During the election year some peace voters will take Obama at his finest words and work to elect him hoping that he will provide the leadership he promises.Some may even be satisfied with Hillary Clinton’s election year conversion.
Others, will look to the Green Party which has two strong peace candidates in Ralph Nader and former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney or other third parties like the Libertarians and Constitution Parties which also are running anti-war candidates.Nader has questioned whether Obama has the backbone to stand up to the special interests on the issue of militarism and points out how Bush justified the war based on Clinton policies.McKinney seeks to lead a “peace slate” to end the war and, like Nader, opposes the bloated military and intelligence budgets.
Whatever choice is made, the 2008 election year is an opportunity to build a movement for deep-seated change away from militarism.And after the election peace advocates need to come together to pressure whoever is elected, to end not only the mindset that has led the U.S. to ongoing wars but the ongoing investment in the military economy.
The election promises to continue to be a debate on the Iraq war.Obama said as much during the debate: “I will be the Democrat who will be most effective in going up against a John McCain, or any other Republican -- because they all want basically a continuation of George Bush's policies.”
Clinton concurs that Iraq will be central to the election year saying “There will be a great debate between us and the Republicans, because the Republicans are still committed to George Bush's policy, and some are more committed than others” specifically mentioning Senator McCain.
In fact, Obama seems to relish the battle, especially if it is with Senator McCain: “I will be the Democrat who will be most effective in going up against a John McCain . . . because I will offer a clear contrast as somebody who never supported this war, thought it was a bad idea.”
In fact, the peace movement’s job in the 2008 election is to make sure the war is an issue through November no matter who the nominee.Senator McCain is a superhawk who jokingly sings about bombing Iran and told a town hall meeting in New Hampshire that it would be “fine with me” if the U.S. stayed “maybe a hundred years in Iraq.”McCain will be quick to the trigger in using the U.S. military.
Building the anti-war movement is a major goal of the election year.It will be critical in 2009 that the movement be stronger than it is today because it will either be facing a militarist in John McCain, or a Democrat who has consistently voted for war funding while saying they will begin to withdraw troops from Iraq.How much progress the United States makes on ending the mindset that leads to ongoing wars will depend more on how well peace advocates organize and how aggressively political pressure is applied to the next president.
Kevin Zeese is Executive Director of the Campaign for Fresh Air and Clean Politics (www.FreshAirCleanPolitics.net) whose projects include Voters for Peace (www.VotersForPeace.US., True Vote (www.TrueVote.US and www.TrueVoteMD.org) and Climate Security (www.GlobalClimateSecurity.org). He is also president of Common Sense for Drug Policy (www.csdp.org).
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