Sacramento City Council
Posted by Moonage on 02 Nov 2005 | Tagged as: Ethics, Opinions, Political Correctness, Shock and Awe, US Regional Politics
This piece of garbage was actually proposed by the Sacramento City Council as part of city business:
PROPOSED SACRAMENTO CITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION TO WITHDRAW U.S. TROOPS AND BASES FROM IRAQ
Whereas the United States government, in its March 2003 first-strike attack and subsequent military occupation of Iraq, a country which had neither attacked nor threatened the U.S.:
1. Violated international law, including the United Nations Charter, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Accords and the Nuremberg Principles and therefore is in violation of the U.S. Constitutional provision for treaties as equal to the Highest Law of the Land;
2. Caused the: a) deaths of an estimated 100,000 Iraqis and more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers; b) wounding and physically and psychologically disabling of tens of thousands of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers; and c) destruction of the homes, communities, and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis;
3. Undermined the image, moral values and credibility of the U.S. throughout the world; and
4. Misused over $300 billion of U.S. taxpayers money, including $246.7 million from Sacramento, money which could have been used for health care, affordable housing, environmental protection, and other purposes that would have improved the lives of people in Sacramento, the United States, and the world.
5. The continuation of the war and this misallocation of resources will cause grave harm to the people of Sacramento, especially its low income and people of color communities.
Whereas public opinion polls indicate that millions of Americans view the Iraq war and occupation as unwarranted or mistaken, and whereas an overwhelming majority of Iraqis cast ballots favoring U.S. withdrawal,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT THE SACRAMENTO CITY COUNCIL ON BEHALF OF THE CITIZENS OF SACRAMENTO CALLS UPON THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CONGRESS TO:
1. Immediately withdraw all U.S. troops and military bases from Iraq;
2. End military recruitment on high school and college campuses;
3. Publicly disclose and cease all attempts by the U.S. government and corporations to control the economy, agricultural practices, government, or resources of Iraq;
4. Issue an international statement which includes: a) a commitment of United States resources required to rebuild the damage that the U.S. caused in its first Gulf War (1991) and subsequent attacks and in the 2003 invasion and occupation, the control of which is to be under the Iraqi people and to financially compensate the families of all Iraqis killed and injured from U.S. actions and b) relinquishment of any debts or obligations that the U.S. claims it or its allies are owed by Iraq;
5. Ensure that returning veterans receive compensation and care including full mental and physical health, education, disability, and rehabilitation benefits; and
6. Significantly reduce the U.S. military budget and reallocate that money to programs that provide for human well being including: health care, education, affordable housing, and environmental protection
I could shoot massive holes in how misguided and flat out wrong most all of this is. I mean, some of it’s so stupid it defies imagination. I mean, a commitment to rebuild the damage the US caused in the first Gulf War? How’s about those fine folks on the Sacramento City Council DEMAND that Iraq reimburse Kuwait for the damages THEY did invading Kuwait? If they had done what the UN demanded, we would never have been in a position to take out Hussein. The rest of that resolution is just plain stupid.
But you know what, dumb gets dumber. They passed that stupid resolution with only one nay. The web site Sacramento for Democracy published all the council members phone numbers and is calling for an opponent for the one person who voted against that pathetic resolution.
Here’s the payback guys:
- Mayor Heather Fargo hfargo@cityofsacramento.org; 808-5300
- District 1, Ray Tretheway rtretheway@cityofsacramento.org; (916) 808-7001
- District 2, Sandy Sheedy ssheedy@cityofsacramento.org; (916) 808-7002
- District 3, Steve Cohn scohn@cityofsacramento.org; (916) 808-7003
- District 4, Robert Fong rkfong@cityofsacramento.org; (916) 808-7004
- District 5, Lauren Hammond lhammond@cityofsacramento.org; (916) 808-7005
- District 6, Kevin McCartys : KMcCarty@cityofsacramento.org; (916) 808-7006
- District 8, Bonnie J. Pannell bpannell@cityofsacramento.org; (916) 808-7008
Those are the idiots that supported it. Anyone know any fine people that prefer the US be in charge of things in the US as opposed to Muslim fanatics that live in Sacramento? Or better yet, give these people a call and ask them what the hell they are thinking and why they feel compelled to use Sacramento citizens’ tax money to promote their own personal political agendas. Sacramento needs eight good people that are more concerned about the well-being of the people of Sacramento than worrying about international politics. More importantly, they need eight good people that are smart enough to distinguish reality from rhetoric. If those people are running Sacramento based on the logic they’re using to promote resolutions like that, Sacramento’s screwed.
I have honestly never seen a worse abuse of position by a city council ever. What’s sad is how wrong this thing is. It’s kind of understating it to say Sacramento can do better than this. Honestly, I can’t see how Sacramento can do worse. And please, people of Sacramento, don’t try to prove me wrong. It’s your kids’ Sacramento these people are destroying.
