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Published on Thursday, October 22, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
NoEscalation.org: Can the Peace Movement Reach President Obama?
If there were ever a time when the peace movement should be able to
have an impact on U.S. foreign policy, that time should be now. If
there were ever a time for extraordinary effort to achieve such an
impact, that time is now.
The war in Afghanistan is in its ninth year. McChrystal's proposal could continue it for another ten years, at a likely cost of a trillion dollars, and many more lives of U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians. The contradiction between domestic needs and endless war was never more apparent. Congress fights over whether we can "afford" to provide every American with quality health care, but every health care reform proposal on the table will likely cost less than McChrystal's endless war. A recent CNN poll says 6 in 10 Americans oppose sending more troops.
Democratic leaders in Congress are deeply skeptical: as far back as June, Rep. Murtha and Rep. Obey voted for Rep. McGovern's amendment demanding an exit strategy, and that was before the Afghan election fiasco, when international forces failed at their key objective of providing security, and before McChrystal demanded a 60% increase in U.S. forces, on top of the 50% increase approved earlier this year. Our troops are "exhausted," Murtha says.
Top Administration officials share the skepticism. Vice-President Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, and Afghan scholar Barnett Rubin, an advisor to Ambassador Holbrooke, have all been arguing against a troop increase: the political people on the grounds that the American people and Congress won't support it; Biden on the grounds that it would be a diversion from Pakistan; Rubin on the grounds that it would be counterproductive to reconciliation in Afghanistan.
Elite opinion is closely divided. This is a jump ball. It could go either way. And a decision by Nobel Laureate Obama to send 40,000 more U.S. troops is likely to severely constrain U.S. policy, abroad and at home, for many years.
Such a time calls for extraordinary efforts to mobilize public opinion to move policy.
National peace advocacy organizations, including Peace Action, Just Foreign Policy, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, and Voters for Peace, are launching such an extraordinary effort. At the joint website noescalation.org, we're posting the phone numbers of every Congressional office, and what is known so far about where they stand on the proposal to send 40,000 more U.S. troops. We're asking Americans to call Congressional offices and search the media for information on where each Member of Congress stands. And we're asking for that information to be reported back to the website noescalation.org.
The more Members of Congress take a clear stand against military escalation, the more likely President Obama is to reject McChrystal's request. Some Members of Congress are saying, "we're waiting to see what the President decides." But that nonsense is an obvious dodge. The time to affect the President's decision is obviously before he makes it, not afterwards. Of course some Members of Congress are going to avoid taking a position if they can. Our job is to smoke them out.
Call now. The Norwegians are counting on you.
The war in Afghanistan is in its ninth year. McChrystal's proposal could continue it for another ten years, at a likely cost of a trillion dollars, and many more lives of U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians. The contradiction between domestic needs and endless war was never more apparent. Congress fights over whether we can "afford" to provide every American with quality health care, but every health care reform proposal on the table will likely cost less than McChrystal's endless war. A recent CNN poll says 6 in 10 Americans oppose sending more troops.
Democratic leaders in Congress are deeply skeptical: as far back as June, Rep. Murtha and Rep. Obey voted for Rep. McGovern's amendment demanding an exit strategy, and that was before the Afghan election fiasco, when international forces failed at their key objective of providing security, and before McChrystal demanded a 60% increase in U.S. forces, on top of the 50% increase approved earlier this year. Our troops are "exhausted," Murtha says.
Top Administration officials share the skepticism. Vice-President Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, and Afghan scholar Barnett Rubin, an advisor to Ambassador Holbrooke, have all been arguing against a troop increase: the political people on the grounds that the American people and Congress won't support it; Biden on the grounds that it would be a diversion from Pakistan; Rubin on the grounds that it would be counterproductive to reconciliation in Afghanistan.
Elite opinion is closely divided. This is a jump ball. It could go either way. And a decision by Nobel Laureate Obama to send 40,000 more U.S. troops is likely to severely constrain U.S. policy, abroad and at home, for many years.
Such a time calls for extraordinary efforts to mobilize public opinion to move policy.
National peace advocacy organizations, including Peace Action, Just Foreign Policy, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, and Voters for Peace, are launching such an extraordinary effort. At the joint website noescalation.org, we're posting the phone numbers of every Congressional office, and what is known so far about where they stand on the proposal to send 40,000 more U.S. troops. We're asking Americans to call Congressional offices and search the media for information on where each Member of Congress stands. And we're asking for that information to be reported back to the website noescalation.org.
The more Members of Congress take a clear stand against military escalation, the more likely President Obama is to reject McChrystal's request. Some Members of Congress are saying, "we're waiting to see what the President decides." But that nonsense is an obvious dodge. The time to affect the President's decision is obviously before he makes it, not afterwards. Of course some Members of Congress are going to avoid taking a position if they can. Our job is to smoke them out.
Call now. The Norwegians are counting on you.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllNaiman sez: "Congress fights over whether we can "afford" to provide every American with quality health care ... "
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Actually, CONgress agonizes over whether its collective campaign coffers can "afford" to snub its donors in both the MIC and the insurance/pharma industries. It's going to take a lot of these calls to offset that largesse.
