09/17/07 – Carolyn Eisenberg – The Scott Horton Show

Alright, my friends, welcome back to Anti-War Radio on Chaos Radio 95.9 in Austin, Texas.
I'm Scott Horton and my next guest is Dr. Carolyn Eisenberg.
She is the co-chair of United for Peace and Justice's legislative working group.
She teaches history at Hofstra University and is the legislative director of Historians Against the War.
She's the author of Drawing the Line, the American Decision to Divide Germany.
Welcome to the show, Carolyn.
Glad to be here, Scott.
Oh, I'm very happy to talk with you.
This is a pretty good day to talk about the anti-war movement.
Over the weekend, there was a massive march from the White House to the Capitol, I believe.
That's right.
Was United for Peace and Justice part of that?
This event this weekend was sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition.
The United for Peace and Justice has been focusing a little bit more on regional demonstrations that are going to take place in October.
So that's kind of had our attention right now, as well as no other kinds of legislative work that we're doing at the moment.
Well, uh...
But we're glad to see, you know, obviously, it's very important at this point for there to be visible protests and for the country to see, not just Congress, you know, that there is very significant dissent in this country.
So the more that we have, the better off I think we'll be.
Yeah, you know, I wonder sometimes, it seems like the gigantic marches, I mean, here in Austin, Texas, there were, I don't know how many thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people that came out in February and March of 2003 to say no to this war.
And then it seems like we all just went back home and got on our computers and started blogging and nobody's come outside since.
One of the odd effects of the internet in some ways is, although it permits a good deal of organization, it also sometimes can make public sentiment actually invisible.
And I actually think that since 2003, you know, we've had some of that problem, that on the one hand, the polls are showing tremendous discontent in this country with this war.
There's a lot of activity going on online.
But I think you're not seeing it.
And I think that that's a problem in and of itself, that there's really a very, very important to have a kind of visible presence in a whole variety of ways.
I mean, marches is one, but, you know, there are many other activities that used to go on.
And the new methods we have for organizing are great.
But I also think that there's things we did in the past that are very necessary now.
Well, I think there's a big frustration.
I know I share it and I know there are others who feel the same way that, you know, we go out to these protests and even in the heart of Texas, we turn out 10,000 people or something and have this giant thing.
And then we're on the news for four minutes and they show the goofiest looking guy.
And that's the whole point of doing a big protest, right, is to get on TV so that people sitting comfortably in their houses can say, oh, wow, look, there's a bunch of people who are so mad about this war, they're outside yelling about it today.
And yet if they won't even show us on TV, yeah, what's the point?
We might as well email each other back and forth or something.
Well, I think that, you know, you've pointed to something that is, I think, a very serious problem.
And that is really the way in which the media has.
I don't mean to sound like conspiracy theorists, but the media has really deliberately downplayed, I think, you know, marches when they happen.
I mean, in 2003, where there were marches going on all over the world, it was probably the one occasion where you really saw a break in that.
But I know I've been in several marches now that have taken place in Washington, DC, which are absolutely enormous, and where you obviously have hundreds of thousands of people.
And there's very little coverage or, you know, you'll have several hundred thousand people and then you'll have 20 county demonstrators and the county demonstrators will get more more press.
I think there's no question that we're being hurt in a very major way by the lack of coverage that we're getting.
Although, you know, to some extent, people tend to forget this, this was somewhat the case during the Vietnam War, and the protests went on for many years before the media began to really, you know, pay significant attention.
So I mean, we've seen some of this before.
But I think at the present context, it's particularly destructive, because I think one of the things that we're sort of having in this country now is this sort of sense of resignation, that somehow or other, there's no, you know, this war is terrible, people don't really like it, but nothing can be done to stop it.
And in a certain sense, that resignation itself is a kind of asset for the Bush administration.
So when the media doesn't give attention to protest, it really is damaging in a whole variety of ways.
Yeah, that's a that's a very interesting point there, too, just people serving as examples to each other that, you know, hey, you're not powerless.
And I think it's actually good advice, right, to not worry about things you can't control.
But that doesn't mean at the same time, you're supposed to find every excuse in the world to believe that you can't control something when it's, you know, begging for your correction.
Well, right.
I mean, I think you're seeing a really interesting example that that's happening right now.
