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Who is a Peace Voter?
A peace voter is someone who
treats the life-and-death issue of war and peace as the
defining issue in American politics. Peace voters put peace before
party and vote for and support true peace candidates.
The American public by a large majority opposes the continued
occupation of Iraq and a
military attack on Iran. We do not want the United States to serve
as the world�s policeman. Yet, American voters continue to
elect candidates who support an expanded military and continued use
of U.S. military force around the world.
The Challenge of Being a Peace Voter Today
Being a peace voter
is challenging in the United States of America because the two
established political parties often putforward candidates who
support military expansion and the illegal projection of military
power around the world. Often one of the two parties, usually the
Democrats, will put forward a candidate who waffles on the war or
pretends to be anti-war while voting for war funding, an expanded
military budget and other pro-war positions. In this environment the
peace voter must be:
1. Informed so they
can tell the real peace candidate from the fraudulent peace
candidate.
2. Engaged as
citizen peace voters who let candidates know their views, engage them
in dialogue, support peace candidates who are not only with the
established parties but who are insurgents in those parties as well
as third party and independent candidates. Sometimes it means that
the peace voter must become a peace candidate in order to give people
a real choice.
The Lessons of History
Sometimes it can be
disheartening to be a peace voter in a time when half the
discretionary spending in the federal budget goes to the military,
when the U.S. spends as much as the rest of the world combined on
military activity and when the weapons industry is a major
contributor to both established parties. But take heart �
history is on our side and over and over history shows that voters
who hold true to their beliefs at the ballot box overcome the
obstacles of the present and create a new world that at first seems
impossible.
It can be hard to
see how voting for peace is an expression of political power when the
peace candidate often loses. This leads some to vote out of fear of
the greater-evil candidate and give their vote to someone who is not
really a peace candidate. But if you back away from today and step
back into history, it is easier to see the potential power of the
peace vote.
If it were 1840 and
you had been trying to end slavery for decades (abolition was older
than the nation), but the two established parties were bought and paid
for by the slave �business� � slavery was more
valuable than all other businesses combined � what would you do?
The Democrats were dominated by plantation owners and the Whigs were
dominated by northern industrialists who profited from cheap cotton.
As a result of these political realities the abolition of slavery was
�off the table� in Congress. What would you do if you
opposed slavery? Would you vote for the lesser-evil slave profiteer?
Or, would you vote for the various abolition parties that had no
chance of success - that generally got votes in the low single
digits? Some anti-slavery voters had the courage of their
convictions and voted for the abolition candidate. Indeed, in
retrospect most Americans would say they would have voted against
slavery. Those who voted abolition were the heroes of our history
because they forced the issue into the electoral arena, forced the
parties to confront it, and led to the most successful third party
president in history, Abraham Lincoln. Those voters who voted for
single-digit candidates and for their hopes and dreams � a
country without slavery � had more power in U.S. government than
was evident at the time. They changed the direction of America while
voters who compromised their beliefs helped slavery survive.
Now, flash forward
75 years into our own future - finally the world has come to
recognize war is obsolete and not a successful approach to disputes
between nations or people. How did this happen when there were two
parties that were funded by the defense industry, the right wing
Israeli lobby, the oil industry and others who profit from war? How
did this happen when at the beginning of the 21st Century the two
major parties were calling for a bigger military, pre-emptive
military attack and favored developing tactical nuclear weapons so
the U.S. could use them?
One key tool that
will make war obsolete is if both political parties know they will
not get the 5-to-20 percent of the voters who care enough about
ending war to vote for it. When those parties see a solid block
voting against ANY pro-war, waffle-on-war or fraudulent peace
candidates then the parties will change or be replaced. Peace voter
power will be a key ingredient to making war obsolete. A big
reason the peace voter could fail is if they continue to give votes
to war candidates.
What Peace Voters Can Do in 2008
Take action. There are many things that peace voters can do to educate the public, move the U.S. government toward a foreign policy based on diplomacy not militarism, and advance peace in 2008.
Peace Voter Power
The major change needed to
create peace voter power is for peace advocates to
recognize that war and peace is a life-and-death issue that should be
our top priority for picking candidates. But more importantly, we
need to realize that the achievement of �Peace Voter Power�
will come only by voting for peace and supporting peace
candidates - even if they seem to have no chance of winning � even
if they will get 5 percent or less. When peace voters give their
vote to candidates who do not recognize that war is obsolete, we
empower the empire builders who use military intervention as the
primary foreign policy tool.
Voting for pro-war/waffle-on-war candidates strengthens war as a tool of foreign
policy. Voting for peace candidates is the only way to change the
mistaken direction of the United States.
