Her campaign website sets out Sheehan’s policy platform:

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WHAT DOES CINDY SHEEHAN STAND FOR?

For Repealing All "Free Trade" Agreements

Another international and national workers' struggle that I support is the struggle to repeal "free trade" agreements. Such trade treaties are designed to depress wages and oppress workers in every country that are signed parties to these agreements.

Fair trade that respects the rights of workers and enforces these rights through unions and binding collective-bargaining agreements -- along with enforceable and sustainable environmental protections -- must be put into place. A worker who make shoes, cars or any other goods should receive the same livable pay and benefits in whatever country he or she is employed. Wages and working conditions should be equalized to the highest standards, not the lowest common denominator.

For Single-Payer Healthcare and Affordable Housing

Issues that affect the working-class population of the 8th District and the nation are healthcare and affordable housing. I support H.R. 676, which takes the insurance companies out of the healthcare equation and creates a universal, single-payer healthcare system.

Affordable housing is being destroyed from New Orleans to San Francisco's Bayview/Hunter's Point neighborhood -- and the resulting gentrification is pushing our neighbors of color out of the city, which threatens the dynamic diversity of San Francisco. The current price of fuel and food makes it difficult for working-class and poor residents to sustain a reasonable standard of living. They must not lose their homes to real estate speculators. Moreover, if one lower-income home is destroyed, it must be replaced with another comparable home.

I support the passage of any bill guaranteeing a one-for-one replacement, and I urge more help for people under a certain income level who are losing their homes and who were victims of predatory lenders. Unemployment benefits and food-stamp benefits should also be extended in this precarious economy.

For Immigrant Workers' Rights

As a person whose ancestors immigrated to the United States from Scotland and Germany to give their families and succeeding generations the opportunity for economic equality, I believe in compassionate and humane treatment of immigrant workers.

Immigrant workers should have the right to join unions regardless of their legal status. All undocumented immigrants, whether employed or not, should have a swift and expedited path to legalization in the form of Green Cards. The Guest Worker programs introduced in recent years with bipartisan support are designed to make indentured servants out of our brothers and sisters from Mexico, Central and South America and to benefit employers unwilling to pay a living wage or benefits to employees.

I oppose the militarization of the border and the funding of ICE and other governmental agencies set up to terrorize immigrant workers, who are driven to the United States by the "free trade" and "structural adjustment" policies implemented by Democrats and Republicans. All these policies are aimed at privatizing the economies of the immigrants' countries of origin in the interests of the multinational corporations. Peasants driven from their lands and workers laid off from their jobs in the public sector or in nationally owned industries are forced to flee to the United States in a desperate quest to feed their families.

For Free and Quality Education

Free and quality education is a basic human right from infants in day care to students in universities. Working parents should be entitled to safe and stimulating day care for their infants and, as in most industrialized countries, university education should be free for those who qualify for and want to avail themselves of it. Until we institute such a program, all university students should be given very liberal repayment terms for their student loans that come with very low interest rates.

In lieu of university education, which not every student qualifies for, or desires, there should be support of apprenticeship programs and state and federal job training for those who want to learn a skill that doesn't involve putting on a U.S. military uniform and learning how to kill other people.

We should bring our troops home from all countries where our troops are deployed to promote occupation, corporate greed and empire.

No Child Left Behind -- a Democratic as well as Republican plan -- should be repealed, and teachers, schools and school districts should be free to respond to the needs of their classrooms and communities and not be limited to teaching to stringent performance-based tests in order to receive federal money.

NCLB is also a recruiting tool for the U.S. military, as it allows military recruiters into schools and permits the schools to administer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test, which is a military competence test. NCLB does not prepare our children for university. It is aimed at privatizing poorly performing schools while also funneling students directly to the military.

For Job Creation

For decades, making tools of war or paying for wars of aggression has consumed most of our federal budget, many times long after the wars have ended. Little has been invested in the basic infrastructure of our country, where our bridges and levees are failing. Students attend crumbling schools, and there are potholes the size of bathtubs in our roads.

The budget of the Pentagon must be slashed and the trillions of dollars being poured into the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan must end and a federal job-creation program similar to the WPA must be put into place. The workers in these jobs must be paid the prevailing wage, and the jobs must be created in partnership with relevant unions.

Deregulation of airlines, telecommunications, media, energy, banking, insurance and other industries has created a dangerous and unhealthy environment for working people and for our entire society. The deregulation of these industries has allowed the corporate profiteers to destroy proper oversight and health and safety regulations.

For Regulating the Media

The deregulation of the media and telecommunications industry has not only cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, it has intensified the monopolization of the media. The media conglomerates (Fox, Murdock, Clear Channel and others) are able to manipulate the media and destroy local programming. This has prevented the public from getting independent news and information, particularly on the effects of deregulation, privatization and war.

I will oppose multiple ownership of newspaper, cable, broadcast, internet and all other media operations.

I will require that all license holders of commercial television and radio stations carry and promote local programming, with stiff penalties, including loss of licenses, if they violate these rules. I also will support revoking their licenses if they have a record of violating local, state and federal labor laws by illegally firing and discriminating against workers for union activities.

I also support federal funding for public labor-community broadcast and internet systems, including Wi-fi and other technologies, to allow the use of these new communication technologies for all working people, especially for low-income workers.

For Stopping Deregulation and Privatization

The present financial crisis has been fueled by the elimination of all financial regulatory measures, particularly by the repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act (GSA), which in 1933, in the immediate aftermath of the Great Depression, had separated investment and commercial banking activities. The repeal of GSA -- which was demanded by the corporate elite -- was supported actively by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and other leaders of the Democratic Party.

The Federal Reserve System does not represent consumers, workers or the public. I support elected community-labor boards in which there will be accountability from those running our financial system.

The drive to privatize and contract out jobs is a threat to our workforce. It undermines standards -- including the merit system -- and has replaced them with nepotism and corruption. It has become a norm today for contractors to pay off Congresspeople to obtain contracts.

I oppose all privatization of federal jobs and will require that all funds disbursed by the federal government go only to government agencies, not to private contractors.

I support the U.S. Postal System and oppose all efforts to privatize it through contracting-out operations, including joint ventures with private corporations. I will support Congressional investigations, with managers and workers placed under oath, to examine the health and safety conditions in the USPS that have led to the "going postal" incidents across the country, including in San Francisco.

I support legislation making it illegal to force workers into jobs with independent contractors in which employers such as FedEx use the "independent contractor" status to prevent unionization and to transfer the costs of unemployment, social security and workers' compensation to the individual worker.

I also will investigate and eliminate the massive cost-shifting by the insurance industry of workers' compensation costs. Millions of injured workers are now forced to go on SSI and State Disability or to publicly funded hospitals, thereby shifting these costs to the state. I will initiate and organize Congressional hearings on these issues and put employers, insurance executives and workers under oath to expose and change these schemes. I also support criminal penalties for the conspiracies to shift such costs to the federal government.

For a National Energy System, For a Mass Transit System

The growing environmental and energy crisis cannot be solved under private ownership of the energy companies. We need a mass transportation system administered by public-labor-community boards throughout the United States.

This will be financed by the nationalization of the oil, gas, and other energy companies -- all of which have thwarted mass transportation to keep profits flowing to their corporate stockholders.

The United States must build a system of bullet trains linking all parts of the country. The auto assembly plants could be converted into plants that build the trains and infrastructure needed for transforming qualitatively our energy and transportation systems and for rebuilding our country.

I support federal funding for local community-based solar and wind systems where feasible to provide an alternative to fossil fuels, and will oppose the use and subsidy of nuclear energy. When elected, I will submit legislation that will require that all federal funding of energy projects provide for prevailing wages and allow full unionization of workers.

