BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election

Subject: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 03:43 PM

Hey, it's the only perspective on Black Tuesday we haven't had a thread on yet!

Here is a link to a mainstream media pundits article "Nader Was Right". Interesting perspective.

Here is a link to Nader's own views on why the Democrats lost, which aren't any different to what he was saying pre-Black Tuesday as to why the Democrats would lose "Nader: Kerry Missed the Opportunity"

As to the Ohio thing, there is a letter to Editor & Publisher from back in September about Nader from an Ohio resident, that speaks to the reasons why progressives didn't come out to support Nader in Ohio "Nader Is Right".

Or how about that so-called lack of "moral values" on the left? Well, here is an article from a former Washington Post columnist who now heads up a peace organization in DC, published in the National Catholic Reporter last spring when Ralph announced "Ralph Nader is right to challenge one-party game".

From my point of view as a progressive, I believe the progressive movement has plenty of strong values, but I wouldn't refer to them as "values". I would say the great strength and vision of the progressive left is their conscience. Now, for some it is religious conscience, to some it is moral conscience, to some it is spiritual conscience, to some it is just politics with a conscience. But it is the strong, solid, moral base upon which the progressive left stands.

Liberal Democrats or the "New Democrats" or Clinton Democrats--whatever you want to call them, have neither moral backbone, nor conscience, to back their policy positions. That is why we say their strategy, is nothing but strategy. It has no sense of vision, of purpose, conscience, the way the progressive left does, and the way that mainstream religious Americans do. The ones that aren't busy just paying lipservice to their religion, that is, like Clinton.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 03:49 PM

BTW, this thread isn't being posted to be used as more Nader target practice by the diehard Kerry supporters. I posted it to try and initiate a discussion of the election from the progressive perspective, not the Kerry Democrat perspective. We already have about a hundred threads from either the Democrat or Republican, Bush or Kerry perspective.

I'd like to see people here interested in discussing where progressives want to head from here, as it is obvious that the Democrats are pretty content to stay the course, and continue doing things the same way they have.

Is it possible to have a thread like that at Mudcat? Or are the progressives here, like Republicans, destined to being forever shuted down and drowned out by the Mudcat Kerry/Democratic liberal majority?

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 04:07 PM

Sorry, I forgot to add the link to Theresa Amato's (Nader's campaign manager) incredible, passionate election night speech to Nader's campaign and supporters:

http://www.votenader.org/why_ralph/index.php?cid=174

Also, isn't it time we progressives got back out in the streets protesting, where we belong?

Isn't it obvious that voting for Democrats isn't going to end the war in Iraq, overturn the Patriot Act, or get our families and fellow workers health insurance and a living wage?

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: Big Mick
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 04:19 PM

Your continued pushing for "shoot yourself in the foot" tactics will do far less to accomplish the stated goal.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 05:50 PM

Well the 2005 G8 summit is being held this year at Gleneagles Hotel Perthshire...   I will be there GUEST,and I hope a number of UK Mudcats will join me.

Your right, nothing progressive is ever achieved through the "democratic" system....Out on the streets and make the bastards sweat. Out on the streets you cant be manipulated ,like the poor bozos who were conditioned into returning the neocons.

Madness, trying to run the world on loony moral values

This right wing fundamentalist regime has more than a whiff of the Third Reich about it....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 06:07 PM

Dont foget ....The people have great power when they're of a mind to use it.

Do you think the Vietnam War or the American civil rights issue would have would ever have been put to right without the "street war".

The scandal of Catholic civil rights in Northern Ireland is another issue that was going nowhere ,till they took power away from the politicians and onto the streets.

The left in America better start moving pretty damded quick,while theres still a bit of spirit in your hearts, and before they suck out your freewill and replace it with their brand of christianity...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: dianavan
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 04:35 AM

Mick - What are, "shoot yourself in the foot" tactics?

Sounds to me like he's got a point. Not only that, the link was informative. Nader is smart. Smarter than Kerry.

Thats probably why he'll never be elected president.

If Homer Simpson ran for president, he'd probably beat all three of em in an American election.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 01:45 PM

Diana, Mick is a conservative, right leaning Clinton/Kerry Democrat, and his tactics are of the "old school" winning though bullying and intimidation union model (he is a union organizer). That should explain his remarks, I think.

ake--I would be there with you if I could! I'm going to try my damndest to get to DC for the Anti-Inaugural this year, though. But I may make it there, you never know. I do want to make a trip to Europe either in the spring or fall next year, so we shall have to see. But I believe that this is the most important 'Resist the G8' summit since Seattle. It is incredibly important for people to learn about it. UK Indymedia is a great place to start.

