COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Counter-Recruitment: General
Berkeley City Council caves on anti-recruiting resolution
Marge Holland and Andrea Peters, World Socialist
February 26, 2008
Over the course of the past several weeks, the city of Berkeley,
California has been the target of an orchestrated right-wing campaign
after the city council passed a resolution opposing US Marine
recruitment. In response, the Berkeley City Council has engaged in a
cowardly retreat.
On February 13, the council voted 7-2 to issue a revised statement
regarding the recruitment efforts. It also decided not send the
initial letter the council drafted to the Marines informing them they
were "unwelcome and uninvited intruders."
The controversy began on January 29 when, in response to
recommendations by the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission, the
City Council voted 6-3 for a resolution declaring, among other
things, that the US Marine Recruiting Station "is not welcome in the
City." It also "encourage[d] all people to avoid cooperation with the
Marine Corps recruiting station and applaud[ed] residents and
organizations such as Code Pink that may volunteer to impede,
passively or actively, by nonviolent means, the work of any military
recruiting office located in the City of Berkeley."
The text of the initial resolution was mild and toothless. It did not
place any real limits on the ability of the Marines to recruit in the
city, but had more the form of a verbal gesture an attempt to appeal
to widespread antiwar sentiment in the city and throughout the country.
The council also voted 8-1 to give Code Pink, an anti-war protest
group that has been demonstrating in front of the recruiting center
since September 26 of last year, a free sound permit and a designated
parking space in front of the recruiting station for the next six months.
In response to these moves, right-wing organizations initiated a
campaign that extended into the highest levels of the US government
to demonize the Berkeley City Council and the widely held anti-war
sentiment its actions expressed. Far-right media outlets described
the Council's resolution as "treasonous, " while supposedly more
moderate newspapers attacked the resolution as going too far, being
"stupid" and "insensitive. "
On February 6, Congress got into the act. California Congressman John
Campbell introduced the so-called "Semper Fi" Act into the House of
Representatives. If passed, the act would rescind over $2 million in
earmarks for Berkeley in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill and
transfer the funds to the Marine Corps. In the Senate, Republican Jim
DeMint of South Carolina introduced a companion bill. These acts are
aimed at punishing the population of Berkeley for daring to express
their opposition to US militarism.
Among the funding for Berkeley threatened by the "Semper Fi" bills
are: $975,000 for the University of California at Berkeley, for the
Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service; $750,000 for the
Berkeley/Albany ferry service; $243,000 for the Chez Panisse
Foundation, for a school lunch initiative to integrate lessons about
wellness, sustainability, and nutrition into the academic curriculum;
$94,000 for a Berkeley public safety interoperability program; and
$87,000 for the Berkeley Unified School District nutrition education program.
In a flagrant attack on the right of free speech, DeMint justified
his sponsorship of the "Semper Fi" bill by saying, "This particular
case became the business of the American people when the city of
Berkeley insulted our troops and their constitutional mission to
defend our country, while still coming to the federal government
asking for special taxpayer-funded handouts." Following this logic,
citizens and cities that dare to express opposition to the policies
of the US government should be stripped of federal funding.
In addition, on February 7, State Assemblyman Guy Houston of San
Ramon called on the State Legislature to consider withholding $3.3
million in state road funds.
On February 12, there was a protest and rally in Berkeley, with 2,000
anti- and pro-war demonstrators appearing in front of old City Hall.
On one side were an array of middle-class protest groups, including
The World Can't Wait, A.N.S.W.E.R. , Code Pink, Iraq Veterans against
the War, and various student organizations.
They were confronted by a few hundred "counter-protesters ," of which
a group called Move America Forward formed a significant contingent.
This organization, which advocates kicking the United Nations out of
the United States, restricting what it calls "liberal" or "activist"
media, closing the US-Mexico border, and deporting illegal aliens to
their countries of origin, carried signs calling members of Code Pink
"terrorists" and demanding, "Waterboard the Liberals!"
Police and pro-war protestors responded with violence to those
demonstrating in support of the Berkeley City Council's
anti-recruiting resolution. A 15-year-old high school student from
the Bay Area Revolution Club was punched in the face by an ex-Marine
in full view of Berkeley police, while a 13-year-old was thrown to
the ground and handcuffed before being dragged off to the police station.
