Code Pink: “If it weren’t for people like the people in Berkeley, standing up for what they believe, we’d be living under Hitler”
The moonbats are upping the ante and pouring gallons of fresh fuel on their anti-military fire in Berkeley. Following on the heels of the Berkeley City Council’s move to grant them special parking privileges and free sound permits to protest the Marine recruiting center, Code Pinkos held a mock debate at the recruitment office. Medea Benjamin gloated (via Daily Cal):
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.
Issues ranged from the congressional race between Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan to the military presence in Berkeley.
“We are the defenders of democracy, the upholders of the Constitution,” said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink. “If it weren’t for people like the people in Berkeley, standing up for what they believe, we’d be living under Hitler.”
A few e-mailers wonder if a pro-life group should apply for parking privileges and free sound permits in order to protest outside one of Berkeley’s abortion clinics.
Anyone up for a constitutional challenge? Maybe it’s time for some public interest law firms to join the American Legion and Sen. DeMint in the growing backlash.
One Berkeley City Councilwoman now says she’s “ashamed” of her vote. Idiot:
The vote to award the Code Pink parking spot was 8-1, and the condemnation resolution was 6-3. On Thursday, the polarized emotions that went into those votes had not abated.
“I’m ashamed of my vote,” said Councilwoman Betty Olds, who helped approve the parking spot but not the condemnation. “The protesters should have free speech – this is where Free Speech was born, after all – but to tell the Marines they are not welcome is shameful. If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t even go for the parking spot.”
The Berkeley Daily Planet reports on the one dissenter who voted against awarding the parking spot to Code Pink:
The question of dedicating space—a parking space—for Code Pink’s weekly demonstrations in front of the downtown Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center (MRC) raised hackles at Tuesday night’s Berkeley City Council meeting, when Councilmember Gordon Wozniak likened the demonstrations there to protests at abortion clinics.
“There’s a line between protesting and harassing,” Wozniak said, referring to possible harassment of recruits.
Wozniak was the lone vote in opposition to a resolution authored by Councilmembers Linda Maio and Max Anderson designating a parking space in front of the recruiting center for the demonstrators from noon to 4 p.m. every Wednesday for six months.
The dedicated parking space “is showing favoritism to one side of the argument,” Wozniak said, adding, “My concern is giving a parking space in front of the Marine Recruiting Center seems confrontational.”
While Dori Schmidt, whose husband owns The Berkeley Review, a test preparation business above the MRC, told the council that the demonstrations disrupt the business with their noise, other public speakers supported the parking space designation.
“It’s not favoritism,” said PhoeBe Sorgen, a member of Code Pink and the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee. Rather, it’s following the Berkeley “tradition to stand up for peace,” she said.
More:
The debate follows Tuesday’s City Council decision to grant Code Pink a parking spot in front of the military recruitment center on Shattuck Avenue, facilitating the ongoing protests. Another resolution passed by the City Council directed the city manager to send a letter to the U.S. Marine Corps informing them that they are “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” in Berkeley. PhoeBe sorgen, a Code Pink activist and member of the city’s Peace and Justice Commission, said the resolutions were supportive of the group’s continued resistance and showed the city was taking an official stand against the center. Code Pink has staged protests against the center on Shattuck every Wednesday since Sept. 26.
At the debate, local activists and Code Pink members also promoted a proposed initiative for the November elections that would require the center to obtain a special use permit to remain in Berkeley. Yesterday’s debate was only one of many steps to remove the recruitment center from Berkeley, Joi said. “We’ll be here as long as they’re here,” she said.
Decent citizens of Berkeley, speak now or forever hold your peace.
This stain is going to be indelible.