I don't know how many articles I've seen in the last five days by mainstream media or heard, you know, people on CNN and so forth, announcing over and over and again that the Bush administration is going to get the money that it's asking for, for Iraq and this 147 billion that they've just requested, which may in fact go up to 197 billion.
And over and over again, you have these media pundits telling the American people that isn't it interesting that even though Americans want the troops to come out, it's already settled, the troops aren't coming out.
Now, in actuality, nothing is settled, and Congress hasn't had a vote.
They haven't even had a committee hearing yet.
You have the media pundits saying this is a done deal.
And this has, I think, a terrible effect on people when they hear it, because you have millions of people around the country who think this is outrageous, who don't want another 147 billion dollars going to another blank check for the president.
And yet they're already being convinced in advance that somehow or other there's nothing that anybody can do about it.
And so of course, then that has a circular effect.
I think part of the task that we feel in the peace movement right now is to really convey the fact that these things are not settled, that how they're going to come out really depends on what people at the grassroots do.
If people stay home and complain to their friends, then that's how it'll be.
If people are out and are vigorous and are contacting those offices and putting all kinds of pressure on those offices, those congressional offices, things will really be different.
Yeah, you know, and geez, if I can just give a little anecdote that has absolutely nothing to do with this topic, but it makes a great analogy.
I think there was a bill in the 1990s, and I only use this one because it's the best example I know.
There was a bill in the 90s that was going to be a federal law that said you can't homeschool your kids unless you have a teacher certificate, which was basically going to criminalize homeschooling your kids across the country.
And it was going to pass at 60 co-sponsors.
It had sailed through the country.
It was already on its way to the House floor.
And then the homeschool moms found out about it.
And rather than sitting there and writing on their blog about how they were upset, they contacted Congress.
And not just did they call them, but they sent telegrams and faxes and wrote letters so that they would all pile up in the Congressman's offices.
And they would see, you know, visually, they would have to, you know, even walk around the stacks of complaints in their own offices.
And it ended up the only guy that voted for it was the guy that sponsored it in the first place.
And it was completely dead on the House floor because, simply, because some moms called up some local Congressman and said, oh, you decided you wanted to make an enemy for life, huh?
Okay, go ahead and be my guest and vote for this.
And they didn't.
They don't want enemies like that.
That's clearly, I think, I mean, it's a very, it's a very apt analogy.
There are many, many ways, obviously, in which the people in the U.S. government and different agencies of government, different branches of government are insulated from public opinion.
But probably the branch of Congress, which is the least, the branch of government that's least insulated is the Congress.
People have to get elected and in the House of Representatives every two years.
And they've also just had a very dramatic demonstration about how popular sentiment can dislodge even people who seem to be very well entrenched incumbents.
So, I mean, it's not as though there's no leverage here.
There's actually quite a lot of leverage.
Now, one of the things that is going on, just to sort of be a little more concrete about this, and one hopeful thing is that there is now a letter that has been signed by 79 members of Congress, as of, I think, this morning.
And this letter is a letter to Bush, but I think it's also a message to the leadership.
And that letter is essentially saying, we will not vote any more money for this war.
The only funding that we will provide is money that will bring all of our troops out of Iraq by the end of this administration's term in office.
And for that, you know, they would vote funding.
And that's a very powerful letter.
It now has 79 signatories.
I think grassroots groups around the country are, you know, in the process of talking with their legislator.
I think if we move that figure up to 100, the importance of it is just a letter, it's not a law.
But I think the importance of that is that we have 100 members of Congress just saying flat out, we have had enough of this.
We are not going to give this money unless we have a plan for withdrawal.
And we're digging in our heels in this.
We can't be manipulated.
We can't have our vote swapped for this, that or the other thing.
But we are digging in our heels on this particular point.
That then creates a situation where the House leadership has to respond in some positive way.
I mean, the story we've had up until now is that it's the people that are pro-war that get a really stubborn.
Republicans have no problem being stubborn.
Blue Dog Democrats have been stubborn.
But in a way, the people on the peace side of things have been, in a way, the most flexible.
So I mean, I think that letter is a very, very important.
Again, that's not a bill.
It's a prelude to what I think would be an amendment to the supplemental, which would be an amendment that says, you know, you need to have real timelines, binding timelines that are going to take all our troops out of Iraq.
And that's the condition where we're attaching to any more money that we give the president.
And I also think, again, it's not as out of the realm of possibility as all the pundits keep saying it.
