I want to stress here that I am *not* trying to convince anyone to vote for Nader. Not that I have anything against Nader, not at all - I like the man, its just that I think that voting legitimizes a system which cannot be reformed and which is illegitimate beyond imagination. No, all I am trying to illustrate with this table is a) that McCain=Obama=Clinton and that b) Nader is the only alternative, whether good or bad, to the Neocon War Party's two branches.
As I wrote many times in this blog, the choice between the two factions of the "Republicrat Party" is about as meaningful as the choice between (Kosher) Pepsi and (Kosher) Coke: no choice at all. Now that Kucinich, Paul and Gravel are officially out, the only person still running for the Presidency who does not fully endorse a messianic imperial view of the USA is Ralph Nader. By refusing to recognize the Democrats as a meaningful alternative to the Republicans Nader has already done his country a great service.
We now will see if Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel have the integrity and guts to do the only decent and logical thing (at least for somebody who belives that the system can be reformed from within): endorse Nader.
None of this will make any difference, however slight. The Neocons and the Israel Lobby have a firm grip on both factions of the War Party, they have already infiltrated the campaigns of Mc Cain, Clinton and, to a marginally lesser degree, Obama. Little will change with Dubya's long awaited departure from the White House besides Hillary and Obama providing some charm and intelligence, if not culture, to a post occupied by a Neanderthal-like President for the past eight years. A welcome change for sure, but not something substantial.
Clinton was elected as a "liberal" and he threw million of poor Americans (mostly kids) into the streets, Dubya was elected on a "modest" foreign policy only to start an orgy of Imperial wars. So what is the point of all this? Why spend millions every four years for a presidential campaign which has no relevance whatsoever for the future of the USA?
The real point is to conceal the nature of the *system* by instead focusing on personalities. The proverbial tree concealing the forest if you wish.
Americans are educated or, rather, brainwashed into believing that puppet #1 is dramatically different from puppet #2 and that the electoral circus actually has a meaning. By focusing all the public attention on the candidates the system's propaganda machine successfully distracts the American public from the real cause and nature of the political system ruling over it.
In this context one has to admit that Nader is part of the system no less than Hillary, Obama or Mc Cain: he provides the system with a safety valve and a thin veneer of democratic legitimacy. Still, his platform does serve to shed some light on the forces which really control it all. Hence my ambivalence about the idea of voting for him (a purely theoretical one, for sure, since I do not hold the Imperial citizenship, nor will I ever in the future).
If you have any faith left at all in the American democracy, then, by all means, vote Nader as any other vote is a vote against the American Republic (and for a Fascist Empire). If you, like myself, believe that the system cannot be reformed no matter what, then stay away from it. Limit yourself to an "internal exile" and follow Solzhenitsyn's advice to live not by the lies. This method brought down the Soviet Union and it will also eventually bring down the American Empire.