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Boycott Berkeley? or maybe Marin....

Gray Brechin Berkeley
Thursday December 20, 2001

Editor: 

Bill Kinney of Sausalito writes to the BERKELEY DAILY PLANET to let us know that he will not shop in Berkeley any more because the City Council consistently takes positions hostile to the United States. Berkeley has, of course, provided pundits at a loss for thought with cheap shots ever since the Free Speech Movement. 

In the last several weeks, however, Berkeley has been knocked out of the running as Treason Central by Marin County. Everyone from Debra Saunders on up has reminded us that John Walker is symptomatic of a climate of privileged permissiveness that makes Marin a nursery of Taliban sympathizers. I myself have overheard upstarts discussing their treks in Nepal and personal swamies over lattes at Mill Valley’s Depot Cafe while I nursed a Folger’s drip and quiet indignation. Marinites stew in their hot tubs talking peace while real Americans work – or at least did until our corporations merged and exported their jobs to the United Arab Emirates. 

Yes, I know that it’s dangerous to generalize about a place; Novato is home to San Francisco’s heroic firefighters and policemen who daily must drive past that civic center through permissive towns like Sausalito on their way to work in a city where they no longer can afford to live. I, however, will no longer spend my money in a county that unapologetically harbors terrorists. 

 

Gray Brechin 

Berkeley