randomWalks

Hey Ralph,



Um, there's this place called Iraq. Yeah. It's in the Middle East, you know, not too far from where your family is from? You've probably heard of it. Anyway, you know that President guy? Bush? The one you ran against and wouldn't let you debate and you identified as a "corporation running in the form of a person?" (You nailed that one! Enron, Halliburton, etc., helped drive your point home!)



Yeah, well he's really trying hard to bomb that place, which would be bad for all the people that live there and bad for us here. Anyway, I was just wondering, as someone who worked on your campaign, whether you planned on chiming in on that and all? I mean, I know the de-couch-potatoing of America is critical at this stage of history, but if you're not to busy ...



Ralph, a LOT of people got involved in your campaign because you STOOD for something. You gave a voice to what a lot of people felt and wanted to fight for. Why have you turned your back on us?



I'll be in DC to march against war on January 18. I hope to see you there too.



Thanks,



z.

why did those that voted for nader turn their back on the moderate progressive Democrats?

before that gets taken as mean-spirited.



i should say, both democrats and green partyists wanted the same overall thing...the elimination of bush...but, to barb mr. nader himself, was he just another ross perot, and did the green party followers get wrapped up in a fuzzy dream?



not out of meanness.

Couple of things:



* To me, the important thing about the Nader campaign was the campaign itself, not the participation in the electoral process. It got a lot of people actively involved in politics for the first time in their lives. But, I thought it was a step forward towards building a mass movement in this country. That was the critical aspect of it. It was not solely about electing the perfect candidate. Nader never was that. To paraphrase Zinn, it doesn't matter who is sitting in office, but who is sitting in.



But, also, Greens and Dems obviously do not want the same thing. Otherwise there would be no Green Party. There would be a Green caucus in the Dem Party. Dems are making the same mistake now they did in 2000. They assume they are entitled to the "Left" votes. They are not. They don't represent anything remotely resembling the Left or an alternative.



You tell me the Dems want to get rid of Bush? Where's the fight? What happened when Ashcroft came for approval? The Dems voted for it. The PATRIOT Act? Yup. The War on Iraq? That too. It certainly does not seem as if the Dems want something different from Bush. They're too busy knocking themselves over approving his agenda to bother opposing him.



The Democrats (conservative, moderate, progressive, whatever) turned their back on the "people" a long, long, long time ago. They don't stand for me. See my link somewhere below to "Democrats and War" for more on that. It's never been a party to oppose war and yet been able to maintain this image as the party of "doves." The Dems have never had a backbone when it's mattered most. You've had Dems screaming at Bush to get him to invoke Taft-Hartley and attack the longshoremen on the West Coast. Fundamentally, the Democratic Party represents a social force in this country (the left side of the ruling class) that I'm not a part of.



Ultimately, I want to get rid of capitalism. That's never going to happen through the ballot box and it's not what the Dems stand for. (It's not what Nader stands for either, of course). But the Nader campaign at the time seemed like a chance to help rebuild a strong Left in this country. It didn't happen. Even after the election, Nader could have rallied people around him and he did not.



That's what I'm bemoaning here. A lost opportunity.



To sum up: Screw the Democrats.

Actually, let me be clear on saying screw the Democratic PARTY, not Democrats in general.

see, cause if former-Democrats, or people unwilling to vote Democrat, leave the party, or don't vote in that process, then it is exactly as you say in the Green party case...



the green party is a mass movement. and mass movements make noise, which is good, and they instill change, which is good, but it ended up screwing the election, because it was as self-indulgent as its leader.



and still is.



it's too liberal for effective party efficiency or change-inducement in the halls of government.



and i only say that because, sitting at a dinner in the Senate Dirksen building, among Republicans sponsoring the oil industry, i was amazed at how mass-movement thinking the conservative republicans are.



i don't think that there should be mass movements. and this does little to support a democratic case, or to rebuke a green party decision making process. but,



is there something better? like, individualized technical action? like, um, I don't know. revolution? I mean, in the sense of taking back formerly representative political parties, instead of dividing former members from them to create a limp and ineffective mass movement.



same goes with republicans. let them be republicans. 2004 belongs to the Democrats. it really does, if anyone can convince em to rejoin and re-organize.

Self-indulgent? So now if you don't vote for a Democrat, it's self indulgent?



You don't address any of the points I raised about the Democrats.



You say that 2004 "belongs to the Democrats" as if it is a good thing. It may be "better" than Bush, but I guess having my hand cut off is also "better" than having my entire arm cut off.



The point is that the Democratic Party has screwed people just as long and as hard as the Republicans have. Why should I come back? To get screwed some more?

I didn't vote for Nader to screw Bush. I voted for Nader because I wanted to vote for a candidate I believed in. I didn't think much of Gore.



How did the Green Party end up screwing the election? Two years later many people still say that, but I still disagree. First, let's remember who REALLY screwed the election: the Supreme Court. Also, there were other third parties whose totaled votes fell within the margin of defeat for Gore. So we could just as well blame them, yes?



