The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

My Sunday post on the content of the anti-war demonstration led to a long discussion with a couple of readers. A lot of good thought went into the comments, and I appreciate them all. Some commenters think that I should be more willing to accept that putting the war into historical perspective, and questioning its legality, are legitimate parts of the anti-war movement. Maybe so, but I want to suggest that they study a few historical leaders to inform their movement. I'll pick one: Abraham Lincoln.

Some of the components of Lincoln's success as a leader were his ability to compromise, to subsume his ego in service of his strategic goals, and to make few permanent enemies. Reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's recent biography, I was struck time and again how he found areas of agreement between himself and others on both sides of the difficult issues of the day, how he refused to question the motives of those with whom he disagreed, and the way he immediately mended fences with those who ended upon the other side of an argument or political contest.

When I compare the way that Lincoln faced the great challenge of his time to the way that the leadership of the anti-war movement has faced theirs, I see a number of differences.

Let's begin with compromise. For Lincoln, it was key. He understood that his power was limited by what the people and their representatives would accept, and acted accordingly. Bold strokes were rare, while carefully calculated moves were common. Lincoln's ability to compromise was based in an exquisitely tuned sense of political realism which helped him to patiently and deliberately reach his ultimate goals.

I see little of Lincoln's ability to compromise in the anti-war movement. Reader Peter described my suggested position as "wishy-washy centrist views that will never stimulate any kind of lasting social change". But the example of Lincoln's leadership shows exactly the opposite. He was able to achieve great social change precisely because he was able to strike a series of compromises between the two factions of the day. His ability to compromise was the key to the lasting social change engendered by his administration.

As for subsuming one's ego in service of political aims, I don't see much of that either. The need to be shown to be right seems to trump the desire to attract a wide variety of supporters. The prime example is the need to drag in issues of US imperialism and the illegality of the war into what should be a simple petition opposing the war. (For those familiar with the history of the time, the position of the anti-war protesters reminds me of Salmon P. Chase.)

As for Lincoln's ability to patch up relations with his rivals, I don't see much reaching out in the rhetoric or actions of the anti-war movement.

The latest polls show that a staggering 70% of adults disapprove of the administration's handling of the Iraq war. Yet the anti-war movement stays at the fringes of our public debate. There's some media coverage, but I don't seem meaningful engagement with anything like 70% of the population. Perhaps the false consciousness of our consumer society is to blame, but I believe that a good part of the explanation is absence of leadership that follows the example of great politicians like Lincoln.

Protests at Randy Kuhl's Fairport and Bath offices received coverage in local newspapers and television. The Bath protest resulted in arrests. The Elmira Star-Gazette coverage lists the names and home towns of the five arrested. One of those arrested lives in the district (Hector), one lives Trumansburg, and three live in Ithaca. The Syracuse News 10 coverage also quotes a counter-protester at the Bath office.

In Fairport, some quick police work kept protesters out of jail. The Democrat and Chronicle story describes it this way:

In Fairport, six members of the group occupied Kuhl's Packet Landing office for more than seven hours.

They left Kuhl's office after Fairport police Sgt. Matthew E. Barnes invited them to walk with him to police headquarters.

Once outside, Barnes locked the door and told them they were free to go.

Update: Rochester Indy Media has photographs and coverage of the Fairport protest. Apparently, three protesters were detained for a short period of time then released after being served with a trespassing summons.

Update #2: Reader Elmer sends stories from the Daily Messenger [pdf] and Corning Leader [pdf]. The Leader story says that two of the arrested protesters were from Trumansburg and three from Ithaca, which would make them all from out of the district.

Today's Elmira Star-Gazette reports that Finger Lakes for Peace will deliver 3,000 petitions to Randy Kuhl's Bath office tomorrow. The wording of the petition can be seen on the group's website [pdf].