For Civil Rights and Privacy Protection

I oppose terrorism in the workplace. The constant harassment and discrimination against union members and unorganized workers by the corporations and multinationals who own and control all the wealth in the United States and around the world should not be tolerated.

Workers are subject to heightened discrimination when they are injured on the job. Many injured workers are fired illegally by the employers. The use of the Transport Workers Identification Credentials (TWIC) Act to discriminate against transportation workers with previous criminal records must be stopped.

I am opposed to the organized destruction of our privacy and civil rights. I support the repeal of the so-called "Patriot Act" and other "anti-terrorism" acts that were supported by both the Democratic and Republicans parties -- and by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, in particular.

I am committed to defending the right of workers to privacy and condemn spying by employers on their private lives. I oppose the special identity cards for transportation workers and all forms of electronic information-gathering used to discriminate against union organizers, injured workers or workers with disabilities.

I will work to eliminate the massive intrusion into our lives by the drug-testing industry. Using arbitrary drug tests, hundreds of thousands of workers have been fired, and many have suffered retaliation for union activity.

Use of private drug-testing companies should be eliminated. There needs to be strict regulation of any testing of workers on the job.

I oppose the use of criminal drug laws to jail millions of working people. The use of drugs by individuals is a public healthcare problem that will not be resolved by spending billions of dollars on the prison industry. The corporatized and privatized prison industry holds untold numbers of workers who have been incarcerated because of their race, sexual orientation or nationality. This prison system warehouses millions of working men and women for the sake of profits for the prison industry and in repayment for their contributions to the Democratic and Republican parties.

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Cindy Sheehan recognizes the historic significance of unions in building a strong working/middle class in America. Courageous union activists and organizations have brought about the end of child labor and the advent of the 40-hour week, benefits and living wages, among other positive changes.

Restore Workers' Rights to Organize and Bargain Collectively

The right to organize unions, bargain freely and strike when necessary is being destroyed by employers and their representatives in government. Today, nearly 1 out of 10 workers involved in union organizing drives is fired illegally by employers who wage a campaign of fear, threats and slick propaganda to keep workers from exercising a genuinely free choice. That is why union membership is declining. And as union membership falls so do the wages of all working people, union and non-union alike.

I support the repeal of all laws that prevent unions from organizing new members and bargaining collectively. All employees of federal, state and local governments must have full collective-bargaining rights.

Repeal Taft-Hartley, Restore the Right to Strike

The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 severely restricts the activities of unions in favor of the employers. It was initially vetoed by then-president Harry Truman (D-Mo.). More Democrats joined Republicans in voting to override the veto than voted against the act. Yet most labor unions and labor leaderships continue to support Democrats.

I will work actively to repeal Taft-Hartley because coming from a working-class background, I believe it is a basic human right to be able to use collective strength and will at the bargaining table as workers need to be protected from the avarice of employers and the government.

The right to strike of all workers in the United states -- including local, state and federal employees -- is a fundamental principle of the workers' movement that must be safeguarded. The right to withhold one's labor is a basic human right that our government should guarantee to all working people, including to those in the military.

All scabbing must be banned, and no workers should be fired without just cause.

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Since Nancy Pelosi has been Speaker, Congress has given George over ½ trillion more dollars to wage the war that she says she is trying to stop: recently appropriating 162 billion for an entire year's worth of carnage! Since Nancy has been Speaker, tens of thousands of Iraqis have died and about 1200 of our young people have been unnecessarily murdered or tortured (with Pelosi's approval) and their families sent into tailspins of grief. Millions of people have lost their jobs and/or homes and oil is just under $150.00 a barrel. That's why it hurts me so much when Nancy says that she "likes" the president and when she opposes him (which has literally been never, since she's been Speaker), that it's not "personal." How can one personally like someone who has been responsible for so much heartache in this world? I wish the horrible state of affairs we find ourselves in were not "personal" to me but things are deeply "personal" to me. Bush's crimes and Nancy's support of him have cost a lot of innocent lives and caused a lot of pointless pain.

