You know, John Kerry said some time ago now that Democrats shouldn't be spending any time whatsoever attacking Nader. That instead, Democrats who interact with Nader supporters, should be giving Nader's supporters all the reasons why they should vote for John Kerry instead.

Even Kerry recognizes that this intense Nader bashing is going to backfire and blow up in the face of the Democratic party. Why? Because it is just plain more bashing of the progressive movement in this country. It isn't about just demonizing Nader. It is about demonizing the progressives and their agenda. Because mainstream Democrats like the Mudcat majority, aren't nice, generous people, unless it is with the people who look like them, talk like them, worship like them, and who are in the same economic and racial group as them.

Mainstream middle class Democrats are just as mean spirited and selfish as mainstream middle class Republicans in that regard. Which is why the middle class voter is a lost cause.

The people who truly need to be convinced to vote for Kerry, besides progressives who will vote for Nader or Cobb, are the disenfranchised and disempowered 50% of the electorate that both parties do their best to keep out of the voting booths. The poor and the working poor. John Edwards played that game last night in his speech--he used the proper middle class buzz words--strong military and welfare reform. Poor and working poor people know what that means. The bucks that should be going to social services for the poor and working poor are going to the military industrial complex, straight from the Kerry White House.

Poor and working people aren't stupid. They know the system works against them, not for them. People of color know it too, which is why in a Cleveland precinct with 96% African American population, only had 13% of the eligible voters turn out in the 2000 election. They already know the game is being played without them being allowed to participate. Michael Moore gives a glimpse of that game in his film, when he shows Al Gore gaveling the Black Congressional Caucus back to their seats while the white Congressional members stare stonily in silence. That footage could just as easily have been shot in 1930 as 2000.

And yes, it is true that the Republican party is gathering all the signatures necessary to put Nader on the ballot in the swing states. Not because that is what Nader wants, or what Nader needs. They are doing it for the same cynical reasons that the Democratic party is bringing lawsuits in those same swing states, challenging the Nader petitions to keep him off the ballot.

In other words, the corporate two party system is destroying the integrity of the third party system now, along with everything else they have destroyed so far. Just to win. Just to fucking win the horse race. These sorts of things are heart breakingly sad developments in American politics. The orchestrated, racist disenfranchisement of African American voters by both parties. The cynical, manipulative disenfranchisement of third party voters by both parties. Anyone who tries to empower those who didn't vote in 2000 is being met with incredible force by the two parties. I am on the side of those disenfranchised voters. Kerry represents the enemies of democracy to us, pure and simple.