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The Quaker Vote
Doris Clinkscale, a Green Street member for 40 years, says many Quakers prefer quiet persuasion. "We don't really advocate that kind of very strong pushing people to vote," she says. "We encourage. We inform. We tell them our position, and then we wait for their inner light to show them the way to go."
Quakers advocate for peace through the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Quakers worldwide in 1947, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation. These programs include assistance for Iraqi refugees in the Middle East and trying to influence U.S. policy in a peaceful direction. Recently, though, that direction could involve something previously anathema to Quakers: keeping some boots on the ground, at least temporarily.
"We still call for immediate withdrawal, and we have to explain what that means," says Peter Lems, who directs the Iraq efforts for AFSC from an office in downtown Philadelphia. "We realize it doesn't mean all of the U.S. troops leave tomorrow or next week or within two months. But we do say that there needs to be a timetable … We all want law and order. We all want justice. But … law and order and justice in Iraq comes around faster with a deliberate removal of military law, of U.S. troops."
Even Quakers who are unwavering about pacifism are often willing to engage in the mainstream political process. "I'm not going to find a candidate that fits my views on pacifism," says Mary Lord, a Quaker who has worked for AFSC on peace and conflict resolution. "What I have to look for is who is more likely to move where I am … One of the questions I ask is, 'Of the two Democratic candidates—both are trying to move us away from the Iraq war—but what are the lessons we're going to draw from the war, to keep us from going into another war?'"
Preferring a candidate who has a post-cold war view of the world, Lord says, "I'm leaning to Obama, although I worry, because I lived in Washington, D.C., for many years, and it's an unforgiving place. Hillary has surrounded herself with people who are more traditionalist, and so I worry that she would fall back on the same kinds of policies."
Like many Democrats, many Quakers say they will support the ultimate victor between Clinton and Obama. "What ever Democrat is nominated, I'll be out on the street working for the Democrats," La Fontaine says. "The distinction between the Republicans and Democrats is much stronger than the distinctions between the Democrats."
© 2008
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Member Comments
Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 05/05/2008 7:08:20 PM
Comment: Your Open
Posted By: Not stupid in Alabama @ 04/23/2008 8:49:32 AM
Comment: Also, here's an interesting analysis of the way Obama tries to trick people into saying things, exposing a debater's strategy and mentality, not a search for truth.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/04/obamas_linguistic_trap.html
Posted By: Not stupid in Alabama @ 04/23/2008 8:48:52 AM
Comment: And here's an interesting account that shows Obama's priorities:
In a campaign influenced by Walmart, instead of backing the pro-labor candidate, Obama backed a "Walmart tool."
There was little surprising about Obama???s endorsement given his deeper, interrelated and self-interested allegiances to the politically powerful corporate-neoliberal City Hall regime of Chicago???s Mayor Daley, with whom Obama shares the same big money campaign super-consultant (David Axlerod) and numerous big money sponsors.
For the first time Mayor, Daley vetoed an ordinance by his normally obedient City Council, a measure was widely supported by citizens, community organizations, and labor unions in Chicago's black, Latino, and working-class wards. Originally passed by the council under pressure from a remarkable grassroots campaign, it would have required giant retail corporations like Wal-Mart, Target, Lowes, and Home Depot to pay workers a modest minimum wage of ten dollars an hour by 2010.
Wal-Mart and Target announced that they were putting a number of ???big box??? retail developments on hold in Chicago, and launched a preemptive public relations strike, threatening to disinvest in the city unless a ???favorable business climate??? was restored. Daley made a special point of wrapping his veto in the flag of racial justice, claiming it was required to permit the flowering of economic development in the city???s abandoned ghetto neighborhoods.
Pat Dowell, the recipient of significant support from the Service Employees??? International Union (SEIU), was running against Tillman in the name of working families and economic justice. Dowell strongly criticized Tillman for siding with Daley and Wal-Mart.
Obama needed the support of the powerful campaign finance magnet Daley, and endorsed Tillman, over the principled, serious and labor-backed Dowell.
Obama???s wife Michelle then received $51,200 in 2006 for attending a few board meetings of TreeHouse Foods, a giant firm that relied heavily on its close business relationship with Wal-Mart (The granting of high-pay/do-little board posts to the spouses of politicians is a longstanding tool of the ???old,??? corporate-dominated politics that Senator Obama claims to reject). Mrs. Obama resigned from this position in the summer of 2007, citing ???increased demands on her time??? in connection with her husband???s presidential campaign. It isn't surprising that she cut her politically damaging ties to a notoriously anti-labor company that her husband was attacking in speeches to please popular audiences concerned about the growing chasm between the rich and poor in the U.S.