When I first left the Democratic Party in May, 2007, over disgust at the continued war funding and continued destruction of our rule of law, I was roundly and thoroughly criticized by the centrists and even more so when I announced my candidacy for Pelosi's seat. In the intervening year, I have been unfortunately vindicated by Congress's fresh attacks on our civil liberties and constant caving into BushCo and War, Inc. Just like being right about the wrongness of the war gave me no joy, being right about the wrongness of the "left" (read right of center) also gives me no consolation. Working to rectify the malignant (cyst)em is what gives me resolve and hope.

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ETA: Cynthia McKinney endorses Cindy Sheehan and vice versa.

[ 22 July 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Does anyone seriously doubt that one of the reasons why a House Judiciary Committee hearing will at least discuss the “I” word on Friday is Cindy Sheehan’s independent challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?

Pelosi, famously, took impeachment “off the table” just before the 2006 election.

Then, this month, she edged it back on the menu — suggesting that the Judiciary Committee might take up the matter of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s proposal to impeach the president for using deception to draw the nation into an illegal and immoral war.

Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who has never made any secret of his desire to address the imperial reach of the Bush-Cheney presidency — especially on matters of war and peace — jumped at the chance to schedule the hearing. A two-hour session, at which the “i” word will be discussed openly by advocates such as Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, is scheduled for Friday.

Though the hearing is unlikely to evolve into the full-fledged inquiry that many of us believe necessary, it is remarkable that in the summer of a presidential election year the key committee in a chamber where impeachment was supposed to be off the table will turn its attention to the tool that the founders afforded the legislative branch for constraining the executive.

Why is this happening now?

It is worth noting that this is petition-gathering season for independent candidates running in California. Sheehan, the mother of a slain Iraq War soldier who turned her grief into activism, and her supporters are busy collecting the 10,198 signatures that will be needed to get her name on the ballot.

Sheehan — echoing the sentiments of the millions of Americans who believe that it if it is wrong for a Republican administration to abuse the Constitution then it is just as wrong for Democratic leaders to refuse to defend the document’s principles — has made presidential accountability a central issue of her independent campaign in a city that has already overwhelmingly endorsed an impeachment initiative.

Indeed, Sheehan announced that she would challenge the speaker after it became clear — after President Bush commuted White House aide Scooter Libby’s prison sentence last summer — that Pelosi was blocking consideration of impeachment by the House….

Sheehan is a realist. She admits that her candidacy is “an uphill battle.”

But she has drawn significant television, radio and newspaper coverage in San Francisco, as well as endorsements from the local Green and Peace and Freedom parties and local officials such as the president of the city’s school board and plan commission. She has raised more than $100,000 for the campaign, attracted an energetic team of volunteers. And, now, as those volunteers hit the streets to collect the signatures to put Sheehan’s name on the ballot, Pelosi is suddenly showing some flexibility — the key word being “some” — with regard to the impeachment discussion.

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[ 24 July 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Those who think third party and independent candidates are unable to have any real influence on US politics should take a closer look at this: Source

[ 24 July 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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To be fair, most of the posters here who think that a third party presidential campaign is a problem support down ticket third party campaigns.

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Those who think third party and independent candidates are unable to have any real influence on US politics should take a closer look at this: Source

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I looked at the link, and I saw words on a page. Anyone can concoct a programme, but REAL INFLUENCE requires actual electoral victories.

While I think that there is nothing wrong with, and a lot right with, local campaigns against Members of Congress who are too right-wing (ie. most of them), I don't think Cindy Sheehan has demonstrated any "real influence" here.

I think of labour history and I then I think if you or someone like you lead the labour movement in Canada there would never have been the Winnipeg Strike of 1919 or the postal wildcats of the 60s, but workers would still have barely a modicum of rights, few benefits, and no legal right to strike.

