[statecom-discuss] Re: The people are in motion to oppose war and empire.

[Gracegrnrnbw at aol.com]

For years now THE MAIN thing on the mind of John Walsh is the war on Iraq.   
I ran as the only anti-war candidate for governor, somehow that did not and 
never will count.

While there is frustration with process, there is no mistake that Chuck was 
the one who got the vote through the Boston city council - but he did it by 
bringing to bear our politics as a party AND by working with his most progressive 
Democratic colleagues.

We need to get more organized - we need to work together with those many of 
us who DO lead on these issues and not make it all about party politics.

And it would help to recognize that there are a number of key issues that 
matter to the electorate (show me a poll of the governor's race that showed the 
Iraq war as the top issue, dwarfing the rest?) - we are generally the best on 
all of those issues- 
Let's get more organized in general!   If we lead, I'd just love to watch 
dems running to catch up with us- leadship is not lone ranger, it requires folks 
following - Love, grace
In a message dated 5/2/07 2:06:01 PM, jvwalshmd at gmail.com writes:


> PLEASE POST
> 
> I am more than a little frustrated by our attitude toward and
> relationship to the peace movement.  For years now THE MAIN thing on
> the minds of the electorate is the war on Iraq - with others, Lebanon
> (again) Somalia, Iran, Sudan, Syria, looming on the horizon.
> It is no secret that the empire wants to lock up access to the world's
> oil supply and that the Israel Lobby wants to use the U.S. to wage war
> on as  much of the Arab and Muslim world as possible.
> 
> Where are we?  As I think of it, we are elsewhere.  We have our
> priorities and the people have theirs.  How smart is that?  The people
> have lost faith in the Democrats as an antiwar party as the polls
> show.  But have we presented an alternative?  Are we there at every
> possible community meeting, every demonstration, every meeting of UJP,
> UFPJ, ANSWER, etc, offering an alternative specifically labeled as a
> GRP alternative.  The answer is NO.  We are engaged in internal
> squabbles, putting out manifestos, forming ever more committees and on
> and on.  And we are not even a member of many of these coalitions.
> How many have worked actively with MFSO, Vets for Peace, Smedley
> Butler (many of whom did show up at our anti-Kerry picket which could
> have been a GRP picket by the way)?  We are too small to do everything
> and it would seem that  our number one priority should be that of the
> people and the things that are setting them in motion.
> 
> The only time that the GRP has made a really big deal out of the war
> was when Chuck Turner introduced the antiwar resolution in the City
> Council.  It got front page news and even that reliable lackey of
> AIPAC, Menino, had to vote for it.  (The GRP was not mentioned in the
> news coverage.)  Even  that effort although the best was too
> short-lived
> 
> If this is not dysfunctionality, I do not know what is.  Of the
> innumerable committees, do we have one that is directed at the war on
> Iraq.  So we have a golden opportunity and it is being systematically
> squandered.  UJP in this area is not doing its job.  They are in bed
> with the Democrats even though many if not most of the rank and file
> do not like this state of affairs.   They desperately need our input.
> But  we seem to have "other priorities" to quote our Vice President.
> 
> The Dems are running scared but if there is no alternative to them,
> they have nothing to worry about.  I hope you have a chance to read
> the following:
> http://www.counterpunch.com/walsh05012007.html
> ***
> May 1, 2007
> 
> Fear and Vitriol in the Halls of Congress
> 
> Edgy Dems Snarl at Their Antiwar Base
> 
> By JOHN V. WALSH
> 
> Democrats in Congress are growing increasingly hostile toward their
> antiwar base. David Obey has provided the most notorious example upon
> a chance encounter with Marine Mom, Tina Richards, in a Congressional
> hallway. (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS4wHMCc57k). Richards
> had tried to talk with Obey, her Congressman, for a long time, but he
> had successfully eluded her until this day. Now she and other antiwar
> activists were lobbying in the Capitol in an attempt to get "our"
> Senators and Representatives to cut off funding for the war. Not
> surprisingly, Obey gave the standard response when Richards asked why
> he continues to fund the war. "We don't have the votes," he shouted at
> her. To which the answer is of course: "Congressman, we only want your
> one vote, and your help in getting the rest. You cannot win if you do
> not fight." Talk to any Dem politician and he or she will tell that
> they on your side but the others are the problem. So the votes are not
> there collectively, but individually everyone is on the side of peace.
> That is a very strange calculus.
> 
> The odious aspect of the encounter was that Obey set about attacking
> the Marine Mom and the handful of Democrats who, unlike him, refused
> to vote supplemental funding for the war. "Idiot liberals," was the
> first outburst, followed by: "The liberal groups are jumping around
> without knowing what the hell is in the [supplemental funding] bill";
> "You're smoking something illegal"; and "If you guys don't stop
> screwing it up," we will end the war. Finally an aide pulled him away
> and he waddled through a door and slammed it shut in Richards face.
> What is wrong here? Why would he treat this worried mother in such a
> shabby way?
> 
> It is not just Obey; he just happened to get caught on camera. When we
> went to visit Senator Kerry's aide here in MA we got the same
> response. We were just "a bunch of liberals." Senator Kerry, the aide
> said petulantly, is trying to do "some good in the world", not just
> trying to "feel good" like "you liberals." And again from my "liberal"
> Congressman Capuano, the same thing. Capuano assured us that he was
> trying to do some real good in the world unlike "the liberals" who
> voted against the supplemental. Again the anger at the "liberal"
> groups and the ten Congresspeople (two of them Republicans) who voted
> against the supplemental out of opposition to the war was ferocious.
> Why is this?
> 
> I submit that these Democrats are running scared. They know that their
> antiwar base is crucial to winning their next election. Without it
> they might lose in 2008. In strongly antiwar districts like Capuano's
> in Massachusetts or Obey's in Wisconsin, there is a real danger of
> losing their Congressional seats, than which nothing is more important
> to them. And the few genuine antiwar voices in their party, Dennis
> Kucinich or Barbara Lee, for example, make then look bad by
> comparison. They wish these bothersome liberals would just go away.
> What if a strong antiwar Democrat were to appear in the next primary
> or what if a Green should run in the general against them in '08? Can
> they win if their antiwar base is fed up with them and turns
> elsewhere? And what if they also face a strong Republican opponent,
> which is Kerry's problem in '08?
> 
> The same dynamic showed up in the recent MoveOn town hall meeting,
> which featured phone presentations and questions for each of the
> antiwar candidates, meaning Democratic candidates. (Libertarian Ron
> Paul was not invited, unsurprisingly since MoveOn is a wholly owned
> subsidiary of the Democratic Party.) A vote was taken afterwards on
> the favorite candidate of the antiwar participants, and the results
> were headlined as "Clinton suffers virtual defeat in MoveOn vote on
> Iraq," or "Clinton Bombs in Liberal Straw Poll.
> 
> With 43,000 people responding, the numbers were: Obama, 28 per cent;
> Edwards, 25 per cent; Kucinich, 17 per cent; Richardson, 12 per cent;
> Clinton, 10 per cent; with only Biden and Dodd lower. The
> interpretation is simple. If you are seen as pro-war, your prospects
> are dim. True to form, having taken the poll, MoveOn quickly
> disappeared the results from its web site. One can be fairly certain
> that the Dem hierarchy was displeased with the results for HRC and
> ordered the whole thing air brushed away. MoveOn dutifully obliged.
> 
> The striking thing about the poll is how well Kucinich did. He is the
> only one in the entire pack who can legitimately claim to be antiwar.

