BBC News Online: World: Americas Friday, 2 November, 2001, 14:25 GMT Berkeley boycotted for anti-war stance: ``The city of Berkeley in northern California has been branded unpatriotic, and businesses there are being boycotted, after the council became the first in the nation to oppose the bombing of Afghanistan.''
``As an ignorant foreigner, I am puzzled at why the above piece of news has been ignored by the list...'' Hakki
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This story was put on local tv news about a month ago(?), early October or whenever the Afghanistan bombing started. The main group who claimed there would be a boycott was the local Chamber of Commerce. But at least one council member and the Mayor dismissed the claim. It was just bullshit anyway. Some minor tiff between the Chamber of Commerce and the City---they've been at each other for years. For example the City has all kinds of regulations on outdoor advertising that the CC hates and is constantly claiming such regulations hurt the `economy', blah, blah, blah. The CC and Real Estate board pushed a local roll back of the rent control system here about ten years ago claiming property values were being destroyed. That worked unfortunately. But most of their noise is just noise.
Meanwhile, the city council or city manager's office negotiated some kind of deal with the University for UCB to pay part of the clean-up and policing expenses for damage in expected protests. None as far as I know have gone marching down the main drags trashing windows---but who knows, hope springs eternal. The usual targets for abuse are the national franchises like McD, BurgerKing, Gap, Walgreen's, etc. A fair number of local businesses are left alone---a few are protected by the local demos---mainly the local book stores.
The only real boycott that would be effective is if outlying middle class shoppers stayed away from coming to Berkeley. But the streets are as crowded with traffic and weekend shopping as usual, so the Chamber of Commerce is talking out its ass. The CC represents about the only formal Republican mouthpiece in the city and they are always up to no good.
The city council was also voting a measure of support for our local Congresswoman, Barbara Lee who was the only No vote against Bush's extended war powers bill in the US Congress. So the Chamber of Commerce was also trying to signal national Republican organizations to put pressure on the city---as a backhanded way of eroding Lee's local support. It didn't work, or hasn't so far.
So, I would suspect the source of the story as possibly picking up a very minor, local, and old story here and engaging in some kind of editorializing for its own readership.
Chuck Grimes