Ralph

[shereads]

Before Ralph Nader announced his second run for the presidency, a group of his former Green Party supporters started a website called "RalphDontRun.com"
A man of low self-esteem might have interpreted this as a lack of support for his candidacy. But not Ralph.

I wondered what had happened to the site. RalphDontRun.com didn't work, so I did a quick Google for "Ralph Don't Run" and found evidence of a trend:

http://www.quantumphilosophy.net/displayarticle1157.html

REALLY RALPH. DON'T RUN. DO NOT RUN, AS IN "DON'T."

Running = Bad. Not running = Good, Ralph.

Not in 2004. Ralph, don't run in 2004. Stop, you may walk, but DO NOT RUN.

That is all.

Updated : Dammit, jackass.

------------------

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021202&s=dugger

Ralph, Don't Run.
by Ronnie Duger

{SR notes: Duger is the man who urged the Green Party to nominate Nader as their candidate in 2000.)

Ralph, Don't Run

by Ronnie Dugger

Given the GOP sweep in the midterm elections, progressives and populists must position themselves to play a pivotal role in the next presidential contest. As we demonstrated in 2000, we are a fragmented political force, divided between those who supported, however reluctantly, the Democratic choice, Al Gore, and those who backed the Green Party's Ralph Nader. But the Bush disaster, compounded now by the meltdown of the Democratic Party on November 5, is an emergency. We cannot afford another division in our ranks that will bring about the election of George W. Bush in 2004. <snip>

Now the President is out of control and threatens American democracy and the peace of the world. At home, there is mounting evidence that we are living in a land ruled by a crypto-fascist government:

The FBI spies on law-abiding political organizations and churches, citizens are deputized to spy and inform on one another, an underground parallel executive government has been activated, lawyer-client consultations are bugged, the government keeps citizens locked up without lawyers or hearings and talks of using the military to police the United States, and the Pentagon is making a vast database of the American people.

We are being cudgeled into agreeing to wars of aggression, to make first use of nuclear weapons and to put weapons in outer space. <snip> If Bush and the Pentagon control the government through 2008 we will become a third-millennium Rome. Intensified terrorist attacks on us and a series of widening wars can be expected. All of this is dramatically worse in kind and degree than what Al Gore would have done as President.

These are the realities that tell us Bush must be beaten in 2004. Not only the nation, but the world, depends on it. <snip>

I presented Nader to the Green Party conventions that nominated him in Los Angeles in 1996 and in Denver in 2000. <snip>We were taking a calculated risk, but we underestimated what we were risking. The Bush presidency is worse than we could plausibly have imagined, and the run-up to 2004 is not just another election, it is a crisis that leaves us no more time or room to maneuver.

<snip>National exit-poll data published the day after the election suggested that Nader's candidacy cost Gore about three-quarters of a million votes, but even exit polls that Nader himself cites indicate that arguably we Nader voters made it possible for Bush to win New Hampshire's four electoral votes (remember, Bush "won" by just four) and clearly converted a Gore victory in Florida, with its decisive twenty-five electoral votes, into the mesmerizing seesaw that the Supreme Court stopped when Bush was allegedly up on Gore by 537 votes. It is very clear--who can persuasively deny it?--that the more votes Nader gets in 2004, the likelier it is that Nader and his supporters will elect Bush.

This June I called on my friend Ralph in his offices at the Carnegie Foundation building in Washington to discuss with him why I believe he must not run again. A shocked conviction is growing among some people who backed him, I said, that as we love our country and care about the world, we must do everything we can to beat Bush. Seated facing each other in a small, cluttered cubicle, we had at it for an hour or so. Neither of us gave an inch. Under the circumstances I will not quote what he said--he of all people can speak for himself. In substance, the burden of what I said to him is what I have just written here.<snip>

"If you run in 2004 and get, say, 5 million votes," I said, "and Bush wins by, say, 2 million--Ralph, we cannot do that." <snip>

Ralph persists in advancing the view that it does not matter (or does not matter enough to matter) whether a Democrat or a Republican sits in the White House. His position derives much of its energy and plausibility from moral fury against the Democrats who, for example, helped pass the infamous USA Patriot Act and voted to authorize Bush to attack Iraq in a war of aggression that will stain the national escutcheon in history. (When I told Ralph I was writing this article, he said sardonically, "I hope you make the case that Gore would not be as much a warmonger as Bush. And Lieberman.") The pivotal issue, though, is whether we should let this moral fury become blind rage that will help elect Bush in 2004, or whether we can convert it into high-voltage energy for an all-out progressive campaign in the Democratic primaries, such as has not occurred since 1972.

Certainly the party has sold out to corporations, including military contractors. Greens--indeed, most progressives, and Senator John McCain as well--know and say that both parties have sold the people and the government to the highest bidder. That is what drove so many of us to Nader. But there is more difference between the Republicans and the Democrats than Nader concedes. The majority of House Democrats and almost half the Democratic senators rejected Bush's request for blank-check authority to wage war against Iraq. Democrats in the Senate have blocked judicial nominees who would make the federal courts dramatically more right-wing. And Democrats in the House and Senate remain significantly better than Republicans on the major domestic issues and significantly more committed to protecting civil rights, civil liberties and abortion rights.

This does not mean that any of us--least of all Ralph--should pronounce ourselves satisfied with the Democratic Party of 2002. Emphatically to the contrary, the Bush disaster and the corporate scandals provide a historic challenge and a chance to return the Democratic Party to what it should be. Attempting to do this by electing Bush to a second term is an option that is neither rational nor safe. Our job is to resist Bush, not to elect him.
<snip>

[color=dark red]Bush, riding war and the patriotic psychosis he is using our White House to foment, may win whatever we do. But we should not be for Nader knowing that it will help elect Bush. In the emergency that has materialized as if in a nightmare, we may not do that. We no longer have the right.[/color]

 

[shereads]

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/02/02_404.html

Naderites No More

Many of the same progressives who found inspiration in Nader's 2000 bid see only cause for dismay in his 2004 decision.

By Will Tacy
February 25, 2004

A little more than 39 months ago, on November 7, 2000, Ralph Nader strode onto the stage at his campaign headquarters and delivered a passionate, congratulatory concession speech. He told the gathered supporters that the expected was taking place, that he was finishing a distant third behind then-Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. But Nader encouraged his backers to focus on the campaign's successes, and on the possibilities it suggested.

