Interested discussants should know that Howard Zinn has now affirmed by letter that he will vote for Ralph Nader, predicated on Massachusetts being a "slam dunk" state for Obama.

Not just the USA, the entire world needs to make a commitment and develop a SOCIAL CONSCIENCE.

NOTES ON ZINN AND 3rd PARTIES

story byline: "small differences matter, but a powerful social movement needed for real change"

Yes, of COURSE a powerful social movement is needed. The problem is - in a postindustrial, weak union setting - how?

The historical models for strong left wing movements are the whole 19th century in Europe - when a combination of electoral power and social militancy pushed capitalist democracies left - the Civil War, when a strong abolitionist movement pushed a centrist gatekeeper into office, and the 1930s, when strong unionized labor, in a crisis, led to the election of the centrist gatekeeper Roosevelt.

The besetting problem of progressives today is - as another comment noted - that there is no strong union movement today. This 'problem' has not been worked through. Strong unions are the 'classical' basis for resisting capitalism, the work condition that forms 'class consciousness' and the formation of unions and socialist/communist movements vs. the right wing tendencies of the atomized and ruling-class-identifying middle classes.

Hotel and restaurant workers and certain others have achieved some success - Janitors for Justice, e.g. - especially in Latino communities like L.A., where a cultural unity supports workplace and political unity. But - despite the conservative orientation of post-WWII American unions, which were purged of left wing elements during America's second red scare - they formed a ground of resistance against the right: maybe some workers identified with the cultural politics of the right, but their consciousness of economic interests could keep them from voting Republican.

Of course, some labor unions were corrupt and right wing, supporting the Vietnam War. But - rather like Zinn asserts of the Democrats - they contained a potential to be progressive.

Progressives should be concentrating on the practical problems of organizing a progressive movement in a post-industrial, post-union setting, in a historically right wing country.

ZINN AND HIS GOOD FRIEND, CHOMSKY, THOROUGHLY DISCREDITED

Zinn and Chomsky always advocate voting for a Democratic president following a Republican one. They regurgitate the same old crap about how a Democrat offers an opening for change.

Zinn and Chomsky brought us George W. Bush by advocating A DO NOTHING STANCE in the past. Zinn and Chomsky are complicit in the slaughter of Iraqis for having supported the disastrous two-party system for decades, and for continuing to support it.

Bill Clinton dropped three investigations into Republican wrongdoing, including one into the illegal arming of Iraq by the White House (read "Spider's Web" by Alan Friedman, at the time, a London Financial Times correspondent). Had Clinton destroyed George Bush Senior's reputation, his son would have had a hard time trying to get into the White House.

Democrats and Republicans work as a team demolishing other countries, and now they are moving the wrecking ball towards the U.S.

Unlike Chomsky and Zinn, I don't make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year giving speeches and interviews, and writing books and articles, so I can say what I think. And I think the American people deserve what's coming to them for being so utterly uncaring and selfish - for supporting George Bush when he invaded Iraq, and for voting him back into office in 2004.

Barack Obama said CORPORATE "GLOBALIZATION IS INEVITABLE" and praised RONALD REAGAN.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

TO HELL WITH THE REPUBLICANS. TO HELL WITH THE DEMOCRATS. TO HELL WITH ZINN. AND TO HELL WITH CHOMSKY, WHO HAS SET UP A TRUST FUND TO AVOID PAYING TAX.

Alan MacDonald

This whole debate regarding Zinn, Chomsky, and the question of whether it is most reasonable (and hopefully in the long term interest of progressives) to vote for Obama, instead of being led to believe in a dramatic and fundamental change in our society has been stirring old thoughts and vague memories that until today I could not quite recapture.

Then, suddenly it hit me. I remembered Herbert Marcuse's parable of "The Skylark and the Frogs" from Theodore Roszak's "The Making of a Counter Culture" which I, like millions of my generation read in college in the 1960's.

It starts:

"THE SKYLARK AND THE FROGS

"There was once a society of frogs that lived at the bottom of a deep, dark well, from which nothing whatsoever could be seen of the world outside. They were ruled over by a great Boss Frog, a fearful bully who claimed, on rather dubious grounds, to own the well and all that creeped or crawled therein. The Boss Frog never did a lick of work to feed or keep himself, but lived off the labors of the several bottom-dog frogs with whom he shared the well. They, wretched creatures, spent all the hours of their lightless days and a good many more of their lightless nights drudging about in the damp and slime to find the tiny grubs and mites on which the Boss Frog fattened.

Now, occasionally an eccentric skylark would flutter down into the well (for God only knows what reason) and would sing to the frogs of all the marvelous things it had seen in its journeyings in the great world outside: of the sun and the moon and the stars, of the sky-climbing mountains and fruitful valleys and the vast stormy seas, and of what it was like to adventure the boundless space above them."

And should be read in full here:

http://neptune.esc.k12.in.us/socratic/resources/THESKYLARKANDTHEFROGS.html

In today's context, and with what I have learned from 40 years of living and thinking of political economy after college, my re-reading of the parable immediately up-dated my image of 'Boss Frog' to the ruling-elite 'corporatist Empire' controlling our country behind the facade of its two-party, 'Vichy' sham of a democratic government.

The more sophisticated and guileful 'Boss Frog' I've grown to know today seeks a foggier and background role, and employs a pair of political 'front-men frogs' to keep his 'wretched creatures' in line ----- AND fearfully immune to the skylark's tales.

Zinn, Chomsky, and many other principled progressive champions seem to be suggesting that one of these 'front-men frogs' is kinder and more amenable to 'change' than the other 'front-man frog', and that putting ourselves under his sway may allow us, one day in the future, to right the wrongs of the hidden "Boss Frog's" hidden Empire without ever having to either see or confront the Boss Frog or the EMPIRE.

Maybe this new 'corporatist Empire' is different than all prior empires, and maybe it can be politely overturned and allow a democracy of 'wretched creatures' to come about without those 'wretched creatures' ever having to see or fight the empire itself.

But then again, that kind of ending to the parable might take more than the two thousand years that we've spent progressing from empire to the original American Revolution --- and I don't think we've got another two thousand years to recapture what we've recently lost in just a few years.

I don't know, just for laughs. What if Nader did win? What would he do with a Democratic and Republican Congress and a giant media, war and corporate machine?

Anyone? Bueller?

I agree with Zinn. I do not see why there is such resistance to the idea that progress can come only from building progressive movements and electoral contenders. Real contenders, not gestures.

Neither Obama nor Nader per-se will bring progress. With Nader, there is absolutely no chance, since he will not win and will simply evaporate as a factor after the election. (Am I being too prosaic?)

The election will create a field on which we will play. But we will be the ones who have to exert ourselves over a long period of time - and not just our typing fingers. It will take some real work.

Joe

I thank Common Dreams for providing Professor Howard Zinn’s video.

I would definitely vote for Mr McCain because I know he would be the one who would bring about real changes, in either of the following two scenarios:

1. He’s worse than Bush, and he would screw the Americans and the America so much more that, as Prof Zinn said, it will raise the level of people’s indignation who would then bring about the real change.

2. With his unpredictable and nasty temperament, he is very likely to start WWIII, which will be the mother of all changes.

There was, however, something Prof Zinn said that I do not dig. He wants someone, like Nader, to start a very large movement so as to change the Democratic Party’s behavior:

1. If Nader could create such a large movement, he could just as well put his name on the ballot and win the election.

2. Let’s assume that the reason Obama is elected was because of a movement that Nader created. Exactly how are people going to force Obama to do their bidding?

Do you really think people's indignation would be raised if McCain came out as the winner? Don't bet on it.

