Friday, September 12, 2003
And so we, the City of Berkeley, declare
The city council is up to its foreign policy again.
The Daily Cal article is confusing and somewhat misleading, so I'll use the The Daily Planet as a source, instead.
There were two competing resolutions. The original was to demand an investigation into the death of Rachel Corrie, dead by bulldozer in Palestine. It was a pretty big event around here.
The Mods and Mayor Bates, however, wanted to see a general investigation into all Americans' deaths in the region. Specifically, and this is where The Daily Cal misses a big point, including the death of Marla Bennett in a Palestinian attack in J-U.
Worthington, Shirek, Breland, and Spring acted as you pretty much would expect, supporting the issue because it was progressive, and opposing the alternative because it was competition. Maio abstained from the moderate alternative because, although she didn't want it to pass (because it would "undercut the effect of the Corrie resolution") she didn't want to oppose it, either.
Hawley and Olds were the ones who suggested the moderate alternative because the original seemed to suggest that Corrie's death was somehow more important. In some sense, it really was, because the Israeli military is funded mostly by the US, while the Palestinian nutjobs are not. (officially) Nevertheless, Olds astutely points out that "these resolutions aren't really going to do anything anyway."
Bates broke ranks from his prog buddies and joined the moderates for this one, but not before asking that the resolutions not even be considered because they were foreign policy issues and unnecessarily divisive, and earns an enthusiastic "yay!" from me. Or he would have, had he voted against both resolutions, which he did not.
More disappointing was Wozniak. While Wozniak wasn't really quoted, and probably didn't like the idea of the resolutions, he did vote for the moderate alternative, breaking a vague campaign promise that he wouldn't support such extra-Berkeley issues.
In an angry opinion, a reader writes "On Sept. 9, at City Council, Tom Bates acted in a way that will damage his political career as mayor of Berkeley." Probably not. I mean, you'd think that stealing newspapers would've had a bigger effect, what with it actually mattering in Berkeley, but it didn't. No one's going to care about this one.
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