"Going around the country you get the feeling that there are millions of people who are really ready for a new progressive political movement," he declared. Scores of progressive leaders shared Nader's conviction on that night, and many still share it today. But that doesn't mean they're happy about his decision to enter the presidential race.

"I love Ralph. I have a quote from him up on the wall of my office. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the guy," says Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry's and a prominent Nader supporter in 2000. "But I just don't think this is the year for him to be running for president."

 

[shereads]

Nader's Wrong Turn

http://www.progressive.org/april04/com0404.html

At The Progressive, we are more sympathetic than most to third party efforts and Independent candidacies. It's a tradition here. After all, this magazine was founded by Robert La Follette, who ran for President as a Progressive in 1924, and we supported the Progressive Party in the 1930s.

We also understand the historic role that challenges to the two party system have played in raising crucial causes that major parties eventually adopt: from abolition of slavery to the eight-hour day, from unemployment insurance to Social Security. We embrace the fundamentally democratic goals of the Greens and others to improve upon our outmoded method of electing officials and to bring about instant runoff voting or a system of proportional representation. And we recognize the need to take on the two party system today and to break free from the corporate paymasters that underwrite both parties. ("Nearly half of Kerry's biggest financial supporters contributed more money to Bush than to Kerry himself through January 30," notes the Center for Responsive Politics.)

But this season, we look upon Nader's run for President with profound misgivings.

The rationales for Nader's candidacy last time around simply do not stand up today.

He was running, he said then, to help construct a durable third party, the Greens. But he kissed the Greens goodbye in a December 22 letter that was remarkable for its scolding tone. Nader criticized "the maturity of the Greens as a political party" because it wasn't sure of the wisdom of running any Presidential candidate in the face of the Bush onslaught. He blamed the Greens for having "an uncertain compass regarding what should be a bedrock, genetic determination to run Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates all out--which is what, after all, national political parties--as opposed to movements--do."

"It was one thing for Nader to run as a Green with the explicit support of all kinds of progressive organizations," as Michael Albert of Z magazine wrote. "That was a reasonably democratic process at work. It is another thing for Nader to anoint himself to run."

By going it alone, Nader abandons the work of building an institution, which is especially odd for him, since he views himself as the Johnny Appleseed of citizen groups. This time, he risks appearing individualistic.

In 2000, Nader also said he was running because at some point the Democrats needed to be taught a lesson that they could no longer take progressives for granted and could no longer continue to lurch rightward. But he made that statement in spades in 2000, and, to a large extent, the Democrats heard it.

In a sense, Ralph Nader won the 2004 Democratic primaries because his message prevailed, as one candidate after another picked up planks of his platform or pasted in snippets of his speeches.

As Al Sharpton said in a CNN debate, "Many of us have said what Nader said in 2000. . . . There's nothing that I know of that Nader is saying that Kucinich and I are not saying in the primaries. So what does he need to say it in November for?"

[color=dark red]Finally, Nader said he was running, back then, because the differences between the two parties were negligible on most issues. After three years of one of the most reactionary governments in the history of the country, this claim is harder to sustain today. Bush has been disastrous on the environment, on gay rights, on abortion rights, on labor issues (oops, there goes overtime!), and on tax policy. Perhaps some, if not all, of this was predictable at the time. By contrast, Bush's messianic militarism, his imperial unilateralism, and his assault not only on the Bill of Rights but also on the Magna Carta were more difficult to anticipate.[/color]

To some extent, Nader seems like a Rip Van Winkle who has slept through these harrowing years of Bush. When he announced on Meet the Press this February that he was running for President again, Nader said that the two parties are "converging more and more, where the towering similarities dwarf the dwindling real differences that the Democrats are willing to fight over."

We are under no illusion that the Democratic Party represents the be-all and end-all of electoral politics. But the rationales of 2000 cannot simply be reheated four years later.

[color=dark red]Bush has a disdain for democracy at home that is unparalleled, except by Nixon in his most paranoid phase. And Bush's reckless, lawless foreign policy, undeterred by the United Nations and with no other great power in his way, places a global obligation on the shoulders of U.S. citizens.[/color]

For some of these reasons, even Noam Chomsky says vote Democratic, as does Jim Hightower, who says, "We've got to stop the pain."

We spoke to Nader on March 4 to get his side of the story. He told us he, too, believes there is an imperative to defeat Bush. "That's the key," he said, asking: "Who wants to retire Bush more than I?"

So why then is he running?

"I don't have the confidence that the Democrats know how to beat him," he said. He promised to "open a second front," raising issues that the Democrats are "not willing, too cautious, or too indentured" to discuss. He vowed "to keep the progressive agenda front and center," and he said he would "get more votes out, organize young people, and help citizen groups."

On the crucial point about whether his run would be helping Bush, Nader insisted, "I'm not taking votes away from the Democrats." He said he expected to get only 10 percent of his votes from people who would otherwise vote for Kerry. Instead, Nader said he is appealing to young people and those he calls "authentic conservatives," who are upset at Bush because of the deficit, the WTO, NAFTA, the Patriot Act, corporate welfare, and big government.

"If you want to vote for Kerry, vote for Kerry," he said. "But don't tell people they can't vote for me."

Nader also contended that "Kerry will be a better candidate if I keep tugging at him." Left to his own devices, Kerry would return to the center and abandon the progressive base, which he needs to win, said Nader.

In conclusion, he said, "Don't automatically assume there's a zero sum game. Have an open mind."

We have an open mind, but we don't find Nader's arguments compelling. He may be able to attack Bush with more vigor than Kerry on corporate issues, but it is unclear to us why that would make more people vote for the Democrat as opposed to Nader himself. We agree that many progressives who went for Nader last time will vote Democratic this time, but in the 2000 election, Nader drew almost twice as many Democrats as Republicans. And the harder he hits Bush from the left, the more difficult it will be for him to attract Republicans. (There is something peculiar about running as a progressive to get not progressive votes but those of Republicans and Independents.)

Nader has occasionally seemed almost blasé about the risk of helping Bush. "Relax and rejoice," he told his critics the day after announcing. "This candidacy is not going to get many Democratic Party votes." But a few could make a big difference. A Washington Post-ABC poll in March had Nader at 3 percent, with almost all of his votes coming from Kerry.