It's amazing how shallow these supposedly "alternative voices" become when confronted with the two party capitalist electoral system . They just cave in. The Zinn's and Chomsky's are worried about maintaining and multiplying their own wealth and standard of living--they're rich capitalist's after all. Do you think they're really going to support a movement that would undoubtedly threaten their status quo? Of course not. This is the same dangerous style of thinking that most American's fall into. They scream for change, support candidate's with empty rhetoric of change, but then file behind one another at the polling stations to cast votes within a system that is adamantly against change. McCain and Obama have virtually the same foreign policy, economic platform, health care plan, free trade agenda--the same as Bush 1 & 2, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Ford...

The interview with Zinn was troublingly contradictory as well. He talks about how we need large movements to initiate change, movements that are the manifestation of the disenfranchised American--pouring out against the gridlock political system that binds them. Oh the movement is here alright, it's just been eclipsed by a candidate that can raise $150 million a month to brainwash their support all the way to the steps of the White House (a candidate that Zinn himself says to support!) What are you thinking Howard? Didn't we hear this same type of "there's-to much-to-risk-this-election-not-to-vote-Democrat" four years ago with Kerry, who's proved to be a directionless buffoon?

The problem is the lack of a viable choice. The problem is that it's a criminal act to speak out against your government. And the problem is our "Simon Says" political process, which is exhaustingly perpetuated by our consolidated media, our public officials, and our grassroots movements (grassroots infiltrated the vein of mainstream culture years ago; i.e. Howard Dean and the like).

In the end people can vote or support whoever they want, but they need to know what they are voting for first. Read people! Look at the voting records of our politicians instead of abiding by their bloated election rhetoric. Look at the policies of our system before assuming change will come from a government. If you were to go out and purchase a 1980 Ford Pinto then tell everyone that it's actually a Porsche who would believe you? So how can you vote (elections are about purchasing a human item) for an Obama or McCain or Kerry or Dukakis under the veil of "change" and be taken seriously.

Zinn Rocks!

I like a Lefty who can also be a realist and speak plainly about what we need to do Now!

Now is forever and Now is all that exists..... Now! Now and more Now!

We are at the crossroads of our existence in this infinite universe of infinite energy, Light and Dark, Matter and Space that like mathematics reminds me that relative to the size of the universe that light has kindly so far shown us, the speed of light is slow like a frozen motionless glow in the night.

Happy Trails

There are few people that i hold in higher regard than Prof.Howard Zinn,however I disagree with him. I am forever being told by my progressive friends and co-workers that I must vote for Obama, that i must trust that Obama is a step in the direction i want to go and this is (once again) the "most important election ever". I say Bully!( Is that still used?) I'm voting for Brian Moore and the Socialist Party USA because HE is the candidate and the SPUSA is the party that is truly going in the direction I want this nation to go. I love Nader, and I respect McKinney so this is no easy choice but my vote is sacred ,I must listen to my conscience and vote.... Moore/Alexander 2008.
Peace
PS. Many of ya'll are socialist like me,(admit it) please join up with the SPUSA and we can build a movement, now is indeed the hour.

The powerful direct action movement that Zinn says we need has already begun. Go to the website www.votenader.org and read the platform of the Nader/Gonzalez campaign. Then punch on the red contritute button and send a few dollars to get the word out to people about a candidate who opposes the illegal and immoral wars in Irag and Afghanistan and who is opposed to the extention of the war into Pakistan and Iran and well as opposing the bailout of the speculative bankers on Wall Street. By making a contribution to the campaign now you will be helping to inform people for this election, but also put your name on a list of people who will be invited to join a powerful direct action group after the election. We must not sit back complacently for the next four years.

RichM and toast
Of course you are both correct in pointing out the power of social phenomena like conformism, fear, and the media in stagnating change through the electoral system.

What frustrates me is the quickness that our academics, like Howard Zinn, discard any attempt to solving the problem from the direction of the electoral system.

Think about history’s major democratic revolutions. Colonists in America did not have the luxury of putting a tick mark on a ballot. Neither did the French. Those revolutions succeeded only at great human cost, and so was the way with many others. What a tragedy.

