Berkeley Surrenders to the US Marines
NBC reports, "as six Republican senators devised a plan to yank $2.3 million in federal funding for Berkeley programs, the mayor of the famously liberal city apologized Wednesday for his hard stance against a Marine recruiting center. Two City Council members vowed to soften their stance as well."
"Subtly stated in the resolution is perhaps an impugning of the soldiers fighting for us in Iraq and other places," Berkeley City Councilman Laurie Capitelli. "And that was never the intention but that really needs to be cleared up. As I walked to my car that night I realized I regretted it and I had made a mistake."
'Never had the intention ... regretted ... impugning' ... never have such big words been placed at the service of so small a spirit. Now we know how much principles are worth. In this case they are worth 2.3 million dollars. They shouldn't bother to offer their hand in apology. It would be better to wash it.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/07/2008 02:25:00 PM
45 Comments:
I'll give the scum the benefit of the doubt. Or should I say 2.3 mil doesn't seem like a lot of money.
well said. Do these idiots every think before the speak?
In a screwed up way I would have actually had more respect for them [well, a tiny bit] if they had repealed the earlier acts "under protest", claiming duress from on high -- which it was --, that in good conscience they couldn't risk the $2.1mill of services to their residents. Instead they offer the totally craven and phony "apology".
But that's the typical leftist mindset, totally shocked when reality intrudes on their self-righteous fantasies.
newscaper,
Although it's irrational, I would have liked it better had the council simply refused the money and stuck to their guns. Any contempt for their opinions would then be tempered by a respect for them as men. As it stands what are to make of their opinions, or for that matter, of them?
This makes me wonder how much of the so-called principled sympathy for terrorists is really just naked fear. And maybe I am right to worry that if there were a nuclear attack on a liberal city there would be a stampede to the other extreme, a demand to nuke them all just to regain "safety" at any cost. How many of those who now object to fighting hardened Jihadis out of "moral" righteousness will be clamoring to kill every man, woman and child, irrespective of innocence, if it would buy some security for their hides? I shudder to think.
We knew what she was.
Now we know how much it costs.
Sorry, but if the jihad comes to America, I'm giving them directions to Berkeley. Might even throw in a 6 digit grid for Hollywood. Too many "Americans" no longer deserve to be defended.
Stuck to their guns? Berkeley? Nope..not a chance. They don't have guns, or principles - only the conviction that they know what's best for us serfs, and that any intent justifies the means. Speaking of being "deep in injun country" I am. I've counter protested these loons for some time now...even standing off in front of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco as these idiots make plain how they really feel. In their heart of hearts, too many of them truly do back the islamists. I'll also be at the rally that's scheduled for Tuesday, 2/12 outside the City Council's office.
Love the site, keep puttin' up the good fight!
Does this mean no more Breasts not Bombs demonstrations? Oh well ;-)
There was no doubt a surge in new recruits for the Marines in Berkley as a result of all the great publicity (that's called an unintended consequence). Besides, they weren't leaving. If they can hold out in Guadalcanal they can hold out in Berkley.
Wretchard may have a point about the craven cowardice of these people, but I still think David Horowitz in "Unholy Alliance" nails these people down flat to the board. They rally to the Jew-hatred and the cult of Palestinianism, as well as other jihad and Leftist enemies of America, because... they hate America!
But they love payday here in the good old U.S.A. They love the filthy lucre, in complete betrayal of Marx and all he believed in. As the anointed saviors of humanity, they have no guilt about trust funds and offshore bank refuges, where they keep their means to continue living the good life.
Doug,
Great comment: "We knew what she was.
Now we know how much it costs." LMAO!
Yep, I wouldn't mind it if the jihadis had a brain fart and decided to do a WMD in Berkeley, CA. But, somehow I don't think they would be that stupid as to get rid of infidels who serve as their useful idiots.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Although it's irrational, I would have liked it better had the council simply refused the money and stuck to their guns. Any contempt for their opinions would then be tempered by a respect for them as men. As it stands what are to make of their opinions, or for that matter, of them?
This brings back vivid memories of your reaction to the butchering of Tom Fox and how his principles were obviously very dear to him.