For most people who look in horror at Bush and Cheney and Ashcroft and Rumsfeld and Rove, relaxing is the last thing they want to do.

-------------

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0507-15.htm

Published on Friday, May 7, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
A Progressive Response to the Nader Campaign
by Jeff Cohen

<excerpt>

In my view, Kerry vs. Bush is not Coke vs. Pepsi. It's more like Coke vs. Arsenic (quite literally, in the environmental sense). The Bush/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft regime is far more dangerous than the regimes of Nixon/Kissinger/Mitchell or Reagan/Weinberger/Meese.

There can be no greater imperative for progressives this year than to Vote Bush Out. In the 17 or so competitive states, that means building the Kerry vote to defeat Bush.

[color=dark red]2004 is a crucial juncture in our country's history, with millions of people in our evenly divided country -- especially people of color, labor, feminists, enviros -- yearning for a path to end the national nightmare of George Bush. Progressives need to be a bridge forward, not an obstruction. Noam Chomsky has described the choice we face: "Help elect Bush, or do something to try to prevent it." [/color]

 

[Colleen Thomas]

If he wants to run he should. The system needs people of strong conviction to run on third party tickets. In this case he has at least some support from me, just because I find both candidates odious.

I am, however a bad person to ask, in that I don't have a partisan leaning one way or the other. I think his candidacy will hurt Democrats far more than Republicans, but it seems unlikely he will siphone a significant amount of votes without the endorsement of either the greens or some other semi-established third party.

-Colly

 

[Clare Quilty]

I now suspect Ralph Nader of being a republican shill -- either that or an egomaniacal horse's arse who places self-aggrandisement above the principals and causes he claims to hold dear. A vote for Ralph Nader is a vote for Dubbya, end of story.

 

[cantdog]

They said the same thing in twenty-hundred. David Crosby offered to personally come to the house of anyone who voted for Nader and punch him in the face. This was two weeks before the election we never actually had, on a talk show on a major network.

Gore sucked. So his run was marginal. They tried to position the party even more rightward, to capture Rep. votes. Thus the poor voter turnout, the worst since 1924. Most of the country voted "none of the above" because the Dems moved away from supporting them.

But the fraud in Florida, and the Supreme Court's irresponsible ruling that the clear intent of the voter mustn't be the criterion and that no recount must be allowed, did the trick.


On the score of the election fraud in Florida alone, Gore won the fuckin election. He won the electoral one and the popular one. And he rolled over and said okay. His usual display of backbone when the corporations speak.

Do what you like.

I respect Noam Chomsky, and I respect Nader as well. This endless bashing on his supposed megalomania is tiresome. It's a pity they couldn't find a sex scandal or a nice corruption scandal, so they'd have something to say. This is lame.

They'll have some psychiatrist proposing he's ill, next.

Kerry is another weak candidate, but he seems to be able to act as a manager, not a messiah. The fascists are in. The parallels to 1930's Germany are pretty frightening, including the push for global domination using armed troops.

So go ahead and don't vote for Nader. That doesn't imply that you have to refer to him as some sort of mental case.

 

[Guest]

I have no personal impression whatsoever of RN, but I enjoyed reading Shapton's and Crosby's remarks. My only conspiracy theory: Bush has promised Nader a supreme court seat if he runs.

Perdita (voting for Kerry for no good reason but the only one)

 

[cantdog]

Kerry has a big advantage that Gore lacked. His opposite number dodged the draft, put in a secret police, decided it's okay to torture American prisoners of war, lied to everyone to start a war for profit, and bungled that, supported terrorism, committed terrorism. With all that , he's a fundamentalist who cares nothing for the constitution.

Kerry ought to be able to parley this into a win. There's some meat here.

Unfortunately, Kerry helped put in the secret police and supported the vote to give Bush carte blanche on his war. About the draft dodging, Kerry had every opportunity to say, "Yes, I said Vietnam was wrong. That's because it was wrong. I was right to do it then, and I don't regret it now." But he cringed and babbled. "Medals? Oh jeez. Medals.."

The ass won't run! There's so many things, good reasons not to support Dubya. Why doesn't he say anything about them? "Hi, I'm Kerry, I was in the Army." A resume in sixty seconds that cost the campaign hundreds of thousands. Doesn't the Democratic party stand in opposition to the Republican one any more?

You sure couldn't tell it by the votes in the Congress supporting the opposition and bleating "it's a unity thing."

They make me ill.

 

[amicus]

"squalid underpinnings'

If memory serves, I think Lady Margaret Thatcher used those words. 'squalid underpinnings' to describe the base assumptions of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union before it collapsed into it's own filth.

It was a seventy-five year old graveyard for human rights and individual liberty that finally rotted like all totalitarian regimes have before.

It is amusing to note that the detractors of the current President of the United States are embarrassed to identify themselves as Democrats or even Liberals.

They prefer 'populists' and 'progressives', a harken back to a much earlier time in political history.

The reason is clear: Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, elected by Democrats, left a 'squalid' legacy for the left wing. It is understandable that liberals would deny even the name of their political association.

It may be true, as the left screams, 'this coming election is a watershed election'; stop Nader! 'Any one but Bush!

A continual rant, 'Gore Vidal', of negative verbiage about the policies of the incumbent is a poor second to having a platform of policies and ideals upon which to base a campaign.

The Democrat party is bankrupt. It has collapsed from the left over socialist agenda of the Roosevelt years.

The 'liberal agenda' has shrunken to the category of 'minor opposition party' whose only function is to criticize and pick at those in power.

Keep up the good work, we need your criticism, from 'outside the fire.'

I just muse about the Republican candidate for 2008, I would prefer Cheney, but his health is in question. Perhaps Amicus should toss his hat in the ring?

Thought you would appreciate that.

Amicus Veritas

 

[Guest]

Senoras y caballeros: Reminder - troll above. Do not engage. Ignore.

your servant, Perdita

 

[shereads]

The people who have been Nader's most vocal admirers and his strongest supporters are "maligning" him? Bullshit. They're seeing him in an unflattering new light: the ideologue, so consumed with righteous zeal that anyone who disagrees with his methods, he now accuses of being a weakling and a traitor to the cause.

Sound familiar?

I edited for length. Read Duggar's piece in its entirety.

Everything Nader values is in danger of irreparable harm, and he's willing to take that risk - for all of us. The world is at the edge of an abyss; Ralph Nader is faced with the choice of helping pull us back from the brink, or helping tip us over into the void.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Kerry has a big advantage that Gore lacked. His opposite number dodged the draft, put in a secret police, decided it's okay to torture American prisoners of war, lied to everyone to start a war for profit, and bungled that, supported terrorism, committed terrorism. With all that , he's a fundamentalist who cares nothing for the constitution.

Kerry ought to be able to parley this into a win. There's some meat here.

Unfortunately, Kerry helped put in the secret police and supported the vote to give Bush carte blanche on his war. About the draft dodging, Kerry had every opportunity to say, "Yes, I said Vietnam was wrong. That's because it was wrong. I was right to do it then, and I don't regret it now." But he cringed and babbled. "Medals? Oh jeez. Medals.."

The ass won't run! There's so many things, good reasons not to support Dubya. Why doesn't he say anything about them? "Hi, I'm Kerry, I was in the Army." A resume in sixty seconds that cost the campaign hundreds of thousands. Doesn't the Democratic party stand in opposition to the Republican one any more?

You sure couldn't tell it by the votes in the Congress supporting the opposition and bleating "it's a unity thing."

They make me ill.

Actually, a significant amount of the vitriol directed at Nader is from desperation. If you read the currrent liberal rags, listen to the people who expouse liberal values, or critically analyize what's being said by Democrats, you get an inescapable sense of desperation.

"A vote for Nader equals a vote for Bush!" presupposes that Kerry is in such a bad way he must have the vote of every person who isn't voting Republican already to win.

I have heard this kind of desperation before, seen it, actually spouted it, though perhaps not as eloquently as some here. I was a lot younger when Clinton was going to be elected for his second term, but if you remove the politics and just keep the tone, what you are getting now from Democrats and the left sounds exactly like what you were getting then from Republicans and the right. Fear. Desperation. Dire predictions about the future and about this country being destroyed.

At the time I bought into it, lock stock & barrel. I'm a little older now and I hope a little wiser. This country has been around for over 200 years. Read contemporary writings from the side that isn't in power prior to any campaign where an incumbant is percieved to be set to win a second term. It all has the same desperation and dark predictions of the fall of the country.

Much of Roosevelt's New Deal was guarenteed to plunge the country into socialism, end our freedoms, destroy free enterprise, make a welfare state, etc., etc, etc,. It was alarmist then, and what your are getting now is just as alarmist, with the same kind of dire predictions. I think it's more part of the trend, rather than something new.

Be that as it may, I think it is more than understandable that in such a climate of desperation, anyone who might take votes from the savior is going to be in for his share of villification. I don't think attacks on Nader are so much attacks on his person, or even his position, as they are attacks on his potential ability to collect votes that might otherwise go to Kerry.

-Colly

 

[minsue]

Alarmist, maybe, but my desperation and anguish are not only for the fact that I believe with every fiber of my being that Bush is taking this country in the wrong direction. It's based more on the deaths of so many due to Bush and his arrogance. I hate what he is doing to America, yes. I hate even more what he is doing to the world and I have no problem admitting to a deep seated fear of what else we have to expect from him.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Alarmist, maybe, but my desperation and anguish are not only for the fact that I believe with every fiber of my being that Bush is taking this country in the wrong direction. It's based more on the deaths of so many due to Bush and his arrogance. I hate what he is doing to America, yes. I hate even more what he is doing to the world and I have no problem admitting to a deep seated fear of what else we have to expect from him.

Let's not forget he is bad enough to make me not vote Republican for the first time in my life. There is a lot to be angry with him & his advisors for. That said, I see no reason to believe he is going to bring the country down in ruin around our ears if he gets four more years.

-Colly

 

[Pure]

I'm not convinced by the arguments that sher has dug up and or written.

It's by no means clear that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, and the hypothetical question, 'suppose Bush wins by 2 million, and 5 million voted for Nader' is irrelevant, since the popular vote is not what determines the result.

The problem with the lesser of evils and related arguments is that they are too strong. In effect they say, assume Kerry is corrupt, a war mongerer with more Iraqs in mind, wobbly on gay rights--- it doesn't matter! Because Bush is worse.

This is an incredibly *corrupting* message to the Democrats: it says, "you may fuck over the american people and serve your corporate masters and launch wars for 'freedom', but you will always have our support."

The only way to keep the democrats honest-- if such be possible--is to have them faced with a 'bleed off' of support; to Nader, Green, socialist, whatever. (Same for Republicans, of course.)

As to sher's statement:
The world is at the edge of an abyss; Ralph Nader is faced with the choice of helping pull us back from the brink, or helping tip us over into the void.

Assume this to be true. Then it's up to the Democratic
candidate(s) to say, "Tis is how to avoid the brink; here's what we would have done differently; here's what we will do differently." Voting for the Patriot Act and the Iraq war are a *teensy bit* undermining of such an alternative strategy, dontya think?

Has Kerry said anything definite on these 'brink' issues?--for instance--"I will, if elected, withdraw 1/4 of US troops in January, and similarly every 4 months, so that by December, there won't be any in Iraq" ?

In short, if the two party system is too corrupt to avoid the brink--both endorse moving toward it-- then choosing main party B instead of main party A won't help.

 

[shereads]

I am, however a bad person to ask, in that I don't have a partisan leaning one way or the other.

John Ashcroft. Four more years.

 

[Pure]

Sher: Please provide a list of sections of the Patriot Act that Kerry is publicly committed to repealing (somehow), and remind us of his voting on the act and successor. Please, state, for example, his proposals for Guantanamo 'holding facility.'

 

[Colleen Thomas]

John Ashcroft. Four more years.

Not a pretty thought. Not at all. But, there is no guarentee that Kerry is going to do any better.

-Colly

 

[Remec]

I respect Noam Chomsky, and I respect Nader as well. This endless bashing on his supposed megalomania is tiresome. It's a pity they couldn't find a sex scandal or a nice corruption scandal, so they'd have something to say. This is lame.

They'll have some psychiatrist proposing he's ill, next.

So go ahead and don't vote for Nader. That doesn't imply that you have to refer to him as some sort of mental case.

