One question has been coming up a lot–although, perhaps not explicitly–on this blog recently: How should the antiwar movement engage in the 2008 election?

I’ve danced around this question–essentially saying that we need to push Democratic candidates to take a harder stance against the war and military spending. But my message could certainly be more articulate and well defined. If I were to do that, however, I’d essentially be paraphrasing two great articles that came out this week.

The first one is by Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill, both Nation writers with NY Times best-sellers out at the moment. They make a great point about how Clinton and Obama could be (as well as have been) pushed to change their position on Iraq (which is essentially to continue the occupation indefinitely):

The candidates know that much of the passion fuelling their campaigns flows from the desire among so many rank-and-file Democrats to end this disastrous war. Crucially, the candidates have already shown that they are vulnerable to pressure from the peace camp. When the Nation revealed that neither candidate was supporting legislation that would ban the use of Blackwater and other private security companies in Iraq, Clinton changed course. She became the most important US political leader to endorse the ban - scoring a point on Obama, who opposed the invasion from the start.

This is exactly where we want the candidates: outdoing each other to prove how serious they are about ending the war. That kind of battle has the power to energise voters and break the cynicism that is threatening both campaigns.

Let’s remember, unlike the outgoing Bush administration, these candidates need the support of the two-thirds of Americans who oppose the war in Iraq. If opinion transforms into action, they won’t be able to afford to say, “So?”

The second article that tackles this subject is by former NY Times Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Hedges, who offers a more challenging message for the antiwar movement about third party candidates:

Those of us who oppose the war, who believe that all U.S. troops should be withdrawn and the network of permanent bases in Iraq dismantled, have only two options in the coming presidential elections-Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney. A vote for any of the Republican and Democratic candidates is a vote to perpetuate the occupation of Iraq and a lengthy and futile war of attrition with the Iraqi insurgency. You can sign on for the suicidal hundred-year war with John McCain or for the nebulous open-ended war-lite with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, or back those who reject the war. If you vote Democrat or Republican in the coming election be honest with yourself-you have voted to allow the U.S. government to continue, in some form, the campaign that needlessly kills ever more Americans and Iraqis in a conflict that has become the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history and a crime under international law.

While both articles contain vital messages, I find the latter to be more compelling. Some may be drawn more to the pragmatism of Klein and Scahill, who want to push a mainstream candidate as far left as they will go, but I believe it’s going to take far more than the compromising nature of pragmatism to unseat a system that has been oppressing people the world over for some 200 years. Not that Hedges’ message is without practical merit (e.g. “If the anti-war movement gets behind [Nader] and McKinney, if it stands behind its principles, it could begin to shake the foundations of the Democratic Party.”), but it offers something more nourishing for the soul: the chance to stand up for the millions of voiceless and innocent people who are typically strangled by the imperialist grip of US foreign policy.

If that’s something you think is worth standing up for, then you will surely find inspiration in these words, spoken by Dr. King–and regarding his unpopular opposition to the Vietnam War–just days before his assassination, :

On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question–is it politic? Vanity asks the question–is it popular? Conscience asks the question–is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “We ain’t goin’ study war no more.” This is the challence facing modern man.