You would think that in today’s world with our freedom to vote, something that our forefathers fought so hard to achieve, our academics would talk a bit more about using that approach to implement change. You would think that Zinn would continually point out this fundamental difference of today’s world, and the irony, indeed the great and sad irony, that the American population does not seem to want to use that freedom to affect change.

Of course it is legitimate, and probably honest, for academics like Zinn to point out the difficulty of affecting change through the voting system. He is correct in saying that the two party system is well entrenched in America. I realize that change will come more slowly through the electoral system than through civil war. But to immediately discard a third pary or independent vote in the electoral system out of hand as a waste of time and instead focus on social upheavals is very sad. What chance has the average person to vote for Nader or McKinney when people like Zinn call it a waste of time? Is it any wonder that most people in this thread consider massive social movements as the only approach? And what is the usual outcome of massive social movement? Violence, of course. History teaches us that those in power will always use violence to suppress social movements, as occurred in the city of St. Paul at the DNC. How many were arrested? 800? Once you go in that direction, you must accept the most probably outcome, violence.

I say shame on Zinn, and shame on all other academics in America for discarding the peaceful solution that stands before us and for promoting instead “massive social movements” as having more chance of success. Of course we must continue to demonstrate our disagreement with our government through peaceful demonstration, and yes, even a bit of disobedience, just to show that we are serious. But what about organizing a massive social effort through public discourse to counter the stagnation, conformism, and fear that is preventing our population from using its freedom to vote. Why aren’t our academics talking about this?

What have our academics learned since colonial times besides dates and facts? I see no real lessons learned. And if our academics have learned nothing, what about the average citizen?

Zinn and Chomsky overstate it, just as they did four years ago when they endorsed Kerry. A vote for Obama is a vote against McCain, and that's all it is. As drunk as our population is on electoral politics, the election of Obama will go unchallenged in any dimension for at least two years, because most "progressives" in this country will be whining that we have to "give him a chance". Anyone who looked at Biden's statement about the other day about "Obama's looming foreign policy test" which will, according to Biden, "reveal to the world that he has a spine of steel", knows what's coming. Anyone who knows the history of the "democratic" party and its corporate thugs well enough to read the subtext, which is that the "democratic" party is going to dig us into an even deeper hole militarily in the world somewhere. That's why Biden was telling supporters of Obama here in Seattle that their job will be to go out and generate support for a policy which Biden maintains will be "extremely unpopular".

Well, I bit. I voted against McCain when I cast my absentee ballot the other day, and I voted for Obama. Not because I believe in a damn thing the Obamaites are bringing forward, but because I want the distinct pleasure of sticking them in the teeth in a few months when it becomes easier to reveal to the public how full of bat guano these people really are. Then maybe we can do some real teaching, learning and organizing.

Of course we need to build a social movement (or continue to do so). As other posters have noted, that's how change happens.

An entrenched power structure acts against change. To reinforce it by voting for the mainstream parties therefore acts against the goals of a social movement.

Zinn has suggested that the small difference between the candidates gives us not change but "an opening for a possibility of change." That is weak at best. Further, a gesture of surrending a principled vote to a tactical vote would actually mute the already small voices of dissent, which by definition acts against change (or the opening of a possibility of change).

Zinn also fails to address a logical problem with his advice, which is this: a Democratic administration that finds success by acting against progressive ideas will continue to act against progressive ideas. This has been demonstrated with Bill Clinton. To expect a political reversal is simple wishful thinking.

Zinn, with the "small difference" argument, sidesteps the basic question of representation. Surely he sees that voting for ideas and policies that are opposed to what you believe is a farcical act.

One element of building a social movement is the changing of public perceptions. This cannot happen when alternative ideas are muted. Alternative ideas have been muted so successfully in recent years, that even people who fancy themselves progressive become irate when discourse goes outside of the rightward-drifting bipartisan framework. That has to change.

Bring America Back !!!!

**Howard Zinn is most correct in that McCain is McBush worse. That the only
hope now is Obama, and the desire then to turn him to fulfill progressive
reform, as he claims. Obama spurned Change miserably when he caved in to the Big Telecons crimes and voted for the FISA wiretapping immunity.