"Although it's irrational, I would have liked it better had the council simply refused the money and stuck to their guns. Any contempt for their opinions would then be tempered by a respect for them as men. As it stands what are to make of their opinions, or for that matter, of them?"
Funny that, Wretchard. I felt the same way: If they'd have stuck to their guns and went down complaining about "Blackmail" over the 2.3 million, I would have still called them out as military haters, but I would've had a grudging respect for them keeping to their ideals.
I disagree, however, with them going to the other extreme if they get attacked. If - if - they'd have went down complaining about blackmail (in other words, sticking with the courage of their convictions), I might have actually imagined them dying under a terrorist attack cursing America for "bringing this upon us all". Again, courage of their convictions. But after seeing the way they capitulated, I don't know. Maybe they'd come to their senses and realize that the US is truly the protector of her citizens? I just don't know how they'd react.
OK, so the yellow-bellied hippy-livers apologized. Big Whoop. Their apologies are just as worthwhile as their antagonism; i.e., worth nothing.
I'll believe they've rejoined the human race and the United States of America when someone in a position of authority sends in the Berkeley police to bop heads and arrest aging hippies to be dragged off to jail from in front of the Marines' office.
As long as Code Pink is ensconced with their little warrior buddies where they can harass Marines and divert foot traffic, Berkeley apologies are exactly the same as Muslim ones: hudna until next time.
I do have to agree with Wretchard, however. I'll bet the climb-down was a great deal inspired by fear -- but I'll bet it's fear of their fire-breathing neighbors in the rest of America they just got hit over the head with, not of some puny little derangoid Arabs who still have to swim clear across an ocean and trundle over a major continent to reach Berkeley.
If Vermont's clerks are frightened by the reaction to *their* treason, I'd love to know what sort of e-mail and phone messages the Mayer of Berkeley and his Council supporters have been receiving.
It's called "peer group pressure", and it's still the most potent weapon going.
My guess is that Berkley's surrender was more political than financial. I'm sure leading Democrats didn't want that debate front and center this election year... forcing Obama to vote "present" again.
So, Berkeley City Hall didn’t fall on its sword. Berkeley iconic credibility sprouts from its myth of ideological purity. Berkeley was supposed to be better than the rest of us, preferring its lofty ideals to materialistic money. Although People's Park should still be turned into a military recruitment center, this is a turning point in the war. The Berkeley illusion of equating defeatism with moral strength and patriotism with cowardice has now been punctured. The myth is now gone.
Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Amazing how the celebrants and defendeurs of personal liberty impugn liberals for their wealth and concern for society.
What would you rather the wealth resident of Berkeley, CA or NYC do? Should they fritter away their money on tractors, guns and GOP monster trucks? Scoff at Carbon credits, sure, but when's the last time anything you bought helped society progress forward? When's the last time you did anything in the service of truth and not just your phallocentric worship of patriarchy and the politics of fear?
I'm always amused by how threatened the noble scolders here feel about George Soros, a benefactor of the globe long before Bill Gates slunk in with his ill-got xerox thievery. You act as if he orchestrates every fist raised in protest, as if every voice in the night is secretly his, as he weilds a giant leftist mechanical turk, safe in his fortress.
I'll tell you what: reconcile your political beliefs with the plausibility of two scenarios:
A: George Soros accidentally puppeteers Americans into the jaws of the Janjaweed and Taliban, having intended to lead them to a greener, more peaceful future.
B: Dick Cheney's Cheshire smile sneers across his hellish pate before he slams shut his notorious office safe, and locks you and your subversive beliefs away from the electorate - newly safer from the clutches of another noisy Liberal.
Leave it to the self-righteous Christians to impugn and scold the "liberals" when their apologies are given with enough penance and indulgences.
What a day when Hedge Funds can step in and buy out the petty politics that obscure the truths seen by the whole ROTW. Americans will one day be shocked to realize how much they haven't been seeing.
The nation that invented the Plantation, the Internment Camp and the Enemy Combatant, sure has no shortage of bluster and hoopla to toot whenever its pricked and penetrated with solid unwavering criticism.