And I hope this pathetic excuse for a legitimate election does galvanize the American left for once, but only if they recognize we should NOT try and make common cause with the Democrats unless and until they start moving our way--a lot further left than they've been since the 1960s, in other words.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: DougR
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 03:48 PM

Like I've already said, you "progressivies" start your own Party! Quit whining, gnashing your teeth, and just do it! I suspect the majority of the Democrat Party would be happy to be rid of you.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 03:58 PM

Guest,

What Big Mick meant by "shoot yourself in the foot" tactics is that the anger that you feel is being divisive and not inclusive. You will become as Groucho Marx has said, "Who'd want to be a member of a club that I'm in?" :)

A lot of Liberal Democrats voted for Kerry for valid reasons. He had the second largest turnout of voters in history (Bush had first) but Kerry got more votes than Ronald Reagan. Guest, shouldn't that tell you something about energizing the Left?

You might possibly find yourself charging up San Juan Hill without an army behind you. :)

That said, I believe in dialogue and am interested to hear what you have to say. Also, I believe that Ralph Nader did a lot of good for this country and have no desire to diss him but I can be critical of his timing in wanting to run for the presidency. As it stands, to pursue this line of conversation is flogging a dead horse.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 04:02 PM

We may or may not start a third party, Doug. But our voices will be heard loud and clear--and you can take that to the World Bank!

"I suspect the majority of the Democrat Party would be happy to be rid of you."

Ah Doug, you aren't exactly telling me anything the progressive left hasn't known for decades. Like I've been saying, it may take a few more election cycles of the Democrats losing big time before they wake up and smell the fair trade coffee. We progressives aren't moving around the political map the way the Democrats are, so we are a whole lot easier to find. We actually take stands, make stands, and people definitely know where we stand.

Unlike the weasel Dems...

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 04:35 PM

Thanks Frank, but I'm not too concerned about the progressive left being politically isolated in the future. But if I were you, I'd be pretty damn worried about being politically irrelevant to everyone. Because you are.

You want to stick with the status quo Democratic party 'move to the right, play to the middle class' strategy that has been losing elections for the Democrats for over 30 years now, you and Big Mick go right ahead. The progressive left doesn't need you dinosaurs.

I'll stick with kids who were the front line warriors in the Battle in Seattle, who felt your knives in their backs. Some of us know who we can and cannot trust, because we learned the hard way. From the likes of you and Big Mick and the Old School Old Left.

Bye bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST,2
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 05:01 PM

Seems like the "new" left is making a wrong turn and they are too vain to stop and ask directions

Isn't it nice of them to forget and ignore the work that made it possible for them to fight on today.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 05:11 PM

The progressive left isn't the New Left. Nice try though Frank.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 05:12 PM

Eat this Guest 2.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST,2
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 05:25 PM

You had to go to a nearly three month old article from the Guardian of all papers. Nice try Guest!

The progressive left isn't the new left? Maybe you should stop whining about labels and start doing something instead of sitting in your mama's basement and typing out drivel.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 05:30 PM

Yes, a three month old article from the Guardian that proves not everyone on the left was a cowardly Demcratic party lion prior to the election.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: akenaton
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 06:01 PM

Im afraid you've got things wrong Frank.

Iv been involved in trying to reform the UK political system all my working life, and the condition of the poor and working people in general, in my opinion has never been worse.

Blair and the "New labour" project effectivly snuffed out all dissent in the Labour party,to make themselves "electible", and union organisers like Big Mick were complicit in the silencing of radical thought.
Now, after two terms of Govt they sit to the right of the Conservatives. Making and carrying out policys that the Conservative Party would be afraid to mention.

Union leaders have a duty to ensure that the people they represent are politically aware, and that obviously has not happened in America.
It has been my view for some time, that Union leaders and officials have a vested interest in keeping the system alive, and as such are not to be trusted.

Its going to be a hard job for Progressives to change the American mindset. People seem to be steeped in the "land of oppertunity" bullshit,while most of them are trying to hold down two or three jobs just to survive....Its the oldest trick in the book of Capitalism
Keep the poor busy competing with one another and they wont have the time or the will to question the system.

