Direct Action Against Military Recruiters at UCB

in the 1960s the berkeley community was a beacon of influence to movements everywhere NOT because they took a moral stand, but because they took a RADICAL stand against the war in vietnam.

if uc berkeley students did the same today, they wouldn't oppose the miltary because it discriminates against gays, but because it kills human beings across the globe to further america's need to profit off capitalist accumulation regimes everywhere.

students should be saying "NEITHER GAYS NOR STRAIGHTS IN THE US MILTARY--STOP THE WAR, ABOLISH ALL BRANCHES OF THE MILITARY!", not the current demand that the us war machine practice affirmative action and allow a diversity of people to become killers.

bob

You're quite the original thinker, aren't you, peacenik freak? When are you hippie garbage going to understand that as long as your brain depends on an ancient body it'll always be hierarchal and territorial? There's absolutely no exceptions. We are the product of millions of years of torturous evolution, and certainly wouldn't be here if life followed the suggestions of a bunch of unwashed fags.

Even tho i don't see any differene between the moral stand as written in the students against war document, and your radical stand, you do. And that's fine. Are you, Bob going to come and help the students shut down the recruiters with whatever sign you want to have? That's the question for our this period. Direct Action to shut down the war` machine. Please Bob, We need you and everyone else.

"Direct Action to shut down the war` machine."

It will NEVER happen, you dont have the numbers on your side. Keep trying though, while you waste your time on recruiters, the decision makers will have time to think up new ways to piss you libs off.

Keep up the good work!

Much love from Minnesota.

P.S. Ignore the trolls on this thread.

Dear "Anonymous", you're apparently not bright enough to see that without troops, the "decision makers" will no longer be "decision makers" but mere windbags who may talk a lot, but will not have the means of putting their plans into action. And that's the key to stopping this war dead in it's tracks.

Obviously you're merely here as a troll to attempt to dishearten those brave souls taking it to the war machine tomorrow, but really, how useless are you? They're making history while you're merely watching it from behind your computer screen.

just found out, the career fair actually starts at 12, so show up at 11:30, not 10:30! check their website at: http://career.berkeley.edu/FairDir/Just.asp

How much time does that give us for chanting and speeches?

By the way, there are lots of side stairways to the ballroom. You don't have to go through the inside. You could even fill out applications at other booths on the way.

As the body counts rise in Iraq and Afghanistan, military recruiters in the United States must contend with an increasingly formidable mission of their own: to convince the nation's young people to join the ranks of a military at war.

After falling short of recruitment goals in February and March of this year, with another miss expected for April, the increasingly desperate U.S. Army and Marine Corps have dumped more money and personnel into the pursuit of new cadets. But in high schools and colleges across the country, a growing counter-recruitment movement is fighting to keep potential soldiers at home and out of uniform.

One recent battle in the war over recruitment was waged March 9 and 10 at San Francisco State University, when the military rented a booth at the university's two-day spring career fair. Students Against War showed up the first day with more than 150 protesters to picket air force and army recruiting tables. According to SAW member David Carr, protesters staged a peaceful teach-in around recruiters' tables until they left.

When two activists returned to the student center to pass out flyers the following day, police forcibly removed them from the building. In a letter to activists, university officials wrote that the protesters – who face possible suspension from school, while SAW and other groups face unspecified sanctions – were removed because their activities disrupted a university-sponsored event.

It was a scene that's becoming increasingly common across the country, one that pits a military that uses federal policies to force access into schools against activists who oppose unjust wars, recruiting efforts aimed at low-income people of color, and the military's discrimination against homosexuals.

As Carr told the Bay Guardian, "All we were doing was exercising our right to voice our grievances against the government. Military recruiters are predatory, deceptive, and discriminatory. Under the university's own antidiscrimination bylaws, it's them who should be removed, not us."

