THE ABC' OF THE WAR BUDGET-COMMENTARY (2008)
ATTACHING UNENFORCEABLE RIDERS ONTO THE WAR APPROPRIATIONS BILL IS NOT A NO VOTE ON THE WAR BUDGET. HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRAT KARL LIEBKNECHT-HE KNEW HOW TO VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET.
Okay, one more time on the question of votes on the war budget. I have been castigated lately for a seeming softness on the Democrats when I mentioned that the beginning of wisdom was a straight up and down no vote on the war budget. Where, in God's name is that a capitulation to Democrats? No one, I repeat not one of the Democrats from Vermont Senator Bernie Saunders to presidential candidate Congressman Dennis Kucinich has advocated a straight up and down no vote on the war budget. In fact if one takes even a cursory look at the current legislation the most, and I do mean most that anyone has offered is rider for a timetable for withdrawal (dates vary). That, dear readers, is a far cry from a straight up and down no vote on the war budget. That said, let us take a look at history to see what a real parliamentary anti-war war budget vote goes.
I have mentioned elsewhere the name Karl Liebknecht in association with my model for what a parliamentary anti-war leader should look like, and even he had to do some somersaults to come out to the right decision. As is well known, or should be well known, the Western European social democracy as institutionalized in the Second International was formally committed to the fight against war and especially imperialist war. That included a pro forma commitment to opposition to the capitalist war budgets. As we also know that was fine in peace time but by the time that the war drums for World War I started in 1914 most European socialist parties had committed themselves to vote in favor of their own nation's war budgets.
Most notorious in this regard was the stance of the German Social Democratic Party that voted unanimously (including Liebknecht) to support the Kaiser's war budget on August 4, 1914. An explanation is in order about Liebknecht's initial vote. The German Social Democratic Party's parliamentary delegation (composed at the time of 110 members) was bound by bloc voting. Since the majority voted for the budget Liebknecht felt obliged to go along at the time, but not for long. By December of 1914 he had broken that fictitious solidarity and cast the lone against the war appropriations. For those familiar with his story, and those who are not, he went on to cast more no votes and got a few more Social Democrats to vote with him (not always for the same reason or with his intensity). Ultimately his agitation led to the lifting of his parliamentary immunity and eventual imprisonment, release as a result of the events of the November 1918 Revolution in Germany, and assassination, along with Rosa Luxemburg, after the failure of the Spartacist uprising of January 1919.
To even tell the Liebknecht story in the content of what today passes for anti-war politicians seems slightly ridiculous. With the Iraqi War [Read: Afghanistan War-2012] seemingly never ending and subject to increased 'phantom' escalation anything short of a no vote seems less of a bandage than usual.
ATTACHING UNENFORCEABLE RIDERS ONTO THE WAR APPROPRIATIONS BILL IS NOT A NO VOTE ON THE WAR BUDGET. HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRAT KARL LIEBKNECHT-HE KNEW HOW TO VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET.
Okay, one more time on the question of votes on the war budget. I have been castigated lately for a seeming softness on the Democrats when I mentioned that the beginning of wisdom was a straight up and down no vote on the war budget. Where, in God's name is that a capitulation to Democrats? No one, I repeat not one of the Democrats from Vermont Senator Bernie Saunders to presidential candidate Congressman Dennis Kucinich has advocated a straight up and down no vote on the war budget. In fact if one takes even a cursory look at the current legislation the most, and I do mean most that anyone has offered is rider for a timetable for withdrawal (dates vary). That, dear readers, is a far cry from a straight up and down no vote on the war budget. That said, let us take a look at history to see what a real parliamentary anti-war war budget vote goes.
I have mentioned elsewhere the name Karl Liebknecht in association with my model for what a parliamentary anti-war leader should look like, and even he had to do some somersaults to come out to the right decision. As is well known, or should be well known, the Western European social democracy as institutionalized in the Second International was formally committed to the fight against war and especially imperialist war. That included a pro forma commitment to opposition to the capitalist war budgets. As we also know that was fine in peace time but by the time that the war drums for World War I started in 1914 most European socialist parties had committed themselves to vote in favor of their own nation's war budgets.
Most notorious in this regard was the stance of the German Social Democratic Party that voted unanimously (including Liebknecht) to support the Kaiser's war budget on August 4, 1914. An explanation is in order about Liebknecht's initial vote. The German Social Democratic Party's parliamentary delegation (composed at the time of 110 members) was bound by bloc voting. Since the majority voted for the budget Liebknecht felt obliged to go along at the time, but not for long. By December of 1914 he had broken that fictitious solidarity and cast the lone against the war appropriations. For those familiar with his story, and those who are not, he went on to cast more no votes and got a few more Social Democrats to vote with him (not always for the same reason or with his intensity). Ultimately his agitation led to the lifting of his parliamentary immunity and eventual imprisonment, release as a result of the events of the November 1918 Revolution in Germany, and assassination, along with Rosa Luxemburg, after the failure of the Spartacist uprising of January 1919.
To even tell the Liebknecht story in the content of what today passes for anti-war politicians seems slightly ridiculous. With the Iraqi War [Read: Afghanistan War-2012] seemingly never ending and subject to increased 'phantom' escalation anything short of a no vote seems less of a bandage than usual.
