CNN is reporting that Berkely, California has just effectively outlawed the United States Marine Corps. The city council has voted to evict the Marines and label them as intruders. I find it more than a little disturbing that government at any level is attempting to shape the form which free speech will take within their sphere of influence. Is there something the council is afraid of here? Should there be an investigation into what they are hiding? Have the Marines stumbled onto something here, maybe?

The city there has decided that those viewpoints which are not in every way conforming to the city council’s views on the world, will no longer be allowed to express an opinion.

Free speech is the one primary right which can NOT be lost in this great nation, or else we are no longer American. Without speech, you have no recourse to any other rights of which you may avail yourself.

No one actually cares if an individual person is against the war, or for it. Against abortion or for it. Against development or for it. These things are matters of opinion, and therefore everyone is free to speak their minds. Unless you live on Gulag Berkely.

So, the political position of the Berkely “council” is one thing. If they are against the Marines, they may say so if they wish. But creating public policy which discourages free speech, and denies those working for the military, i.e. SOLDIERS the same rights they wish to grant to the common citizen, is basically just ludicrous on the face of it. Berkely is now an official laughing stock. The world will be holding this place up as an example of Californian and American freakiness.

And well they should. If I owned a residence, real estate, or business within the limits of this labor camp to be, I would put down that joint(look where it got you), take a shower, put on some real shoes, and start TODAY to move my private property interests outside the Berkely city influence. Nobody’s going to make you shave or anything.

They already have your speech. GET OUT NOW. Your gun, car, wife and dog are next. When they are ready for you, you might try calling the Marines for help. They won’t be able to answer you, though. Not if you’re in city limits.

-mike

Flagship of the Fleet: Life and Death of the USS Arizona

 The most common image of the Arizona is of the ship in flames, after the attack in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This exhibit tells the rest of the story. The exhibit’s focus is personal. Using rare artifacts and photographs, the exhibition tells the story of the men on board. It brings the history of the ship up to date with film footage documenting the research work that has been conducted by the National Park Service’s Submerged Resources Center since the 1980s.

- From a current exhibit at the Museum Division of the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records.

From the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, a recollection and insights by a survivor: