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CODEPINK and Tea Party: A Love-Hate Affair?

PLal — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:24:47 +0000

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once said that “taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” He probably did not take into account the unnecessary war tax that is more of a threat to “civilized society.”

Over the past week, Medea Benjamin’s piece on extending an olive branch to the Tea Party went up on several mainsteam blogs including the Huffington Post, FiredogLake, DailyKos and Alternet, creating and buzz and drawing a wide spectrum of responses. Ron Paul supporters were especially thrilled and want to take us up on our cause and RonPaul gave a stirring speech in Washington DC for ending the federal reserve system.

For Tax Day, CODEPINK activists attended tea party rallies in various parts of the country to survey the right-wing activists on their military spending views. After all, if tea partiers are displaying so much rage over the national debt and paying taxes, they must certainly oppose the massively bloated Pentagon budget and the various wars that the United States is waging without due cause.

Reports are trickling in that the conversation was actually civil between the two groups, with CODEPINK relatively more surprised and also more organized. That certainly beats the confrontational health care protests from last month. CODEPINK did interviews with over 50 participants in the Tea Party rally, getting their input about the cost of war and empire. We will soon be releasing the results of that survey.

Some have even ventured to say that the Tea Party is just a right-wing version of CODEPINK and accused both camps of racism. CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin had a response to that in a Washington Post piece:

“We never curse. Never. We don’t do that. We’re totally non-violent. We never say anything racist.” Benjamin avoided the pushing and shouting matches that have marked some of her videotaped confrontations with Republicans. Tea partyers, she said, were a different breed. “Sometimes when I talk to them I find out that they’re scarier than I ever thought. Sometimes I find that they are really nice people who think differently than me.”

But people on the left were not all too happy with this new CODEPINK tactic, especially the self-proclaimed Marxists:

You don’t START with the misguided ones who wander into the Tea Party. You start by expanding the ranks of newly-radicalizing workers and others, and create a bigger, broader pole of attraction, which minimizes the attractiveness of the Tea Party. But even that last minimization is way down on the list of priorities.

In contrast, Code Pink — and Kevin Zeese and Paul Buhle etc. etc. — START by sucking up to the Tea Party (and 9/11 truth maniacs) as organizations. This means giving them a pass on their antiworker, misogynist and racist policies. And it means wasting precious time needed to prepare to defend ourselves against the fascist physical attacks of the Tea Party

But Kevin Gosztola counters this assertion with his post on Oped News:

The Tea Party is growing in power and to just tell people that the Tea Party should be opposed because we liberals, progressives or leftists have better stances or a better platform on the issues that is much better for the people of this nation will do little to build the coalition of people needed to take on the structures which we are hoping to radically reshape or reform.

Waging Non-Violence also gave a nod of approval but the most surprising feedback came from a Fox News article:

Tea Partiers should remember that great Republican Dwight Eisenhower who said “Beware the military industrial complex.” President Eisenhower had it right. Maybe CODEPINK and the Tea Party people can reach a consensus on this overboard spending. Now that would be something to party for.

A quick Twitter survey of the best and worst from yesterday:

Best subject line for an email alert: Pay your taxes! War is not free. (@DexterousMonk)
Not the best subject line for an email alert: “Have you paid your taxes? How much have you paid for the war today?” (@AlexCox)
For the youth: Get our young people out of the war. I don’t pay my taxes to bring them home in boxes. (@MikaOslo)
Best response to TCOT: Beck says those who pay no taxes should be forced to serve in the military. How about those who forced the Iraq war on us serve? (@frizz)
Mind-boggling: The IRS employees tax manual has instructions for collecting taxes after a nuclear war. (@DevinJamesDean) Good luck with getting money from coackroaches.
Best Palin Joke: If Sarah Palin was the President, I know I’d be paying less in taxes today. But, she would be using those taxes to fund the War on Narnia. (@tomshane1)

Over 300 supporters decided to use our e-card to engage their conservative family members on the issue of war and taxes. We would love to hear feedback on what conversations took place and whether it changed any minds.

Some additional great reading:

Photo Credit: The Investigative Voice

A Tax Day Peace Offering to the Tea Party

Medea — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:32:49 +0000

Originally Posted at DailyKos

On Tax Day, Tea Party members from around the country will descend on the nation’s capitol to “protest big government and support lower taxes, less government and more freedom. CODEPINK, a women-led peace movement advocating an end to war and militarism, will be sending some representatives. While we come from the opposite end of the political spectrum and don’t support the goals and tactics of the Tea Party, there is an area where we are seeking common ground: endless wars and militarism.

As Tea Partiers express their anger at out-of-control government spending and soaring deficits, we will ask them to take a hard look at what is, by far, the biggest sinkhole of our tax dollars: Pentagon spending. With the Obama administration proposing the largest military budget ever, topping $700 billion not including war supplementals, we are now spending almost as much on the military as the rest of the world combined.

