Thu 27 Sep 2007
Now THIS is going to be cool.
We founded TrueMajority and TrueMajorityAction to offer an easy way for all those people out there who want America to be more just and compassionate to speak out. It really caught on, and turned into one of the largest online groups in America. But now, it’s time to take it to the next level.
As of this month, TrueMajorityAction is merging our operations with USAction, one of the pre-eminent field organizing progressive groups in America.
Fri 13 Jul 2007
Here’s the latest from the Antiwar Room: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7233192191101033516. What you don’t see is a discussion John Isaacs and I have off camera about the Reed Levin amendment on Senate Defense Authorization, which I think is too weak, because of the many loopholes for leaving the troops in. He argues that the House legislation has the same loopholes. I don’t disagree, but I feel that the vote yesterday was entirely symbolic, whereas the Senate vote has some chance of making into law. With John’s permission, I am reprinting a blog post he wrote about troops getting out for his site at Council for a Liveable World.
Darcy Scott Martin, Washington DC Director
From John Isaac’s blog:
Leaving some troops in Iraq
Many anti-Iraq war activists are wary of amendments that require most American combat troops to leave Iraq, while leaving some number – 30,000 - 60,000 – in the country for training purposes, defending the American presence and chasing terrorists.
Some see the remaining soldiers as part of a plot to maintain a permanent presence in Iraq to protect American oil interests.
I beg to differ.
My view is that once the American troops start leaving in large numbers, they all will follow. That is, neither the American nor the Iraqi populations will tolerate a permanent presence of a large contingent of American troops. A decision taken today to remove combat troops is a decision to bring them all home.
Moreover, if 160,000 American troops can have little impact over there, what makes anyone think that 60,000 or 30,000 can, or are less vulnerable to attack even if hunkered down in “secure” bases or in the Green Zone or outside of Baghdad?
There were two very insightful – insightful because they agree with me of course – pieces in today’s newspapers.
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman today wrote:
The passions that have been unleashed in Iraq are not going to accommodate some partial withdrawal plan, where we just draw down troops, do less patrolling, more training and fight Al Qaeda types. It’s a fantasy. The minute we start to withdraw, all hell will break loose in the areas we leave, and there will be a no-holds-barred contest for power among Iraqi factions. Our staying there with, say, half as many troops, will not be sustainable.
He is correct, of course. Once we start out, we will continue out.
Stephen Biddle, who was in Iraq in March and April and is senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, penned an op-ed in today’s Washington Post. He suggests:
Few lawmakers are comfortable with abandoning Iraq or admitting defeat. The result has been a search for some kind of politically moderate “Plan B” that would split the difference between surge and withdrawal. The problem is that these politics do not fit the military reality of Iraq. Many would like to reduce the U.S. commitment to something like half of today’s troop presence there. But it is much harder to find a mission for the remaining 60,000 to 80,000 soldiers that makes any sense militarily.
Biddle, too, is correct. Those that are agonizing over amendments that don’t bring home every American soldier immediately are missing the forest for the trees. If Congress passes legislation to get most troops out of Iraq and overcomes a President Bush veto, the U.S. will be well on its way to total withdrawal.
Richard Nixon started slowly bring the troops home from Vietnam as part of his “Vietnamization.” But once they started, American soldiers weren’t going back and the remainder of the troops came home.
It took years for the withdrawal from Vietnam.
It will take a much shorter time from Iraq.
Thu 5 Jul 2007
Just about every week, a few folks in Washington get together and talk about what will happen next on Iraq War legislation. I am very often a guest. Here is the last session:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8382108146468181514
Darcy Scott Martin, Washington DC director
Thu 22 Mar 2007
A letter from a concerned TrueMajority member who is trying to figure out what to do about the Supplemental:
At the same time that I received your email to call my rep to say No to a supplemental, I received an email from MoveOn.org telling me to call him to vote Yes for an amendment????? I really don’t know what I should do. I personally have been writing and calling for the resignations of the remaining Bush administration to save the integrity of this nation and stopping this illegal war NOW. Not one more penny should be spent except to bring them home and heal the wounded and bury the dead with dignity and grace.
If they put time tables on this supplement/amendment, won’t the prez veto his own money requests?
Stuck in concerned limbo!!!
Wendy XXXXX
My response:
Hi Wendy:
I certainly understand your quandry. These are very difficult times and I appreciate your passion for this life and death issue. As you saw in your in box, even here in the community that is working to stop the Iraq War in Washington have moments when we disagree. When Bush’s audacious request for $100 billion more for a surge and continuing war in Iraq was introduced, I was hoping for an up or down vote on the ridiculous proposal. However, one of the Democratic leaders who advocated for an end to the war, Rep. Jack Murtha, was in the position to write the House version of the Supplemental bill and saw it as an opportunity to incorporate many of the war-ending strategies he supported into a bill he assumed would pass the House. With that in mind, he talked about incorporating closure of Guantanamo, restrictions on troop deployment that would have effectively put a stop to the surge, date certain deadlines for redeployment, a sanction against an attack on Iran without coming back to Congress with justification, and other very effective war-ending platforms in the Supplemental. Rather than hearing rousing cheers from the newly minted majority of Democrats, he was attacked by the more conservative members of the Democratic majority who were concerned about “micro-managing” the war. So compromises were made. Gone is Guantanamo language, gone is the Iran prohibition, a waiver is added ensuring the surge will continue.