Im sure you,like me, remember the sixties and what was achieved by taking to the streets in public protest, well its time to break out the Red and black banners once again....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 07:13 PM

Hey Guest2, if you have to bring your opponent's mama into it, you've lost the argument big time.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST,2
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 07:56 PM

I did not realize you were so touchy about your mama, although I guess it makes sense based on your posts. When you live in the basement at your age you really need to get out and see what the real world is facing.   Clipping notes all day from the internet is not healthy. You are as active as a clogged toilet - you are full of shit, raising a stink and not going anywhere. Get off your ass and do something instead of being all talk about a progressive left that exists in your pipedreams.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 08:13 PM

Hey Guest 2, I'm very impressed with that extraordinary gift you exhibit for spewing invective when reason fails you.

Clap.


Clap.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: Big Mick
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 09:45 PM

You are going to stick with the kids in Seattle? You have never been at the barricades in your life. What you are good at is taking shots. And instead of shooting at the Rumsfelds, you shoot at those that probably didn't invite you to their party.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST,2
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 09:59 PM

What no snappy comeback?   Perhaps I've touched a nerve. How progressive!!! Face it loser, you haven't a clue!

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 10:18 PM

I can pinpoint when the Dems lost the election. It was when the DNC did the hatchet job on Howard Dean. Boy, they pulled in a few "markers" with the media and next thing you know, Howard Dean is not electable..." Blah, blah, blah...

Yep, that is when John Kerry lost...

Hey, why vote for Bush-Lite when you can have the real thing?

Nader has been telling the Dems this now for a long, long time and there aren't any more Bill Clinton's out there for the Dems..;.

So, my advice to my Dem friends. Sit down and listen to Nader for a few hours, say nothing, go home and think about what he has just told you.

At some point in time yer just going to have to look at one election cycle as the one to sacrifice to ideas. So what if you lose 55-45? That will mean that 45% of the folks are up to speed. Next time around people will have had time to think about what you are saying and it will be YOUR TURN!!! THe Repubs did it with Goldwater and its carried them for 40 years...

But if you wanta play Bush-Lite, play it. Just don't complain every election...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 08:48 AM

Bobert said "But if you wanta play Bush-Lite, play it. Just don't complain every election..."

Amen to that. And whine that every election where you lose is stolen, and every election you win isn't.

But I also agree with akenaton, that it will be a definite uphill climb getting out the progressive word to the American people, in this fascist climate especially, and with the Democratic party doing all it can with it's big media influence to keep mainstream media from covering progressive causes and issues fairly and objectively, not to mention accurately. Imagine how much easier it would be if progressives were given legitimate access and coverage!

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 06:55 PM

Guest, is it Sister Annie's turn to throw the bomb?

The Weathermen were unsucessful. They blew up a few banks and created havoc for a short period of time. The anti-war movement in Vietnam was built by a coalition of many different people with various political viewpoints who demonstrated peacefully and supported each other with love and respect.
Many of them were Democrats such as John Kerry.

Nader would not approve of in-fighting and name-calling.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 08:47 PM

Sure Frank, and there really is a tooth fairy, and John Kerry was cheated out of the election by the big bad Republicans.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 06:30 PM

"But if I were you, I'd be pretty damn worried about being politically irrelevant to everyone. Because you are."

No Guest, you are the one who is irrelevant because you are adopting the same old tactics of the Old Left. I've heard young kids like you before. Smoke and fury signifying nothing. Actually, I read the Nader posts that you sent and here is my reaction.

Nader is a divider not a uniter. He has some good ideas but his attacks on the Democrats and on Kerry weaken his ability to build a relevant coalition.
He is in "consumer protector" mode which is where his talents really shine.
But he doesn't have the vision to create a mass following. Kerry was on the verge of this but didn't quite get through although when I heard his live stump speeches, I had more a comprehensive idea of what his platform was.

Yes, the Big Bad Republicans have hi-jacked the election, inculcated a policy of pre-emption without cause, screwed the working people, given our tax dollars to the corporate tax-evading thieves, sent us into a meaningless brutal war and judging from your posts, managed to divide the Liberals and Progressives even more.

So, take to the streets, yell and scream, jump up and down and curse everyone who doesn't agree with you. Let's see you build any kind of viable movement with this kind of behavior.

In the meantime, I will try to reach all kinds of people who may have different points-of-view and attempt to convince them that basically we want the same things. We want tolerance, a chance at a decent job, a world community that doesn't hate us, a better world for our chlldren who won't bear the burden of a runaway deficit, a legal system that protects the poor and middle class citizen from the selfish corporate oppression. Health care for kids, available also for everyone else.Economic rights regardless of sexual orientation or race or culture. To me, this is relevance. To me this is true morality.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 06:50 PM

Yer missing the point, Frank. We don't need Nader, with all his baggage to put togeter a coilition. We need the Democratic Party to do it and become a real "opposition" party.