***
Contact info:
Mayor – Tom Bates
2180 Milvia Street, Berkeley, CA 94704
Email: mayor@ci.berkeley.ca.us
TEL: (510) 981-7100
FAX: (510) 981-7199
TDD: (510) 981-6903
Office Hours: Mon-Fri 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
====================
CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS
====================
Linda Maio
Phone: (510) 981-7110
FAX: (510) 981-7111
Email: lmaio@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Darryl Moore
Phone: (510) 981-7120
Email: dmoore@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Maxwell Anderson
Phone: (510) 981-7130
Email: manderson@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Dona Spring
Phone: (510) 981-7140
Email: spring@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Laurie Capitelli
Phone: (510) 981-7150
Email: lcapitelli@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Betty Olds
Phone: (510) 981-7160
Email: olds@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Kriss Worthington
Phone: (510) 981-7170
Email: kworthington@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Gordon Wozniak
Phone: (510) 981-7180
Email: GWozniak@ci.berkeley.ca.us
City Auditor
Ann Marie
TEL: (510) 981-6750, TDD: (510) 981-6903
Office Hours: Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm
Email: auditor@ci.berkeley.ca.us
***
An e-mail from a recruiter:
I am a recruiter in the GA Army National Guard. I just read your story on Berkeley and am at a loss for words. As a successful recruiter in Athens, GA, I want to tell you thanks for exposing this horrible city, and that although it seems to be a disease spreading throughout the country, I have had positive experiences in my area. In fact, most of my soldiers have come through the high schools that I recruit for. Hopefully some of the “big brass” will do the right thing and cut federal funds to the city. Again thanks and keep up the good work.
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Thanks Kev.
Simply amazing. To paraphrase a line from an old movie, “if Code Pink had been fighting for America in WWII, all this would be Germany now.
There would be giant Mao or Dear Leader like statues of Hitler for the Pinkos to worship under.
I am seriously beginning to think Savage is right: liberalism is a mental disease. It clearly interferes with the logic centers of the brain.
Nyc,
When I emailed the City of Olympia re: the Port protests, I had several healthy exchanges with the City Manager and a few councilmen. If they have any decency, the Berkley city council will do the same.
xler8,
It’s rather difficult to muster up any sympathy for Code Pink. They chose their line of work, which is to denigrate the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces… Not a wise choice at all. Nope. No sympathy from me.
#103 fourstringfuror
“If they have any decency..”
I think the answer to that is pretty clear already, for most of them.
OK, enough fun for the day for me…I looked up the MECA site, and since they are supposedly the “Middle Eastern Childrens Aliiance” I called their contact number and asked if they would be publicly condemning the murders of children in Baghdad today, quoting from the news release mentioned above. The heavily accented man who answered transferred me to a very American sounding woman.
Any guess as to the answer? She said that they were an organization devoted to ending the war in Iraq, getting the troops out of there and ending the sanctions that cause people to feel the need to become suicide bombers. “But these weren’t really suicide bombers” I protested. “They were mentally retarded women who probably didn’t know what they were doing, sent into a child filled area buy people who knew exactly what they were doing purely to murder them- aren’t you going to condemn this action in public and in the press, since you are a pro children organization?”
Gee, the crickets are sure loud out there this time of year, aren’t they?
Nice one JoAnn *applause*
Ahhh #104 It’s not just the armed forces they dislike. It is anyone who doesn’t think as they think.
JoAnn in VA
Thanks … just want to add the link to their website below and point out to everyone that they are headquartered in …
Berkeley …
I’m sure everyone is surprised …
MECA Homepage
Anyone besides me think they need to change the spelling …
from Berkeley …
to Burqah-ley …
xler8,
Yes, I am aware. It’s a liberal tolerance thing that I wouldn’t understand.
Well, I fired off my letter to the folks in San Fran. I doubt I will get a response. But, at least I expressed my feelings on their seditious acts.
I feel better!
And this is from the people who support Chavez and hold sympathies for Castro and Iran. Well, that’s socialist ethics for you!
Time to pull all federal funding for Berkeley…isolate, embargo, insist all state funding to the city be stopped. The “fine” citizens of Berkeley will not suffer…with Medea, and Cindy’s influence with Chairman Hugo, the city will get all the money it needs, and Hugo will not ask for a quid-pro-quo.