What a ghastly thing to think of how powerful a so pathologically misinformed group of people are - whose very moods turn about the next Direct Mail missive from Mr. Rove, explaining the epistemes of the moment.
It's amazing really, thinking how elaborate of a machine like that can keep going. Sure, it sputters some runoff like McCain once he no longer matches the gram-stain of the bandwagon. But its been running ever since Reagan terrorized Berlin with threats of annihilation and layed flowers on hitlers grave.
I can only pray that the next shadow I pass does not hide a snarling Richard Perle, that the next alley I walk down in a gentrifying urban area is not blockaded by Wolfowitz, tossing a dagger back and forth with the finesse of a trained road-agent.
A shame Blackwater doesnt cell offsets for human suffering. Maybe you all could chip in and pay for mine ahead of time, before McCain turns us into fuel for his 100 year war machine.
"Although it's irrational, I would have liked it better had the council simply refused the money and stuck to their guns."
Me too, but I thought I was being "realistic" in thinking that they might at least have stuck to their guns rhetorically as they climbed down in actuality. But they are in fact totally spineless when push comes to shove.
Why does Berkley and CA get a "bum wrap," while THomas Barnett and all his Neocon Cheeseheads agitate and racialize politics in America and export their pollution and fear for oil?
Charles Gitout said:
"Scoff at Carbon credits, sure, but when's the last time anything you bought helped society progress forward?"
How about the last time I bought something with money *I* earned (that Uncle Sam let me keep) that helped some poorer person make an honest living and take care of their family instead of being dependent on the dole? In a voluntary exhange by parties on all sides, no less.
It happens millions of times every day and do-gooders, NGOs and the gubmint have f*ck all to do with it.
It's called capitalism. You should try it some time.
Now why don't you STFU.
{sorry Wretchard)
And maybe I am right to worry that if there were a nuclear attack on a liberal city there would be a stampede to the other extreme, a demand to nuke them all just to regain "safety" at any cost.
But Wretchard, they can't nuke Berkeley. It's a nuclear free zone!
Gitout -- first getout, and then ponder this: Carbon Credits are a SCAM. As fake as televangelist Benny Hinn. Or as Ed Begley puts it, like driving by AA and throwing money out the window.
I like Ed Begley. He lives a nice, comfortable, middle class life and enjoys saving money and energy. Most people can't do what he does but can do at least some of it.
I'm not going to live in poverty so jobs can be moved to China and India *FASTER* to "save the planet" (while both are exempt from carbon limits) which is the WHOLE POINT OF THE SCAM. It's a scam to make Al Goreacle rich off phony indulgences.
As far as America goes, it is not perfect nor has it ever been being comprised of imperfect human beings. Let me know the last time you were perfect in all things. America is superior to all other countries first because it's MY COUNTRY and I love it, and secondly because it can improve. For Jim Crow there's Dr. King. For slavery, Abraham Lincoln.
Perhaps you'd be happier under the hereditary rule of Fidel, or Kim, or even the sanguinary rule of the clerics in Tehran?
As for Dems, I'm sure Obambi and Shrillary are looking forward to defending Berkeley values against McCain.
[My objection to Soros and Gates is they want to run every minute aspect of my life. At least Bono or Mia Farrow don't tell me how to live in the smallest detail.]
Quoting from Charles Gitout:
Leave it to the self-righteous Christians to impugn and scold the "liberals" when their apologies are given with enough penance and indulgences.
It is screamingly obvious to anyone with half a brain that the only reason these gutless pukes made their half-hearted gesture of apology was from fear of losing the millions of dollars that might otherwise have been withheld by the Senate of the country they abuse.
What a day when Hedge Funds can step in and buy out the petty politics that obscure the truths seen by the whole ROTW. Americans will one day be shocked to realize how much they haven't been seeing.
The Rest of The World is not some monolithic group that sees THE one truth we cannot, and the people of Berkeley are NOT miraculously endowed with some ability to see a higher moral truth than the rest of us. They are a bunch of self-indulgent, un-disciplined, intentionally self-brain-damaged, smug gits, who confuse posturing with useful governance. I spent plenty of time in the city limits of Berkeley, and saw from close-up the chaff that passes for intellectual conversation there.
