Updated Jun 25, 2008

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Voting Never Yet Stopped a War

George W. Bush will go down in history blamed for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But he didn’t take the country to war alone. Only one member of Congress voted against the war in Afghanistan, Barbara Lee. Only 23 Senators, out of 100, and 133 Representatives, out of 435, voted against the war in Iraq. Most Republicans voted for the war. A number of Democrats voted against it, but then they turned around and voted Bush the money to carry out his war.

Since 2006, the Democratic Party controlled the majority in both houses of Congress. They had enough votes to stop the war. They didn’t do it.

Their presidential candidate, Barack Obama, says he never voted to authorize the war. Well, of course not – he couldn’t vote on it, he wasn’t yet in the Senate in 2002. Obama promised, when running for the Senate, that he would never vote to fund the war. BUT... as soon as he got to the Senate, he voted war funding every time Bush asked.

Brings to mind another war. In 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson, running for election against Goldwater, pretended to be the “peace-loving” candidate. Many people took Johnson at his word, putting their hopes in his election, just as he was preparing to ramp up the war in Viet Nam.

Elections didn’t stop the Viet Nam war – the troops of the line did. They refused to go out in the field. They organized open opposition in the army. At the same time, the black population was in the streets, revolting against a society treating them as second-class citizens, turning their backs on those politicians who had tricked them. Students opposed to the war pushed to make their voices heard.

We may not yet be there today. But the opposition that has grown up in the army, the widespread disaffection in the population are laying the groundwork for bringing these wars to an end.

Any politician can be forced to stop these wars – but only if the population demands it loudly and strongly enough. The strength of the working class lies in its mobilization, not in the ballot box.