Sure, open a new website, that'll show 'em we're serious. They'll be home for Christmas.
Why don't any of the authors here ever tell us to organize, to actually create, activate, and constantly expand institutions to the point where we'll have durable influence at consistently competitive levels with warmongers, and then direct us towards instructions on how effective organizations do that?
I belong to an organization that's nation wide, membership-driven, self-replacing over time, consistently completes its mission despite having little money and being staffed overwhelmingly by volunteers (most of whom aren't giant intellects or charismatic messiahs, and they don't need to be), and has tremendous political clout. It's my local volunteer fire department. There's another organization with the same credentials. It's called AA. There's another, much larger than the other two, called conservative Christianity. And many more. They all operate the exact same way.
Do you want to have a peace movement? If so, you can get started at any time, right in your own neighborhood. The experts aren't going to help you. This is DIY, and it's easy. Check www.commonplans.blogspot.com for archived tips from influential grassroots groups. Feel free to use the contact information.
And again, like a broken record, you need to use your real name. Fear is what the other side sells. We don't need it, we can't afford it, and we shouldn't buy it. This work takes guts. If you show yours, others will find theirs, too, because they'll see they're not alone and that they stand among the strong.
Steve
There is a peace movement of a sort, including the organizations mentioned in the piece. We can always try to start something new. It's a classic Left pathology - endless splinter groups that pop up like weeds and die just as quickly. Joining the existing groups makes more sense strategically. BUT! But - what are they getting done? But what is anybody getting done? What can be done? Legislators tune us out and spout brainless evasions when asked about the wars. The Obama Regime has been publicly committed to the war posture of the Empire in all things at all times, except, as HRC pointed out, in one speech in Illinois in 2002. The domestic security apparatus has infiltrated and spied on us. They have greeted our demonstrations with repressive measures, putting a cop on the street in full SWAT gear for each demonstrator at a cost of untold millions of taxpayer dollars (made available through the Homeland Security Dept) and beating, tasing, gassing and arresting hundreds. The media ignores or ridicules us, our "representatives" angrily and contemptuously dismiss us as "unrealistic". Our neighbors look up from Fox News only long enough to consider calling the FBI on us if we so much as post an "Obama/Biden" sign on the front yard.
Whatever America is now, it is not the country I was born and grew up in. It's a hermetically sealed bubble more impervious to facts, information and public influence than the USSR in the depths of Stalinism. How do you oppose something like this?
"Can the Peace Movement Reach President Obama?"
Only if they can give him more money than the War Movement.
You must be wrong! You mean the man of peace is really for war?
dbl
I think the man of peace is for re-election in a stupid country.
The White House, now known as Barracks Obama, will not be taking its foot off the Middle East War gas pedal. One of Obama's objectives, beside being reelected, is to wake up tomorrow morning to hear people calling him "Mr. President". He does not want to find himself in the express elevator to Hell, looking at the headline in the New York Times which reads: "President Obama Dies Suddenly of Mysterious Disease".
This is a serious question. Are any of you organizing in support of a peace movement? Literally organizing? Do not answer yes if your areas of attention are the following:
Blogging
Canvassing for major party candidates
Donating money to major party candidates
Reading great articles and forwarding them to address books and listserves
Posting comments on message boards
Standing at your weekly vigil
Beeping your horn and flashing the peace sign at people standing at their weekly vigil
Responding to email action alerts
Forwarding email action alerts
Having thousands of "friends" on a peace-oriented Facebook page and posting links to Keith Olbermann there
Going to Michael Moore movies
Anything involving the use of Iphone/Blackberry thingies, esp. downloading "Give Peace A Chance" for your ringtone
Responding to MoveOn surveys
Building another website
Answer yes for these:
Reserving a meeting place
Handing out leaflets announcing the meeting
Making phone calls and yes, email and social networking announcing the meeting (not forwarding videos or cool leftie articles)
Holding a meeting with live people
Lobbying your college for a peace studies major
Taking over any facility at your college engaged in anything directly or tangentially related to military industrial complex until college agrees to Peace Studies major
Direct action, esp. if of obstructive nature
Making a sacrifice of some possible use of time or money you actually value (not TV or Nintendo) to make time for organizing
Flat-out withholding romantic contact from anyone who supports war, even if you haven't gotten any in a long time, and even if he/she is really hot (in fact, esp. if he/she is really hot) and telling them the reason
Starting a ride-share pool only for people who are anti-war
Using your real name and location in all activities, including internet posts
Conducting public information forums and technical trainings related to organizing activities and direct actions
Studying successful organizations, discussing common themes with other organizers, and incorporating them into your work
Talking about peace in places where that's not considered acceptable, like weddings, lines at the movies, alumni reunions, sports arenas, esp. NASCAR.
Taking real risks and doing heroic things, so right-wingers can't keep hogging all that turf (choose Fire Department over Ambulance Squad, for example) and don't keep your mouth shut when they're all acting like jerks
Stuff like that.
