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Articles : IraqThe Antiwar Movement and Independent Politics
Joshua Frank: Cindy, we are in the armpit of another election season and it seems that the mainstream antiwar movement is rallying behind the Democrats once again, hoping if the Dems can just recapture the House that the Republicans will finally be held accountable for all their horrible faults. Impeachment will follow and the war will end. What do you think? Where do you stand on all of this?
Cindy Sheehan: I hold very little hope that, due to the utter corruption of our electoral system, and the Republican reign of terror and fear against the American public, the Democrats will even take back one or more Houses of Congress.
Even if the Democrats take back the lower House, the potential Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) has already said that impeachment would not be “in the cards.” Rep. John Conyers (D-Mi) has also backed off of impeachment rhetoric. Since Bush has said over and over again that the troops aren’t coming home while he is president, it is up to us to make sure that his presidency is cut short.
We all know that the Vietnam War ended when Congress cut its funding. There is a bill that has been sponsored by Rep. Jim McGovern, (D-Ma) HR4232 that cuts funding to leave our troops in Iraq, but he has very little support and even a smaller chance of getting it to the floor for a vote. I believe that most representatives don’t support the bill because they will be accused of “not supporting the troops.” I believe that it is not supporting the troops to leave them in that nightmare.
Although I admire the Democrats on many issues, when it comes to war and peace, most get their pockets lined by the same corporate interests.
No matter which party has control of Congress come November, we the people have to keep the pressure up to stop the current course our country is taking.
Frank: You are currently serving on the Board of Directors for the
Progressive Democrats of America, a pro-Democrat organization that calls for reform of the Democratic Party from within. The PDA consistently ignores progressive antiwar alternatives to the Democrats. Do you think that such a position could actually hurt the antiwar movement? Should we instead be supporting antiwar candidates who want to hold both parties accountable?
Sheehan: I think that the PDA endorses candidates based on their entire platforms. Of course, I only care about candidate’s record on the war and what they say about peace. I prefer to call our movement a “peace” movement, because “antiwar” is too narrow.
I think it would be great if we didn’t need a PDA, if all Democrats were progressive peace candidates, but we know they are not.
I would vote for a Republican if they were calling for the withdrawal of troops and for impeachment, and I definitely think a viable third party could rein in the “two” parties we have now.
We will never have a viable third party, though, as long as we vote out of fear and not out of integrity. Instead of voting for the “lesser of two evils” we should be voting for a candidate that reflects our “beatitudes” and not the war machine’s.
Frank: The PDA may endorse candidates based on their entire platform, but they still won’t support antiwar candidates that are not Democrats — and they’ve received a fair amount of criticism for that position. Do you think that such a policy may be a problem for those who want to build an independent antiwar movement that seeks to challenge both parties?
Sheehan: Yes, well the group is called Progressive Democrats of America. They have had no problem with me endorsing third party candidates. I completely support a viable third party. I don’t know if PDA’s position is holding up an independent antiwar party as much as the mainstream Republican and Democrats are.
I think reform of the Democratic Party could only reinforce antiwar efforts and all progressive causes in general.
I don’t think the PDA is hurting the antiwar movement because I don’t think they have enough consolidated power to affect it one-way or the other.
Frank: It seems to me that working to reform the Democratic Party, like the PDA, sidelines other issues, most importantly right now, the war effort. I guess you don’t agree?
Sheehan: I think it will take all of us working for all kinds of issues; the PDA can focus on their piece. I will continue to focus on mine just like you will continue to focus on yours.
Frank: Who are the peace candidates you are supporting this year?
Sheehan: So far I have supported three who ended up losing in the primaries: Marcy Winograd, Jonathan Tasisni and Christine Cegelis — all of whom are Democrats, first two up against pro-war incumbents. I have also supported Jeanne Cricenzo, a Democrat, Malachy McCourt for Governor of New York who is a Green and Michael Berg and Todd Chretien, both of whom are Greens. Kevin Zeese of Maryland who is an independent candidate. And most recently I told Howie Hawkins, who is running against Hillary Clinton in New York as a Green, that I would support his antiwar campaign.
Frank: I’ve heard a rumor that you may be looking to start your own third party. Is that true?
Sheehan: Yes, it is true. I think that to save our democracy our country needs a viable and credible third party. This nation was founded on rule by a few rich white males, and for all intents and purposes, we are still ruled by a corporate elite.
We need a third party that will represent all the people, not just the wealthy.
Joshua Frank, author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, edits www.BrickBurner.org.
Posted by anthony
Anthony Lappé is GNN's Executive Editor. He's written for The New York Times, Details, New York, Paper, The Fader and Vice, among many others. He has worked as a producer for MTV and Fuse. He is the co-author of GNN's True Lies and the producer of their Iraq doc,...
I’ve said this to people I know before. If freedom is equal to choice, than more parties in the American political system would also mean more freedom. And it really has never been beyond a two-party system even with all of the other, minor parties floating around. Although with a multi-party system you invariably end up with coalitions to gain the plurality of votes, but then again people here are used to deciding one of two ways, both because it is easier and because they don’t want to have to think about it too heavily.
My first thought about a “viable third party” was the Whigs, and hopefully there’re no Constitutional amendments that will allow Bush to retain office beyond a second term, or that thought will probably end up a reality.
Democrats and Republicans are like Pepsi and Coke – sure one might taste better to you, but they taste an awful lot alike, don’t they?
Good article, though I was expecting more. Found the “antiwar-peace” movement difference to be nice semantic difference, though I doubt it’ll stick.
“Democrats and Republicans are like Pepsi and Coke – sure one might taste better to you, but they taste an awful lot alike, don’t they?”
Hah. Well said.
It’s always – in theory – been a “no-party” system…That’s what Capitalism gets you…..Then again, I read too much De Toqueville[sic]..........
Certainly a “no-party” system much in the same way the State of Nature was a true anarchy – both are purely philsophical but not very realistic. Only a real democracy – one like in Athens, without the inequalities of course – could have a no-party system.
This is a popularity contest. You either gotta tell people what they wanna hear, or scare the shit out of them, or get them to change what they want another way. The Reprehensibles been scarin the shit outta people since before the Great Depression, when dumbshit almost got caught in Teapot Dome, not to mention havin their hands in the cookie jar every time you turn around. Democrats are only about half an inch better; at least when you vote for them, if things REALLY fuck up they do something about it, instead of using it to steal some more from you. As I have said, at least with the Dems you get a reach-around.
Problem is, they DID fix things up pretty nice after the Depression, and did a good job in WWII, but they didn’t do anything about the small shit when they had the chance, and they let a generation grow up who had never seen a society that wasn’t rich, and who wanted the poor people thing fixed. So dumbass ol’ LBJ went to go do it for ‘em, while the Reprehensibles howled about all the money they weren’t going to be able to steal anymore because they couldn’t get people to pick apples for a penny a pop, they’d have to pay a nickel.
So all them people grew up, and they’d never seen REAL trouble, and friends, Y’ALL AIN’T NEVER SEEN NO REAL TROUBLE NEITHER. You plain flat don’t know what the fuck trouble is. Shut your pie-holes and go find someone in your families who was in the Great Depression and WWII, preferably who was POOR in the Depression and who FOUGHT in WWII, and SIT DOWN AND LISTEN TO THEM. Yes, of course they’re reactionary fuckwads- THAT WAS WHO SURVIVED, get it? THE PANSY-ASS DIPSHITS LIKE Y’ALL GOT FUCKING KILLED.
Yep. That’s right. Welcome to the REAL world, of which you know absolutely nothing, and from which your finest representatives return emotionally if not physically scarred for life, if they live. Your world has been protected since FORTY YEARS BEFORE YOU WERE BORN, and if your parents weren’t “old” (as y’all would think of it) when you were born, THEY’VE NEVER SEEN IT EITHER.
And if you Nazis think I’m just talkin to the Lefties, YOU’RE WRONG- you’re just as soft as they are.
So how come I know about it? Because I couldn’t keep my fucking mouth shut and my head down when I was a teenager, so I spent about three years on the street. And I mean on the street; sleeping in parks, eating garbage, stinking because I hadn’t had a shower for five weeks, the whole deal, kiddies. The REAL deal. Not your bullshit “I survived in the forest so I’m badass (never mind the fifty pounds of high-tech shit I carried in on my back).” And I made it outta that, but I sure listened but good afterward when my old man (who sure was a dumbass before I left, but had grown amazingly smarter by the time I was twenty-two or so) told me how it had been back when. And it made a hell of a lot of sense, because I’d seen it for myself. Funny how scrounging a living for a few years will tend to concentrate the mind.