It's just if people sit in their living room or just spend their time crabbing to their friends and don't get out there, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now you're the legislative director of Historians Against the War, and you're the co-chair of the legislative working group for United for Peace and Justice.
So does that mean you're up on Capitol Hill on a regular basis trying to educate these people?
I've been up on Capitol Hill to some degree, although a lot of the work that we're doing, we have a United for Peace and Justice has a full-time staff person who is up on Capitol Hill and who's doing this work every day.
For the rest of us who are working on this project, we don't really need to be there.
I mean, a lot of what we're trying to do is to provide support to local peace organizations around the country.
And there are actually literally hundreds and hundreds of peace organizations around the country that are in motion, that are trying to move Congress forward.
And so part of what our task is in coordinating is to make sure that people all know what each other is doing, because unlike a lot of other political activities, when you're dealing with Congress, you can't just have every group going off in different directions.
There needs to be some kind of unified strategy, because the congressional representative is going to have to coordinate with other Congress people.
So a lot of what we're trying to do is to make sure that people are sort of staying on the same page and making sure that people have resources, making sure that people know what's happening on Capitol Hill.
Our staff person has been working pretty closely with the out-of-a-rock caucus on the Hill, so there's good communication there.
We've been cooperating with Move On.
So, I mean, there's a variety of connections.
But at the end of the day, I feel that there's a paradox that sort of, I mean, what I'm going to say sounds totally contradictory, but that's the way it is.
I think on the one hand, what is happening is that there really are literally hundreds if not thousands of local peace organizations across the United States that are doing this work, and to some degree, their activities are just getting unreported.
So people who are in a committee in Maine have very little sense what is happening in Colorado, although that's part of what we try to help people to see.
So, I mean, on the one hand, you actually have a lot of unreported activity.
On the other hand, we need more.
I mean, the reality is this war is very difficult to stop, and our ability to do so really depends on a larger mobilization of energy than we've had now.
You know, I'm an academic, and I think one of the things that, I mean, probably this is how academics have been from time immemorial, but one of the things I just find so frustrating is when you're in any gathering of more than three academics, before long, people are lamenting what's happening internationally, what the Bush administration is doing, the war in Iraq that never ends.
I mean, this conversation is really ubiquitous.
And yet, even on the academic side, we just are not getting the participation that we need from people in the colleges and universities around this issue.
And I'm not necessarily talking about convincing your students one way or another with the great worry of David Horowitz, but just that people who have expertise, people who have skills, people who have knowledge are not sufficiently using those capacities to really affect policy.
And it would make a tremendous difference if they did.
And you know, even for the professors, even for your colleagues, I think it goes back to that same feeling of helplessness.
I heard an anecdote about a gigantic American corporation that we've all heard of, who some major percentage of their yearly revenue comes from exports.
And they said to a consultant, this is just killing us.
Our exports have just fallen so much.
Brand USA is just suffering so badly because of the public relations, frankly, of the Bush administration and how they treat the rest of the world.
And we're losing some high dollar number, and we don't know what to do about it.
And the consultant said, hey, guys, you guys are the big boys.
Could you not place a call?
Could you not maybe talk to Dick Cheney about this, talk to some senators about this?
And their answer was, oh, no, we just don't.
We don't want to take that step.
We don't want to get that name for ourselves that we were critics.
And here's this massive multibillion dollar company with some of the most powerful men in America running it who are losing a ton of money.
And still they think, you know what, we're powerless to do anything about it.
So we're not going to try because it only hurt us if we do.
Well, right.
Although I think on the whole that people with these big companies feel a little bit more powerful, probably, than an individual anti-war person living in a, you know, in a small town.
But I mean, there's no question that there is that, you know, that sense of, you know, that people have of, you know, what, you know, how much will my voice matter?
But, you know, this also I mean, again, I think this is not a simple thing.
I don't think it's, you know, in terms of understanding this, I don't know if there's just one factor.
I mean, in a way, I think the internet has confused the issue in that, on the one hand, it's just a fantastic tool, right?
I mean, you know, very quickly it can mobilize, you know, blitzes of emails coming towards members of Congress.
But on the other hand, I think what it does is it makes people feel well if they've clicked, you know, their button for the day that they have now been massively involved in a political activity.
So, in a certain sense, it invites a certain kind of passivity, you know, and I think that that's what we're dealing with.
