John Kerry's Statement on the Iraq War; Political Ecology 101
Sarah
by Joe Libertelli
This week Senator John Kerry publicly stated that he would have voted to
authorize the president to declare war against Iraq even if he had known
that Saddam had harbored no weapons of mass destruction! This curious
statement infuriates progressives and others who opposed the war, dismays
about 80% of Democrats who now oppose the war, and surely encourages some to
consider supporting Ralph Nader or the Greens. Worse, who believes such a
strange statement is going to win Kerry votes from Bush? Why couldn't he
have simply said that Bush and his henchmen distorted the facts and that's
why he and so many others voted for the authorization?
As progressive Democrats we are genuinely and deeply outraged. It's tempting
to issue the usual rallying cry to the effect that, "Progressives need to
demand..." and to urge all who will listen to threaten to withhold their
votes if Kerry doesn't change his tune.
But the truth is, merely demanding that John Kerry change his position will
get us almost nowhere. Progressives have been making similar demands for
years. And threatening to support Ralph Nader or the Greens will only
alienate those who, at our founding conference, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
called "future progressives." (See the story at http://www.pdamerica.org/
That's worse than going nowhere, that's going backward - at least if we
harbor any hope of ever reaching a truly progressive voting majority in this
country.
The problem - and its potential solution - are both much bigger than John
Kerry's position on the war. Historically, the Democratic Party has
supported militarism (dare we say 'imperialism?') on a scale similar to the
Republican Party. Demanding that such a leopard change its spots, on the
spot, is a futile strategy.
Hope lies in the fact that politicians and political parties are not
leopards, but political animals which feed on money, media, and votes. All
animals adapt to their environment or die. The Democratic political animal,
while greatly preferable to the Republican species (affirmative action,
reproductive choice, commitment to a modicum of social justice and to a
meaningfully slower rate of environmental destruction to name a few key
distinctions,) has adapted to the corrupt political environment in which it
lives.
The Progressive Democrats of America approach is to acknowledge the true
scope of the problem - that the Democratic Party needs to be transformed and
that the only way to do this is to out-organize the corporate interests that
now create the Party's internal and external political environments. Think
of PDA as a stem cell injection! When, by working together over a period of
years, we transform the Democratic Party from within while changing the
political environment in which it lives, the Party will take the path of
least resistance and adapt. If the people lead, the politicians and parties
will follow. We need a movement to transform the Democratic Party. Nothing
short of this will do.
Joe Libertelli,
PDA Board Member
Jlibe...@udc.edu
http://www.pdamerica.org/
(PDA is planning to both protest and distribute PDA leaflets at the RNC
Convention in NYC later this month! To join the Progressive Democrats
Contingent, contact Charles Lenchner, PDA Coordinator at
c.len...@PDAmerica.org.)
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