{"id":814791,"date":"2022-09-27T07:14:31","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T07:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=133753"},"modified":"2022-09-27T07:14:31","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T07:14:31","slug":"the-democratic-party-now-the-leading-party-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/09\/27\/the-democratic-party-now-the-leading-party-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The Democratic Party, Now the Leading Party of War"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/em>Last May a remarkable column<\/a> by Stephen Kinzer<\/a> appeared in the Boston Globe<\/em>.\u00a0 It was headlined: \u201cRepublicans Return To Their Roots As The Antiwar Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

More significantly, the subheading ran: \u201cSince the Vietnam era, Americans have come to expect antiwar rhetoric from liberal Democrats. Cancel that.\u201d It began:<\/p>\n

With Americans now engulfed in passion for Ukraine, it wasn\u2019t surprising that President Biden proposed sending\u00a0$33 billion worth of weaponry and other aid to Ukraine\u2019s beleaguered military<\/a>. Nor was it surprising that Congress\u00a0raised the number to $40 billion<\/a>, or that both the Senate and House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor. Hidden within that lopsided vote, though, was a shocker: Every single \u201cno\u201d vote \u2014 11 in the Senate and 57 in the House \u2014 came from a Republican.<\/p>\n

Since the Vietnam era, Americans have come to expect antiwar rhetoric from liberal Democrats. Cancel that. This month\u2019s votes in Washington signal a dramatic role reversal. Suddenly it is conservative Republicans who oppose US involvement in foreign wars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Strikingly not only did the \u201cconservative\u201d Democrats vote for the $40 billion that included more weapons of death and destruction for Joe Biden\u2019s cruel proxy war against Russia to the last Ukrainian.\u00a0 All the \u201cprogressives\u201d did so, including AOC and The Squad, Bernie Sanders, Ro Khanna, Barbara Lee and all the rest.\u00a0 It was a clean sweep.<\/p>\n

Second, this was not a one-off event.\u00a0 There is another vote coming up in the next few weeks for another $13.7 billion for Ukraine with over $7 billion for weapons.\u00a0 What is the response of the 100 Democrats to this request by Biden?\u00a0 The answer came during the September 11 Week Of Action called for by Code Pink and the progressive Peace In Ukraine Coalition reported here<\/a> as follows:<\/p>\n

In the nation\u2019s capital CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, together with Colonel Ann Wright and other activists, kicked off the Week of Action, going door to door to the offices of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), \u2026. While some<\/em> members of the caucus call for much-needed diplomacy and raise concerns about the risk of nuclear war \u2013 either through a miscalculation or an intentional first strike \u2013 not one member of the nearly 100-member CPC will commit to voting against more weapons for Ukraine<\/em>. (Emphasis, jw)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This was also acknowledged in a very dispiriting interview<\/a> by The Grayzone<\/em> with prominent activists after the lobbying effort.<\/p>\n

The prowar mentality among the progressive Dem pols is not limited to Biden\u2019s cruel proxy war to the last Ukrainian.\u00a0 It extends to a second proxy war now being ginned up in Taiwan.\u00a0 When Nancy Pelosi recently visited the island to stir up secessionist sentiment, not a single progressive Democrat in Congress made so much as a peep of protest.\u00a0 In fact, Rep. Ro Khanna, Co-chair of Bernie Sanders\u2019s 2020 Presidential campaign, boosted it in rants on CNN and Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both of these proxy wars bring the US into conflict with two other major global nuclear powers.\u00a0 If the progressive pols cannot be against military escalation in cases like this, it is hard to see that they have any claim to be for peace.\u00a0 And yet all too many activists in the progressive antiwar movement are loyal to them.\u00a0 In fact, some peace organizations have gone so far as to endorse them for election in 2022, even after their vote for the $40 billion to Ukraine for example here<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Moreover this support for the proxy war in Ukraine shows up among rank and file\u00a0 Democrats as well.\u00a0 By every measure in a recent Ipsos poll<\/a> taken after 6 months of war, support for intervention in Ukraine was higher among Democrats than among Republicans or Independents.\u00a0 IF the roots of this are partisan in nature, that is deeply disturbing because it means that Democrats will follow war hawks simply because they are Dems.\u00a0 Biden may be a case in point for such misplaced loyalty.<\/p>\n

Let me end on a personal note.\u00a0 Working in peace organizations and coalitions, I find many activists who labor mightily for the cause of peace also maintain loyalty to the Democratic Party.\u00a0 And that loyalty extends especially to the \u201cprogressive\u201d Democratic politicians.\u00a0 This is most disturbing because on the most important issues of war and peace, these peace activists get nothing in return.\u00a0 And since there is no price to pay for their hawkish votes, these politicians will simply ignore such activists. This is an abusive relationship and ought to be terminated forthwith.<\/p>\n

The minimal policy of those who work for peace should be quite simple: no votes for politicians who vote to fund war in Ukraine \u2013 no matter the Party.\u00a0 Otherwise those who support war and US unipolarity will continue to ignore those who work for peace.<\/p>The post The Democratic Party, Now the Leading Party of War<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.\n

This post was originally published on Dissident Voice<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Last May a remarkable column by Stephen Kinzer appeared in the Boston Globe.\u00a0 It was headlined: \u201cRepublicans Return To Their Roots As The Antiwar Party.\u201d More significantly, the subheading ran: \u201cSince the Vietnam era, Americans have come to expect antiwar rhetoric from liberal Democrats. Cancel that.\u201d It began: With Americans now engulfed in passion for [\u2026]<\/p>\n

The post The Democratic Party, Now the Leading Party of War<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":544,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133,817,376,204],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814791"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/544"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814792,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814791\/revisions\/814792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}