[OccupyCU] Gill finks on the war again. Vote Independent?

[Ricky Baldwin]

Throwing the baby out with the bath water.

It took us years to get Johnson to that position.  He is not running.  Gill is a very good candidate who is anti-war and for Medicare-for-all.  He also took exactly the right stance on the regressive gasoline tax, which disproportionately impacts lower income groups, while Hartman has taken the simplistic position that taxing users will take oil companies down a notch.

Gill's statement on Iran is wrong.  But in reality we are unlikely to find positions as a whole from any candidate with a chance to win.  This vote is not symbolic.  A few votes may decide who goes to Congress.

Gill is not the perfect, but neither was Carl when he ran against Johnson.  The rational vote was for Carl then, and it's for Gill now.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID


"C. G. Estabrook" <carl at newsfromneptune.com> wrote:

Corey Mattson of Bloomington-Normal Coalition for Peace and Justice writes, "...no one in this congressional district race represents our view of no military intervention, no sanctions against Iran ...Shows work needs to be done! ...Peace movement work, that is...":

"13th district congressional candidates agree on Iran" <http://wglt.org/wireready/news/2012/11/08145_13thDebate2_061447.shtml>.

Democrat David Gill shows once again that if he is sent to Congress from our district, he will fail to uphold incumbent Tim Johnson's opposition to the ongoing Mideast war.

Although Johnson is a Republican, he voted for the impeachment of President Bush for launching the Iraq war; joined other House members (including Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul) in suing President Obama for violating the War Powers Act; and voted consistently against more money for war in the Mideast, after publicly regretting his votes in 2001 and 2002 in favor of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. (He had been urged to change his position by the local antiwar movement, the Green party, etc.)

Gill on the other hand has consistently avoided promising that he would vote as Johnson has on the war, saying only that he was "against the war." Now he does say clearly that he backs the administration's war policy on Iran - which we recently heard enunciated by Senator Durbin in Champaign, namely that Iran is building a nuclear weapon and must be stopped, by military means if necessary. (Obama has been quite consistent on the matter: when he was running for the Senate in 2004, the Chicago Tribune wrote, "…the United States should not rule out military strikes to destroy nuclear production sites in Iran, Obama said … ‘having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse [than] us launching some missile strikes into Iran…’ he said.")

In our Congressional district, Independent candidate John Hartman "says even if Iran has the ability to launch a nuclear weapon, he believes it would be a mistake to move forward at any time with military action: 'I think that even bombing their nuclear capabilities would be counterproductive. I think it would rile them against us, as well as the Arab world against us.'

This latest indication of Gill's unsoundness on the war - despite his apparent support for Medicare for all - has led several of my acquaintances to say that they will vote for Hartman, the independent, in protest of the 'bipartisan' war policy. See Glenn Greenwald, "Obama moves to make the War on Terror permanent" <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/24/obama-terrorism-kill-list>.

--CGE