With these changes, our members found the supplemental coming out of the appropriations committee to be unacceptable, you will need to decide whether you agree. TrueMajority.org have advocated against every supplemental since Bush’s first request and we remain consistent in that advocacy. I am sure we have made mistakes. I now wish we had more loudly objected to the idea that the party that was elected to the majority to end the war would take any part in crafting a bill to fund the war, but that ship has sailed now and we have the political situation before us. As we go foward, we will continue to work with other groups here in DC to end the war in Iraq, with agreements and disagreements. We are not able to predict what the Senate or the President will do, but we will continue to monitor the situation for you. We hope that we are acting in a way that best represents our members and email from members like you helps keep us on the right tack. Thank you for all you do.
Darcy Scott Martin
TrueMajority.org Washington Director
Thu 22 Mar 2007
| The letter below was sent to Progressive Caucus Members |
|
The Honorable Lloyd Doggett
Dear Representative Doggett:
Thank you so much for the consideration you have been giving the Iraq War supplemental funding bill before you. I just wanted to reiterate the position of TrueMajority.org, its founder, Ben Cohen, and the majority opinion of its 600,000 members. TrueMajority.org continues to advocate for no more money to support any aspect of the war that is not withdrawal. Given a level playing field, 40% of our members would have liked to see the Lee legislation pass. Even with that option available, 35% of our members said no more money, period. With that in mind, our members have advocated that you vote no on the Supplemental spending bill since last week.
We understand that you are getting pressure from constituents across the spectrum and I am sure that you carefully listen to them all. We would like to remind you that we consider a vote against the supplemental as a vote of conscience that says “no” to war and no one should be dissuaded from that position. Regardless of the outcome of this vote, we will continue to work with everyone striving to end the war, but are dismayed by the idea that people of principle are having their issues and positions threatened. We will not tolerate any retribution on Members of Congress who vote their conscience.
We look forward to working with you in the future to end this war and we know you are carefully considering this hard decision. Thank you for carrying such heavy weight for the American people.
Sincerely,
Matt Holland
TrueMajority Executive Director
Darcy Scott Martin
Washington Director
Fri 16 Mar 2007
We remind ourselves all the time that TrueMajority exists to be a service to our members, to help them increase their involvement in moving our government and nation toward progressive values. When we found ourselves, like the staff of other pro-peace organizations, tied up in knots over whether to support the House Democrats’ “half a loaf” bill setting a deadline for Iraq withdrawal, we eventually remembered that.
Here’s the transcript of our discussion this morning:
Matt [Matt Holland, Online Director]: Darcy and I have been debating the supplemental. As expected, the Approps cmte passed their version last night, will go to full house next week.
Matt: The prog plan (money only for withdrawal) failed unanimously in committee, and even “out now” folks voted for the Pelosi plan (except Barbara Lee) saying it was the best step for now.
Matt: but, our member poll shows that as of last week our folks liked “no money” better than “pelosi plan” [ed. note: see poll results, below]
darcy [Darcy Scott Martin, Political Director]: i think the loss in the senate put more pressure on the ds in the house to move something forward
Thu 22 Feb 2007
I think it all goes back to NAFTA. The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, was supposed to increase prosperity throughout the continent, instead brought economic insecurity to U.S. workers and a meltdown in Mexico. The low-wage, assembly line jobs never got to Mexico; they left the U.S. and went skipping over the ocean to Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the dumping of U.S. agricultural products on the Mexican market, coupled with “agrarian reform” pushed millions of Mexicans off the land and over the border.
Fri 15 Dec 2006
Today’s the 215th birthday of the Bill of Rights, which is the real basis of what I think of as “America.” Rather than muse darkly on the many assaults on those freedoms we’re living through right now, today I’m taking heart from the example of George Mason, who more than anyone else gave us those ten amendments. (more…)
Wed 13 Dec 2006
I know it has gone fairly unheralded, but we have one more new Democratic member of Congress as of yesterday, and I for one, am pretty darn pleased. Not only are we getting back a member of Congress who voted against the war, but we are seeing a slow repudiation of the 2003 Tom DeLay redistricting debacle. We will be greeting returning Texas member Ciro Rodriguez in January, who beat 14-year incumbent Republican Henry Bonilla. Those of you around for the 108th Congress remember Rodriguez as a member of Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs committees, as well as the chair of the Hispanic caucus, so the Iraq vote was pretty brave. He had what some could almost define as a miraculous resurrection yesterday, after a pretty rocky two years.
Wed 22 Nov 2006
Okay, now these guys are just making me mad! The discussion on NPR (not the hotbed of conservatism) they were discussing how hard it would be for Democrats who have won all these “Republican” seats. Now granted, a few of these folks are going to have to keep their heads down, but lots of these seats were not “Republican” seats, they were “Democratic” seats with Republicans in them or swing seats, which are identified as seats below +5.0 on either side. A third of the new Democrats (28 to date) are from Democratic seats, ten of them came from districts that voted for Clinton. Obviously redistricting played into this as well. Only seven new members are from districts with over +5 Republican performance. Eight of the Republican districts have been trending or have been made to be more Democratic, even during the heyday of the Bush administration.
Let’s go to the numbers:
