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Peace Activists Welcome Obama, Will Push Him
SAN FRANCISCO - An organization that has made headlines heckling George W. Bush and other prominent politicians for their support of the Iraq war has declared "victory" after Barack Obama's election as president of the United States.
Members of the activist group CODEPINNK unfurl a banner that reads 'We Want A Peace Prez.' "After almost eight years standing outside the White House with a bullhorn and screaming at someone who wouldn't listen who's totally impervious to popular opinion, I think it's going to be great having someone in there who hopefully will be interested in what we have to say," said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the group.
"After almost eight years standing outside the White House
with a bullhorn and screaming at someone who wouldn't listen who's
totally impervious to popular opinion, I think it's going to be great
having someone in there who hopefully will be interested in what we
have to say," said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the group CODEPINK: Women for Peace.
Since the Sep. 11 attacks seven years ago, members of CODEPINK have been a regular presence on Capitol Hill -- opposing the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, decrying a proposed American attack on Iran, and pushing for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney for illegally manipulating intelligence reports to justify the Bush administration's attack on Iraq.
Recently, the group has also organized demonstrations throughout Washington and the country to protest the $700 billion bailout of financial firms and demand new regulations on those companies and economic relief for families facing bankruptcy and foreclosure.
Their flamboyant tactics -- showing up in large groups with bright pink outfits complete with feather boas and other colorful accessories, disrupting government meetings, and shouting at leading politicians with the cameras rolling -- have garnered CODEPINK a great deal of media attention, but also a fair amount of criticism. Many of their members have been arrested numerous times in acts of civil disobedience.
But Benjamin said the election of Obama marks a new era in American politics, which calls for new tactics from the peace movement.
"We certainly want to start out in a softer tone," she said, "in terms of trying to get meetings not only with members of Barack Obama's administration, [but also] trying to influence members of his team who are going to be influential in his policies in the Middle East. We know a lot of them; they're Clinton leftovers and they're going to need a lot of pushing, but they'll be a lot more willing to listen than the folks we have now."
A similar response to Obama's election is coming from the Arab and Muslim worlds, said Baghdad-born Boston University Professor Shakir Mustafa. "There was a huge sigh of relief," he told OneWorld, "but it was a lot more muted than I expected."
Mustafa said Obama's offer to sit down and talk with Iranian leaders without preconditions and his promise of a phased U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq have drawn praise overseas. His statements of support for Israeli military policy and increased bombing of Pakistan have not.
Mustafa said the first place we are likely to see the impact of a President Obama is in the negotiation of a Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Baghdad governing the U.S. military presence in Iraq. The United Nations mandate permitting a U.S. military occupation expires Dec. 31, and the Bush administration has been pushing the Iraqi government to sign a treaty allowing the occupation to continue.
Iraqi leaders have resisted the Bush administration's terms, demanding that any such agreement include a time-line for the withdrawal of all American troops.
"Obama promises to get most American forces out of Iraq in a little more than a year," Mustafa said. "People are very comfortable with this. In fact they are seeing that if security is improving and if Iraqi forces are trained by mid-May as predicted, why would the American forces stay beyond that point? No Sunni party, no Shi'ite party are for the extended stay of American forces."
Longtime peace activist, politician, and writer Tom Hayden says the Obama presidency puts antiwar advocates in much the same position that the presidency of John F. Kennedy put the early civil rights movement. He also compares it to the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and those who wanted to abolish slavery. Both leaders were in favor of progressive change, Hayden says, but had to be pushed by grassroots Americans to take significant action.
"The task is ours to build a social movement and create a climate that organizes the pressure that will enable [Obama] to do the right thing," explains Hayden. "I don't know of any political leaders who will go beyond what their base has made possible."
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76 Comments so far
Show AllA Look Under the Hood at the (Potential) Obama Administration
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21162.htm
Day One on my odyssey to keep Obama from turning into a dud:
Job #1 for Obama:
Hire Dean Baker ( Or James Galbraith or ???) as your economy person! Baker, one of the few economists who saw the Crisis coming, has a well conceived stimulus plan to revive the economy through health care reform !
Remember, Mr. Pres. --Wall Street is not necessarily the people's (aka Main Street) best friend!
