The anti-war sentiment in this country takes two forms, I realized, somewhat belatedly, in mid-June, 2004 at the Texas Democratic Party convention. My own anti-war feeling is what got me here in the first place. Reaction against the war ran as a powerful undercurrent through the party faithful at the convention, and it came not just from the usual suspects--the peace activists and the Dean and Kucinich supporters--but also the Texas veterans' caucus. It will be the war and George Bush, himself, ultimately, that will bring the Bush Regime down in November, and I am convinced that Bush is going down in November.
For Bush has succeeded in accomplishing with his little war that most elusive of all political feats: he has united both the American left and the Democratic Party. For the time being, anyway.
But the most important question we will see answered in the next two years is, does the Democratic Party understand what’s going on?
What I heard announced from the podium was this: eighty percent of the participants at this state convention were first-time attendees.
It is somewhat stunning to me that 8 out of 10 of the 4,000 some-odd delegates were there for the first time. It takes belief, tenacious commitment and passion—qualities I do not possess in abundance--to involve oneself in party politics to the extent one must in order to participate at the convention level. A high tolerance for bullshit helps, as well.
Even more surprising are the noncommittal answers I receive from old-guard party members when I ask them if 80 percent is a great thing or what.
Is it? Or does this happen every presidential year and I am only betraying myself as a newbie for harping on it? Those who know are not telling.
I observed many hopeful and positive signs for progressives at this convention. An unintended consequence of a star-spangled, patriotic salute to the troops was to have it morph into a gut-wrenching, tear-inducing statement of the human tragedy of this war. The John Kerry for President booth was among the loneliest booths in the exhibit hall. Dennis Kucinich’s supporters stood by their man and their movement despite having been handed the memo that Kerry is the presumptive nominee. The ghost of Howard Dean was in the house and taking names.
I thought the convention’s theme, “Fighting for Democracy,” was a bit of unintended irony. But I wonder if they get it? “They” being the party leaders professing enthusiasm at seeing the party’s base show up for this little shindig.
But I digress.
It is George Bush we intend to bring down. It is his war that will make that possible.
Because there was an overwhelming unity of sentiment against the war at this convention, found in the uneasy alliance between the conservative Texas Democratic Veterans’ Caucus and your usual, garden-variety peaceniks. Indeed, unrest among the veterans is, I am convinced, the key reason for Senator Kerry’s unprecedented yet inexplicable success. While the tortured logic with which Kerry defends his vote for the Iraq war resolution rings false with pacifists, it is eagerly embraced by the types of people who are reluctant to criticize their commander-in-chief lest they be accused of not supporting the troops.
Veterans are a vexatious constituency for any political party. Veterans tend to pledge their allegiance to no political party but, rather, only to each other. They are among the most, if not the most, dogged of single-issue special interest groups. Veterans are ubiquitous. Why wouldn’t they be? We’ve created enough of them.
One cannot oppose or disagree with military veterans when they argue for respect and fair treatment because theirs truly are the universal, unassailable, motherhood and apple pie issues. As a nation, we have said as much each and every time we have gone to war cloaking our imperialist ambitions in the flag. If they are heroes for answering their country’s call, do they cease being heroes when they return? Our collective, post-Vietnam consciousness says that you cannot have the one without the other.
Genuine enthusiasm for Kerry as the party standard bearer is hard to find inside the party, except among veterans. The Kerry effort in my home town is led by four brothers who served together in Vietnam, one of whom made an emotional appeal for Kerry at the state convention. However, his appeal was grounded more in the Bush hawks’ lack of prior military service than in Kerry’s vision for the future or decent healthcare policy.
Peaceniks have as hard a time denouncing war while supporting the troops as veterans have denouncing war while supporting the troops. But peace people connect the dots between anti-war activism and supporting the troops because they see their activism as a necessary step to save lives from being taken by a corporate military machine that exists not to defend democracy, but to preserve American empire. Veterans have a much harder time reconciling their disgust for the maltreatment of soldiers with their knee-jerk tendency to salute the flag and the commander in chief, although it has been done from time to time.
During the primary season, I was at a meeting of local Democrats where afterward, a party functionary walked up to me, looked at my Dean button, and snorted, “How can you expect us to vote for someone for president who isn’t a veteran.” So much for the party of FDR.
The left and the peace candidates never did successfully embrace veterans and their issues this year, although they tried. Neither did the left anticipate how successfully Kerry and the Democratic party establishment would be able to co-opt anti-war sentiment among veterans into support for the party’s somewhat belated opposition to Bush’s foreign policy. But it will be the Democratic left and the veterans who hang Bush’s war around his neck for the albatross it is come November.
If the unlikely alliance between leftists and veterans is going to be the key to defeating Bush in November, what are we to make of the reluctant inclusion of the Democratic base into the process by the centrists who run the party apparatus? Why can I not find anyone besides us newbies excited about the 8 out of 10 number? How large or how small are our numbers, really, and what are they not telling us?
One of my friends, Amy, is better read and more intuitive than I. She gets clued in to certain things months before I catch on. I’ve learned by now that it’s pretty useless to disagree with her. It’s like arguing with those precogs in Minority Report. She’s right, and if you disagree, it’s because you just can’t see yet that she is right.
She has opined that unless the left is taken seriously by the party now and in the future, a Kerry victory in November will serve only to postpone the party’s inevitable demise for 4 –8 years, max. Unless a sincere validation of the progressive agenda is forthcoming from the party and very soon, the neo-cons and fascists on the right will only grow stronger out of power. If they ever regain power, it may well be for the final time. In the God-awful event that Kerry loses and Bush gets another term, these things only happen sooner. Such are the dues we pay for the Democratic centrists’ vision of appeasement in the post-Reagan era.
According to Amy, not only must the left make itself heard, it must demand and be given its rightful place at the head of the Democratic Party table and stay there. We shouldn’t have to, but we must prove once again that the New Deal worked, that most people will readily embrace progressive values if given the opportunity to do so, that peace, prosperity and civil rights for all are good things, that government is neither good nor bad – it is us, and that the nation is only as strong as its most vulnerable citizens.
That’s a tall order.
But I agree it’s an order the party must fill in order to continue to justify its existence.
Meanwhile back in Texas, we Dean and Kucinich people had our marching orders: sign in for Kerry, make whatever deals you have to make, but get yourself to the state
convention. Participate in this process. Learn. Experience. Be seen and be heard. And go to Boston if you can and be heard there, too.The relative ease with which many Deaniacs for Kerry--and, quite possibly, more than a few Kucinich and Sharpton supporters-- got elected to attend the party’s national convention in Boston hint at a nominating convention where John Kerry may very well be the nominee, but a good many of his nominating delegates will, in fact, be the party’s base showing up to pursue its own agenda.
And, I think, although “they” pretend they’re unimpressed, they get it. What they’ll do about it is anyone’s guess. But 2006 is shaping up to be a very interesting year.
Ann describes herself thusly: Born 1955, native of El Paso, Texas, lived in New Jersey for 7 years, returned to El Paso in 1987, where I share space with 4 cats and a dog. Although having followed politics intently since high school, have never been involved in any party politics until last year and have George Bush to thank for my new activism.