I'm sorry, I don't think I saw your question, Mr. Man.

My answer is: I don't know.

I like your suggestion of massive resistance (although I'd replace the word "passive" with the word "nonviolent.") In order to organize something of that magnitude, it is necessary to spread knowledge about how the EC works.

Another possibility (instead of approaching it from the perspective of dismantling the EC) is to push for a constructive replacement: i.e. a direct election for the president that uses Instant Runoff Voting. I believe there are already some groups organized around that cause.

I suppose this is one of the sad conclusions from my analysis- getting out of the entrenched duopoly is going to take a social revolution on the scale of the Civil Rights Movement.

But I'll be there holding my sign and writing my missives.

Cynthia

Cynthia

You haven't answered my question. I asked: how do you believe we can end the Electoral College? You say getting rid of the Electoral College is the answer, but since it benefits both the Democrats and Republican they will never let go of it. We can only force their hand with massive passive ressitance, or by trying to build third parties that will work to end the Electoral College (I agree Nader is a bad choice since he no longer belongs to a party). If you beleive ending the Electoral College is the answer: HOW DO YOU SUGGEST WE GET RID OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE? This is the question you have not answered.

You kind of missed the point, aybayb, but I'd like to see your source on that anyway, if you have it.

Even if "some states" beside the mammoth electoral states of Nevada and Maine decide to allocate their electors more proportionally, no third party candidate is capable (at this point, in early 2008) of challenging the two-party dominance nationally. In other words, that person would not have to win just one election (as would be the case with one nationwide district), but 25 or 30, depending on the size of the states. And third parties, while they can occasionally win a seat here or there, simply don't have the resources, name recognition, or electoral base to challenge the duopoly under the current election rules. Why do you think the Demicans like the EC as it is, even when they lose because of it (i.e. Democrats in 2000)? Because it reinforces the status quo.

Additonally, a switch to a proportional distribution of electors doesn't address the fact that the college way over represents the influence of the five largest states and the weight of votes for people living in the smallest states. There is one elector for every 160,000 person living in Wyoming and every 640,000 person living in California. So in that case, a proportional vote at the EC level is still not truly proportional--- not even close.

You said "This means of allocating electoral votes might very well provide an opportunity for multi-party representation."

How could multi-parties be represented in the presidency proportionally? There is only one seat. The person who gets the most electoral votes gets it. Even if a third party gets 25% of the vote nationally (and let's assume for argument's sake, they got 25% of the EC as well), they wouldn't get 25% of the presidency!

If third parties want representation, they should focus their resources on elections they can actually win, like the House.

FYI, the last third party candidate to get electoral votes was George Wallace in 1968. That was 40 years ago. He got 13.5% of the popular vote and 8% of the EC vote.

Cynthia

>>>
Do you understand what I'm saying when I tell you that no third party can win the presidency under the Electoral College?? It's just not possible.
>>>

WRONG...the states make the rules for how their electoral system works. It does NOT rquire a Constitutional change abolishing the EC. The individual states determine how their 'electors' are selected. There are already at least two states that have decided against the "winner take all" system of allocating their electors (I believe they are Maine and Nebraska).

Under their system, the electors from their states can end up casting some votes for each candidate, depending on the breakdown of the votes cast in their election. The EC still determines the outcome of the presidential election; but the individual states decide which candidate gets how many of that state's electors. A state which sends 10 electors to the EC can parcel out 5 electors to a Democrat, 3 to a Republican, 1 to a Green and 1 to a Libertarian...all depending on the number of votes cast for each by the citizens of that state.

This means of allocating electoral votes might very well provide an opportunity for multi-party representation.

Commonreader,

Maybe George W, Bush should resign for being unfaithful to his wife, and maybe George H.W. Bush should have resigned for carrying on a multi-year affair with Jennifer Fitzgerald, and maybe half the members of Congress should resign for also being unfaithful to their spouses.

Oh, wait. That's right, the Republicans get a pass on that. Only non-Republicans should resign. Better yet, maybe we should let the military/industrial corporations and their media outlets pick our Presidents. Why fight it alt all?

oh no, another article with the letters n-a-d-e-r in the title. and 3,492 comments to follow.

arise257

I agree, we need third party people in congress.

Maybe Bill Clinton is to blame for Bush's election.

If Bill Clinton has done the decent thing and resigned early in the Monica fiasco he wouldn't have wasted 18 months of the nation's time (during which much national business went to the back burner) and Gore could have been sworn in as president and got on with the country's business.

Gore would have then been an incumbent president and most likely would have clearly won in 2000. Sixteen years of Dems not the GOP. Not perfect, but so, so much better than what we've had since 2001 with Bush.

riverdude, I think what you mean by 'academic' is 'pseudo-academic' and by 'low logic' not simply 'poor' logic... but the logic of the sophist, which can seem quite convincing but doesn't stand up to the light of day.

When "serious" professor elects to state empirically what is or is not progressive, really sounds more like dogma...

...which gives the dogmatic right-wingers meat to chew on and makes us all too often our own worst enemies.

Which may be a bigger reason the right-wing has gained so much ground, rather than the impotence of the democratic party.

Such an easy scapegoat for our own failing...

" cynthia somehow did'nt have the logic to figure out about this short term loss creating a longer term real gain.."

How is 8 years of Bush part of a longer term gain for Nader voters? That is just ridiculous. What gain did we/Nader/the Green Party get from his run in 2000? The Green party shrunk in size after that, its voters lost morale, it spent itself into the ground, and as you have conceded, it didn't do anything to pull the Democrats to the left. So what exactly did this "long-term strategy" do??

I'm sure my students, colleagues, and publishers would be stunned to discover that I have "no logic." I've got everyone fooled! But seriously, is it really necessary to insult me by saying I just "seem smart" in order to get your point across? Why degrade yourself by getting nasty towards me? Did I personally offend you somehow?

I understood what seriousprofessor's argument was. I just think it makes no sense. I don't agree with it. That doesn't mean I'm lacking in logic. Quite the contrary, according to Aristotle, "It is the mark of educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." You should think about that.

BTW, there is no such thing as "low logic." That term is non-sensical.

riverman, you seem like a person who is interested in what is happening around you. You seem like you care about the world. Given that, I suggest not getting in the habit of letting other people think for you. And I also suggest not getting in the habit of rejecting something just because you disagree with it. It's called cognitive dissonance; look into it.

Cynthia

I do understand. This text medium brings out very interesting facets of one's personality. I am continually amazed at how much emotional investment we're willing to devote to a dialogue with an anonymous individual.

I have come across many Shadows in blogs and discussion boards whose only purpose is to manipulate that emotional investment...

I have little time for people in love with inevitability of their own opinions.... or those who care less about opinions than about power and control.

"Cynthia, why bother, unless you enjoy dancing to nowhere..."

God, I don't know. I can't stop myself. I have a hard time backing down to bullies, I guess. Especially when there's a Truth to be told.

But seriously professor (part II)...

No one around here dodges and weaves with the smooth superior elegance that you have down to a well practiced point.

Thou art a sophist of skill, and out of my mouth I puke thee.

Cynthia, why bother, unless you enjoy dancing to nowhere...

scroller-

1) That alternative you suggest is better than the "winner take all" state-based system, but it's still not truly proportional. There would still be one elector for every 160,000 people in Wyoming and for every 640,000 people in California. This bill does not fix the problem of some people's (and some state's) votes weighing more than others.

2)I disagree. Remember that the population of the United States was much, much smaller at the time. Even with a system of "equal representation" in place, it was still fairly proportional because there just simply weren't that many people to represent. It doesn't make sense to use the same rules that were set up for a population the size it was in 1787 for a population in 2008 United States.

3)I see your point, and I did address is earlier in the essay when I said that a vote for a third party candidate (who cannot win either in a "swing state or otherwise") is at best wasted, and at worst (in a swing state) a spoiler. Your argument really just reinforces my point, which is that we live in an entrenched duopoly that keeps other parties out.

Cynthia

Cynthia Boaz I read your article on truthout and would like to offer these brief comments:

(1) "We have to start by doing away with the Electoral College."

Reforming the electoral system would be difficult, requiring amending the constitution. There is an easier way, which can be done immediately by 2/3 vote of any state legislature: make the electors for each state proportional to votes cast for candidates. Former Illinois senator John Anderson (the independent candidate in 1980) has an organization promoting this. I heard Anderson in Chicago in 2000 at a Nader rally explain this. He said there is nothing in the constitution requiring the electors of each state to be winner-take-all; the constitution leaves to the states the process of determining HOW state electors are chosen (they could be chosen undemocratically for all the constitution cares!); and winner-take-all is simply state traditions that could be changed tomorrow by any state legislature that decides to do so. And, he said, two states already have done so--changed to proportionate representation in their electors (Maine starting in 1972, and Nebraska starting in 1991).

(2) "Thus, the vote of a citizen of Wyoming carries approximately four times the weight of a vote of a citizen of California. Surely this isn't what the framers intended when they called for 'one man, one vote.'"

Unfortunately I believe that is exactly what the framers intended (or at least consciously agreed to in compromise), which is why the differential between big states and little states is enshrined in the Constitution that way. (Interestingly, the framers of the Constitution never risked putting ratification of the new Constitution itself up to a popular vote, but no matter.)

(3) "This all became starkly clear nearly eight years ago as I found myself telling a passionate, proactive, socially conscious student that his choice to vote for Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election was both irrational and counterproductive."

Your analysis makes sense as it stands only in states in which the outcome of the "winner-take-all" system is actually in doubt, i.e. swing states. But that is less than half of the states. In states in which the outcome is NOT in doubt, there would be no reason for that student not to vote for Nader or any other personal actual first choice (in terms of rational game theory). If your student's place of voting was in New York state, where you teach now, Gore beat Bush in NY by 60 percent to 35 percent in 2000, not even close.
Another way of putting it: the only votes that matter are swing votes. The greatest number of votes in presidential elections (as currently constructed) are not swing votes, and don't effect any outcome. For those whose votes don't effect anything, what good reason is there to stick to lesser-of-two-evils instead of voting for their first choice (and give PR value to the minor party or candidate of their sympathies)?
So your analysis seems to me applicable to only those states where the outcome between the two major parties is in question.
Anyway thanks for the article.

alank-

I don't think anyone here is defending the Democrats as paragons of democratic virtue. It's just that no one can deny that Gore would have been a better option for everyone, including Nader voters, than Bush.

Of course the Democrats haven't tried to change the system, even after 2000. It serves their interest, just as it serves the interests of the Republicans. We live in an intrenched duopoly.

But given the way the rules are set up, third parties can NOT win the presidency. They CAN'T. So instead of asking why Dems haven't changed the rules since 2000, what you should be asking is why third parties (and Nader himself, for that matter) haven't focused all their efforts on doing away with the system that gives the two major parties all the advantages, instead of just popping up everytime there is a presidential election and making a stink about the corruption of the "two-party system"?

I suggest taking all this anger and passion and putting it into a campaign to remove the Electoral College and switching to a direct, nationwide election for the president so that your third party candidates actually stand a chance.

Cynthia

Watch "AmericanBlackout.com" to see details of HOW the 2000 vote was set up to be stolen in Florida via treacherous use of a deceitful and fictitious "felon's list" (not the chads, nor "butterfly ballot", though they helped) long before Ralph even declared himself a candidate.

