[Anti-war activists throughout the country are united in spending August pressing lawmakers to bring U.S. troops home. But tensions within the movement have been bubbling for months over tactics and whether their fire should be aimed exclusively at Republicans.]
The people who voted for Democrats thinking that they were voting for bringing troops home begin to wonder “What the heck...?”
[Some activist groups say MoveOn is giving a pass to Democratic leaders, whom they say are not taking a hard enough line to stop funding U.S. involvement in the war.]
“...Why did I bother to pry my butt off the couch (and miss reruns of ‘Friends’) to go down to the polling place and vote for a Democrat?”
[“We need to continue to hold the feet to the fire of the Democratic leadership,” said Jeff Leys, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Non-Violence, whose group is holding protests at the local offices of Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who also sits on the Appropriations Committee. “If we’re focusing on just the Democrats or just the Republicans, we’re missing the point.”]
They’re starting to realize they’ve missed the point, but they don’t quite yet comprehend which point they’ve actually missed.
[The dispute over strategy has escalated since March, when MoveOn supported Pelosi’s effort to move a $124 billion war funding bill that included a call for troop withdrawal by next summer. Its language did not call for a complete withdrawal of troops. Groups on the left strongly criticized Pelosi and MoveOn for their support of the measure, but MoveOn said it was a pragmatic approach to build support for ending the war.
The anti-war groups get an inkling about which other groups are their allies, and which are merely fronts for the Democrats.
[Moira Mack, a spokeswoman for the Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, said Republicans are feeling the heat because they have overwhelmingly supported Bush’s war strategy, unlike Democrats. “This is not about Democrats or Republicans, this is about a war policy that is failing,” Mack said.]
Oh, my God! We’ve been duped into supporting a position that is about Democrats versus Republicans, when we thought we were supporting a principled ideology.
[One anti-war activist, who asked not to be named, said animosity between MoveOn and other groups on the left simply boils down to a difference in style. “MoveOn is as ardent as Code Pink,” he said.]
Well, some of us are still holding out hope. The Democrats will do exactly what they promised to do: put an immediate end to the Iraq war, capture all the terrorists, make countries around the world love us unconditionally, repeal the Bush tax cuts ending poverty in America, pass a law that purifies the environment while supporting small business owners and hardworking Americans at the same time and ending racism, bigotry, homophobia, sexism and any and all forms of hatred. And where the heck is my tin-foil hat???
Sorry- all those Libbies planning to show up in DC already bought out the world's supply!