How truly representative are these political parties? Both vote for war in Iraq. But most of the country doesn't want one. Both lap up donations from corporations like milk and then set their agendas according to big business. How representative is that? When was the last time real, effective liberals offered leadership?



(roger: What led you to a dinner in the Senate building? Just curious. And thanks for the comments.)

To jump on MJ's bandwagon here, the illegal scrubbing of voter rolls in Florida cost Gore the election. His decision to fight for "chads" rather to rally around people who were denied the right to vote through physical intimidation or through being illegally purged cost him the election.

well, the supreme court issue is interesting, but invalid.



you could blame the supreme court. but the supreme court doesn't operate in the same way that, say, politics does, which is to serve as the operating branch of the human governemment system.



realize, i'm speaking of an idealistic vision here. and i'll get to the realistic result in a sec. speaking off the top of my head here.



the mere fact that people chose greens, not because they wanted to disenfranchise bush, but to, as mj says, they "wanted to vote for a candidate [they] believed in" shows how idealism can actually rule out the effective practice of good politics.



nader's mission was to educate. he is not a political leader. to follow him out of simply idealistic hopes and expectation borne out of belief, which is inaccurate (it is actually hope) means that green party candidates are exercising a a-political action. one that effectively, from a pragmatic and political standpoint, stole the election from the democrats, who are the only real, liberal parties, with enough financial and governmental power at their hands.



i would vote democrat because to vote democrat allows the kind of expression, action, and real change opportunities, that your strictly symbolic vote for the green party wanted to convey.



it was a symbolic vote. in america, the only time symbolism works is in literature and poetry readings.



true? sure, true. you see how wacky the symbolism of patriotic flag waving seems to people of your intellectual level? sure. symbolism in government is a joke.



you want change. vote for a party that actually does support effective action. and, as much as i hate to admit it, as a self claiming pacifist. war is necessary. sometimes.



sure. i'd go for diplomacy. but diplomacy can't stop the isolated turmoil of a decimated culture of peoople.



notice how disenfranchised go for religion? yeah. that's because they think symbols work.



symbols don't have arms and legs and brains. they are symbols.



people have those things. people should think and work and make change. not let the symbols do the work. symbols in some senses are inert.



god, am i drunk?

You're not drunk. But apparantly you can't read.



You still have not produced once sentence explaining one redeemable quality about the Democrats.



Your problem is made clear in this one sentence, "as a self claiming pacifist. war is necessary. sometimes."



So you're a pacifist who believes in war.



Can I just point out that this means that you're *not* a pacifist? I'm not a pacifist either. But I firmly believe that this country has never, ever waged a war for justice. Every war it's fought, every time it's gotten involved, it's been because of its own self-interest.



But that position pretty much somes up the Democratic party as well.



We're anti-war until war comes!

We're pro-worker until the economy sucks and we push through cutbacks!

We're anti-corporate except when we need money to run our campaigns!

We're against Bush except when we have to approve every last piece of his agenda!



Where's Phil Ochs when you need him?



Oh yeah, here he is



Have a nice weekend.

And anyone who's read the Bush v. Gore case and discussed it in their Constitutional Law class knows the decision was junk. But Gore was junk too. If he had gotten the recount the way he wanted in the 4 cherry-picked counties he liked, he still would have lost.



On the other hand, if he had done the right thing and argued about the whole denial of votes issue, he at least wouldn't have looked like such a worm.



This is all my opinion of course.

Alert: America is not Europe, third parties have to influence the debate by injecting themselves into one of the two biggies or see their issues die on the vine.



In comparison to other, more loony, third party candidacies (Perot comes to mind) - the Nader run was a colossal failure. He didn't get enough for matching funds (as Perot did) and ended up electing the guy who's 180 degrees away from the far-left (versus Gore, who was about 90 degrees away).



Is the Democratic party a way-left political apparatus? Outside of Nancy Pelosi, not really. But neither is the rest of America (sorry San Fran and Cambridge). When they feel slighted, should Greens call the DNC to account? Absolutely.



But the Greens must be practical as well.

In any case, there are worse causes than the DC public libraries. I was greatly pleased to hear that he was calling attention to them. A poor library is a shameful thing.

What the Democrats realize, and what the Democrats can do is use our economic system the only way that it is meant to be used. They can get money for programs like social funding and welfare, and money for single parents that is being pirated by the Republican party.



What do you think the purpose of capitalism is? Certainly it's not this. The Republicans are using the system the only way it is meant to be used. The Dems in recent years have also done this. I find it beyond humorous that you offer welfare as an example here when it was Clinton that led the drive to gut welfare in this country. And most Democrats will still say that what he did was a good thing.

that's a good link. i like the phrase, "marxism is a conceptualization of economics." or something like that.



very interesting.