The nation that invented the Plantation, the Internment Camp and the Enemy Combatant, sure has no shortage of bluster and hoopla to toot whenever its pricked and penetrated with solid unwavering criticism.
Excuse me, but the Plantation --- a large agricultural estate with slave labor --- has been an institution since humans have had agriculture. It is NOT an American invention, and to suggest so reveals the writer as either an utter ignoramus or a lying fraud. The internment camp --- i.e., the gathering of civilians sharing conspicuous cultural or ethnic affinities with a belligerent --- is also an institution far older than those created by the U.S. for American citizens of Japanese descent. And the treatment of those interns, while a grievous imposition, was probably the mildest such internment of any group in any like situation in the history of the world.
The slur you make of "Enemy Combatant" is simply a grotesque and sloppy swipe that insults the standards that the internationally-crafted Geneva Conventions established to distinguish between identifiable combatants, hapless non-combatants, and combatants purposely disguised as non-combatant civilians.
Charles Gitout, it is clear that you are a lazy and insultingly shallow thinker, tossing half-masticated lumps of trash, while dreaming you're some towering intellect. If you have some actual arguments and want to persuade anyone to take your point of view seriously, please take the time to (a) research your assertions, (b) be prepared to provide sources for those that are likely to be challenged, (c) phrase your ideas in a way calculated to invite conversation rather than brickbats. Otherwise, you will not be ejected, or insulted, or argued with, or threatened, or read. You will be ignored.
fiddler don't get up set , it is just Habu in one of his creations. he is very talented.
Wow Charlie, you’re like a poet or something, right. All those metaphors had my head spinning. But they are telling. The fact that a mere dagger wielded by a road agent would deter your passage speaks to a general lack of testosterone. Besides admit it, you don’t walk the streets at night anyway. What with your fretting over the Patriarchy, Charlie must be short for Charlene. Come on fess up, somewhere along the line you had the surgery. At least psychologically.
Wretchard said:
"This makes me wonder how much of the so-called principled sympathy for terrorists is really just naked fear."
I've long suspected that most moonbats are cowards and hypocrites. The anti-war movement of the 1960-1970s along with much of the associated left-wing craziness turned off like a switch after Nixon ended military conscription.
wretchard wrote, Although it's irrational, I would have liked it better had the council simply refused the money and stuck to their guns. Any contempt for their opinions would then be tempered by a respect for them as men.
Spot on. To have enemies and opponents is not a curse - it is part of the reason we are here, in ways we cannot fully understand.
To have enemies who are unworthy - that is the curse. The saying goes that when we fight someone we become like them - there is some truth in this, and it explains our dissatisfaction with unworthy enemies.
To examine our enemies for signs of worthiness is then no pure charity; it is in our self interest as well.
I've long suspected that most moonbats are cowards and hypocrites.
And as is so capably demonstrated by Mr. Gitout, their attempt at deep thought and/or elegant snarkiness is torpedo'd by less than stellar intellectual attainment (in other words, they're dumb as dirt).
Whatever else can be said about Bill Gates, he builds things. His company writes software. It’s an industry that creates jobs and products people use.
George Soros may call himself a philanthropist. He is a thief, a thief who uses ruinous speculation to take money out of the pockets of working people. He speculated against the pound, taking value out of the pockets of the British working class. He speculated against Malaysian and Thai currencies, taking rice out of the mouths of hungry children. And now he’s supposed to be a paragon of progress?
Anyone with honor would spit at George Soros’s money, for it is all-gotten gain to the core. A socialist with any principles would despise how Soros has leveraged a buyout of the American Left and is now paraded as a hero, never mind how his ruinous speculation goes against every good thing the Left has ever stood for.
A free society is only an open society when it wants to be open. Freedom isn’t about siphoning the life’s blood of an economy into the pockets of George Soros so he can pick and choose the dogs that will receive scraps from his table. Open society my eye, when so-called “openness” means living under George Soros’s thumb.