• • •

Berenice Morales is a young woman caught in the middle of the recruitment struggle. A 17-year-old junior at Philip and Sala Burton High School in San Francisco, Morales is not sure what she wants to do after she graduates next year. She's worried about the future.

When navy recruiters came to her Career Education class a couple weeks ago, they offered a solution that seemed too good to be true. "They said that they give you free money and pay everything for school," Morales told us. "Plus you get a job faster when you get out because you already have experience. At first I was concerned about going to war, but they were like, 'Oh, it's not true that we take you to war.' Most people in the navy don't go to Iraq – it's just a small percentage." About 10 percent of the active-duty navy was forward-deployed as of April 18.

Counter-recruitment activists say recruiters routinely assure potential cadets that they are extremely unlikely to see combat. "They make promises they can't keep," says Aimee Allison, an Oakland City Council candidate and army veteran who became a conscientious objector during the first Gulf War. Allison is one of a growing group of former soldiers who speak to students about the realities of military service.

Read More
http://www.sfbg.com/39/29/news_military_recruiters.html

One Indybay reporter has been there since ~10:30 and he says there are about 100 people there, including campus republicans.

It is strange to me that you would have the nerve to call the protesters brave. The only people showing true courage and grit are the brave British and American Kids dying out in the desert. History will remember the war against facist Islam much more than forgotten actions by a bunch of rich kids from Marin county. If any of you truly hate the war and capitalism why do you continue to go to one of the best state funded schools that is directly fueled by US "imperialism?" This is typical of the radical left. Hating your country for the sake of being against something (while not really standing for anything at all),putting down people that disagree with you (Where is the tolerance you constantly preach?) however not hating it enough to enjoy the fruits of its labor. Sad indeed.

"The only people showing true courage and grit are the brave British and American Kids dying out in the desert. History will remember the war against facist Islam much more than forgotten actions by a bunch of rich kids from Marin county."

So you hate rich people yet favor war in Iraq? What political perspective would that make you.- a nationalist-socialist?

" If any of you truly hate the war and capitalism why do you continue to go to one of the best state funded schools that is directly fueled by US "imperialism?""

This is even harder to follow, because most conservatives hate supporting state schools, but following the nationalist-socialist line of thought from above, perhaps a person with such a perspective could find the college of arts and sciences here imperialist.

"putting down people that disagree with you"
Oh no.. there were actually put downs committed by people who disagree with you? There was a big group circle going on further down Sproul with armenian music. Maybe they wouldn't have harshed on your mellow so much. It was nice to see the positive college republicans rising above this to only constructively criticize the faults of the antiwar people. Someone was explaining about one of the college republicans there who apparently is gay and used a lot of rave drugs before making money in the stock market.

Pictures and audio are coming later. First there was shouting and chanting between sides by the student union while lots of police stood around. Then a bunch of students got in line to talk to the recruiters and mentioned they were gay, and the Marines said they wouldn't recruit them. This is theoretically against the rules on university property.

"The only people showing true courage and grit are the brave British and American Kids dying out in the desert."

There's nothing "courageous" in unjustly invading a nation or occupying it against the wishes of it's people.

You assume that I go to this school. I don't. I live 1,500 miles away, though I fully support these students in their struggle (for I myself am involved in similar struggles here in my state).

How you can hate on rich people yet promote this war is absolutely astounding to me though. Who do you really think this war is going to benefit? It isn't going to be you or me. It isn't going to be the people in the projects or in the trailer parks. All we get out of this is an opportunity to die or maybe get a few stupid trinkets (medals) and a pat on the back.

Also, it seems you've yet to figure that patriotism means loving or doing what's best for your country and that that sometimes that means actively opposing it's current govt. Hopefully you'll grasp that idea one day. After all, it's one our Founder Fathers understood.

Hells Yes, apparently you are not bright enough to see that the US Armed Forces will always have enough people to complete its mission. No amount of protesting will change that. Hopefully one day you will grasp the idea that you and your ilk represent the minority opinion, you are ineffectual. Have fun with your hate and your marches, you will never be able to change a single thing.

