Subscribe
The real reason Nader shouldn't run
by James Clay Fuller, 3/5/08 • It is a bit of a shame that Ralph Nader has declared again for the presidency of the United States.
That is true, I think, not for any of the reasons corporate liberals and reliable members and backers of the Democratic National Committee are bleating about, but for another reason that I’ve yet to see anyone else mention:
In the event that the Democrats turn what was a huge, almost natural, advantage this year into electoral defeat – a distinct possibility — Nader again supplies them with an excuse and a way to avoid facing up to their own incompetence and lack of solid moral or practical grounds for holding office.
Personally, I don’t want them to have any ready excuses – none that might seem plausible to the befuddled public, at any rate.
The kingmakers, or in this case queenmakers, of the Democratic Party determined many moons ago that it was Hillary Clinton’s turn to run for president. Hey, she’s a Clinton, Bill is a great campaigner (they thought) and she absolutely will not disturb the organization or distribution of power.
If forced by the perhaps not fully subjugate Democratic electorate, the entrenched leadership will, somewhat reluctantly, accept Barak Obama as their candidate, operating on the reasonable assumption that he is pretty much their sort anyway and can quickly be brought to heel. It probably would have been his turn sooner or later anyway.
But what if their nominee, be it Clinton or Obama, loses in November?
That, I repeat, is a very real possibility, moving toward probability as Clinton gets nastier and ever more arrogant.
The vicious attack machine of the country’s far right is only beginning to rumble in its hole, and the Democrats evidently are as ill prepared as ever to deal with that machine once it is fully operational. And — gender and color aside — neither Democratic candidate chosen by the media barons and the party hacks looks all that much different from the empty suits the Democrats have paraded past us in election after election for more than a decade.
Obama can speak effectively, actually fire up a crowd, which, I grant, is a marvelous change from Gore, Kerry and, yes, Hillary. But eventually, if he’s nominated, his words are going to need the kind of content that makes the growing army of disaffected liberals believe he’s worth spending a vote on or he’s going down.
He’s not likely to come up with that content.
It would lose him any real support from the party organization and, because it comes late in the game, confuse all those deluded voters who believe we can compromise our way to some sort of livable accommodation with corporate powers and the far right.
So, having again forced upon us a candidate with no real positions to bring back the long-ignored liberals and readers and thinkers, with no real story to tell, the DLC, DSCC, DCCC and all the rest of those people who long ago earned their grade of D, will have to have their excuses ready.
Nothing easier than blaming Nader again. And the excuse probably will be believed again, at least by enough of the great army of the muddled, to keep all those D people and their over-priced consultants in business for another four years.
That is not a happy prospect.
(Nader will not cost the Democratic nominee the election by the way. He didn’t take away their “victory” in either of the two previous presidential elections either. They lost it themselves through the usual combination of general ineptness, intellectual dishonesty and lack of spine.)
Let’s face a heretical truth: The best possible outcome of the November 2008 presidential election, for this country and its people, may be the election of John McCain. And, yes, if elected he will be a horrible president, probably something close to as bad as George W. Bush.
The thing is, a McCain win could give us one — undoubtedly final — shot at creating a Democratic Party, or some other-named party, that can both win elections and govern honorably and effectively.
A Clinton win won’t do that. It’s highly unlikely that an Obama victory will do it. And successful use of the Nader excuse might keep the old party hacks in charge of the Democratic Party, leaving them free to choose another bad candidate and lose again in four years.
If Clinton or Obama gains the White House – which assumes that George Bush doesn’t use the power he granted himself last year to take control of all branches of government for as long as he deems necessary – all of the corporation loving, billionaire snuggling, empire-approving hacks of all of those D organizations stay in their plush offices, seeing to it that no essential changes are made.
They’ll allow a little cosmetic change in health care but, hey, donations pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies and all of that crowd pay a lot of Democratic Party bills. This year, in fact, Hillary Clinton is by a considerable margin the top political recipient of their largesse.
Iraq? Lotta campaign money from all those arms industry giants and we don’t want to deal with accusations of being “soft on terrorism.”
Constitution? Well, geez, we gotta hold the White House for the good of the people, which means we won’t be stepping on any communications corporation toes, nor offending any of those dangerous guys from the mercenary army organizations nor feeding the right wing think tankers any ammunition by shutting down Guantanamo or getting really serious about stopping “special rendition” and torture because that would make us seem “weak on defense,” etc., etc. endlessly.
