Here we go again: Berkeley California against the Military: Marines are “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” : Updated
Reposted, with permission, from Leaning Straight Up.
UPDATES Below
Berkeley continues its attempt to rival San Francisco as the capital of Military Derangement.
It seems like it was mostly just the vigorous activities of Code pink, as noted in this blog, that accounted for the Military hatred, but now the City has climbed into bed with Code Pink in their battle against the Marine Corps. Via Michelle Malkin:
Berkeley wants to treat military recruitment offices like porn shops
Only in Berkeley. Sigh:
In response to a Marine Corps recruiting office established in Berkeley last year, local activists are trying to make it more difficult for future recruiting centers to open in the city.
If passed by a majority of Berkeley voters, a proposed initiative would require military recruiting offices and private military companies in Berkeley to first acquire a special use permit.
To obtain this permit, a business must hold public hearings and a public comment period.
If the initiative passes, recruitment offices could not be opened within 600 feet of residential districts, public parks, public health clinics, public libraries, schools or churches.
Currently, a recruiting office is held to the same standards as most other businesses, which do not require a public hearing or have limits on where offices can be established.
The author of the initiative, Berkeley-based lawyer Sharon Adams, modeled the initiative after current zoning law that restricts the location of adult-oriented businesses.
“In the same way that many communities limit the location of pornographic stores, that’s the same way we feel about the military recruiting stations,” said Phoebe Sorgen, an initiative proponent and a member of the city’s Peace and Justice Commission.
Question their patriotism? Damned straight.
Um, yea I tend to agree.
Megan Sego at California Patriot issues a call to arms:
For those of you who aren’t acquainted with the non-residential areas of Berkeley, this process would make getting a recruitment office nearly impossible. First, the proposed recruitment office would have to have a special permit that they’d have to obtain through the “public hearing and public comment” process, which means entangling themselves in Berkeley’s sizeable and slugglish bureaucratic net. If they were successful, the 600 foot regulation basically covers anything they could be next to. The assumption that they have to be far away from public entities like schools, parks, and clinics indicates that the city still believes recruiters are “preying” on poor, weak, minority citizens…
…My elementary analysis: This is the “nice” way of banning military recruitment without actually doing it. I hope the public outcry is loud.
Contact info for the Berkeley “Peace and Justice Commission:”
Manuel Hector, Jr.
Health & Human Services
(510) 981-5110
E-mail: MHector@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Bad enough? It gets worse (emphasis mine):
Blood-boiler: Berkeley vs. the troops
I told you on Sunday about the city of Berkeley’s move to treat military recruitment centers like porn shops.
Reader Bob USMC e-mails that Berzerkeley advanced two other anti-troop measures last night–voting to give Code Pink special treatment and send the Marine Corps a letter saying they are “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” in the city.
This must not go unanswered:
Members of the Berkeley City Council showed their opposition to a Marine Corps recruiting office in Downtown Berkeley last night.
Council members supported the two resolutions-one supporting anti-war protests and the other criticizing military recruitment practices-citing opposition to the war in Iraq, deceptive recruitment practices and the right to protest.
“By taking a stand against recruitment we are protecting the health and safety of our youth,” said PhoeBe sorgen, a member of the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission. “I see the protest as taking a proud and courageous stand.”
Code Pink, a national anti-war grassroots organization, will be granted a parking spot for their regular Wednesday afternoon protests and will not need to apply for a sound permit for the next six months, under one resolution.
The other resolution more directly criticizes the presence of the center in Berkeley. The city manager was directed to send a letter to the U.S. Marine Corps saying they are “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” in the city.
In addition, the city attorney has been directed to investigate whether the city’s anti-discrimination laws can be enforced at the center, based on the military’s consideration of sexual orientation in hiring.
Marine recruiters did not return calls for comment yesterday.
So that’s in Berkeley, in the heart of the craziest part of our nation. So why do I care?
My Father was a Marine in Korea, my Brother was in the Army, my Son is in the Navy and I served in the US Air Force.
So any harassment against the military is a slap in the face of my family who have served honorably in all branches.
In other words, yes, i take it personally.
The military exists solely to defend those constitutional freedoms, like free speech, which these people are using to harass them.