Don't be so certain that the military racket will continue to fool people into joining up in large numbers. It's one thing to attract folks when there's no perceived risk; it's another thing altogether when US forces are taking lots of casualties in a war based on a mountain of lies.

The Army and Marines are both hurting, by their own admission. Thus far, increased signing bonuses and patriotic appeals haven't had much of an effect. That's a good thing. It also explains why rightist dirt-bags are so intent on belittling anti-recruitment activities.

Wow,
I have been called many things in my life, but never a socialist. A nerve must have been struck. I will attempt to respond to most of what all of you have said so far.

- I do not dislike rich people. As a matter of fact I hope to be one someday. Hard work and Money is what makes our economy boom. However, it is screwed up that some of the wealthest places in our own country (N. Cal, Mass, HI, etc.), places that owe that wealth to capitalism, have some of the most anti-capitalist views. Maybe someone could explain to me with their infinite wisdom, why all of you compare our government with tyrants, yet feel free to reap the benefits of it? If you truely believe the US is responsible for such terrible things, why do you continue to live here? Oh, yeah because you would never give up the lifestyle you have now, and you are too much of a coward to actually leave. The founding fathers fought the revolution because they believed in Free thought, democracy, and capitalism. THE SAME THING that our military is fighting for now, and has been fighting for since the end of WWII. Hopefully you can understand that someday.

- Conservatives hating state schools is news to me. All of my family, myself, and all of my conservative friends graduated from one. I guess if there is any problems with our schools today (all, not just state) it is the left winged crap like Noam Chomsky history books that professors are presenting to ignorant students as some form of the truth on how the world functions.

- I am a Nationlist, Republican for lack of better terms, not any type of Socalist. Socialism. Marxism, Communisim, Maoism, Troskyism, Stalinsim, Anarchy Bla-bla-bla- most of it is simply a fashion statement in our country today. In reality it is pure failure and pain. Every country that has ever experimented with any of its forms has either withered away or exploded in violence. I challenge anyone reading this to prove me otherwise, Pretend, bullshiters (I can name call now since you called me a "dirtbag" right?) like Aaron pretend that they actually know something about Marxism, however they have never actually been near it. I would like to see you explain your views to my Grandmother after the red army wiped out her family in Estonia in the 1930's, however I doubt you have ever been taught anything at all about that. (I wonder is Aaron knows that Fredrick Engles' family was one of the richest in their city. It is easy not to be concerned with money when you have plenty of it)

- The content of this entire website is joke. Your views are inconsistent, disgraceful to your country, and completly absurd. The only thing that makes me feel better is knowing that this narrow line of thinking is so small that it is an insignificant sideshow. The rest of the country is laughing at at all of you. The US military could re-tool itself two fold if the president simply asked for volunteers. But, don't worry I am sure most of you could get out by failing drug tests, running to Canada, and claiming that you are gay.
I enjoy arguing with all of you, so bring it on.

-

The Army Reserves, active duty Army and Army National Guard are all falling well below their quotas for new recruits and recruiting has begun to slump for the Marines as well. In other words, you can flap your jaws all you'd like about how "we'll always have enough troops" but the fact is, right now you don't even have enough. Unless the U.S. begins withdrawing troops from Iraq immediately, which is very difficult as the "coalition of the willing" is crumbling to pieces and one by one our "allies" leave Iraq, a draft is an inevitability. Which might not be so bad, considering a draft would cause riots, and the Natl. Guard is on vacation overseas.

*...knows that Fredrick Engles' family was one of the richest in their city...*

Really? Tell it to Mary Burns. She just thought the guy was a bum who liked *slumming* it in places like the workers' quarters of cities like Manchester and had a little notebook he kept scribbling in. Maybe, like you, she couldn't figure why he seemed so concerned with the working class.

a draft would be cool. can get all the get over ,rich motherfuckers and make them work with the untouchable class.

but from your statements, looks like you only know about army life third or sixth hand. good to know that you consider yourself so well versed in the subject.

tell me how to save the rainforest again, oh wise one.