> Obama and Edwards were ahead of him only because they are widely
> perceived, or more accurately misperceived, as antiwar. And of course
> they get tons of sympathetic coverage in the mass media. But their
> true colors are becoming ever clearer. Recently (4/29) in the
> Washington Post, the rabid neocon Robert Kagan of the American
> Enterprise Institute, adviser to the McCain campaign and lead
> proponent of war on Iran, heaped praise on Obama for being an advocate
> of pre-emptive war and of increasing the army and marines by tens of
> thousands of troops. ( For his part Edwards is now exposed by Senator
> Durbin's disclosure that the Senate Select Intelligence Committee knew
> that the administration was lying in the lead-up to the war on Iraq.
> Durbin excuses himself from hiding the truth from the public by saying
> the committee was sworn to secrecy. But that was a time to come
> forward with the truth and take the consequences--even jail--to stop a
> war based on lies. And it is even worse to have been on that committee
> and to have voted for the war. John Edwards was on that committee.
> John Edwards voted for the war. It turns out that John Edwards did in
> fact know then what he knows now! Durbin is the second Senator to have
> outed Edwards in this way, the first being former Senator Bob Graham.
> 
> The Democrats are in an awful bind. They have been complicit in this
> war from the beginning--up to their necks in the death and destruction
> every bit as much as W. That provides an opening for a new start in
> American politics. But this means that the Greens and the Libertarians
> must seize the moment, overcome their dysfunctionality and pose a
> serious challenge to the two War Parties. The Democrats are on the
> run; will we go get 'em? Will we live up to the challenge?
> 
> John Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar at gmail.com. He encourages one
> and all to join the many thousands who have signed the petition at
> WWW.FilibusterForPeace.org. It only takes 41 of the 51 Democratic
> Senators to bring the war on Iraq to an end. They have the power. Why
> do they not use it?
> 
> 




**************************************
 See what's free at http://www.aol.com.