Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 17 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
OpEdNews Op Eds   

Is Our Peace Activists Learning?

By       (Page 2 of 3 pages) Become a premium member to see this article and all articles as one long page.   No comments
Follow Me on Twitter     Message David Swanson
Become a Fan
  (139 fans)

Meanwhile, something quite unusual and dramatic happened. By May 23rd, Congress Members Pelosi and David Obey had turned against their own bill. They were going to make sure it came up for a vote and passed, but they were going to vote against it. http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22817 Once this happened, Pelosi-following activist groups, too, turned against the bill. And the absence of a deadline in the bill reemerged in the media with a vengeance. Now everyone suddenly noticed that the bill no longer had any sort of, even nonbinding, deadline in it. This was a bill for endless war. The "benchmarks" were forgotten. The short-term funding talk was forgotten. And people were even beginning to see through the game.

While Pelosi was "opposing" the bill, she was also beginning to take heat from all sides for having brought the bill up for a vote and assured its passage. She voted No, but she did not whip, cajole, threaten, or bribe her colleagues to join her against the occupation as she had done to get them to join her for it. During the debate on the floor prior to the vote, Pelosi, Obey, and others made clear that they wanted the bill to pass and considered it necessary "for the troops." Obey remarked on the floor:

"I hate this agreement. I'm going to vote against the major portion of this agreement even though I negotiated it."

Then he went on to defend his record of "funding the troops" and blamed Bush's veto for preventing money from getting to the troops. There was no chance Obey would let this bill be voted down.

No one mentioned that not a single troop gets a single dollar because the occupation continues, or that the Congressional Research Service said in April that the occupation was already funded through July, or that polls of troops in Iraq last year found that a strong majority wanted to end the occupation last year, or that most of the money goes to occupation-profiteers.

Republicans attacked Obey for voting against his own bill. Nobody criticized him for introducing it in the first place. But activists and the media were waking up to the game. http://afterdowningstreet.org/whip And Bush's statement after signing the bill containing his own "benchmarks" the next day was along the lines of "I was born and raised in this here briar patch." http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22944

From the left to the center, everyone got this one right as soon as it was too late. Pelosi had joined the Republicans to put a Republican bill on the floor, had allowed right-wing Democrats to assure its passage, and then had pretended to rejoin the Democrats in voting against it. Reactions ranged from planning for the next vote, to a demand for protests and phone calls, to a plan to recruit primary challengers against the most pro-war Democrats http://www.democrats.com/primary-2008 , to a demand that all peace-loving souls reject the entire Democratic Party and either back the Green Party or (if you don't care about poor people or think that right now keeping people alive has got to take precedence) support the Ron Paul Republicans.

There's only one Democrat in Congress with a completely clean record through this process: Dennis Kucinich. He argued against invading Iraq prior to the 2003 vote that authorized it. He published his case against it and helped persuade many of his colleagues to vote No. Kucinich challenged the legality of the war in court in an effort to prevent it. He proposed a detailed plan to end the occupation of Iraq over three years ago. His current plan is found in his bill HR 1234.

Kucinich is the only Democrat who has voted against every new funding bill for the occupation and always urged his colleagues to vote against the occupation as well. He was one of only seven who voted against the Rule to bring the latest Supplemental to a vote.

Kucinich is the only member who has repeatedly raised the topic of oil theft in the Democratic Caucus' meetings. And after Obey screamed as him for it and defamed him in the media, Kucinich obtained 60 minutes on the floor of the House to speak to the topic. (A result that seems sadly unlikely to convince Obey to stop screaming at people.)

Now, in March when Pelosi was threatening to not support or to challenge incumbent Democrats in the next election if they wouldn't back her occupation spending bill, nobody called her a traitor or drummed her out of the Democratic Party. But on Friday I had to take a leave from my part-time consulting to Kucinich's presidential campaign, because the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which has hated Kucinich for decades, began complaining that in my other job I was promoting challengers to pro-occupation Democrats. I told the reporter, Sabrina Eaton, and she refused to print, that I believed contested primaries were healthy for any party, and that participation in them was a pro-Democratic Party position at a moment when a lot of people were fed up and quitting the party in protest.

But Eaton operates under the common delusion that participation and challenges in primaries must be stifled so as not to nominate candidates too far from the middle to win general elections. That is to say, this is her rule for Democrats, not necessarily Republicans. And she compounds this with the false position, which is almost a matter of definition, that peace cannot be a centrist position.

But I favor peace candidates in primaries in every party, including Democratic, Republican, Green, and any other. And I favor a strong Green challenge to the Democrats for the same reason I favor strong primary challengers to Democrats, to influence the Congress now. To the amazement and frustration of some Green partisans I have not learned from the past two months or the past few decades that the entire Democratic Party is an evil plot that must be purely opposed. While Kucinich may be the best Democrat, others are relatively great, good, and mediocre. I'm not trying to identify roll models. I'm trying to end a war and reestablish the rule of law.

And to the amazement of many Democratic real politikers I do not accept that promoting Greens is a dangerous temptation that will only give us more Republicans. I've seen virtually nothing over the past five months of Democratic rule that was superior to what we had under the Republicans. A few embarrassing hearings, but no enforcement of subpoenas, no impeachment. A partial correction to the minimum wage, but no end to the steady march of corporate trade deals. A hell of a lot of rhetoric, but no end to the occupation of Iraq, in fact no end in sight, and no resistance to attacking Iran. Ron Paul has done more for peace than Pelosi. And if we don't make clear to pro-occupation, pro-Cheney-immunity Democrats that we will vote Green or Republican or stay home, then we should never bother leaving our homes.

I do hope that some people have learned not to be loyal to the leadership of any party when it requires setting aside their own views or those of the people they represent. I was never loyal to Pelosi and Reid, but I have learned more in recent weeks about the depths they will sink to. Politics for politicians is all about friendships and loyalties. For activists it is not, and if Kucinich supports a pro-war candidate for president I will not support him in that. But I will urge everyone now to do the one thing most likely to influence Congress toward peace: fund Kucinich's presidential campaign.

The optimistic view of this story is, I think, as follows. We have finally had a vote for money in which a Yes vote was understood to be a Yes vote, and a No vote was understood to be a No vote, and 140 Congress Members and 14 Senators voted No, rejecting the absurd Orwellian dictum on "funding the troops." More and more activists and other Americans understand that story. More and more people are willing to demand of Congress what we know is possible rather than what they tell us is possible. And we know that Congress can, if it chooses, bring up a bill right after Memorial Day break to ban any future spending on the occupation of Iraq beyond September, require the withdrawal of all troops, mercenaries, and contractors by that date, turn Iraq's territory, oil, bases, and our world's largest "embassy" over to the Iraqi people, and make it a felony for Bush to violate these terms.

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Rate It | View Ratings

David Swanson Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

David Swanson is the author of "When the World Outlawed War," "War Is A Lie" and "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online (more...)
 
Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Follow Me on Twitter     Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Obama's Open Forum Opens Possibilities

Public Forum Planned on Vermont Proposal to Arrest Bush and Cheney

Feith Dares Obama to Enforce the Law

Did Bush Sr. Kill Kennedy and Frame Nixon?

Can You Hold These 12 Guns? Don't Shoot Any Palestinians. Wink. Wink.

Eleven Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend