I've been to the New York Times website Frank, and can find no mention of any article that proves Nader took money from Swift Boat Vets, just an article that says Democratic party operatives are accusing him of accepting funding from them, and other Republican sources, which Nader has consistently denied.

Now, if a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush/Republicans, then what was a vote for Jesse Ventura? It is widely known that Jesse Ventura split votes off from both the Democrats and Republicans to win the Minnesota governor's race. But the more significant thing he did to win the election was to bring in voters that hadn't been voting to put him over the top.

PBS has been the only network that has dealt with independent and third party candidates. In it's most recent program on the topic, Crashing the Parties 2004, Jesse Ventura said several intersting things. First, about Nader, he absolutely dismisses the charge that Nader was a "spoiler" in 2000. As Jesse pointed out, Al Gore would be president today if he had won either his own home state, or the home state of Bill Clinton. In other interviews, Jesse has also pointed out that the only constituency that continues to accuse Nader or any other third party/independent candidates of being spoilers, are the Democratic party and it's hysteria mongering sycophants.

Jesse also pointed out that all any candidate has to do to win an election these days, is to pull in roughly 1/3 of the regular voters, and 20% of non-voters, to slide to an easy victory. He questions why neither the Democrats or Republicans seem to be able to do this.

The problem with believing that Kerry is a genuine alternative to the status quo despite him being part and parcel of the status quo the Chomskys, et al keep claiming they are fighting to defend by ousting Bush, is that most people who will vote for Kerry will also have convinced themselves of his goodness as a candidate AND as a president, despite their own beliefs to the contrary during the primaries. Already people in Mudcat who opposed Kerry back in the primaries, are showing signs of this sort of muddled thinking. Why do people do this? Because when you rationalize and justify voting for one of the bad guys by saying what a good guy he is, there is a psychological disconnect in most people.

My belief is that most people who have turned their backs on Nader this time who supported him last time, is that they are making a hard turn to the right politically, and that they will likely never return to the progressive values they once professed to hold. Which, of course, turned out to be fashionable empty rhetoric.

There are battle lines being drawn. But most of the Greens and progressives who are going along with the appease the Democrats strategy, will never be on the front lines of the battle again. That will be left to the younger generation they have betrayed, who will soon be tearing it up in the streets again like they did in Seattle.

It is the future generations the appeasers have sold out with their Anybody But Bush rationalizations. Our young people won't forget this betrayal of progressive values by their elders, I assure you.