The sister of the arrested 15-year-old was slammed up against the
wall of the police station, where she and other students had gone to
protest the arrests, and then arrested. Other students testified to
being hit with nightsticks without provocation and being grabbed by
the throat and thrown to the ground by police.
In the face of these provocations, the Berkeley City Council refused
to defend its previous resolution and instead beat a quick retreat.
On the very day following the protests and arrests just mentioned,
the council members issued a new statement declaring that the City
Council would "differentiate between the City's opposition to the
Iraq war and its support for those serving in the armed forces." They
further asserted, in what has become the formula for government
officials who claim opposition to the war but refuse to lead a
genuine fight against militarism, their "support for the troops."
The council also announced that it was not going to send the initial
letter that it drafted informing the Marines of their "unwelcome"
status in the city, which it had actually never mailed.
Upon the release of the change in the City's resolution, Berkeley
Councilwoman Linda Maio went so far as to attempt to shirk any
responsibility for voting for the anti-recruiting resolution in the
first place. "We need to better scrutinize what's before us,
especially from the commissions, " she said.
Thus far, the City Council has not issued a formal apology to the
Marines, although there is reason to believe that they will backtrack
on this as well. Despite the council's mea culpa, the right-wing
campaign against Berkeley has not ended. In many ways, it has even intensified.
Shortly after the Berkeley City Council revised its previous
resolution, Representative Campbell and Senator DeMint promised to
continue to push the "Semper Fi" bills in the House and Senate.
The right-wing outfit Move America Forward is launching a television
ad campaign encouraging people to sign a petition demanding an
apology from the Berkeley City Council. The ads will run not only in
the Bay Area and Sacramento during evening news programs, but
nationally on networks such as CNN and Fox News.
Various media outlets have continued to publish new stories and
editorials attacking the actions of the council, joining the
right-wing cacophony. One article published in the Modesto Bee is typical.
"By now, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates who five years ago admitted going
to news racks and trashing 1,000 copies of The Daily Californian, the
Berkeley student paper, after it endorsed his opponent during the
election campaign of 2002 ought to know a little more about free
speech and First Amendment Rights. At that time he even apologized.
"But apparently the lesson was forgotten or perhaps it never occurred
to his fellow council members that even the Marine Corps has the
right to hang its shingle on the streets of Berkeley," opined Peter Schrag.
On February 25, RecruitMilitary, a private firm that specializes in
finding civilian jobs for former members of the military, launched a
website to encourage readers to write outraged letters to council
members. The immediate aim of this can only be to pressure the city
into issuing a formal apology to the Marines. More generally, these
forces want to intimidate into silence all those opposed to the war
and the policies of the Bush Administration.
The US military is currently facing a recruitment crisis due to
widespread opposition to US foreign policy. The ferociousness of the
response from the right wing to the actions of the Berkeley City
Council is in part a product of this situation, as the political
establishment is determined to combat any attempt to limit recruitment.
The Democratic Party has made it clear that they will do nothing to
fundamentally challenge the political outlook motivating the
right-wing attacks on Berkeley.
In a demonstration of the real outlook of supposedly "anti-war"
Democratic politicians, California Senator Barbara Boxer opposed the
"Semper Fi" bills but made clear her own hostility to the actions of
the Berkeley City Council.
"Why on Earth would we punish good, decent citizens because some
members of their local government or their sewer district or the
mosquito abatement district or water district, any of their
districts, say something that's highly offensive?" Boxer said.
The Democrats have no more interest in limiting recruitment than the
Republicans. In fact, one of the first acts of the Democratic
majority Congress last year was to increase the size of the army.
Both of the leading Democratic Party presidential candidates,
Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, support a "national
service" program aimed at increasing recruitment into the military.
Whether or not the City Council eventually agrees to apologize for
the initial resolution, the past month has underscored the timid and
ineffective character of the brand of protest politics that it
promotes ultimately aimed at pressuring the Democratic Party. At the
first sign of being called "anti-military" by those forces against
which the council is supposedly fighting, it buckled.
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