What a nice way to say thank you.
Updates: The Contra Costa Times has the latest on the story, including some local reactions which are a little disgruntled:
Berkeley council tells Marines to leave
Hey-hey, ho-ho, the Marines in Berkeley have got to go.
That’s the message from the Berkeley City Council, which voted 6-3 Tuesday night to tell the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station “is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders.”
In addition, the council voted to explore enforcing its law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against the Marines because of the military’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy. And it officially encouraged the women’s peace group Code Pink to impede the work of the Marines in the city by protesting in front of the station.
In a separate item, the council voted 8-1 to give Code Pink a designated parking space in front of the recruiting station once a week for six months and a free sound permit for protesting once a week from noon to 4 p.m.
Councilman Gordon Wozniak opposed both items.
The Marines have been in Berkeley for a little more than a year, having moved from Alameda in December of 2006. For about the past four months, Code Pink has been protesting in front of the station.
“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 after votes were cast.
Code pink….god, don’t get me started.
The recommendation to give Code Pink a parking space for protesting and a free sound permit was brought by council members Linda Maio and Max Anderson.
Of all the lunacy, that may get the city in the most trouble, it is clearly a resolution to favor one political spectrum over others.
And the local reaction is not all supportive:
Even though the council items passed, not everyone is happy with the work of Code Pink. Some employees and owners of businesses near the Marines office have had enough of the group and its protests.
“My husband’s business is right upstairs, and this (protesting) is bordering on harassment,” Dori Schmidt told the council. “I hope this stops.”
An employee of a nearby business who asked not to be identified said Wednesday the elderly Code Pink protesters are aggressive, take up parking spaces, block the sidewalk with their yoga moves, smoke in the doorways, and are noisy.
“Most of the people around here think they’re a joke,” the woman said.
Wozniak said he was opposed to giving Code Pink a parking space because it favors free speech rights of one group over another.
“There’s a line between protesting and harassing, and that concerns me,” Wozniak said. “It looks like we are showing favoritism. We have to respect the other side, and not abuse their rights. This is not good policy.”
I think that the residents of Berkeley, like the residents of San Francisco, need to establish that the actions of an activist city council may not represent the average person.
Like San Francisco, the activism of some has become the basis of the image for the whole city, and that is patently unfair to people who may be liberal but may not share the wholehearted determination to stupidity that Code Pink and other have.
Classical Values shares some background about the Berkeley council that is noteworthy.
Fallback Belmont offers a dose of reality to the minds in Berkeley:
It’s clear why some communities want the world to be “just so” — nuclear free, purged of any disconcerting sights like Marines or meat — and decorated instead by the more agreeable images of tofu and Code Pink protesters. That’s the way they want reality to look. But wishing doesn’t make it so and it’s a legitimate question to ask how long Berkeley, California or Brattleboro, Vermont would last in the world as it is, as opposed to how they imagine it to be.
Cold Fury and Sister Toldjah both mention the idea perking in the back of many poeople’s heads, that being if Berkeley hates the military so much, perhaps they should not be entitled to protection of the military, or for that matter, federal funding for things like UC Berkeley.
Dale Franks has a good suggestion:
OK. Then how about we cut off every penny of Federal funds that go into Berkeley? Including the University.
Furthermore, if WWIII starts on our own soil, can Berkeley be made exempt from being defended?
Yeah, I know - the freedom to dissent in this country is one of our greatest freedoms … but that doesn’t stop people from being outraged and disgusted with how uber-liberal towns and cities treat our men and women in uniform, who are charged with protecting the anti-war left’s right to denigrate their honorable service.
Fortunately for the liberals, like Code Pink, while they have broken their trust with the Military, and regardless of how they treat the Military, the Military maintains its true faith and allegience to its purpose, and to its mission:
To support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Even Code Pink.
More on the Liberals and the Military:
The ACLU sues the Military while Code-Pink treats them as a publicity stunt
Todays lesson for liberals: This is what patriots supporting the troops looks like
Hillary begins her real campaign: wooing a reluctant Military.
Troops say Support us, in response William Arkin says Quit Whining UPDATED
Rangel continues his disdain of the Military and insults my son.
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