I don't get it. Why do progressives still vote for Democrats when people like Ralph Nader are out there?!
Showing posts with label Ralph Nader. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ralph Nader. Show all posts
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Corporate Personhood Should Be Banned, Once and For All
by Ralph Nader
Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission shreds the fabric of our already weakened democracy by allowing corporations to more completely dominate our corrupted electoral process. It is outrageous that corporations already attempt to influence or bribe our political candidates through their political action committees (PACs), which solicit employees and shareholders for donations. With this decision, corporations can now also draw on their corporate treasuries and pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars.
This corporatist, anti-voter decision is so extreme that it should galvanize a grassroots effort to enact a Constitutional Amendment to once and for all end corporate personhood and curtail the corrosive impact of big money on politics. It is indeed time for a Constitutional amendment to prevent corporate campaign contributions from commercializing our elections and drowning out the civic and political voices and values of citizens and voters. It is way overdue to overthrow “King Corporation” and restore the sovereignty of “We the People”!
Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission shreds the fabric of our already weakened democracy by allowing corporations to more completely dominate our corrupted electoral process. It is outrageous that corporations already attempt to influence or bribe our political candidates through their political action committees (PACs), which solicit employees and shareholders for donations. With this decision, corporations can now also draw on their corporate treasuries and pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars.
This corporatist, anti-voter decision is so extreme that it should galvanize a grassroots effort to enact a Constitutional Amendment to once and for all end corporate personhood and curtail the corrosive impact of big money on politics. It is indeed time for a Constitutional amendment to prevent corporate campaign contributions from commercializing our elections and drowning out the civic and political voices and values of citizens and voters. It is way overdue to overthrow “King Corporation” and restore the sovereignty of “We the People”!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Nader Was Right: Liberals Are Going Nowhere With Obama
By Chris Hedges for Truthdig
The American empire has not altered under Barack Obama. It kills as brutally and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under George W. Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury to enrich the corporate elite as rapaciously. It will not give us universal health care, abolish the Bush secrecy laws, end torture or “extraordinary rendition,” restore habeas corpus or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of citizens. It will not push through significant environmental reform, regulate Wall Street or end our relationship with private contractors that provide mercenary armies to fight our imperial wars and produce useless and costly weapons systems.
The sad reality is that all the well-meaning groups and individuals who challenge our permanent war economy and the doctrine of pre-emptive war, who care about sustainable energy, fight for civil liberties and want corporate malfeasance to end, were once again suckered by the Democratic Party. They were had. It is not a new story. The Democrats have been doing this to us since Bill Clinton. It is the same old merry-go-round, only with Obama branding. And if we have not learned by now that the system is broken, that as citizens we do not matter to our political elite, that we live in a corporate state where our welfare and our interests are irrelevant, we are in serious trouble. Our last hope is to step outside of the two-party system and build movements that defy the Democrats and the Republicans. If we fail to do this, we will continue to undergo a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion that will end in feudalism.
We owe Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party an apology. They were right. If a few million of us had had the temerity to stand behind our ideals rather than our illusions and the empty slogans peddled by the Obama campaign, we would have a platform. We forgot that social reform never comes from accommodating the power structure but from frightening it. The Liberty Party, which fought slavery, the suffragists who battled for women’s rights, the labor movement, and the civil rights movement knew that the question was not how do we get good people to rule—those attracted to power tend to be venal mediocrities—but how do we limit the damage the powerful do to us. These mass movements were the engines for social reform, the correctives to our democracy and the true protectors of the rights of citizens. We have surrendered this power. It is vital to reclaim it. Where is the foreclosure movement? Where is the robust universal health care or anti-war movement? Where is the militant movement for sustainable energy?
“Something is broken,” Nader said when I reached him at his family home in Connecticut. “We are not at the Bangladesh level in terms of passivity, but we are getting there. No one sees anything changing. There is no new political party to give people a choice. The progressive forces have no hammer. When they abandoned our campaign, they told the Democrats we have nowhere to go and will take whatever you give us. The Democrats are under no heat in the electoral arena from the left.
“There comes a point when the public imbibes the ultimatum of the plutocracy,” Nader said when asked about public apathy. “They have bought into the belief that if it protests, it will be brutalized by the police. If they have Muslim names, they will be subjected to Patriot Act treatment. This has scared the hell out of the underclass. They will be called terrorists.
“This is the third television generation,” Nader said. “They have grown up watching screens. They have not gone to rallies. Those are history now. They hear their parents and grandparents talk about marches and rallies. They have little toys and gizmos that they hold in their hands. They have no idea of any public protest or activity. It is a tapestry of passivity.
“They have been broken,” Nader said of the working class. “How many times have their employers threatened them with going abroad? How many times have they threatened the workers with outsourcing? The polls on job insecurity are record-high by those who have employment. And the liberal intelligentsia have failed them. They [the intellectuals] have bought into carping and making lecture fees as the senior fellow at the institute of so-and-so. Look at the top 50 intelligentsia—not one of them supported our campaign, not one of them has urged for street action and marches.”
Our task is to build movements that can act as a counterweight to the corporate rape of America. We must opt out of the mainstream. We must articulate and stand behind a viable and uncompromising socialism, one that is firmly and unequivocally on the side of working men and women. We must give up the self-delusion that we can influence the power elite from the inside. We must become as militant as those who are seeking our enslavement. If we remain passive as we undergo the largest transference of wealth upward in American history, our open society will die. The working class is being plunged into desperation that will soon rival the misery endured by the working class in China and India. And the Democratic Party, including Obama, is a willing accomplice.
“Obama is squandering his positive response around the world,” Nader said. “In terms of foreign and military policy, it is a distinct continuity with Bush. Iraq, Afghanistan, the militarization of foreign policy, the continued expansion of the Pentagon budget and pursuing more globalized trade agreements are the same.”
This is an assessment that neoconservatives now gleefully share. Eliot A. Cohen, writing in The Wall Street Journal, made the same pronouncement.
“Mostly, though, the underlying structure of the policy remains the same,” Cohen wrote in an Aug. 2 opinion piece titled “What’s Different About the Obama Foreign Policy.” “Nor should this surprise us: The United States has interests dictated by its physical location, its economy, its alliances, and above all, its values. Naive realists, a large tribe, fail to understand that ideals will inevitably guide American foreign policy, even if they do not always determine it. Moreover, because the Obama foreign and defense policy senior team consists of centrist experts from the Democratic Party, it is unlikely to make radically different judgments about the world, and about American interests in it, than its predecessors.”
Nader said that Obama should gradually steer the country away from imperial and corporate tyranny.
“You don’t just put out policy statements of congeniality, but statements of gradual redirection,” Nader said. “You incorporate in that statement not just demilitarization, not just ascension of smart diplomacy, but the enlargement of the U.S. as a humanitarian superpower, and cut out these Soviet-era weapons systems and start rapid response for disaster like earthquakes and tsunamis. You expand infectious disease programs, which the U.N. Developmental Commission says can be done for $50 billion a year in Third World countries on nutrition, minimal health care and minimal shelter.”
