[Peace-discuss] An astroturf (i.e., fake grassroots) campaign with money

[C. G. Estabrook]

	"...when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards 
that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode 
and the 'left' started labeling me with the same slurs that the right 
used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of 
peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of 'right or left', 
but 'right and wrong.'  I am deemed a radical because I believe that 
partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of 
thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported 
by Democrats and Republican alike ... if we don’t find alternatives to 
this corrupt 'two' party system our Representative Republic will die and 
be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check 
or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland."  --Cindy Sheehan


At its regular meeting last Sunday night, AWARE heard a presentation 
from Bernard Bergmann, an earnest young man just out of college, who is 
a salaried organizer for "Americans Against Escalation in Iraq".  He 
said that he was in town (from his base in Peoria) to organize a 
coalition of anti-war groups to stage a demonstration against Rep. 
Johnson to "change his vote" and to have him come out "in favor of 
withdrawal" from Iraq.

An acute AWAREist pointed out that Rep. Johnson has already said that he 
is "in favor of withdrawal" (when of course conditions permit...).  And 
that is of course the position of all of the presidential candidates of 
both parties (they may differ on the required conditions), and even of 
the administration.  Furthermore, Johnson is explicitly "against 
escalation in Iraq": he is one of only 17 Republicans in the House of 
Representatives who voted against the "surge."  In fact it's rumored 
that that vote so upset some administration supporters in the 15th CD 
that they are contemplating a primary challenge to him, from the right.

So what vote did the organizer from "Americans Against Escalation in 
Iraq" have in mind, when he said that he wanted to organize a 
demonstration to get Johnson "to change his vote"?  The logical answer 
would be that he wanted Johnson to vote against funding the war.  But 
Bernard specifically denied that: instead, he wants Johnson to vote for 
a Democratic bill that continues funding the war, such as the one Bush 
vetoed, rather than for a Republican bill that continues funding for the 
war!

At this point it became clear what was going on.  However earnest and 
even anti-war Bernard might be, his group looks like using the anti-war 
sentiment expressed in the last election to further Democratic party 
election hopes.  That of course would not be a bad thing, if the 
Democratic party were seriously against the war policy.  But (with a few 
honorable exceptions) they aren't.

"Americans Against Escalation in Iraq" are not working to end the war 
but to get Democrats elected.  That's hardly surprising when one sees 
who they are.  Their website describes them rather smugly as "a major, 
multi-million dollar national campaign to oppose the President's 
proposal to escalate the war in Iraq" (which it describes as a "violent 
civil war between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias," with no comment 
on how it came about) <http://www.noiraqescalation.org/>.

And where do those multi-millions of dollar come from?  From traditional 
Democratic party funders.  AAEI purports to be a coalition of SEIU, 
MoveOn.org Political Action, Center for American Progress Action Fund, 
USAction, Win Without War, Vote Vets, Campaign for America's Future, 
USSA, Working Assets, Americans United for Change, and Campus Progress 
Action.  An examination of these groups will show a lot of overlaps with 
Democratic party activities.  This "Other K Street" (i.e., Democrat 
lobbyists instead of Republican ones) was the subject of a flattering 
piece in the Washington Post (that should be a warning) last month 
<http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/07/1035/>.

AAEI has named their campaign against Republicans (they are targeting no 
Democrat supporters of the war) "Iraq Summer," in conscious imitation of 
the "Freedom Summer" of 1964.  This crass appropriation of serious 
sacrifices for civil rights (we've just passed the anniversary of the 
KKK torture and murder of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael 
Schwerner that summer) reveals the age as well as the impudence of the 
directors of the AAEI, who also staff other Democratic party fronts 
<thehill.com/campaign-2008/iraq-summer-hopes-to-isolate-president-bush-2007-06-15.html>. 
  They are very much afraid that politics will escape the two-party 
channels that prevent public outrage actually changing any part of a 
settled political system.

Nell Lancaster writes about the formation of AAEI in her blog 
<alovelypromise.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html>: "Why does it make 
my heart sink? Because these organizations aren't led by the grassroots, 
but by electoral operatives. They don't want to end the war; they want 
to get it out of the way as an issue. 'Americans Against Escalation in 
Iraq'? As a representative of 'Americans for Getting U.S. Troops Out of 
Iraq Two Years Ago,' I see this as a party front, a potential obstacle 
to ending the occupation -- at best a high-maintenance ally. Americans 
are already against escalation in Iraq, in huge numbers.  The point is 
to turn that into effective pressure on Congress to end the war ... 
USAction is the descendant of Citizen Action, with which I was involved 
for many years. This is completely typical of their politics: issues are 
instruments, nothing more. There's no recognition in that crowd of the 
need to work in a respectful way with the organizations that have been 
organizing for the last five years to prevent, and then to end, the war. 
Those of us who think the lives of Iraqis and Americans shouldn't be 
sacrificed to avoid any risk to the chances of Democratic candidates are 
'issue-heads' in the USAction worldview.  No, they're not the enemy. But 
their arrogance, cynicism, and complacency make them dubious allies."

Another comment comes from Aimee Smith, co-chair of the Green Party's 
Peace Action Committee: "Democratic front groups like MoveOn.org have 
abandoned the antiwar movement. We don't need an 'Americans Against 
Escalation in Iraq' coalition, we need an independent political movement 
demanding removal of US troops as quickly as possible and renunciation 
of aggressive military power. Democratic leaders, including presidential 
candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are rejecting these 
demands and are willing to see US forces remain in Iraq until late 2008, 
and even longer to serve US financial interests there and the strategic 
demands of Israel and its supporters in the US. The goal of Democrats 
isn't to end the war, it's to seek party unity in order to win the White 
House. There's little doubt that most antiwar Democratic groups will 
line up behind their party's prowar nominee in 2008."

AAEI is an attempt to co-opt the anti-war movement for the Democratic 
party.  They're not particularly interested in ending the war because 
they support the long-standing bipartisan policy that the US must 
control Middle East energy resources (as do, e.g., Clinton and Obama) -- 
so the point is , as Kerry said in 2004, to do the war better.  They're 
quite willing to continue funding the war, so long as that funding can 
be seen as a Democratic victory (e.g., a funding bill containing 
"timetables" and/or "benchmarks").

I don't think AWARE should be involved with a Democratic front group 
that's not serious about ending the war.  If we do decide to participate 
in a demonstration against Rep. Johnson with them, we should insist that 
the demand be "End the War Now / No More War Funding / US Out of Iraq 
and Afghanistan."  Given their real politics, I don't think that the 
multi-million dollar AAEI campaign will be quite happy with that.

--CGE