Now, let me tell you this: Europe is damn near as soft as we are, and Russia is only just a bit harder than Europe; China’s hard in spots, but workin on gettin softer, and pretty soft in the cities. You gotta go to Africa, or the Middle East, or just a few really bad places in South America, or gnarly parts of Asia, to see shit that was commonplace in the US before the First WW, and commonplace in Russia and Asia until after WWII. Now, what you really have to consider is, DO YOU REALLY WANT TO LIVE IN A WORLD THAT MAKES YOU HARDER??? Hel—-LOOOOOOOOoooooo?????
Oh and by the way, HOW DO YOU SUPPOSE PEOPLE LIVING IN THOSE GNARLY PLACES SEE US??
So the Dems made life softer for everybody, and we all forgot. We’ve never seen how bad it can get. But good ol’ Shrubbery, he’s well on course to give us a lesson in it. Let’s see now:
Reagan and Bush I between them cleaned out the treasury of all that nice money that we were gonna use to pay for Social Security, you know, those evul “entitlement programs” and stuff.
Clinton barely made a start on fixing that, before Shrubya got in there, and he’s fucked it up WAAAAYYYYYY worse than Poppy ever did, or than Ronnie ever THOUGHT of (because, ya see, Ronnie was dumb enough he actually BELIEVED some of that horsepiss the Reprehensibles are always spouting about “fiscal responsibility” and “small gummint” and shit, so they had to convince him he was saving the world from the evul Commies to get him to loosen the purse strings enough to let them fuck up the Great Society).
Right along about now, Russia’s just frozen us out of Gazprom. (Oh, you didn’t know that? My goodness, these kids, never pay attention to which side of the bread the butter’s on.)
China’s running a trade imbalance that’s draining us dry.
The oil’s almost gone.
The pool of talented US citizens is flipping burgers because all the good jobs for training people have been shipped overseas; pretty quick, they’ll either give up or forget how to do those high-tech jobs they had six years ago.
Friends, when this particular batch of turds encounters the propeller, you better bet your ass you’re gonna find out how it feels to live in Afghanistan. And what do you figure the Fundies’re gonna do? (Oh, you never thought of that? Sigh. I’m tellin ya, these kids.)
The other problem with the Dems is they were dumb enough to think that they could let Shrubya do this dipshit Iraq deal, figuring it would sink him, and they wouldn’t get blamed. They actually don’t understand why we’re pissed at them; they think they did just right, and from a strategic point of view, they might have; it’s just that they let (it’s gonna be before it’s all said and done) 3000 US and (it now looks like) 650,000 Iraqi citizens get snuffed, in order to forward their “strategic objective,” which is kinda cold and more than a little sickening. And it led to Abu Ghraib, and if anybody thinks I’m ever forgiving or ever forgetting that particular shit stain on MY COUNTRY’s national honor, you best think again. Sure I BLAME Shrubya, but my party had their stinky little fingers in it too; they shoulda voted against it. And if they don’t know that now, they’re sure gonna find it out quick. The tolerance for any sort of fucking around is going to be very small. Not least among the media. You watch what happens if the Dems win. Maybe you’ll learn something.
Nancy Pelosi is either crazy, or she’s telling how she feels now based on the facts currently in evidence and firmly ignoring facts currently NOT in evidence (and that don’t mean what you and I know, it means what she can and cannot plausibly deny she knows right now later on) in order to say that impeachment’s “not on the table” to see if she can convince some of the Fundies home; not at all a vain hope, with this Foley thing goin’ on, unless she comes on all hard ass how she’s gonna fuck Shrub up. When this table is finished being set, I suspect her appetite for a nice plate of slow-roasted Shrub chitlin’s is likely to improve quite markedly; you might even be amazed at just how many she can eat.