With all the vitriol about how a "3rd party" candidacy could "steal" votes, in the eight years since then Democrats have not initiated any measures, nor lifted any fingers to REMEDY vote-stealing nor fixing the electoral process (transparent and honest counting,clean campaigns, Instant Runoff Voting, etc.

Instead Democrats have accepted more election fraud -- Ohio 2004 -- supported HAVA and other measures that created electronic ballot-stealing.

Yet they spent time and lots of money attacking Greens and Nader who wished to be talking about things that should be of great concern to all Americans, but never make it past Dem spinmeisters, thus effectively keeping ALL of America in the BushCo dark.

Democrats' answer to ever-faster approaching, all-encompassing and law-defying authoritarianism: silence those who bring up that nasty subject -- keep Greens and Nader off the ballots lest they embarrass the Democratic Party by showing their real abandoning of the American People and the Constitution.

Repugs bring fascism thru the front door, Dems thru the back. Dems say NOTHING, do NOTHING to prevent it, only silence those who try. You cannot deny this.

Brissot,

Take a good look at the laundry list you blame on Green/Nader 2000:

"Iraq, North Korea, Cheney, Roberts, Alito, Billions in Tax Cuts for the wealthy, Deficits vs. Surpluses, Ashcroft/Gonzalez/Mukasey, Kyoto, ABMS, Arsenic, CO2, Clear Skies, Katrina, ANWR, etc., etc., etc."

Then ask what Dems did to stop or even denounce those measures. Get real.

"Cynthia707, each of us chooses whether or not to reveal personal information on discussion boards. The merits of our arguments are a separate issue and the only important matter here."

Not necessarily. Especially since part of your argument's merit is predicated on your credentials as a professor (you are the one who named yourself "seriousprofessor", after all. What was the point of that?)You used those credentials to challenge my professional integrity as a scholar when you said you "expected better from a colleague."

So, seriousprofessor, why should we/I take you seriously, or for that matter, believe you are a professor, if you are unwilling to reveal yourself? If you have strong progressive credentials to stand on (which should be the only credentials that really matter in this forum anyway), they you have nothing to worry about.

Cynthia

seriousprofessor-

You say: "including the idea that representative democracy becomes farce when citizens are compelled to vote for the opposite of what they believe."

That is exactly what I was arguing in my article. Thank you for conceding my point.

There is nothing grammatically or rhetorically incorrect about using the term "idelogical beliefs." But thanks for the try!

How is saying that your ideological principles don't hold together the equivalent of saying to me that "I expect better from a colleague"?? The latter is patently condescending, the former is analytical.

Cynthia

BTW, riverman, it is not "logical thinking" that is bizarre to me. It is that "seriousprofessor"'s comments totally decontextualized my argument and cherry-picked the parts he does not like (because they aren't what he wants to hear, which is that Nader voters can have signficant, positive impact on the presidential election), and then says that I am illogical. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Also, "seriousprofessor", are you at a community college in the midwest and have the initials C.I.? It's very cowardly and disrepectful to attack someone from behind a curtain, you know.

Cynthia

Cynthia707, each of us chooses whether or not to reveal personal information on discussion boards. The merits of our arguments are a separate issue and the only important matter here.

I fear that my irritated tone has become your rationale for not understanding my points, including your following response.

"You talked about strategy being long-term. The only way that makes sense in response to my argument is if you are suggesting that (an acceptance of) Bush's win was part of Nader voters' long-term strategy."

Of course that's not the only way it makes sense.
For starters, unlike Gore and the Democrats, I do not accept Bush's fraudulent win.
Political change often happens in the long term outside the context of electoral politics (e.g.- civil rights movement, women's rights movement, antiwar movements). You offer your own example of advocating changes in the electoral system.
Seeing long-term patterns, including the Dems' slide to the right, is part of any rational analysis. Whether we reward that or not depends upon the questions we ask.

"I did not say that hitting our hands with a hammer four times instead of six is the "best we can do." Geez, are you being intentionally dense or just trying to irritate me?"

Fine, fine. Object to the terms while missing the point. You are calling it the only rational choice, as in ... "If you are voting for a third-party candidate under the current election rules ..., you are voting against your interests."

I can't agree. Voting for a candidate whose positions are opposed to yours is voting against your interests. Interests and outcome are not the same.

"i.e. as a Nader voter, you are equally discontented with Bush and Gore."
Setting aside for the moment that no discussant here knows who I voted for, one need not be equally discontented with Bush and Gore in order to be repelled by them both. If this is too obscure, refer back to my hammer-hitting-hand analogy.

You wish to advance an argument on these boards that proceeds from the assumption that the lesser of two evils is the only rational choice. I disagree. I have tried to give reasons for my objection, and you are seeing everything but those. Very well. Enjoy voting for the DLC candidate of your choice.

"And if that's the case, you need to recheck the coherence of your idelogical beliefs because they aren't holding together very well."

Ah, this must be that politeness about which you were lecturing me. My ideological beliefs (sic) are coherent enough, including the idea that representative democracy becomes farce when citizens are compelled to vote for the opposite of what they believe. Enabling the Democrats' rightward drift will likely result in more of the same rather than transformation. That this should be objectionable is baffling.

serious professor:

"...so much so that I'm skeptical about its authenticity. I expect better from a colleague."

Rude. This is why I rarely hang out with other academics. So self-important and condescending. Since we are "colleagues", why don't you reveal your identity? You know mine. It's the collegial thing to do, don't you think?

On the other things you said:

- You talked about strategy being long-term. The only way that makes sense in response to my argument is if you are suggesting that (an acceptance of) Bush's win was part of Nader voters' long-term strategy. How has that worked out for you?

- The argument about the Electoral College cannot be separated from the "lesser of two evils" concept. It is the EC that creates both the perception and the reality that presidential elections are, sadly, a contest between the lesser of two evils for anyone to the left of the Democrats and the right of the Republicans, i.e. almost everyone.

- I did not say that hitting our hands with a hammer four times instead of six is the "best we can do." Geez, are you being intentionally dense or just trying to irritate me? The entire point of the essay was to argue for a system that would allow us to produce better. I was not arguing in favor of the less-than-ideal, I was using the fact that we are forced to choose between that and the even-less-than-ideal at the level of the presidency is fundamentally undemocratic and needs to be fixed. In fact, my words were that "And that's the real shame." I was aruging that we need to be able to vote for third parties so that they can actually win.

- Nowhere did I say or even suggest that voting for the least bad alternative was "progressive" or that you have to call it that. What is progressive is to call for systemic change in the way we produce our president. In fact, Nader and I both do that in calling for a system of direct, Instant Runoff Voting in one nationwide presidential district.

- If you are voting for a third-party candidate under the current election rules (and this is more pronounced and serious in a "non-free vote" state, i.e. states that are not "safe" for one party), you are voting against your interests. Unless you don't consider the outcome as part of your "interests," i.e. as a Nader voter, you are equally discontented with Bush and Gore. And if that's the case, you need to recheck the coherence of your idelogical beliefs because they aren't holding together very well.

So, who are you, seriousprofessor? Why don't we bring this debate into the open? I'd welcome the opportunity to bring this into a more public forum.

Cynthia

"guilt (because of Vietnam), "
It was the year 2000. Anyone who was 27 or under wasn't even alive during Vietnam. Believe me any mass guilt for Vietnam died with the Reagan Administration and Rambo movies. 80's Rambo.

"depression and low self-esteem (now we're paranoid, too)."
Did the whole population have low self-esteem? Where is this coming from? People seemed far more depressed now than in 2000; not that people weren't depressed then, but there was hardly an unnatural wave of depression over the populous.

I don't think anyone here voted for Bush, and he only won through massive voter fraud. In 2000 in Florida and Tennessee, and in 2004 in Florida and Ohio.

Guilt over Vietnam???

Whether or not Nader is responsible for the Bush presidency will probably be debated for decades, unless the human race destroys itself (and the world) by then.

It's a moot point, however. Nader didn't drop bombs on Iraq, Bush did. Nader didn't drop bombs on Afghanistan, Bush did. Nader didn't let New Orleans drown, Bush did. Nader didn't trash the Constitution, Bush did. Etc.

Bush is responsible for all the bombing and Constitution-trashing and Big Easy drowning and etc. And Nader didn't vote for Bush and he didn't tell anyone else to vote for Bush. So the people who are responsible for Bush having the opportunity to drop bombs and trash the Constitution and drown New Orleans are those who voted for him, not those who didn't. Of course the people who voted for Bush were tricked into doing so by the Republicans, but tricking people into voting for their candidates is what political parties do.

So how is it that so many Americans could be tricked into voting for a dummy like Bush? What have "they" done to us to make us, collectively, dumb enough to vote for a dummy. Is the guy who said it was an "identity politics" thing correct? Was Bush elected because enough of us have been conned into being stupid enough so that we'll vote for someone like us, another stupid person? Do we not vote for a smart guy because we're not smart (or at least don't think we are)? Do we not vote for a smart guy because we don't think a smart guy could possibly understand our issues? If so, why did we vote for a stupid yet filthy rich oil mogul? Did we think that a dumb rich guy could somehow understand the issues of the poor and middle class better than a smart rich guy?

Only thing that makes sense to me is that America had a few collective psychological problems back then: guilt (because of Vietnam), depression and low self-esteem (now we're paranoid, too).

We voted for Bush because he's all we thought we deserved, and that's exactly what his handlers wanted us to do.

re: Cynthia707 (8:23)

"What are you talking about?"

I am talking about rationally proceeding with inquiry. I thought I made that clear in my very first sentence at 7:52.

"So you would say that Nader, Nader voters, and we as citizens "won" in some way in 2000?"

No, not in the least, nor was there any suggestion of same in my comments. I do not expect a straw man maneuver from a colleague.

"Did you read my Truthout piece?"

Again, back at 7:52 I provided a specific quote of yours to which I was responding. I do not believe that you missed that.

"I suggest doing away with the electoral system and replacing it with a nationwide, direct vote for the president. How is that "short term thinking"?"

Red herring. At no point did I address your position on the electoral college.
I am sure that it was obvious to most readers that I addressed your "lesser of two evils" construction.

"A lesser amount of damage is a better outcome than a greater amount of damage, don't you think?"

Obviously. This takes us back to square one where I addressed the absurdity of proceeding from that argumentative warrant. To reason by analogy: hitting your hand with a hammer four times is a better outcome than hitting your hand with a hammer six times. That still isn't pragmatic medicine.
Damage may be inevitable, but I do not have to legitimize it by calling it progressive or the best that we can do.

Ideas matter. You bring up winning. OK, well what does "winning" mean? How did we get to a point where "winning" means damage? Is it truly rational to use the democratic right to the franchise to vote against our interests?

"In sum, I find your comments truly bizarre."