The gesture of delivering the petitions en masse will probably draw some media attention. But if I were to set out to design a document with less appeal to the 70% of the population that opposes the war, I'd be hard-pressed to beat the following short paragraph:

I am strongly opposed to the illegal war of aggression against Iraq. I believe the war betrays American values, violates the will of the Iraqi people, fuels anti-Americanism, and makes us all less safe. I believe the best way to stop the war is to stop its funding. I call for a formal apology to the people of Iraq and for funding to be provided by the U.S. for the rebuilding of Iraq, by the Iraqi People. I call for an immediate redeployment and phased withdrawal of our Troops. I call upon you to vote AGAINST President Bush’s Supplemental Appropriations Bill in September, and use Congress’ power of the purse to end the Iraq War.

I've been against the war from the beginning. I think it was an ill-advised, risky overreach into a country that had a peripheral (at best) role in the support of those who attacked the US on 9/11. Even so, I'd have a hard time signing this righteous document, for the following reasons:

• The war isn't illegal, since it was authorized by Congress. And, even though it's now clear that many of the justifications for going to war are false, the war began as one of self-defense. The current occupation is the result of very stupid actions on our part (such as disbanding the Iraqi Army), but "war of aggression" is still too broad a brush.
• I don't think that the "will of the Iraqi people" at the time of the invasion was overwhelmingly against the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. That will has changed over time, but we should at least acknowledge that some Iraqis might have been with us at the beginning.
• Calling for an immediate apology to the Iraqi people, whose elected representatives have been bickering among themselves, and many of whom have been engaging in a civil war, is premature at best. Apologies for wars are best given after emotions have cooled.
• We've funneled billions into Iraq for rebuilding. Though some of that has been wasted by inefficient and corrupt contractors, a lot of it has been thwarted by the Iraqi People, who are fighting a civil war that blocks reconstruction projects.

In order to sign this document, I need to sign on to an extreme, negative view of American power. Though I'm disillusioned and ashamed of much of what we've done in Iraq, I'm just not ready to supply an abject apology, nor am I willing accept the notion that the war was solely an ill-intentioned, callous exercise of imperial power. Moreover, I can't endorse the characterization of the Iraqi people as innocent victims which seems to underly this little tract. There are too many of those purported innocents using AK-47s to shoot our troops and each other.

Some people wonder why there isn't more marching in the streets, or more vocal protests against this unpopular war. I think at least part of the reason has been the shrillness and self-regarding righteousness of the war's opponents. Members of this group seem so invested in being right that they disregard their main political aim: to organize a generally centrist majority against the war. That majority, which I believe exists, probably doesn't see a formal apology as a first step toward ending the war.

3,000 petitions will not change Randy Kuhl's vote. But thousands of letters from supporters turned opponents because of the war will. The anti-war "movement" has done little that I've seen to mobilize this latter kind of real, effective opposition.

The House was scheduled to adjourn yesterday for the August recess, but a dust-up on the House floor Thursday night, among other delays, has the House at work today.

Randy Kuhl has been "Mr. No" for the past week. Kuhl did not support any of the major appropriation legislation that reached the floor this week, which included:

• Increases in funding for the Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act This bill would have added $30 billion in funding to add 3 million more children to the S-CHIP program, which is a joint state-federal plan to insure children whose parents have incomes above the poverty line. The bill is funded in part by an increase in the tax on tobacco.
• The appropriation bill for the Department of Agriculture, FDA and related agencies. Kuhl voted "present" on this bill, since it was part of the dispute mentioned above. Most Republicans were absent for the vote. Even though Kuhl serves on the Agriculture committee, he had no earmarks in the bill.

Both appropriation bills passed the House, though the S-CHIP authorization is under veto threat from the President. Kuhl also voted against two other national-security related bills. The first was a bill mandating that active duty, guard and reserve troops will have a home rotation equal to the amount of time they are on duty in Afghanistan or Iraq. The final bill that Kuhl opposed this week was the reauthorization of the FISA surveillance program. That bill failed by a few votes.