Buchanan Outflanks Left on Antiwar Issues
by Tony Abdo
December 22, 1999

This is the situation that now faces the Left: Pat Buchanan and his right-wing and libertarian allies have outflanked the Left, and are now emerging as more anti-militarist than a tired Old Left that likes to talk but has created no real antiwar movement.

I'll put it in other words. There is a stronger message of anti-militarism in the words, A Republic Not An Empire, than in all the gobbledygook put together, over at ZNet.

To an unaffiliated American unsatisfied with the "liberal" misuse of the U.S. military, Pat and the Buchananites seem to be the only political forces that attack the way veterans are mistreated. The Left doesn't even show up on veterans' radar screens as being an effective opposition to the current Commander-in-Chief.

I am not alone in feeling this way. The leftist website, emperors-clothes.com, also has just published an article attacking Znet for not really building opposition to NATO's war against Yugoslavia. Why is it so easy to be attracted to Pat?!

It's because many on the Left act as if the struggle against war is over! They act as if there is no war against the Palestinian people. They act as if there is no war against the Kurds. They act as if the US is not building up it's terror machine in Latin America. They act as only vaguely concerned about the Clinton sponsored genocide against Iraqi children!

The Left as a whole, did little to support building the last School of the Americas (SOA) Watch demonstration at Ft. Benning, Ga., against the SOA training base for Third World terrorists. The Left hasn't supported the hearings to try Clinton/Blair, etc. for war crimes. The Left has made zero effort to show the US/Clinton government responsibility for several genocides in Africa.

It is largely absent in building the Colombian Support network. There is no current movement against ROTC. There is no effort to build an Environmental Movement focused on the world's largest polluter, the military. And still there is no real movement against NATO. Abolish NATO! It still exists.

The CP, SWP, Committees of Correspondence, Socialist Action, Solidarity, Democratic Socialists, the International Socialists, ZNet, The Green Party, the New Party, and many, many others – too many to mention, have made little effort to build a new Peace Movement in the US

I'm not saying that they tried, but were unsuccessful. Rather, they have not made the effort, any more than the Mensheviks made the effort to pull the Tsarist Russian Empire out of World War I!

Why is this so? US military dominance is the central issue in world politics. It transcends other local and national issues in importance, because the US military is the billy club of the New World Order. We have a special responsibility, here in the US, to deflect that Big Stick and at least try to shield the world's peoples from its blows.

Dear Left – is it really possible to build a stronger labor movement while side-stepping this issue of US militarism? A militant resurgence in the unions cannot happen without first building a new peace movement. It is not going to happen that, first, we build a new labor movement and then we get peace.

Those who wrongly put forward this perspective have been marginalized out of American politics for two decades-plus. So now along comes Pat, and he's making speeches against the horrendous economic sanctions that have killed millions, and he's attacking the New World Order of NATO-enforced terror.

What are many of these "Left" organizations going to be doing in the coming months? They will be building the Bradley or Al Gore campaign. They will bleat away about "peace" and "tolerance." And they will be accusing the Republicans and Buchanan Reformers, of being very bad!

But to many, the "peace" rhetoric of Pat will rightfully appear more sincere than that of the Democrats, or say, Ralph Nader, who is known by most, as Mr. Seatbelt Law, rather than Mr. No-US-Militarism.

I can hear, already, all the tepid lectures about why Buchanan is so wrongggg. But look at the record of liberals and leftists in building a new antiwar movement. Out of desperation, many sincerely apalled at US worldwide terrorism may just consider tossing in a vote for "Pat."

It will be tempting for many! The Left has provided the public with poor alternatives. Leftists have sat on the fence, for far too long, often talking up other issues instead.

While I am still not yet ready to vote for Buchanan, I can appreciate the fact that Pat and his followers are also sincerely disgusted with Clintonism and neo-liberalism. What the heck, maybe Clinton wasn't as successful at triangulating his opposition as the propaganda machine said he was. It appears that he now has two sides of the triangle facing opposite! This is a welcome development. But it can be a dangerous one, if the Left doesn't get to work.

Tony Abdo is a registered nurse and peace activist (when not raising a family) in various movements opposed to U.S. Militarism abroad since the Vietnam Era. He is a member of Colombia Support Network, Houston Peace Roundtable, SOA Watch, the ACLU, the Labor Party, and the movements in solidarity with the peoples of Central America.