Thank you. I find your incomprehension bizarre, so much so that I'm skeptical about its authenticity. I expect better from a colleague.

scroller:

Nader's fame is very attractive, you're right. I have to disagree with you about the Greens making him a VP candidate. When Nader left the Greens I felt he lost focus. The Greens definitely could use someone with more name recognition, I agree. There is another thing that bugs me about Nader though. One of the things that turns me off about politicians like Hillary and Lieberman (apart from their enslavement to corporate America) is the way they care more about themselves than their party. Lieberman in 2000 ran for Senator while he ran for VP, even though the Governor of his state was a Republican. Had Gore won (officially that is) Lieberman would have been replaced in the Senate by a Republican. In the last election Lieberman was beaten in the primary, but he still ran as an independent against his own party, and unfortunately won. Just yesterday Clinton tried to get the Texas Democratic Party to change their caucus rules (apparently Texas has both a primary and a caucus) because she has lost all but 3 caucuses in other states to Obama. The caucus results are supposed to be made public immediately as they come in; Clinton wanted to change that so the campaigns would get the results before they became public, so she could challenge them, if she chose, before the public found out what the results were. The Texas Dems refused and warned her, for the good of the party, not to get the lawyers involved. I'm not sure if the caucus is a fair system (I don't fully understand its mechanics; I never lived in a caucus state), but Clinton knew going into this race what the rules were (ready from day one my ass), and has already been through over ten caucuses. Now that she's loosing she wants to change the rules, and possibly disgust the public so much that they will vote for McCain in November. She doesn't care if her party wins only if she wins. This is one area where Obama is different; he was very humble about his chances as the campaign began. He is an opportunist, but if he were loosing by a significant amount he would pull out for the good of the party. Even if Clinton looses both Ohio and Texas she will be in till the convention, praying for enough superdelegates, even if she takes the party down with her. In a way Nader has shown the same behavior. Instead of defending Gore as the man who won the election in 2000 he stayed silent because he still thought of Gore as the enemy, even though defending the integrity of our elections was more important. In 2004 he leaves the Greens and runs again, and now he's running again when he could easily lend his endorsement to McKinney or another party's candidate. Just giving his endorsement could bring McKinney some name recognition, and maybe an interview on Meet the Press (him and Russet are good friends) Even if he can't win what's most important to him is his identity as a hero, or perhaps his leadership of the far left, or maybe he just enjoys being in the spotlight, but I don't think he's running for US anymore. I also live in a "safe state" so I may vote for McKinney in the empty hope that it will do the Greens some good, but I think Nader should stop running for president (he has the right to run of coarse). No matter what he stood for I feel he's become a liability to the 3rd party movement that he moved center stage. Also, despite his excellent legacy as a consumer advocate he's shown that he can't build coalitions, and that's exactly what a president, or any politician, has to be able to do.

TheMan wrote:
"There are other 3rd party candidates who represent growing parties that could be an alternative to the Democrats in the future. Nader has alienated his allies in the Greens and runs only on his celebrity. He is no longer building a long term party or movement."

Yes. I voted Nader/Green 2000 (in Illinois), and a big part of that was the excitement of putting a real progressive alternative party on the map for the medium and long term. I still hope the Greens will work through their growing pains and develop political clout through winning local offices on up. As for the Presidency--although this is disputed--I would like to see the Greens pick a name-recognized candidate (McKinney is fine) and pursue the safe-states strategy, and explicitly endorse Obama in swing states (on analogy to Kucinich sending his Iowa supporters to Obama in the Iowa primary).

Despite my posts expressing hope in Obama I too may vote for a third PARTY (not party-less Nader), namely Green, here in Washington if it is clear Obama will carry the state anyway.

If Obama's campaign continues to run as intelligently as it has up to now--and the more people see Obama the better they like him--America's march toward fascism may be averted and replaced with ... actual hope of something better. Obama would arrive to the presidency less owned, with less baggage, and a bigger mandate, than about any other Democrat in recent times. People here may criticize him for not being sufficiently left up to now, but he is farther left than Republican ideologues (as distinguished from many grassroots Republican voters) and powerbrokers will want to stomach. Electing Obama could be the last train stop for America before a Reich of the hard variety. Blow this chance for change at the presidential level and when will there be another chance as good.

But even if Obama is elected, as I hope, better build a viable Green Party in as many ways as possible for a better alternative, with the Green Party and Democrats at some point entering into a formal Democrat-Green power-sharing coalition, on analogy with European coalition governments.

As for Nader, I suggest the Greens nominate him for vice-president under McKinney, whether or not Nader accepts it. That is, McKinney-Nader would be running against Nader-Gonzalez. This way, the Greens would get many of the Nader voters voting Green, with less of those votes going to Nader non-Green. Just an idea.

If you truly cannot vote for a Democrat there are candidates who are part of left wing political parties. I don't understand why it has to be Nader? As I mentioned Cynthia McKinney is the Green Party Candidate. Nader has denounced the Greens; this is why I voted for him in 2000 but not now. Even better, getting Green or Socialist candidates into local and congressional offices would help build a progressive party for the future that might eventually be able to challenge the Democrats. A vote for Nader today feels good now, but slowly building a rival political party from the ground up will bear fruit in the long run. Right now, I am voting for Obama (assuming he's nominated) because we are in an emergency situation. Even if he does not take the actions we want he will still appoint more liberal Judges so the rest of our lives are not spent under a radical conservative court, he may not make things better but will stop things from getting worse long enough so we can regroup, and he is flexible enough to hear and react to large movements; no matter who we elect they will only be responsible to us if we put pressure on them once they are in office. If you feel Obama is too conservative I can respect that, but I can't respect this celebrity obsession with Nader. People are voting for Nader because he's the only 3rd party candidate they know instead of taking a look at the less known 3rd party candidates; this is just as bad as people who vote Democratic no matter who the candidate is. There are other 3rd party candidates who represent growing parties that could be an alternative to the Democrats in the future. Nader has alienated his allies in the Greens and runs only on his celebrity. He is no longer building a long term party or movement. Before you decide take a look at all the 3rd party presidential candidates, and take an even closer look at more local 3rd party candidates. You can't have everything you want right now. If you really want an alternative to the Democrats you'll have to work at gaining your party of choice a base.

"seriousprofessor"-

What are you talking about?

"Winning an election cannot be divorced from those things that give winning its meaning. Your argument cedes any and all meaning to winning, save for a lesser amount of damage as the ideal outcome."

So you would say that Nader, Nader voters, and we as citizens "won" in some way in 2000?

A lesser amount of damage is a better outcome than a greater amount of damage, don't you think? Gore would have been better than Bush, but not as good as ideal. Unfortunately, "ideal" was not running, but even if she had been, the Electoral College would have kept her out. Thus, Gore was a preferable outcome for anyone to the left of Bush.

"If we treat the present political landscape as if it just burst into existence spontaneously, then we neglect that commitment."

Again, huh??? Did you read my Truthout piece? It goes into great detail about the founding of the Electoral College. That is hardly "treaing the political landscape as if it just burst into existence."

And as for short-term thinking, either you didn't read my piece or you didn't understand it. I suggest doing away with the electoral system and replacing it with a nationwide, direct vote for the president. How is that "short term thinking"?

Or are you saying that Bush winning the presidency was part of Nader voters' strategy, and I just don't get it?

In sum, I find your comments truly bizarre. I don't even know why I'm taking the time to respond to them. I need to get out more on Saturday nights.

Cynthia

re: Cynthia
"Since only the two parties stand a chance of winning the presidency under the current electoral rules, we as voters have to think strategically. It's a sad commentary, but it's a fact."

I am concerned that you are starting your inquiry from an absurd point.
Winning an election cannot be divorced from those things that give winning its meaning. Your argument cedes any and all meaning to winning, save for a lesser amount of damage as the ideal outcome.

Further, thinking strategically may occur over a longer term than one election cycle. In the present case, a perpertual short-term argument has enabled the Democratic Party to drift rightward without end or effective check for, say, about a generation now.

Academics have a special responsibility to reason. Examining questions of cause-and-effect is part of that commitment. If we treat the present political landscape as if it just burst into existence spontaneously, then we neglect that commitment.

Ric,

Far be it from me to put a damper on someone's hope!

I won't discourage you from voting your conscience, but I ask that you do it as an informed voter. Now that you know the rules and the stakes, you can choose to make a strategic or principled choice as a third-party voter. If you can find a way to do both, let me know. Seriously.

Thank you for the compliment. :)
Cynthia

I posted this way up the thread, but I don't think it appeared. Here again, with the words f**cking and c**t, modified with asterisks:

rocyahsoul (March 1st, 2008 12:10 am) cites Judicial Watch in his Nader smear. Check that source with SourceWatch.org. Judicial Watch is nearly entirely funded by right-wing nut job, Richard Mellon Scaife. When former Wall Street Journal reporter Karen Rothmyer attempted to interview Scaife in 1981, he responded by calling her a "f**king Communist c**t" and telling her to "get out of here."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sarah_Scaife_Foundation
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Judicial_Watch

As to rocyahsoul's smear of plaintiff's lawyers, see the movie "Erin Brockovich" if you want to know what plaintiff's lawyers do. Or read recent posts here on CD about the Exxon Valdez oil spill case now before the Supreme Court. After Exxon devastated the environment and destroyed people's health and lives in Prince William Sound, a court ordered $5 billion in punitive damages. Exxon appealed the verdict and plaintiff's lawyers have been fighting the appeal for the last 14 years — without being paid. The punitive damage award being considered by the Supreme Court amounts to three weeks of Exxon's current net profits, but the remorseless corporation prefers to game the system until all the plaintiffs are dead, rather than pay three weeks of their profits.

rocyahsoul and his sources are full of it.

Cynthia I didn't realize you are a professor at the University of N.Y. I really enjoyed reading your very informative article. It is very well written and thanks for the lesson. I could be your student too. I am sure you could teach me a lot. You rock!
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022908A.shtml

However, I do disagree with not voting for third parties. When enough people finally get fed up with our undemocratic political system and the electoral college guarantee that a status quo candidate will win no matter what the people want then we can force a change. Then we can make demands or we won't pay our taxes. We can have a Boston Tea Party. We need to have courage and stand up to power like the Patriots of the Revolutionary War. No guts, no glory.

We need to start somewhere. Otherwise nothing will ever change. The arguments against third parties are probably similar in a sense to the arguments in favor of the King made by the Loyalist in their day. Voting against Republicans isn't a reason to vote for Democrats. If the Repugs win and drive the country into the dirt maybe, maybe then the sleeping masses will finally wake up and we can throw all the bums out.

scroller March 1st, 2008 5:28 pm Thanks for the response.

I believe tailcap's question was "Is there one Democrat out there can can supply us with a list of Democratic accomplishments for the last 8 yrs.,?" and scroller, you dodged it.

Fair question tailcap, and my answer:

The Republicans, and a McCain administration, are headed toward fascism. An Obama/Democratic administration will probably roll it back. Plus, there is a wild card with Obama of possibility for surprising good that is not there with the Republicans.

In addition there are other matters such as pro-choice and related issues particularly relevant to women; a tendency toward working-class voting constitencies; a tendency towards appeal to social gospel Christians rather than Armageddon-dominionist Christians. Also, the persons I admire in this country for doing positive things tend overwhelmingly to be in the Democratic tent. Even Chomsky has often spoken of there being only five degrees of difference between the Democrats and Republicans--but those five degrees of difference can mean the difference between life or death to millions of people.

You may not agree with it, but that is my answer to your question.