**The mechanism we the people had was to elect our Representatives in the
Legislative Branch as the Check and Balance against Totalitarianism. That failed us badly in the past 8 years !! The slack Congress and Senate went right along with the Bush war criminals and enacted the Patriot Acts, the Torture Legislation, the War Powers Act. the War funding Trillion $$, the false Bailouts.

**The Judicial Branch==Supreme Court fell under Bush Administration controls
with his partisan appointees==that actually elected him in the first place !

**If the legislative and judicial branches continue to fail we the people,
then where will that powerful social force to sternly guide Obama come from ????? The ACLU has been a wonderful force watch over the constitutional guarantees, acting thru legal process to achieve much needed amelioration.
*******Our progressive and Truth Blogs have proven to be a virtual force, if
not an actual force, to right some wrongs and go after some Neocon abuses.

**At least 3 jurisdictions in the US have outstanding arrest warrants for
Bush, Cheney,etc, for war crimes. I would suggest Nancy Pelosi be included
on those Warrants for enabling Bush, and defeating the Impeachment Process !

**For sure all our social mechanisms will be needed, since Obama's actions
have spoken anti-change much louder than the eloquent verbiage of his words.

Eileen Flemming,

Very good post, and I believe the following post, which I made on the topic of the Obama campaign for the presidency and for links to several articles on his foreign policy advisers goes strongly with your post.

Everyone should carefully make themselves aware of Obama's FOREIGN POLICY TEAM, and those making up his campaign are people he has stated will be making up his presidential administration, if he's elected Nov. 4th and which is virtually certain to happen; McCain having virtually NIL for chance or winning.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/22-4#comment-1061353

Everyone, READ THOSE articles; they are must-know information, even if only a good sampling of such articles. They are all short, but provide important information.

"His campaign makes me want to be a better person"
http://www.wilypython.net/Better%20Person%20.asp

From today's wsws.org frontpage: "In closed-door gatherings with two audiences of Democratic Party insiders and fundraisers, Biden forecast a major international crisis in the first six months of an Obama administration."

wsws.org goes on to quote Biden:
"He's going to need help. He's going to need you—not financially to help him—we're going to need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not going to be apparent initially, it's not going to be apparent that we're right.

There are going to be a lot of you who want to go, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision.' Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."

Thanks to Patrick Martin and wsws.org for bringing us this news. So why does Joe Bidden think Demok central planning decisions are "not likely to be as popular as they are sound"?

On the progressive platform, popular defines sound. We progressives recognize both the people's common sense as sound, and the elites' reckless hubris as unsound. Joe Bidden is working now to ensure King O'Bama will execute unsound policies.

Nobody is organizing any mass movements for change in the US, and that will not change with the election of Obama soon to take place. In fact, the election of Obama will most probably paralyze those liberals and Leftists that will vote for him. They have such faith that his election will bring some sort of change, that they will sit by and do nothing, much as they actually already have been doing all along this election year.

Zinn and Chomsky and all the other academic Leftists that liberals like to feel radical alongside them, really haven't ever organized anything other than campus intellectualized meetings. In essence they are Social Democrats playing at being anarchists, simply because Marxism in the US carries too much baggage for them to be associating themselves comfortably with.

"It seems to me that it’s a lot easier for people put a tick mark next to Nader’s name on the ballot and get real reform, than it is to vote Obama and then have to organize a massive social movement to get the same reform."

It seems that way to me too, but Nader doesn't have enough money backing him. Nor does he have the charisma. It sucks immensely. I would give Nader or McKinney a billion if I could. A win for a 3rd party is not going to happen at this juncture. We're going to have to play the cards we will be dealt. That's how it is. NOW. Maybe 8 years from now, the Greens will have more muscle. We can pump them up. Which brings me to where I disagree with Zinn. However Nader or McKinney does can't be seen as pitiful. If a 13 year old kid starts lifting weights for the first time in his life, is he pitiful if he can't bench press 50 lbs? If that kid keeps lifting weights he will only get stronger. The Greens for example are a "baby" party if you will. The Dems and the Rep's are each hundreds of years old.