In fact, maybe we should lay a few bombs on Iran just to prove how tough we are.
That’s your prospect. That’s the likelihood. And which of the Democrats is likely to give up all those juicy virtually dictatorial powers that Bush has declared for the presidency?
Neither? Right.
What we’ll get is a few new shades of lipstick and eyeshadow for the White House pig.
On the other hand, if McCain gets in, he’s going to feel compelled to show that he’s even leaner and meaner than G.W., and his vile temper is bound to become more apparent. The meanness will become too obvious for the press barons to successfully cover up. The wars will go on, the festering of the Middle East will continue according to the Bush plan, McCain is bound to cross swords dangerously with Vladimir Putin….
We’re talking really ugly, folks.
And that’s probably what it will take for Democrats and their natural constituency to, finally, throw out the self-serving fools who have turned the party into a branch of the Corporate Party.
Well, at least there is some chance that could happen, and there is no chance with Clinton or Obama.
Comments
Rediculous
“Nader again supplies them with an excuse and a way to avoid facing up to their own incompetence and lack of solid moral or practical grounds for holding office.”
I find it hard to even keep reading after this bit. You take what is or will be a failing belonging soley to one party and “magically” assign it to another party. Your complaint is not misplaced, but your blame is. If we follow your train of thought to it’s actual conclusion the D’s should be abandoning ship in record numbers. Instead they are ignoring much of the sense the man makes and are taking leads from politically motivated media sources.
Nader and Democracy
I disagree with the writer, who turns elections into a game.
Nader and anyone and everyone else with a point of view not being considered should be encouraged to run because this is what democracy is all about.
People boast about “religious freedom.” That one can hold any religious beliefs they want to; hence, there can be a church promoting a different belief on every corner in America.
But, why is there a different standard when it comes to politics? Why not just have two religions if two political parties are all we need?
The two party trap, which smothers democracy, is not healthy for living things… as the writer points out, there is the war in Iraq.
This imperiast war for oil and regional domination is all about corporate profits in every way, shape and form.
The war is killing Iraqis first and foremost, the people of Iraq are suffering the most, especially, like in all wars, the children suffer the worst consequences of this illegal, immoral and unconstitutional war.
This war is also killing us in many ways, too.
When a Nation spends three-trillion dollars on war, this is money that can’t be used for housing, education, health care, libraries, to maintain roads and bridges.
In many other ways besides these dirty imperialist wars which are supported by both the Democrats and the Republicans we are paying a terrible price for not tolerating as many views in the electoral arena as the variety of religious views which are tolerated.
I am on the State Central Committee of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, this Party does not even tolerate any criticism of the barbaric atrocities being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people—- even when Israel’s own Deputy Defense Minister acknowledges the intent of the Israeli government is to, in his own word, wage a military campaign which will result in a “holocaust” of the Palestinian people.
I would never vote for Nader.
In fact, I wouldn’t bother to walk across the street to vote for most Democrats. Who are these politicians? What do they stand for? Look at where they get their campaign funds from. Do you really think a Democrat receiving campaign contributions from a mining company is going to vote any differently than a Republican receiving funds from the same industry? Take the bankers, the pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies, the American Medical Association… are any of these corporations going to keep giving any politician money election after election if they are not getting in return what they are paying for?
We need to have a political system that is as tolerant of as many political parties as what there are religions.
No one would tolerate placing as many restrictions on religions as what there are on people to run for public office.
We are stuck in a two party trap and we better begin to think about how we are going to free ourselves from this trap because the time has come when we can no longer afford the consequences and results of two parties which only provide the options of war and poverty.
And make no mistake, when a country spends three-trillion dollars—- and counting—- on wars, there is poverty in your future.
It is like Karl Marx observed long ago: When a Nation uses its human and financial resources to prepare for war and then to wage wars, that Nation might just as well take those resources and dump them out in the ocean.
I very reluctantly work in the Democratic Party as I look forward to the day when I will be able to vote my conscience in a voting booth in the same way people pray according to their consciences on whatever day they choose to worship.
Here we have the most technologivally advanced country in the world and we can’t figure out a way to allow all political perspectives to have their say and to have their candidates up for election on Election Day and then we turn around and boast to the rest of the world that this is the greatest democracy in the world.
Imagine how foolish we look to a country like Canada where the people have the right to vote for the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the labor backed New Democratic Party, the Communist Party, the Green Party and many other political parties.