Cynthia I am going to read your article. Thanks.

Ric Abreu

Ric-

I am against the two-party duopoly. I have a piece right now on the front page of Truthout that argues as much. You are missing my point. I don't LIKE the two-party system, but it's the election rules that are the problem. Do you understand what I'm saying when I tell you that no third party can win the presidency under the Electoral College?? It's just not possible.

I'm all for doing away with the rules and having a multiparty system. Until then, I'd rather have the party that is the least bad option in power. I agree, it's pathetic. It's not the way I would have things, but it's reality.

That being said, the Democratic party (of the past 60 years at least) is the party of "positive liberty", i.e. the freedom TO, as epitomized by the Civil Rights Movement. The Republican party is the party of "negative liberty", i.e. freedom FROM government intrusion. There are obviously more distinctions, but if you had to identify the most significant difference, it's a philosophical disagreement about what freedom is. See George Lakoff's book "Whose Freedom" for more on this.

Cynthia

scroller March 1st, 2008 4:59 pm
Red herring arguments against Nader. List the arguments in favor of Democrats and what they have done. Still waiting.

Hi Cynthia, I guess Democrats are incapable of coming up good reasons to vote for them. That is so incredibly weak and pathetic I don't know what to say. You make a good argument for the status-quo duopoly and what that gives us. An ever rightward march to the point we get TWO WAR PARTIES not just one.

Ric

p.s. Is there one Democrat out there can can supply us with a list of Democratic accomplishment for the last 8 yrs and good reasons to support them now other than the tired old HELP THE SKY IS FALLING VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT? One of you? Just one?

Questions for Nader supporters:

Is it possible for Nader to cause an election that otherwise would have gone to the Democrat, to the Republican? Nader denies he did this in 2000, but seems at other times to say Democrats deserve to be punished by costing them elections if they do not adopt the right positions. Apparently, it is possible for Nader to cost the Democrats elections, but it just hasn't happened yet, seems to be his position.

When asked who he would prefer between Obama or McCain, Nader did not give a straight answer. (He refused to say whether he had a preference between these two, and if so, which.) When asked how he would feel if he caused McCain to be elected instead of Obama, Nader did not answer that question either; he essentially answered that if that happened it would not be his fault, it would be the Democrats' fault.

Why is Nader not giving straight answers to these questions? Why does Nader's "News" page on his campaign webpage (I just checked) seem to have far more criticisms of Democrats than Republicans? Has Nader pledged open disclosure of known Republican sources of money (which he says he will accept)? If not, why not?

Do you seriously want others to vote for a candidate with no party, who will not say that McCain would be worse for America than Obama, and who denies that his 80,000 votes in Florida 2000 had anything to do with that outcome (but about eight other factors somehow did)?

In 2004 there were stories of Sharpton being financed and advised by a right-wing Republican operative. There was no sign that Sharpton changed his message any as a result, but he took the money and the help from sources which were using him to destabilize the Democrats. Can Nader offer a clear, straight, forthright assurance that either (a) that isn't happening with his run now (greater-than-token Republican funding and background assistance), or (b) if it does happen and he is fine with that, he will disclose it fully and immediately?

Hello again tailcap-

We meet again in a new thread. :)

I want to respond to this statement of yours above:

GIVE ME A REASON TO VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT THAT ISN'T A REASON TO VOTE AGAINST A REPUBLICAN seeing as you have already admitted Dims haven't done: "Not a damn friggin" thing!

That's the problem. That IS a good reason. Since only the two parties stand a chance of winning the presidency under the current electoral rules, we as voters have to think strategically. It's a sad commentary, but it's a fact. Elections are, more often than not, a contest between the lesser of two evils. If you don't like that, push for the elimination of the Electoral College and a switch to a direct, national election for the president. Until then, if you are a strategic voter who does not want to risk (or god forbid, contribute to) your worst possible choice out of three, you have to vote for the major party that is closer to you, even if that distance is only nominally closer than the other major party.

Cynthia

Nader didn't lose Gore the election, the Electoral College did. But since, under the EC rules, no third party candidate can ever win, a vote for one is at best, wasted. At worst, it's a spoiler.

That being said, no rational progressive should vote for a third-party candidate until the rules are changed. If they do, they are likely to end up with their worst possible choice.

Regardless of Nader voters' claim that there is/was no difference between the two party candidates, no sane person can say that Nader voters would not have been better off under Gore than Bush.

re: Clemsy
"But Seriously Professor…. Where am I bashing Nader?"

As part of the chorus, you have specifically lapsed into a secondary criticism of mischaracterizing supporters of Nader. Do I really need to explain to you what a straw man is?
Do I also need to explain how tiresome are the same set of illegitimate criticisms year after year?

So certainly, dodge and weave. Avoid altogether my point about legitimate versus illegitimate criticism, as you have.

In the meantime, for those with both the wit to apprehend it and absent the stubbornness to refuse to grasp: electoral politics is a farce when the polity is compelled to vote for candidates whose positions are opposed to theirs.

You and yours are welcome to vote for the pro-war, corporatist candidate of your choice, but it will have to be without the company of most progressives, and no amount of hectoring or mischaracterization can change that.

Sorry... I think I said that already....

HEY TAILCAP!

"...to make sure, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the republicans are sent home in November."

I TAP MY KEYS AND ENGLISH COMES OUT! I'M SURE OF IT!

bildad, if you're having trouble posting to the forum it's probably the Microsoft software on your computer. Try the Linux operating system - it's nice.

I have absolutely no respect for those Dems who still whine, 8 years after the election, that Ralph Nader spoiled/stole an election that rightfully belonged to Al Gore. I have never seen any man of Nader's character and integrity trashed and vilified by people who have no clue.

I've heard people claim, with a straight face and fire in their eyes, that Ralph Nader is actually a closet Republican, turned loose upon America for the sole purpose of ensuring Republican victories. I've heard others claim that Nader is a megalomaniac who does what he does just to satisfy his own ego.

Such claims only betray the monumental ignorance of those who make them. Where do they get these ideas?! They get them from Democratic Party hacks...people whose BUSINESS it is to get members of the Democratic Party elected...by any means necessary.

These people have no loyalty to principles or platforms; their loyalty is to those who write their paychecks every week, whether it's Howard Dean or Terry McAullife. These are the folks who spend millions of dollars on litigation to keep Nader off the ballot in state after state (not because they despise him for his principles...but because it's their JOB to limit the voters' choices). They belie the word "democrat", because democracy is the furthest thing from their practical little minds; they focus like lasers on the task they are paid to carry out, totally divorced from any notion of idealism--warriors who are handsomely paid not to reason why, but to do or die.

Ralph Nader is motivated not by money or fame or self-aggrandisement. He lives modestly and pours all his resources into The Cause. He has gone so far as to write to his Democratic rivals with offers to drop out of the race if they will meet with him and promise to advocate for the issues that used to define the very character of the Democratic Party (The People's Party), back when character meant something other than gaining power by hook or by crook.

One needs to ask what they will do with that power once they manage to grasp it. Well, during the first two years of the first Clinton administration (when the Dems controlled not only the White House, but both houses of Congress) they didn't do very much except triangulate. Recently, when they held the House of Representatives and were virtually in control of the Senate, they do little except wring their hands and complain about how We The People must elect more of their Democratic Party brethren to Congress in order to accomplish anything.

We've seen no bold initiatives coming from Mr. Reid or Ms. Pelosi. On the contrary, they refuse to wield the power that they do have...out of fear or simple lack of conviction. They act like people who are only afraid of losing their jobs.

Anybody who insists that the Democrats are entirely different from the Republicans has not met the burden of proof. The Dems have continued, even after achieving majority status, to watch as this President and his henchmen have defied the Constitution and dared anyone to stop them, have prosecuted an illegal and entirely gratuitous war in Iraq, have used 9/11 as a latter-day Reichstadt Fire to scare the bejeezus out of the American citizenry, have all but dismantled governmental programs that have anything to do with the Public Welfare, have plunged this country into a debt from which we may never recover, have repeatedly short-changed the troops they have sent to fight this bogus War On Terror, have short-changed the veterans who bear the scars of this unholy war....and all this while the Democratic "leadership" holds the purse strings and the mechanisms for investigating and trying Bush and Company for their countless crimes and misdeeds

Still, we are told that these Democrats are, at least, not so bad as those Republicans who, they assure us, are the ONLY other choice we have in the coming election.

Clemsy March 1st, 2008 2:56 pm
GIVE ME THE REASONS TO VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRATS. I'M STILL WAITING. After you've done that you can go eat your lunch.

By that logic, we can expect the democrats to keep doing what they've been doing, right? Well then we can also expect the republicans to keep doing what THEY'VE been doing.

Pardon me while I lose my lunch.

So it's worth the risk of giving McCain the White House. The Repubs haven't been as bad as everyone says, in fact the Demos are worse for not stopping them from doing what hasn't been as bad as some people say.

But, hey, if you were going to stay home on election day anyway, or vote for some other third party candidate... fine. No problem.

In fact, if every one so vociferously for Nader was going to do the same thing, no big difference.

Cool. But please allow me, and others of like mind who believe the current crop of right wing extremists are indeed undermining the pillars holding up the sky, to make sure, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the republicans are sent home in November.

Then I'll be more than happy to help you change the world starting in January.

Okay, I've heard the one about the sky's falling! Quick, vote for a Democrat in spite of the fact they do nothing to stem Republicans. Good argument.

Secondly I don't want a reason to not vote for Republicans. GIVE ME A REASON TO VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT THAT ISN'T A REASON TO VOTE AGAINST A REPUBLICAN seeing as you have already admitted Dims haven't done: "Not a damn friggin" thing!

Not a damn friggin thing! No wait! That's wrong! Except for a couple brave voices, dutifully ignored, they've behaved like, like.... a bunch of Piglets!

Whatever. A democrat tops a republican any day, anyway. If a democrat takes the White House, it'll be up to US to make sure something gets done. You want a progressive agenda?

Make sure one happens.

You have to stop before you can turn around, and nothing would do that like a viable party coming alive made up of who used to be the Democratic base. That will wake people up.

But it won't happen during a campaign season and the slightest distraction from defeating the republican war criminals in November is just not acceptable to me.

And the left arguing this vociferously amongst themselves at this point makes those war criminals chuckle in their cheap beer.

Clemsy: What have the Democrats done as an "opposition party" in the last 8 years?

En garde Little Brother! My rapier of sardonic wit may bend but it's pointy!

"What you and the other reflexive Nader-bashers refuse to comprehend is that there are differences between legitimate and illegitimate criticism. When you and other chorus members sustain your post-2000 illegitimate criticisms of Nader, they invite rebuttal from those who still have the patience to refute studied ignorance."

But Seriously Professor.... Where am I bashing Nader? I think the guy has been great (but what's he done for me lately?). Every so often he writes a reasoned but passionate article that you and I and every one else at CD and Buzzflash reads with enthusiasm.

No, it's not Ralph I'm bashing! Not at all, no, no and no.

It's the reasoning that goes something like this: there's no difference between not only the admittedly vile and despicable sell-out DLC centrists Democrats and the flaming fascist fear mongering bible thumping xenophobic sexually repressed so let's kill kill kill right wing, there's no difference between them and anything that is still silly enough to wear the Democratic Party ass on his shirt.