Is a 5.0 rating "pitiful" for a cable network as opposed to NBC?

They'll only get stronger if and when the people get organized as Zinn states. I have faith. Call me crazy.

"So even though Obama doesn't represent any fundamental change he creates an opening for a possibility of change...But I also suggest that Obama will not fulfill that potential for change unless he is enveloped by a social movement, which is angry enough, powerful enough, insistent enough, that he fills his abstract phrases about change with some real content."

That's what I was trying to say in that recent Chomsky thread. Right NOW that's how it's going to be. The 3rd parties don't have enough power...YET. Neither Zinn nor Chomsky are caving in or selling out. They're being realistic. That's all.

I'm still voting for Nader though.

After I got tired of reading Common Democrats, I went to some other sites and found some more interesting reading.
-------------------------
"The three so-called presidential debates—really parallel interviews by reporters chosen by the Obama and McCain campaigns—are over and they are remarkable for two characteristics—convergence and avoidance.

A remarkable similarity between McCain and Obama on foreign and military policy kept enlarging as Obama seemed to enter into a clinch with McCain each time McCain questioned his inexperience or softness or using military force.

If anyone can detect a difference between the two candidates regarding belligerence toward Iran and Russia, more U.S. soldiers into the quagmire of Afghanistan (next to Pakistan), kneejerk support of the Israeli military oppression, brutalization and colonization of the Palestinians and their shrinking lands, keeping soldiers and bases in Iraq, despite Obama’s use of the word “withdrawal,” and their desire to enlarge an already bloated, wasteful military budget which already consumes half of the federal government’s operating expenses, please illuminate the crevices between them."

-- Presidential candidate Ralph Nader, found at ... "http://www.counterpunch.org/nader10222008.html"

That of course is just the opening paragraphs of a nice piece.

Also, since Common Democrats has been featuring the one-note song of a bunch of 'why I'm voting for Obama' articles, there are also some good 'why I'm voting for Nader' articles at that site and others around the web.

The Obamabots who just want constant chanting of "Obama is great, Obama is great" can of course ignore that. But I thought people who can think beyond constant party propaganda might be interested in some reading that will never appear on this site.

----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"

www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com

Thank you Howard Zinn for a realistic approach.

Obama is a moron

The rise of Obama is as a result of tokenism pertaining to the color of his skin. He is not that different in his outlook than any of the other mainstream candidates.

A powerful social movement? What about a Second American Civil War? Is that powerful enough, Mr Zinn?

A new post on my blog details why a Civil War in America is a distinct possibility! Where can you read about it?

www.dangerouscreation.com

I don’t understand America.

Zinn says: “Obama will not fulfill that potential for change unless he is enveloped by a social movement, which is angry enough, powerful enough, insistent enough, that he fills his abstract phrases about change with some real content."

It seems to me that it’s a lot easier for people put a tick mark next to Nader’s name on the ballot and get real reform, than it is to vote Obama and then have to organize a massive social movement to get the same reform.

The solution is staring at everyone right in the face and no one can see it. No large scale civil disobedience is necessary. Just vote Nader.

Evidently Americans do not like simple solutions.

Ive watched the discussions on this board for a while now and have contributed occasionally, even though the internal politics of the U.S. is beyond my grasp. Im Indian and am familiar with the raucous democratic process in my country and its surroundings. The American Left or whatever passes for the Left in the U.S. judging by the posters on this board are definitely knowledgable and articulate and most certainly a minority.

The fragmentation of the Left is disproportionate to its size though. There seems to be a lot of unwarranted hatred between supporters of third parties (Nader, McKinney and others im unaware of) and democratic party voters. That much is obvious.

