Don't Fall Out Over Iraq

Freshman congressman Keith Ellison took on one of the movement’s most serious problems when he told progressives not to allow their frustrations with Congress’ inability to stop the war in Iraq to divide them.

“You might be mad at the Congress because they didn’t and the war in six months but I’m here to ask you for us to not fall out over tactics and strategies,” Ellison, D-Minn., the state’s first African-American congressman and the nation’s first Muslim congressman.

Ellison said that it is right that we should be impatient with the pace of change, particularly when it comes to Iraq, “but don’t turn your dissatisfaction into a cannibalistic enterprise.”

We have not been in charge for very long and we are anxious for real change, and sometimes when you’re in that frame of mind you turn on the people who you think did not deliver for you fast enough. This is not the time to do that. This is the time for us to stick together and build into our movement a way to resolve conflict.”

Consider how progressives built their political infrastructure from the low point that they hit after the 1964 election, when Barry Goldwater lost in a landslide election. Even though they were dispirited, “they organized. They were patient. They understood that to project a vision that would only benefit about 1 percent of the people but to get half of the people in the country to vote for it would take a lot of work.”

Ellison got some applause and nodded heads when he said that a powerful independent movement is necessary to keep the pressure on Congress to end the war in Iraq and pursue other progressive policies. Important social movements, he added, don’t start with politicians in Washington. “Don’t look for Congress for inspiration,” he said. “Politicians see the light when they feel the heat.”