Progress comes from being willing to fight for change even against overwhelming odds and not from nuzzling up against the man and licking his boots.

[ 24 July 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Originally posted by jeff house:

I looked at the link, and I saw words on a page. Anyone can concoct a programme, but REAL INFLUENCE requires actual electoral victories.

While I think that there is nothing wrong with, and a lot right with, local campaigns against Members of Congress who are too right-wing (ie. most of them), I don't think Cindy Sheehan has demonstrated any "real influence" here.

Please bring this thread back the day after election day, and we'll see how she did.

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[ 24 July 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

That's two hours' worth more than the millions of delusional Democratic party voters accomplished by going to the voting booth in 2006.

That's a blow to those who maintain that more can be accomplished working through the Democratic Party than through independent grass-roots organizing.

I worked for Nader twice. Both those campaigns, as you know, were complete failures and had no influence on American politics whatsoever. This is why I can't accept your insistence on wasting my time on that path. Futility twice is futility always.

I salute Cindy on her achievement on the impeachment issue. And I support her congressional campaign. Those are worthwhile activities. It's the presidential thing where you and I differ.

[ 25 July 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

Sheehan = The real deal for advocates of independent, working-class politial leaders running for office now, not in the future.

The argument that Sheehan can't win, or, even if she could, wouldn't have the powerful technicians and backers of the shadow government on her side---so, what's the use?---doesn't have a lot of traction with homeless persons, those about to lose their home, or go bankrupt, or die from a treatable disease for lack of medical insurance, and a whol lot of other people out there.

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The dramatic hearing on presidential crimes and abuses of power held on Friday [July 25] by the House Judiciary Committee was both a staged farce, and at the same time, a powerful demonstration of the power of a grassroots movement in defense of the Constitution. It was at once both testimony to the cowardice and self-inflicted impotence of Congress and of the Democratic Party that technically controls that body, and to the enormity of the damage that has been wrought to the nation’s democracy by two aspiring tyrants in the White House.

As Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the committee, made clear more than once during the six-hour session, this was “not an impeachment hearing, however much many in the audience might wish it to be” He might well have added that he himself was not the fierce defender of the Constitution and of the authority of Congress that he once was before gaining control of the Judiciary Committee, however much his constituents, his wife, and Americans across the country might wish him to be.

At the same time, while the hearing was strictly limited to the most superficial airing of Bush administration crimes and misdemeanors, the fact that the session - technically an argument in defense of 26 articles of impeachment filed in the House over the past several months by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) – was nonetheless a major victory for the impeachment movement. It happened because earlier in the month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has sworn since taking control of the House in November 2006, that impeachment would be “off the table” during the 110th Congress, called a hasty meeting with Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Rep. Conyers, and Rep. Kucinich, and called for such a limited hearing.

It was no coincidence that shortly before Pelosi’s backdown, peace activist and Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan announced that her campaign had collected well over the 10,000 signatures necessary to qualify for listing on the ballot as an independent candidate for Congress against Pelosi in the Speaker’s home district in San Francisco. Sheehan has been an outspoken advocate of impeaching both Bush and Cheney. “Pelosi is trying to throw a bone to her constituents by allowing a hearing on impeachment,” said Sheehan, who came to Washington, DC to attend. “It’s just like her finally stating publicly that Bush’s presidency is a failure - something it has taken her two years to come to, but which we’ve been saying for years.”

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You know, I don't care if it's not proper for a Congressional candidate to say: "horseshit." I don't care if it is not a good "tactic" to get kicked out of a Congressional non-impeachment hearing that was just a bunch of horseshit anyway. I don't care if I get accused of being too "extreme" for bucking the (cyst)em by doing everything form camping in a ditch in Crawford, Tx to non-violent civil disobedience to, lately, running for Congress as (oh no!) an independent.