We're not organizing until we remember what organizing is. Pro-war forces and all reactionary lobbies are well organized. They never stop organizing. They generate mountains of relevant data so they can choose best practices. They hold regular conventions from the local to the state to the national levels. All kinds of things we never, ever do, even though they always succeed and we always fail.
Just do it. Start it yourself. www.commonplans.blogspot.com
By all means we should do what we can for the peace movement. But chance of current peace movement influencing Obama’s decision is very small. Obama is a politician: He knows what put him in the office. Small money will not re-elect him, big money will. Since peace movement lacks money the war movement has as a previous poster commented, only other way to reach Obama is through a series of mass demonstrations similar to that of Vietnam War peace movement or Civil Rights movement. We do not have a catalyst for such movement for this Afghanistan/Pakistan war. We do not have universal conscription; we do not have a marginalized large minority. We have a marginalized poor. But in the county where money is God, it is unlikely that the plight of the poor will act as the catalyst for a mass movement for peace.
If there were such a thing as a peace movement, it would take only seconds for us to arrive at catalysts we can sell. We need our generation's catalysts, not those from the 1960's. And we have it. The economy is in tatters, people are becoming homeless by the millions, and the federal treasury is too bankrupt to rectify anything because of the wars and our inability to extricate ourselves. This is exactly how the Soviet Union collapsed, and in the same country, too.
If you're still looking for a wake-up call Americans can respond to, we're living in it right now. THe problem is we don't have a peace movement to galvanize the public around that wake-up call.
Is anyone here organizing?
If Obama really had a heart, if he really is as good as people seem to think, wouldn't he turn down the big campaign money and begin another campaign for a better America? Talking straight to the American people? Wouldn't he say enough of empire and "Up with the American people?" And why did he receive so much campaign money in the first place? Much of it coming from the defense industry! You think they are so dumb they would support Obama if they had any inkling that he was a closet pacifist? If he would pull the rug out from under them? I'm sure you're a good person, just guileless.
Hugo Chavez is under attack by Venezuelan oligarchs, all the time. Yet Obama says he sponsors terrorism. Who sponsors terrorism? It's Obama! not Chavez.
Noam Chomsky says Obama is a blank slate, no real ideas of his own. People write on the blank slate anything they want. He wants to be president and will go along with the killing in order to stay there.
Grow up.
Serious protests? wouldn't Obama bomb us just like he bombs innocents in Pakistan and Afghanistan? You think he'd treat us differently?
My question is how do people have such blatant double standards and fail to see it.
I've recently bailed out of the peace movement in terminal frustration because I can't see it having any real effect. The only thing I can see that would have an effect is if enough of us refused to vote for Republicans or Democrats in 2010, and instead voted for third party or independent peace candidates.
By the way, Code Pink is now useless. Medea Benjamin has been advocating leaving U.S. troops in Afghanistan to protect the ladies from the Taliban. Womens lib by the U.S. in a foreign country at the point of a gun. She needs a brain transplant.
Lynn Porter
Please bail yourself back in. A national-scale movement doesn't just jump out of Cindy Sheehan's campsite on the side of the road. In our instant-gratification lives, where we can only communicate in 140 characters or less, that's what even the best-intentioned people hope for, but it doesn't work that way.
Code Pink was one of those well-intentioned, wrong-headed efforts. A couple of medium-profile progressives thought if they started a new website and wore catchy outfits and got themselves news coverage by forcing high-profile arrests, the build-up effort could just be leaped over. But people only stick with something when they have a stake in it, which means they have to have done the work themselves. In addition, the pink pajamas was a real intrusion on real organizing being done in the field, because the cameras very predictably went to the countercultural imagery instead of to messages of resistance that would have portrayed anti-war activism as something ordinary people could identify with. Lastly, these things always lose steam when a Democrat gets elected, and no matter how many times we see the results of that, we all keep doing it. Code Pink and Global Exchange live on donations. Donations come from Democrats. If you go after Democrats, your funding dries up, and your organization, and all the good things you think it could still do, dries up, too. So even the big shots don't take on Democrats.
We don't need a messiah. Even if we did, he or she only arrives when the people are ready. Movements are do-it-yourself. All these website creators are professionals. They get a paycheck. Don't bail out just because Medea Benjamin's concerned about her ledgers. Start your own neighborhood-scaled thing and build it. If others do the same, you'll eventually meet up and start establishing the linkages that will make nationwide growth possible.
Please look at www.commonplans.blogspot.com and www.eisenhowerproject.org
Lynn I have to agree with you as I voted third party and was not conned by O BOMB A, but what is needed, from my perspective, is some kind of third party coalition that can be embraced by a majority of Democrats,Republicans, Greens, and people like me who are independents. Maybe in 2012 a Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul third party ticket or a Ralph Nader, Jesse Ventura ticket or something similar. That seems to be the only hope left.
in a word -- "no." Most of the Bush years anti-war movement has sold out to Obama. That was the goal of probably 75% of the anti-war movement of the Bush years, was JUST to get the Democrats back in power and they did. That is why the anti-war movement was mocked by the right. They KNEW it was a farce. The lack of anti-war action under Obama is the proof.