Anti-war activists attack pro-war stance of Demos, Kerry

Environmental activist and Green Party organizer Bob Brister said Saturday a vote for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election wasn't an effective means to oppose President Bush. Rather, it was a vote for another pro-war presidential candidate.

"How do we get out of the cycle of choosing between the greater evil and the lesser evil?" Brister asked a small audience at the Anti-war Activists and Educational Conference in the Salt Lake City Public Library auditorium.

"Progressives must declare themselves independent from the pro-war Democratic Party," he said.

Brister, along with local and national leaders of the anti-war movement, expressed dissatisfaction with U.S. domestic and foreign policy. Among the injustices addressed was the two-party political system, which raises only a limited set of issues and promotes a narrow way of public thought, the speakers said.

Brister said the Green Party was betrayed in the 2004 presidential election when its members adhered to the strategic tactic of supporting Kerry, hoping to beat Bush. The failed strategy came at the cost of aligning even closer to the elected president, he said.

Laura Bonham, co-founder of the Utah Democratic Progressive Caucus and southwest regional chair of Progressive Democrats of America, addressed the need for anti-war supporters to join in opposition against the war in Iraq.

"The activists of Vietnam left an effective blueprint to follow," Bonham said, adding supporters should take their issues to the streets and unite with coalitions working for peace.

"The Utah Democratic Progressive Caucus is working to build coalitions inside and outside of the party," Bonham said.

University of Utah student Summer Smith voiced concern that while participating in her religious faith, she is bombarded by other religious observers that mainly support Bush's policies.

"It's kind of hard for me because the war and Bush contradict everything I believe in," she said.

Brister said it's up to the progressive members of religious faiths to help fellow religious observers realize religion should be on the side of peace.

The conference was sponsored by the March 19 Mobilization Committee and Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice, the organizers of three anti-Bush and anti-war protests earlier this year.

Conference coordinator and Wasatch Coalition for Peace representative Dayne Goodwin said he hoped the conference would add more strength to the movements to end U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, redistribute funds for "human needs" rather than for war, defend human rights and repeal the Patriot Act, and end Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Other speakers at the conference included Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, and Boston native Nancy Lessin, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out.

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E-mail: Liorg@desnews.com