I gotta be honest folks... at a certain point left-wing think like me or be damned dogma sounds no different than it's right-wing counterpart.

Go ahead and vote for Nader! I THINK YOU'RE WRONG! And I highly recommend you take care about about suggesting what 'true' progressives think.

True progressives have a variety of stands on left leaning issues. We're messy and sloppy and argue and don't sit in neat rows or lock our friggin' knees when we walk.

My opinion is: 1) stop the neo-cons then 2)get off our asses and take back the country from the bottom up me buckoes! If Nader's the leader in such an endeavor, fine great and dandy.

But he ain't going to do it in six or eight months of political campaigning every four years.

I say, "Duh."

Mr. Nader should continue running in every presidential election, otherwise there isn't any one left to point-out the government/corporate joint-venture that's redacting We The People from our Constitution.

Are these guys implying that if Nader hadn't run in 2000, Bush wouldn't have stolen the election?

SecularAnimist: Nader isn't a Green nor is he a Democrat. He's has been running as an independent. So the question properly comes to the Greens: Why aren't the Greens doing the work to help themselves? Perhaps the Greens should run more candidates at local levels to win more mayorships, city council seats, Congressional district races, State congresses, and the like. Real lasting change of the kind needed won't come from the top down. I helped a local man run on the Green ticket (something I'm glad to have done once but I'll have no plan to repeat) and I know how hard it is to get TV time to discuss one's candidacy. But I don't think the Greens are better off asking an independent candidate to stump for them.

As for Kucinich, his main problem is his party loyalty; he falls back on stumping for the Democrat who wins that party's primary which invariably means stumping against his stated politics. In 2004 it meant watching Kucinich tell people to support Kerry even though Kerry was pro-war and anti-universal single-payer health care (which meant Kerry would not co-sponsor HR676, the Conyers/Kucinich health care bill). As Sharon Smith rightly points out on CounterPunch.org:

He remains beholden to the Democrats-a ruling-class, imperialist party that coexists in a power-sharing arrangement with the Republicans-offering voters no genuine alternative to the status quo. If Kucinich truly believed his own rhetoric, he would leave, creating the possibility for building a viable third party that could provide an electoral vehicle to express popular opposition to corporate rule and the imperialist wars it inevitably produces.

Kucinich, this time, may have stumped for Obama instead of Edwards as a direct result of being treated so poorly by Edwards and Clinton. After a "debate" Clinton and Edwards were heard on mic conspiring about "cutting the number" of candidates to a "more serious...smaller group" which basically meant eliminating Kucinich (among others). I doubt that went over well at Kucinich HQ.

As for how Bush retained his presidency: the movie "An Unreasonable Man" does a fine job of explaining how lame it is to blame Nader for electing Bush. Curious how thousands of Democrats are allowed to vote Republican without criticism from the Democrats who chide Nader. I guess that just underscores the Democrat hypocrisy that helps drive so many away from watching the TV "debates" and voting for either corporate party candidate.

—J.B. Nicholson-Owens
Digital Citizen

It's so refreshing to read modest, straightforward, gentle remarks like Clemsy's!

Especially in contrast to the paranoid projections of would-be political insider's insiders like Joe Conason, who has "discovered" incontrovertable evidence that Nader is an arch-plutocrat conspiring with "Kid Shelleen" McCain to defeat the ascendant Democrats and their new Messiah! Now Ralph is exposed as not only a ludicrous distraction to political "reality" (owned and operated by the only duopoly in town, thank you)-- he's shown to be more than a mere pathological tool of the plutocracy. He's an agent, a mole, a conspirator! After all, Nader is himself a very wealthy man, so what other explanation can there be?

Who is madder, Nader or his shrill and supercilious detractors?

Anyhoo, Clemsy's sober, matter-of-fact comment is so much more persuasive and palatable than those humorless, raging, saliva-spraying sallies of would-be sarcastic ridicule and hyperbole. My instinct to defend and support the phenomenon of Ralph Nader on general principle didn't necessarily mean I'd vote for him. But now, with a little help from my CD friends, I realize that it's the only logical conclusion.

Nader who? Huh? If your not Green you are the problem. The rest is just rationalization. Cut your ties with corporate government now. It's the right thing to do. One individual just tilts at windmills. Ralph is tilting again! I'm not voting for the black person or the woman, I'm voting for the green person, persons.

Ralph, like all of us, need to develop the adult ability to stay focused and on topic. Ralph himself brought up the focus number of 435 on various occasions this past summer.

It is time for America to grow up and lead the world in growing up: look at the images of DU babies, go to TruthOut.org and see the current (3/1) picture of the young child being buried by his father - the age of innocence is over for America one way or another.

Consider that in WWI 10% of all casualties were civilians and now in Iraq the percentage is over 90% -- the ratio used to be 1:1 for societies warriors -- see the Ground Truth and Why We Fight -- the time of mano a mano is over -- we must change the expression of masculinity and femininity or go extinct or at least return to some very dark age.

We have Inflated Children who have bullied their way into very prominent offices -- Toney Early at DTE Energy says spent uranium fuel rods are a valuable tradable commodity while arguments over the disposal of uranium waste and Yucca mountain have raged for years. And of course the grossest example of the Bully Inflated Child resides in the White House and in the form of Colin Powell who has said phrases of events in Iraq like "We're going to the party and we're bringing all our tools".

Look once again at the pictures of "Depleted" Uranium babies and also of Dust storms photo-ed from space. Children play games at parties and "the game" the Inflated Children are "playing" include the disbursal of toxic uranium products into the atmosphere as well as ground water.

Look at the DU baby pictures: just as the US Constitution is being shredded by the Play of the Inflated Children, the genetic constitution of humanity, as well as the environment in which it resides is be corrupted - to the point of human extinction or at least the return for a very small percentage of humanity to a very dark age.

Thus, it is time to grow up. It is time to stay focused, and the focus is 435, and the call of the focus is impeachment.

One Mind: Impeach!

One Heart: Impeach!

ONE VOICE: IMPEACH!

re: Clemsy
"Let's vote Nader! Everyone else is actively working on the End of the World! Glory!"

What you and the other reflexive Nader-bashers refuse to comprehend is that there are differences between legitimate and illegitimate criticism. When you and other chorus members sustain your post-2000 illegitimate criticisms of Nader, they invite rebuttal from those who still have the patience to refute studied ignorance.

One wonders what such steadfast refusal to consider progressive ideas and positions is doing in a progressive discussion.

Pennsylvania's governor on Bill Maher last night was stumping for Hillary. I wondered why until the end when he revealed his Zionist roots. I guess Hill beats Obama in the Alles Fur Israel department. That's one more reason we need Nader in there telling it like it is.

I just wish this country wasn't so retarded and people like Nader could actually stand a chance to be president. Besides his obvious interest in only being the big guy in charge, he really has been a champion for the people. None of the other candidates even come close. It's just really sad how we all get so screwed and politicians only further enrich themselves and their corporate masters.

CD must love these Nader Yes! Nader No! discussions. One a day!

SecularAnimist writes:

"Why has Nader done absolutely nothing in between his presidential runs to help organize and build the Green Party as a strong, national progressive political party? Why, after claiming in 2000 that he was running in order to build the Green Party, did Nader turn his back on the Greens in 2004, not even seeking the Green Party nomination, but running as an independent instead — thereby undermining the Green Party?"

Hmmm. Careful there. Good questions. Ya gotta wonder at all the Nader enthusiasm that thunders as soon as he walks on the stage and disappears as soon as he walks off. The result of this type of "campaigning" is precisely.... nothing. If Nader were a viable candidate for president, he'd have accomplished a lot more, that really and truly and critically needs to be accomplished, between election campaigns.

But what the hell, Lefties! Let's vote for him anyway and see what four more years of right wing extremism can do! After all, both Hillary and Obama are no different than Cheney, Rummie or Wolfie, right? Sure! Well I have a picture of Hillary planting a big sloppy kiss on John Hagee's face around here somewhere. Absolutely! Hagee, McCain, Obama and Billary are all in bed together. No difference between a one of them.

Let's vote Nader! Everyone else is actively working on the End of the World! Glory!

Nader "did not know what he was talking about" when he claimed there was no difference between Bush and Gore.

Anyone who cannot agree with that statement merits no further consideration. To claim that Bush and Gore are the same and keep a straight face while you do it, just boggles the mind. It can only result from serious use of legal and otherwise mind altering drugs.

Range is much better than IRV. Think it out for yourself, put it through a dry-run experiment in your own brain. You can voice your will on all candidates independently, ties are allowed, you may indicate 0's, there is no failure of the so-called monotonicity criterion, and -- most importantly -- it's simpler.

Let's say you've got 8 candidates on a ballot. You'll have to ask all walks of life to fill in unique numbers 1-8 to rank them, in marker, no eraser. Any duplicates, missing numbers, etc. will cause the entire vote to be rejected. Otherwise you'll have to artificially limit the number ranks a person may make: out of the 8, rank 3 (first, second, and third choice). Thus, IRV descends into a 3-party hegemony. IRV hasn't lead to a great civic resurgence in Australia to my knowledge.

Range techniques are used at the Olympics, by statisticians and researchers everywhere. It's quite simple: "Assign a score to as many candidates below as you wish, 0 = no support, 10 = strongest support, ties are allowed."

I'm really unsure how everything snowballed into IRV, without any public debate, little evidence of people thinking it out for themselves, everyone sheeple -- even in progressive circles. Sure, IRV is better than what we have now, MUCH better. But why not shoot for the best?

Gore and Kerry conceded. Both actually won, and both conceded. WIMPS! Our elections are rigged! We must establish NATIONAL ELECTIONS. No more of this state primaries and Electoral College BULLSHIT! Instant Runoff Voting is a simple way for as many candidates as would like to run to be able to. Only then will we have a fair election for President/VP.

atheist417 February 29th, 2008 10:11 pm

"Hillary Clinton is such an egomaniac. She has run as uninspired a campaign as I have seen in my lifetime."

She has been running an ad here in Texas the last few days talking about what a champion of the poor and middle class she is. I seriously doubt Hillary reads these posts but if she does I would like to ask her exactly when she was a champion of the poor and middle class. Was it when she thought that NAFTA and other free trade deals that threw millions of people out of work was such a good deal for the American worker? Maybe it was when she introduced legislation as a senator to require renegotiation of all current and pending trade deals? Oops!! she didn't do that, she just claims she will as president. Maybe it was when she voted for the Iraq war which is being fought by hundreds of thousands of poor and middle class kids. Maybe it was when she voted for the Patriot Act which enables Bush to spy on millions of Americans, violating both the FISA act and the fourth amendment to the Constitution. Maybe it was when she challenged Bush for holding Jose Padilla for three and a half years without charges or access to an attorney. Oops she didn't do that either. etc. etc. etc.

Lobo Gris

rocyahsoul March 1st, 2008 12:10 am

Sounds just like a Republican talking points bulletin to me. Nader may this and Nader may that with a lot of innuendo but with no facts to back it up.

Get Nader charged and convicted in a court of law and then come back and post.

