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Government & ElectionsCode Pink Supports Obama Victory-No Mention Of The Sheehan Campaign
Medea Benjamin, Norman Soloman and others on the "left" refused to help the one person who was challenging Nancy Pelosi who was personally responsible for continuing the funding for the war. Now Code Pink is declaring the victory of Obama a victory for the people. Is this the same Obama who wants to send more troops to Afghanistan and wants to enlarge the US military? Code Pink Supports Obama Victory
Code PINK Alert: Revolt or Revolve TODAY, Nov 5, Noon at the MRS Weeeelllll, what a time to be alive. Obama won; We won. Many who have never been involved, have gotten a taste of what it is like to BE ON THE STREETS! To join with sistahs and bros, to work for what is vital to our existence! To the quality of life in this country! And we lost some: prop 8 most likely passed; clean air was defeated in SF; JROTC was put back into the SF schools; another U.S. solder was killed in Iraq and more than 20 Iraqis. Let's continue to build on our momentum, for our really hard work has just begun. Let's declare some victory and roll up our sleeves - for surely there is more hope for change now than ever before. Join us Noon today at the MRS (marine recruiting station), 64 Shattuck Square, Berkeley (2 blocks north of downtown BART - on Shattuck Ave just south of University, where Shattuck runs one-way and north) Bring signs: "Foreclose on War", "Foreclose on Recruiting", "Bail out Main Street"; Change direction: Iraq to USA, NOT Afghanistan". And "We WILL Prevail" Or just BE THERE! Call 510-540-7007 for more info ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Cindy Sheehan [mailto:contact [at] CindyforCongress.org] Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 12:01 PM To: tlacey [at] uesf.org Subject: I Will Never Concede Defeat by Cindy Sheehan "I have fought the good fight, I have run the good race, I have kept the faith." St. Paul in 2Timothy I kept on saying to my supporters, staff, interns, volunteers and myself, that no matter what happened on November 4th that we could hold our heads up high and be very proud of our campaign. Until yesterday, I wasn't sure that what I said would be true, but I feel an incredibly sense of peace and pride in our accomplishments. There were so many victories over the last year that the American paradigm of "winner-take all" just doesn't fit. We moved into San Francisco a little over a year ago with less than nothing. We used savings and credit cards to open our office and sometimes to keep it open. We transformed a former "sex shop" to a fully functioning and vibrant campaign office. Our "natural base" never materialized, so we had to build a foundation in less than a few months. In August, we historically gained ballot access as only the 6th independent campaign in California history to do so. Our platform based on humane economics was in place long before the recent collapses and resultant bailouts. Our labor platform was hailed all over the world, while unions here in SF supported the corporate "rescuer" Nancy Pelosi. Cindy for Congress never once sold out our solid principles and issues based campaign and would never sell out the voters of San Francisco like Nancy Pelosi has. Nancy Pelosi never ran a campaign here, but she did run from my campaign and our demands to debate. Yet we persevered and did so amazingly well after a near total media black out and several attempts at political intimidation. We got to the end of this stage with a barrel full of integrity and a boatload of dedication and love. Dozens of activists came from all over the country to be here to help us spread our progressive, peace based message and thousands donated to help keep our campaign afloat. We have moved right through November 4th because this is a movement for peace and against corporate control of our political system. Movements can't stop: we must keep moving. The way we do elections in this country must be reformed because clearly the campaigns with the most money won all over the country. If we never level the playing field to allow the people's voice and message to be heard, the tyranny of incumbency and the obscene amount of money spent on these circuses will continue and true progressive change will never happen. Long voting lines and the fact that election day is not a holiday or on Sunday give a clear disadvantage to the working class that need campaigns like mine and elected officials like me to improve their lives. We will still have to fight the establishment with everything we have and this campaign has proven that we do have a lot of clout if we are persistent and devoted. Yesterday, at about 10, we were traveling around the district and receiving huge amounts of support and were dismayed to see an article from the AP saying that Nancy Pelosi had already defeated me. Our exit polling (from every area in the district) showed me receiving between 35-60% of the vote. We were very optimistic that we would do much better than we ultimately ended up doing. However, Cindy for Congress got almost twice as many votes as anyone who has ever run against Pelosi since she eked out a primary victory in 1987 over Harry Britt, who was also the most progressive candidate. We raised a decent amount of money and are honored by the support we have gotten from all over this nation. This is not the time to give up and give in to the politics of blinding amounts of money shrouded in "hope." On November 5th, we still have millions of people sleeping on our streets and without jobs and health care. We still have our troops mired in two unconscionable wars that Obama has not promised to end. Our economy is still on a very precarious footing and oil, the lifeblood of the elite, is running out. There are many people in this world, and yes, even this nation that are food insecure and the next resource wars may be over water. Despite all this, I slept like a baby last night for the first time in months. I feel like a new person today and am holding my head up high. I dedicated my campaign to my son, Casey, and his comrades who have tragically fallen and the people of Iraq and Afghanistan that our government have devastated. We need to continue to make their deaths count for something noble. I dedicate the next steps to them, also. There are still many "fights" and "races" ahead. Take a few days to celebrate or mourn and reflect and then jump back in with both feet into the struggle for peace and justice.
