Democrats Continue to Fund Iraq War

Despite huge opposition, the Democratic Congress has accomplished some good things in its first term in control. It raised the minimum wage for the first time in a decade, raised automotive fuel efficiency standards for the first time since 1975, and, despite having many key provisions stripped so that the president would sign it, created an energy law that BEGINS to address global warming. Though falling far short of what is needed, Congress did enact new ethics standards and attempted to limit the role of lobbyists.

These are all important accomplishments. But there is no sugarcoating the fact that the Democratic leadership has failed to do the one thing the voters in '06 put them in charge to do: End the Iraq War. Indeed, by continuing to blink in showdowns with the president and give more funding without firm timelines for withdrawal, the Democrats have now bought into Bush's war and enabled it to continue indefinitely. Why can't they simply allow Bush to veto spending bills with timelines and then let the lack of funds force the end of the war. Past congresses have defunded wars before when it was the only way to force recalcitrant Executive Branch's to end them. But today's Democrats are still afraid of the "they don't support the troops" label.

They have also failed to reverse the disastrous Military Commissions Act with its removal of
Habeas Corpus from detainees at the Gitmo Gulag. They have not closed that gulag down, nor ended torture--and, if not for the courage of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the Democratic leadership would have handed Bush everything he wanted to continue spying on innocent Americans--with immunity for collaborating communications corporations. They may yet force such a craven act through the Senate in January if citizens do not support Dodd in stopping them again.

It is abundantly clear that to effect fundamental change in this country, we must do more than elect Democrats. We need to elect progressive, committed politicians, it is true. But we must also have an active social movement of engaged citizens. Lyndon Baines Johnson became the president who signed the most important civil rights legislation in 20th C. U.S. history after pressure (positive and negative) from the nonviolent freedom movement. The rightwing Richard Nixon signed into law the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and other crucial environmental legislation because of a strong enironmental movement. Robert F. Kennedy moved and evolved from a Cold War fan of McCarthy, indifferent to civil rights and known mostly for his prosecutions of the Mafia, into a champion of the poor, of civil and human rights (at home and in South Africa), and an opponent of endless war because of a vital, engaged, U.S. citizenry that was organized and using grassroots energy to change the nation.

Change comes in this nation (and elsewhere) when we have an "insider and outsider" strategy: We work to elect strong, dynamic, progressives within the system and we organize outside the system to support those reformers--and to hold them and others accountable. Grassroots power without any insider support has a very hard time making progress--or even to keep from losing ground. But electing good insiders without grassroots support doesn't work either--they can't successfully take on the special interests and the vested powers (or keep from being seduced) without organized people power.

In 1968, with the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (who was the most important leader of the nonviolent black freedom movement and was becoming a major leader in the anti-war movement, too) and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-MA) on the eve of his movement to win the Democratic nomination and the White House, the movements for progressive change in America came to a halt. Since then we have been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, as Jim Wallis and others have noticed. In 2008, we can begin to undo this and move forward again for human rights, for peacemaking, for the environment, for economic justice--for a better world for our children and grandchildren. That will take both electoral politics--working hard to elect committed change agents with progressive platforms--and organized grassroots social movements for change, too. It's not "top-down" change OR "bottom-up" change strategies that we need, but BOTH.

In 2008, we must declare that the 40 years of wilderness wanderings ushered in by the assassinations of King and Kennedy are over. It's time to enter a new era of promise for all peoples. Jim Wallis likes to say that electoral politics alone ends up simply changing one politician with his or her finger to the wind for another--the key is to change the direction of the wind. Let's blow up a hurricane of progressive change in '08.