Just A Grunt-
Couldn’t agree more. These types of statements show just how deluded these people have become, as well as the astonishing amount of hubris and arrogance they have. If only they could stop seeing themselves through red, I mean rose colored glasses.
Suggestion: Have the Marines call on the EPA to enforce sound loudness regulations.
It took me a while to think about what I would write to these people – but now that I have, permit me to share my thoughts with the rest of you.
Sent to the Mayor and Council Members:
Like the one I sent them, JRL, I’m pretty sure it fell on deaf ears or, at least, blind eyes.
Be ENCOURAGED : ACTION WORKS
The calls and e-mail messages are being heard-
Councilwomen Olds is already embarrassed about one of her votes and THAT’s after only ONE day of our protest.
$$$$$$$$$$ OUR MONEY TALKS!!!!
Watch with excitement- when the city’s Fed.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ are recinded (or are threatened to be cut) YEH!
Go Sen. DeMint! and all of you patriots who are making your voices heard!!!!!
Why are Jewish people not up in arms about this???
Medea Benjamin have one big problem with that statement , Adolf Hitler’s Germany was defeated by force of arms and not by speeches . Of course , if not for Hitler invading the USSR , the pacifist left would have no problem betraying the Allies and preventing the US from supporting the UK by any political means possible .
Hey LGM when did anyone call Clinton or Kerry Hitler????????????? I could understand calling them Lenin or Stalin but not Hitler. Stalin is responsible for far more deaths then Hitler and the MSM pretty well keeps that a secret. Anyway I wish you could tell me the time and place when folks called Billary and Kerry Hitler. By the way LGM are you donating your extra bedrooms to the homeless so that you can prove your socialist points?
The whole Hilter comparison has been done so many times it’s nearly lost it’s meaning. Then again, I’m not a Holocaust victim, but I could be if liberals keep this up, only the bad guys will be radical Islam.
Time to make some phone calls.
I received an email response from councilmember Kriss Worthington:
Thanks for your email. Contrary to several newspaper reports, the City Council vote was 6-3 not 8-1.
I was one of the NO votes. I expect a correction to appear soon. Kriss W
Now now guys, don’t be hard on them. Some people love peace enough to live on one’s knees and to recieve dog scraps.
The story is on Fox right now. Well, in a few minutes.
I only have a little of Jewish blood in me and believe me, I am! (eg. enough to get me in trouble in Nazi Germany) It would help if this news item was getting more attention than Britney Spears’ latest meltdown. Of course, free pass seems to be going on with the media lately with Hitler comparisons. You should have heard me go off on a friend of mine when she said the old pathetic “Bush is like Hitler” crap.
Hitler being brought our for comparison and rhetoric like this is a cheap and easy way to seem so historically aware. It’s pathetic, frankly. People who use the Hitler name in any sort of debate make me lose interest in their point of view (even if they have good opinions) or I stop listening or I yell at them ’til they cry. It’s not to be used lightly or with the broad brush of late. A lack of intellectual curiousity is no excuse for bandying about the Hitler name like it’s a 2 by 4.
Seriously folks we are looking at very tiny closed minds here..They call “Hitler”, because they know it is a BAD word. They honestly do not know what it means, historically . It really is like when your kids first learn the “F” word. They know only that it upsets people when they say it. Unfortunately these people are grown up, and they will never know any better. They do not know, nor are they capable of learning what the name Hitler means historically. They will never know that it is we the strong conservatives that have fought and died to allow them the freedom to have their little protests. So we must continue to protect them even though it is distasteful. They will never have any real power. These people are what has been historically referred to as the Rabble. They will never know that we have saved them from the Solution that a Hitler would have for them. We need to be watchful, though, of people who seek to lead the rabble, those who feed the hate, with buzz words like “Hitler”. These people know what Hitler was and they would kind of sort of like to have that kind of power, because they have an overpowering need to change the world to make it a “better” place.