Obama has expanded the assistance to our class of Wall Street extortionists through subsidies, loan guarantees and backup declarations to banks such as Citigroup. His stimulus package does not address the crisis in our public works infrastructure; instead it doles out funds to Medicaid and unemployment compensation. There will be no huge public works program to remodel the country. The president refuses to acknowledge the obvious—we can no longer afford our empire.
“Obama could raise a call to come home, America, from the military budget abroad,” Nader suggested. “He could create a new constituency that does not exist because everything is so fragmented, scattered, haphazard and slapdash with the stimulus. He could get the local labor unions, the local Chambers of Commerce and the mayors to say the more we cut the military budget, the more you get in terms of public works.”
“They [administration leaders] don’t see the distinction between public power and corporate power,” Nader said. “This is their time in history to reassert public values represented by workers, consumers, taxpayers and communities. They are creating a jobless recovery, the worst of the worst, with the clear specter of inflation on the horizon. We are heading for deep water.”
The massive borrowing acts as an anesthetic. It prevents us from facing the new limitations we must learn to cope with domestically and abroad. It allows us to live in the illusion that we are not in a state of irrevocable crisis, that our decline is not real and that catastrophe has been averted. But running up the national debt can work only so long.
“No one can predict the future,” Nader added hopefully. “No one knows the variables. No one predicted the move on tobacco. No one predicted gay rights. No one predicted the Berkeley student rebellion. The students were supine. You never know what will light the fire. You have to keep the pressure on. I know only one thing for sure: The whole liberal-progressive constituency is going nowhere.”
The American empire has not altered under Barack Obama. It kills as brutally and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under George W. Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury to enrich the corporate elite as rapaciously. It will not give us universal health care, abolish the Bush secrecy laws, end torture or “extraordinary rendition,” restore habeas corpus or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of citizens. It will not push through significant environmental reform, regulate Wall Street or end our relationship with private contractors that provide mercenary armies to fight our imperial wars and produce useless and costly weapons systems.
The sad reality is that all the well-meaning groups and individuals who challenge our permanent war economy and the doctrine of pre-emptive war, who care about sustainable energy, fight for civil liberties and want corporate malfeasance to end, were once again suckered by the Democratic Party. They were had. It is not a new story. The Democrats have been doing this to us since Bill Clinton. It is the same old merry-go-round, only with Obama branding. And if we have not learned by now that the system is broken, that as citizens we do not matter to our political elite, that we live in a corporate state where our welfare and our interests are irrelevant, we are in serious trouble. Our last hope is to step outside of the two-party system and build movements that defy the Democrats and the Republicans. If we fail to do this, we will continue to undergo a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion that will end in feudalism.
We owe Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party an apology. They were right. If a few million of us had had the temerity to stand behind our ideals rather than our illusions and the empty slogans peddled by the Obama campaign, we would have a platform. We forgot that social reform never comes from accommodating the power structure but from frightening it. The Liberty Party, which fought slavery, the suffragists who battled for women’s rights, the labor movement, and the civil rights movement knew that the question was not how do we get good people to rule—those attracted to power tend to be venal mediocrities—but how do we limit the damage the powerful do to us. These mass movements were the engines for social reform, the correctives to our democracy and the true protectors of the rights of citizens. We have surrendered this power. It is vital to reclaim it. Where is the foreclosure movement? Where is the robust universal health care or anti-war movement? Where is the militant movement for sustainable energy?
“Something is broken,” Nader said when I reached him at his family home in Connecticut. “We are not at the Bangladesh level in terms of passivity, but we are getting there. No one sees anything changing. There is no new political party to give people a choice. The progressive forces have no hammer. When they abandoned our campaign, they told the Democrats we have nowhere to go and will take whatever you give us. The Democrats are under no heat in the electoral arena from the left.
“There comes a point when the public imbibes the ultimatum of the plutocracy,” Nader said when asked about public apathy. “They have bought into the belief that if it protests, it will be brutalized by the police. If they have Muslim names, they will be subjected to Patriot Act treatment. This has scared the hell out of the underclass. They will be called terrorists.
“This is the third television generation,” Nader said. “They have grown up watching screens. They have not gone to rallies. Those are history now. They hear their parents and grandparents talk about marches and rallies. They have little toys and gizmos that they hold in their hands. They have no idea of any public protest or activity. It is a tapestry of passivity.
“They have been broken,” Nader said of the working class. “How many times have their employers threatened them with going abroad? How many times have they threatened the workers with outsourcing? The polls on job insecurity are record-high by those who have employment. And the liberal intelligentsia have failed them. They [the intellectuals] have bought into carping and making lecture fees as the senior fellow at the institute of so-and-so. Look at the top 50 intelligentsia—not one of them supported our campaign, not one of them has urged for street action and marches.”
Our task is to build movements that can act as a counterweight to the corporate rape of America. We must opt out of the mainstream. We must articulate and stand behind a viable and uncompromising socialism, one that is firmly and unequivocally on the side of working men and women. We must give up the self-delusion that we can influence the power elite from the inside. We must become as militant as those who are seeking our enslavement. If we remain passive as we undergo the largest transference of wealth upward in American history, our open society will die. The working class is being plunged into desperation that will soon rival the misery endured by the working class in China and India. And the Democratic Party, including Obama, is a willing accomplice.
“Obama is squandering his positive response around the world,” Nader said. “In terms of foreign and military policy, it is a distinct continuity with Bush. Iraq, Afghanistan, the militarization of foreign policy, the continued expansion of the Pentagon budget and pursuing more globalized trade agreements are the same.”
This is an assessment that neoconservatives now gleefully share. Eliot A. Cohen, writing in The Wall Street Journal, made the same pronouncement.
“Mostly, though, the underlying structure of the policy remains the same,” Cohen wrote in an Aug. 2 opinion piece titled “What’s Different About the Obama Foreign Policy.” “Nor should this surprise us: The United States has interests dictated by its physical location, its economy, its alliances, and above all, its values. Naive realists, a large tribe, fail to understand that ideals will inevitably guide American foreign policy, even if they do not always determine it. Moreover, because the Obama foreign and defense policy senior team consists of centrist experts from the Democratic Party, it is unlikely to make radically different judgments about the world, and about American interests in it, than its predecessors.”
Nader said that Obama should gradually steer the country away from imperial and corporate tyranny.
“You don’t just put out policy statements of congeniality, but statements of gradual redirection,” Nader said. “You incorporate in that statement not just demilitarization, not just ascension of smart diplomacy, but the enlargement of the U.S. as a humanitarian superpower, and cut out these Soviet-era weapons systems and start rapid response for disaster like earthquakes and tsunamis. You expand infectious disease programs, which the U.N. Developmental Commission says can be done for $50 billion a year in Third World countries on nutrition, minimal health care and minimal shelter.”
