Protest Shuts Down Berkeley CA Marine Recruiting Center
Video; Photo and Print links:
Berkeley Can’t Wait for Recruiters to Leave: YouTube
by Felix Barrett / Revolution on IndyMedia Bay Area
Three days after the Berkeley City Council voted 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” protesters from World Can’t Wait were arrested
after chaining themselves to the door of the recruiting station and
refusing to leave.
A nation statement from World Can’t Wait
calling for nationwide acions on January 31 was titled: “Challenge the
“Politics of the Possible” with Mass Resistance – Drive OUT the Bush
Regime!” The statement begins: “We will make the future. We pledge to
stop endless war for empire. We refuse consent to a torture state. We
won’t swallow a hateful culture of bigotry & intolerance. We will
not go silently into a fascist nightmare. We will engage in an act of
civil resistance to make a better world. We are what we’ve been waiting
for.”
The WCW statement also says: “In times such as these,
people living in this country must speak up and make their sentiments
known, acting independently as THE PEOPLE. Let us not go down in
history infamously for standing silent in the face of grave crimes the
way the “Good Germans” allowed the Nazis to carry out their atrocities.
In solidarity with those being tortured in our name and as the color of
resistance, wear and display orange everywhere, daily.” see photos
Berkeley mayor offers to help Marine leave
San Jose Mercury News 2-01-08
By Doug Oakley STAFF WRITER
Berkeley
Mayor Tom Bates offered Friday to help the U.S. Marines leave town by
negotiating an end to the lease for their recruiting station, even as
he backpedaled on a City Council resolution declaring the Corps
“uninvited and unwelcome intruders” in the city.
In the face of an
onslaught of pro-military criticism from around the country, Bates, a
retired Army captain, also issued a statement that said the City
Council’s resolution Tuesday night “did not adequately differentiate
our respect and support for those serving in the armed forces and our
opposition to the Iraq war policy.” He said he would ask the council to
modify the resolution at its next meeting, scheduled for Feb. read more
Marines say they will stay in Berkeley
San Jose Mercury News 2-01-08
The
U.S. Marine Corps said today it would hold its ground in Berkeley after
the City Council asked it to abandon its recruiting office on Shattuck
Avenue earlier this week, while the city’s mayor retreated a bit.
“We take an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, and
part of the Constitution is the right of free speech, and the fact that
they are exercising their rights solidifies our resolve to continue
what we are doing,” Gunnery Sgt. Pauline Franklin said.
Franklin added that the service “can’t predict the future” about its presence in Berkeley. read more
San Francisco Chronicle:
Group protests Marine recruiters in Berkeley
Friday, February 1, 2008
Emboldened by this week’s show of support by
the Berkeley City Council, anti-war protesters on Thursday cranked up
their noisy effort to throw the U.S. Marine Corps recruiters out of
town, but in the pounding rain it was hard to tell who won the
figurative battle of wills.
On one hand, the protesters mustered one of their biggest crowds yet
– 40 people – to yell “Drive out the Bush regime” and other slogans
outside the Marines’ recruiting station on Shattuck Avenue. Hundreds of
motorists honked in support as they passed.
On the other hand, there was nobody working at the recruiting
station to hear these entreaties. The recruiting staff took the
afternoon off. read more
San Francisco Chronicle:
BERKELEY Facing off over Marine Corps
3 war opponents chain selves to door of recruiting station, and right-wing blogosphere goes ballistic
Saturday, February 2, 2008
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.
The demonstrators promptly said they will keep protesting outside
the recruiting station at 64 Shattuck Square until the Marines leave
Berkeley – which is what the City Council advised the service to do in
a vote Tuesday night that called the Marines “unwelcome intruders.” read more
Letter to the Editor of the Chronicle from World Can’t Wait:
Editor –
coverage (Feb. 1, 2) of protests at the Marine recruiting station twice
failed to name the sponsoring organization, World Can’t Wait – Drive
Out the Bush Regime! Also unexplained were the
videotapes tangled around the station, representing the CIA’s
destruction of videotapes documenting illegal torture in secret U.S.
facilities.
once again hang from trees. In such times, people of conscience have a responsibility to speak out – as a Berkeley student named Mario Savio once cried out, it’s time to put our bodies on the gears of injustice.
is really about what kind of country and world we want to live in.
Most youth I know don’t want to live in an empire that roams the world
invading and torturing for oil. The whole Bush program must be
reversed. If our elected representatives won’t do it, the people
must.
(signed)
Regime!
UC Berkeley: Daily Californian:
Code Pink Stages Mock Debate at Marines Center
speaks to a crowd of onlookers at a mock debate yesterday outside of
the Marine recruitment center on Shattuck Avenue.
A
local activist group drew a crowd of 50 onlookers yesterday when they
staged a mock debate against a military recruiting office in Downtown
Berkeley.
Although conservative radio talk show host Melanie Morgan was
originally scheduled to participate, she was ultimately replaced by a
member of activist group Code Pink pretending to espouse conservative
views.
read more
Berkeley City Council: Marines aren’t welcome
Code Pink assigned parking to disrupt recruitment
By Jeff Shuttleworth, Fog City Journal February 1, 2008
The Marines aren’t welcome in Berkeley, the Berkeley City council
said in an 8-1 vote Tuesday night.
The council’s resolution says that the U.S. Marines Corps recruiting
office at 64 Shattuck Ave., which opened about 13 months ago,
“is not welcome in our city, and if recruiters choose to
stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders.”
Marines Capt. Rick Lund declined to comment on the resolution
today except to say, “We have no plans to move.”
The resolution also calls for exploring enforcing Berkeley’s
law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation
against the Marines because of the military’s “don’t ask,
don’t tell” policy. read more