If people can't see how this nation is teetering on the precipice of financial ruin and dragging the rest of this planet down with us as we destroy our ecology, too…and if people don't realize how desperate our situation is, then I must say, that's horseshit!

I am angry. No, I am incensed that hundreds of thousands of people are dead, dying, wounded, displaced from their homes or being imprisoned and tortured by the sadists that reside or work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with the approval of their accomplices down the road in Congress. I am furious that I buried my oldest son when he was 24 years old for the unrepentant lies and the unpunished crimes of the Bush mob. Are you incensed? If not, maybe you should ask yourself: "Why?" Hypothetically: "Why am I not enraged that my country has killed or hurt so many people for absolutely no noble cause in my name and with my tacit approval?"

I am steamed that the working class has to, once again, pay for the excesses of the capitalist criminals that feeds its rapacious appetite with the flesh and blood of our children and won't rest until it owns every penny in this world and has all the power….

I get so pissed off when one of my supporters has a tooth ache and can't afford to go see a dentist to fix it or when my sister has had a cough for almost two years and doesn't have the health insurance she needs to get fully well. And when I think that almost 50 million people in this country are non-insured or under-insured, I see red. Why, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, do some have the "privilege" of being fully insured and healthy, when health care is a basic human right, not a privilege for the elitists? My heart hurts every night when the men who sleep propped up against my campaign office, huddled under their blankets against the San Francisco chill, wish me a "good night" and I can't choke the same words back to them, or do much of anything but give them coffee to keep warm and books to read to help pass the time. My campaign office is being visited on a daily basis by Iraq war vets who can't access the help they need to get physically or mentally healthy---and I am "extreme" because I actually want things to really change and choose to act on this desire and not sit around passively pretending that this horseshit doesn't exist?

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Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan qualified Friday for a November showdown with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, collecting the signatures needed to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for Congress....

Republican Dana Walsh and Libertarian Philip Berg will join Pelosi and Sheehan on the Nov. 4 ballot.

The collection of signatures by Sheehan's campaign was more exciting than usual. On Wednesday, the campaign was well short of the 10,198 signatures needed to get on the ballot after San Francisco elections officials found that more than 40 percent of the people who signed weren't registered in the city's Eighth Congressional District.

Sheehan's supporters redoubled their efforts to collect enough signatures to beat the 5 p.m. Friday deadline, ultimately turning in more than 17,000 signatures to ensure that she qualified.

"It was a little disconcerting to see all the problems with the signatures," Sheehan said from her Mission Street headquarters, where more than 100 supporters gathered to celebrate. "The last couple of days, I've been checking the registrations myself on the computer."...

Cindy is running a great campaign, but the likelihood of her winning..?California's 8th District seems like the Canadian equivalent of my own electoral district: Van Centre. Extremely socially liberal but with a similarly large constituency of yuppies and upwardly mobile and upper-middle types who work in the Financial District and Union Square. The main core of San Francisco is also becoming increasingly gentrified and "Manhattanized" and has been ever since the 60s and 70s. Unfortunately for Cindy this bodes extremely well for a socially liberal centrist like Nancy Pelosi, who on top of all the demographic advantages will no doubt get the support of all the mainstream Democratic financiers like unions, lawyers, and Hollywood. Pelosi also gets huge contributions from the real estate, finance and oil & gas industries. Alas, money is the modus operandi in the machine of American democracy.

I suspect Cindy knows what her chances are and it appears that she deliberately chose California's 8th mainly to make a statement about Pelosi' failure to initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush. If she wanted an easier way to get in Congress she might have opted for one of the neighbouring districts that contain Berkeley or Marin or San Mateo Counties ... even though each of those districts have some of the most progressive congressmen and women in the US like Lynn Woolsey, Barbara Lee and Pete Stark. I would like to see Cindy Sheehan run some day in the 10th district against Ellen Tauscher who is essentially a conservative Democrat and a cheerleader for war and capitalism. Cindy's campaign could have sucked some of the union and activist support away from Tauscher who is deeply unpopular with the left in the party.