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Wednesday Nov 5th, 2008 4:05 PM
 230207_obama_scowl.jpg How sad. Like MoveOn.org I've suspected Code Pink to be the limousine liberals who will divert the attention of the "left" to cooperate with the centrists warmongers in the Democratic party.
Though Obama's victory was a milestone in so far as it now looks like many Americans have now overcome race issues, Obama has promised to take the phony, neocon-created "War on Terror" to other more deserving countries like Pakistan and possibly Iran. Are we are to just let that one slide when it happens Code Pink? I guess for Code Pink and MoveOn it is better to live in the fabricated reality with a pre-selected candidate then to push of real change -- one that would require them to demand 9/11 truth and a candidate who doesn't spout off neocon fabrications like Obama did during the debates when he accused Russia attacking Georgia.
Wednesday Nov 5th, 2008 7:53 PM
The support for Obama coming from "progressives" like that mindless twit Medea Benjamin is about as surprising as that coming from dye-in-the-wool Stalinists like Norman Solomon is. After all, they all supported John Kerry last time…even though he was a pro-war candidate. And they would have supported Hillary Clinton, or any other Democrat, for that matter, in place of Obama. Only then we would be hearing about the first woman president instead of the first Black one…as if either would make a difference for workers, Blacks or women. Since when was sprucing up the image of imperialism the job of the “left?” For the fake left, however, identity politics is the last resort of scoundrels.
The real problem is that for all of them, from Zinn to Chomsky to Naomi Klein, the eternal existence of capitalism is taken as a given and “reforming” it is as good as good gets for them. Only there are no “New Deals” on tap in the epoch of lean production. The only deal that the workers are going to get is a raw one, whether it’s Obama or McCain who is doing the dealing. It says a lot about “left intellectuals” when they can’t think of one positive reason to vote for the Democrats, so that they have to resort to telling their audience to vote against the Republican! Of course back in 2000, the “progressives” were singing a different song as the winds blowing from Seattle stiffened up their backbones a bit. The fact that they had a Democrat in the White House and another one on the way in, or so it seemed, also helped. Hence they thought it was safe to thumb their noses at Clinton, Gore and the DLC for taking them for granted for the previous 8 years. All it took was a few years of Bush, aided and abetted by the Democrats every step of the way, for them to go back to being taken for granted. Or as Malcolm X said, they keep putting the Democrats first even though the Democrats always put them last No matter which way you cut it though, it still come’s out the same. Do the same thing year in and year out even though it didn’t work, doesn’t work and never will work. While the more honest amongst them may call it “the lesser of two evils,” Albert Einstein had a better word for it…insanity. The first “lesser-evil,” in Germany, Field Marshall von Hindenberg, got the support of the Social Democratic left and then appointed the greater evil, Adolf Hitler, as Chancellor. The latter then proceeded to smash the left and the labor movement with the blessing of the former. Who, outside of a Trotsky, would have imagined that it would be recycled over and over again, after such an ignominious opening? In the US, the mainstream liberal left, intellectuals included, routinely vote for Democrats, who implement policies that are barely distinguishable from those of their Republican rivals so the ruling class doesn’t even need to resort to any Hitlers to get its way. Of course, to be fair, the “progressive” small-fries, are only following in the footsteps of the big boys in the trade union bureaucracy and those of the middle-class misleaders of the Black community, who long ago sold their souls to capitalism through their dead-end deals with the Democrats. While the liberal left obviously wields no real clout within the working class or the Black population, it does influence the behavior of radical activists within the “mass movements.” Taking them off the streets and getting them into the Democratic party is their chosen lot in life. So back in the sixties, it was “Half the Way with LBJ,” since Goldwater was going to get the US into a war in Vietnam. LBJ won and the rest is history. Bush I and Dole had to be kept out at any cost too. So they held their noses and supported Clinton, who not only abolished welfare but made more cutbacks in social services than Reagan and Bush combined and carried out more military interventions as well. We all know about “ABB” and how it demobilized the anti-war movement in 2004. Now they’re going all out for Obama, who wants to send even more troops to Afghanistan than McCain does and who was even more supportive of the Wall Street bail-out than the Republicans were. What was it that that Karl Marx guy said about “first time tragedy, second time farce?” The only way to fight the “right,” or, to call the enemy by its real name, capitalism, is by building an independent left. Yeah, we