I'm more opposed to the war than most, but this kind of thing does no one any good.  I think the war was stupid, illegal and the entire administration which foisted it upon the world should be sent to The Hague in sealed shipping containers.

Be that as it may, this action will end up being touted like the fabled hippies who spat on returning troops during the Vietnam war.  The only people it will serve are right-wing gasbags as a blathering point.

If you want to demonstrate against the war, that's one thing.  Demonstrating against the military and recruitment will bite you like picking up a snake.  Every goofus in America will see it as treason.

Veterans, mothers of marines and other troop supporters from around the state, organized by Move America Forward, came to Berkeley today to protest the Council's action.

Yes, the ones who want our boys to stay and die in a pointless war, they're the troop supporters. The ones who want to bring them home (or to give them proper body armor) are against the troops.

Hopefully it was sarcasm, and not a really bad choice of words?

I live in Berkeley and I'm appalled that so many council members voted for the resolution that spawned this protest. I opposed this war from the beginning and continue to do so, but it's absurd to suggest that our government wouldn't have a standing fighting force. And it's appalling and completely NIMBY to suggest that they should recruit in someone else's town. And thirdly, to give Code Pink a permanent free parking space in front of the recruiting station smacks of cronyism. There are lots of people protesting something in Berkeley -- why does only Code Pink get their own parking space? It's these kind of leftist-orthodoxy that makes me ponder the small difference between it and the orthodox right.

and making them join the USMC....

I feel bad for what recruiters have to put up with.

These "hipsters" dont seem to get that you dont protest a law you dislike, by yelling at the police.

What's done is done. Berkeley's esteemed city council has done its part to convince most of the rest of America that the left really does have some out-of-control anarchist leanings, that places like Berkeley can never be taken seriously unless and until they come up with some new computer chip, a cure for a disease, or an answer to a previously unanswerable equation. Too bad for Berkeley, because people were just beginning to take the football team sort of seriously. These stories, inconsequential as they may be (Berkeley's own free-speech and free-association laws would probably protect the Marine Corps even if city council wanted them to leave) nevertheless gets inordinate amounts of press because, let's face it, most of the rest of America associates this kind of statement ("We don't want you here") as an affront to everyone in the Marine Corps, and reinforces the image that the left just generally hates the military, and should not be trusted to lead us in military affairs.

What I have thought for years, but never so much as today, is that the US will soon be in a civil war, on insurgency- and terrorist-led series of attacks. It will begin once a democrat is elected president, at which point some wingnuts will launch an attack on a well-known symbol of liberalism. If I were working in Berkley City Hall right now, I'd start circulating my resume.

This protest by Berkeley, pointless and in some ways misguided as it may be, is necessary. Yes, the military has protected our freedoms in the past, and we have every reason to be grateful for that. However, they are no longer protecting our freedoms, but are involved in a mission that is making us increasingly less safe. Moreover, they are killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. This needs to be resisted on all levels, and that includes kicking the military out of your town if you have the power to do so. It means keeping Blackwater out as well.

Free speech? Military recruiters lie their asses off, telling most recruits that hell, you won't be sent to Iraq, naw, you'll probably go to one of those country clubs in Bavaria. Is that protected by the 1st amendment? No. The 1st amendment was designed to protect the people from speaking out against government abuses.

As for all those 30%ers who turned up in Berkely, sadly shaking their heads that these kids don't know the proper respect, yadda yadda yadda, unfortunately they simply haven't kept up with the news. The US military may have one day been promoting freedom, but those days are gone. Best get over it and act accordingly.

I am picking the U.S. Marine Corps for my side. Okay, now your pick. You want the ACLU?

You get folk like Elephantman who shriek like a bitch in heat if you even suggest a nickel's rise in their taxes, squeal like a butchered pig if you suggest something like socialized medicine and moan like bejaysus if they have to pay a penny more per gallon for their taxpayer subsidized gasoline -- yet they don't even blink if the gummint asks for a few trillion more for the friggin' military. Jaysus, the biggest rip-off on the planet earth -- a publicly subsidized Wackenhutt's to protect the interests of big business and to project America's influence on the world. Yep, right -- defendin' democracy and fightin' fer freedom.

I am picking the U.S. Marine Corps for my side. Okay, now your pick. You want the ACLU?

Big surprise there, Elephant. You go with the brownshirts, and yes, I'll stick with the ACLU. Why? Well, because while history has plenty of examples of guns being more powerful than words demanding freedom, in the long run, words have been shown to be more powerful. From the Magna Carta through to the Civil Rights Movement in this country, history is constantly punctuated with examples of very powerful, well-armed, vested interests giving power to the masses, in observance of one well-known fact: No number of guns can indefinitely suppress the public at large. And that's what this civil war will eventually become.

You can explain all this to your grandkids. Won't they be proud??