Opinion

At the top of the bad news on Monday morning: Vallejo’s about to capture the dubious distinction of being the first California city to declare bankruptcy, mainly because of the huge increases built into its public safety salaries and pensions. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg, with many others likely to follow. Sharp-pencil citizens and Planet reporters have documented Berkeley’s on-going liabilities in this department several times in these pages, and they’ll do it again, particularly as election-time draws near and city administrators’ plans to add more tax increases to the ballot are firmed up. Liberals that we are, Berkeleyans very seldom say no, either to our city or to our schools, but as the recession deepens into what some are already calling a depression, it could happen. -more-

The Planet is only printing letters from locals regarding the ruling on the Marine Recruitment Station. Some of these letters were sent prior to the Feb. 12 City Council meeting and thus do not reflect the council’s most recent ruling. -more-

SAYING THANKS -more-

My interest was piqued by the editor’s quotation from Carole Norris in a recent editorial about Nancy Skinner: “Nancy ... worked with Berkeley ZAB members to organize support and approvals for a number of infill projects facing opposition including the Berkeley Bowl, several condo projects and the proposed mixed use project that includes Trader Joe’s.” My question is where was Nancy Skinner’s ‘work’ done? -more-

For the record, I voted against the Berkeley City Council motion authorizing a letter to tell the Marines they were unwelcome and uninvited intruders in Berkeley. I also made the motion to rescind that vote and to apologize for it. Since I am a lifetime activist for peace who has been arrested and beaten up while protesting for peace, some wondered if I was caving in to the right-wing pressure. Instead I would suggest that my position offered the best chance for intelligent effective advocacy for peace. -more-

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. -more-

Five members of the People’s Park Community Advisory Board resigned in January, disgusted with the University of California. In that respect, for a moment, this unrepresentative, chancellor-selected group represented the community well. -more-

In November 2000, a supermajority of Berkeley voters passed Measure R, a bond measure to “reconstruct, renovate, repair, and improve the warm water pool facilities at Berkeley High School (including restrooms and locker space) in order to prepare the facilities for greater community use by seniors, disabled adults and disabled children, some of whom use the pool for physical therapy” (to quote the description in the voter information pamphlet). -more-

While contemplating various actions of the City Council it struck me that the council is either hopelessly befuddled or dangerously devious. Either they don’t understand what they are doing or they are destroying this city on purpose. Certainly they cannot represent us, as a letter to this paper noted last week. -more-

CHEAP SHOT -more-

Becky O’Malley’s Jan. 22 editorial criticizes the Berkeley City Council for considering a new ordinance to replace out-dated ordinances that do a poor job of managing problems with the city’s alcohol outlets. Berkeley Daily Planet readers should know how this ordinance came about. -more-

Two reports in Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) journal, got considerable media coverage on Feb. 8-9 with results in both showing that expanding biocrops for energy will greatly increase the soil emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) mainly carbon dioxide from the exposing of buried plant debris. The UN report released in Spring 2007 and prepared by the Scientific Expert Group (SEG) under the aegis of Sigma Xi said that “Even if human emissions could be instantaneously stopped, the world would not escape further climate change.” The Winter 2006 issue of AAAS Matters called for carbon dioxide sequestering. So we are going the wrong way with bioenergy thinking sponsored by BP at Berkeley and need to get a program that will actually remove some of the 35 percent overload of carbon dioxide mentioned in my Nov. 30, 2007, commentary. -more-

With the tree-sit protest at the UC Berkeley Memorial Oak Grove having reached its year-anniversary, the university’s tactics to thwart the protest have taken a have taken a harsh and dark turn. A double-fenced, barbed wire ghetto with blinding lights shining into the trees and street with loud generators running all night as an attempted form of mental torture to the tree-sitters is reminiscent of some state of siege. The university and its private police department’s interpretation of a recent civil injunction order constitutes a direct assault on basic American civil liberties and constitutional rights. An assault on these cherished rights and freedoms that amounts to, in my opinion, the first step into martial law. -more-

I would like to make just a few simple comments about the Marine Corps recruiting office stand-off. First, the U.S. Marine Corps is a military organization with a long history, dating back nearly to the time of the Continental Army. The Marine Corps has been involved in all of the nation’s conflicts since the revolution. The Marine Corps has a proud record of fighting with dignity that compares favorably to any other military organization in the world. It is an all volunteer force that draws its officers and men from across America and responds and is directed by the elected government of the United States. In other words, the Marine Corps is America and America is the Marine Corps. -more-