There was a time when the Left had men, real men, not dogs bought and paid for by a greedy speculator who will likely prove that a Nobel Peace Prize can be bought off the shelf.
It is one thing to invest in industry so it creates wealth, but George Soros generated revenue by destroying currencies and then blaming the victims for letting him do it. And this is what the Left now stands for? A ruinous speculator who dresses himself in bought adulation? Must I be eternally grateful to George Soros the way Russians were once expected to be grateful to Joseph Stalin?
Is this what Berkeley has become? A place where the idle rich can sneer at those with lesser means and act as if their money gave them moral superiority?
Carbon credits are a fraud, yet another means to line Soros’s pockets and maximize his leverage in the political arena. We could convert to electric cars within ten years, convert to electric mass transit, and invest in renewable energy. But this carbon credit scheme does none of this – instead, it creates another venue for speculation, maximizes opportunities for dilettantes to strut their eco-friendliness as if it were a lingam, and creates the illusion of getting us off fossil fuels when it does nothing of the sort!
Look, I would eventually like the federal government to regulate marijuana, but I don’t want George Soros to tell me what to do especially when I seem to agree with him. And that’s because I don’t agree with him; he poisons everything he touches. The Left would do well to distance itself from him, but it won't because the Left is thirsty for his money.
I’m not about to bellow, “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better!”
Charles Gitout - I've been to Cambodia to help build libraries and homes. I've bought lunches for old ladies who come up to me asking for food. I've raised funds for tsunami victims and given food for various charities.
And you dare ask of us here what we have done for society, for the human race? How would you know? Fuck you.
I'll note that Christian charities are pretty thick and active on the ground in war-torn French Indo-China, and though it galls me a bit as an atheist to say this, they're doing a good job(having worked with/for them), despite the proselytizing they're probably doing. From what I've heard, it's the same all over the world.
Liberals love to talk, and the richest of them love to throw their money at the problems, but few ever roll up their sleeves. Because deep down in their darkest of hearts, they think they're better than the rest of us idiot proles and don't deserve to get their hands dirty.
Rather than waste their time blockading the marines, why don't the Code Pinkers and liberals do something real useful for the rest of the world?
Wobbly,
Check out
2/07/2008 08:48:00 PM
:-)
Just consider Germany one giant Berkley, and our military bases there one giant Marine recruiting office.
Unfortunately, no senators have the balls to threaten to take away our subsidies. Or does McCain have a plan...
Amazing how attitudes change when there are real costs to taking positions.
The Berkeley City government was willing to make a statement opposing the war and the Marines only until it looked like it was going to cost them something.
What was that line about "Sunshine Soldiers and Fair Weather Patriots"? It looks like that description fits Berkeley more than their opponents.
Although it's irrational, I would have liked it better had the council simply refused the money and stuck to their guns. -wretchard
Agreed. It was predictable as well. It's almost as if they were looking for some way to protest, regardless of their convicitions that it was actually right, hoping there would be no penalty. . .or perhaps that no one would DARE speak out against their collective wisdom.
Humor in this commentary though, is that folks like Charles Gitout have to chalk it all up to some sort of 'machine' that we are all being blindly driven by, while in the same post making statements about how we believe George Soros is some sort of 'machine behind every protest'. The cognitive dissonance it must require to carry around this sort of thinking is hard for me to imagine.
"This makes me wonder how much of the so-called principled sympathy for terrorists is really just naked fear."
As a tinfoiler...I don't find it an accident of history that communities who are home to America's most Advanced Defense Research facilities are subscribers to the Socialist Utopian Dogma.
The KGB would have been guilty of gross negligience if it hadn't cultivated "sympathizers" over the 50 year span of the cold war.
In the world of disinformation the KGB was clearly the worlds most competent and professional organization.
Oh, dear. I feel so very embarassed for Mr. Gitout's obviously unself-aware public pants shitting and the predictable skewering by Fiddler, Whiskey and others.
I only have one question for this poor man...do you know what words mean, Mr. Gitout?
Because you should really try to learn before you post again, before you hurt yourself.
"The nation that invented the Plantation, the Internment Camp and the Enemy Combatant...."
