Rolling Stone: The Chicken Doves aka Dems sell out anti war movement

[Botany]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18349197/the_chicken_doves

Elected to end the war, Democrats have surrendered to Bush on Iraq and betrayed the peace movement for their own political ends

Rather than use the vast power they had to end the war, Democrats devoted their energy to making sure that "anti-war activism" became synonymous with "electing Democrats." Capitalizing on America's desire to end the war, they hijacked the anti-war movement itself, filling the ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks. Anti-war organizations essentially became a political tool for the Democrats — one operated from inside the Beltway and devoted primarily to targeting Republicans.

[Echo In Light]

1. "America has one political party with two right wings." - Gore Vidal

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Personally, I think politicians are being kept in line

by the knowledge of what happened in 2001 to the Democratic party politicians who wanted to water down the Patriot Act. They got the white powder (anthrax) in the mail. Too bad the FBI has made no headway over the last 7 years or so in determining just who the "terrorists" were who sent those anthrax laced letters to the media and to those politicians who were opposing the Bush/neocon plans.

[tuckessee]

13. Blackmail is the common method used to keep politicians in line. n/t

[mmonk]

3. We know. We're only useful if we can be manipulated,

otherwise we are to be ignored and called "liberal" fanatics.

[xchrom]

4. oh-yoohoo -- nancy!!! i hear this article is recommended reading!

maybe you can do that while you are bust not impeaching or funding the war, etc.

[KG]

5. gee, who didn't see this coming?

well, except maybe the loyalists.

anybody with a working mind knows the dem party just isn't anti-war. never has been, never will be.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

6. Now this is what DU used to be all about!

Thank you for sharing
Speaking truths!

[Benhurst]

7. Yeah, but wouldn't ending the war and going after the war criminals

have distracted us from The Battle of Egos between Clinton and Obama? What would we have done for entertainment? The WWE can stage only so many wrestling matches per week.

[leftchick]

8. Matt Nails it Again

<snip>

But what exactly are these young idealists campaigning for? At its most recent meeting, the group eerily echoed the Reid-Pelosi "squeezed for time" mantra: Retreat from any attempt to end the war and focus on electing Democrats. "There was a lot of agreement that we can draw distinctions between anti-war Democrats and pro-war Republicans," a spokeswoman for Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq announced.

What the Post and the Times failed to note is that much of the anti-war group's leadership hails from a consulting firm called Hildebrand Tewes — whose partners, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, served as staffers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). In addition, these anti-war leaders continue to consult for many of the same U.S. senators whom they need to pressure in order to end the war. This is the kind of conflict of interest that would normally be an embarrassment in the activist community.

Worst of all is the case of Woodhouse, who came to Hildebrand Tewes after years of working as the chief mouthpiece for the DSCC, where he campaigned actively to re-elect Democratic senators who supported the Iraq War in the first place. Anyone bothering to look — and clearly the Post and the Times did not before penning their ardent bios of Woodhouse — would have found the youthful idealist bragging to newspapers before the Iraq invasion about the pro-war credentials of North Carolina candidate Erskine Bowles. "No one has been stronger in this race in supporting President Bush in the War on Terror and his efforts to effect a regime change in Iraq," boasted the future "anti-war" activist Woodhouse.

With guys like this in charge of the anti-war movement, much of what has passed for peace activism in the past year was little more than a thinly veiled scheme to use popular discontent over the war to unseat vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2008. David Sirota, a former congressional staffer whose new book, The Uprising, excoriates the Democrats for their failure to end the war, expresses disgust at the strategy of targeting only Republicans. "The whole idea is based on this insane fiction that there is no such thing as a pro-war Democrat," he says. "Their strategy allows Democrats to take credit for being against the war without doing anything to stop it. It's crazy."

[Twist_U_Up]

9. Heres the reason.

[MadHound]

10. But, but, but, there is a difference between the two parties, there really is!

Yup, the anti-war movement is supposed to fall in line and vote for the Dems because they will do. . . jack and/or shit about the war once they're in office.

And party loyalists hotly deny that there is little difference between the Dems and the 'Pugs, even as that difference becomes slimmer on a daily basis.

Wake up people, if you want real change in this country, it isn't going to come from a party that is as equally corporately compromised as the other.

[Solon]

11. There is a difference between the two parties...

The Republican party will fuck you from behind, the Democratic party will give you the "benefit" of a reach around.

[DaDooRonRon]

15. And then tell you they are sorry

and if you elect even more of them it won't hurt so bad next time.

[Solon]

16. Heh, I was told that line in 1996, stopped believing it after 2006...

I was a slow learner between the ages of 18 and 28.

[DaDooRonRon]

18. As long as you finally catch on, it's all good

:)

[Yael]

12. Once again, Matt nails it. Loved this line:

The really tragic thing about the Democratic surrender on Iraq is that it's now all but guaranteed that the war will be off the table during the presidential campaign. Once again — it happened in 2002, 2004 and 2006 — the Democrats have essentially decided to rely on the voters to give them credit for being anti-war, despite the fact that, for all the noise they've made to the contrary, in the end they've done nothing but vote for war and cough up every dime they've been asked to give, every step of the way.

Truer words have not been spoken.

[DaDooRonRon]

14. THIS is what it is about

Who gives a flying fuck about who leads who in delegates and who gave what "inspiring" speech in front of a fawning audience??

What you will get with either of the two is right here:


"And if we don't pay attention to this sorry tale now, while there's still time to change our minds about whom to nominate, we might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years. With no one but ourselves to blame."

How anyone can not see this is beyond me.