12 Comments »
on 03 Nov 2005 at 1:00 pm 1.Bryan Kerwick
said …
Once again it amazes me how the Looney Left on both coasts seem to surprise you with their insane ideas.
Perhaps California should be allowed to be a Socialistic/Communistic State seperate and apart from the rest of the US. They could then be annexed back to Mexico and our problems with those idiots, Hollywood crowd and all, would be over. It would be a small price to pay for peace of mind.
The culture war in this great Country is not going to be resolved by open minded intellegent people, rather by idiots on both the extreme Left and Right. The vast majority of the folks in the middle, both geographically and politically, could care less what these morons think.
If the Left hates this Country so much, they should be allowed, nay encouraged to secede from the union and run their little world as they see fit. We would be much better off without them anyway.
I still can not understand how these people get elected but then again, I did have the good sense to leave Brookly for Kentucky in the first place.
on 03 Nov 2005 at 3:25 pm 2.Bryan Kerwick
said …
Take a look at this and see if it is something you might want to apply to the fine folks of Sacramento. It would be interesting to see the outcome.
Al Franken Furious; ‘Do As I Say’ Soars on Amazon
on 03 Nov 2005 at 7:19 pm 3.Stormwarning
said …
Correct me if I am wrong, but as a local municipal government, the Sacramento City Council has no standing in this. If this was the California State Legislature, it might still have any standing. Now, if a California Congressman stood up and proposed this, he’d have standing, but he’d be equally laughable.
on 03 Nov 2005 at 9:08 pm 4.Insider said …
The ‘fruits, nuts & flakes.’
And I live here.
on 03 Nov 2005 at 9:52 pm 5.Moonage
said …
Wanna run for city council?
on 08 Nov 2005 at 2:00 pm 6.blacksmithchs said …
Everyone should call and send e-mails to these idiotic councilmembers, and Ms. Fargo, protesting this outrageous action. I’ve heard that they’ve received hundreds of calls and e-mails, and they feel so “threatened” they’ve called in the police. Keep up the pressure!
on 08 Nov 2005 at 2:10 pm 7.Moonage
said …
I’d like to think some of those emails came from the links I posted. I don’t want them to feel threatened, I just want them to resign in shame or better yet, be voted out.
on 08 Nov 2005 at 2:14 pm 8.Moonage
said …
And if that “legislation” isn’t bad enough, this is pretty much the same group that passed these ordinances as well:
“the Council set chilling restrictions on the size and construction of protest signs. Ordinance 2003-026 stated, “It shall be unlawful for any person to carry or possess any sign, poster, plaque or notice” unless it “is constructed solely of a cloth, paper or cardboard material no greater than one-quarter inch in thickness.”
And:
“The ordinance also prohibited the carrying or possession of “any length of lumber, wood or wood lath unless it is one-fourth inch or less in thickness and two inches or less in width or if not generally rectangular in shape, such object shall not exceed three-quarters inch in its thickest dimension.” It specified that “both ends of the length of lumber, wood or wood lath shall be blunt and shall not be pointed.”
The same ordinance outlawed possession of glass bottles, jars or containers (making it illegal to drink a bottle of mineral water!) It also outlawed the carrying and possession of golf balls, ball bearings and marbles.
Furthermore the odious ordinance deemed unlawful “for any person to carry, possess or wear any gas mask or similar device to filter all air breathed and that would protect the respiratory tract and face against irritating, noxious or poisonous gases.”
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles7/Bacher_Sacto-Anti-Speech.htm
These people are Marxists. They need to be removed in the worst possible way.
on 10 Nov 2005 at 12:35 am 9.tao said …
Moon: I am interested in your call for disntinguishment of reality vs. rheotoric. I imagine that the def of rheotoroic which you are using would be ‘3: loud and confused and empty talk;’. Now, please explain to me how your post, which is quite long, does not consist of an overwhelming amount of exactly this empty talk. You ‘could shoot massive holes in this thing’ but are instead content to repeatedly call resolution and the authors ’stupid’, ‘dumb’, ‘garbage’ etc.
I do agree with you that the reimbursement for damages during the first gulf war may be going too far. I would like to here what you have to say about the rest of it. I would specifically challenge you to refute the claims upon which the resolution is based (#1-5 U.S. violated international law, etc.).
As to the abuse of city council position, I believe they do address the effects of the war on the city of Sacramento throughout the document. Moreove, I think that that these are elected representatives of a city whose political views they coincide with. The resolution gives voice to MILLIONS of citizens who were outraged by the actions of its government.
And as strange as this may seem to you, I think I will not fill your inbox with threatening(?) emails, even though I happen to hold different political views than you….
on 10 Nov 2005 at 10:01 am 10.Moonage
said …
I would appreciate not filling my inbox with threatening letters. However, as you’ve done, I am encouraging people to contact those people and let them know how they feel as they have taken it upon themselves to use their position to assert that everyone in Sacramento believes exactly as they do. Everyone in Sacramento is against the war. There is not one single person that supports what we are doing there according to the Sacramento City Council. That’s the message they are sending. That’s what I oppose. As noted here by Insider, some people in Sacramento don’t agree with what their council publicly stated to the world. The Council, by virtue of their position only, have hijacked Insider’s position. And, if Insider doesn’t like it and wants to protest, he can be arrested for doing so if his sign is big enough to read.
Now, as far as how stupid this thing is, I’ll agree that by not going into detail, I fell into the rhetoric category. So, here goes:
1. Violated international law, including the United Nations Charter, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Accords and the Nuremberg Principles and therefore is in violation of the U.S. Constitutional provision for treaties as equal to the Highest Law of the Land;
What the council does not do is tell how these items were violated. If any of those “international” laws were truly broken, I am quite sure Russia, France, and Germany would have called it to the attention of the UN as they very vocally opposed what we were doing.
2. Caused the: a) deaths of an estimated 100,000 Iraqis and more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers; b) wounding and physically and psychologically disabling of tens of thousands of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers; and c) destruction of the homes, communities, and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis;
Although the 1,700 troops may have been accurate, there is nothing to support the statement of 100,000 Iraqis being exclusively the responsibility of the US. Genocide was being practiced in Iraq long before we went in. To assume all those murders of the Kurds and other minorities would have stopped if we hadn’t gone in is ludicrous.
3. Undermined the image, moral values and credibility of the U.S. throughout the world; and
Then why are so many countries joining us in the war on terror? Countries we’ve never worked with before? Why is Libya now fighting against terror and cooperating with the US? Why is Egypt holding elections? Why is Lebanon now free of Syrian control? Why are Iraqis voting in elections at the risk of being killed by terrorists? Why are the Kurds running advertisements thanking the US? There is a LOT, and I mean a LOT more evidence that the US is making friends than not. Sure, quote the French. Quote the Russians. Quote the Germans. Their governments are the ones that challenged our credibility within the UN when we asked for help. They are now dealing with the results of that. Search French Muslim riots. Then, search US Muslim riots.
4. Misused over $300 billion of U.S. taxpayers money, including $246.7 million from Sacramento, money which could have been used for health care, affordable housing, environmental protection, and other purposes that would have improved the lives of people in Sacramento, the United States, and the world.
What the council is ignoring is that the US was already committed to Iraq. That predates 2002 by about a decade. We were spending money there every single day since 1993. The UN would not allow us out of that expense and risk. It was because of the UN that the US became a lightening rod for Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. What we now see is a end to this. So, for the council to totally ignore the expense of protecting the Kurds is disingenious as hell. To put these police actions in perspective, we’re STILL in Korea. We’re STILL in Bosnia. We’re STILL in Germany. We could have been spending billions every year for 50 years. They need to subtact that from the cost of this war.
5. The continuation of the war and this misallocation of resources will cause grave harm to the people of Sacramento, especially its low income and people of color communities.
They don’t explain how. Especially by playing the race card. What harm is being inflicted to the people of Sacramento? Especially those low income and people of color? Are they worse off now than they were in 2002? Are fewer working? Have their wages gone down? Have federal services been cut? Tell me, exactly what has been lost?
When they do fill in all those blanks, then it means a little something. However, the bottom line, as Storm pointed out, is the Sacramento City Council has no justification whatsoever expecting the federal government to answer to them. None. The arrogance of this is amazing. It’s just as amazing that some people don’t see that.
on 10 Nov 2005 at 11:37 am 11.tao said …
Moon: It is good to see that you can acknowledge some validity in each of the points the city council calls to attention, even while casting doubts and calling into question.
I think Bryan is right (I think this is what he was getting at) that we need open-minded intellegent people engaging in dialogue about their political views. We need more people saying saying ‘yes’ to the other side, wherever they can and less focus on the ‘NO!’s. Otherwise we fall into arrogance ourselves.
It sounds as though you are calling for the council to support its claims, as you just did. Maybe I can do a little of that, although I my knowledge base is relatively limited…
German courts have offically ruled that U.S. has viloated internatinal law (incidentally, they also ruled that Germany itself is guilty of supporting the war somewhat indirectly). The court referred to Article 4, Paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter, which classifies “every” threat and use of military force against another nation as an act of aggression. It specifies only two exceptions: a formal resolution of the UN Security Council and for self-defence purposes. Neither of these was the case with Iraq.
As to the death and destruction the U.S. has caused in Iraq, I agree that there were horrible things going on in Iraq before the invasion. But so is the case throughout much of the world. I question why the U.S. chose Iraq into which to channel its huge political and finacial resources. I, for one, would much rather have seen these utilized to battle world poverty, starvation, etc.