Obama has expanded the assistance to our class of Wall Street extortionists through subsidies, loan guarantees and backup declarations to banks such as Citigroup. His stimulus package does not address the crisis in our public works infrastructure; instead it doles out funds to Medicaid and unemployment compensation. There will be no huge public works program to remodel the country. The president refuses to acknowledge the obvious—we can no longer afford our empire.
“Obama could raise a call to come home, America, from the military budget abroad,” Nader suggested. “He could create a new constituency that does not exist because everything is so fragmented, scattered, haphazard and slapdash with the stimulus. He could get the local labor unions, the local Chambers of Commerce and the mayors to say the more we cut the military budget, the more you get in terms of public works.”
“They [administration leaders] don’t see the distinction between public power and corporate power,” Nader said. “This is their time in history to reassert public values represented by workers, consumers, taxpayers and communities. They are creating a jobless recovery, the worst of the worst, with the clear specter of inflation on the horizon. We are heading for deep water.”
The massive borrowing acts as an anesthetic. It prevents us from facing the new limitations we must learn to cope with domestically and abroad. It allows us to live in the illusion that we are not in a state of irrevocable crisis, that our decline is not real and that catastrophe has been averted. But running up the national debt can work only so long.
“No one can predict the future,” Nader added hopefully. “No one knows the variables. No one predicted the move on tobacco. No one predicted gay rights. No one predicted the Berkeley student rebellion. The students were supine. You never know what will light the fire. You have to keep the pressure on. I know only one thing for sure: The whole liberal-progressive constituency is going nowhere.”
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
An Open Letter to Barack Obama
Between Hope and Reality
By Ralph Nader (source: Information Clearing House)
Dear Senator Obama:
In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words "hope and change," "change and hope" have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not "hope and change" but the continuation of the power-entrenched status quo.
Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests investing so much in Senator Obama? Could it be that in your state Senate record, your U.S. Senate record and your presidential campaign record (favoring nuclear power, coal plants, offshore oil drilling, corporate subsidies including the 1872 Mining Act and avoiding any comprehensive program to crack down on the corporate crime wave and the bloated, wasteful military budget, for example) you have shown that you are their man?
To advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character, courage, integrity-- not expediency, accommodation and short-range opportunism. Take, for example, your transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights in Chicago before your run for the U.S. Senate to an acolyte, a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby, which bolsters the militaristic oppression, occupation, blockage, colonization and land-water seizures over the years of the Palestinian peoples and their shrunken territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Eric Alterman summarized numerous polls in a December 2007 issue of The Nation magazine showing that AIPAC policies are opposed by a majority of Jewish-Americans.
You know quite well that only when the U.S. Government supports the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements, that years ago worked out a detailed two-state solution (which is supported by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians), will there be a chance for a peaceful resolution of this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you align yourself with the hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous, demeaning speech to the AIPAC convention right after you gained the nomination of the Democratic Party, you supported an "undivided Jerusalem," and opposed negotiations with Hamas-- the elected government in Gaza. Once again, you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1, 2008 poll by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of Israelis favored "direct negotiations with Hamas." Siding with the AIPAC hard-liners is what one of the many leading Palestinians advocating dialogue and peace with the Israeli people was describing when he wrote "Anti-semitism today is the persecution of Palestinian society by the Israeli state."
During your visit to Israel this summer, you scheduled a mere 45 minutes of your time for Palestinians with no news conference, and no visit to Palestinian refugee camps that would have focused the media on the brutalization of the Palestinians. Your trip supported the illegal, cruel blockade of Gaza in defiance of international law and the United Nations charter. You focused on southern Israeli casualties which during the past year have totaled one civilian casualty to every 400 Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side. Instead of a statesmanship that decried all violence and its replacement with acceptance of the Arab League's 2002 proposal to permit a viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in return for full economic and diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel, you played the role of a cheap politician, leaving the area and Palestinians with the feeling of much shock and little awe.
David Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, described your trip succinctly: "There was almost a willful display of indifference to the fact that there are two narratives here. This could serve him well as a candidate, but not as a President."
Palestinian American commentator, Ali Abunimah, noted that Obama did not utter a single criticism of Israel, "of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians. ...Even the Bush administration recently criticized Israeli's use of cluster bombs against Lebanese civilians [see www.atfl.org for elaboration]. But Obama defended Israeli's assault on Lebanon as an exercise of its 'legitimate right to defend itself.'"
In numerous columns Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, strongly criticized the Israeli government's assault on civilians in Gaza, including attacks on "the heart of a crowded refugee camp... with horrible bloodshed" in early 2008.
Israeli writer and peace advocate-- Uri Avnery-- described Obama's appearance before AIPAC as one that "broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning, adding that Obama "is prepared to sacrifice the most basic American interests. After all, the US has a vital interest in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will allow it to find ways to the hearts of the Arab masses from Iraq to Morocco. Obama has harmed his image in the Muslim world and mortgaged his future-- if and when he is elected president.," he said, adding, "Of one thing I am certain: Obama's declarations at the AIPAC conference are very, very bad for peace. And what is bad for peace is bad for Israel, bad for the world and bad for the Palestinian people."
A further illustration of your deficiency of character is the way you turned your back on the Muslim-Americans in this country. You refused to send surrogates to speak to voters at their events. Having visited numerous churches and synagogues, you refused to visit a single Mosque in America. Even George W. Bush visited the Grand Mosque in Washington D.C. after 9/11 to express proper sentiments of tolerance before a frightened major religious group of innocents.
Although the New York Times published a major article on June 24, 2008 titled "Muslim Voters Detect a Snub from Obama" (by Andrea Elliott), citing examples of your aversion to these Americans who come from all walks of life, who serve in the armed forces and who work to live the American dream. Three days earlier the International Herald Tribune published an article by Roger Cohen titled "Why Obama Should Visit a Mosque." None of these comments and reports change your political bigotry against Muslim-Americans-- even though your father was a Muslim from Kenya.
Perhaps nothing illustrated your utter lack of political courage or even the mildest version of this trait than your surrendering to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention. This is a tradition for former presidents and one accorded in prime time to Bill Clinton this year.
Here was a President who negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt, but his recent book pressing the dominant Israeli superpower to avoid Apartheid of the Palestinians and make peace was all that it took to sideline him. Instead of an important address to the nation by Jimmy Carter on this critical international problem, he was relegated to a stroll across the stage to "tumultuous applause," following a showing of a film about the Carter Center's post-Katrina work. Shame on you, Barack Obama!
But then your shameful behavior has extended to many other areas of American life. (See the factual analysis by my running mate, Matt Gonzalez, on www.votenader.org). You have turned your back on the 100-million poor Americans composed of poor whites, African-Americans, and Latinos. You always mention helping the "middle class" but you omit, repeatedly, mention of the "poor" in America.
Should you be elected President, it must be more than an unprecedented upward career move following a brilliantly unprincipled campaign that spoke "change" yet demonstrated actual obeisance to the concentration power of the "corporate supremacists." It must be about shifting the power from the few to the many. It must be a White House presided over by a black man who does not turn his back on the downtrodden here and abroad but challenges the forces of greed, dictatorial control of labor, consumers and taxpayers, and the militarization of foreign policy. It must be a White House that is transforming of American politics-- opening it up to the public funding of elections (through voluntary approaches)-- and allowing smaller candidates to have a chance to be heard on debates and in the fullness of their now restricted civil liberties. Call it a competitive democracy.
Your presidential campaign again and again has demonstrated cowardly stands. "Hope" some say springs eternal." But not when "reality" consumes it daily.
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
November 3, 2008
By Ralph Nader (source: Information Clearing House)
Dear Senator Obama:
In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words "hope and change," "change and hope" have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not "hope and change" but the continuation of the power-entrenched status quo.
Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests investing so much in Senator Obama? Could it be that in your state Senate record, your U.S. Senate record and your presidential campaign record (favoring nuclear power, coal plants, offshore oil drilling, corporate subsidies including the 1872 Mining Act and avoiding any comprehensive program to crack down on the corporate crime wave and the bloated, wasteful military budget, for example) you have shown that you are their man?
To advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character, courage, integrity-- not expediency, accommodation and short-range opportunism. Take, for example, your transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights in Chicago before your run for the U.S. Senate to an acolyte, a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby, which bolsters the militaristic oppression, occupation, blockage, colonization and land-water seizures over the years of the Palestinian peoples and their shrunken territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Eric Alterman summarized numerous polls in a December 2007 issue of The Nation magazine showing that AIPAC policies are opposed by a majority of Jewish-Americans.
You know quite well that only when the U.S. Government supports the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements, that years ago worked out a detailed two-state solution (which is supported by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians), will there be a chance for a peaceful resolution of this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you align yourself with the hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous, demeaning speech to the AIPAC convention right after you gained the nomination of the Democratic Party, you supported an "undivided Jerusalem," and opposed negotiations with Hamas-- the elected government in Gaza. Once again, you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1, 2008 poll by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of Israelis favored "direct negotiations with Hamas." Siding with the AIPAC hard-liners is what one of the many leading Palestinians advocating dialogue and peace with the Israeli people was describing when he wrote "Anti-semitism today is the persecution of Palestinian society by the Israeli state."
During your visit to Israel this summer, you scheduled a mere 45 minutes of your time for Palestinians with no news conference, and no visit to Palestinian refugee camps that would have focused the media on the brutalization of the Palestinians. Your trip supported the illegal, cruel blockade of Gaza in defiance of international law and the United Nations charter. You focused on southern Israeli casualties which during the past year have totaled one civilian casualty to every 400 Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side. Instead of a statesmanship that decried all violence and its replacement with acceptance of the Arab League's 2002 proposal to permit a viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in return for full economic and diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel, you played the role of a cheap politician, leaving the area and Palestinians with the feeling of much shock and little awe.
David Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, described your trip succinctly: "There was almost a willful display of indifference to the fact that there are two narratives here. This could serve him well as a candidate, but not as a President."
Palestinian American commentator, Ali Abunimah, noted that Obama did not utter a single criticism of Israel, "of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians. ...Even the Bush administration recently criticized Israeli's use of cluster bombs against Lebanese civilians [see www.atfl.org for elaboration]. But Obama defended Israeli's assault on Lebanon as an exercise of its 'legitimate right to defend itself.'"
In numerous columns Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, strongly criticized the Israeli government's assault on civilians in Gaza, including attacks on "the heart of a crowded refugee camp... with horrible bloodshed" in early 2008.
Israeli writer and peace advocate-- Uri Avnery-- described Obama's appearance before AIPAC as one that "broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning, adding that Obama "is prepared to sacrifice the most basic American interests. After all, the US has a vital interest in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will allow it to find ways to the hearts of the Arab masses from Iraq to Morocco. Obama has harmed his image in the Muslim world and mortgaged his future-- if and when he is elected president.," he said, adding, "Of one thing I am certain: Obama's declarations at the AIPAC conference are very, very bad for peace. And what is bad for peace is bad for Israel, bad for the world and bad for the Palestinian people."
A further illustration of your deficiency of character is the way you turned your back on the Muslim-Americans in this country. You refused to send surrogates to speak to voters at their events. Having visited numerous churches and synagogues, you refused to visit a single Mosque in America. Even George W. Bush visited the Grand Mosque in Washington D.C. after 9/11 to express proper sentiments of tolerance before a frightened major religious group of innocents.
Although the New York Times published a major article on June 24, 2008 titled "Muslim Voters Detect a Snub from Obama" (by Andrea Elliott), citing examples of your aversion to these Americans who come from all walks of life, who serve in the armed forces and who work to live the American dream. Three days earlier the International Herald Tribune published an article by Roger Cohen titled "Why Obama Should Visit a Mosque." None of these comments and reports change your political bigotry against Muslim-Americans-- even though your father was a Muslim from Kenya.
Perhaps nothing illustrated your utter lack of political courage or even the mildest version of this trait than your surrendering to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention. This is a tradition for former presidents and one accorded in prime time to Bill Clinton this year.
Here was a President who negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt, but his recent book pressing the dominant Israeli superpower to avoid Apartheid of the Palestinians and make peace was all that it took to sideline him. Instead of an important address to the nation by Jimmy Carter on this critical international problem, he was relegated to a stroll across the stage to "tumultuous applause," following a showing of a film about the Carter Center's post-Katrina work. Shame on you, Barack Obama!
But then your shameful behavior has extended to many other areas of American life. (See the factual analysis by my running mate, Matt Gonzalez, on www.votenader.org). You have turned your back on the 100-million poor Americans composed of poor whites, African-Americans, and Latinos. You always mention helping the "middle class" but you omit, repeatedly, mention of the "poor" in America.
Should you be elected President, it must be more than an unprecedented upward career move following a brilliantly unprincipled campaign that spoke "change" yet demonstrated actual obeisance to the concentration power of the "corporate supremacists." It must be about shifting the power from the few to the many. It must be a White House presided over by a black man who does not turn his back on the downtrodden here and abroad but challenges the forces of greed, dictatorial control of labor, consumers and taxpayers, and the militarization of foreign policy. It must be a White House that is transforming of American politics-- opening it up to the public funding of elections (through voluntary approaches)-- and allowing smaller candidates to have a chance to be heard on debates and in the fullness of their now restricted civil liberties. Call it a competitive democracy.
