Endorse Obama, Mr. "PeaceLovingRepublican" Smith

Once again we witness the sad spectacle of rogue Democrats, led by erstwhile (a while ago indeed) peace pol Elizabeth Furse, supporting hawk-in-dove's-feathers Republican Gordon Smith over the perfectly capable Democrat candidate, Jeff Merkley (if you believe that perfectly capable Democrat isn't a virtual oxymoron). If Smith can benefit from this, surely he can see the consistency in supporting Barak Obama over John McCain. After all, McCain is the most hawkish presidential candidate since Barry Goldwater.

Obama is going to win if he is perceived as the peace candidate (he isn't really, except in contrast to McCain, which is the ultimate low benchmark). Peace-imaged candidates usually do win, even if they take us to war after they're elected (think LBJ, Nixon, even Woodrow Wilson).

If Smith wants to try to convince voters that he really is for peace, then, he can most effectively do so in two ways.

One, pledge to vote against any bill with Iraq occupation or warfighting funds in it.

Two, endorse Obama.

Without both these crucial credibility markers, Smith is just another dissembling opportunistic politician.

Lies must die

It was 40 years ago that I began to awaken, politically, in 1968, the year I graduated from my Minnesota high school. The war in Vietnam was a truly stupid, destructive background to my life from when I was in eighth grade and reading in the newspaper about the domino effect, and why the US needed to stop communism from spreading in Asia any worse than it already had. Some had seen the disaster waiting to happen--certainly John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby were two in American national politics, along with Mark Hatfield from a state that, in those days, I only heard about as spectacularly beautiful--Oregon.

So John Kennedy was assassinated 45 years ago and Bobby was taken out 40 years ago this week. Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian, was Bobby's killer, and the motivation was ultimately attributed to his fixation on Kennedy's vote for some arms sale to Israel. Sirhan Sirhan's journals were found with obsessively repetitive mantra: "RFK must die. RFK must die. RFK must die."

Sirhan Sirhan may have killed a US politician who voted for a military sale to Israel, but he also contributed to a general US citizenry distrust, dislike and disgust for Palestinians who support their armed struggle. Geez, by their standards, Obama should be shot too. Violence can "win" in the short run and lose big overall.

Bobby Kennedy was a good man who was flawed. He worked to elevate the lives of regular folks, he would have ended the Vietnam debacle, he would have worked to more effectively raise economic levels in black communities (which is where I was as a 17-year-old volunteer in Chicago when Kennedy was killed), he was liked and trusted in Native American communities, and he fasted with Cesar Chavez to help strengthen the United Farmworkers Union.

So this year, like every year, is a good year to work to expose the lies and unelect the politicians whose patterns of voting support US wars. This is why I personally am determined to do what tiny bit I can to work against Gordon Smith, who would have been against the war in Vietnam ONLY after the regular citizenry finally rejected the lies of the Lyndon Johnson regime and only symbolically. Smith would have been the antithesis of Bobby Kennedy and Mark Hatfield; he plays at his image of compassionate conservative but the compassionate part is reserved for self-aggrandizing acts of cheap and cynical political theater, such as calling the parents of Oregonians killed as they illegally occupy another country--in a war that Gordon Smith has voted for on virtually every occasion where his vote meant anything.

I guess I'm like a nonviolent Sirhan Sirhan: The lies must die. The lies must die. The lies must die.

Smith cheerleaders and critical thinking

There was a column in the New York Times one year ago, in June 2007, by a fellow named Timothy Egan. This guest commentary was a paean to US Senator Gordon Smith and Smith has gotten Frequent Flyer miles out of that column, rest assured. Egan fawned all over himself to extol the myriad virtues of our Senator—though it’s not clear where Egan is actually personally from. I strongly suspect he wrote the piece on the payroll of Smith, of the Republicans, or that he is willfully ignoring logic. Indeed, Egan seemed aware of the great numbers who have viewed Smith’s “change of heart” on Iraq (from chickenhawk to faux Bush opponent) and set them up as straw men to be knocked down with…illogic and avoidance. Here is Egan’s strongest defense of Smith’s cynical speech:

“Some people question the timing of the senator’s change of heart. Smith is vulnerable in this blue state, they say, and his conversion is just a ploy to save his seat. But there is something else at work here. Smith has the seat once held by Senator Mark Hatfield, another Republican who defied his party on matters of war and peace. Hatfield was a Navy man, a veteran of Iwo Jima and one of the first Americans to see Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped. All that carnage changed his world view.

Smith was never in the armed forces. His biggest regret in life, he says, is that he never wore his country’s uniform. But unlike some chicken-hawks who did not serve — chief among them, Vice President Cheney, with his numerous draft deferments — he is not trying to make up for lost courage.”

Wait a minute. “There is something else at work here.” Like what? What does Hatfield’s strong position on pulling out of Vietnam—made public and powerfully when he was regarded as outré and marginalized as weak—have to do with Smith’s election season conversion? When the American people sent the strong signal in November 2006 that they wanted new leadership in Washington that would end the Iraquagmire, Smith’s antenna were up and working. He did a neat half-pirouette exactly one month later and announced his new rehabilitated position, one that lined up in our blue state. Hatfield had exactly nothing whatsoever to do with this, nor was it a Hatfieldesque profile in courage. We call it the Smith profile in pusillanimity.