Other than the usual rhetoric that came from Kerry's campaign, it was short on real ideas. Not that Bush had ot gad to show any of his own because he was in incymbant during a war and gets a big advantage from that. But, really, strip away the rhetoric from Kerry's campaign and there wasn't much there.

Sure it's easy to say that you are going to spend more on eductaion but harder to pinpoint just how it will be done and where exactly the mone will go. The blanket "roll back the tax cuts to the wealthy" is also just rhetoric. First, how is this going to be accomplished with a Repub led legislature and, second, even if you have a secret plan to get the Congress to go along with it, yer still not going to fund everything with that one revenue source... And as for outsourcing of jobs. Can anyone really tell me specifically how that was going to be accomplished other the rhetorical answer of stopping rewarding companies for doing it??? No? I didn't think so.

See, that's what Nader has to offer the Dems. If you listen to him you find out that he knows alot about alot of stuff and is a vast resource. If the Dems would just quietly ask Nader to advise them on policy positions, the Dems could then go out an build the coilitions around a specfic agenda. Ralph Nader may be thought of as a "flaming Liberal", or commie, or whatever, but labels don't matter when a guy is talking about stuff, like Dennis Kucinich did during the campaign, that makes sense to the majority of the population and is affordable at thr same time...

Nader in '08...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: Big Mick
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 07:22 PM

Bobert, I agree with your assessment completely. The coalition, to be viable, must occur within the party structure. If I thought that a third party would do the trick, I would support a third party. Much of what GUEST says is true, and mirrors my opinion. But the attitude of tearing it down and starting over, just doesn't hold water. It is an interesting theory. But like so many theorists, they ignore the casualties, blithely dismissing them because they don't see the faces. They only see their theories. History is rife with victims of this kind of zealotry.

The only problem I have with your post is that it implies that the party need only approach Ralph and he would come back in. I don't think that is the case. I believe he is so convinced that his current road is the correct one, that he can't see its consequences. But I believe there are many on the progressive left that would do the job. I work with many of them on a regular basis and they are driven by excellent ideals.

Unlike our GUEST, who seems to delight in being abusive and offering no solutions.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 07:51 PM

Frank... Iv read your posts ,and the problem is that we dont all want the same things.
What the real left wants ,both in America and the "United Kingdom"
is to see the eventual demise of the Capitalist system, something which seems to be anathema to the Democratic Party, and at the moment to a large slice of the American Public.
The list of fine things you say you want, can never be achieved under the present system.

How can you dismiss direct action as irrelevant when almost every major change in modern history has been won on the streets..Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 04 - 11:04 AM

Change never "comes from within" in a political bureacratic institution like the Democratic party and the US political system. Change only comes when it is forced upon it from those pushing for change from outside the system. Hell, like I said elsewhere, reform isn't even effective within the rotten system we have now, as campaign finance reform, No Child Left Behind, and the Patriot Act--reform legislation all, has proven. Disastrously in many instances.

The Kerrycrats here aren't offering anything new, they are just attack, attack, attack the left as usual. That is their mode of operation.

The name-calling of those here advocating for change from outside the Democratic party is what is really, truly damaging to all.

The Kerrycrats here keep saying they know they need to change, but they refuse to listen to anyone's ideas but the same old warhorses within their rotting, closed, elitist bureaucratic system. They don't talk about how they will change, or when they will change, or where they will change. They just keep labelling those of us outside the system working peacefully and democratically for change as communist bomb throwers, because we dare to use our constitutionally guaranteed rights of political dissent to show how pathetically out of touch with the people of this country the Kerrycrats have truly become.

That's the best you Kerrycrats have? No thanks. I'll continue doing work with people outside the rotten system, and be quite effective in that role, thank you very much.

Subject: RE: BS: Nader's & Progressives Spin on Election
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 04 - 11:36 AM

I really had high hopes that after the election, the entrenched conservative views of the Kerrycrats might change. I can see now, from the threads in the past week, that wasn't a realistic expectation on my part.

These conversations between the handful of Mudcat progressive leftists and the much larger majority Mudcat Democrats are fruitless. This is arguing in circles is pointless and counterproductive, so my participation in that stuff is done here.

I hereby surrender the Mudcat political field to the Kerrycrats.

Byeeee!