Your presidential campaign again and again has demonstrated cowardly stands. "Hope" some say springs eternal." But not when "reality" consumes it daily.
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
November 3, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Vote Independent or Boycott the Elections
By Reza Fiyouzat for Information Clearing House
How long shall we allow the system to kick us in the head, take our money, insult us after taking our money, and still expect us to participate in its frauds? With every passing year, the differences between the two ruling political parties in the U.S. diminish further, and their outlook, conduct and even advertising campaigns merge so much so that their members can be mistaken one for the other.
How long shall we allow the system to kick us in the head, take our money, insult us after taking our money, and still expect us to participate in its frauds? With every passing year, the differences between the two ruling political parties in the U.S. diminish further, and their outlook, conduct and even advertising campaigns merge so much so that their members can be mistaken one for the other.
By now it must be clear that the 'two-party' system is not only no such thing; it is corrupt to the bone.
It should be instructive to recount some major points of Obama's record, but since much of that has been done by far more qualified people, it should suffice to point to what's presented by Matt Gonzalez, in his piece, What Do They Have to Do to Lose Your Vote, in which we find all that is needed to persuade any whose illusions regarding Obama are still unshaken. If, after reading that, you still vote for Obama, then you deserve everything Obama throws at you once in office, and it is you who have no rights to complain.
Despite all that is recounted by Matt Gonzalez, and is known by the left, a good section of the American left is still agonizing over whether or not to vote for this 'lesser' evil! Some qualify this support with: "But, don't have any illusions!" Anybody who supports, even qualified twenty-fold, the notion of voting for a Democratic Party candidate, is already filled with illusions. Such recommendations coming from the 'left' are stunningly amusing if it weren't so infuriating to hear such talk always certified with tons of qualifications, which in turn make the recommendations not just absurd, but highly irresponsible.
Most progressives voting for Obama do so out of their partial blindness regarding the crimes of the American state; they see all the crimes commissioned and executed by the Republicans, but if a Democrat vote-getting team ransacked their very neighborhoods, doing drive-by's at high noon, with 'Vote Democrat' signs on their SUVs, they would most likely not see it. If a Democratic candidate is not too pretty, their answer is simple: it is a vote against Republicans. When pushed for something more positive, more substantial, lacking anything to offer, they argue that Obama-Biden ticket is less scary than McCain-Palin, and so we must make sure they get elected.
The other point they make is that a vote for Obama is a slap in the face of racism. To think that one is fighting racism while voting for a candidate that upholds every racist element of the structures of imperialism is to venture into political oblivion.
Such arguments can only come from people who do nothing whatsoever to change the really existing political life of the U.S. in between presidential elections. But, of course, every four years they must express some political recommendation of sorts, and out of desperate frustration, due to seeing the political field as only what the system presents (i.e., due to the fact that they do not act as subjective agencies), they can only decide which system-provided choice is less harmful. This is the gist of their dilemma.
So long as the left in the U.S. does not create its own independent institutions, so long as there is no institutional alternative that can channel people's grievances, and so long as there is no political party representing the working classes along a socialist outlook, the current balance of forces will continue to work increasingly against the working people and those interested in a more just society, and no matter how learned we might be, we will end up supporting the 'lesser' of the two evil parties dominating the people; in other words, supporting the imperial system.
What to do then? For starters, a good half of the eligible voters have been conducting a de facto boycott of the presidential elections, since they instinctively and correctly realize that the two ruling parties do not represent them. So, why not join them?
The only thing that can transform 'apathy' into an actual political force is to organize the non-voters, and we can only do so by addressing their (which is ours too) concerns. A boycott of the elections should be done with the purpose of announcing to the non-voting public that another way is possible, and must be sought and created to bring about political change. This other way must engage them, the non-voting population, with a strategic vision, while making a serious effort to build a real party of opposition.
This, in turn, requires a genuine opposition party-building effort. The Populists in the 19th century did not agonize over whether or not to vote for the lesser evils of their days. They built their own party. Granted, by the end of the 19th century, the Democrats had pretty much swallowed them whole, by adopting key elements of their platform reflecting their social demands, while watering them down, and blunting their force. But, the organizing spirit of the Populists is something to learn from. The lesson: Build your own party! Oppose both ruling parties consistently.
Within the context of building a real opposition party, then, a boycott as a tactical move makes political sense. It would bring coherence and political direction to the energies not wasted in the electoral fraud (yet sitting still), it potentially gives a voice to the energies not burned in the electoral game presented by the system as an opiate (to paraphrase Max Kantar). But, simply not-voting by itself (i.e., without an announced boycott) is also useless.
* * *
In lieu of a disclaimer, I must say that I respect anybody who votes for Nader or McKinney (Amee Chew makes a great case for supporting McKinney in her October 29 Counterpunch piece), as a way of registering their opposition to the 'two party' monopoly. I have argued in previous articles that, IF you think by voting you can bring change, then know that the only change worth voting for is the kind presented in the platforms of the independent candidates. Also, voting for independent candidates as a way of registering your support for people who are actually addressing our problems is a way of getting a real tally of how many people actually oppose the establishment candidates and support real change.
My argument for a boycott addresses a different sub-set of the population affected by this system, whether we vote or not. The point here is that regardless of the outcome of these elections, which is the continuation of the empire and its deep-rooted corruptions, we need to look past the elections and think how to build a long-term strategy for a real movement for fundamental change. This must include addressing those who do not vote.
People who do not vote are not participating for very good reasons. However, in the absence of a loud boycott, their non-participation gets interpreted as 'conceding' or 'apathy'. My point here is that, NO, this is not apathy. In fact it makes perfect logical sense, and it is far more honest than participating in fraudulent elections that only re-produce illusions about America, the 'world's greatest democracy'; illusions that only buttress the imperial system.
I come from the so-called Third World, in which boycotting elections is a political tool the masses, and the parties that stand with them, employ with good effect. Imran Khan's party (Insaf) in Pakistan, for example, boycotted the last elections there, and it was an organized message sent to the establishment that the rulers would not get a stamp of approval from the real opposition. This, far from re-creating 'apathy' or 'conceding' the elections, actually makes governments nervous. In Iran, for another example, you are required to take your birth certificate with you when you vote, so the authorities can stamp it, so they can see who has not participated, so they can do onto you what they will, should you have to deal with the authorities at some point.
So, boycott is actually a very powerful political tool, because it gives political voice to those who refuse to participate. Simply sitting at home and not announcing that you are boycotting is a different matter. Boycott is a political move, with a long-term vision in mind.
The American people are fed a huge lie every four years that their voices can make a difference. Really? It didn't make a jot of difference in 2006, when people, out of pure illusion, voted into the Congress a majority of Democrats with the hope that they would bring the war of occupation in Iraq to a speedy end. As George Carlin would have said, people might as well have wished on a rabbit's foot!