And, truth be told, I think it takes a bit of megalomania to run for an office like the Presidency and be able to handle the job effectively. At least Nader doesn't seem to be working his mania without regard for the environment and/or international law...

 

[cantdog]

Socialists have their take on Ralph

Here's the Socialist Alternative's take on the Nader candidacy:

Every Nader vote registers a protest and strikes a blow against the
establishment and their two parties - the people who are responsible for the
war in Iraq, the lack of healthcare, poverty, sexism, racism, and the
millions rotting in hellholes called jails.
Nader is challenging the war in Iraq and corporate domination over our
society. He is exposing the Democrats and Republicans for taking hundreds of
millions of dollars from big business and ignoring the concerns of millions
of ordinary people.


The Nader campaign will popularize radical demands among tens of millions of
people that the Republicans and Democrats won't touch with a ten-foot pole,
such as:


Public works programs to create millions of jobs A universal single-payer
healthcare system Opposing the Iraq war and occupation Repealing the Patriot
Act Same-sex marriage rights Repealing Bush's tax cuts for the rich - a
progressive tax system that makes big business and the rich pay An end to
poverty in the U.S. Abolition of the death penalty An end to the war on
drugs Expansion of workers' rights and repealing the Taft-Hartley Act
Rigorous environmental protection and a sustainable energy policy
There is no doubt that George Bush is a very real threat to workers and
oppressed people in the U.S. and throughout the world. The Bush
administration is the most right-wing administration in decades. We would
love to see Bush and his right-wing, corporate agenda defeated.
Unfortunately, the Democratic Party and John Kerry (their likely candidate)
offer no real alternative to Bush.


John "I'll Take on Special Interests" Kerry


Over his 20 years in the Senate, Kerry has proven he is a safe, reliable
defender of big-business interests who will seek to maximize corporate
profits at the expense of workers and the environment. In fact, John Kerry
is the richest man in Congress, worth over $550 million! While he now poses
as an opponent of "special interests," he has taken millions from Corporate
America.


Listening to Kerry now talk about "holding Bush accountable" for the Iraq
war and criticize the Patriot Act, you would never know that he actually
voted for the Iraq war and the Patriot Act, and wholeheartedly supported the
"war on terrorism" and the war on Afghanistan.


A Kerry White House would continue the occupation of Iraq, possibly even
sending in more U.S. troops to crush the Iraqi insurgency. In response to
Republican attacks, he has bragged of his support for Bill Clinton's
destruction of welfare and has opposed same-sex marriage rights. According
to the Washington Post, Kerry has already "rejected sweeping policy changes
such as ... moving too quickly to provide health coverage to every
American," and he opposes a single-payer healthcare system - the only way to
achieve full medical coverage for all.


Kerry has been a firm supporter of "free-trade" deals such as NAFTA, the
WTO, PNTR with China, and fast-track trade negotiation authority. He
supported Clinton's 1994 $33 billion crime bill that drastically expanded
the use of the federal death penalty, aimed at hiring 100,000 new cops, and
appropriated $10 billion for prison building.


Every time an election rolls around, we hear all sorts of talk from the
Democrats about how they are the party of working people and social justice.
While Kerry and the Democrats will say almost anything to get elected, what
counts is what they actually do in office.
While it is entirely possible that Kerry will defeat Bush, the truth is, it
is completely ruled out that Kerry or the Democrats will end corporate
domination of society, the occupation of Iraq, racism, sexism, or the many
other urgent problems that capitalism breeds.


Democrats Fail to Fight Bush


Despite all the propaganda from the "Anybody But Bush" Democrats, George
Bush would never have been able to carry out his attacks without the active
support of the Democratic Party. It was the Democrats in Congress who voted
to support Bush's "war on terrorism," the war on Afghanistan, the Patriot
Act, the Iraq war, and the $87 billion for the occupation of Iraq. Most
Democrats voted for Bush's tax cuts for the rich and "No Child Left Behind."
Sixteen Senate Democrats, including Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle,
voted for Bush's "Partial Birth Abortion" Ban.


Rather than focusing on attacking Nader, who has consistently opposed Bush,
why doesn't the Democratic Party leadership worry about their own Senators,
like Zell Miller (D-GA), who has endorsed Bush in 2004?


Contrary to the Democrats' "Nader-elected-Bush" mantra, Bush never even won
the 2000 election; Al Gore won the popular vote by over 540,000 votes. Far
more concerned with protecting the legitimacy of the ruling class's
political system, Gore and the Democratic Party leadership refused to
challenge the undemocratic Electoral College and actively stamped out
attempts to organize mass protests against the Republicans' racist theft of
Florida's election. When the Congressional Black Caucus appealed to the
Senate to challenge the certification of the election results, not ONE
Democratic Senator complied - not Kerry, not Edwards, not Wellstone, not
Kennedy, not Feingold, not Boxer, etc.


Clinton and Gore Paved the Way for Bush


It was Clinton and Gore who paved the way for Bush, not Nader. During their
eight years in power, Clinton and Gore ruthlessly attacked the living
conditions and rights of the groups they claimed to represent - workers,
people of color, women, environmentalists, and LGBT people. In disgust, half
of eligible voters - 100 million people - refused to even vote in 2000.


They rammed through NAFTA and the WTO, destroyed welfare, and broke promises
on universal healthcare, striker replacement laws, abortion, and gays in the
military, to name a few. Clinton campaigned as being "tough on crime" and
expanded the racist war on drugs. Under his watch, the prison population
rose from 1.2 million in 1992 to 2 million in 2000. Clinton helped pave the
way for Bush's Patriot Act and the post-9/11 secret detentions of 1,200
Arabs and Muslims with his 1996 "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty"
and "Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility" Acts. These
laws allowed for suspects to be detained indefinitely, charged, and
convicted on the grounds of secret testimony that the defendant's lawyer
cannot challenge.


Clinton was the main enforcer of the genocidal sanctions on Iraq that killed
more than 1 million Iraqis. He also carried out the brutal war against
Yugoslavia and pushed through the $1.3 billion "Plan Colombia" aid package
to the Colombian military.


Nor was Clinton averse to using violence for political gain, as when he
bombed Sudan and Afghanistan and killed many innocent people to divert media
attention away from his impending impeachment crisis.


And now we are told to vote for another Democrat rather than build an
anti-corporate, anti-war independent challenge?