Whaaa..... splllttt.... fwaaa... pltht....
Sometimes, a single statement can be so stupifyingly, astonishingly, breathtakingly stupid that words are lost, that one can only gaze in silent wonder at the very accomplishment of the soul able to utter it, and one must doff the chapeau to greatness achieved in the realm of idiocy writ large.
Gitout..... I salute you!
The world is a yellow school bus. The totalitarian Islamists and terrorists are the big bad bully, and our brave soldiers are the good guy on the bus. Code Pink, the leaders of Berkley, and other American cowards are scared of the bully and they side up to him; and they say bad things about the good guy because of a belief that they’ve sided with the winner - the strong horse.
The bully tells the coward how smart he is, but in actuality the bully despises this weakness and cowardice, and only keeps up the game until the good guy is no longer around. At that point the cowards die, or they become useful slaves.
The cowards are probably feeling a little ambivalent about now, because they've noticed that the good guy is actually very strong, and he might actually win. Will the cowards come over to the good guy? I doubt it. They are more likely to just keep a lower profile for a while and hope to find a seat somewhere between the two, and just play things by ear.
Storm -
I'm still not convinced. Granted, cowardice is the primary description of the Berkely council as noted here, but overall, the question is whether it is cowardice or hatred of Western Civilization (i.e. you and me) is the ultimate driving force at work here.
It may not be that the price of their hatred became too high all of a sudden and they caved like cowards, but rather that the price of caving in in this case and keeping their federal money was really very low. Therefore, why not cave, and maintain their driving force of hatred? It's just another office on "Cesar Chavez Street" or wherever, and they can still bitch about it every day.
But if the price is for them to entirely give up their religious faith that the West represents the most abominable evil in the history of the planet, and decide that they must support it in the end as guarantor of minority, gay, environemntal rights (which it is), etc....
Well, I am not at all convinced that they will join the "good guys" on the bus, just because those guys became stronger. They hate the good guys. They HATE them. They have hated them since 1968. Their entire worldview that such hatred is justified as as strong as Pat Robertson's that Christ died, was buried, rose again. And, unlike Chirst who sacrificed himself, these people will sacrifice themselves.... AND you... AND me.... AND our children... for that hatred.
This is proven beyond any doubt by their relentless willingess to ally with the most mysogonistic, anti-gay, anti-environmental, totalitarian forces out there as long as and only if they are against the US / West.
They are cowards, but if that was all, they would be a lot less dangerous.
druu,
Yes, the socialist cowards hate the good guy because of his strength and courage. They are aware of how difficult it is to compete with the good guy in sports and for the affection of girls; so rather than just do their best and compete as best they can, these cowards side with the bad guy because he is both strong and the enemy of the good guy.
The socialist hopes for the day when they become the elite overlords of the good guy - the price for which they believe is temporary obedience to the bad guy. Never mind that this socialist elitism contradicts the Declaration of Independence; and never mind that the bad guy wishes to either rape them (girls), or take off their heads (boys).
These cowards have convinced themselves that the bad guy will protect them - a belief which requires a psychological state of both delusion and denial.
The moral lessons of life can be learned by children on a school bus.
Nice analogy storm-rider.
Will the cowards come over to the good guy? I doubt it. They are more likely to just keep a lower profile for a while and hope to find a seat somewhere between the two, and just play things by ear.
No, there's no need. While cowardly, they are smart enough to take secret comfort in the knowledge that the good guy is unlikely to ever hurt them, as he knows them for what they are.
Every nation, no matter how strong, has those of weak will amongst its citizens.
Charles Gitout wrote...just enough to convince me he's a Freshman at UC Berkeley
I think there was a Southpark episode on UCB students after their Frosh year. Sir Charles sounds like one of them.
Question: how many years does it take to grow up and get a grasp of reality after graduating from UCB?
For all those commenting about Berkeley City Council falling on their sword....buck up! On Tuesday, 2/12, the council meets to reconsider their vote. The council is currently split, with teh moonbat committee remaining deeply entrenched. We may still see this event come about. I put the odds at better than 50/50!
DLA,
Ask Kevin!
Course he's still counting!
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