It didn't make any difference when a huge majority of the American people kept yelling down the jammed Congressional telephone lines, and over-stuffed Congressional email inboxes with, "Don't give my money away to those scum sucking swine!" The people's 'representatives' stole people's money anyway and handed it over to the banksters in broad daylight!
So, to repeat, what's the point of voting for establishment people? Except getting demoralized, such behavior has no other effect.
If influential people on the left, or even political parties on the left, such as the Communist Party, had spent the last thirty years of their collective lives, using their influence and authority, building truly oppositional parties, maybe for the past two presidential elections they wouldn't have to recommend voting for such a corrupt bunch of people, and instead could recommend voting for a truly oppositional party that really channeled people's grievances, with some (even if symbolic) presence in the legislature.
So, instead of wringing our hands over whether or not to vote for an evil, which is only a tiny bit less so, let us recognize the necessity of building a truly oppositional party. The first step in that direction is to either vote for independent candidates or conduct a boycott of these elections with the declaration that voting is bunk until real political alternatives representing people's needs are built. Don't waste your vote, and don't encourage the establishment bastards.
Reza Fiyouzat can be reached at: rfiyouzat@yahoo.com
Saturday, October 25, 2008
A vote for either John McCain or Barack Obama is—at best—an act of criminal negligence.
by Mickey Z. for Dissident Voice
You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches, and then pull it out six inches, and say you’re making progress.
– Malcolm X
Another Election Day approaches and I’m reminded of something the late Pakistani dissident, Eqbal Ahmad said about Noam Chomsky in the book, Confronting Empire (2000): “He (Chomsky) has never wavered. He has never fallen into the trap of saying, ‘Clinton will do better.’ Or ‘Nixon was bad but Carter at least had a human rights presidency.’ There is a consistency of substance, of posture, of outlook in his work.”
But along came 2004…when Chomsky said stuff like this: “Anyone who says ‘I don’t care if Bush gets elected’ is basically telling poor and working people in the country, ‘I don’t care if your lives are destroyed’.” And like this: “Despite the limited differences [between Bush and Kerry] both domestically and internationally, there are differences. In a system of immense power, small differences can translate into large outcomes.”
Standing alongside Chomsky was Howard Zinn, saying stuff like this: “Kerry, if he will stop being cautious, can create an excitement that will carry him into the White House and, more important, change the course of the nation.”
Fast forward to 2008 and Chomsky sez: “I would suggest voting against McCain, which means voting for Obama without illusions.” And once again, Howard Zinn is in agreement: “Even though Obama does not represent any fundamental change, he creates an opening for a possibility of change.” (Two word rejoinder: Bill Clinton)
This strategy of choosing an alleged “lesser evil” because he/she might be influenced by some mythical “popular movement” would be naïve if put forth by a high school student. Professors Chomsky and Zinn know better. If it’s incremental change they want, why not encourage their many readers to vote for Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney? The classic (read: absurd) reply to that question is: “Because Nader or McKinney can’t win.”
Of course they can’t win if everyone who claims to agree with them inexplicably votes for Obama instead. Paging Alice: You’re wanted down the goddamned rabbit hole.
Another possible answer as to why folks like Chomsky and Zinn don’t aggressively and tirelessly stump for Nader or McKinney is this: 2004 proved that the high profile Left is essentially impotent and borderline irrelevant. Chomsky and Zinn were joined in the vocal, visible, and vile Anybody-But-Bush ranks by “stars” like Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Medea Benjamin, Sean Penn, Barbra Streisand, Manning Marable, Naomi Klien, Phil Donahue, Barbara Ehrenreich, Martin Sheen, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Cornel West, etc. etc. and John Kerry still lost.
News flash: The “poor and working people in the country” that Chomsky mentions above are paying ZERO attention to him or anyone like him…and that’s a much bigger issue than which millionaire war criminal gets to play figurehead for the empire over the next four years.
Zinn talks about Obama and the “possibility of change.” It seems odd to be asking this of an octogenarian but: Exactly how much time do you think we have?
Every twenty-four hours, thirteen million tons toxic chemicals are released across the globe; 200,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed; more than one hundred plant or animal species go extinct; and 45,000 humans (mostly children) starve to death. Each day, 29,158 children under the age of five die from mostly preventable causes.
As Gandhi once asked: “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”
I promise you this: The human beings (and all living things) that come after us won’t care whether we voted for Obama or McCain in 2008…if they have no clean air to breathe, no clean water to use, and are stuck on a toxic, uninhabitable planet. They’d probably just want to ask us this: Why did you stand by and let everything be consumed or poisoned or destroyed?
Conclusion: A vote for either John McCain or Barack Obama is—at best—an act of criminal negligence.
Mickey Z. is the author of the recently released Bizarro novel, CPR for Dummies, and can be found on the Web at MickeyZ.net
Thursday, October 9, 2008
So is there a difference between Obama and McCain? A guide for non-Americans
The readers of my blog know that I see no substantial difference between Obama and McCain, I have said so many times. The choice between these two is about as meaningful as the choice between the SA and the SS in Nazi Germany or between the Trotskysts and the Stalinists in the Soviet Union. In the context of the USA, I like the following metaphor: the choice between the two Presidential candidates is akin to the choice between (Kosher) Pepsi and (Kosher) Coke when what one really wants to choose is a bottle of good French wine. As the "kosher" label on these two soda-candidates indicates, both have been vetted by the Israel Lobby and both are puppets of the same Neocon puppeteers. To repeat, there is no *substantial* difference between these two puppets and the outcome of the next election will decide exactly nothing in terms of the future of the USA.
But difference do not need to be substantial, there are other, often salient differences which should not be overlooked: style, appeal, etc. And here, in the realm of non-substantial differences, Obama and McCain are dramatically different.
First, there is the personal stuff. Obama has undeniable charm, he has brains, he actually understands most of the issues he discusses and, at times, one can even get the feeling that Obama might have some actual beliefs or values. In contrast, McCain is a drooling idiot, clearly as senile as Reagan was in his late years, McCain has absolutely no idea what he is talking about, and his "personal charm" is one micron think: underneath the nasty nature of McCain's character is obvious. This is why Obama and McCain appeal to very different types of people.
Obama "sells" himself under the "change" slogan and most people voting for him are sick and tired of Dubya and what he has done to the USA. They want a different course for the USA and Obama dangles this hope in front of them: put me in power and I will stop this insanity.
McCain, on the other hand, offers what many have called "Dubya on steroids" - more of the same, only much more of it. Some say that where Dubya was a hollow man, McCain is an evil one. I agree. The reason why most non-Americans are absolutely baffled by the fact that, at least judging by the polls, McCain is trailing Obama by only a couple of points is that they fail to understand a simple truth: McCain appeals to the worst and the most barbarically stupid and ugly Americans out there.
