Reply #127: Mixed Feelings; Nader is Right, but Voting Non-Democratic...?

[Hidden Stillness]

Hi, omega minimo. I believe if you separate this issue and make two aspects of it--Nader, as opposed to voters--it makes it easier to think about, and actually, I think that was what you were doing, as the very first paragraph tells it: "It was up to the Democrats and their candidate to address those vital issues--or risk losing the voters who KNEW what was at stake and that the U.S. was heading toward inevitable disaster," and, next paragraph, "It was up to the Democrats to address those vital issues and it still is." I believe that was your actual point.

First of all, I think almost all intelligent-thinking people would agree that, regardless of how the vote went, Ralph Nader was the single best candidate both years. Just thinking off the top of my head, at Nader's accomplishments, we would not even be living in the same world if not for the consumer action, lawsuits, and education of Nader and Nader's groups. There would not even be automotive recalls and free replacement of defective parts if not for Nader, or headrests on seats that reduce paralysis from whiplash and neck injury to very small numbers now, added shoulderstraps rather than just the dangerous, old lap seatbelts, or even the electronic fuel injection system itself, more reliable than the old carbeurator--it was Nader who forced that change on them. Starting all the way back to the early '60s and the best-selling book "Unasfe at Any Speed," about the Corvair, Nader has been a lifelong public servant saint, with no scandal of any kind attached. My older brother actually had a Corvair, and I remember it. Everybody loved that car, but as I recall (all these years later), it would have a periodic build-up of some kind of dangerous gas right in the passenger compartment, and I remember my brother driving around during the Winter with the windows open, so you could breathe. There used to be no recourse for people, before Nader.

Nader sued the FDA for food safety violations, pushed for food content labels, and exposed the indifference of GM stockholders to social concerns and their corporation's ill-effects; GM was always a huge Nader target. Nader invented the Center for Auto Safety (headed by the great Joan Claybrook), the Center for Responsive Politics, Public Citizen, and the groups that expose drug dangers--Dr. Sidney Wolfe and others--are Nader groups. Nader's crusade against corporate crime and corruption became so popular during the '70s that there were thousands of "Nader's Raiders" filing lawsuits, printing publications, getting reforms, that help us still today. Nader was the most-often-featured guest on the great old (real) Phil Doanhue morning program. I hesitate to criticize the great public servant saint, Ralph Nader, even as I realize the problem here. (By the way, you notice how "D"LC, Inc. jumps right in here to attack, claiming "Florida--where Bush beat Gore by 537 votes.." and that this is supposedly Nader's fault? ...But Gore WON Florida and it was stolen by Republicans and their Supreme Court, so it cannot possibly have been Nader's fault, as Gore WON. They will, oddly, never admit it, because then they could not manipulate an attack on Democrats--"left, "liberal"--but would have to criticize their Republican "friends.")

The other part of the issue, that of voting for a third-Party or independant candidate, is, it seems to me, similar ot the present situation in Canada, where they are upset at the Liberal Party because of the graft, etc., of the "sponsorship scandals," payoffs, etc., yet fear the Conservatives so much that they have to vote for Paul Martin (at the center of the scandal), and not at all for the NDP, which is actually the best Party, with all the great ideas for government programs. You wouldn't dare lose your chance to keep the Conservatives out, because this current group is really scary, a way that Canadians have never been. They are generally liberal as a majority.

You are right to state that Democrats--the official Party, taken over by the corporate-Republican-funded "D"LC, Inc.--have led to this. After all the years of corporate deregulation and privilege, loss of manufacturing jobs, corporate tax scams and subsidies, deregulated media, deregulated banking/credit card/insurance/pharmaceutical/oil and gas/electronic technologies, all now forming a horrific conglomerate of oppression, unwinnable for us now, because there are no separations or even separate corporations--and most of this began under Clinton, who was attacking "old-style Democrats" and converting all government programs that used to help people, to subsidies for corporate "friends," just like a Republican the whole time. Now we are at a situation where, once, no one believed we could ever be, and if you think any of this would have happened with the great public servant lawyer Ralph Nader there to stop it, you are completely ignorant. Clinton even cut out the Carter Center from being able to negotiate as a para-governmental entity, which had been very successful as a negotiator even during Bush I. Strange--why?

...But as Harry Reid recently put it, "Well, I would only say that I think--and I agree with my Republican friends on this, of course, and I'm certainly no liberal by any stretch, but I think that, even as Laura Bush recently said, and I send all my best wishes as I'm sure the whole country does to our President and I hope everything turns out all right--speaking of which, I supported the Bankruptcy Bill, so you know I'm, I'm, right on board there, too, and the probl--well, what I meant, certainly not to criticize, or seem to, the President, whom we all support, and hope the troops do get home eventually, but if I have offended any Republicans, certainly, I retract my strong remarks, and apologize. Thank you." If we had real, fighting, middle class, non-corporate Democrats running and attacking the whole corporate system that has actually replaced government now, we wouldn't have to worry about third Parties or anything else; but of course, you mentioned that too, omega minimo ("We the people"). If official Democrats want us to vote and fight for them, as I always do, then they have to stop sabotaging us every time, and return to our country.