Public Comment

On St. Patrick’s Day 2007 my friend and I participated in a peace march in Charleston, South Carolina; it was billed on the flyer as “Introducing Code Pink Charleston.” Then on Jan. 18 there was J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s thoughtful and sensitive Undercurrents column, “Ghost of America’s Racial Past Lies Uneasy in South Carolina.” That however was followed by Senator DeMint’s not-so-sensitive response to the action of the Berkeley City Council. The Undercurrents piece should be followed with a more sensitive response to the present turn of affairs. 

My friend, a native of South Carolina, writes the following: 

United States Sen. Jim DeMint has proposed legislation to cut $2.1 million federal dollars to the city of Berkeley—and give it to the U.S. Marine Corps. The lost money would include earmarks for a prospective ferry service, the Berkeley Unified School District nutritional education fund and Chez Panisse Foundation for school lunch program nutritional awareness. 

DeMint’s proposal comes in response to a vote of Berkeley City Council to write a letter of unwelcome to a Marine recruiting station on Shattuck Avenue. Given the history of the Marines, who have served in every American armed conflict since the Revolution, the leathernecks can probably dispense with DeMint’s help to handle a little protest from old ladies sitting on benches holding signs and a few politicians expressing dissent in a resolution, which is not a law but a consensus of opinion. 

The rights of citizens to peacefully assemble and speak out without penalty are already guaranteed in the First Amendment of a Constitution the Marines have sworn to uphold and protect. That oath also applies to the rights of city council to pass a resolution which is superfluous, if not controversy. Sen. Demint is drafting vindictive legislation that is mere retaliation for an ideological disagreement, thus jeopardizing the First Amendment right to free speech and peaceful assembly.  

The hypocrisy of DeMint’s position is rather glaring. None of his biographical information mentions military service, although he was of draft age in the Vietnam era. What does he know of Semper Fi and Oorah, the great Marine codes embraced by (for example) my deceased uncle, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam? My uncle endured long absences from home and lost his health early because he felt he had a duty to stand against totalitarianism, fascism and suppression of human and civil rights, including those endowed by the First Amendment. 

President Bush may declare this Iraqi conflict “making the world safe for democracy,” while the truth is quite other. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the majority of the World Trade Center suicide bombers were Saudi Arabian, as is Osama bin Laden, mastermind of many so-called “Islamo-fascist” terrorist assaults against American interests at home and abroad. He remains at large. His country is floating on oil deposits. 

Despite shock and awe, determination to remain independent and control its own oil supplies combined with religious differences between Sunnis and Shiites, are fueling Iraqi insurgency and an internecine conflict over who will obtain political ascendancy. So young men and women are being recruited to perpetuate a quagmire funded by cuts to programs for the poor, the disabled and the elderly. DeMint has voted no on: repealing tax subsidy for companies which move U.S. jobs offshore, voted no, on raising CAFE standards incentives for alternative fuels and on reducing oil usage by 40 percent by 2025. For the Bush administration and its supporters, the Iraq war is about oil, not honor.  

The Marines are still performing with courage and esprit de corps in the Iraqi conflict. They are not responsible for misleading administrative policy, although their duty is to carry it out. To resist hypocritical and deceptive policies, citizens must start somewhere, as in Berkeley. For what it’s worth, they are aiming their protests at recruiters following orders and delivering sales pitches handed down from higher echelons inducing young people to jump into a meat grinder and quagmire. 

Citizens have a constitutional right to peacefully protest without their city being punished by a politician 3,000 miles away grandstanding for his neoconservative, evangelical constituents back home in South Carolina. Economic threats from 3,000 miles away are a form of social control. Sen. DeMint is overlooking the fact that a resolution is a consensus of opinion, not a law. When a U.S. senator retaliates by penalizing a city for dissent, everyone’s constitutional rights are threatened. 

So, Semper Fi and Oorah. And furthermore, kudos to the Code Pink ladies who are taking their stand for peace in Berkeley. My uncle and his fellow Marines fought and died so that every group of peaceful protesters should be entitled to free parking permits, whatever their creeds or opinions. That’s real democracy. 

Andrew Phelps is a Berkeley resident. Sue Poole is a resident of North Charleston, South Carolina.