But, you know, you know, to really go back to the issue, I mean, it seems to me that the catastrophe that is upon us now, you know, is something that really, you know, if we don't stop this thing, what we're really looking at is something that's going to get far worse.
It's not something that's going to dribble away or, well, isn't it too bad we didn't settle it this year, but it, you know, went on for a year or two more.
I don't think that that's a situation that we're, you know, we're going to be in.
I think that, you know, for the length of time that the United States is involved in what it's doing in Iraq and other places in the Middle East, that the level of rage and resentment that is being generated towards the United States, first of all, is inviting retaliation.
And one of the things I worry about all the time is what happens if there is an act of terrorism directed at the United States.
It's so stunning to think about how the one attack on 9-11, as big as it was, how to the extent to which the Bush administration was able, coming off of that event, to make significant changes domestically, to embark on a series of adventures that have been absolutely catastrophic to the country.
And that's, you know, with one episode.
So, I mean, one question you have to think of is, what happens if there's a second episode?
And, you know, how far down the road will we go?
And, of course, there's, you know, the looming question of Iran and whether the administration is going to be tempted there.
Because I think there's also a psychological thing, you know, which is that if the public can't stop Bush, then there's a kind of brazenness that you've got in this administration, which I have to say is really historically different from what you've seen in other administrations, and I would even include Richard Nixon here, is that there's a kind of brazenness by Bush and by Cheney and a few of the people around him that they can just do anything that they want.
And, you know, the necessity to really put some curves on them is absolutely urgent at this point.
So, you know, I think we're going to see.
I think there is a fight going on, and I think that the fight, you know, is, as I said, underreported.
But this is a very critical moment in our country, and I really hope that, you know, folks listening to this broadcast, you know, will be encouraged to make their views heard right now.
And, again, there's many different ways to do that.
I mean, sometimes it's a call.
Sometimes it's an email.
Sometimes it's a vigil.
Sometimes it is a matter of letting constituents know where that member of Congress is really standing, because I think one of the things that's happening now is that you have many members of Congress on the House side and on the Senate side.
These members, you know, go out and they say critical things about the war.
I mean, who doesn't have something critical to say about the war other than, perhaps, Laura Bush?
So, you know, you have all these legislators saying critical things about the war.
It can make their constituents think that they're really against the war, but then they're voting a different way.
So, even there, there's an absolutely critical kind of educational path that really needs doing all across the country that constituents should really know where their member of Congress is standing.
And if they're going down the line with the Bush administration, that needs to be, that needs to be publicized.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is Anti-War Radio.
I'm talking with Dr. Carolyn Eisenberg from United for Peace and Justice and Historians Against the War.
If anybody wants to participate in the conversation, feel free to call in.
It's 512-646-6446, 512-646-6446, to ask your question of Carolyn Eisenberg.
And, you know, you brought up Richard Nixon there.
Yes.
You know, there's been so many parallels drawn to the Vietnam War with the situation in Iraq ever since it started.
And now, of course, the president has decided that even though we've all been wrong all along by drawing parallels, that in fact, he's right when he draws them, but says that the lesson, of course, is that we should have stayed forever because there were bad consequences when we left.
Actually, my previous guest, Gareth Porter, wrote an article where he talked about how, well, geez, you know, it was staying in Vietnam that extra four years during all the promises that we can't leave now because it would get worse.
It was those extra four years that made things so much worse with the expansion of the war into Laos and Cambodia and the radicalization of the Khmer Rouge and all that kind of stuff.
It was a consequence of staying in the name of not letting something bad happen.
And I'm sure there's plenty of parallels with the Congress and all kinds of things along those lines.
Well, you know, I think you don't get it.
I'm actually writing a book on Nixon and Kissinger.
I think one of the morals of the story is actually if you live long enough, even Nixon and Kissinger don't look quite as bad as they did before.
But just by comparison to this Bush group, you know, after all these years, when I go back and I'm looking at the record and many, many things that were classified for 30 years have now become available really only in the last three or four years.
So we can see a lot more than we could before.
And when you look at these materials, I mean, one of the things that is so upsetting and challenging intellectually is here as of really 1968, it had become pretty evident the United States was going to not be able to prevail in Vietnam.
I think, you know, things were known at that point.
We had 550,000 troops there, lots of money, various efforts of bombing endlessly, and nothing had really worked.
So it's kind of clear, I think, in the aftermath of Tet that really this was a loser.