Also, say no to the Clinton Wall Streeters who were at least half responsible for the Crisis. Say no to Rubin, Summers... Also say no to the University of Chicago Milton Friedmanites...Ayn Rand, John Galt too, Forbes, Greenspan, etc
Might as well say no to the neo-cons who still yearn for American hegemony in the Middle East--Dennis Ross, et. al.
Dr Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers
I am sorry the article, under it, doesn't have info about Aaron Glantz' work which is significant on Iraq.
I am a supporter of Code Pink. I smile at the line in the article that they have had "criticism" for their " ways". I think there will be several social movements, based on different groups having differing agenda, and some of them will overlap.
I think Obama used some good old fashioned techniques in his organizing and the well known new ones (such as internet use,which was a "thing of beauty" to me, someone who goes back as far as mimeograph machines). It sure does feel good for the last couple of days, messy world that we have, with Mr. Bush making it far far worse than it was.
As that Obama campaign button said, "Let's Get To Work". New ways. One point about Americans:short memories (and we have Howard Zinn to remind us, as well as Frances Fox Piven, on poverty).
.NYCa,
Your post notes a liking for Code Pink, then goes against what they stand for and work towards by refusing to deal with the increasingly obvious centrism and status quo of this new President-elect.
I understand the need to allow President Obama time to assemble a cabinet and an administraion and I remember all those calls from "progressives" in support of his candidacy, noting how they would hold his feet to the fire...When exactly does that fire get lit? His first appointment is a horrid one from a liberal perspective and the hints at the appointments to follow deviate not at all from a neoconservative assemblage.
.
Ive got matches, have you any kindling?
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Look at Code Pink's website and also look at Global Exchange.
.http://www.bayareacodepink.org/about.htm
OK so now what am I looking for? No sign of compromise written there, no sense of acceptance of one like Obama either.....If one agrees with the goals of Code pink then one must be against one like Barack Obama, as he stands firmly against the achievement of much of those goals.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Carol
The big thing that no one has even mentioned that he started this road to be everyone elses President he lied to American Publc by saying he would take Public Funds after McCain said he was going to take it and then changed his mind.
If he lies about that what else does he have to lie about?
The biggest thing is that he not an American not even close. He was born in Africa and his grandmother lives in Africa was in the operating room watching the birth. The reporters went to his hometown and she was so proud to say that she was there when he came into the world so therefore he is not American.
Another thing that he is lying about is that his first name is not Barack it is BARRY and his last name is not OBAMA it is a name that is African. The birth cerificate that is showing is not his it a fraud but he had the money and the infulence to get it. This man is a fraud and he sold the American Public right down the road to be President and that is a fact.
MAY GOD BLESS US ALL FOR NOW AND FOREVER AS I AM SURE HE WILL!!!
Carolhill814:the election is over. Republican talking points didn't work and won't work. I have been very gentle with my Republican pal who was pushing the same talking points. Would you like to work for a better America? I'm glad you posted your comment.
Astounding! We elected a non-citizen with a fraudulent birth certificate. Pretty amazing ability to get that one past us, and to win the hearts and minds of so many, here and around the world. Any idea who his comrades are in this spectacularly amazing con of the greatest magnitude? Or did he pull this scam off all by himself?
I wonder, do you believe all things are according to God's will? Or did He endow mankind with free will? Does God work in mysterious ways, or is everything God ordains plain and obvious?
Holy cow! You need to consider psychiatric help, or at least stop getting all your news from Sean Hannity.
.It would be far to easy to jump all over this distortion of reality so I wont. You are so very wrong, and it is so easily proven that every single "factoid" you posted is false that I wonder and fear for your sanity. Get help, please, for your sake and the sake of those who love you.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
If he goes with the Clinton Gang--which he appears to be doing--no amount of "pushing" by NGOs will have any effect.
I, and I am sure, everyone else has been hearing repeatedly the last several days, 'We must push Obama, we must hold his feet to the fire', etc., etc., etc. But I have yet to hear if anyone really has any idea how, and, more importantly, effectively how. Obviously, millions of protestors worldwide didn't stop the invasion and occupation of Iraq. How many letter-writing, e-mailing and street campaigns does it take? Tom Tomorrow could do a cartoon about this. The first three panels: 'We must push Obama' 'Yes, yes, yes' and so on, the last panel: 'Hmm... so now what do we do?' As far as comparisons to the FDR era, it is a different world today. Labor strikes work in Europe, not here. Any ideas? Frankly, I'm frustrated.
