Day: February 15, 2008

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Neocon Hippie stopped by the recent Berkeley protest and took photos of the event, but this one photo tells you everything you need to know about Code Pink and their Berkeley City Council supporters. See the whole photo stream here.

UPDATE: Zombie has done another excellent job of photodocumenting the demonstration from start to finish, please stop by his site, where he names who is there, and which organizations we are up against. [ Warning: tons of photos, give it time to load]

Meanwhile the City Council is learning that stupid actions have consequences.

BERKELEY – The council’s decision early Wednesday to retract a statement calling U.S. Marine recruiters “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” has not stopped lawmakers from moving forward with plans to pull millions of tax dollars earmarked for school lunches, ferry service and more.

The Berkeley City Council voted 7-2 to clarify one of its Jan. 29 motions with new language that recognizes “the recruiters’ right to locate in our city and the right of others to protest or support their presence.”

The new statement – written by Mayor Tom Bates and council members Max Anderson, Linda Maio and Darryl Moore – said the council opposes “the recruitment of our young people into this war,” yet emphasizes that “we deeply respect and support the men and women in our armed forces.”

Council members Betty Olds and Gordon Wozniak cast the opposing votes at 1 a.m. Wednesday after a 24-hour protest outside of Old City Hall that drew an estimated 2,000 people from both pro-and anti-military groups.

But a separate motion to formally apologize to the Marines – and the 25,000 people who wrote to city leaders expressing their anger and disgust over the council’s anti-military stance – failed.

The lack of an apology further angered Republicans lawmakers in both Washington and Sacramento who last week introduced legislation to pull millions of tax dollars headed to Berkeley for such things as school lunches and police communications equipment.