by Cheryl Abraham February 7, 2008
In an incredibly fascistic display six Republican Senators Senator’s James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia), Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-Oklahoma), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and David Vitter (R-Louisiana) introduced the Semper Fi Act of 2008. The bill would rescind over $2 million in earmarks for Berkeley, California in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill, and transfer the funds to the Marine Corps. This vindictive measure is a retaliation to a Berkeley City Council vote to oust Marine Corps recruiters from their downtown Berkeley office. U.S. Congressman John Campbell (R-California) is introducing a companion to the Senate bill in the House of Representatives.
Obviously these senators would rather see the youth of Berkeley be the victims of the deadly deceptions and lies of the Military Recruiters than see any benefits that they would have received in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill. It is one in a long line of actions by the Bush regime and it’s complicit Congress that have put American lives, and specifically youth in danger: lowering EPA standards that continue to poison our planet, lower standards of highly profitable and low quality product imports laced with all sorts of poisons and dangers, not to mention the atrocities of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars where thousands of Americans have lost their lives, thousands more are injured and more than a million Iraqi men, women, and children are dead.
Perhaps these Senators should take the time to actually speak with Iraq veterans who have been victimized by these recruiters! The website for Iraq Veterans Against the War (www.ivaw.org) released an article entitled: “IVAW to kick off Truth In Recruiting campaign.” In this article the veterans spoke out against the tactics of military recruiters saying: “In order to meet their recruiting quotas, many recruiters use deceptive tactics that don’t tell the whole truth. As Adam Kokesh, former Marine Corps sergeant and Iraq vet, says, “For many of those who enter the military today, their enlistments are based on lies. There are those who join hoping to go to Iraq for a variety of personal reasons, not knowing the truth about the occupation. But there are many more that are promised by recruiters that they will never go to Iraq, that they will get plenty of money for college, that they will receive adequate health care, and that the military will honor the time limit of their contracts without using the stop-loss or involuntarily extending them.”
The article continues: “Every man and woman who decides to join the military deserves to know the truth about military service. If someone is willing to make the life-changing decision to serve in the military and potentially sacrifice their life, health, family, and sanity, they are owed the truth about what that sacrifice entails. Unfortunately, many new recruits are lied to and misled by recruiters who are under immense pressure to meet recruitment quotas.” http://www.ivaw.org/node/1521
Not only do recruiters lie to new recruits, they prey on the poorest and most desperate of our youth, who then go on to be the first to die in Iraq and elsewhere. THIS MUST STOP! The brave and heroic stand to kick the recruiters out of the city of Berkeley is a strong statement of what is THE RIGHT THING TO DO – to protect our youth from the deadly deceptions of military recruiting methods.
We need to help the City of Berkeley to stand firm in the face of the war-mongers, the ill-informed, and the violent views of those who would shame the PEOPLE into passivity with the agenda of the Bush regime’s continual saber rattling and march to more war at the expense of our children’s lives.
Please contact your senators now and tell them it is long past time to protect our youth from these deadly deceptions! Contact the City of Berkeley and tell them to remain firm in their stand against this new wave of complicity with the Bush regime!
Here is the link to contact Berkeley City Council members:
District 1: Linda Maio (510) 981-7110 lmaio@ci.berkeley.ca.us
District 2: Darryl Moore (510) 981-7120 dmoore@ci.berkeley.ca.us
District 3: Maxwell Anderson (510) 981-7130 manderson@ci.berkeley.ca.us
District 4: Dona Spring (510) 981-7140 spring@ci.berkeley.ca.us
District 5: Laurie Capitelli (510) 981-7150 lcapitelli@ci.berkeley.ca.us
District 6: Betty Olds (510) 981-7160 olds@ci.berkeley.ca.us
District 7: Kriss Worthington (510) 981-7170 kworthington@ci.berkeley.ca.us
District 8: Gordon Wozniak (510) 981-7180 GWozniak@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Office of the Mayor: Tom Bates (510) 981-7100 mayor@ci.berkeley.ca.us
To contact Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who wants to pull federal funding from Berkeley: demint.senate.gov/public (202) 224-6121
Contact your Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Cheryl Abraham is on the Steering Committee of the Seattle chapter of World Can’t Wait