Posted By:
MAF Blogger Danny
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Yesterday Move America Forward went to San Francisco to deliver a letter drafted up by our lawyers to the US Attorneys office questioning the legality of the actions of the Berkeley City Council in supporting Code Pink as well as some concerns about what we had to deal with on February 12th.

There was a press conference scheduled for 10 AM at the federal building on 450 Golden Gate which is also the building where we held our rally during the “Fight For Victory Tour”. Nancy Pelosi has an office up there, so it made sense as a rally location, and being back there brought up some fond memories or rushing around with my hands full of t-shirts or lugging tables out of a budget truck.

It was a more somber atmosphere here though, as we set up our dinky little podium (ha ha) which folds up very compactly for easy transport and convenience, with our MAF logo and set up mics for TV cameras and all that jazz. It is fun setting these things up and especially talking to the camera guys.

All of our guest spokespeople showed up right on time and gathered around Melanie and Cat as they opened up the press conference.

Melanie explained what the letter is all about and what we are asking the US Attorneys to do. Basically it’s pretty simple, we want to call the attention of the attorneys to these actions by the Berkeley City Council and by Code Pink (and allied groups)—actions which we think likely constitute a breach of the law and should therefore be investigated and punished.

Some of the questions from reporters who were there, or reporters who we spoke to on phones alluded to this idea that we are sensationalizing this stuff, or that if anybody had actually done anything wrong that they would have been prosecuted by now. Well it’s pretty easy to simply ask the attorneys ‘hey, have you guys seen or heard about this?’ rather than just assume.

In fact when we asked those questions inside, we raised some eyebrows! But I’ll get to that later!!!

For now, press conference! So Melanie went through the content of the letter, and what MAF’s intentions are, and then brought up some of our friends to speak about their experiences at the Feb 12th rally and how they felt it was handled by the City Council and the Berkeley PD.

Elizabeth Kelly and her son Eamon who is a recovering Marine and an awesome dude, were there with their pup, Buddy, who was there in support. Elizabeth was pushed, harassed and threatened by several of the young hoodlums we have seen so much of, and no one ever stepped in to separate them.

Kevin Graves had a kid pick up his skateboard and hold it two-handed like a club ready to beat Kevin’s head in. And while the kid never took a swing with his board, he stood there and taunted Kev, trying to get Mr. Graves to make the first move. Kevin said the kid was trying to draw him into a conflict with statements like “I know you want to hit me, come on just do it” and making verbal insults or name-calling. Brandishing a skateboard like that is something that is a very obvious threat to anyone near the situation and it’s obvious someone should have stepped in here.

Jim Minder and Bryan Weldon of the Lafayette Flag Brigade both had incidents to share, about protecting their audio equipment, which the anti-war protesters tried to sabotage and damage, while the police basically told Jim that they were NOT going to get involved even if they SAW someone from the other side damaging someone else’s property.

So I guess in Berkeley, everything is community property? Hah!

Sherry Perussina, a Blue Star Mom and Cat Moy our Executive Director were also on hand and shared their own experiences in trying to get help from a police force which did not seem interested in enforcing a permit (which we paid big bucks for too! Unlike Code Pink who never has to pay a cent for their permit)

It’s pretty sad that there are all these incidents and complaints about the Berkeley PD because I know they tried their best to keep order and keep people from being hurt, and I saw a couple people were detained when things really got out of hand but there were many times when I personally was asking the leadership of police force what they were doing about enforcing permits, and protecting citizens and they were very uncooperative.

But I don’t blame the police for any of this, because I really think the City Council deliberately wanted to make sure that this protest was unpleasant and as disruptive as possible for both parties. The City obviously didn’t know what it was like to have their business interrupted by people who don’t like what you’re doing and when they actually got protested THEMSELVES, they sure didn’t like it.

Think that gave them any empathy whatsoever for the type of madness they are orchestrating against the Marines? My thoughts exactly.

Well now that the press conference was over, Melanie escorted the delegation up into the building where they had a meeting with an actual US Attorney who discussed some very specific issues with us, I cannot go into detail about that discussion, but I will say it was…very encouraging.

When Cat, Mel and the rest came back down, another camera and another reporter had shown up to take more statements and conduct a few more interviews.

Biggest story of the day (for me)…NO CODE PINK

I guess they figured out that acting like complete jackasses on camera wasn’t going to get them anywhere (if you remember the shenanigans perpetrated at our DC press conference)

Then again, on second thought, looking like FOOLS on camera is what Code Pink does bust, and they love it… so why didn’t they show up? Perhaps they did not want to be questioned about their involvement in these activities, heck, maybe they were afraid that they might be arrest on the spot for the things they’ve been doing in Berkeley!

Who knows.