We in India have a fairly similar set up with two large parties - Congress and BJP who are almost identical to the Democrats and Republicans. They are both elitist parties representing the capitalist classes, with the Congress being socially lberal while the BJP is fundamentalist and conservative. However, we do have a host of smaller regional and national parties that have managed to have a stake of nearly 25-30% of the vote bank.

This is huge because it allows the Left parties in my country to put the brakes on unfettered 'development' which is a euphemism for 'trickle-up capitalism'. In fact the Left parties (CPI-M, CPI, etc) managed to almost bring the Congress government to its knees and tied them up completely when they wanted to sign the Nuclear Deal with the U.S. the Congress still managed to do it due to other parties supporting it, but the process of actually forming a cogent and unified opposition worked to a large degree.

Ive always voted for Left parties and in the recent past there was enough momentum to make a difference. Unfortunately the Left parties in the U.S. have not coagulated to form a unified threat to the establishment. In fact they are far from it, but im sure you will eventually get there.

If I was in a situation where my vote for the Left parties (say CPI-M short for Communist Party India - Marxist !!) would help the BJP get in power I may reconsider my vote. But thats just me. A lot of my friends would not ! i suppose this situation exists in every country that attempts to have a functioning democracy. Ah well .. i better shut up before im asked to.

I remember before 2000, when the Innocence Project and the Sentencing Project and Amnesty International and the Campaign to Ban Landmines and a number of other organizations actually seemed to be getting some traction.

I am hopeful that global warming (and bad ecnomic times) will return focus to the town, county and state level which are where many/most important decisions will be made and the federal government receed into being the bank or treasury to co-fund (or not) local initiatives.

Dave Sirota and Paul Hawkin and others argue for supremacy of non-partisan issues ... yes, the "parties" have largely failed everyone... the issues remain and are becoming more acute and urgent.

What shall we do about the tent cities and the blocks of foreclosed homes sitting empty?

Hmmm?

“As president, I will set a new direction in nuclear weapons policy and show the world that America believes in its existing commitment under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to work to ultimately eliminate all nuclear weapons. I fully support reaffirming this goal, as called for by George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn, as well as the specific steps they propose to move us in that direction.”-Senator Barack Obama's response to ACT. [1]

ACT/Arms Control Today is a leading journal devoted to nonproliferation and global security issues. ACT asked the presidential candidates questions on arms control and nonproliferation; from Russia to Iran, in regards to U.S. policy on cluster munitions and nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. Senator McCain's responses have not yet been received, but he is on the record for renewing American commitment [on paper] to nuclear disarmament through strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, created in 1968, maintains that nuclear weapons proliferation can only be curtailed if nuclear countries make moves toward disarmament and the rest of the world is allowed to access civilian nuclear technology.

If the media were a sanctuary for dissent the candidates would have been grilled on America's record regarding the NPT; and why the silence about Israel's still un-inspected underground WMD facility and refusal to sign onto the NPT in light of the fact that we the people of America who pay taxes provide Israel with $7 million per day: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html

The Rest:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1078&Itemid=211

Eileen Fleming, Citizen Journalist, Author,
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and
"13 Minutes with Vanunu" FREELY STREAMING
http://www.wearewideawake.org/

Zinn Says Direct Action Needed.

Okay. How?

Your "direct action" (whatever that means) failed over the past eight years to change a single policy of either the Republicans or the Democrats or Obama.

What is your plan after you elect Obama? Can we approach this with some level of rationality and admit that parades, concerts, letter-writing and phone calls won't change anything?

So listen Progressive Democrats, you're asking for everyone to unite behind Obama, get him elected, and THEN you say we can work for change...

How?

Well said bobv.

I agree with Howard Zinn. Voting is very important BUT it will take a massive social movement to achieve the changes we really need. And it doesn't matter whether Obama or McSame gets elected. To elect McSame will just make the task more difficult.

I do disagree that Ralph Nader's and Cynthia McKinney's running are a detriment to the process of positive change. They are showing everyone, particularly in the Democratic party that it's too late for moderate change. We have let civilization slip too far down the slippery slope of decadence.