And I think one could say that there was at least a very diffuse national mandate for the Nixon folks to get the United States out of Vietnam.
And yet, even though there was that kind of, at least surface clarity that this project wasn't going anywhere, that you nevertheless really had four more years in which this project continued.
And it was four more years in which something like, I always forget the exact figure, something like 20,000 American soldiers died in those years, you know, again, in a period of time when it's pretty evident that the U.S. couldn't prevail, yet another 20,000 Americans killed between 1969 and the beginning of 1973, and about another 80 to 100,000 wounded.
And, you know, we've never been able to really adequately count the number of people in Southeast Asia that were killed in terms of the casualties both in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, but I think most historians would put that number somewhere between 1 to 2 million people.
Again, all of this destruction happening after everything was known.
And it's really very startling to kind of go back and think about that, and to try to understand how that really happened.
And of course, the question now is very acute as well.
I mean, ironically, and I heard Henry Kissinger interviewed quite a while ago, and some reporter who must have been about 11 years old said to him, well, you know, we want to draw on your expertise, you know, about getting out of Vietnam and, you know, tap your wisdom, you know, Dr. Kissinger, so you could tell us how to get out of Iraq.
And essentially, in a lot of gobbledygook way, I mean, what Kissinger really in effect said was, well, you know what, nothing really mattered in Vietnam.
I mean, when we left, it wasn't really, you know, not the consequences weren't weren't that grave, which was sort of ironic, given the fact that for this something that didn't really matter and consequences that weren't that grave, you know, another million or 2 million people died.
One can understand what Dr. Kissinger was talking about, because in fact, American national interests were not damaged significantly by the US leaving Vietnam.
And then many, you know, very clearly being damaged by staying right now is that I mean, Iraq is much more consequential than Vietnam.
You said that's Dr. Kissinger's argument now.
No, no, that I'm saying this is my right in a way he's saying it's right.
So of course, you know, well, you know, getting out of Vietnam.
Mistakes weren't that high.
They're very high now.
I mean, it's just ironic given how many people he killed in order for something that's not very consequential.
I mean, it's actually stunning.
I, you know, I saw this a couple of years ago on television, and I thought, Oh, my God, you know, and how would I feel I'm a parent of a kid that, you know, died in 1970 for something that didn't matter all that much.
But I think there's a, you know, a grain of truth in the sense that it is much scarier, you know, for the United States to leave the rock.
And we do have national interests at stake there.
And really, unlike Vietnam, where you could say that, you know, the lineup was pretty clear, we weren't getting much by staying, we get a lot by leaving.
Here in Iraq, I think, you know, there is tremendous fear, not just in the Bush administration, but really throughout the kind of foreign policy establishment at this point, about what our departure now would mean, you know, in terms not only of the instability of Iraq, but the instability, you know, really across the region and the balance of forces in the region.
I mean, there actually are very serious worries that people and ultimately, you know, when you step away from this, you know, as far as is those concerns, I mean, it's a weighing that has to go on, right?
And people have to make an assessment about, you know, what is most damaging for Americans and for Iraqis, you know, staying or going, but there's an argument there.
And that makes it much tougher for us to get the United States out, you know, because there is a certain risk.
We can't just say there's no risk.
Of course, there's a risk.
The problem is that there's risks on both sides.
Right.
Well, and we have to make it clear whose fault it is that Iraq has turned from our society into, you know, just a piece of ground with people warring on it.
You know, who's invited in Iran, who's empowered the Salafist bin Laden type terrorists and so forth and ask that question.
I mean, I think, you know, you or I versus anybody in the war party would win every time in having that debate about whether we're making it better, making it worse.
And as you indicated before, you know, we're increasing the likelihood of a terrorist attack here.
And also, as long as our guys are in Iraq, they're only one invisible line on a map away from Iran.
Well, you know, it's interesting, though, I think that when you listen, I was listening this week to, you know, a lot of the members of Congress, you know, sort of responding to General Petraeus.
You know, what's interesting is that there really is this kind of body of opinion, which I guess Hillary Clinton kind of emblemizes, which is, it's a kind of an argument that says, Well, we aren't, you know, we're the good guys we're making, we are making things better.
The problem is that it's just these miserable Iraqis, right?
You know, they can't take advantage of all the great things that we're doing.
I mean, the reasons to formulate it in that way, I think are clear and politically for Senator Clinton who wants to become the president, you know, blaming Iraqis is always going to be better than blaming the United States.
