We celebrate a moment when hope is replacing cynicism about political change because of the transition from an administration with a policy of endless war to one that promises a foreign policy based on diplomacy. People are hopeful about new possibilities in domestic and foreign policy under the Obama administration, but they also worry about the economic well-being of their families and communities.
The peace movement is at a strategic crossroads. Never in the six years since the war in Iraq started has there been such a broad consensus on the need to end the war and to craft a foreign policy based on diplomacy. According to a December 2008 Washington Post-ABC News poll, seven out of ten people polled want U.S. troops out of Iraq and think that President-elect Obama should make good on his campaign promise to withdraw most U.S. troops within 16 months. The poll also revealed that a majority of those who say the war is not worth its costs want immediate withdrawal.
Over the last six years, the antiwar movement has mobilized and agitated to raise public awareness of the human and economic costs of the war. We have pressured congressional representatives on every supplemental war funding bill and made headway in moving some representatives to vote “no” on the funding who had vowed to never vote against war funding because they feared rightwing retribution.
Now the peace movement must retool to engage in the broad public dialogue on a new foreign policy in general and on ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan in particular. For the movement to remain relevant, we need an innovative, new approach to grassroots coalition building and a renewed effort to pinpoint the militarization of the federal budget. Without ending the wars and occupations, it will be impossible for the government to intervene in the spiraling of the economic crisis or for the new administration to make good on its campaign promises.
In December, the Republic Windows and Doors workers in Chicago shook up the political scene when they took over their plant for five days to prevent the management from secretly shutting it down and stealing their wages and benefits. The workers saw an outpouring of solidarity and support from the labor movement, small businesses, the Black and Latino communities, and religious, immigrant rights, and antiwar movements. Their nonviolent direct action was an inspiration. It dramatized the urgent, immediate needs of working families and their communities. It also highlighted the importance of solidarity between movements as a critical ingredient for winning against great odds.
We need to muster the resolve that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did when he called for the civil rights movement to tackle the political moment in his “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community” speech in 1967. He rallied people’s determination to connect the ills of society and strengthen the political power of their movement. Dr. King said, “Now, when I say questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These triple evils are interrelated.”
The peace movement’s mission must be twofold. First, we must become more embedded in the struggles for jobs, workers’ rights, health care, education, housing, and immigrant rights, mobilizing the solidarity that made it possible for the Republic Window and Doors workers to win. Second, we must raise up the human and economic costs of wars and occupations and help community movements see the need to cut the more than 50 percent of the federal budget that goes to military spending and redirect it to funding community services.
Ending the war and mending the damage done by Wall Street and the rich and greedy are not competing goals. Of course, ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan will not in itself reverse the downward spiral of the economic system. However, it would be the beginning of a shift in U.S. government priorities. There is no doubt that the national debt driven up by the Bush administration was a result of the wars, but the military budget remains the largest part of the federal budget and is a constant deficit pressure.
The antiwar movement broke the silence in the streets after September 11, 2001. Just as we captured the hopes and fears of the people in the days leading up to the war in Iraq on February 15, 2003, so did the workers at Republic Windows and Doors in December 2008. We have to link the struggle for peace to the mood of the people and what they are prepared to do to fight for a better life.
Now the peace movement must join with the movements that are breaking the cycle of misery gripping our communities. Now we must boldly reach out and organize with a sustained, strategic plan to go beyond war to make a new economy possible.