Who are the McCain voters? They are a toxic mix of rednecks, trailer-trash, TV-watching ignoramuses mixed with Bible-thumping Evangelicals, "Dispensationalists", Southern Baptists, inbred hicks, mixed in with the rich guys who made a killing during the Dubya years, mixed in with NRA-types, flag waving militarists, good ole nigger-hating racists and, last but not least, most of the left side of the Bell Curve of American IQ: the amazing variety of morons populating the USA. Truly, the McCain voters are the worst of the worst, not only because they are so gloriously stupid, but because McCain appeals to their worst, most evil character traits.
Yeah, I know - Obama voters are naive as hell, they are kidding themselves, they believe in the constant stream of propaganda the idiot box is spewing at them. Obama voters sometime are ideological Party automatons which would vote for *any* Democrat (even a SOB like Liebermann); others will vote for him only because of the color of his skin. All this is true, but the contrast with the McCain voters could still not be greater.
To sum it up, while Obama voters are gullible McCain voters are evil to the core. Let me repeat this here: Obama voters will mostly vote for Obama because what they think is the good things they see in him. McCain voters will vote for him because of the evil the see in him.
McCain voters want to kill them AYE-rabs and "win" the war in Iraq, they want to teach them Russians and Chinese a lesson about how America is great, they want to kick the "Latinos" back across the Rio Grande, they want guns to shoot at any terrorist who might show up in their trailer park, they want to get cheap gas into their SUVs and fuck up any raghead who dares to mess with the US of A. Either that, or they want to keep the millions of dollars they made during Dubya's reign. Both of these groups have the same message to the rest of the world: fuck the UN! fuck the Eurotrash! fuck all them foreigners who dare to bash America the Greatest! America: love it or leave it! These colors don't run! Support our troops! Nuke all the al-Qaeda bases in Iran and Russia!!!
A good way to visualize these guys is to think of Neanderthal on his Harley-Davidson bike with a US flag and a KIA-MIA flag flapping behind his back, or a pimply nerd in a suit and tie on the way to a to a 'mega-church' meeting, or a lawyer or banker with a huge house (usually of breathtaking bad taste) on a lakeside or oceanfront. Sure - these are all very different creatures, but McCain unites them all in one all-encompassing promise of more violence, more boots, more guns, more uniforms, more wars and more money.
Does all this matter? Yes and no. No matter who gets elected, the Neocons and the Zionist Lobby will remain in power. Yes, I know the old "Anglo" guard (Rockfeller, Brezinsky & Co.) is pushing the Obama candidacy while the Neocons and the Israel Lobby (Liebermann, Giuliani & Co.) seem to be uniformly backing McCain, and there is some truth to this, but you can be sure that the ZioCon Puppet Masters have already made plans for the (still likely) victory of Obama and that, should he be elected, he will be as obedient to them as Bill Clinton was.
It is very important to stress here that there is a "Third America" out there. Its the America of Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, Cynthia McKinney and, even more so, of the millions who disillusioned Americans from all walks of life who will simply not vote at all. I actually feel that they are the real majority in this country, the political system has simply totally excluded them from any form of representation. This "Third America" does not agree on everything, in fact, they disagree on many important issues, but they agree on a basic set of fundamental principles: they want the USA to be a *normal* country (and not an Empire), they want the USA to be a *republic* and not some bizarre "Fascist Plutocracy", they think that the national interests of the USA are more important than the ones of Israel, they think that wars should be fought only to repel an aggressor and that the USA has no business ruling the entire planet (something which even most Democrats and prospective Obama voters do *not* understand or agree with).
So here is what will happen in November: the worst of the worst will vote for McCain and the naive but generally well-meaning folks will vote Obama. Those who understand the system (be it on a gut-level or analytically) will either vote for Nader or simply say away from this entire circus.
See, the *real* function of the Presidential elections in the USA is *not* to bring the Executive Power in sync with the popular will. The real purpose is to offer a spectacle, a "secular liturgy" if you wish, whose main purpose in to instill a sense of relevance, of legitimacy of the system, into the American public. If for a full year the corporate media bombards the population with debates, polls, talkshows, reports and all sorts of dramatic (if irrelevant) scandals about the candidates this just must be an important event, no?! Actually not. It exactly that: a media-event with absolutely no relevance or purpose other than to numb out an already totally stupidified public.
So how should we, foreigners, look at this amazing "secular liturgy?
Here is my advice to my fellow "aliens" (this is how they call us in the USA). Set aside all other considerations and just remember these basic pointers:
a) if you hate the USA - hope for a McCain victory as he will run the US Empire into the ground even faster than Obama ever will.
b) if you love the USA - hope for an Obama victory: while Obama voters are naive, they are ashamed and disturbed by the burning hatred with which most countries now see the USA and they want to change that. Obama voters do want to be part of Planet Earth and they do sincerely care about the rest of the world (McCain voter don't give a damn and if you oppose them they will "motherfucking nuke you!" to teach you a lesson).
c) and if you love Americans, but hate what the USA has become - then reach out to the "Third America", show it your support and understanding. Never let the "Obama illusion" hide the existence of these millions of "other Americans" who suffer deeply from what is being done to their country and how are forced into a type of internal exile (just like real Russian patriots during the Soviet era).
As for my American readers, I can only urge you *not* to vote for any of the two clowns running for the two factions of the War Party. If you believe that the system can be changed from within, if you have any hope at all, then vote for Nader or McKinney (Ron Paul is not running anymore). And if you think (like I do) that the system is non-reformable, that it is a charade, that is is an integral part of the problem - then stay away from this "secular liturgy" and go and read Alexander Solzhenitsyn's brilliant and still highly relevant piece Live not by the Lie (and remember that the Soviet system was brought down exactly as predicted by Solzhenitsyn).
But whatever you do, do not vote for the presumed "lesser evil". Vote your conscience or don't vote at all.
The Saker
But difference do not need to be substantial, there are other, often salient differences which should not be overlooked: style, appeal, etc. And here, in the realm of non-substantial differences, Obama and McCain are dramatically different.
First, there is the personal stuff. Obama has undeniable charm, he has brains, he actually understands most of the issues he discusses and, at times, one can even get the feeling that Obama might have some actual beliefs or values. In contrast, McCain is a drooling idiot, clearly as senile as Reagan was in his late years, McCain has absolutely no idea what he is talking about, and his "personal charm" is one micron think: underneath the nasty nature of McCain's character is obvious. This is why Obama and McCain appeal to very different types of people.
Obama "sells" himself under the "change" slogan and most people voting for him are sick and tired of Dubya and what he has done to the USA. They want a different course for the USA and Obama dangles this hope in front of them: put me in power and I will stop this insanity.