Howard Dean's Rise and Fall


The recent Democratic primaries have shown yet again that the Democratic
Party is a dead-end for progressives, anti-war activists, and workers.
Howard Dean attracted significant support by challenging the Democratic
Party leadership's cowardly acquiescence to Bush and his war on Iraq,
showing the potential for an anti-war, anti-establishment campaign. At the
same time, he tried to downplay his 12-year record as Vermont Governor when
he carried out neo-liberal policies.


Alarmed by the significant support he was gaining, the right-wing Party
leadership and the corporate media combined to derail Dean's campaign. Dean
responded to these attacks by downplaying his populist, anti-war rhetoric
and highlighting his fiscal conservatism to show that he was a "safe"
candidate for big business, confirming the warnings that socialists made all
along about the hollow nature of Dean's radical-sounding, populist rhetoric.


Dean has since dropped out and pressed his supporters not to support Nader
but to get behind the Democratic nominee. Dennis Kucinich has indicated he
will eventually do the same. Kucinich already urged his supporters to back
John Edwards in the Iowa caucuses where Kucinich did not receive 15% of the
vote.


For Dean and Kucinich supporters, a clear choice is posed: fall in line
behind the pro-war Corporate Kerry, or support the anti-war, anti-corporate
Nader campaign.


Dean and Kucinich cling to the dream of pulling the Democratic Party to the
left. But considering the Democratic Party's leadership's ferocious
resistance to someone as limited as Dean, imagine their opposition to a
truly radical, anti-war, working-class candidate!


Mass Movements, Not Politicians, Change Society


History shows again and again that the Democratic and Republican parties are
our enemies, not our friends. The only way workers and oppressed people have
ever won significant reforms has been through mass struggle, which were won
in spite of the resistance of these two parties. It was by building our own
mass movements that we defeated Jim Crow apartheid, stopped the Vietnam War,
and won the right of women to vote, abortion rights, the right to form a
union, Social Security, etc.


Our ability to resist the ruling class's attacks and advance our own agenda
lies solely in the independent organization, consciousness, and fighting
capacity of workers and the oppressed. The strategy of supporting the
"lesser-evil" Democrats has again and again led to the weakening and
destruction of social movements - which are the only way to win real gains.
Lesser-evilism restricts movements to demanding only what is acceptable to
the Democratic Party and its big business backers, leaving our movements
incapable of telling people the truth and fighting consistently for our
interests.


A classic example of this occurred in 1996 when Clinton launched his savage
assault on the poor, especially women of color, with his welfare "reform."
Since it was a presidential election year, the leaders of the labor,
women's, and civil rights organizations refused to organize any serious
resistance to this attack, under the theory that protests would hurt Clinton
when the top priority was to re-elect him.


The logic of supporting Kerry and the Democrats in 2004 will pressure the
anti-war movement not to call for the immediate withdrawal of the troops or
repealing the Patriot Act in order to avoid "embarrassing our friend" John
Kerry. The same will go for organizing for universal national healthcare,
same-sex marriage rights, or public works programs to create jobs.


The Endless Cycle of Lesser-Evilism


Many on the liberal left, such as The Nation magazine, argue that Nader
should not run in this one special election. However, many of these same
forces also opposed Nader's run in 2000 and supported Gore. In reality,
these same tired lesser-evil arguments were made in 1996, 1992, and all the
way back to the 1930s.


These lesser-evilists need to answer the question: when should workers and
young people break from the Democratic Party? If Kerry is elected in 2004,
we will be told we need to vote for Kerry in 2008 in order to keep the
"greater-evil" Republicans out. In fact, it will be the continuation of the
occupation of Iraq and attacks on workers by a Kerry administration that
will provoke a massive backlash, paving the way for Bush III in 2008 unless
an anti-war, progressive political alternative is built. If we must back the
Democrats in 2008, what about 2012? 2016? Maybe 3016?


John Kerry and company may not mind waiting that long, but for the majority
of Americans who face mounting debt, crumbling schools, a healthcare crisis,
an ecological catastrophe, endless war, and a racist criminal injustice
system - we can not afford to wait that long!


As long as we stay locked into the endless cycle of lesser-evilism, we will
never get anywhere. Big business will continue to control politics and set
the terms of debate, while workers' interests will be ignored.


The best way we can defend our interests and win the most concessions this
presidential election is by voting for Nader and building a powerful
movement that will bring pressure to bear on whichever corporate
representative is in power after November 2. The larger Nader's vote and the
larger the movements from below, the more it will shake up the system, force
the two parties and their corporate masters to address our demands and make
concessions, and further embolden people to fight back.


Prospects for Nader in 2004


Nader's campaign will give voice to young people, anti-war activists, and
workers who are dissatisfied with choosing between Bush and Kerry - a
radical minority who have broken from the Democrats or are moving in that
direction. Rather than being left isolated, Nader's campaign will provide a
candidate for this layer to campaign around.


Despite the Democratic Party's and the media's constant exaggerations that
there is no support for Nader in 2004, 23% of Americans want Nader to run
again; 65% want him included in the presidential debates; and 52% rejected
the idea that Nader's 2000 run cost Gore the presidency (USA
Today/CNN/Gallup poll, 10/22/03). A February 20, 2004 Fox News poll showed
Nader getting 4% of the vote in a race with Bush and Kerry.


However, because of the strong "Anybody But Bush" mood, if the election
remains close between Bush and Kerry, Nader will face a more difficult
political climate than in 2000 and may get fewer votes this time.


Nonetheless, it would be a profound mistake for activists to support Kerry
just because of the immediate "Anybody But Bush" mood. It is crucial that we
warn workers about the true character of the Democrats in order to prepare
them in advance for future attacks the Democrats will unleash. Activists
will only discredit themselves in the long run by associating with the
Democratic Party - a party of war, racism, and poverty.


The importance of the Nader campaign can be far greater than the exact
number of votes Nader receives. The Nader campaign can win the sympathy of
millions who will generally agree with Nader but still feel it's necessary
to vote for the "lesser evil" to keep Bush out. This will plant the seeds of
the idea of breaking from the Democrats in the minds of millions who will
begin to draw this conclusion in the next period as giant events convulse
U.S. society and shake up workers' consciousness.


