February 24, 2008
see
Ralph Nader Announces Candidacy (videos) (updated)
The Audacity of Revolution VS The Hope of Chumps by Manila Ryce (video)
An Unreasonable Man (must-see videos; Nader) Parts 1-4
Cornell West on Barack Obama + Obama’s Money Cartel
Obama’s Populism versus McCain’s Free Trade by Walter C. Uhler
Can He Deliver? Obama and Global Trade By Paul Craig Roberts
Dandelion Salad 
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The Editor of The Nation, Katrina Vanderhovel just published her take on this, of course imploring Ralph not to run:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=289938
I of course responded at length, and sent everyone in that forum over to this post (I’m Giordano Rios on The Nation, since they for some reason didn’t believe that my parents named me ‘Nature’ with a last name like ‘Boy’. Good thing they didn’t name me something like MoonUnit, lol!).
Anyway, the Nation is consistently problematic as a progressive source, unfortunately, and in this case they once again miss the point.
Had the Dems pursued impeachment, it would have rallied the electorate around the flag of representative government, promoting ethics and accountability. By trying for whatever reason to ‘get along’ (whether corrupt complicity with the neocons, or genuinely trying to be diplomatic), the dems managed to make presidential politics pointless (sorry if I said that already).
Now the cynical apathy will prevail, people won’t vote, and because the pool of voting public is so small, it’s then easy for some fanatical right-wing evangelical cult to rig machines and gerrymander districts, etc. Once the election was thrown and the courts controlled, they’ll be thrown again, in perpetuity, and even less will particiapate, apathy and cynicism will reign, and any sense of public empowerment in government will continue to evaporate.
The dems had their brilliant alternative candidate in Dennis kucinich, but categorically failed to adopt or support his perfectly crafted positions and bills. In doing so the dems neutered and de-clawed any opposition they may have rallied (sorry if I said that one before too, but it’s the great tragedy of this cycle).
Ralph says he’s using his candidacy to promote progressive views in order to keep the front-runners honest. It’s a valid strategy.
If public opinion really is so close on the issues of Peace, Justice, Accountability and the Common Good such that elections are STILL so close they can be swayed by a statistically irrelevant third party candidate, then progressives have a lot more work to do than poking at this 0.3% of Nader loyalists!
The democrats blew this election all by themselves, they didn’t need Nader. They blew it by failing to fulfill their ’06 election promises, and by taking impeachment off the table. There is no opposition party, certainly not in the form of Democrats.
Anyway if you don’t mind getting perfectly irate at the Nation and their Democratic party, then it’s an interesting read. The Nation confirms the reasons for the categorical failure of the Democratic party to succeed or to effect any change in course whatsoever. It is due to their complicity and ineptitude that the GOP will likely win by default.
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She’s absolutely brilliant. She understands the politics involved in electing a president.
In MO in 2004, Bush had a 5% lead, and Kerry stopped campaigning here in August. I was free to vote for whomever I wanted to and wrote in Ralph Nader. I didn’t vote for Bush by doing so.
The Democrats kept Nader’s name off the ballot in my state and others. They also kept him out of the debates. I left the Democratic Party in 2000 and haven’t returned, although I did support Kucinich for as long as he was in the race.
We need more choices, not less. Already corporate media chooses the candidates. The elections (counting the ballots) are unreliable.
When the Democratic Party puts up such weak candidates (Gore; Kerry) and Bush “wins”, we know we are in trouble. They should have won easily against Bush both in 2000 and 2004.
Having Nader enter the race helps the progressive agenda. Obama will have to listen to Nader and his supporters if he wants to win us over. Talk about change, Obama needs to change some of his platform to win me over, that’s for sure. That is why Nader is in the race. Not to win the election, the numbers aren’t there for that, but to move the Democratic Party back to what it used to stand for.
That’s why Dennis Kucinich runs for president, too. To change the platform of the Democratic Party, not to necessarily win the election. That’s why muting his voice was such a disservice to the Amerikan people.
Watch this video again:
The Audacity of Revolution VS The Hope of Chumps by Manila Ryce (video)
But back to the point, I do agree, she’s WAY ahead of me, and certainly far more way ahead of where I was when i was her age– (now how come I didn’t meet anyone like that when I was in college??)
She’s right, it’s about the debate, the alternative candidates generate the discussion.
My complication with that is how can you trust a mainstream candidate to honor their election ‘debate’ promises, no matter how ‘enlarged’ by alternatives, if they didn’t have the integrity to begin with?
You have a basic problem of candidates with no scruples who adapt the debate based on the pre-election debate itself, not on their social or political vision or scruples, so it gets back to a strategy, not a vision. But this is a moment for serious vision, not oratory nor strategic fluctuations in campaign slogans based on opposing alternative positions.
Why aren’t politicians running for highest office finally ready to do the right thing without needing to be challenged by marginalized third-party candidates? THAT I suppose is my basic question to those who propose that democracy can work based on the majority’s desires and the common good, which we assume to be tempered by this altruistic impulse, when hundreds of years of history shows it’s anything but?
But keep those with scruples in the fray, at least while the cameras are rolling… let their works be seen, at least so that history may show we weren’t all war-criminals.
(Sorry but cynicism only gets worse with age).
One un-rehearsed thought regarding this theory that RN throws the outcome for the ‘right’:
From the NY Crimes (yes I’m boycotting them, but have a spy who works the night-shift):
Mr. Nader also said ballot access had become a central issue for him. He received 0.3 percent of the nationwide vote in 2004, down from 2.7 percent in 2000 — a drop caused by being on the ballot in only 34 states, he said.
So, these anti-Naderites think 0.3% threw the vote for Botch against Kerry? I’d be more inclined to entertain some skull & bones conspiracy.
Hell, if RP runs as an indy, is Mcbomb gonna fret about him blowing it for the Goppers? I don’t think so! They know only wormongering shape-shifter zionists like Lieberless have enough right-wing cred to get away with that.
Besides, if the vote really was so close that it could be stolen (all because of Nader’s .3% fer sure…), it’s because the people don’t vote, making the pool small enough that some sect of deranged neocon red-state cultists could throw the entire world into an endless, greed-based illegal war with ‘just enough’ to trump the system once again..
Nader is right, and certainly since the shams of 2000/2004, popular votes have little to do with it. Might as well break the whole thing wide open with as many dissenting ideas and candidates as possible. I’m not even gonna check this time to be certain NY is going Demn before casting away for Nader as per ’00.
Vote your conscience not some strategy, folks. The democrats are a dead issue, it’s a one-party system now. I say Vote Nader.
Besides, it’s the damn dem’s fault for blowing their chance to adopt the ideas of the great Kucinich. They had their real democratic flag to rally ‘round, and blew it big time.
In the end I suspect it will have been Pelosi and Conyers who in failing to back impeachment, gave the criminals enough validity to gain their 51% stealable ‘majority’, and McBomb will get his army and his ammo after all.
The failure to engage the impeachment protocol creates a mockery of presidential politics at this point, just as forewarned a year ago.
With Kucinich gone, Nader is the only one (and Gravel). Forget this failed electoral system. If this ‘minority + 1’ steals it again, the people have nobody to blame but themselves.
It’s the people whom these ‘people’ bomb that I worry about more, and no democrat remaining is apparently committed to stopping the atrocity now, so they’re all the same.
As with ’06, even ‘winning’ will be losing, and none of them can be trusted. But hell, I’m no pundit…
Somebody has to talk about peace justice and accountability and life on earth, and Nader as a damn good man to do that.
What better way then the platform of a presidential candidacy. We should all be extremely grateful he’s willing to go through it all for us, once again.