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Initiative to Regulate Location of Military Recruiting in Berkeley
This Initiative is about 1) regulating where military recruiting stations, public or private, can be located in the city of Berkeley and 2) requiring that the military obtain a use permit prior to opening.
Both a use permit and limits of location are standard procedures, of any city, which govern the location of businesses, offices, residences, parks, etc., and also are the rights and civic responsibility of an involved public.
This Initiative is not only necessary but imperative to both protecting our youth and to ending the occupation of Iraq, which is now nearing conclusion of it’s 5th year of death, destruction, devastation wreaked against the lives of several 10’s of thousands of our U.S. families and millions of Iraqis, not to mention the economic and spiritual costs.
- Because the youth being recruited are being recruited for the purpose of being sent to become the occupying forces of Iraq or Afghanistan (90% of Marines get sent to Iraq or Afghanistan)
- Because our city has ALWAYS been against this war from before it started, when most of the country disagreed, to now, when most of the country agrees
- Because our Berkeley Municipal Code provides that Initiatives are necessary to reverse the drift toward war&to remove the causes of war
- Because it is well documented that military recruiters lie, deceive, entice, seduce our youth into ‘service’ that is built on the lies that got us into this war and continue to keep us occupying Iraq
- Because our youth are not fully informed of the risks to their lives, their bodies, their moral fibers prior to being recruited
- Because we are mothers, grandmothers, parents, individuals and informed citizens of a city that has always struggled to ensure our core values - as peace, diplomacy, refuge for all human life, protecting life, our environment, caring for our residents - are strongly reflected in our codes, our actions, not just our beliefs
- Because, once they have ‘served’, our terribly wounded veterans are grossly neglected by the military, benefits having been severely cut (despite what Bush
- Because the reasons are too many to fit on this piece of paper
The reasons for limiting location of recruiting stations are further quantified in the Initiative. Please sign ONLY if you are a Berkeley registered voter. See back of this flyer for salient points from Initiative.
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