By Sheila Samples

04/25/05 "ICH" - - My dad always responded to anything that was patently obvious with, "Well, yea-ah. Anybody with half sense and one eye knows that," which was his way of saying don't go with the flow, but look at facts and come to your own conclusions. He also said, "If you're determined to show your ass, make sure it's a clean 'un," or -- get those facts straight before you jump out there and start concluding...

Well, I've looked at heaps and piles of facts about what the deranged leaders of this nation are willing to do to the men and women who wear the US military uniform, and I've come to two conclusions. This country's most expendable commodity is its children and, with few exceptions, Americans appear to be both senseless and blind.

Give Us Your Young, Your Poor...

Of course there's going to be a draft, if for no other reason than George Bush has steadfastly promised there wouldn't be one.

They're coming after our children -- sweeping them all up -- bullying them at schools, stalking them, offering them big bucks to join the military. And there's no one to stop them. Servile Americans, even those who can still see, feel helpless. When faced with the decision to stand up and speak up, or give up their children, they are bombarded from all sides with strident demands for patriotism so, like their counterparts of empirical Rome, Americans await their fate -- their children's fate -- in silent despair.

There is nowhere to hide -- no one to turn to. The mainstream media has dropped all pretense of objectivity and has become a worthless tool of the state. The media's once envied "public service" to the people has become little more than applauding each new atrocity of this warmongering administration in the hopes of earning a share of the spoils. Vigilant no longer, the watchdog media has become, in the words of Czech novelist Milan Kundera, "a parade of people marching by with raised fists . . . shouting identical syllables in unison."

We can forget the Congress suddenly realizing it has a Constitutional mandate for oversight and restraint. Ain't gonna happen. The elected members of both parties are far too busy struggling under the weight of their own corruption to worry about the relentless dismantling of the republic or the worldwide chaos their lack of attention is causing. There's no indication that the injury, maiming or death of thousands of US servicemembers, or as Henry Kissenger describes them, "dumb, stupid animals" will appear on their radar as long as the media can prevent it from appearing on ours. They're not only cold, they're evil. Rotten to the core. Rotten from the core -- on in...

On February 8, President George Bush proudly bragged to Tim Russert on Meet the Press, "I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind."

Do you hear that, moms and dads? If your president's juvenile, paranoid announcement doesn't cross your minds whenever you're loading up your sons and daughters and sending them off to Iraq -- perhaps it will as you unload their flag-draped coffins at your cemeteries when they return home...

Many foolishly believed Bush's signature legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act, meant that all children in this country -- all children -- would have equal opportunity for education. However, it didn't take long for those paying attention to realize that, as with anything Bush tells us, the opposite is true. The No Child Left Behind Act is little more than an increasingly harsh and punitive testing apparatus, the funding of which has been pushed off on states in a Catch-22 requirement -- either fund the program and meet the testing standards or face sanctions and, ultimately, closure.

Other than underfunding it, putting sanctions on schools, and wreaking havoc throughout the public school system, Bush has mostly ignored the Act's provisions -- with one exception. Buried deep within its 670 pages is a requirement that secondary school officials must provide provide contact information for every student as well as allow military recruiters unlimited access to their facilities, or lose federal aid. From the various sites these uniformed child abusers are setting up shop, primarily in minority neighborhoods and lower socio-economic areas, it's obvious whose children are being targeted. If Bush succeeds, none of them will be left behind.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off To War We Go...

The empire is in the hands of a single madman who demands that we show our loyalty and patriotism by trading our humanity, our freedom, our dignity and, sadly, our children, for the mere illusion of safety in a world that is crumbling around us.

