I don't go to war on our closest allies.
As soon as I heard that Barbara Lee was the lone voice of opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan, I sent her the most heartfelt letter of thank you that I have ever written in my life: <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2001/2001-September/018077.html>.
Kevin Robert Dean noted a while ago: "[T]here were quite a few people on this list who felt that one of the only [Democratic presidential candidate] who actually stood on a solid progressive platform was too weird because he also happened to believe in something that had to do with forest creatures. Rather, they felt since he was not part of the religious main stream, it was better to support a candidate that wouldn't support most of what is needed for social change simply because he was a Catholic" (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20041101/024782.html>).
It seems to me that it was the AnybodyButBush brigade who went to war on Democrats like Dennis Kucinich who actually qualify as "our closest allies" -- compared to whom Barack Obama is just a centrist Democrat -- for a very frivolous reason!
Supporters for independent political action on the electoral and movement fronts generally believe that Democrats like Lee, Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, Jesse Jackson, Jr., etc. on the left who are in favor of bringing the troops home should leave the Democratic Party and join the Green Party or build a new party together with Greens and others in favor of independent politial action: "The Greens will be more effective if they challenge all progressives to leave the Democratic Party. . . . How can they be serious about their progressive values given the company they keep in the Democratic Party with all that corporate money and all those sold-out politicians? How can they be in a party that stands diametrically opposed to them on the basic policies, from the war-level military spending and interventions to defend global corporate interests, to the neoliberal trade, financial, and public spending policies that redistribute wealth, income, and power toward the elite? Genuinely progressive Democrats, such as perhaps a Cynthia McKinney or a Jesse Jackson Jr., should be challenged to stop letting themselves be used by the corporate powers to varnish the image of the Democratic Party" (Howie Hawkins, "Blame the Democrats, Not the Greens," _New Politics_ 8.3, Summer 2001, <http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue31/hawkin31.htm>).
The same goes for anti-war Labour MPs in Britain:
<blockquote>Radical Philosophy 120 (July/August 2003) <http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2187&editorial_id=13618>
War and democracy Kate Soper
. . . In pressing for this in Britain at the present time, it is important to keep in mind that opposition to the conflict even now remains extensive, that the decisive vote for war did not represent the wishes of two-thirds of the people, and that it only came about because many MPs directly flouted the wishes of their constituents. This raises two questions, one about the accountability of MPs, the other concerning the "democracy" of the behaviour of those MPs who voted against the war but who have retained the Labour whip. On the First count, it might be said that this is a perennial issue of representational government. MPs, it will be argued, have a pastoral as well as a representative role; they should be guiding public opinion as well as listening to it. They have, in other words, been elected with an agreement, tacit though it may be, that there will be occasions when they feel the need to vote on principle and according to their own lights, rather than in deference to what the voters want. Unfortunately, although persuasive on such issues as capital punishment, it cannot be in the present instance where it is starkly obvious that the Labour MPs in question were looking more to protect the prime minister and the stability of the Labour Party than they were to the rights and wrongs of perpetrating an illegal and devastating war. Better pastoral guidance was provided by schoolchildren at the anti-war rallies than by many of our New Labour MPs.
On the second count, it does indeed now seem difficult to endorse the retention of the Labour whip by MPs who voted against the war and have since campaigned against it, at times expressing themselves very polemically at the various anti-war demonstrations. They themselves, no doubt, will argue that they remain an altogether more effective influence by remaining with New Labour. Why, then, we have to ask, was the opposition they did offer from this favoured position so little and so late? Why did they prove so feeble in what should have been the moment of their ascendancy? Given how precarious Blair's position came to be on the eve of the critical vote in the Commons, and the impact his resignation might have had on Bush's options, there was surely more of a responsibility to themselves, the electorate, and indeed the world at large, than they managed to discharge. Nor in truth can they claim to have been very loud over the years in their canvassing against the party's militarism: its policies on the renewal of Trident, the continued presence of American bases, and the arms trade.
Perhaps, then, as some, including myself, have recently been arguing, the time has finally come to regroup, to make a definitive break with New Labour, and to work for a political formation that can better respond to the needs of the newly mobilized youth against the war, and of all those who are motivated by a vision of an alternative order of global coexistence, and have felt so acutely their disenfranchisement over recent weeks. This, at any rate, is the stance adopted by the recently launched "Start the Peace" initiative, which aims to use electoral politics as a focus for a positive long-term project. Its strategy is threefold: (1) to ensure that in forthcoming local, European and parliamentary elections, New Labour pays the maximum political price for taking Britain into the war with Iraq; (2) to encourage anti-war coalitions to organize locally in support of parties who have opposed the war and seek the elimination of British weapons of mass destruction and the closure of US bases here; (3) to build a new political formation committed to anti-militarism, social and global justice, and sustainability.3
If it succeeds, this project may in places advantage the Conservatives, given the British electoral system (which New Labour decided not to change). The arithmetic certainly gives disproportionate influence to any anti-militarist candidate winning significant support: defection of even a small proportion of Labour voters to, say, the Green Party, the Socialist Alliance or the nationalist parties, puts some Labour MPs at risk. But any Labour MP who intends to canvass anti-war votes in 2005/6 should resign the Labour whip now and seek backing to stand as an Independent Labour candidate next time round. Nothing, in any case, would more help what remains of the Left inside Labour than a serious anti-war electoral challenge outside. As for the danger of helping the Conservatives, this is a nettle that has now to be grasped. Moments to check the current drift towards a de-democratizing of American-style clientele politics have been few and far between. This is one to seize.</blockquote> -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>