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1. An Anarchist, but I\'ll vote \"for\" Nader.

During the VietNam War, when I saw Lyndon Johnson \"debating\" Barry Goldwater, I decided not to vote. Goldwater, an \"honest\" reactionary, said he\'d \"bomb them back to the Stone Age\", and Johnson was obviously a damn liar. Since then, when I didn\'t vote only because I was disgusted, I\'ve become a principled non-believer in so-called representative democracy. I usually express my belief in the illegitimacy of this once-every-four-years farce by not voting. And I generally believe the anarchist slogan, \"If you could change things by voting, it would have been made illegal.\"

So why is the Nader campaign different? Nader is an unregenerate, committed capitalist ideologue. He is honest, smart, incisive, and principled. He truly believes it is possible to have a decent social order within the framework of global capitalism. He is wrong, but wants to try to move the U.S. in that direction. Down with transnational corporate control! Down with corruption! Down with corporate subsidies! Down with discrimination! With racism! And so on, the whole wonderful liberal litany.

We easily recall that Nelson Mandela also was a dedicated and honest believer, as were Manley in Jamaica, Arbenz in Guatemala, Salvador Allende in Chile, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, and others, the intent of each to better the lot of the poor in his society, a goal thwarted in each country by the forces of global capitalism.

Voting, at this historical moment, is, I believe, important because it can help to further galvanize in our country what the Mexicans call The Civil Society, that is, the non-governmental, non-corporate sector of society. We can make the world a better place, but only from the bottom up, not from the top down. Even if the Green Party could be elected to national leadership, wedded, as it appears to be, to the ideology of the economic/social system of capitalism, it could seek only reforms, not fundamental changes. Desirable, small but temporary gains, yes, but throttled at almost every turn by what
Emanuel Wallerstein calls Historical Capitalism. Instead of taking the bull by the horns, the Greens, with Nader out front, are seeking to grab it by the ass.

I was moved to give up my \"principled\" position of refusing to vote because of the dramatic results of the Mexican election(s), the Federal election and the Chiapas State election. President-elect Vincente Fox of the right-wing PAN (National Action Party) is not only committed to capitalist ideology; he\'s a big capitalist himself, high up in the \"CocaColonizaci