Letter to the editor of the Hood River News

For the past five and one-half years, Gordon Smith has been the only Senator from Oregon to vote in favor of war at every opportunity. He voted in favor of launching an unprovoked attack against Iraq and rose to denounce those who were in favor of peace many times. He is a typical chickenhawk--he avoided military service during his generation's war in Vietnam and spoke loudly and often and with a powerful vote to send the younger generation to kill and die in the next stupid, illegal war.

Now he claims to be opposed to this ongoing war and occupation, but he only cast one possibly meaningful vote against it. Gordon Smith's actions have been so negative and immoral that I've joined ministers, legal secretaries, professional ecologists and others in taking the drastic step of getting arrested just trying to visit his office. We didn't yell, nor did we interrupt or anything threatening or violent, but his office will not even make an appointment to talk about peace. In short, he is making false claims about his stance on this war and I hope we Oregonians will hold him accountable in November.

Yours truly, Tom H. Hastings, Portland

If anyone else wishes to offer an opinion to the Hood River News, the link to send a letter to the editor (which must be sent in via their website):
http://www.hoodrivernews.com/HRNToEditor.shtml

If we can reach beyond Portland and let other Oregonians know that Smith has dissembled and obfuscated on his war votes at every turn, perhaps his voters will want to see change enough to vote him out. If we want peace, we cannot stand another six years of Gordon Smith in such a powerful political position. Letters to editors are a way to reach his people to let them know how he has betrayed them.

Nonviolent victory: Keep up the pressure

When Gordon Smith voted against more war funding last Thursday, he did so in the face of a two-year-long campaign marked by thousands of petition signatures, thousands of signed postcards from Oregon voters, numerous arrests of nonviolent lobbyists who merely showed up at his Portland office and were summarily arrested, and a grassroots media outreach campaign of letters to editors and guest editorials submitted to newspapers out beyond the liberal reach of Portland, out into Smith Country.

In other words, we forced him to act as if he has grown a conscience. This is a testament to the power of nonviolence, of approaching the adversarial system of representative democracy with some non-negotiables but in a respectful manner. We never raised our voices, we didn't interrupt anyone, we didn't vilify police or PGE security or even Smith. We won.

But this is a minor, reversible victory. Smith's vote stood out but it was cast knowing that it meant little, since the Senate voted to spend the $165.5 billion on the war on Iraq and Smith's vote was not needed. He took the opportunity to vote against the war funding for the very first time. It is during an election season and he is a vulnerable Republican in a Democratic state. If he doesn't come up with one or two of these he's going to lose.

Now the vote goes back to the House, who rejected it last week and will vote again. We will see. Gordon Smith is malleable for the next few months and then, if he's reelected, he will be invincible and unreachable by our puny grassroots efforts for another six years, during which he can continue to do serious damage to our economy, our ecology, our ethical foundations and our very spirit as Oregonians and as Americans. It is good to know we can push him to act like a spineless politician instead of a rabid ideologue, but wouldn't replacing him be best?

Senate and Smith cave to war spending

The US Senate, excluding Senator Gordon Smith, has nominally "stood up" to Bush by approving another $165.5 billion to occupy another country in another part of the world. The mainstream media are shamelessly portraying this obscene vote as some sort of profile in courage because they "joined" the Democrats who wanted to add a bit for veterans' benefits and they tossed in a bit for Katrina victims. From an Associated Press report:
"Senators voted 70-26 to approve $165 billion to fulfill Bush's request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into next spring, when Bush's successor will set war policy."

In other words, nothing changed. This argument ("I've gotta vote for war or Katrina victims won't get help") has been used since the earliest funding of this immoral, illegal war and occupation. Gordon Smith is somehow credited with having peaceloving values. His values are his own business, but his voting record is clear; he is remarkably inconsistent in his rhetoric but rock solid in his war spending when it really matters. The weaponeers, the big war profiteers, and Big Oil all love Gordon Smith.

If you love war, vote for Smith. If you love peace, choose another candidate. His talk and his walk are vastly different and he can vote to spend far more than the government has and hope to make more friends (just look at the Elizabeth Furse-led Democrats for Smith, who seem to benefit from Smith votes), but his war support is unwavering. Vote your conscience.

Hope against Smith and McCain

Yesterday, 18 May 2008, Oregonians showed up in record numbers to stand for Barak Obama. What were we there for?

We want someone who will stop and reverse the kinds of policies that George Bush and Gordon Smith have promulgated on our lives and on this world. We are looking for hope and strength, not the ravages of war that Bush and Smith have brought to us. Finally, we want to hear someone speak in real words that have real meaning. George Bush proclaims that he is a man of peace. Gordon Smith wrings his hands and says he is against some parts of some wars. Neither one are credible; their words are Orwellian, Goebbellian.

Is Obama perfect? Nope--we want him to be much stronger and more specific about getting out of Iraq once he's elected. But all the alternatives to Bush-McCain lies are preferable and we stood to hear the most hopeful.

All the announced alternatives to Gordon Smith are vastly preferable. We are sick of being lied to. We want hope and we will have it, finally.