know that Nader, McKinney or Cindy Sheehan can’t win but how will they even make an impact when everyone who really agrees with them votes for candidates that they don’t agree with? Sure, there’s no viable independent party around either. But how is the latter ever going to get off the ground when the left supports right-wing (”centrist”) Democrats every time around. You gotta’ start somewhere, sometime. Did Fremont and Lincoln win the first time they ran as abolitionists against the pro-slavery parties? Or should they have supported the more “progressive” section of the slave-owners instead? And speaking of the designer “left” and the internet fan club of Ba-Rock Star Obama in particular and “lesser evilism” in general, I’ll let one of them have the final word. As none other than Michael Moore said at a Nader rally in 2000, “We are at the place we are at now because we have settled for so less, for so long. If we keep settling it is only going to get worse. [With] the lesser of two evils, you still wind up with evil. We are being asked to choose the second worst candidate.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Wednesday Nov 5th, 2008 9:03 PM
The Peace Movement is more like the Peace Frozen-Solid.
I am very frustrated that the people who should've gotten behing Cindy Sheehan ran around supporting less important races. I could care less about the presidential election. This race between Pelosi and Cindy was the only one I cared about, and Medea was silent and non-supportive, and I no longer wish to be known as a member of Code Pink because of that and because there were not more supporters for this herstoric race. I will support Code Pink actions, but I will not wear pink or be involved in the way that I have been. Aside from that,notice, however, that Pelosi behaved without honor, as usual, pretending that Cindy was not of equal caliber until the end, then it was announced that Cindy was her opponent and easily defeated. Funny she never acted like Cindy was an opponent until it suited her. The truth is that Pelosi is not and never has been not up to the quality and standard of Cindy. Cindy is easily her better, and when the word gets out in the next 2 years, as it will, she will be bested. Because we the people have no use for pre-digested phony candidates with good teeth and expensive suits but shoddy morals. I am angry as hell about this race. I am pleased about the 17 percent but angry that no one in the corporate media had the balls to give the Sheehan campaign the attention it deserved. The media has sold America out as surely as the political career-whores like Pelosi and her ilk. I hope there is a special place in prison for these phonies. There certainly is a special place of hate in my heart for them And as for the superficial peace activists that refuse to stop vigiling and candlelighting and beating their heads against the wall--When a strategy doesn't work, it is time to change it. It is time to put our asses on the line, move out of our comfort zones, and carefully consider where the opportunity for us to take charge and control exists. That means us all being arrested at the ICE rallies so they stop picking us off one by one. That means considering every violation of human rights a violation of our own persons. NO more murder in our name, no more extradition, no more letting them come and get one. Arrest us all. Let the world see what this country stands for these days, truly. When we are all in prison there will be no mistake. The United States stands for Oppresssion and Lies. I am angry. I am looking forward to the bloom coming off the Obama rose, and then we shall make our move. We will oversee every political position, we will bang pots and pans in the streets, we women will march with our shirts off if that will save lives and prevent torture, no method is too strenuous. And as for the media black-outs we will not take this ridiculous control of our people's minds lightly. Those that work for Corporate Media have sold us out for a good dental plan and phony self-perception that lackeys around them indulge. They should be and will be reviled. Their selling out also makes the burden to spread the real word very great on real free speech sites like Indybay. You are responsible for saving this country by making sites like this possible. And those who read it, you are the true lovers of the people of this country and all countries. Cindy Sheehan had the right idea. Challenge the evil at it's source, and she did. I am proud of her insight, courage, and actions. I am proud I was a part of it, and I intend to follow it through the next campaign, as there will be. The people, united, will never be defeated. But we must unite, and stay united.
Thursday Nov 6th, 2008 7:48 AM
"I am angry. I am looking forward to the bloom coming off the Obama rose, and then we shall make our move."
The bloom is already coming off -- day 1. Obama just selected Rahm Emanuel, a hard core zionist as his chief of staff. When will Americans wise up.
Thursday Nov 6th, 2008 1:52 PM
Thank You, Cindy. The vision of this campaign, against all odds and media black out hit the streets. You took your voice to the Tenderloin, to Bayview-places where the Queen Pelosi will never set foot.
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