Poles apart

[Dover]

Poles apart

Matthew Wells joins anti-war protesters outside Hillary Clinton's office and finds US opinion on Iraq increasingly polarised

Thursday May 6, 2004

....The organisers rallied outside the offices of the state's two Democratic party senators, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer. "She supported the war effort right from the get-go," said UPJ's national organiser, Leslie Kagan. "Most recently, she's supporting the idea of more troops going in, and her position goes against what most New Yorkers want."

In fact, almost the entire Democratic elite - including New York's pair of senators and the party's presidential candidate, John Kerry - have supported the Bush administration in Congress throughout the Iraq conflagration. Voting against - or even abstaining - is seen as political suicide in election year.

"It's outrageous that the so-called opposition party has provided so little opposition. We're concerned that despite slight emphases, the Kerry agenda is basically the same as Bush: a foreign policy based on what's best for big American corporations," Kagan said.

Disillusionment with both main parties was widespread throughout the crowd on the sidewalk, in which a priest rubbed shoulders with the local leader of Veterans for Peace. Together they form a largely middle-class and middle-aged group of survivors from the earlier and angrier movement that helped derail the war in Vietnam. They brought a cardboard coffin with them, strewn with rather sorry-looking flowers. They cast white cards bearing the names Iraqis and Americans who had died since the invasion began into the makeshift casket one by one, reading the names out loud as they did so.




http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1210800,00.html