Never Again? Only if We Make the Most of Our Political Diversity.

by Ben Manski 

As the Pentagon shifts from the brutal violence of invasion to the perilous mire of occupation, many in the peace movement are taking stock. Activists are asking, "What worked?" One response: Building an independent and aggressive peace movement. "What didn't?" Reliance upon the Democratic Party leadership. "What should we do next?" Electorally speaking, we must learn to build the peace vote across all party and social lines.

Let's begin with reliance upon the Congressional Democrats. What do they say for themselves?

"Never again will the Democrats have to answer to the charge, 'We didn't know what you stood for or what you were willing to fight for.' " So spoke House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA), sometimes characterized as an anti-war Democrat, on March 13th, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. One week later, she joined all but 38 members of her party in voting in favor of HR104, a resolution expressing support for the invasion of Iraq.

That Pelosi should speak one way one week, and vote another the next, is unfortunately unsurprising. Her track record is not stellar. On September 14th, 2001, she voted with all but one member of her party to authorize the invasion of Afghanistan. On October 25th, 2001, Pelosi voted to enact the treacherous PATRIOT Act. In each of these votes, the vast majority of congressional Democrats joined Pelosi.

Over a year later, as Pelosi was promising "never again," she acknowledged the failures of her party, admitting that, "If the Democrats had spoken out more clearly in a unified vote five months ago in opposition to the resolution, if the people had gone on to the streets five months ago in these numbers in our country and throughout the world, I think we might have been in a different place today. Here Pelosi was only half right. On April 20th, 2002, a year ago, over 100,000 supporters of peace marched in the streets of Washington D.C. against the invasion of Afghanistan. The people came out, stood, and were counted. The Democratic Party leadership did not.

Indeed, this is nothing new. Mass movements of people demanding social progress have regularly swelled the streets of American cities with protest, only to be greeted with Democratic apologies, and promises to do better next time. Promises of "never again."

"Never, 'never again' shall we see what we have seen", promised Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, in accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968, half a decade into Vietnam. It was a promise that could not be kept.

When Bill Clinton first campaigned for President in 1992, he railed against Wall Street, swearing that, "'Never again' should Washington reward those who speculate in paper, instead of those who put people first." Months later Clinton installed a cabinet filled with Wall Street speculators; the result was NAFTA, prompting United Steelworkers of America President George Becker to remark that, "We expect abuse from the right-wing zealots in Congress. It's our would-be friends whose betrayals are killing us."

Perhaps the greatest betrayal of the 1990s, the Clinton welfare legislation, led the late liberal leader, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once a member of the Nixon administration, to warn that the Democratic  Party would, "'never again' be able to speak with any credibility to the central social issue of our age. We will have fashioned our own coffin. There will be no flowers."

It must be said that liberal Democrats know this recent history better than most. Fighting a rearguard action from within the Democratic Party, they have suffered many painful defeats. The sixty-year liberal tradition championed by Moynihan, among others, recorded some significant social reforms in the pages of American history. But it is no slap at those memories to say that the Democratic Party, as a party, failed the peace movement in the past, is failing it today, and will continue to fail in the future.

To this, some respond, where have the Greens done better? Did not the Greens cost Gore the 2000 election, and isn't it true that Gore would not have invaded Iraq? Given that the system is stacked in favor of the established parties, isn't the cause of the Greens unhopeful, to say the least? And what about the fact that most Americans don't even know that the Green Party exists?

Fair questions. To those, some reply, didn't the Supreme Court appoint Bush, and wasn't it outrageous that Gore's campaign focused on hanging chads rather than disenfranchised African American voters? Didn't Gore urge the invasion of Iraq when he was Vice President? Aren't the Democratic primaries owned and operated by the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council and their corporate funders, and aren't Lieberman, Kerry, Graham, Edwards, or Gephardt the likely nominees? Haven't three decades of attempts by liberals to secure the Democratic Party all ended in failure, and did not liberals similarly fail to "reclaim the Republican Party" three decades earlier?

