Berkely City Council Steps Back from the Cliff

Berkeley California made national news last week after its city council adopted a resolution calling the Marines "Uninvited, Unwelcome Intruders" due to the presence of one of their officer recruitment centers on Shattuck Avenue in the city known for its many eccentricities. The council further granted the deviant protest group Code Pink a parking permit directly in front of the Marine recruiting station. The result was that persons trying to access the recruiting station were treated with taunts and threats and prevented from entering the premises by Code Pink activists barracading and sometimes chaining themselves to the door while Berkely police stood by and did nothing.

These craven and dispicable actions on the part of a derranged local administrative body and its police force sparked a groundswell of protest by people of good conscience from around the country. Phone calls, letters and emails of protest flooded the city to demand a retraction of their resolution. The city's email server crashed from the sheer volume of email that flooded the city councilmen's inboxes. Some members of the council reported that they had received 26,000 rebuking them for their vote in favor of the resolution.

People from around the nation, conservative and liberal took airplanes, cars, buses and trains to be present for counter-demonstration against those who were attacking the Marines by their disruptive actions and the city government that enabled the anti-military protesters.
Yesterday saw clashes between protesters on both sides of the issue with allegations that the Berkeley police and local office of the California Highway Patrol stood by and did nothing as some counter-protesters from Move America Forward were assaulted by deranged members of the Code Pink crowd. (Although deranged is a great way to describe Code Pink in general)

Radio commentator and Move America Forward organizer Melanie Morgan describes the scene as it developed through the day:

Berkeley, the birthplace of free speech, is now officially the center of intolerant hatred for anyone who sticks up for the men and women who are fighting and dying to protect THEIR rights.

Before our sound system was nearly sabotaged, a young man posing as a pro-troop supporter asked to speak to the crowd. I allowed him to talk (about his family’s ‘service’)when he started spewing obscenities about the ‘illegal, immoral, unjust war’ . I grabbed the microphone back, and he tried to clobber me with it.

Gold Star Dad Mark Crowley knocked him to the ground, where he found a faceful of dirt to keep him company.

Our side sang God Bless America, America the beautiful and other stirring songs that seemed to enrage the elderly commies.

25,000 petitions were collected by Move America Forward with the help of other pro-troops groups like Gathering of Eagles, EaglesUp, Vets for Freedom and others. There were Eagles EVERYWHERE today.

And Patriot Guard Riders.

And American Legion vets.

And members of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

5,000 petition signatures were also collected by an organization in Washington headed by Nicholas Provenzano, who flew out to Berkeley on the red-eye to deliver to the City Council. Red, White and Blue Americans rushed to our side from Atlanta, Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado, San Diego, and other parts of the United States.
Our crowds numbered into the thousands throughout the day.

So gratifying. So humbling.

People of all ages, races, and political backgrounds (yes even some incensed liberals) honored our active duty service members serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in other parts around the world.

Clashes between supporters of the men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces and the anti-U.S. dregs of society known as Code Pink, International ANSWER and assorted teenagers released from their Stalinist indoctrination classes at Berkley High School culminated that evening with a series of speeches by members of both sides during that community's planned city council meeting.

At the end of a very long city council meeting where the usual suspects of Code-Pinkos, International ANSWER and faux veterans claiming innumerable horrors and injustices of the military were followed by Veitnam Veterans, Moms and Dads of those now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as real Veterans of the Gulf War and Iraq and Afghanistan. The council stepped back from their earlier resolution voting 7-2 to rescind its earlier action informing the Marine Corps that its local recuiting office was not welcome in the city.

The council later voted not to apologize to the Marine Corps for its actions in January. Council member Linda Maio said "We do not want to ostracize our troops, they are our sons and our daughters. We care about them. We love them and we want to bring them home."

Oh sure, they really care about them. That's why the council passed that outrageous resolution last January. And to show their support for our troops, Code Pink plans to introduce a resolution on the local ballot to oust the Marine recruiters from Berkeley. Jodie Evans, a Berkeley yoga studio owner and co-founder of the anti-military group says, "We want voters to be able to decide" adding, "just like they have a say whether a liquor store or porn shop opens near a school".

Code Pink equates a Marine recruiting center with a porn shop or liquor store so that young people ("Children" in leftist jargon) won't be exposed to the opportunity to serve their country. Code Pink would like to close all recruiting offices across the country so that no one would be able to serve in the armed forces of the United States. Code Pink's ambition is that all American cities treat the Marine and other military recruiters in the same shabby fashion as the Berkeley city council and police have done. Code Pinkos and International ANSWER types know that as long as the United States has an assertive President willing to use a strong military backed by a supportive civilian base, their dreams of creating an Internationalist Socialist Dictatorship will never be realized.

HooAhhh Marines! Semper Fi!