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Anti-war activists “Code Pink” show their true color: yellow

Unlike Jethro, Ellie Mae, Granny and Jed Clampett, California
has never appealed to me. It’s too far from my favorite
restaurant. The deer hunting
there is awful. The traffic is horrific. The cost of living is absurd. People there never use words like “ya’ll,” “possum” or “bass ackards.” Worse yet, nobody in California knows how to call the Hogs. And just when I think California can’t be any less appealing, something else comes along to make it so.
Believe it or not, but a city council in California recently sent a “you are not welcome” letter to the men and women of our armed forces. The official act was a vote of the Berkeley City Council to banish Marine recruiters from their not-so-fair city. In the letter, it was stated that the recruiting station “is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as unwelcome and uninvited intruders.”
The men and women of this country who volunteer their very lives to protect the rest of us are called “intruders” and not welcome
in Berkeley, California. Well, isn’t that special! It stands to reason the people bad-mouthing
our troops in California are special as well. Before jumping
to conclusions and calling them special, however, let’s see just who these anti-armed forces people are.
The group that spurred the city council action is a goofball anti-war (anti-troops?) organization
known as Code Pink. Group co-founder Medea Benjamin
led the effort to kick our Marines out of Berkeley. A little research on the Internet paints a telling picture of Code Pink, and Ms. Benjamin.
Code Pink’s web site is very interesting to say the least. Naturally,
it is dominated by the color pink. Looking at the site, I wonder if Code Pink members stole their name from the Arizona
sheriff who makes all his jail inmates wear pink underwear to deter theft. I’m also reminded of how a defensive coordinator for the Razorback football team once made players wear pink jerseys as punishment for uninspired
practices. As goofy and shameful as the pink underwear and pink jerseys might sound, they are pillars of sanity compared
to the Code Pink website.
According to the website, Code Pink’s main mission in life is to end the war in Iraq. They say military recruiting is a legitimate activity and that a national militia is necessary for defense. But they say the war in Iraq is not for defense. We can only speculate that Code Pink members never heard about the attack on American soil that we all know as 9-11. They must also have missed the fact that no more attacks have occurred on American soil since American
troops took control in Iraq. Obviously, somebody like, say, members of the United States Marine Corps are playing some pretty good defense in Iraq.
But let’s not be too hard on the Code Pinkies, and give credit where due. The group says they offer “peaceful alternatives to militarism” so we don’t need things like Marines or Marine Corps recruiting stations. Instead of recruiting, training,
outfitting, deploying and morally supporting the troops, Code Pink says alternatives like “meditation, yoga, conversation, singing and a kiss – don’t enlist party” are reasonable alternatives.
(I promise I’m not making this up. Check out their website for yourself.)
According to Code Pinkies, if General Patton had sat down with Adolph Hitler for a little yoga we could have easily avoided that awful little incident known as World War II. Fidel Castro would have become John F. Kennedy’s best friend if Kennedy had only learned to meditate. If George Bush had provided Saddam Hussein with a song and a kiss, Hussein would have gladly expelled hundreds of known terrorists and weapons
makers from Iraq. These Code Pinkies are really sensible people, don’t you see? And their leader, Ms. Medea Benjamin, may be most sensible of all.
Ms. Benjamin grew up on Long Island. While attending Tufts University, she renamed herself after the Greek mythological
character Medea. She received college degrees from Columbia University and a school called the New School for Social Research. She worked for a decade in Latin America and Africa and spent four years in Cuba working for the World Health Organization.
Ms. Benjamin eventually moved back to the United States and became a self-proclaimed “political activist.” By last count, her activism had led to her being escorted from a dozen different public gatherings. Her main claim was a race for the United States Senate in California,
an election where she garnered a whopping 3 percent of the vote. And did I mention that Ms. Benjamin has recently been a guest speaker for the Workers World Party, a Communist
organization that seeks to overthrow the United States government?
Only in California, or at least I hope.