Posted on 06/06/2003 2:28:25 AM PDT by kattracks
Washington (CNSNews.com) - Anti-war activists gathered at a three-day seminar in Washington designed to move the Democratic Party to the left expressed "tremendous concern" over the party's current direction.
"Democrats have to understand that this (anti-war stance) is a position that resonates with the American people," said Medea Benjamin, a spokesperson for the peace group Code Pink. Benjamin, a panelist at a workshop called "Next Stage for the Peace Movement," said the anti-war community fears what it sees as the Democratic Party's shift to the political center.
"There is a tremendous concern about that," Benjamin told CNSNews.com. The workshop took place Thursday at the "Take Back America" conference sponsored by the liberal Campaign for America's Future. Several of the declared Democratic presidential candidates also addressed the group.
Philippe Chabat of the D.C. Anti-War Network lambasted the Democratic Party for trying to move to the political center to win the presidency in 2004.
"I am sick and tired, as a progressive American, of being totally taken for granted by the Democratic Party that has a leadership that wants to chip away at the" moderate middle of the electorate, Chabat said in an interview with CNSNews.com.
Ohio U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean are the most acceptable Democratic presidential candidates to the anti-war movement, according to Chabat. But he spared no criticism of other candidates.
"Joseph Lieberman is a Trojan Horse for the Republican Party, and John Kerry is a warmonger, and he's from Massachusetts, so he'll never win," Chabat asserted. "Dick Gephardt is the biggest loser that the Democratic Party has had in the last 50 years."
Speakers at the workshop predicted the anti-war movement would expand.
"We are going to turn this country around within one year, and we are going to have peace and security on different terms," said Bob Musil, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
The participants slammed the Bush administration for its "occupation" of Iraq and its energy policy.
Benjamin warned of the "second invasion of Iraq" by U.S. corporations and called for a "real secure energy system that would force the automobile companies to give us cars that get 50 miles per gallon."
John Cavanah, co-founder of the group United for Peace and Justice, said: "The Democrats will be strengthened if they make [anti-war policies] the centerpiece of their [2004] campaign.
But Cavanah warned that if the Democrats do not oppose Bush's "reckless and unsafe" foreign policy, they will "likely lose millions of people who have been energized by the peace movement."
Chabat predicted that anti-war Democratic candidates would gain in popularity.
"Those candidates like Kucinich and Howard Dean who actually stood up and spoke out against this stupid, senseless war are going to find themselves the frontrunners," Chabat explained.
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
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In Medea's world, flying between New York and San Francisco, this is probably a true statement. But imagine the horror Medea would have if his (her?) plane developed a problem high above fly-over country and had to land in, gulp, one of those "other" states. OMG!
Forget drafting Gore...draft NADER! Go Ralph Go!
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Seems like some folks never quite recovered from the drug-induced stupor of the 60's where they sat around taking hits off a bong, drinking either Mateus or Blue Nun wine, consuming munchies and bitching about the "Man" conspiring to sell more cars(look at what they're making in profits, man), tires (Hey, we're in Nam cause they got rubber plantations, dude)and gasoline (They shut down an oil well in my aunt's backyard to drive the price up you know) by "buying out" your cousin's next door neighbor's uncle's invention for a 200 mpg carburator.
Life is so simple when you don't have to face reality.
This woman is seriously deluded.
A sneaky way of saying, "Keep him away from us! He's a Joooooooooo!!" ?
You were right, Pod, same conference.
LOL, I wish I'd seen this...
That's what I kept trying to tell my daughter who, with my son-in-law, moved up to VA two weeks ago. She insisted on getting a position in Georgetown to be "where it's happening."
She should do well - she's a "tree-hugger" through and through. Meanwhile I age ten years every day worrying about them!
Our family car gets 50 mpg, and cruises at 85 -- but nobody gave it to us!
Then again, if they get a new leadership, figure out what the heck they are doing, they may actually pose a greater threat then they do now.
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