Back in March of 2003, just a couple of weeks before the war started, I was fortunate to be involved in the Code Pink events in Washington D.C. About 50 us were able to meet with Hillary Clinton to express our views of the war.
Thanks to Kirsten Michel, who filmed the meeting (about 16 minutes), I'm able to post the video on this blog. It's a good reminder that just because someone is a Democrat, they don't always have progressive values.
(Thank you to Kirsten Michel for the video, and thanks to my friends Rex and Rene who gave me their frequent flyer miles so that I could attend these events)
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green_jenni- Jennifer Killpack-Knutsen
- I'm on Common Circle.net
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Comments
PotP
I understand your frustration, and I understand where you are coming from. I have to respectfully disagree with your analysis that I'm voting for the Repub.
For one thing, in Utah, this discussion is moot -- no matter who I vote for, all the electoral votes will go to the Repub. That does give me a bit more freedom to think long term and support third parties and alternative candidates that represent my values and help them to grow -- with the hope that we can eventually have a truly multiple party system -- this two party system is killing us.
My belief is that if we vote our fears over our hopes, will just have to keep confronting our fears and never get to where we could be as a nation if we had the faith to vote our real values.
I am pro-peace, so voting for a pro-war candidate, regardless of party, when there are pro-peace candidates available to vote for is betraying my values. If I vote for Hillary or the Repub, I am voting for the war -- and I cannot do that and live with myself.
In the case of someone local -- like Matheson -- the fact that Matheson can always can on the Dem votes because they'll always vote the lesser of evils, allows hime to tailor his votes in congress to his right-wing constituents. His vote for the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is an example of the type of government we can expect from Democrats who don't have to answer to their traditional base. We give them that power when we insist that people vote for the dems or their really voting for the repubs.
PotP
Our choice is always the lesser of two evils. Always, Jen. I pray that one day you, and your kindered soulmates, come to realize this. It's human nature. That's the only way we will ever regain our country from the close-minded, racist, selfish, eveil Republicans who dominate this state, and this country (still).
Think about it.
PotP
First of all, PotP, I now consider myself a progressive independent - I will vote for the best candidate regardless of party. I have voted for and supported progressive Dems and will continue do so as long as they are: pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-women's rights (especially as regarding the jurisdiction of her own body), pro-equality for everyone regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation or identity. I heartily support Dems like Rocky Anderson and Dennis Kucinich who fit that ideal.
I, too, see myself as willing to lose the battle to win the war too -- the "war" as I see it, is to either see that we become a multi-party system -- or at the minimum, to ensure that 3rd parties, or the strategy of voting for lefty Dems, give the Democratic Party the "encouragement" it needs not to follow in the example of close-minded, racist, selfish, evil Republicans (although to a lesser degree, ensuring them the votes of all the lesser-evilists out there).
Why, as a progressive voter and a blogger, is it my responsibility to vote for and support all Dems? Why isn't it the Dem Party's responsibilty to run better candidates? Because their corporate overlords would not approve, me thinks. It's victim-blaming to put this all on those of us trying to vote for something better.
The feeling I get from your excellent blog is that you are a centrist, so it's no surprise that you support the Dem party which for sometime as been far more centrist than left. As a centrist, you have a right to a party that represents your views -- but don't I have a right to a party that represents mine? One more reason that the two-party system is a very bad idea.
I have yet to see how destroying 3rd parties will encourage the Dem Party to move back to liberal ideals.
PotP
THe anti-war movement thought it was "pragmatic" to vote for Johnson (who ran an add implying that the Republican candidate would cause a nuclear war) and what did they get for their "pragmatism -- an escalation in vietnam. Then probably the most right-win, anti-semetic Republican ever was elected and the war ended. This is becausew of massive public reaction to the war, not because people "workerd with the system pragmatically" and lobbied and voted for pro-war democrats.
If you are against the war in Iraq and the Patriot act, then voting for a Democrat is not "pragmatic" it is cynical and pessimistic to believe the best we can have is an opposition like the Democrats who run "anti-war" candidates like Hilary and Obama who say bomb Iran in the same breath as saying the Iraq war was a mistake.