If Kerry is elected, there will be a groundswell of anger as Kerry continues
(or deepens) the occupation of Iraq at the cost of more U.S. and Iraqi
deaths and billions of dollars, while attacking workers and social services
that the deep capitalist economic crisis will compel him to carry out.
Disillusioned with the failure of the Democrats to provide any serious
improvement in their lives, big sections of the working class would be open
to breaking from the Democrats and voting for an independent, progressive
political alternative.
While Socialist Alternative welcomes Nader's presidential campaign as a way
to build a movement to expose and challenge the two-party system, there are
also a range of political views among those who support him. For our part,
we do not want to see a "reformed" Democratic Party or simply more "choices"
within the framework of corporate politics. Rather, we want to see the
creation of a new political party based on the interests of workers, young
people and the poor that will defend the millions against the millionaires.
The Nader campaign could help prepare the way for such a party by
encouraging other independent, left-wing, anti-war and working class
candidates to stand.


Building the Nader Campaign


The approach the Nader campaign takes towards the occupation of Iraq will be
decisive in determining how much support Nader receives. Socialist
Alternative believes it is absolutely essential that the Nader campaign
boldly call for "Bringing the Troops Home Now," "Ending the Occupation," and
"Money for Jobs, Healthcare, and Education, not War and Occupation."


Last year's anti-war protests were the largest movement in the U.S. in a
generation. As the occupation drags on and U.S. casualties and costs rise,
opposition to the occupation will grow. As this develops, tens of millions
of soldiers, young people, and workers will increasingly demand that the
U.S. troops be brought home. This will lead to the re-emergence of a massive
anti-war movement, possibly reaching the size of last year's movement or
even the enormous anti-Vietnam War movement.


It is vital that the Nader campaign positions itself as the "Bring the
Troops Home Now!" campaign and places itself at the forefront of the
anti-war movement. This will stand in sharp contrast to both corporate
parties, who will not withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and will quite possibly
be compelled to send more troops to crush the Iraqi resistance.


Socialists stand for an immediate end to the occupation and for the
democratic right of the Iraqi people to determine their own fate. Although
many in the anti-war movement, including Nader, look to the UN as a "humane"
alternative to the U.S. occupation, a sober examination of the UN's history
and structure reveals that it actually provides a cloak of legitimacy for
the U.S. and the other major imperialist countries. A transfer of power from
the U.S. to the UN would only mean that Iraq would be controlled by an
alliance of the big powers, not the Iraqi people.


Activists supporting Nader should fight to build a mass movement from below
to defeat Bush and big business by linking the Nader campaign together with
mass protests and strikes. Specifically, we should help build for strikes
like the California grocery strike, the March 20 protests against the
occupation, the April 25 demonstration to defend women's abortion rights,
and the protests against the Republican and Democratic national conventions
this summer - none of which the Democrats are doing.


It is out of the millions who will be at these protests and others that the
bedrock supporters of the Nader campaign can be found. Nader should speak at
these rallies and urge his supporters to organize high-profile contingents
to spread our message that the two corporate parties do not support these
movements' demands.


It is also essential that the Nader campaign actively take up the crucial
issues of concern to women, people of color, and LGBT people - the most
oppressed sections of society. It is among these groups that anger at Bush's
right-wing agenda runs deepest. The Nader campaign should highlight
defending women's abortion rights, building for the April 25 demonstration,
same-sex marriage rights, unconditional and immediate amnesty for all
undocumented immigrants (Papers for All), and an end to police brutality. If
Nader does not adopt such an approach, the potential support for his
campaign will be significantly reduced, and the Democrats would have an open
field to win the support of women, people of color, and LGBT people.


Time to Take a Stand


In 1908, union leader and Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Debs
replied to a heckler who shouted that a Socialist vote was a wasted vote:
"That's right. Don't vote for freedom - you might not get it. Vote for
slavery - you have a cinch on that."


A vote for Nader is NOT a vote for Bush - it's a vote for radical change.
John Kerry and the Democrats do not own anybody's vote, nor are they
entitled to it. Ralph Nader is not a "spoiler" - it's Bush and Kerry who
have already spoiled way too many lives.
The ruling class is so scared of a real debate that they are conspiring to
keep Nader off the ballot and out of the presidential debates. Doesn't this
spoil a democratic "free and fair" election, where people can hear all
points of view and decide for themselves who to vote for?


While the Nader campaign will only win the votes of a minority in 2004, it
is necessary to take a stand and start somewhere in our fight to break free
from the trap of big business politics.


But our struggle is about more than just casting a vote on November 2. We
need to build a movement that fights beyond the election that aims to
address the root causes of society's problems. As socialists, we are
fighting to build a movement to overturn this whole rotten capitalist system
that breeds war, corporate rule, poverty, racism, sexism, and environmental
destruction. Join us in the fight for system change!

 

[shereads]

Let's not forget he is bad enough to make me not vote Republican for the first time in my life. There is a lot to be angry with him & his advisors for. That said, I see no reason to believe he is going to bring the country down in ruin around our ears if he gets four more years.

-Colly

What would constitute "ruin?"

I expected the worst four years ago, but I expected it to take longer than it has. Colly, as cynical as I thought I had become, there was one thing I never expected to experience in my lifetime, not even at the hands of this president: to live with the knowledge that Big Brother really is watching, and not only watching but insisting before the Supreme Court that due process should no longer be the inalienable right of all Americans.

Things I know you value are at stake. The end of reproductive choice is no farther away than a vacant seat or two on the Supreme Court. American troops will either have to stay in Iraq indefinitely, or leave a bloodbath there as our legacy, unless we can gain the support of an international coalition; GWB gambled America's credibility abroad and lost, and you have only to ask yourself whether you'd be willing to trust his word and send troops if you were the leader of another country. As for gun control, which I believe is the issue you feel most strongly about, Kerry is a hunter and is at least not likely to favor severe restrictions on gun ownership.

The likelihood of a continued Republican majority in both houses of Congress assures that a Democratic president's hands will be tied on most issues anyway. The things he'll be able to accomplish are limited, but if Kerry doesn't nominate an anti-choice Supreme Court justice, Congress can't approve one.

Colly and others who are considering a third-party protest vote - What is your worst-case scenario if Kerry is elected, assuming that conservatives retain control of Congress?