Lobo Gris

I campaigned for Nader in 2000 because after Welfare reform, cutting of SSI, NAFTA, Conglomeration of Media (hell a lot of stuff) I wanted to send a message to the Democratic party, get my concerns out in the mainstream, and most of all help establish a third party that would be an alternative to the Democrats. In every state that Nader would have won 5% the Greens would get an established place on the ballot instead of always having to get a petition signed. This year Nader isn't part of a party, and he has denounced the Greens. I feel that Cynthia McKinney, the Green party candidate, is the best to vote for if you truly can't stand Obama. She represents a movement. Nader has become a brand name like Clinton, except Nader is an alternative brand. I still stand by my decision to vote for Nader in 2000 and 1996, but Nader dose not represent what he used to. The press gives him attention NOW because they know he won't get even 1%, and that draws attention away from candidates like Cynthia McKinney who are trying to build alternatives to the Democrats. Many say that they can't vote for Obama because of his voting record, but are they giving Nader's recent actions, and the roster of other third party candidates the same scrutiny.

Peter Brimelow, "Nader may be a genius at touching this paranoid strain in the American people. He's also unsaintly-and untrustworthy-at any speed."

I am sure Nader is not a saint. You cannot deny that he is a whole-hell-a-lot better than anything the Democrats or Republicans have to offer. For starters he wants to put the bloated and wasteful military budget on the table. The Republicrats won't even mention it except to say they want to increase it.

Just who do you propose we vote for Mr. Peter Brimelow?

I would like to see what Mr. Nader has to say about the ton of issues and accusations you raised. Every story has two sides. I'm not saying you are lying or spinning everything but I am curious about how Ralph would respond to your accusations.

Look, even if all the accusations were true he would still beat the Democrats and Republicans with flying colors. What is the point?

arise:

Good point about Nader never having bothered to try running for a political office beneath head honcho.

What an obvious tool of divide that schlep is.

Brissot said "But there is also no doubt that Nader could have stopped Bush by urging his supporters to vote for Gore." This lack of doubt is a reflection of your own point of view and not an ascertainable fact. In fact it isn't true at all. The very idea that Nader voters were controlled by Nader and would have blindly followed his urging, which sounds more like you mean directive, to vote for Gore is absurd. I voted for Nader and I would have voted for Dave McReynolds if I hadn't voted for Nader. Under no circumstances would I have voted for Gore. The arrogance and ignorance of your statement is outrageous.

SecularAnimist asked "Why has Nader done absolutely nothing in between his presidential runs to help organize and build the Green Party as a strong, national progressive political party? ... As far as I can tell, Nader is not seriously interested in building a strong, effective, grassroots progressive political constituency either in the Green Party or the Democratic Party. He's only interested in playing this game every for years."

Uh, could it be that it's because Nader is NOT a politician? Nader's role has been to expose corporate malfeasance first as an attorney, then founding organizations that continue to do the work of countering corporate influence and protecting the public, and also to disseminate information as a commentator using various outlets to write on issues that matter to most Americans. Sounds like a full-time job to me.

Party building seems like it is our job to do, you know, we the people. You might better ask why that isn't/hasn't happened. I know progressives who have been mightly turned off on the Green Party,(Pacific Greens) and Nader's presence or non-presence would not have changed their analysis of the weaknesses one iota. In fact, Nader is a reason some stayed with the Green Party as long as they did.

I would imagine that he is doing just what he said he was doing by running, trying to use the only national platform available to him to try to inform the public about ideas whice are not usually made available to them by the MSM.

"Clinton and Obama can trash Nader all they want, but his 2000 run helped pave the way for them to be where they are today. "

Yes exactly on JudicialWatches list of the 10 most corrupt politicians in Washington.

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2007

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2007 list of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians." The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

1. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): In addition to her long and sordid ethics record, Senator Hillary Clinton took a lot of heat in 2007 – and rightly so – for blocking the release her official White House records. Many suspect these records contain a treasure trove of information related to her role in a number of serious Clinton-era scandals. Moreover, in March 2007, Judicial Watch filed an ethics complaint against Senator Clinton for filing false financial disclosure forms with the U.S. Senate (again). And Hillary's top campaign contributor, Norman Hsu, was exposed as a felon and a fugitive from justice in 2007. Hsu pleaded guilt to one count of grand theft for defrauding investors as part of a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme.

8. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL): A "Dishonorable Mention" last year, Senator Obama moves onto the "ten most wanted" list in 2007. In 2006, it was discovered that Obama was involved in a suspicious real estate deal with an indicted political fundraiser, Antoin "Tony" Rezko. In 2007, more reports surfaced of deeper and suspicious business and political connections It was reported that just two months after he joined the Senate, Obama purchased $50,000 worth of stock in speculative companies whose major investors were his biggest campaign contributors. One of the companies was a biotech concern that benefited from legislation Obama pushed just two weeks after the senator purchased $5,000 of the company's shares. Obama was also nabbed conducting campaign business in his Senate office, a violation of federal law.

Before you go thinking big money Nader is some solution:

http://www.vdare.com/pb/nader.htm

Last year FORBES found evidence that Nader had not in fact miraculously levitated above the "web of interests" in which other human beings are caught, but instead was intimately entwined with a group of rich lawyers: the plaintiff bar.

Our 1989 survey of the best-paid lawyers in America revealed that the top legal looters are not Ivy League corporate paper-pushers in Wall Street firms, but obscure plaintiff attorneys around the country-specialists in suing, often in personal injury cases. They are getting rich from the interaction of contingent fees, which get them 30% to 40% of any damage award in addition to expenses, and the litigation explosion resulting from the rewriting of "tort" law, covering personal injury and accidents, by a generation of reformist judges (FORBES, Oct. 16, 1989).

By rich, we mean very rich. Total contingent fee payments, excluding expenses, are now estimated to exceed $10 billion a year and to be rising. FORBES identified at least 62 plaintiff attorneys who made more than $2 million in each of the previous two years. Top moneymaker in 1988: Houston's Joe Jamail, with $450 million to $600 million.

Perhaps out of an uneasy conscience, the plaintiff attorneys were eager to tell us about their financial support of the noble Nader.

"We are what supports Nader, " said Pensacola's Frederic Levin ($7.5 million, 1988 income). "We contribute to him, and he fundraises through us." "We support him overtly, covertly, in every way possible," said San Antonio's Pat Maloney ($6 million). "I should think we give him a huge percentage of what he raises."

Why? Says Austin's Bob Gibbins ($3.7 million): "Nader supports all of our issues, and we support all of his."

The most visible aspect of this mutual support is the devastating bombardment of unfavorable publicity that Nader and his affiliates, through their unrivaled media contacts, are able to bring down on corporations which are simultaneously defending a product liability issue. Nader organizations have collaborated in such recent firestorms as the Audi 5000's alleged "sudden acceleration," which government investigators subsequently showed to be totally false.

Regardless of the merits, bad publicity can cripple a defendant's business and compel him to consider settling out of court in the hope of a quiet life-generally the most profitable outcome for the plaintiff attorneys. And for Nader, successful lawsuits are just another way of imposing his policy prescriptions, despite the plaintiff attorneys' expensive rakeoff.

When American Tort Reform Association former president James Coyne asked Nader about his plaintiff attorney funding at a press conference in Washington, he stormed from the podium and his supporter, Jay Angoff, rushed over and punched Coyne in the eye. (Angoff says it was a "very very mild shove.") Nader has refused to talk to FORBES, but in a press-time fax he insisted: "Over the past 30 years, not I % of the total funds raised by all our organizations have come from the legal profession."

Nader's hypersensitivity is easily explained. No one in American public life has been freer with accusations that his opponents are compromised by their own financial sources.

On May 10 there were bitter exchanges during Senate Consumer Subcommittee hearings on the Product Liability Reform Act, an attempt to stabilize the tort crisis. Two co-sponsors, Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and John Danforth (R-Mo.), objected to a letter Nader had published in their home newspapers, attacking their interest in tort reform and accusing them of being "huddled in Washington with corporate lobbyists, many of whom finance your [the Senators'] campaigns . . . taking away the existing rights of injured or sick people against the perpetrators of their harm."

Public Citizen's Sidney Wolfe, appearing as a witness, interjected angrily that Danforth was "lying" for suggesting that the organization was "talking for the economic trial lawyers." Wolfe claimed that Nader "has had no connection with Public Citizen since 1980"—although Nader's identification with his flagship is so complete that his name is emblazoned on its recent direct mail campaign envelopes. Confronted with FORBES' Oct. 16 article, Wolfe asserted it contained "several mistakes" and implied that Nader's response had forced a FORBES "retraction or correction." (Quite untrue.)

Wolfe grudgingly said he would provide details of Public Citizen's own financing by trial lawyers "if it is possible." Somehow, it wasn't.

Nader tactics in the face of this sort of inquiry apparently haven't changed in nearly 20 years. In 1972 New Republic linked the fact that Nader's Center for Auto Safety had accepted a $10,000 check from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America to his opposition to no-fault insurance. Wall Street Journal editor David Sanford, in his book "Me & Ralph: Is Nader Unsafe for America" recounts Nader's reaction: (1) refusal to discuss the subject; (2) a "hysterical, personally abusive" counterattack; (3) a claim that the Center for Auto Safety was independent of him, although Sanford later confirmed that Nader was intimately involved in the organization; (4) a claim that a New Republic note that its story did not say Nader's position was actually "determined" by ATLA'S check was a "retraction."

Encouraged by all this, FORBES has performed a Nader-type raid on Nader. But let's be clear: We're not saying that Nader's views are "determined" by his financing. We're being more charitable about him than he is about his own opponents. Nader's views could well just coincide with his backers'. But his contacts could also have consequences.

For example, in 1988 Nader and California plaintiff attorneys agreed to exchange his credibility for their money. Nader came out in opposition to Proposition 106, a popular contingent-fee limitation measure.

"[106] was certain to pass," says Claremont, Calif.'s Herb Hafif (1988 income, $40 million). "It had 70% -to-approval 80% ratings among the public, and no one [in the plaintiff bar] thought it could be taken on directly. ... Finally I asked Ralph to help, and he did ... and I helped his 103 initiative, and it passed by a few points, and we beat 106 by a few points."

This was not a sellout but a true compromise. It's embarrassing for Nader to be attacked for his studied passivity on contingent fees and the many other anticonsumer practices of the plaintiff bar. And the plaintiff attorneys presumably don't really want to destroy the insurance companies, the "deep pockets" that pay their fees and pass the costs on to consumers. But both sides sank their differences to make an effective alliance.

It just wasn't especially saintly.

We're also not investigating Nader's personal finances. But he has made his austerity vow central to his public image. He told the Washington Post last summer that he lives on less than $10,500 a year. (In a fax reply to our questions, he amended it: "Closer to $15,000, now. Insurance premiums sharply up.") We take this with a pinch of low-sodium seasoning.

"Oh God, limousines and nothing but the best hotels," says a disillusioned former state Trial Lawyers Association official. "We got quite a bill when he was in town." Nader's agent says he makes 50 to 100 appearances a year, charging a sliding scale; FORBES has heard of five-figure fees, suggesting an upper limit of $1 million speaking income alone.

