Still, John Kerry's "anti-war" position is barely passable--something he belatedly adopted after initially voting to authorize an invasion. For better or worse, the candidate keeps up "presidential" appearances by explicitly distancing himself from claims that a U.S. "empire" exists. He instead prefers to talk about Bush administration "mistakes" and errors of judgement. The peace movement may have good reason to support Kerry, but we would be foolish to expect him to voice our views of U.S. policy for us.

Concerning the immediate future, the main institutions of the U.S. peace movement have been well aware of the need to approach a coalition effort with an agenda of their own. The newspaper War Times, while celebrating Bush's poor showing in the polls, argues for the need "to continue to push our peace demand ourselves--and push Democrats to follow." Many activists would take from this a plan for "critical support" of John Kerry. Of course, when it comes to mainstream presidential candidates, the U.S. left has proven itself better at the "critical" part of things than at "support." Along similar lines, United for Peace and Justice's 12-month strategy paper speaks of "shaping the debate." This is an admirable goal, but probably is too ambitious and diffuse to plan around effectively.

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