Berkeley vs Pro-War agitators

(a new look for the pro-war fashionista)

I was there, proudly.

I was there on February 12th, proudly, defending Berkeley when outside agitators descended on our town, bent on violence, disrespect and assault.

I was there when 50-year-old drunken bums in leathers, roared around on their motorcycles, threatened violence against high school and junior high school kids.

I was there when those pro-war outside agitators burnt Berkeley's Peace Wall sign and the several bicycles belonging to students locked to it.

I was there, proudly, when one of the so-called troop supporters came across the street and threatened to assault me for calling them 'Good Germans,' (he backed down when I wasn't intimidated).

I was there when a middle-age blonde woman driving a Hummer garishly and very expensively painted with militarist images (and those of her sadly deceased solider son), honked and screamed and behaved like a grieving, deranged war mother with no end to her suffering.
But sending other people’s children to die in an illegal, immoral war won’t end her pain, it won’t bring back her dead baby. It will only create more deaths, more injuries, more despair.

Unlike the right-wing clowns who came from places like Palo Alto, Danville, Oregon, Georgia, Arizona, etc, to stir up trouble, we, the people of Berkeley, pay very substantial property taxes to support and treat the homeless, now-psychotic veterans of this country's misguided, ill-conceived, immoral and yes, illegal wars. Those forgotten troops aren't welcome on their streets.

‘Support the Troops’ isn't an empty phrase in Berkeley, it's a commitment to stand by them when they aren't pretty, when they smell, when they’re drunk and/or stoned, when other communities have rejected them.

More than anything else 'Support the Troops' means never asking an American solider to put their life on the line, unless they can do so with honor and dignity, to defend our country from attack.

Going to war to feed egos, promote religions, indulge in racism, or because Fox radio say so, isn't supporting the troops, it’s degrading and disrespecting the troops. The most important way we can ‘Support the Troops’ is to make sure their lives are risked wisely. This isn't happening in America today.

So to those out-of-town, brown-shirts, those ‘Good Germans,’ I say: "Berkeley, love it or leave it!"


(an iconic anti-war Berkeley defender)