There are times when war, if not inevitable, is unavoidable although, to my mind, rarely justifiable. We needed a Pearl Harbor to drop-kick a foot-dragging nation through the goal posts of World War II, just as we needed a draft to mobilize the necessary manpower. We had an enemy. That enemy had a name and a face. Once he was defeated, the war was over. Of the 16.1 million Americans who served in WWII, 406,000 were killed and 671,000 wounded. The remaining troops returned to cheers, parades and dancing in the streets.

Korea and Vietnam taught us that war is not a John Wayne movie, an Uncle Sam poster, or a "Johnny Comes Marching Home" ditty after all. We learned, too late, that Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon were actually pretty pre-emptive kinds of guys -- not "shock and awe" shysters, but men who were willing to expand, little by little, an initial deployment of 900 military "advisors," escalating the destruction over 15 years by sending more and more until our bewildered children were standing knee-deep in an oozing quagmire with no clear idea of who the enemy was. It had neither name nor face; therefore, they were forced to shoot anything that moved.

Of the 2.1 million American servicemen and women who struggled through the Vietnam mess, 58,156 were killed, 303,329 were wounded in action, and 75,000 were severely disabled. These figures do not include the tens of thousands who suffer from the effects of Agent Orange and who continue to battle for benefits and proper care from a Veteran's Administration in full denial about repercussions from "gassing" our own people. Unlike heroes from WWII, those who returned were met with jeers and catcalls; many were abandoned in the streets. The number of veterans who have committed suicide since the Vietnam war is greater than the number who were killed in that war.

Vietnam was a soul-numbing fiasco -- an undeclared war that resulted in a litany of human rights abuses and atrocities too numerous to cite. It gave suceeding administrations an unabated taste for blood and power as well as a cold, pugnacious disregard for "collateral" damage. Might is right. George Bush has the power. He has tasted the blood. He likes it, and he wants more. He wants it all the time. If 9-11 had not happened, Bush's addiction would have forced him to create it.

As CNN correspondents like to say proudly, "this president" is having the time of his life. Given the grisly silence of the citizenry, of the judicial branch, the legislative branch and the mainstream media, Bush is under no pressure to justify the senseless maiming and killing spree upon which he is embarked, even if he could remember the reason -- or coherently describe the enemy who has no face. Shortly after the devastating assault upon Iraq in 2003, a self-satisfied Bush crowed, "We're on their trail. We're smokin' em out. We got em on the run. We're huntin' em down one-by-one. We're on a scavenger hunt for terror..."

A scavenger hunt for terror? This is why thousands of young Americans must give up their lives before they've had a chance to live them? Hundreds of thousands of innocents must die -- nations must be destroyed -- for no other reason than George Bush is off on a scavenger hunt?

Well, yea-ah.

A Toxic Mess

Thanks to the morally bereft Bush father-son duo, as well as the morally challenged Bill Clinton, we are rapidly becoming an endangered species. The culprit is Depleted Uranium (DU), the neat little nuclear weapon of choice these three presidents unleashed upon Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, turning them into toxic wastelands and condemning anyone on their soil to a slow, agonizing death from radiation.

America -- do you know where your children are tonight?

There is no excuse for not knowing the consequences of DU. Scores of reports have been written based on studies and investigations conducted since 1991. Physicians, physicists, scientists, researchers, and even some media -- mostly foreign -- continue to sound the alarm. We are witnesses to the most egregious war crimes in the history of the world, orchestrated by three mass murderers, yet we continue to play a deadly game of "Kings-X" with the Pentagon and the media, primarily cable outlets CNN and Fox News. Until this axis of corruption admits that DU is a death sentence to all who come in contact with it -- a crime against both God and man -- apparently we are not "allowed" to speak out. Wouldn't be prudent...

The term, "Depleted Uranium," sounds innocuous, even weak. Actually, DU is radioactive waste left over from manufacturing nuclear fuel and bombs. It is anything but "weak." DU is 1.7 times heavier than lead and boasts a half-life of 4-1/2 billion years. It never goes away. The US has more than 10 million tons of DU -- an abundant nuclear-waste product which is given free to weapons manufacturers who make a tidy profit on their genocidal bullets and bombs.

In a March 9 report, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, former Chief of the Naval Staff, India, writes, "DU burns intensely and is very hard. It releases Uranium Oxide. The aerosol contains particles of 0.5-5 microns in size, once they are in the air or dust they are inhaled or ingested, including from contaminated soil. Once in the lungs one such particle is equivalent to having one X-Ray per hour, for life. (emphasis added) Because it is impossible to remove, the victim is gradually irradiated. Still births, birth defects, leukemia, damaged central nervous systems and other cancers have been common in children born since 1991."

Getting the attention of the American people is, for the most part, a futile exercise -- like screaming into the wind. One wonders how many birth defects, such as babies born with no internal organs, fused organs, no brains, no eyes in empty sockets, will it take before Americans join their international counterparts and cry, "Enough!" When will we realize we are the terrorists, and our *weapon of mass destruction is Depleted Uranium?

No one has screamed louder or longer than Dr. Doug Rokke, former Major and health physicist for the US Army. Rokke, the Army's nuclear expert, was sent to Iraq after Gulf War I to salvage tanks contaminated by DU. He admits he went into the project "with the total intent to ensure they could use uranium munitions in war," but says what he and his team of 100 found there cost one-third of them their lives, cost Rokke his job because he refused to remain silent about his discovery, and continues to wreak havoc with the team's health, the health of millions of civilians in the Gulf, and the health of hundreds of thousands of Gulf War I, and now Gulf War II, veterans.

"We can't do it," Rokke says fervently. "We can't keep sending our citizens into that toxic mess. It's a crime against God. It's a crime against humanity to use uranium munitions in a war, and it's devastating to ignore the consequences..."

Rokke's conclusion is that DU must be banned from the planet, for eternity, and medical care be provided for everyone, not just the US or the Canadians or the British or the Germans or the French but for citizens from Afghanistan and Iraq to Kosovo and Okinawa to Maryland and Indiana, and other US states where DU munitions are tested.

For Americans to remain silent as Bush hands down death sentences for their children and their unborn grandchildren is a war crime in itself. Arthur Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York cites a study done by eminent scientist Leuren Moret which names DU as the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Bernklau says of the 580,400 US Gulf War I soldiers, 11,000 are now dead. By the year 2000, when Bush and his draft-dodging warmongers were already planning Gulf War II, there were 325,000 military personnel on permanent medical disability. Currently, more than half of those who served in Gulf War I have pemanent medical problems.

This scandal is threatening to erupt, even as US officials continue to deny there are any long-lasting effects from DU radiation. Bernklau believes the Moret study may be the reason behind Veterans Administration Secretary Anthony Principi's recent and sudden departure. Bernklau says Principi was "aware that DU was causing illness and death as far back as 2000. He and the Bush administration has (sic) been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret's report, is far too big to hide or to cover up."

Moret works tirelessly on the issue of depleted uranium and its effects upon the planet and its inhabitants, especially children. She wrote the Forword to Discounted Casualties:The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium, by Hiroshima journalist Akira Tashiro. The book can be read online, and should be required reading for all Americans, especially those who still possess half sense and one eye.

Moret says the use of DU by the United States defies all international treaties, and will slowly annihilate all species on earth, including the human species. She describes DU as "the Trojan Horse" of nuclear war -- the weapon that keeps on killing for billions of years." There's no way to turn DU off. There's no way to clean it up.

Because we are Americans, it is not acceptable that our bloodthirsty leaders be allowed to continue to rain DU down upon the world with full knowledge of its destructive potential. We cannot allow Bush to continue to kill our children -- our unborn children -- as he whips up new candidates for death in his rollicking "scavenger hunt for terror."

It's time we stopped it.

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma freelance writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: rsamples [at] sirinet.net

© 2005 Sheila Samples

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