[ReadTomPaine]

17. I'm as disappointed as anyone, but we are moving in the right direction

Every journey starts with a first step. Even though the antiwar movement was co-oped for election purposes, we are putting people into power who are more sympathetic to progressive causes and the movement itself is getting plenty of exposure from the very establishment that rejected it just a few years before. Considering the strength and ruthlessness of the opposition, that's real progress - recall where we all were in '02 & '03.

We didn't get into this situation overnight and it's going to take several election cycles to reverse the damage and drag our representatives, kicking and screaming, back onto a progressive path. This election isn't end game - it's step one. Once the GOP is out of power, the next step is pushing our own party farther to the left but that's a fight for another day. Fortunately, that day is coming sooner than they think.

Machine politicians and corporatists are going to resist this every step of the way, but the tide has turned and a cultural movement has already begun. Don't give up and don't lose heart. Every day that you fight is a day that you win. Every article like this, every newly elected Democrat, every voice that yells 'Impeach!' at a political rally, every new progressive who posts here to have their voice heard for the first time, is another step towards our goal.

We'll get there. Just stay strong and never surrender.

[followthemoney]

20. Pure historicist fantasy!

The 'inevitability of progress' bullshit!

Patience while the next million die!

I'm not buying what you are selling.

[ReadTomPaine]

22. There isn't enough traction right now for a popular revolt.

Actions like general strikes and mass protests aren't feasible right now - the levels of political awareness and discontent required for something like that to happen have only just begun to coalesce. I would love to see a general strike, and if you take a moment to search my name in the archives you'll find I'm not the timid, wait and see, type.

The GOP's political machine is generational. Bush didn't appear from nowhere - he's both literally and figuratively the product of a lifetime's work. The tools we have to effect change aren't as great as the tools they have to destroy us - but take a look at who's poised to take back the Executive branch and sweep both the House and the Senate, nevertheless? From there, other goals become obtainable - and perhaps even the sea changes we both seek. But it's not going to happen this election. Stronger representatives have to step forward. Movements need to grow. Minds need to be changed.

The damage that's been done hasn't only been to the nation, but also to the Democratic party itself. Yet, even with this imperfect tool, victories have been won. Significant ones. There is no way to stop this other than one step at a time at this point. But harder we push, the bigger each step gets. The greater our momentum, the greater the number of people who will make their own voices heard. That's how it works. That's how they did it.

Look - I want my decade back also. I want my rights. I want my future. But the people who took them from us have every advantage. So you have to fight tough, you have to fight smart and you can't give up. The only other option is leaving before things get worse. A grim choice, but I don't begrudge anyone who avails themselves of it.

[vickitulsa]

23. I want so much to believe you are right.

You make a lot of sense in what you say, I can't deny that!

I stumbled across DU a couple of years ago and let the hopefulness and optimism here catch me up and negate (for awhile) a lot of my cynicism. I don't like being cynical. It doesn't feel good at all, and I have tended all my life to be an optimistic person, even in the face of grave disappointments and losses.

But the steadily increasing influence of money in our political process and governance pretty much dooms any effort to wrest the power away from those who already have most of it, it seems to me. This tragic situation in a country I once loved so much and could even be proud of in some respects now discourages me to the point I have to grimly fight off the anger and depression I feel when I ponder these things.

I'm too old and decrepit by now to DO much to keep pushing against the tide, but I said "I want so much to believe you are right" because I'd like to at least see some significant and promising progress before I die.

Thanks, at least, RTP, for not giving up and for trying to encourage others. As long as someone like you can believe, I guess I can stave off the utter despair for a while longer. :)

[wintersoulja]

25. the only thing stopping those actions

is the media, or more accurately, people who watch TV.

[OneBlueSky]

19. bottom line . . . the corporatocracy -- including Democrats -- do NOT want to end the war . . .

which means that no matter who is elected, we are in Iraq to stay . . . Obama won't end it, Hillary won't end it, McCain certainly won't end it and, most importantly of all, the Democratic Congress won't end it . . . oh, they'll make noises and pretend to be searching their souls, but in the end the U.S. presence in Iraq is a permanent one . . .

[blues90]

21. you've got that right

[margotb822]

24. Simplified

To think that it is all about the funding simplifies the issue. If Congress cuts military funding, many other programs will suffer (including VA), but the war will not quit. I hate to think of those soldiers out there, doing Bush's dirty work, without adequate equipment, and I believe that is how the congressional Dems feel as well. The was Bush has started is not as easy to end as it was to begin. I believe that America is responsible for toppling Iraq's government and that we should be responsible for restoring it to working order. Do I believe that it is a military task? no. But, America cannot just walk away. I would like to put Bush and Co on the ground to see if they have any better ideas, but I'm not sure they have functioning cortexes.

[Junkdrawer]

26. K&R

[countryjake]

27. With both of our candidates saying we must "find common ground"...

instead of honestly standing the ground for most of their constituents, which would mean immediate withdrawal and ending the occupations, we are practically guaranteed that both Iraq and Afghanistan will be utter bloody battlegrounds for many years to come, no matter who wins the nomination for our party.

I'm so sick of this "reach across the aisle" policy that is thrown in the faces of anyone who stands up to speak of the illegality of our country's military operations or being told that the citizens of our nation who long for peace are somehow irrational and hold "radical ideals".

The theory of compromise with warmongers is nothing short of complicity and when those seeking our support for winning a national office respond to our genuine concerns about the current administration's "long war" with such code words as the "security threat" of a terrorist enemy or our "national interests" in the Middle East, we can only assume they mean that with them at the helm of our country, it will continue to be just as aggressive militarily as it has under rethug rule.