When hundreds of labor, academic and
community activists gathered in a City University of New York's graduate school
auditorium this week to honor the memory of Paul and Sheila Wellstone, the
speaker list was itself a tribute to the late
Minnesota
senator and his partner in marriage and politics. Author Barbara Ehrenreich,
scholar Frances Fox Piven, Institute for Policy Studies director John Cavanagh,
Wellstone campaign manager Jeff Blodgett and veteran labor leader Bob
Muehlenkamp called on the memory of the Wellstones to energize the struggles
for econnomic and social justice, and peace, that lost two of their greatest
champions when the couple died in a plane crash last fall.
But the standout address of the
night came from the member of Congress who may well be the truest heir to the
Wellstone mantle. US Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, drew cheer after cheer
for a speech that echoed the hope, courage, passion and political timeliness
that characterized the career of the unabashedly progressive senator who died
less than two weeks before Minnesota voters were expected to reelect him last
fall.
"Paul Wellstone taught us that a
politics of conviction is a winning politics," said Schakowsky, who like
Wellstone was a grassroots organizer long before she ever thought of running
for public office.
Like many in the multigenerational
crowd that attended the Wellstone tribute, Schakowsky wore her convictions on
her sleeve -- or, more precisely, her jacket -- in the form of a large antiwar
pin.
Along with Wellstone, whose last
major vote was cast in opposition to President Bush's request for blank-check
authorization to wage war against
Iraq, Schakowsky established herself
early as a courageous and consistent foe of the administration's efforts to
launch an unwise and unnecessary attack on Iraq. But Schakowsky did not hold
herself up as a hero. Rather, she gave credit to the raucously antiwar crowd,
and the rest of the movement that has filled the streets of cities around the
world with shouts of "Not In Our Name!", for slowing the rush to war.
"For the fact that we are not at war
today, Paul Wellstone would thank you," said the member of Congress from
Chicago.
"Had it not been for this outpouring of opposition, I think we would already be
at war." Recalling last fall's Congressional vote on authorizing Bush to pursue
war with Iraq, Schakowsky noted, "Members of Congress did hear you. Sixty
percent of the Democrats voted against that resolution... and this was against
our own (party) leadership."
It is that fact, Schakowsky said,
that ought to inspire activists to reject the cynicism that says a war cannot
be stopped and to keep struggling to block Bush's military adventurism. "I'm
asking you tonight not to accept the inevitability of war," Schakowsky told the
crowd. "If Paul Wellstone would have accepted the conventional wisdom, if he
had accepted the supposed inevitability, he never would have won."
Then Schakowsky "pulled a
Wellstone." She detailed the Bush Administration's assaults on individual
liberty, workers rights, education and the environment, as well as the
administration's wrongminded approach to foreign policy, and then Schakowsky
said, "If you feel overwhelmed by that list, if it makes you feel tired... Get
over it!"
Borrowing a line from the trademark
calls to action that made Paul Wellstone a touchstone for so many progressives,
Schakowsky finished by urging the crowd into the voting booths and the streets.
"We need you!" she shouted over a rising tide of applause. "We need you!" |