But it’s probably TOO FUCKIN LATE. ‘Cause neither Putin, our buddy, nor China, that wonderful source of neat toys, gives a flying fuck at a rolling donut what happens to us. THAT’S WHAT OUR POLITICIANS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING, RIGHT? Wrong dipshit. That’s what WE’RE supposed to be doing, only everybody got all COMFY and FORGOT how it really is in the REAL WORLD. So we got dipshits running around pretending they’re Nazis, when their asshole would plumb freeze solid shut if they ever met a REAL Nazi, and other dipshits think they’re related to trees, some of whom are even stupid enough to figure they can hang out with bears and not get eaten when they get hungry enough, or who think Joe Stalin might have had a real good idea ‘cept he just didn’t quite execute it properly, or think that burning cars one-by-one is going to make the slightest bit of difference to anyone at all when not one person in a hundred could tell you the names of the people who have already been caught doing it, much less why they did it. COME ON, people. WAKE THE FUCK UP.
You wanna do something about it? Come up with a way to get them to change what they want without scaring them shitless. You’ve seen (if you’re paying attention) what telling them what they want, and scaring the shit out of them, gets you, and unless you’re completely fucking unlaced you didn’t like it much. Don’t make those mistakes; if you do, you’re as bad as what we already have. But I suggest you stop and think precisely what’s involved in doing that, particularly when a majority of them ain’t very bright, and some dipshit wanders in and blows up some buildings along with some of them. Joe Sixpack now wants “sumbuddy ta do sumthin’,” and he don’t care if it’s the right sumbuddy, or the right sumthin’, or not. Jist git DOIN it and quit TALKIN about it. Right? Tell me I’m wrong after y’all are so fuckin impatient you can’t follow the State Street story (notable exceptions are present, and acknowledged) and, judging by this site, y’all are the CREAM OF THE CROP.
So where does that leave us? GUESS WHAT YOU DUMB FUCKING IDIOTS, THE DEMOCRATS ACTUALLY HAVE IT FIGURED OUT AND ARE GOING ABOUT IT THE ONLY FUCKING WAY THAT WILL EVER EVER WORK IN THE FUCKING REAL WORLD, AND Y’ALL ARE IN THE FUCKING WAY WHICH IS NOT MERELY THE DUMBEST, BUT ALSO THE MOST FUCKHEADEDLY EVIL, THING I HAVE HAD THE DISPLEASURE TO SEE IN ALL MY BORN DAYS.
Here’s your third party horseshit: fucking Ross Pee-rot come along, hell, he was worse than Pappy Bush- yeah, right, elect the fuckin corpicrat! Greeeeaaaaat, we all gonna get to pay for police now when they show up? Maybe we’ll re-establish debtors prisons.
And that was the “third party.” ‘Scuse me, you wanna suck my what?
Most “agenda” people, right or left, don’t much like to hear that if you want change, you have to figure how to make regular people want change, without scaring them. I hear a lot of “let’s have a revolution” shit that (due to the immaturity, one way or another, of those yelling the loudest) would wind up like maybe Mao after WWII, or der Fuhrer, or Genghis Khan, or maybe even Timur (and if you don’t know who Timur the Lame was, then you shouldn’t be permitted to use a KEYBOARD much less speak to adult human beings) if it ever got more than 0.000001% of folks to actually do anything about it, as opposed to talking about it, of which y’all do an awful lot without making a single bit of difference I ever seen.
I suspect Cindy Sheehan wouldn’t mind hearing that, though. I suspect she’s still thinking her way through it, but I’m confident that she’ll figure it out and take correct action AFTER WHICH YOU DIMWITS WILL ALL CONDEMN HER AS ANOTHER TOOL OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM.
/soapbox. Carry on.
Nice article, A.
Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.
dude, this isn’t a longest post contest schneib.
Shit, anyone want my fucking ballot? I already filled out the local and state measures, but otherwise I ain’t gonna bother with it any more.
In response, I’m registered and waiting.
By the way, that was a very passionate and articulate outburst Schneibster.
Schneib nice rant man, thought you would never end.
Much truth buried in those paragraphs.
“Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.”
Your chest must feel soooo much lighter now.
“judging by this site, y’all are the CREAM OF THE CROP. “
That line probably scared me more than anything else.
“Timur the Lame “
Shit I had to google him, have destroyed my keyboard as ordered, now using voice relocation, ships reposition, flack seedoil, back to the spare keyboard….
Wait, aren’t Tamerlane and Timur the Lame the same guy? The Mongol conquerer? The one who said that whoever disturbed his gravestone would inflict upon themselves a horrible plague (it was very poetic as I recall), and then Soviet scientists dug up his grave; same day, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in WW2? That guy?
I didn’t Google it, I’m just a smart alec know-it-all.