Nader has confirmed to FORBES that his total earnings were around $250,000 a year back in the early 1970s—"funds devoted to our causes." But this is another Nader miracle/myth that needs to be set in perspective. Nader's "causes" are usually tax-exempt entities. Giving money to them is not the same as giving a quarter to a street person. It can generate tax deductions—as well as, in effect, financing Nader's own business. Indeed, Nader may personally own the Public Safety Research Institute (net worth, $649,000), because he has registered it under Delaware's peculiar nonprofit law—an irony, because he has denounced business' taking advantage of the state's liberal incorporation rules.

Another Nader miracle/myth: his long-standing claim that he lives "in a simple room" near his office. Even Nader's close associates apparently aren't told the address. And he personally repeated the story to the New York Times' Philip Shenon last year.

But neighbors say, and have said for nearly 20 years, that Nader lives in a townhouse, worth perhaps.$1.5 million and assessed at $7,400 annual property taxes, on Bancroft Place in northwest Washington, D. C. (see picture, p. 117). District records show the deed is held by Nader's sister Claire, who seems to work in his organization. (Nader still denies this, and will say only that his sister "works on a number of civic projects and research programs. ")

There's nothing shocking about living well, except by Nader's peculiar standards. His many admirers would certainly be happy to buy him an ecclesiastical palace. But maybe that would suggest he was not a saint but human—even, possibly, fallible.

FORBES estimates Nader has control to varying degrees over 29 organizations with combined revenues of $75 million to $80 million and assets of at least $23 million (see chart, p. 120).

We faced three problems:

bullet Although Nader favors strong regulation, his own nonprofit, tax-exempt area is very loosely policed. For example, it is impossible to know how much "sales and membership" revenue comes from trial lawyers; some must, because major Nader organizations openly sell litigation kits, material obtained through Freedom of Information requests and discovery proceedings that helps lawyers preparing to sue. And anyway, plaintiff attorneys are known to hide their donations by such methods as having their wives sign checks.

bullet Although Nader advocates minute regulatory enforcement for others, preferably with criminal penalties, his own organizations display a remarkable "pattern" of filing delinquencies-to borrow the jargon of RICO, the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, extending which to just such technical white-collar crime is a pet Nader cause. The IRS says it has no record of Nader's headquarters, Center for Study of Responsive Law, founded in 1968, and has never received a Form 990, the appropriate disclosure filing, from it. (Nonprofits can be obliged to show their 990s; at press time CSRL sent one to FORBES-but unsigned by an accountant and unseen by the IRS.) Additionally, all but one of the 18 Nader organizations in Washington have failed to register or obtain current licensing from the city's Department of Consumer & Regulatory Affairs. FORBES inquiries have prompted an official investigation. Nader organizations have also failed to file in several of the states where they solicit funds. This pattern is not new. It was noted in Washington lawyer Dan Burt's exhaustive 1982 survey of the Nader organizations, Abuse of Trust. In 1989 Nader aide Mark Green's Democracy Project was denied a solicitation license for regulatory noncompliance.. Green now heads up New York City Mayor David Dinkins' Department of Consumer Affairs. Nader has had another run-in with regulators: In 1970, according to Gannett News Service, his Safety Systems was fined by the IRS for "jeopardizing charitable purposes," including, in one case, short-selling the stock of a company Nader was attacking.

bullet Nader once wrote that "Information is the currency of democracy. Its denial must always be suspect." But his own organizations are vehemently secretive, sometimes even declining to disclose their addresses. They are particularly sensitive about funding, unlike many nonprofits, and about their precise relationships with Nader. We suspect Nader's organizations are more centralized than they initially appear. For example, the Fund for Public Interest Research administers door-to-door canvassing for member-state Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGS), and as much as $8.5 million of the proceeds flow to its coffers in Boston. Managers coordinate the PIRGS' canvassing with that of Clean Water Action and Citizen Action.

And although Nader has campaigned for federal chartering of corporations on the grounds that they tend to be controlled by "a management autocracy," this exactly describes his own organizations. Nader's control over his nucleus appears absolute. And even some Nader affiliates that accept a "membership," like Public Citizen, have no provisions for internal democracy. By contrast, full members of the National Rifle Association get to vote on board members and other aspects of its governance.

But then, they don't have the advantage of being saints.

All of which eerily resembles nothing so much as John D. Rockefeller's original secret Standard Oil Trust. This "shrewd and slippery device for evading responsibility," in the words of the great muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell, "had no legal existence. It was a force as powerful as gravitation and as intangible. You could argue its existence from its effects, but you could never prove it. You could no more grasp it than you could an eel."

Questions to the Standard Oil Trust had to be phrased with extreme care because of a bland pretense that there was no one here but us chickens working "in harmony," and because of an unsaintly penchant for legalistic loopholes. The Nader Trust is just the same but considerably ruder.

Presumably one reason for this behavior: deniability. Thus key Nader henchperson Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen's president, said last year that "we have 50,000 members [contributors of $50 or more]. I would be surprised if there were 20 members of the plaintiff bar among them."

Claybrook could have told us that, apart from Public Citizen, three Nader affiliates were openly funded by plaintiff attorneys to the tune of almost $1 million. And that she was on the board of one of them.

Another possible reason for the Nader Trust's secrecy: It's partly built with tax-deductible money. Up to 40% of all its funds are what Washington calls "tax expenditures"—money that would otherwise be in government hands. And just as the legal environment of the time made it difficult for Rockefeller to organize across state lines, the complications of tax law today may well make it hard for Nader to simultaneously generate propaganda, lobby and campaign for his political candidates while preserving deductible status. For both Rockefeller and Nader, noninvolvement may be a necessary legal fiction.

Already the Federal Election Commission has fined one Nader loose affiliate, the Illinois Public Action Council, for illegal use of funds in a political campaign. The FEC is currently considering a complaint by the National Republican Senatorial Committee alleging massive use of tax-exempt money in the 1988 election by Citizen Action and its affiliates in alliance with the UAW, the National Education Association, the Machinists and other labor unions.

Who supports the Nader Trust? Despite its best efforts, the web of interests' outline is clear (see chart, above).

Some threads of this web merit particular attention:

bullet Litigation wins court awards for the Nader Trust-over $150,000 of Public Citizen's revenues-giving it another reason to oppose tort reform.

bullet Foundations supporting the Nader Trust range from the impeccably Establishment, like Ford and Rockefeller, to the decidedly left, like the New World Foundation and the Philip M. Stem Family Fund. Other contributors are tobacco fortunes like Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. Smoking is a far greater health problem than many of Nader's concerns, but he has shown little interest in it until recently. The Playboy Foundation supported CSRL for many years, apparently not compromising Nader's stated sensitivity to feminist issues.

bullet Discount deals reportedly intrigued Nader because of the mass membership built up in this way by the American Association of Retired Persons. Public Citizen's Buyers Up and some PIRGS, although technically nonprofits, now offer discounts on, for example, home heating oil.

bullet In 1988 Buyers Up offered to sell radon detection devices in return for a cut. Some suppliers declined, and Public Citizen immediately trashed their products for shoddy quality.

bullet Political muscle produces money for the Nader Trust to a distinctly unholy extent. During the Carter Administration, numerous Naderites were appointed to government agencies, notably Joan Claybrook at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and government money was shoveled to the Nader Trust. Naderites are still well placed in friendly state and local governments: The pugnacious Jay Angoff is now New Jersey Governor James Florio's Deputy Commissioner for Insurance. (Nader Trust organizations also get some $100,000 annually from the Combined Federal Campaign, the civil service charity.)

The Nader Trust has also muscled subsidies for its Citizen Utility Boards out of the utility industry-and, more spectacularly, for its PIRGS—out of student dues at many colleges, although most PIRG activity is off-campus and political. Both methods have suffered from court challenges. But when a UCLA student referendum recently barred CALPIRG from fee collecting, its lobbyists in Sacramento attempted to restore that source of funding.
bullet Door-to-door solicitation raises an impressive $48 million a year for the Nader Trust, making massive use of cheap, idealistic foot soldiers-a base salary of between $175 and $300 a week plus commission. Citizen Action says that on any given summer night it has 2,000 on the march. Reports from the canvassing front speak of a combination of strict discipline and song-singing boosterism redolent of a kamikaze sweatshop.

All very creditable, if creepy. But remember that this successful solicitation partly depends on offering a tax deduction in return. And the issues raised on the doorstep—clean water and apple pie-are not alarmingly political ... at first.

Remember also that the cost of this money can be high-sometimes up to 70% of gross—and it takes a lot of organizing. Still worth it, of course, not least because the presence of canvassers on the doorstep is in itself politically useful. Indeed, Citizen Action's Edwin Rothschild directly told FORBES that its canvassers push political candidates—a flagrant breach of their nonprofit status that Executive Director Ira Arlook was anxious to deny.
bullet Unions, aided by lax disclosure, can easily conceal their support for the Nader Trust. Thus the UAW, long rumored to be close to Nader, militantly refuses to explain the $713,000 of its members' dues that IRS documents show it gave in 1989 to such interesting-sounding causes as "Citizenship" and "Fraternal." Nevertheless, at least one Nader loose affiliate, Citizens for Tax justice, is virtually all union-funded. And there are other signs of union involvement: Union officials turn up on the boards of Citizen Action. * Insurance. "We do not take any business or industry money at all," joan Claybrook told FORBES in 1989.

Public Citizen may not. But Claybrook is cochair of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (revenues, $1 million), which is funded by the insurance industry. And the Center for Auto Safety took in contributions of over $200,000 last year from Allstate and State Farm foundations.

This relationship is no surprise to the embattled minority of non-Naderite promarket consumer groups. "In fact, industry is not actually on our side," says Consumer Alert's Barbara Keating-Edh, "because they use regulations to gain a competitive edge."

The edge the insurance industry seeks is to staunch its claims outflow-in any way. Nader can help pass costs on: for example, to Detroit and the consumer (expensive mandatory safety devices) or the government (more expensive roads) or the motorist (speed limits, crash helmets).

Nader is acutely aware of this industry hankering. He was openly power-brokering at last year's Professional Insurers Agents convention, one of many insurance forums he regularly addresses, urging the industry to "sit around the table" with him and use its "muscle" to support his current panaceas-and to abandon tort reform, which he warned would bring "an incredible backlash."

Insurance companies are notoriously short-sighted. But even a blind and stupid industry might have gotten the message after Proposition 103. Nevertheless, the insurers coughed up for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety the next year.

Adding insult to injury, Nader made an extraordinary intervention into the 1990 California Democratic gubernatorial primary. Supporting plaintiff attorney-linked John Van de Kamp against Diane Feinstein, he said that with a vote for Feinstein "You might as well write a check to Aetna and State Farm"—two of the very insurers that write checks to the Nader Trust.
bullet Plaintiff attorneys and Ralph Nader have a connection that can only be described as umbilical. The financial birth of Nader's movement, another myth/miracle, was the unprecedented $425,000 settlement in 1970 of his invasion of privacy suit against General Motors. And Nader's lawyer, Stuart M. Speiser, has written that he contributed $10,000 of his $150,000 share to Public Citizen's Aviation Consumer Action Project-"at Ralph's request."

So Nader was soliciting a major plaintiff attorney contribution right at the moment of creation. Typically, Speiser himself is an aviation law specialist and stood to benefit from his "charitable" act.

