[Peace-discuss] Demo in DC today

[C. G. Estabrook]

[This is from a blog run by the right-wing American Spectator.  Perhaps not 
surprisingly, I could find no coverage in the standard liberal outlets...  --CGE]

	War Doves Protest Obama in Front of the White House
	By Brian O'Connell on 12.12.09 @ 5:55PM

     "Hey, hey Obama! How many kids did you kill today!?"

The above quote was a chant led by former Senator Mike Gravel at an anti-Afghan 
War escalation rally in front of the White House today. Around two hundred upset 
citizens came out to protest President Barack Obama, and his move to add 30,000 
troops to fight in Afghanistan.

Among those in attendance were Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and former Green 
Party Presidential nominees Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney.

The makeup of the rally was mostly an older crowd, with some young people. I 
would say that the age distribution was somewhat similar to that of the tea 
party rallies -- although the similarities between tea party goers and anti-war 
protesters basically end with the age ranges except for one person with a "Ron 
Paul" sticker.  Much of the crowd was sporting Green Party gear and had posters 
voicing their opposition.  Among the signs read "War: The Audacity of 
Compromise", "Arrest OBusha", and "I don't vote because of people like Obama."

When a crowd member burst out during Nader's address "What about Bush!?", Nader 
replied "it's a seamless transition" -- saying that the war policies of the 
current president and the last president were the same and both were 
unacceptable to him. For a small but vocal crowd, Obama is not far enough to the 
left for them.

If the anti-war movement gains any steam, it could make things problematic for 
the Democrats in 2010. "They [the Democrats] have nowhere to go politically. We 
can go for third party candidates or go home," Nader said.


He then pointed out the threat of a  Republican takeover in 2010 as a reason why 
the Obama coalition would need support from the anti-war wing of the party. The 
reaction by the crowd was pretty silent on the thought of a Republican takeover, 
but did give Nader an energetic applause when he concluded his address a few 
seconds later.

The war movement will need to do better than a couple hundred or so people in 
order to make much noise politically, and will need to gain favor with some more 
moderate members of the Democratic Party if it is to have any success. But if 
casualties rise as the escalation is implemented, then the movement will likely 
gain some steam and could cause problems for the Obama coalition.

Brian O'Connell is the Collegiate Network fellow at The American Spectator and 
former editor-in-chief of the Stanford Review.

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/12/12/war-doves-protest-obama-in-fro/print