RE: PUSH OBAMA? HOW? KEY QUESTION
linden.hawk November 7th, 2008 6:14 pm
"I...[have] been hearing...'We must push Obama...But I have yet to hear if anyone really has any idea how...As far as comparisons to the FDR era, it is a different world today. Labor strikes work in Europe, not here."
Yes, in the absence of a strong social movement, this is the key problem. No movement = no change - and there is no movement. Half of those who voted went for McCain, half for Obama, a tiny minority for progressives. Others have pointed out that in the 1930s FDR was pushed left by an economic crisis combined with a powerful organized labor movement, but that there is little organized labor and - as a result, imo - little class consciousness today.
From this 'classical' Marxist point of view, the problem of organizing a movement is still bound up with conditions of labor. I'd like to think that post-industrial labor unions like SEIU's Justice for Janitors could be a model for organizing other 'atomized' workers - and creating a class-based politics - among disorganized workers who voted for McCain or Obama.
Revealingly, although calls for a movement and organizing are legion on commondreams, there are few concrete approaches beyond, 'We need a movement,' or 'Don't vote Democrat,' or 'Vote Democrat and push left from within.'
See: http://www.houstonjanitors.org/
As for electoral politics, the Working Families party's fusion voting - you can vote Democrat under the Working Families label, thus identifying your vote with a progressive program - seems a step towards establishing a third party as a kind of 'coalition partner,' as in parliamentary systems.
See: http://www.workingfamiliesparty.org/elections/fusion-the-secret-weapon/
.There was never any substance to the words of those who said,"vote for him and then hold him to a progressive position", instead it was simply a ploy to woo independants and Greens to vote Democrat, thus wasting their vote yet again. Once elected there is nothing the electorate as a whole can do but await the four year term to run its course, and reflect, all those four years, on ones loyalties.
Those of us more active will continue to protest, write , email, march where available and work within the community to change opinions about our two party system and its effectiveness for the elite and not for the masses.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
"WORK WITHIN THE COMMUNITY"? E.G.?
ardee November 8th, 2008 11:24 am
"[Activists] will continue to protest, write , email, march where available and work within the community to change opinions about our two party system..."
The two party argument can turn into a dead end among progressives that ignores the problems and possibilities of local organizing:
SEE: "In 'Organizing Urban America,' Heidi Swarts details the strategies, successes, and challenges of two major actors in United States social movements: the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and congregation-based community organizations (CBCOs)....In a repressive time for progressive social movements, she lays out the ways theses organizations have nonetheless mobilized considerable constituencies to confront local, regional, and national political players in the interest of the racially diverse, poor, and working class people involved in these organizations."
from review of "Organizing Urban America: Secular and Faith-based Progressive Movements," By Heidi J. Swarts
http://feministreview.blogspot.com/2008/07/organizing-urban-america-secular-and.html
.Thanks , Ive bookmarked for later perusal....
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
dr wu said: "... my odyssey to keep Obama from turning into a dud"
This is so huge a point. We must realize that Obama will be continually under pressure to consider a myriad of competing and wide ranging interests. If we don't speak clearly and emphatically to our specific interests they will get overshadowed. And that would reflect more poorly upon us then him.
We must continue and increase our efforts.
Does this mean that Obama haters are not going to work for peace because they claim he is a fraud?
I don't care if he was born on Mars... I will push for peace anyway and the rest of you can spew your crap so you don't have to get off your asses.
Putting more troops in Afghanistan to kill newlyweds is peace? Re-read 1984.
Now, wait just a minute there, GR! First of all, you're not getting into the spirit of the (re)emerging Dominant Paradigm: if you can't say something nice about the president-elect, don't say anything.
And the whole point is that Obama is entirely confident that highly skilled and competent warriors like Petraeus will see to it that only the RIGHT newlyweds will be slaughtered from here on out! We're going to SENSIBLY and SMARTLY prosecute this Global War on Terror. And there IS a Global War on Terror, you know!
