January 10, 2006
It’s a good thing for MoveOn.org that George W. Bush was reelected.
If he hadn’t been, the liberal troupe would have nothing to contest.
Even if the bloody occupation had continued under a John Kerry
presidency (it most certainly would have), the cowering office-chair
activists would have ducked behind their computer screens awaiting the
return of another brutal Republican administration. Activism should
never be partisan, but Moveon.org isn’t about to hold the Democrats
accountable for supporting Bush’s war agenda.
I’m not even all that sure MoveOn opposes the Iraq war. Sure they
rallied opposition during the lead-up to the invasion a few years back,
but since then they’ve done little if anything that should garner the
respect of the antiwar movement. Despite Kerry’s grotesque position on
the Iraq war in 2004 MoveOn implored their members to donate cash to
his campaign, but said nary a word about his pro-war posturing. You
can’t support a candidate without putting demands on their candidacy
and MoveOn’s breakdown has made them all but irrelevant as an antiwar
club.
Case in point. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York has continued to support Bush’s war in Iraq as well as his greater war on terror, yet
MoveOn refuses to voice frustration. Instead, they support the
war-hungry Senator and admit they won’t stand up to her during an
election year.
"The case I would make is that 2006 needs to be a year of reckoning
for Republicans on Iraq," Tom Matzzie, the Washington director for
MoveOn recently told the New York Times. "If the antiwar candidate is creamed by Hillary Clinton, it’s a distraction."
A distraction from what? If I remember correctly it wasn’t just the
Republican Party that got us into this dreadful mess. The Democrats
voted for it, helped sell the damn thing, and even bombed the hell out
of Iraq during the 1990s, all the while supporting deadly UN sanctions.
And as Americans begin to turn on this war, including prominent elected
officials from both parties, Hillary still won’t retract her defense of
the war, let alone meet with genuine antiwar activists here in New
York.
All of this and the feckless MoveOn.org still won’t call Hillary out for her warmongering.
MoveOn is nothing more than a cover for the Democratic Party. Issues
are no matter. Partisan politics are. We’ve got a war going on and
advocacy groups who allegedly oppose it should stand up to it, not
pander to those who do. The best way to force the New York senator to
change her position on the war is to run an antiwar campaign against
her during 2006 from outside of the Democratic Party.
Running a campaign against Hillary within the Democratic Party, as a
couple antiwar activists are doing (one a former Green, Steve Greenfield) is hopeless—for their challenges will end after the
primaries. If the antiwar movement really wants to take on Hillary in
the electoral arena she has to be confronted from outside the Democratic Party right up to Election Day and beyond. That is exactly what MoveOn should advocate, but never will.
No, MoveOn.org is nothing more than a roadblock for an antiwar movement
that is finally gaining speed after a bout of silence. If we want to
end this war we’ve got to oppose all who support it—the bigger the
name, the better.
That puts Hillary Clinton at the top of the list.
