Liberals Kill

The 'liberals' in America seem to regard the anti-war movement as a game. While the opposition is in power, to them it seems as if its a tool to be used to put themselves into power instead. Once in power, war itself seems to become a game for the liberals to play.

Liberals read the polling data and discover that the Iraq war is unpopular. So they criticize it like they are opposed to the war, and they campaign on the promise to end it. But, they also discover that the Afghan war is less unpopular, so even during the last election they campaigned to escalate and expand that war. Its all a game to them. A game to be played to put them into power.

The problem is, their games are killing people. Literally. I go to antiwar.com, and these are the headlines I see.

Afghans: NATO Forces Kill 13 Protesters
US Drone Strike Fires Into Crowd, Kills Another 13 in Afghanistan
2 US Troops, 4 Afghan Troops Killed in Afghanistan

That's just today. If I go back just one day, I find ....
Dozens Killed as N. Yemen Fight Resumes
Six NATO Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan
Over 3,000 Killed as Pakistan Violence Soared in 2009
Pakistani Troops Kill Eight in South Waziristan
Monday: 3 Iraqis Killed, 11 Wounded

None of that is a conclusive list of all the people who've died recently. Its just what I can find in a few minutes of looking through the headlines of antiwar.com.

People are dying. The Democrats are playing games. Its now abundantly clear that the Democrats support these wars. Not only do they support these wars, the Democrats seem to be on a frantic search for places to start new wars. They've already started one new proxy war in Pakistan, the one that the headline above says has already killed as many people as who died on 9-11. Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to constantly be pushing for a war with Iran. And now the Democrats are screaming loudly for a war with Yemen of all places.

In the antiwar movement, we seem to have a lot of people and leaders who support the Democrats. These are the people who are constantly saying that now that the Democrats are in power, we shouldn't protest or even publicly disagree with them. There is this myth that the Democrats aren't as blood-thirsty of warmongers as the Republicans, so now that the Democrats are in power, we should only try to quietly talk with the Democrats to get them to change their policies.

Meanwhile, people are dying. Look back at that list of headlines. People are dying. And that's not even covering the wounded. The people who aren't mentioned in these headlines because instead of dying they are simply lying in a hospital bed screaming in pain because some part of their body has been blown to bits as a part of these wars.

Its high time that those of us who oppose these wars stand up and make sure that they end. In the US, that must include political action to try to change the actions of our government. People are dying. This is not the time to be playing little games with actions or events that have no chance of changing policy. I hear there's an anti-war protest scheduled for March. That's good. Its nice to see the corpse of the American anti-war movement showing any signs of life. But, yet another meaningless protest where a permitted march route goes through an empty city on a Saturday is not going to change anything.

To achieve change, we have to change the actions of our government. The American people attempted to do this by electing first a Democrat majority in 2006, then increasing those majorities and elected a Democrat President in 2008. In response we've seen no withdraw or change in Iraq, an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, the expansion of the war into Pakistan, threats to expand the war to Iran, and now threats to expand the war into Yemen.

Electing Democrats was not the answer. But, that does not mean that elections are useless. What we now need to do is to defeat the Democrats. Let the Democrats know that they won those past elections by lying to get antiwar votes, and that now the retribution is coming.

What we need to do is to run independent, pro-peace campaigns in all the CLOSEST House and Senate races. As the Democrats struggle to hold on to their majorities, let them see an independent pro-peace (and pro-single-payer) candidate in every race taking away from them the votes they need to win. Lets make it perfectly clear that the true progressives of this country, who've been providing the Democrats with the votes they need to win, are tired of being lied to and are mad as all heck about what President Obama and the Democrats have done in this last year.

If we march through empty streets, they won't pay attention. If we threaten their hold on power, they will pay attention. We need to put the Democrats into a political position where they know for certain that the only way they can gain an hold power is by ending these wars. We do that by deliberately targeting Democrats by defeat by running our own candidates in all the CLOSEST races.

Here's a target list in the House. Find a close race near you and start organizing. Don't wait on organizations and leaders to do it for you. They are all bought off or were only pretending to oppose these wars to elect Democrats. Organize yourselves. Find a target from this list close to you and go after them.

Remember, people are dying every day. Its up to us to try to do something to end this.