And once we efficiently and judiciously pulverize the ENEMY newlyweds, and ONLY if we reduce these terrorist-enabling brides and grooms to scorched hamburger, can we ACHIEVE peace!
Dontcha SEE?
Gotcha! Operation Afghanistan Family Planning. What's the over under on the funeral party getting hit as well?
When women and children are slaughtered along with defenseless men, it's a War of Terror. It would be a War on Terror if they could fight back and defend themselves against the bombs being dropped on them.
.Please re-read this effort of yours and think about its lack of substance.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I campaigned for BO in Nevada. Big Deal.
And was insulted for a year by most CD supporters when I would support him in posts. And the Obama-haters were such a majority-and with all their lesser evil ****.
Now instead of 200 posts insulting Obama, their are a few dozen, with mixed thoughts.
Well, I've posted on CD for years and have not forgotten the hatred of those opposing Obama or their ENDLESS PERSONAL INSULTS.
WHERE ARE YOU NOW?
I endured your hatred but warned you cowards not to disappear after November 4th or change your screen-names-but guess what?
The ObamaHaters are going the way of medicine men, palm readers and stockbrokers-scum all.
I'm going nowhere.
No Woman,
No Cry.
Despite your self-righteous diatribe, I certainly have not disappeared.
I expect that you will become quite disillusioned when you figure out that your messiah has sold his soul to the corporations.
I hope I'm wrong about him, but listening to his speeches has shown me that he plans no major changes to the status quo. He is surrounding himself with Clinton administration advisors who were the early backers of the Milton Friedman economic theories that ushered in deregulation as a panacea. We know too well how that bit of brilliance panned out.
While he has given lip service to taking troops out of Iraq, he plans to put them in Afghanistan. He is a constitutional lawyer, but is silent on advocating a roll back of the assaults on the Constitution.
When is he going to throw off his corporate yoke and start some real reforms in this country? How about getting corporate money out of politics, term limits for all federal elected offices? How about meaningful tax reform (not the half-hearted proposals that he has been discussing)?
But you leave your blinders on if you want to. As for me, I will continue to agitate for real change in this country!
Dittos.
Mega-Dittos
Daniel David is that you?
Funny. I've wondered in passing what became of old DD-- I didn't expect him to bail out after the Great Comments Reformation.
And there are a number of commenters that share his thinking, such as it is, and attitude. But not his familiar style.
He must be ecstatic, perhaps convinced that his pet notion that McCain was vulnerable because his wife's fortune came from beer-brewing was reflected in the vote.
That was funny. I had forgotten all about Daniel David, too. There's a chance, though, that by invoking his name, he will soon appear. I invoked the name of Jake Newton, not too long ago, and sure enough, the next day he appeared.
I think you refer to another Obama supporter.
Actually, a decent, articulate person.
Unlike myself.
Here is a shocking revelation for you 'Green,' More than one person supports Obama on CD, in the US, and around the World. That is why he is the new American President.
Do some math.
My one vote did not do it.
I post under one name; Translucent. Accuse me differently, and you are getting personal.
Bye-bye.
.It must be very difficult to go around with your head so far up your rectum, I applaud the way you surmount that great difficulty.
I havent disappeared, though I can certainly understand why folks are reluctant to open dialogue with such as you. Are you really thirteen years old or do you simply have the maturity of one? Are you going to express your satisfaction with the appointment of Rhamm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff, a good neocon for you to relate to...How about the proposed candidates for the other positions in this new administration? Are you right in line with those proposals as well?
Can you not understand that all the insults about which you mention ( with seeming joy??) are reactions to your own lack of breeding, self control and inability to express your own position with any degree of maturity? If you posted as a grown up you might be surprised to find a similar response, but then you'd have to stick to the issues of course, perhaps you cannot.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
The conservative right killed the liberal Kennedys, MLK and the peace movement. With super-rich conservatives still in power, it could happen to Obama.
Conservatives are a mix of the fearful, superstitious, greedy, criminal, reactionary, regressive, violent and easily led. They all hate liberals and would kill every one.
Moving to the conservative left with a bloody revolution could protect Obama, but who wants to trade a right wing dictatorship for a left wing one?