Despite Claybrook, plaintiff attorneys who are members of Public Citizen are easy to find. "I contribute regularly," says Knoxville's J.D. Lee (estimated 1988 income, $1.5 million). "I probably give them [consumer groups] 5% of my income," says Miami's J.B. Spence (1988 income, $2.5 million). "TLPJ, Public Citizen, I belong to all of them. .. It's a mutual exchange thing."

All this and tort reform, too. "Whenever a state Trial Lawyers Association has a bill that they are really concerned about," says the disillusioned former state TLA official, "and it looks as though they need a heavy, they bring in Ralph." Nader recently made such interventions in Pennsylvania and California. Our source says Nader attends state TLA conventions, for a fee, "winter and summer."

If idealistic canvassers are Nader's foot soldiers, the plaintiff attorneys are his cavalry, sure and swift.

"Ralph might call me and say, would you support such and such a group and I would say yes," says Houston's Richard Warren Mithoff (1988 income, $ 7.4 million), himself a former Raider. "Or he might say, if you could contact some lawyers-and others-and see if they would be interested in supporting such and such a group." Mithoff says he's "certainly given money" to Public Citizen.

Does this web of interest have implications? Well, maybe so.

bullet Left-wing looneyism. The Nader Trust gets money from foundations interested in left-wing causes. And many Nader Trust attitudes can only be explained by leftist ideology. For instance, Public Citizen is opposed to a capital gains tax cut, a leftist reflex without any conceivable consumer rationale that has even provoked complaining letters to its house magazine from its own supporters. And innocent-looking causes are Naderized into a leftist political agenda: Founder Maggie Kuhn says Nader-affiliated Gray Panthers is "an advocacy group ... teaching about peace and justice, not consumer stuff." Conversely, as the non-Naderite American Council on Science and Health's Elizabeth Whelan says, "If there is a health problem that does not target industry, they [the Nader Trust] completely ignore it." She points out that Nader's CSPI has campaigned against presweetened cereals but has never endorsed fluoridation.

bullet Tort reform. The Nader Trust's plaintiff attorney relationship sets in context Nader's absolute opposition to all attempts at tort reform. Yet one study by consultants Tillinghast suggests the tort system's gross cost to the economy (and the consumer) was $117 billion and rising fast-not counting stifled innovation.

bullet Protectionism. Nader's labor union relationships suggest he will continue his traditional tactful reticence about America's drift to protectionism, a favorite labor cause. Yet quantitatively this is a gigantic threat to consumers-currently costing them about $80 billion a year, according to Nancy Oliver, a director at Citizens for a Sound Economy, another non-Naderite Washington consumer group. And it's estimated that the proposed Textile, Apparel and Footwear Act of 1990 now before Congress could cost consumers $160 billion in the first five years alone. But Public Citizen says it has "no position" on the legislation.

bullet * Environmentalism. Nader's dependence on white middle-class staff and canvassers suggests he cannot question their favorite cause: environmentalism. But, ultimately, it must raise costs to consumers.

How Nader will resolve is conflict is clear from the recent controversy over federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations CAFE): In an interview with Barron's David Henderson, Nader sided with the environmentalists in demanding that CAFE standards be increased, although this pushes people toward smaller cars that are less crashworthy. Naderites argue that smaller cars should just have more safety devices-although these must tend to raise costs and price out the marginal consumer.

Illogical for a safety and consumerism advocate-but a necessary compromise for a tough professional agitator balancing in his web of interests.

FORBES does not claim that Ralph Nader is corrupt, although he's clearly a case of what historian Richard Hofstadter described in his celebrated essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics:

"Overheated, oversuspicious, overaggressive, grandiose and apocalyptic in expression.... His sense that his political passions are unselfish and patriotic, in fact, goes far to intensify his feeling of righteousness and his moral indignation."

Nader may be a genius at touching this paranoid strain in the American people. He's also unsaintly-and untrustworthy-at any speed.

TABULAR DATA OMITTED

Peter Brimelow, editor of VDARE.COM and author of the much-denounced Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster (Random House - 1995).

bildad February 29th, 2008 7:00 pm
Yea I got that. There was nothing wrong or obscene with my post and it got posted later. It's okay, don't worry about.

Oh, thanks COmmon Dreams for this article. Breath of fresh air.

2 paragraphs in WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP...

Clinton is not genuinely upset about Big Money Nader adding a little drama to the divide and conquerism.

It's who counts the votes that got Bush elected. Not the people not Al Gore, not anybody but who paid to have Republican Senators CEO over electronic PAPERLESS voting machines that leave no physical trail to verify the vote count. By the exit polls Gore won in 2000 AND Kerry won in 2004. They don't care to have been responsible for what the money power was planning on having this government execute.

Financial dominance is the name of the "big game on the world" players. Point the finger anywhere but at where all the money went, and you're playing a part in the divide and conquerism. And you're going to live your afterlife as a bug, no matter how much George Bush promises to regenerative medically deliver you to ever life.

Bugs don't live so good propaganda boy.

Again:
* Nader got like 5% of the vote in '00.
* The number of non-voters was like 35-45%.
* Gore won the popular.
* Liebermann was -- and is -- a neocon.
* We have a terribly broken Electoral, winner-take-all, non-Range/IRV, Diebold, Corporate Media, and lobbyist-driven system.
* Once you do the math -- accounting for the people who didn't vote, who voted for Bush, etc. only a minority of eligibles actually voted FOR Gore/Lie-bermann.

Blaming this on Nader is not bad judgment, it's an outright lie.

arise257 - I'll be pissed if we get McCain because Nader siphoned off 2% of the vote.

Don't worry, Nader won't siphon off my vote this time. That's because I'm voting for McCain.

8 years of Bush wasn't enough to force the Democrats to stop taking votes for granted. Maybe 8 years of McCain will accomplish that feat.

I can't believe it. A commentary on CD that actually supports Nader.

Hopefully more to come. Particularly with his current run.

It took long enough.

One thing I noticed is that having DK and Gavel in the race eventually forced Clinton and Obama to embrace positions at least slightly left of center right--their comfort zone. They didn't do that to be nice.We need more voices challenging them, especially ones saying what many in this country know in their hearts, to move the debate leftward. DK won the debates he was allowed to particpate in---he may have been ignored, ridiculed and thus silenced, but the power brokers knew a nerve in the American people had been exposed that they can ignore at their peril---it is the same with Nader. That's why they fear him and trash him---how can you support a party that is so clearly UN-democratic?

I heard him speak on Talk of the Nation and he made it clear that he was in it to move the debate to issues not being addressed---how can anyone who claims to believe in freedom of speech and open political process object to this? How else do you think it is going to happen my friends???It is beyond my comprehension and I am so sick and tired of hearing the same old hateful anti-democratic rants. Listen to yourselves people----GOOD GODESS!! HUMANS LOVE TO SCAPEGOAT! That way they don't have to take responsibility for their own failings.

I don't know if I'll vote for Raplh but I tell you one thing, I will fight for his right to be heard because he is speaking up for me and for the citizens of this country. Why wouild anyone argue with that?

Anybody but a Dim Wit. Vote Greens!

I love the one about Nader gave us Bush. What a crock! Sorry, the Democrats actually won bimbos! Gore folded and the Dims caved as is their practice. The Dims are only good at fighting against Nader or third parties. When it comes to a Republican that's another story.

A personal favorite is the one when the 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman actually makes out with Republican George Bush on camera. I kid you not, just check Joe Leiberman in Wikipedia. They made a video of it. You can see them both, smooching and kissing. This is no joke, no I'm serious. That's how the "opposition party" treats Repugs. I am sure you all know that the Democratic vice presidential candidate is currently out campaigning for Republican Johnny "100,000 Yrs War" McCain.

Why we don't vote for Dim Wits: Just watch them cave on the telecommunications bill granting criminals immunity from past and future crimes. Just like they caved on everything else from war, to impeachment and waterboading. Just watch.

So Democrats, when you start crying out about Nader just find yourself a nice, fat Republican. They can comfort you, and if you get really lucky you might just end up with a big, fat, juicy kiss like Joe and George.

Hillary Clinton is such an egomaniac. She has run as uninspired a campaign as I have seen in my lifetime. Makes Kerry seem almost human in comparison. She has no real policy solutions in mind, and the kind of "experience" and "leadership" she has exhibited in her role in the Senate prove her uniquely unqualified for the highest office in the land. Her only campaign promise, that I can tell, would be that, if elected, she would be the first female president. A female Bill Clinton.

Barack Obama is such an egomaniac. He runs around, telling people what they want to hear when it's safe, and then bowing down to the powers that be when it really counts. His promises of "Change" and "Hope" could have really come in handy in the past two years he has served in the Senate. He is all style, and no substance. His only campaign promise, as far as I can tell, would be that, if elected, he would be the first "Black" president. Or, blacker than the first "Black" president, Bill Clinton.

John McCain is such an egomaniac. How many times has he run for president now? He's cozying up to the religious right, whom he denounced only a few years ago. His campaign promises make most of the country cringe. And he can't really run on his record in the Senate, either. I guess the maverick thing to do is to suck up to Bush. When is the last time he took a stand on anything that really mattered to the people of this country? Even conservatives hate him.

None of these candidates can give us a GOOD reason to make them president. All three have spent their political careers making things worse, by giving Bush everything he wanted, and screw the American people. And why are we made to choose one of three Senators this year? The only qualifications to become a senator are you have to be rich, and you have to be an idiot.

Definition of an egomaniac: A person who thinks they can run this country better than I can. Okay, let the "Nader-is-an-egomaniac" bashing continue.

Six million scummy Democrats voted for Bush in 2000 and they are complaining about the 2 million votes that Nader got?

Typical Democratic bullshit.

The first time I ever voted was when i voted for Ralph. I've never voted since. And unfortunately, I can't vote this year due to felony disenfranchisement laws in washington state.

See, I can live in california and the disenfranchisement laws found in washington do NOT apply to citizens of california. Therefore I could vote. However, I don't live in California anymore so i can't vote. But if i could, and if you're reading this Ralph, you would have my vote again.

It's was nice to have a choice.

It would be nice to have a choice again....

Salon exposed the Nader-McCain connection today. http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/02/29/mccain_nader/index.html?source=rss&aim=/opinion/conaso...

Now you know.

Is anyone else having their posts-with nothing obscene or unduly argumentative included--disappear with an "awaiting moderation" notice that never results in the comment appearing on this page?

The to do list is short:

Be progressive, act progressive, support progressive.

right now Nader is the only game in town pushing progressive ideas, like it or not.

A short "to do list" for those feeling the need to get involved beyond the Huxleyian blue band front organizations out there, like MoveOn.org

1. Eat your vegetables

2. Call your mother

3. Join the Greens

Ciao

Nice to read a true progressive voice on the so called "progressive newswire" rather than the same worn out tripe provided by a pack of inside the beltway apologists. People like Hayden, Nichols, Hartmann, and Flanders to name a few. These progressive wannabes are so dysfunctional in their eagerness to spread the gospel according to the status quo. Their political orthodoxy is getting so deep one needs waders to get through their BS. Thanks Heath and keep up the good work.