But I think that that sort of notion that that the United States is, in fact, playing a positive role, and if things aren't going well, it's the Iraqis.
I think that way of thinking about things is a problem in and of itself, Barack Obama has taken that same position as well.
Right.
I mean, because I think what it misses, and I think this is, you know, where the American people also kind of there's a divide here.
It actually is not recognizing the fact that the United States itself has contributing to the chaos.
Well, yeah, we caused it in the first place.
And we've done nothing but make it worse the whole time to see next thing, many members of Congress are very reluctant to say because that's where they feel that they're going to be called unpatriotic and so forth, or, you know, anti troop is to actually be upfront about the fact that our interventions in that country, both our military interventions, our economic interventions, and our political interventions are not just, you know, great things that we did that the Iraqis screwed up, but in actuality, that these are things themselves that have contributed to the problem.
And I mean, I think that that's unfortunately, the piece of the story that is less well appreciated.
And you know, especially by conservatives who presumably believe that societies really are bottom up kinds of things.
And that if it was Bill Clinton doing any of this, they would be saying, you social engineers always think you can remake people's societies, but you can't let them be.
That's what they'd be saying if it was somebody else in power doing it.
Well, that that's certainly true, although I mean, you know, it's interesting, because I mean, the engineering that this Bush administration has done in Iraq is actually breathtaking in its incompetence.
It's actually, you know, it's like, it's social engineering, it's state building, but you know, you would be hard pressed to find any example of people doing it quite as poorly as these folks have managed to do it.
Yeah, yeah, it's mostly just a big rip off game.
You know, there's $9 billion missing.
That's the reconstruction of Iraq right there.
Hey, Carolyn, let's go ahead and take this call.
If anybody else wants to call in last 10 minutes here.
It's 512-646-6446.
512-646-6446.
Carolyn Eisenberg from United for Peace and Justice and Historians Against the War.
And I'll bet you dimes to dollars.
This is David Beto calling in on the line.
David?
No, you're wrong.
No, I'm wrong.
All right.
Well, whoever you are, I owe you a dollar.
Yes, Vineyard Saker calling.
Hi, Scott.
Hey, how are you doing, VS?
Pretty good.
Hi, Dr. Eisenberg.
Hi.
I'm calling to make a comment.
I mean, a lot have been said about the passivity of the American people, et cetera.
But it seems to me the overwhelming problem is that this passivity is triggered by the so-called liberals and the Democratic Party.
I mean, the nation did act, did vote against that war and sent a Democratic representative to Congress.
And they got in response to that, they got a surge.
Nothing happened.
The Democratic Party just accepted it.
It's completely sold out to the neocon ideology.
The rest of the liberals, you know, moveon.org, as far as I remember, were against the impeachment procedures.
Michael Moore, the ultra liberal, a so-called, actually called to vote for a general who was part of the first illegal war that was fought after World War II.
I mean, this is going to make people passive as long as they think that action can be successful by channeling it towards a fake second party.
It seems to me that there is only one party in this country right now.
It's a party of war, at least if you look at the two big ones.
And as long as they're not openly denounced, the main project of the peace movement is to bring that party down and to create at least a real two-party system.
It's going to be hopeless.
It's going to be changing, you know, one puppet for another.
All right.
Thanks a lot.
Let's see what Carolyn has to say.
Okay, so hang on.
Let's make a comment on that.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Thanks.
Well, I guess I don't view the situation in quite as black and white terms as we just presented there, because I think that the, and I'm not speaking here as being an advocate of building the Democratic Party, so I don't want it to be construed in that way.
But I actually think that sort of saying, well, you know, people voted one way and we got a surge and the Democrats completely sold out is actually an oversimplification of what happened.
I mean, on the one hand, you actually have had, and I think it's very important to notice this, that there has been movement in Congress over the past year.
So that if you look at the votes that were taken last spring, for example, in the House of Representatives, you got 171 members of the House of Representatives voting for a McGovern bill, which would have started the removal of troops within immediately and then had 180 days to, you know, to complete a withdrawal from the rock.
And you got 171 votes for that, which is a tremendous change over a 67-month period from what you'd had before when you had less than 30 Congresspeople willing to sign on as co-sponsors to a measure that was almost identical to that.
Yeah, the problem is the leadership is still nowhere to be found.