Perhaps the Tea Party and peace folks–unlikely allies–can agree that one way to shrink big government is to rein in military spending. Here are some questions to get the conversation going:

At the Southern Republican Leadership Conference on April 10, Congressman Ron Paul — who has a great following within the Tea Party — chided both conservatives and liberals for their profligate spending on foreign military bases, occupations and maintaining an empire. “We’re running out of money,” he warned. “All empires end for financials reasons, and that is what the markets are telling us today….We can do better with peace than with war.” Do you agree with Congressman Paul on this?

Every taxpayer has already spent, on average, a staggering $7,367 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Obama plans to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, with a price tag of one million dollars per soldier per year. Opposition to these wars ranges from liberal Congressperson Dennis Kucinich to conservative Tea Party leader Sheriff Richard Mack. During a Congressional vote to end the war in Afghanistan that was defeated but got bipartisan support, Rep. Dennis Kucinich said, “Nearly 1000 U.S. soldiers have died. And for what? Hundreds of billions spent. And for what? To make Afghanistan safe for crooks, drug dealers and crony capitalism?” Do you think Congress should turn off the war spigot and bring out troops home?

The Cold War has been over for 20 years, yet we maintain 800-plus bases around the world, have troops stationed in 148 countries and 11 territories. Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan asks, “How we can justify borrowing hundreds of billions yearly from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states — to defend Europe, Japan and the Arab Gulf states? Is it not absurd to borrow hundreds of billions annually from China — to defend Asia from China?” Should we begin to dismantle this global web of bases?

Far and away the largest recipient of US foreign aid is Israel, a wealthy country (the 11th wealthiest in the world) that gets $3 billion a year from Uncle Sam with no strings attached and no accountability. We also give the repressive Egyptian government over a billion dollars a year to buy their support for a Middle East peace plan that is going nowhere. Are you in favor of continuing this taxpayer largesse to Israel and Egypt?

An area where Pentagon spending has mushroomed is the payment of private security contractors. While many soldiers who risk their lives for their country struggle to support their families, private security company employees can pocket as much as $1,000 a day. High pay for contract workers in war zones burdens taxpayers and saps military morale. Moreover, military officers in the field have said contractors often operate like “cowboys,” using unnecessary and excessive force that has undermined our reputation overseas. Rep. Jan Schakowsky introduced the Stop Outsourcing Security Act that would phase out private security contractors in war zones. Do you support that?

Experts on the left and the right say we could cut our military budget by 25%, including closing foreign bases, winding down the wars, and ending obsolete weapons systems, without jeopardizing our security. Do you agree? If we could make significant cuts to the military budget, how should those funds be reallocated? To pay down the debt? Increase security at home? Rebuild our infrastructure? Stimulate the economy through tax breaks?

We are not naïve to think that it would be easy for the Tea Party and the peace movement to work together. Our core values are different. We have had our battles in the past. We would certainly part ways in terms of how to redirect Pentagon funds, with progressives wanting more government investment in healthcare, jobs, clean energy and education–which is exactly what the Tea Party opposes.

But building peace means reaching out to the other side and trying to find common ground even with those people whose beliefs contradict so many of our own. If the Tea Party is really against runaway government spending, then certainly we can work together to cut a slice out of the military pork that is bankrupting our nation. In extending the olive branch to talk about war, the conversation can hopefully be enlightening on other issues as well, such as banks run amok and undue corporate control of our government.

Don’t relax on tax day. Your country needs you to start this conversation now.

Who knows what kind of potent brew could emerge when folks on the left and the right–both alienated by a two-party system that doesn’t meet our needs–sit down for tea?

Photo Credit: Lisa Norwood’s photostream

Crashing Santa Monica’s tax day “tea party”

Jodie — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:06:26 +0000

When Audrey, Susan and I arrived at the Santa Monica pier for the “party,” we managed to keep our banners steady despite the heavy wind and hot air blowing all around us (check out a photo of us here). We were the target of all the anger, called every name you can imagine. Some of my favorites: “CODE STINK is in the house!” “You don’t know CODEPINK, they are a bunch of ugly, old, stupid women!” (this one as Patricia, Audrey and I walk by with a banner). More women were screaming at us than men.

The organizer came up to us and apologized for all the anger coming our way, and said he was happy we came and thinks CODEPINK rocks for crashing Larry Summers party.

We were like caged animals with everyone coming by to gawk. Everyone took a photo of the CP specimens. Some came by and read our banners (“Human need not corporate greed” and “Teabag this: where you income tax money really goes”) and said, “Wow, nothing wrong with that sign, what’s everyone so upset about?”