McCain, on the other hand, offers what many have called "Dubya on steroids" - more of the same, only much more of it. Some say that where Dubya was a hollow man, McCain is an evil one. I agree. The reason why most non-Americans are absolutely baffled by the fact that, at least judging by the polls, McCain is trailing Obama by only a couple of points is that they fail to understand a simple truth: McCain appeals to the worst and the most barbarically stupid and ugly Americans out there.
Who are the McCain voters? They are a toxic mix of rednecks, trailer-trash, TV-watching ignoramuses mixed with Bible-thumping Evangelicals, "Dispensationalists", Southern Baptists, inbred hicks, mixed in with the rich guys who made a killing during the Dubya years, mixed in with NRA-types, flag waving militarists, good ole nigger-hating racists and, last but not least, most of the left side of the Bell Curve of American IQ: the amazing variety of morons populating the USA. Truly, the McCain voters are the worst of the worst, not only because they are so gloriously stupid, but because McCain appeals to their worst, most evil character traits.
Yeah, I know - Obama voters are naive as hell, they are kidding themselves, they believe in the constant stream of propaganda the idiot box is spewing at them. Obama voters sometime are ideological Party automatons which would vote for *any* Democrat (even a SOB like Liebermann); others will vote for him only because of the color of his skin. All this is true, but the contrast with the McCain voters could still not be greater.
To sum it up, while Obama voters are gullible McCain voters are evil to the core. Let me repeat this here: Obama voters will mostly vote for Obama because what they think is the good things they see in him. McCain voters will vote for him because of the evil the see in him.
McCain voters want to kill them AYE-rabs and "win" the war in Iraq, they want to teach them Russians and Chinese a lesson about how America is great, they want to kick the "Latinos" back across the Rio Grande, they want guns to shoot at any terrorist who might show up in their trailer park, they want to get cheap gas into their SUVs and fuck up any raghead who dares to mess with the US of A. Either that, or they want to keep the millions of dollars they made during Dubya's reign. Both of these groups have the same message to the rest of the world: fuck the UN! fuck the Eurotrash! fuck all them foreigners who dare to bash America the Greatest! America: love it or leave it! These colors don't run! Support our troops! Nuke all the al-Qaeda bases in Iran and Russia!!!
A good way to visualize these guys is to think of Neanderthal on his Harley-Davidson bike with a US flag and a KIA-MIA flag flapping behind his back, or a pimply nerd in a suit and tie on the way to a to a 'mega-church' meeting, or a lawyer or banker with a huge house (usually of breathtaking bad taste) on a lakeside or oceanfront. Sure - these are all very different creatures, but McCain unites them all in one all-encompassing promise of more violence, more boots, more guns, more uniforms, more wars and more money.
Does all this matter? Yes and no. No matter who gets elected, the Neocons and the Zionist Lobby will remain in power. Yes, I know the old "Anglo" guard (Rockfeller, Brezinsky & Co.) is pushing the Obama candidacy while the Neocons and the Israel Lobby (Liebermann, Giuliani & Co.) seem to be uniformly backing McCain, and there is some truth to this, but you can be sure that the ZioCon Puppet Masters have already made plans for the (still likely) victory of Obama and that, should he be elected, he will be as obedient to them as Bill Clinton was.
It is very important to stress here that there is a "Third America" out there. Its the America of Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, Cynthia McKinney and, even more so, of the millions who disillusioned Americans from all walks of life who will simply not vote at all. I actually feel that they are the real majority in this country, the political system has simply totally excluded them from any form of representation. This "Third America" does not agree on everything, in fact, they disagree on many important issues, but they agree on a basic set of fundamental principles: they want the USA to be a *normal* country (and not an Empire), they want the USA to be a *republic* and not some bizarre "Fascist Plutocracy", they think that the national interests of the USA are more important than the ones of Israel, they think that wars should be fought only to repel an aggressor and that the USA has no business ruling the entire planet (something which even most Democrats and prospective Obama voters do *not* understand or agree with).
So here is what will happen in November: the worst of the worst will vote for McCain and the naive but generally well-meaning folks will vote Obama. Those who understand the system (be it on a gut-level or analytically) will either vote for Nader or simply say away from this entire circus.
See, the *real* function of the Presidential elections in the USA is *not* to bring the Executive Power in sync with the popular will. The real purpose is to offer a spectacle, a "secular liturgy" if you wish, whose main purpose in to instill a sense of relevance, of legitimacy of the system, into the American public. If for a full year the corporate media bombards the population with debates, polls, talkshows, reports and all sorts of dramatic (if irrelevant) scandals about the candidates this just must be an important event, no?! Actually not. It exactly that: a media-event with absolutely no relevance or purpose other than to numb out an already totally stupidified public.
So how should we, foreigners, look at this amazing "secular liturgy?
Here is my advice to my fellow "aliens" (this is how they call us in the USA). Set aside all other considerations and just remember these basic pointers:
a) if you hate the USA - hope for a McCain victory as he will run the US Empire into the ground even faster than Obama ever will.
b) if you love the USA - hope for an Obama victory: while Obama voters are naive, they are ashamed and disturbed by the burning hatred with which most countries now see the USA and they want to change that. Obama voters do want to be part of Planet Earth and they do sincerely care about the rest of the world (McCain voter don't give a damn and if you oppose them they will "motherfucking nuke you!" to teach you a lesson).
c) and if you love Americans, but hate what the USA has become - then reach out to the "Third America", show it your support and understanding. Never let the "Obama illusion" hide the existence of these millions of "other Americans" who suffer deeply from what is being done to their country and how are forced into a type of internal exile (just like real Russian patriots during the Soviet era).
As for my American readers, I can only urge you *not* to vote for any of the two clowns running for the two factions of the War Party. If you believe that the system can be changed from within, if you have any hope at all, then vote for Nader or McKinney (Ron Paul is not running anymore). And if you think (like I do) that the system is non-reformable, that it is a charade, that is is an integral part of the problem - then stay away from this "secular liturgy" and go and read Alexander Solzhenitsyn's brilliant and still highly relevant piece Live not by the Lie (and remember that the Soviet system was brought down exactly as predicted by Solzhenitsyn).
But whatever you do, do not vote for the presumed "lesser evil". Vote your conscience or don't vote at all.
The Saker
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Joint press conference by Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader
Tired of listening to the two factions (the Republicrats and Demoblicans) of the War Party?
Then listen to the voices of the *real* American opposition:
Then listen to the voices of the *real* American opposition:
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Lasciate ogne speranza...
Obama is the same spineless genuflecting prostitute as the rest of them.
Judge for yourself and click here to read his AIPAC speech.
Ralph Nader is, along with abstention, the only possible choice for anyone with a conscience.
Judge for yourself and click here to read his AIPAC speech.
Ralph Nader is, along with abstention, the only possible choice for anyone with a conscience.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
The only two choices for the 2008 Presidential election: Nader vs Solzhenitsyn
I just came across this table on Ralph Nader's website and decided I would share it with you: (please click on image for a better view)
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.
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.
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