We got Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and she's probably, you know, a tougher guy than he is.
Well, I think that, I mean, I think that there is a problem with the leadership.
And again, I'm not trying to, you know, to become an apologist of the Democratic Party, but what I'm saying is that if you think that what has just happened is that no one in Congress is listening to anybody, then of course you really, you know, then you do something else.
You build another political party or whatever, although frankly, I think part of the problem about building another political party is that, you know, that's years and years and years and years, and it doesn't actually speak to the immediate crisis that we're in.
Right.
And I think if you take a more careful look at what has just happened in that last round, what we saw was tremendous movement on the part of many members of Congress.
In the end, 142 of them voted against giving a blank check to Bush.
That's about three or four times the number willing to do that.
I'm sorry, that's inaccurate.
I would say probably between two or three times the number willing to do that before.
So we actually are getting movement there.
And it seems to me that the answer to that is not to just give up and say, well, I'll build another political party and wait for five or ten years till that works.
I think that the answer is we need to move more people in the Congress.
And I think that that's doable.
And I think as far as the Democratic leadership is concerned, that they are going to be responsive as much as anything else to their own members.
I mean, if you have, you know, 100 members of Congress, 150, 200 members of Congress saying, you know what, we've had it.
We're not going to keep giving this president the blank check.
We are digging in our heels on it.
Nancy Pelosi is not going to stand in their way.
So I think what I'm saying is that, you know, yes, we were very disappointed last spring.
Obviously, we would have liked to see more.
But on the other hand, we did see changes in those votes.
And the answer to our disappointment is not to just go home.
But the answer to our disappointment is to ratchet up the pressure and to make it clear to those Congress people that keep giving the president a blank check, that their constituents are watching, that their constituents are not going to return them to office, you know, if they continue to go down the line with the Bush White House.
So I mean, I think that this is a more doable task.
And I think part of the question is, how actively will people mobilize?
Well, you know, aside from the actual politics in DC and so forth, out here on the ground in the country, I think a lot of the worst excesses of the Bush-Cheney policy have really helped to push toward, at least, hopefully, a new realignment between the liberals who really take liberty seriously and the paleoconservatives and libertarians and people who want an end to the imperial foreign policy.
I remember in 2004, Ralph Nader was writing articles that could have just as easily been written by Pat Buchanan and vice versa and so forth.
And it seems like, you know, I don't know which party it might be that could serve as a vehicle.
But if we could, I think, maybe get past a little bit of the left-right in the general sense they're considered now and really be focused on, you know, America's role in the world and the Bill of Rights, we could have a real realignment with the best of all factions coming together and, you know, hopefully maybe one day being more powerful than that war party.
Well, you know, I think it's an interesting thought.
And I also think, you know, that there's some, if I could just turn this over to what I think is the related phenomenon, which is kind of more at the base of public opinion now, is that I think one of the things that's interesting is that left-right divide in the area of foreign policy is not really operating so much.
And you have now really overwhelming sentiment in this country for getting out of Iraq.
I mean, there are differences about timetable and strategy and so forth.
But people in this country are really unhappy with war as a central approach to how you deal with issues of national security.
And it's a sense that is obviously, you know, focused on Iraq.
But it isn't just on Iraq.
I think that there is a wider rejection of the use of force, of American interventionism all over the place, of the United States trying to tell people in different countries how to, you know, conduct their internal affairs.
I mean, I think in a way, Iraq has been kind of a workshop of failure in that, you know, in that regard.
So I think you have in the country, I mean, Bush is trying to kind of fan this sort of these old divides on the theory that, you know, that they will, you know, help the Republicans to hold on to power.
But I think if you really look at what's happening among, you know, a broad swath of Americans, that you're seeing that there is a rejection of empire.
I mean, you know, a rejection of militarism, a rejection of, you know, intervention all over the place.
I really think you're seeing that shift now.
But the question is, how can we make that diffuse sense politically potent?
And I think that's part of the challenge that we face.
All right.
Well, I'd have to say from here, it seems like you're doing a great job.
And I really enjoyed this conversation.
Everybody, Dr. Carolyn Eisenberg, co-chair of United States for Peace and Justice's legislative working group, teaches history at Hofstra University and also from Historians Against the War, which is available at historiansagainstthewar.org.
And I want to thank you very much for your time today.
Well, thank you, Scott.
It's a pleasure to be here.