And it sounds as though the city council in Sacramento is voicing similar sentiments. It calls for a misallocation of valuable resources. Our military budget is WAY beyond what we actually need to defend our country. It has been so for decades, and the war in Iraq has only increased spending.
The issue of whether the war will be a good thing for Iraq in the long run is not one I wish to speculate on. Even assuming it is so, this does nothing to address the issues of the legality of the war, our motives for targeting Iraq, or the idea that we could do a hell of better managing our resouces, (the council mentions education, housing [which unrefutably effect minoirties more than whites, although probably did not may not need to mention this in their context], and health care), all along without creating violence and destruction.
on 10 Nov 2005 at 3:20 pm 12.Moonage
said …
It sounds as though you are calling for the council to support its claims, as you just did. Maybe I can do a little of that, although I my knowledge base is relatively limited…
Not really. I made the comment their resolution was stupid without validating my accusation, which you pointed out. My main gripe is that a city council is not a proper forum to make these types of demands. It is their responsibility represent the people of their city, not put political agendas in the mouths of their people.
And it sounds as though the city council in Sacramento is voicing similar sentiments. It calls for a misallocation of valuable resources.
Once again, it is not the proper forum for that. They try to justify it by using the misallocation of tax money, but that is not money that would have ever gone to Sacramento in the first place. It is money on top of what the federal budget already is. No one in Sacramento is suffering financially because of the expense of the war. And as I tried to point out earlier, the US was spending a LOT of money enforcing the UN no-fly zones that the UN refused to resolve. If we spend another $300 billion resolving the issue once and for all, it could SAVE money in the long run because some police actions have existed since 1946 and have STILL not been resolved ( Korea ). How much money have we wasted just sitting over there? Is the UN trying to resolve the expense the US is incurring there? No. Was the UN trying to resolve getting us out of Iraq? No. It would have just gone on for a generation or more if we had not decided to end it ourselves.
And it sounds as though the city council in Sacramento is voicing similar sentiments. It calls for a misallocation of valuable resources. Our military budget is WAY beyond what we actually need to defend our country. It has been so for decades, and the war in Iraq has only increased spending.
The US military budget is less than 1% of the US GDP. If anything, at this time, it is underfunded. I have done other posts on the budget deficit scare. Just ask yourself, how much of your income each money is allocated to paying credit? If you own a house, it’s probably in the 20% to 30% range JUST for the mortgage. The US is currently spending about 2.5% of it’s GDP on debt payments. We’re not hurting regardless of what a lot people are shouting. If we have to up it to 3% or 4% just to kill off the organizsed terrorism threat, then so be it. It’s money well spent in the long run. There is some waste for sure that can be addressed, but military is not one of those IMO.
The issue of whether the war will be a good thing for Iraq in the long run is not one I wish to speculate on. Even assuming it is so, this does nothing to address the issues of the legality of the war, our motives for targeting Iraq, or the idea that we could do a hell of better managing our resouces, (the council mentions education, housing [which unrefutably effect minoirties more than whites, although probably did not may not need to mention this in their context], and health care), all along without creating violence and destruction.
The issue of the legality of the war was resolved when Congress authorized the use of force against Iraq. Prolbem is, most people don’t realize that occurred in 1993. We’ve been technically at “war” with Iraq since 1993. Now, the point I have been making for a long time ( far pre-dating the blog ), is that you don’t half-ass declare a war on someone. Hussein in turn declared infitada against the US. He was serious. Now, I do think he was contained militarily, but he was OPENLY supporting terrorist organizations ( see payments to Palestinian bombers, the Al-Islaam camp in Iraq, and giving safe haven to known terrorists. Hussein was not innocently attacked. Bush the elder attacked him, Clinton attacked him twice, and Dubya finished him off. Sure, we could have just walked when we created the power void in Iraq and let them fall into the hands of another tyrant or Taliban, but THAT would have been criminal. Helping them get back on their feet and empowering the people is something that the world should commending, not condemning.
The bottom line is a city council has no authority whatesoever to be demanding federal policy. None. And, for that council to do it in such a blatantly politically biased manner is just tactless, to be nice about it. If they want more money for housing and medical care, do as every other local government does and JUSTIFY it.
I would rather seperate the two issues, whether a city council has the right to make a political statement, and another issue of whether or not the war is justified somewhere else. I have discussed it many times here in other posts. A third one that could be merited would be whether or not the economy has suffered because of the war. The fact that all spending indicators have risen sharply since 2002 completely undermines the council’s claim of creating hardship for its people.
If anything, if the people of Sacramento are suffering more now than they were in 2002, it’s probably because the council is spending too much time harping about things outside of their jurisdiction and not enough time doing something about the problems within their jurisdiction.