The great socialist leader Eugene V. Debs refered to the Democrats and Republicans as tweedle-dee dumb and tweedle-dee dumber—- one hundred years later, its like we are the dumbest for tolerating the corporate domination of politics in our country.
At one time, Minnesotans freed themselves of this corporate domination of politics and they elected socialists and communists to a variety of public offices… even Thief River Falls, Minnesota had a majority socialist city council which hoisted the Red flag above it’s City Hall.
Workers and farmers had their own political party in the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. Today the MN DFL issupposedly a “merger” of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party.
Any school child can readily ascertain that the only thing “Farmer-Labor” is in the name.
There is nothing left of what was created by the giants of the working class struggles of the twenties, thirties and early forties—- socialist Governors Floyd B. Olson and Elmer Benson and the fighting Communist from the Iron Range who was elected to Congress on the Farmer-Labor ticket, John Bernard. Together with the farmers and working people who fought foreclosures and evictions, who fought the mining bosses of United States Steel and the Ford Motor Company and the rail and trucking bosses along with the milling, forestry and power generating industry… these working people did leave us a legacy, more than a legacy, they left us a very well-built foundation upon which we can build upon today, if only we demonstrate a little initiative and fight like hell just as they did… the issues are very closely the same, the problems much worse.
Abraham Lincoln observed in 1861: “Corporations have been enthroned; corruption in high places will follow…”
Now, more than ever, we working people need to enter the political arena with our own political parties… it would be best if we learned from the past and entered the political arena in one united political party of liberals, progressives, socialists and communists… if we can’t, we can enter as seperate parties united at least in stopping the dirty imperialist war and creating a socialized health care system… any country that can spend three-trillion dollars killing people on the other side of the world to steal their oil can spend whatever is required to keep people well and take care of them when they are sick… and when you think about it, many illnesses that people have are the result of what happens to them in the workplace.
The workers I represent, thirty-thousand casino workers presently trying to organize into unions to protect their rights; these casino workers are employed in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos where they are exposed to all kinds of illnesses contracted from patrons; employed at poverty wages, most without health care… all with no rights under state or federal labor laws, forced to endure the most vicious and corrupt managements using the most Draconian measures to enforce full compliance from employees to make these operations as profitable as possible for the mobsters who own the slot machines and table games.
Let me remind each and every person reading this that it is the Minnesota DFL which created these “Compacts” that brought these right-to-work-for-less colonies into existance all across our state… if you think that politicians who would send thirty-thousand of your fellow Minnesotans to work under these conditions and then turn around and do anything that will benefit you… you are in for a very rude awakening… and some day, when you wake up, you just might find the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and two-thousand jobs gone as you are facing foreclosure and eviction from your own home as gas taxes are increased and politicians try to pass off some phony health care scheme in the name of single-payer universal health care as you are coerced by Minnesota Revenue to pay high premiums while you shiver through the winters without any heat because heating subsidies have been cut at a time when the oil companies are raking in windfall profits as you continue to get gouged at the pumps.
I know this is a farfetched scenario… but, I could have thrown in a collapsed bridge to boot.
I say who cares if Nader runs… shame on us for not organizing our own political party like our grand parents did as they struggled for justice so that their grandchildren might have a better life… for awhile the struggle paid off… apparently the struggle paid off so well people were content to have only two parties, both representing the same corporate interests to vote for.
Or, maybe it wasn’t a choice; maybe repression in this great democracy had something to do with creating this two-party trap… never mind about that lying good for nothing anti-Semitic anti-communist Harrold Stassen and his bossom-buddy Joe McCarthy… that is another story, for another day.
Right now, Democrats and Republicans are tapping people’s cell phones for saying the kinds of things I am writing here.
Oh, oh… do you supose some day my grandchildren might come across this letter in some FBI archives?
But really, I look forward to the day when I can vote Communist again in Minnesota… isn’t my having this choice what democracy is supposed to be all about.
And if Ralph Nader pulls enough votes away from the Democrats so they lose the election, big deal… the same class is still in power either way, eh?
Alan L. Maki
Elected Member, State Central Committee,
Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
Mr. Fuller is completely
Mr. Fuller is completely hypnotized by the two-party machine and is disinclined to use his imagination.
Third party delegates don’t distract voters from the DFL and the GOP. Indeed, both distract voters from third parties and forces them to comprimise the issues they feel hold most importance.
If I was limited to a choice of Barack Obama and John McCain, I wouldn’t vote.
If I was limited to blogs written by jaded DFL hardliners, I wouldn’t use the Internet.
Post new comment