Saturday, February 2nd 2008
Anti-Marine protesters chain selves to recruitment office doors
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
“As the right-wing blogosphere railed and a U.S. senator vowed financial retaliation against the Berkeley City Council for its effort to boot the Marine Corps out of town, three war protesters ratcheted up pressure from the left by chaining themselves Friday to the front door of the downtown Marine recruiting office.
The demonstrators snapped their locks shut at 7 a.m. and spent the next 7 1/2 hours blocking the door, waving and chanting as hundreds of cars driving by honked in support. Finally, at 2:30 p.m., police snipped the chains and arrested them.
Two of the three were cited for blocking a business and released, and the third was booked into jail on an unrelated traffic warrant, police said”
Oh boy. These guys have the works: orange prison suits, chains, the usual cadre of anti-Bush/anti-war/abu ghraib signs, etc. The most delicious part is how the right-wingers here on the interweb are supposedly the ones going ballistic, not those restricting the movement of others. I am not surprised that Berkeley is the first city to do this. Some of the reaction came from Republican Senator Jim DeMint, who is working on a counter-measure:
“Conservative bloggers and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., also believe more articulation is necessary - from the opposite side of the political spectrum.
DeMint began drafting legislation Friday to cut $2.1 million in federal funding to Berkeley in a current congressional budget bill and transfer the money to the Marine Corps. The funding would include $750,000 for prospective ferry service, $87,000 for the Berkeley Unified School District nutrition education fund and $243,000 for the Chez Panisse Foundation, which promotes nutritional awareness in school lunch programs.
“The First Amendment gives the city of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money,” DeMint said in a statement.” Any thoughts on this?
The “ballistic” right wing response is apparently innapropriate, according to Council Member Donna Spring, who said “I guess they’ve never heard of free speech,” in response to those who left her critical phone messages. So her right to speak should be defended but not those who disagree? GatewayPundit is another “ballistic” blogger.
Cal even got a mention in a message from Melanie Morgan: “we have been contacted by Marine groups across Northern California, Cal Berkeley Young Republicans, SF State Young Republicans and a tsunami of e-mails in support”.
The action is going down Tuesday Feb 12th, when folks will be marching on the next Berkeley City Council meeting. Come along if you wanna see something fun.
The Marines’ Job is to protect the U.S.A. at all costs. If the city of Berkeley chooses to be free of Federal laws, then any forest fires, earthquakes or national intervention should be barred from taking place on Berkeley grounds. So lets say a foreign military decides not to invade the U.S.A., but the city of Berkeley itself. Since the city council is pulling all these anti-U.S.A. protection stunts, then if an army invades, do nothing. In fact, pull up lawn chairs and watch the suffering going on while laughing out loud.
What makes me angry is that these white-old folks believe this war is affecting the world’s perspective on the U.S.A. They must be delinquent, because the world sees both the dem and repub party and all U.S.A. citizens as hedonist – evil humans raping the earth –economically and physically. “Code Pinkus Delinqus” believes that by demonfying one side of the political spectrum they are in fact emancipated from “immorality” — such as representative in the myth pacifies the restless soul. When in fact, their fat- faces go home to opulent lifestyles, while most of the world lives in cardboard shacks and eat dust, and work for pittance to make their miserable lives opulent. This explains the “Code Pinkus Delinqus Ignoramus” pathology.
Comment by Anonymous — 2/2/2008 @ 6:57 pm
I hope you don’t support this legislation. Cutting nearly a million dollars from a university program is particularly wrongheaded.
Comment by Stephen — 2/13/2008 @ 5:09 pm