The 2004 Elections: War, Terrorism and the Need for Regime Change
By Carl Davidson

We are a value-centered organization. Based in Chicago neighborhoods, schools and movements, our main slogan for this campaign is 'Regime Change Begins at Home.' We stand clearly against war, occupation and the economic impact of militarism; we oppose racism and support affirmative action; we defend civil liberties and oppose all forms of discrimination. We do not have to tell our people who to vote for; the overwhelming majority will vote against Bush.

We are nonpartisan. This means we don’t endorse any party, but include people from many parties in our ranks—Democrats, Greens, Socialists, Independents and even a few stray pro-peace Republicans.

We don't endorse any candidate. Instead, we work in alliance with all the campaigns—Kerry, Kucinich, Nader and, in the Illinois Senate Race, Barak Obama—that want to expand the electorate in a progressive direction through voter registration, education and mobilization. Of course the great majority of people we bring to the polls are likely to vote for Kerry, either because they agree with him to one or another degree, or because they simply want to oust Bush. A few may decide to vote for a third party candidate, such as Ralph Nader, if the option exists. All of that is fine. That's democracy. Each person's vote belongs to them, and any thinking that says, ahead of time, that my vote or your vote should belong to this or that candidate without being earned, is opportunistic short-cut thinking that leads to bigger problems in the long run. Besides, most Nader votes this time around are most likely to be people who wouldn’t vote at all otherwise, and thus should not draw that much from Kerry’s totals.

We form broad alliances. Antiwar activists can’t bring about regime change on their own. So we work closely with labor organizations, the League of Women Voters and feminist groups, Rainbow/PUSH, Citizen Action, People for the American Way, City Council members who worked on the Cities for Peace Initiative, Gay and Lesbian Rights Advocates, civil liberties groups opposing the Patriot Act, Members of Congress from the Progressive Caucus, the Black Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus, and, especially, progressive neighborhood-based organizations geared up to work in elections.

We build grassroots organization. The main thing for Peace & Justice Voters 2004, is that we are strengthening our own organization, rather building the Democrat’s organization. We are not encouraging one person among those we reach to join the Democratic Party or to give Kerry a dime. We are building our own organizations--with our own lists, members in base communities, and bank accounts--so that no matter who wins this election, we will have a better means to continue the struggle against war and injustice no matter who is in the White House. Not only that, but more strategically, we will also have started and expanded the foundation building of what can become a mass party of the people, hopefully in the not-too-far-distant future.

Carl Davidson is co-chair of Chicagoans Against War & Injustice and a founder of its project, Peace & Justice Voters 2004. This article, now slightly updated, was initially presented as a paper at the 3rd Annual Global Studies Association conference held at Brandeis University in April, 2004.
Web: www.cyrev.net and www.noiraqwar-chicago.org
Email: carld717@aol.com.