ANTI-WAR TIDE WILL RETURN

I have been pleased to see just how much anti-war activity there has been across the U.S. during the past week or so.  These events have been organized by a myriad of organizations including Veterans for Peace, CodePink, Keep Space for Peace Week, UNAC, and hundreds of local groups.

Usually, just weeks before a national election, many activists get distracted by the public relations show.  But this time around I see alot less grassroots energy going into campaigns of weak-kneed Democrats.  Instead the anti-war organizing, while not large, has been steady and unrelenting in its criticism of both war parties.

Obama's poor debate showing appears to have put the presidential race into a statistical deadlock.  That means some wavering Dems will return home and vote for the Obamanator.  If Romney pulls out a victory we'll likely see a surge of loyal Dems (party first types) return to the peace movement and begin lashing Romney for using drones (something they would not criticize Obama for doing) and other such transgressions.

We saw this phenomenon during the presidency of Bill Clinton.  Dems abandoned the peace movement after he was elected but we still limped along protesting Clinton's harsh sanctions of Iraq that ultimately led to the death of 500,000 children.  When asked about this on the CBS-TV show 60 Minutes (5/12/96), Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said without a flinch, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."

Loyal Dems did not take Albright to task for being a war monger the way they would just a few years later when George W. Bush and his crew of pirates came to power.

It's something we talked about while on my recent trip to Philadelphia and Baltimore.  The ranks of the peaceniks across the nation have certainly be thinned out during the Obama years but our determination to end these wars remains steady.  Like the ocean tides that come in and go out - the peace movement will again swell at some point.  Everything we do on a daily basis to keep the peaceful embers alive is more important than ever.