I can't help but mention that my experience has been different from yours. You feared that Bill Clinton would destroy the country. I feared that Bush/Cheney would take us to war in the middle east, harm the environment, enrich themselves and their supporters at the expense of the poor, and attack our civil liberties. Being right sucks.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I have the luxury of wasteing my vote on a third party. I don't live in a swing state. NY will go to Kerry with or without my vote. If I did live in a swing state, I would still be voting a third party.

I do not see, that a victory for either the Republicans or the Democrats serves my concerns. In simplest terms they will both support some few things I find important and at the same time will attack others I find important. The statement that the Dems & Reps are the same is ludicris, but on a personal level, for me, they are flip sides of the coin.

I favor small government, I won't see that out of either party. The dems are well known for big government and while the Rep's pay lip service to it, their actions speak much louder than words and they are all about big government.

I favor protection of my civil liberites. I won't see that out of either party. The Dem's attack my right to own a gun, the republican's my right to due process.

I'm a fiscal conservative. Neither party represents that now. The Dem's will prompty undo any tax cuts and impose new ones. The GOP is deficit spending like it's going out of style.

I worry about reproductive freedom and the misogynistic legislation proposed by the Republicans is abhorrent. So there, I would favor the Dems.

I believe in personal responsibility and being tough on crime, so there I favor the GOP.

I believe in a strong military, wisely used. The GOP is for a strong military, but neither Dem's nor Republican's have shown very judicious use of the troops. As often as not they get thrown into harms way when there are problems at home and the country needs to be distracted. So here I have to favor the GOP as the Dem's are only to happy to slash the military budget anytime they can.

I believe the president should be a man who is a cut above the rest of us, at least for his time in office. I believe in the dignity of the office. The word that comes to mind with Kerry & Bush isn't presidential, the word that comes most readily to my mind is whore.

I detest the religious right and their psuedo-theorcratic agenda. I equally detest the Dems and their psuedo-socialist agenda.

Neither side showed significant qualms about USA Patriot. Neither side showed significant wariness about war in Iraq. Neither side isn't in the pocket of major corporate concerns.

When it comes to judicial appointments...Jeeze. The GOP appointee will attack my reproductive freedoms. The Democratic appointee will attack my safety by siding with criminals and trying to take away my protection in the form of owning a gun. Some choice there.

You are upset about our loss of credibility on the world stage, but where was it when Carter was president? We didn't have any prestige to loose. Reagan gave us credibility again. That Clonton squandered some of it and Bush frittered away the rest dosen't speak well for either party. It seems our credibility is more bound up in the statesmanship of the man in office. John Kerry leaves me colder than a a hairy fellow sending me pictures of his cock by way of introduction. Bush we have already seen couldn't negotiate his way out of a traffic ticket.

Where do you draw a line, when there isn't one issue that just dominates your political thought? How do you respond when your traditional enemy, the Liberal Democrats represent as many of your views as the travesty your old party has become under Fundamenatlist reationary far right christians?

It's pretty difficult Sher, when you become a politial outsider in the space of four years. To you liberals I am so far to the right I have been accused of being a neo con. To true Neo con's I am so far to the left I bleed pink. You can't take comfort in a centrist position, because neither side is moving towards the center, they are both gravitating towads the outer limits.

Your choice is so easy. You are liberal, a Clinton fan, and you have a party that expouses much if not all of your ideology and you can conviniently explain away an qualm you might have about Kerry with, he isn't Bush. Amicus is the same or Blarney, they have a party that fits their reactionary views to a T. Any problems they might entertain with Bush are easily explained away by, at least he isn't Gore/Kerry.

But where does that leave me? It leaves me facing the choice of voting my old loyalty and betraying half my beliefs or holding my nose & voting for Kerry, which would leve me feeling worse. At least if I vote the GOP I can say I am being loyal to something. Blind loyalty however is a comfort only to those who choose ignorance and wish to dodge responsibility for their actions.

I can't take that route.

Into all of this comes personal feelings. In the person of John Kerry the Democrats have selected a man I simply cannot vote for. My personal dislike of him, magnifies the objections I have to the Democratic party platform.

It isn't a choice of evils for me. It's like choosing between an eveing with Jason Vooryz or Michal Meyrs, to use one of the few pop culture references I have ever been able to make. Either way I am going to be dead. No matter who wins, I will be unhappy in equal measure.

It does suck occasionally to be right. But it sucks far worse when you know before you ever choose that you will be wrong.

-Colly

 

[Guest]

Colly, you'd make a great teacher, the real kind. Now I don't know what I'll do, which is to say you make me think harder than anyone else on these pol. threads.

Perdita +

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly, you'd make a great teacher, the real kind. Now I don't know what I'll do, which is to say you make me think harder than anyone else on these pol. threads.

Perdita +

Thank you Dita, but you should vote for Kerry. You are a wonderful and very gracious lady, but you are blissfully free of the conservative baggage I carry. You have true compassion for those in need, and who are dependent upon the government to help and protect them.

The things that cause you the most pain and anger are the very things the Neo-con GOP would like to bring you. Gutted social programs, racial profiling, inequality in justice not only for women, but for minorities, protection of the rich at the expense of the poor, an agressive, almost imperialistic foerign policy that is most often aimed at non-whites and fosters the very stereotypes you abhore.

The person of John Kerry shouldn't cause you any serious concerns. His protesting, throwing away of his meadals, proposed legislation to slash defense spending and actual votes to do so are not, I don't think, strong reasons for you to dislike him. His proposals to cut defense spending were linked with an attempt to funnel that money into government programs that would have increased funding for job training for those who didn't have the skills to get better than minimum wage jobs.

While Kerry will not be able to undo much that has been done, his veto will act as at least a counter to the GOP dominated house & senate. Should a justice retire, he will attempt to appoint someone who is moderate, if not liberal.

And putting all other considerations aside, that perhaps is the most important reason you should vote for Kerry. The addition of another right leaning justice or two could radically alter the system of checks & balances. At present, the Right holds the legislative branch & the executive. Should they gain control of the Judical branch as well, you would be looking at a situation dangerous to your freedoms as a woman, as a mexican american and as person in general.

-Colly

 

[Guest]

Colly, in ignorance and naivete then, I have to ask why you can't vote for Kerry based on what you've just said to me. Telling me to reread all your posts is fine, you've just surprised me. But thanks for such a fine answer. P.