My wish list for the New Year:

1 - Obama gets elected with a Demoratic/Green congress.
2 - The war (occupation) ends very quickly.
3 - We develop a national health program which DOES NOT include insurance
corporations.
4 - A serious effort to develop alternative energies, other than nuclear. There
is enough wind off the coast of Maine, alone to supply electricity to the
entire Northeast United States. And then there is solar.
5 - Legislation that holds Wall Street and their minions accountable for their
abuse of their financial influence. If we incarcerate petty thieves, we
should at least jail major theives....in the same cell block.
6 - A foreign policy which respects all citizens of Earth. No matter how far the
US falls financially, we will still be better of than the best of the third
world nations. The time has come to adopt a Global Marshall Plan.

Are the above pie-in-the-sky? Certainly not. We had men on the moon just a few short years after it was resolved that we do so. It's not a matter of funds, or
talent, or time. It is only a matter of WILL.

I would hope that Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and, yes, even Joe the Plumber and all the other great people of this country get together after the election to see that real positive change occurs.

Old anarchists never die, they just.....support democrats....???

I greatly respect both Zinn and Chomsky but am voting third party regardless of their admonitions.

I am a working person who makes significantly less than anyone at their level in the Academy and think I can make an educated assumption that there is a great difference between my income, savings and retirement accounts and those that belong to people who profit and live off of the system of recompense that dominates higher education. I believe, and I observe vs judge, that this makes a difference. Yes, Virginia, there is a class problem in this issue among those on the Left.

I recognize in these fellas’ pleas to support Obama that Obama represents them more at a very basic level than he does me. I have done my homework and prefer not to vote for a candidate who is pledged to represent less than fifty percent of my policy preferences and none of my class concerns except in very cursory and patronizing ways.

I am realistic. I do not believe that my candidate will win, and I do believe that Obama is a few percentage points less an evil than McCain, but I am tired of being asked to wait to support the development of third parties at any and all levels until the "right time" is determined by those who so easily vote inside (and thereby give direct support to) a failed electoral system that they may protest ideologically but that benefits them in very basic economic and social ways. They obviously live in a different world than I do. In my mind if you want a social movement you should put your vote where your mouth is. Obama ain’t it.

There will be great howls from the compromised Obama lefties when/if #1) McCain wins (that will give them another opportunity to blame third party lefties) or #2) When within the first hundred days Obama sends more troops somewhere into the oil belts of the Middle East. Perhaps they will find a reason to blame third party voters for that as well. Who cares?

Besides, Obama does not care about my vote. Why should he have it? He has not budged in matters that are of utmost importance to me and others like me. In fact, he has shown his complete disregard for what I believe is utterly uncompromise-able even more consistently and increasingly since he was given the nomination. I cannot expect that trend to stop once he is in office. I will not vote for it.

If McCain wins so be it. Polls are already setting us up for the fishy 50/50 phenomenon that is easy enough to fudge regardless of the popular vote. Due to the historical record, especially since the 2006 election, I am not hopeful enough about our future regardless of which candidate is given the presidency to think that either candidate has a more workable plan or a creative enough inclination to stop what is destroying even the potential for the USA to re-invent itself following the debacle of the Bush years, which, after all, in themselves might have been the logical next step for what was done in the United States’ name for more than a generation anyway.

Should he win, I do hope for an Obama that can make a difference and am excited that a man who is not Caucasian can actually do what he has done, but am ambivalent about the meaning of that when so much must be compromised to accomplish it.

Besides I LIKE what McKinney and Nader say. I like what they have done and the risks they have taken to say it and do it. Their clarity and lack of fear for speaking truth as they perceive it is what I wish to promote in the USA... as it has never existed here perhaps, but I am willing, as they are, to vote for these outliers that are the truer representation of what we (perhaps even what Obama) want(s) to be. We certainly may never reach it, but I vote to at least reach.

Zinn votes to start a social movement AFTER he votes for the hopelessly and destructively conventional policies of Obama. I would like to propose that by then it may be too late.

Hell, it may be too late now.