Referendums would remove Obama as a target. Direct democracy could be his greatest and most lasting legacy to the world.
Hi ezeflyer-I've read and dug your posts for a while, but wonder if you mention a 'left wing dictatorship' as though this threat were real.....
Has there ever been such a thing?
Is that not like a living homicide vic?
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
I wonder if tickets will be availible for dubya's burial services.
I'm down.
Would you call Stalin, Pol Pot and Caescescu liberals?
Yeah, I saw Pol Pot at a Dead Show once, we dropped together, discussed rainbows, love and the common needs of men and women on this sweet planet.
Sorry I asked. I won't bother you again.
Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.
Just be aware that we have 300 million differing opinions and the administration can't accommodate all of them.
.Apology for inaction much?
We have much in common, despite your rather shallow assessment of our electorate. All want decent jobs, good and affordable health care, an education for our children, peace and hope for a better life. There are any number of issues upon which to achieve agreement, why then do you offer only that which keeps us apart?
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Actually, we want free healthcare, as a basic human right, like poeple the other democracies enjoy.
"Affordable healthcare" is code language for rejecting single-payer for the Obama plan, where people will be required by law to buy insurance from a big corporation or pay a fine, if you are poor you will get a little bit of help - but only for children - and it will all be run by the same big for-profit corporations that run the system now.
It was already tried under the right-wing Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. It failed.
.Drat, I drank the Kool Aid....
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
skidog
As Aristotle said: "All life is wait and hope."
And after the NIGHTMARE of the last 8 yrs...There now seems to be SOME HOPE.
As the abolisonists(sp?)moved a reluctant Lincoln,and the Industrial Unionists moved FDR and Johnson was pushed into the Civil Rights...Its NOW time for a more PROGRESSIVE USA.
Thanks for the history -- and, consequently, the hope. :)
Skidog,
I concur. We will push Obama and ironically he may be the best President in US history even outclassing FDR. He certainly has FDRs chops. :-)
Well, the fact that Obama named a guy his chief of staff who actually served in the Israeli army, that's not confidence-inspiring, as far as I am concerned.
A lot of America's and the world's foreign policy quagmire can be traced back to the Middle East conflict. Where America has acted as one-sided as one possibly can act. If I were an Arab, I'd be seething, too.
So picking Rahm Emmanual was no good choice. If that's supposed to be a signal, it's the wrong one. I guess the guy is supposed to balance Obama's middle name in the eyes of America, that's the only explanation I can find for this choice.
People let's not start the Obama hater Obama lover nonsense. It's very boring and childish.
I am a progressive green. Obama is a centrist liberal. We will disagree. I plan to leave comments that are critical of Obama, and before you assign motives, please read I Am Barack Obama.
If we have a repeat of the silly name calling, that occurred on commodreams during the elections, I'll stop participating.
One last thing, before Medea gets too excited, she should realize that Rahm is chief of staff - I wouldn't expect any meetings with anyone.
You're a little late. The binary thinkers have already laid claim to truth, with those who don't agree labeled as "haters."
I think it would kill commondreams if it morphed into a strictly partisan effort.
Push him left, Shove him left, WAY LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't usually join this discussion... but now that Obama's actually won here's what I think...
Americans are still living inside the Matrix. 80% of Americans still rely on corporate news for their information. Most are too busy with jobs, family, and following meaningless things like sports, to realize that large corporations control their lives.
To continue with the Matrix analogy, it seems that Agent Smith and the neo-con fascists are now leaving the White House. If Obama takes office, he promised he'll honor Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights, so I'm not worried I'll be put in a Halliburton built prison after Martial Law is declared against Americans, and activists are rounded up and jailed. Obama won't do that, and he won't kill political opponents.
Instead, Obama is now THE ORACLE from the Matrix. Some people's great messiah. He seems to help us, but he's not one of us. He's a part of the machine world. Just another system of control.
But by having Obama there, the people are given some freedom to free the minds of other people living inside the matrix, and eventually cause a revolt. That place is still far away, but at least it's an option under Obama. So let's make alternative media stronger, encourage direct citizen action, and put pressure on Obama. Eventually we can break the Matrix, and have a real government for the people if we work for it.