Also fair questions, and quite a spiraling debate. It's a debate in which the peace movement could choose to lose itself, or on which the movement could choose to take a more balanced view that leaves doors open. We need a more balanced approach. Here's why:

U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has had one primary objective: To consolidate the victory over the U.S.S.R. in the form of a new world order dominated by corporations based in the United States. This policy was initiated by the elder Bush in his invasions of Panama and Iraq, and stepped up under Clinton in his interventions in Somalia, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Columbia, and in his bombings of Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan. To say that the attacks of September 11th added fuel to the expansionist fire is an understatement. Today, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers are engaged in the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the former Yugoslavia, as well as in civil wars in the Philippines and Columbia.

In sum, we are in the midst, not the beginning, of a protracted war of corporate colonialism, waged on many fronts. Long after the ruins of Baghdad buildings and markets have ceased smoldering, tens of thousands of Americans in uniform will still be serving in active duty, allocated to the maintenance of the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and whichever other countries the Pentagon invades next. We're in this for the long haul. If the anti-war movement is to eventually reverse the Pentagon's post-Cold War  triumphalist march, we will need to make appropriate use of every effective tool available to us, and we will need to develop a long-term comprehensive strategy for success.

As a global political party and social movement rooted in common values of non-violence, grassroots democracy, ecology, and social justice, the Green Party is a committed partner in the movement for world peace. Green elected officials in the United States were among the first to introduce anti-war resolutions at the local level, sponsoring "Cities for Peace" style resolutions on 25 city, county, school, and state elective bodies. Greens across the world, in North America, South America, Asia, Australasia, Europe, and Africa, were among the first to swell the streets of our cities in protest against the invasion of Iraq, as well as against the invasions of Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. Greens serving in high office in Germany, Finland, Belgium, and other countries worked effectively to keep their governments, and the European Union, opposed to the invasion of Iraq. The Green Party has made some important contributions to the anti-war movement; we will never stop contributing our utmost.

As to the Democrats. Not every Democrat in Congress is a Pelosi, Kerry, Edwards, or for that matter, Lieberman. There are some few Democrats with names like Kucinich, Lee, Feingold, and Conyers, among others. They voted against the leadership of their party, and voted for peace and civil rights. They spoke at rallies and they spoke on the floor of Congress. They provided support and information to organizers in the anti-war movement, and criticized police violence directed against us. These individuals, and the rank-and-file Democrats who support them, deserve our thanks.

Each part of the peace movement has its role to play, the electoral and the anarchist, the Greens, Democrats, Socialists, and independents, the lobbyists and the direct actionists, the vets and the first-timers, the cities and the small towns. Out of the Cold War arose a new global war of consolidation. That war continues, and we will need each other's strengths.

Next year, it is no stretch to predict that over 100 Greens will run for Congress. Every last one of them will be anti-war candidates through and through; some of them may win. Greens also are likely to run candidates for President and Vice President, and whether they're Ralph Nader, former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, Medea Benjamin, David Cobb, Michael Moore, or another, these will be peace candidates too. Finally, Greens will continue to run the majority of our races at the local level, adding new activists to the ranks of the 178 Greens currently serving in state and local offices. Against the establishment parties, the Green Party supports a massive investment in conversion from fossil and nuclear fuels to renewable energy. We support a total reform of American elections, including full public financing and Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). We call for the abolition of corporate personhood, and for the expansion of democracy to the workplace. Green candidates and officials champion these positions in an arena which otherwise is silent of real debate.

The peace movement is wide enough for a Sharpton or a Kucinich to run for President in the Democratic primaries, and for Greens to demand their inclusion in the debates, and to wish them well. The movement is wide enough for Greens to run candidates at all levels, and to continue our work to build the most successful independent progressive party in three quarters of a century. It is wide enough for those who don't choose to work electorally to continue to struggle using the many other tools in the movement's toolbox. These strains of the movement are not competitive. They are strains of a movement that will eventually turn our  society towards non-violence, grassroots democracy, ecology, and social justice. May the words "never again" be never again spoken. May we all succeed.

Ben Manski is a Co-Chair of the Green Party of the United States.

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