I heard that Lori Wallach is “passing the baton” at Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. End of an era, as they say. So maybe her dance card is open for the next four months.
We need a Lori Wallach to supervise the House Yemen WPR campaign for the next four months. Here’s why.
We have a clear path now to end the Yemen war by introducing and passing a new Yemen War Powers Resolution in the House by March 25, 2022, the seventh anniversary of the war.
It’s a clear path. But it’s not a wide path. I didn’t say it was a wide path. I said it was a clear path. It’s a narrow path. That’s why we need a Lori Wallach to run the campaign. If it were a wide path, we wouldn’t need a Lori Wallach to run the campaign. Any quarterback would do. We need a Lori Wallach to run the campaign, because it’s a narrow path. There’s no margin for error. It’s like GOTV in a close election. Every door has to be knocked, every phone call has to be made. Every oar has to hit the water at the same time.
Here’s why it’s a narrow path. If we’re winning the vote, it’s almost certainly a close vote. If we’re winning the vote, then it almost certainly rhymes with the last Khanna Yemen NDAA vote. We get almost all the Democrats, and a handful of Republicans. The handful of Republicans we get cancels out the handful of Democrats that we lose, and we squeak across the finish line.
We don’t have very good prospects now to increase our handful of House Republicans on Yemen War Powers very much. Turn every stone, knock every door, make every phone call. You never know. We have Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Thomas Massie, peace be upon him, may he live to 120. Maybe if the Faithful Remnant of the Ron Paul Revolution engage, we can expand our House Republican support by March. “And the meek shall inherit the Earth…Attention all planets of the Solar Federation: we have assumed control.” We should try. Turn every stone, knock every door, make every phone call. But we shouldn’t count on a lot of success with this. In a post-Trump world, “Saudiland über alles” is the RNC/Kevin McCarthy Party Line. So we can’t afford to lose more than a handful of House Democrats. We have to Hold the Line with the House Democrats. That’s why we need a Lori Wallach, to Hold the Line with House Democrats.
We can’t assume that this goes like Khanna House Yemen NDAA with the House Democratic Caucus, for two reasons. First, because if we reach this juncture in March, Admin is likely to be lobbying House Democrats against us, twisting arms. And because if we don’t keep a sharp lookout on Pelosi and Hoyer and Clyburn, watch them like hawks, dog them like birds, they might try to twist arms against us too, on the sly, on the theory that the top job of House Democratic leadership is to block in the House for Dem POTUS, even if Dem POTUS is being held hostage by Satan. This is why we need a Lori Wallach. Because if we reach this juncture, then it rhymes with Fast Track ’97, where we’re organizing House Democrats to Stand Tall against Dem POTUS. And you need everything on the table to do that. You need to see if we can find any labor friends, any enviro friends, any civil rights groups, any women’s groups, anybody that House Dems really care about, to stand with us at Friday noontide.
House NDAA amendments aren’t like this, because on House NDAA amendments, the enemy knows that they have a good fallback, which is to kill us in conference on the sly. So the stakes for the enemy are on a War Powers vote are much higher than on an NDAA amendment. On War Powers, they can’t kill us in conference on the sly, because a War Powers vote is yes or no, up or down, like Fast Track. So we should expect the enemy to fight us much harder on a War Powers vote. Because if we win a War Powers vote, we really win, not like NDAA, where we win and get killed later anyway, behind closed doors, where there is no accountability. That’s why we need a Lori Wallach to be our quarterback now. Because the stakes for the enemy are much higher now, so they're going to fight us much harder now.
How come the Biden Administration “national security” [sic] people aren’t taking us seriously? Because they see us as a bunch of peaceniks and little human rights NGOs, who don’t control many divisions. Not a serious threat. Not people that they really need to listen to, like the DNC Megadonor Oligarchs.
But when these Biden Administration “national security” [sic] people see Lori Wallach riding towards them, in her Full Battle Armor, with her Lance Extended, with her Shield Held High, they will flee in terror before us. It will be like El Cid’s Last Ride. [No offense to Muslims intended. It’s just a metaphor. Translate as necessary and appropriate to your local dialect and conditions. It will be like Saladin’s Last Ride. It will be like Tariq bin Ziyad’s Last Ride. “The sea is behind us and the enemy in front.”]
But suppose Lori’s dance card isn’t open. We need a Plan B. There’s the guy who spent six months “building crowd” for Seattle WTO. He cares about this. There’s the guy who was in Dennis Kucinich’s office when we fought Bill Clinton against unconditional IMF funding. He helped Dennis fight Bill Clinton on the unconstitutional Yugoslavia war. There’s the fair trade lobbyist who became a monk and then a penny stock trader, he’s done peace stuff. There’s the guy who just retired from the Liberal Protestants who cares a lot about Israel-Palestine. He cares about this too. Maybe we can hire one of these people, maybe two or three, to try to compensate, if Lori’s dance card isn’t open.
But suppose that none of these people are available. Then we need a Plan X.
So here’s Plan X. We pretend that Lori’s in charge, even though she’s not. “Every Soldier Is A General.” In Plan X, we all have to think like Lori. We all have to be as smart as Lori, as strategic as Lori, as suspicious as Lori, as ruthless as Lori. “We are all Spartacus.” At every juncture, we all have to ask ourselves: WWLD? What Would Lori Do? In Plan X, the words on everyone’s lips are: “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”
Here’s what Lori would do. She would have a Zero Tolerance Policy, a Broken Windows Policing Policy, for little unelected, unaccountable, DC NGO grouplets who present as peace advocates but ride with the House Democratic leadership, who are more loyal to the DNC and its Megadonor Oligarchs than they are to peace, who try to undermine us in any way. Because we can’t afford any of this now, because we have no margin for error. We can’t have any little unelected, unaccountable, DC NGO grouplets who present as peace advocates but ride with the House Democratic leadership running around telling House Democrats that they have a kosher certificate to vote for more war in Yemen now, just because a Dem is POTUS.
In terms of Washington outcomes, in a fundamental sense, this isn’t really about what’s happening in Yemen now. It’s about Washington dynamics now. There is no conceivable amount of increased human suffering in Yemen now, no conceivable increase in the outrageous severity of the atrocity, which will cause us to win, if we don’t change the Washington dynamics now.
I met Shireen at a reception in Chicago once, many years ago. We exchanged pleasantries. Then I said: “OK, let’s talk about Yemen now.” Then I held my hand in front of my face, as if to block an incoming blow. “Of course, when I say ‘Yemen,’” I clarified, “I mean ‘Washington.’”
“I know what you mean,” Shireen said.
This is the right way to think about this now. This isn’t really about Yemen now. This is about Washington now.
This is an Amish barn-raising. Everybody is responsible for this now.