Web Letters: The Defunding of the Peace Movement

John McCain never lied to us or led us on, with regard to his feelings about the Iraq war. The same can't be said about Barack Obama, and something is going to be said about the thousands of troops who will died while Obama was riding out the equivalent of one whole presidential term, promoting himself as an able Commander in Chief of those same soldiers.

The Democratic process, like any of the smaller and individual campaigns that are part of it, assumes that citizens can and do change their minds.

We Dems can never bring back those soldiers. But there ever be a better time for us to give to all of our own party's war enablers their walking papers, and starting with Barack Obama.

J.E. Bernecky

Westover, PA

Tom Hayden should his money where his mouth is.

Unless he see in Barack Obama something more more promising than peace (in which case, he should be writing on that subject, and not, as he is, on the failures of peace groups to thrive), he's just another media bullshitter out to maintain his personal place in the status quo.

Tell Obama straight-out that either he moves to the impeachment side now, before the election, or else he'll find himself in more hot water than Bush is in, when and if Obama makes his way over Hayden and into the White House.

The deaths of our troops won't become good (even for Hayden) merely because Obama is running the war from the White House and not from Congress.

Cameron Jones

Indiana, PA

"It was downhill from that point, for reasons that may never be explained." It is obvious. When people gave money to peace and social movements that supposedly supported an end to the war, and those organizations (like moveon.org and Common Dreams) just turned that money over to support and promote the corporate Democratic candidates without ever getting a concession, that is when I stopped supporting them.

Has Mr. Hayden ever supported a progressive candidate, other than with lip service? Did he ever really give Kucinich and Mike Gravel, much less Nader and the Green Party's McKinney, a voice? Those are the candidates that spoke of issues that the peace movement wanted to hear. And they were silenced and excluded from the debate. I didn't see Mr. Hayden (or Obama or Hillary) talking about the outrage of that action. Why? They don't care about protecting the democratic process when it gets in the way of their victory.

Everytime The Nation supports corporate Democrat candidates, it loses its ability to support progressive politics, and moves further away from the answer that would bring about the desired policies that support peace and justice. Mr. Hayden's blind support of Obama is what turns people away from the mainstream peace movement.

Attila Gyenis

www.NotOneMore.US
Bridgeville, CA

I read this article with interest.

I am a member of a very active local peace group, and we have a lot of representation regionally and nationally, yet Tom Hayden's article is the first information I've seen on a door-to-door voter project that culminates on 9/20.

Clearly, one of the very deep-seated problems in the peace community is the very poor (perhaps nonexistent?) communication with local groups.

Of course lack of funding is part of the problem and I myself have been lobbying locally for organizers for several years, to no avail, but internal communications should not be this poor.

Our group would have been interested in gathering signatures on this had we known about it with some lead time. As it is, 9/20 is our "Town Day" and we are fully committed to that event and cannot door-knock at the last minute. I'm sure we will print out petitions and ask people to sign at town day...

However, if national activists want local groups to carry out these kinds of efforts, a much stronger system of networking and communication must be put in place. To not do this with appropriate care undermines national efforts and weakens the "movement."

Thea Paneth
Arlington/Lexington United for Justice With Peace

Arlington, MA