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[This is] from cindy sheehan,
whom I asked, "what would you do different than nancy pelosi?" here is her website:
http://www.cindyforcongress.org
Here is her answer:
"I would wrest this country from the control of the Military Industrial Complex (Dwight Eisenhower was going to call it the Military Industrial Congressional Complex, but it was changed before his speech)...I think we need to bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and cut back our military budget so it is not one that can be used to enhance the empire, but one for defensive purposes only.

We need to reclaim our Constitution and undo all the damage of the last almost 8 years and repeal the Patriot Acts, Military Commissions Act, Presidential Directive 51 and restore habeas corpus and our 4th amendment protections against illegal search and seizure...for starts.

Then we can work on health care, education, energy and the environment..."

( Cindy Sheehan is a woman of vision, in my view, as is Hillary Clinton, Cynthia Mckinney, and my sister Geraldine Barr).

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Originally posted by skarredmunkey:
If she wanted an easier way to get in Congress she might have opted for one of the neighbouring districts that contain Berkeley or Marin or San Mateo Counties ...

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Originally posted by Zak Young:
Jesus what a terrible platform (aside from her opposition to war ldo).

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On November 4, San Franciscans will vote on the strongest anti-Iraq War measure yet to appear before the voters of a major American city. Proposition U, placed on the ballot by five of the city's Board of Supervisors, declares it city policy that "its elected representatives in the United States Senate and House of Representatives should vote against any further funding for the deployment of United States Armed Forces in Iraq, with the exception of funds specifically earmarked to provide for their safe and orderly withdrawal."

San Francisco was the site of some of the nation's largest protests leading up to the war, culminating in over 1,000 arrests for blocking the streets on the day of the invasion. And in 2004, 63 percent of its voters backed a policy statement urging the federal government "to withdraw all troops from Iraq and bring all military personnel in Iraq back to the United States."...

Proposition U is also designed as a bit of an antidote to a type of magical thinking that seems to have come over some of the nation's war opponents ever since their massive protests failed to stop the war. In 2004, this thinking took the form of believing that all that was necessary to end the war was to elect John Kerry, largely ignoring his have-it-both-ways stance of condemning Bush both for starting the war and for not sending enough troops. (The Administration's "surge" has belatedly addressed the latter concern.)

In 2006, it was the drive to vote a Democratic majority into Congress that seemed to supplant the need for direct antiwar activity in the minds of many. This, although there was no genuine prospect of a simple Democratic majority providing the votes needed to end the war, given that a third of House Democrats have supported it. And, in 2008, the wish-the-war-away strategy appears to amount to electing Obama and hoping that he'll do what his antiwar constituency wants him to do, even if he's never said he would....

Getting the Republicans out of the White House may be a necessary condition for ending this war, but it is far from a sufficient one.

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Originally posted by Zak Young:
"Zak, do you have any idea where you are?"

Sure; I'm at a party, and I'm the designated driver in a room full of drunks.

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Q. Let's talk about the presidential race. Do you think Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq if he is elected president? Should anti-war activists support him?

A. He has not said he will end the war in Iraq. He has the same exact position as the Bush administration: when conditions on the ground allow it, we are going to redeploy troops and put them in Afghanistan.

Many of my friends and people I respect greatly are saying it doesn't matter if Obama appears to be selling out now. We hope that his actions won't match his rhetoric because he just has to sell out to get elected. But there's never been any evidence of that happening.

When you look at polls, every poll shows McCain and Obama in virtually a tie. McCain is a doddering old fool. What does Obama do? Instead of standing up and saying all of the Republican positions are wrong, we want no offshore drilling, we're going to bring the troops out of Afghanistan, I'm against the death penalty and completely 100% for a woman's right of choice over her own body... he moves closer to the Republican position.

