose email was set to "bounce" because of the huge amount of traffic he provoked.
For those of you without a scorecard, this is the current run down. Within the City Council, Gordon Wozniak gets the points for never supporting either the anti-marine or pro-Code Pink resolutions. Betty Olds and Kris Worthington objected to the sending of a nasty-gram telling the Marines we don't like them, but yes on the rest. Betty Olds and Laurie Capitelli are the Council members now officially calling for the undoing the vote. Linda Maio and Max Anderson sponsored the resolution giving Code Pink a parking space and noise permit for the next 26 Wednesday afternoons. While Maio says the wording was poor and should be reconsidered, Max Anderson stands by his votes, as do Dona Spring and Darryl Moore. Tom Bates, the Mayor of this town, not only voted for both resolutions, but made a statement before they passed that has been repeated in several different sources, "I believe in the Code Pink cause. The Marines don't belong here, they shouldn't have come here, and they should leave," said Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates.
The thing about a statement like that out of the City's Mayor, is that it really makes his subsequent call for a gentler rewriting of the resolutions sound ingenuous and false. Better he should fall on his rubber sword as a man of integrity, who was just WRONG -- to apply his personal opinion to a City issue. Code Pink is complicit in all this because they are loud and fairly consistent in their loudness. This blog is in part my penance for having tolerated Code Pink and The World Cant Wait in silence, long enough that Tom Bates could believe their opinions were popular, mainstream, or even rational. Like Mayor Bates, Code Pink is entitled to its opinions, but not to assume that they represent the rest of us.
Of course, the resolution to boot the Marines started with Steve Freedkin, Chair Emeritus (since 2/1/08) of the Peace and Justice Commission. There was much made at the Council meeting of the fact that this was Freedkin's last meeting as Chair, and there were several items from the Commission before the Council that night, ranging from boycotts, recall of National Guard Troops from Iraq, to Declaring Berkeley a Sanctuary City for users and providers of Medicinal Cannabis. The URL for the Agenda is here: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=11042 There is also a video of the whole meeting. Trust me, its REALLY LONG. From the above link you can find the text of the Peace and Justice Commission's recommendation to the Council. They also take liberty with facts vs. opinions...stating the latter as the former. Its sad, but a learning experience for the rest of us. I will not stoop to that --- but cannot expect any more than that from those who would damage this City, and more importantly this Country.
I need to go make eye contact with my 6 year-old right now, so will stop for awhile. I urge you to look around for information on Code Pink and The World Can't Wait while I'm gone. There are a couple of amazing YouTube videos related to all this, plus one on Breitbart.com (and probably YouTube by now) showing the WCW (orange prison jumpsuits) chained to the doors of the USMC Recruiting Center on Friday. I had seen still photos, but the video really makes a point about reasonable behavior. Try to be kind to the "neutral" police officer. He was following orders from a City Council almost entirely absent from the scene, and a Mayor whose email was set to "bounce" because of the huge amount of traffic he provoked.
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