If they showed more daylight between their position and the Republican position, Obama would be at least 20 points ahead of McCain now.

If you want to support someone who wants to increase military spending, who wants to drill offshore, and who is not for universal healthcare, vote for McCain or Obama. But if you are truly a progressive and you want to see this country go in a different direction, you need to support and send your money to either Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader.

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Quote of Cindy Sheehan:
If they showed more daylight between their position and the Republican position, Obama would be at least 20 points ahead of McCain now.

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People may not like or trust Obama. But, he's not a complete idiot. If showing "more daylight" between himself and McCain (by moving far more to the left) would give Obama a 20% lead in the polls, he'd do it in a fraction of a nanosecond.

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Anti War activist and challenger for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Congressional Seat, Cindy Sheehan, has indicated her intention to launch a National political party after the U.S. Election of Nov. 4

Inspired in part by Mark Twain's involvement in The American Anti Imperialist League in reaction to the annexation of the Philippines by the United States in the late 19th Century, Sheehan said that the party will have a progressive platform and that after Nov. 4, "no matter what happens, we need to consolidate the energy against Imperialism and work on building another party movement."

While discussing a potential third party unity movement, Sheehan indicated that her own candidacy against House Speaker Pelosi has seen a broad coalition of support from Greens, independents, disillusioned Democrats such as herself... and Republicans, many of whom made up the traditional base of the GOP represented by Ron Paul.

Sheehan revealed that the name of the new party would be The First Party. She reasoned "We don't want to do third-party politics which has a stigma in the United States" The First Party, with a populist-progressive agenda, will be the first party that "cares about the people, will work for the people, and will actually be a viable party."

"I have spoken to Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney and the Nader Campaign" and as disillusionment with the two party system increases,"this is the time to build on that energy."

Reflecting on her own chances in unseating incumbent Pelosi, she is pragmatic and acknowledges it has been "upward momentum, the only way we could go" but believes the success of the recent $700 billion bailout proposal could turn the tide in her favour. "When we're out on the streets, we have overwhelming support, especially since this bailout." Sheehan indicates that she notices that "people have a new rage and a new fire in their belly because of the corporate bailout. People are just so angry."

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Sherman against Pelosi is absolutely a supportable campaign.

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Sheehan's efforts, though, seem to have come to naught. Her campaign has struggled to raise money and her repeated requests for a debate with Pelosi have been ignored. Robocalls made by one of Sheehan's most high-profile supporters, actress Roseanne Barr, were not well received. In recent weeks, Sheehan has begun to complain that she was being harassed, her campaign's office windows were broken, and she learned that she had been summoned for jury duty during the week of the election. Her election prospects, meanwhile, have grown bleak: Sheehan, running as an independent, trails not only Pelosi but the Republican candidate, Dana Walsh, as well.

Last week, Sheehan made one last attempt to be heard when she called into a radio interview Pelosi was giving. "If you really cared about the voters in San Francisco you could find an hour to debate your opponents, because you do have some opponents here in San Francisco," Sheehan said. "Over 60 percent of this district in 2006 voted for an impeachment resolution and I just want to know why you haven't represented the people of your district and why you haven't impeached George Bush and Dick Cheney? And you still have time."

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However, Cindy for Congress got almost twice as many votes as anyone who has ever run against Pelosi since she eked out a primary victory in 1987 over Harry Britt, who was also the most progressive candidate. We raised a decent amount of money and are honored by the support we have gotten from all over this nation.

This is not the time to give up and give in to the politics of blinding amounts of money shrouded in "hope."

On November 5th, we still have millions of people sleeping on our streets and without jobs and health care. We still have our troops mired in two unconscionable wars that Obama has not promised to end. Our economy is still on a very precarious footing and oil, the lifeblood of the elite, is running out. There are many people in this world, and yes, this country that are food insecure and the next resource wars may be over water. - Cindy Sheehan

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[ 05 November 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]