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Indybay Feature
Weak Kneed Progressives buckle Under Democrat Pressure
The vitrolic attack against Ralph Nader by the liberal establishment has been joined by many so called "progressives" who are more conserned about Democrats liking them then they are about building a independent progressive majority.
Progressive growing pains
Ralph Nader has managed to call the bluff of progressives who’ve made a habit of walking around moaning about corporate control of the two party system in the U.S., and it’s narrow ideological scope. His sin? He made the Green Party relevant in the 2000 elections. All of a sudden the party and its coalition of social justice and environmental organizations were being covered by the national media and examined by hundreds of thousands of voters who had never heard of the Greens before. For a moment they weren’t just a bunch of fringe environmentalist and ageing hippies. They mattered. For this Nader has been vilified, charactered, and ostracized. The saddest part of this is that progressives are leading the charge.
The group United Progressives for Victory is an organization that was formed for the explicit
purpose of discrediting Ralph Nader and his 2004 presidential campaign. The group includes
Toby Moffett, a former Democrat congressman from Connecticut, and Roy Neel, a former Gore aide. The goal of the group is to keep Nader off the ballot in as many states as possible and to target Nader voters with direct mail in key states that assail him for his “big ego” and reiterate the lesser of two evils argument of the liberal establishment. According to Moffett they seek "to drain him of resources and force him to spend his time and money."
This and similar efforts to “stop Nader” by folks like filmmaker Michael Moore, comedian Bill Maher, and others who supported Nader in 2000 reveals a sad lack of conviction and spine. It appears that what many U.S. progressives wanted wasn’t a viable
third party but just some attention. After they got some in 2000 they decided protesting, writing letters to the editor that never get published, and going to seven person meetings to plan more meetings- in short being irrelevant- is preferable to being hated by the liberal establishment. Never mind that liberals and progressives have real differences on real issues.
(corporate globalization, electoral reform, the war on drugs, single payer universal health care etc..) More specifically, never mind that John Kerry has said he wants to send more troops to Iraq (he has also said he wants to bring troops home), double the CIA budget, cut corporate taxes, continue the ban against same sex marriage, and appoint anti- abortion judges to lower level federal benches. The important thing for progressives after 2000 was to apologize to the Democrats for not being team players and promise to be more responsible next time around.
The Green Party decision not to run a real campaign in 2004 is the fruit of this contrition.
At their party convention in Summer 2004 they declined to endorse Ralph Nader’s campaign
and instead nominated a no name California lawyer, David Cobb, to carry the Green mantle. He vowed to run a “safe states” strategy to make sure the Greens didn’t take votes away from Democrats. For this concession the Green Party got nothing from the Democrats but a pat
on the head. The Kerry Campaign didn’t even have to meet with them. They’re intimidation of Green party leaders and activists worked.
The truth about electoral politics is that it’s a zero sum game (particularly with single member districts- something neither the Democrats or the Republicans are going to change) For the Greens to win, Democrats must lose. And the more the Greens cause the Democrats to lose the more serious the Democrats have to take the Greens. When the Democrats start calling Greens about making compromises and adopting planks that’s when the Greens can reasonably think about safe states strategies and similar concessions. If a political party is not building power by forcing its rival parties to the table its wasting the time and money of its members. Better that the cowardly Greens go back to the Democrats and map out a 30 year plan for a progressive take over (the way conservatives did in the Republican Party) then to continue the farce of the third party in the hopes that someday its very existence will compel Democrats to legislate into existence all those reforms that will make third parties viable in the U.S. Message to weak kneed progressives: don’t hold your breath.
Ralph Nader has managed to call the bluff of progressives who’ve made a habit of walking around moaning about corporate control of the two party system in the U.S., and it’s narrow ideological scope. His sin? He made the Green Party relevant in the 2000 elections. All of a sudden the party and its coalition of social justice and environmental organizations were being covered by the national media and examined by hundreds of thousands of voters who had never heard of the Greens before. For a moment they weren’t just a bunch of fringe environmentalist and ageing hippies. They mattered. For this Nader has been vilified, charactered, and ostracized. The saddest part of this is that progressives are leading the charge.
The group United Progressives for Victory is an organization that was formed for the explicit
purpose of discrediting Ralph Nader and his 2004 presidential campaign. The group includes
Toby Moffett, a former Democrat congressman from Connecticut, and Roy Neel, a former Gore aide. The goal of the group is to keep Nader off the ballot in as many states as possible and to target Nader voters with direct mail in key states that assail him for his “big ego” and reiterate the lesser of two evils argument of the liberal establishment. According to Moffett they seek "to drain him of resources and force him to spend his time and money."
This and similar efforts to “stop Nader” by folks like filmmaker Michael Moore, comedian Bill Maher, and others who supported Nader in 2000 reveals a sad lack of conviction and spine. It appears that what many U.S. progressives wanted wasn’t a viable
third party but just some attention. After they got some in 2000 they decided protesting, writing letters to the editor that never get published, and going to seven person meetings to plan more meetings- in short being irrelevant- is preferable to being hated by the liberal establishment. Never mind that liberals and progressives have real differences on real issues.
(corporate globalization, electoral reform, the war on drugs, single payer universal health care etc..) More specifically, never mind that John Kerry has said he wants to send more troops to Iraq (he has also said he wants to bring troops home), double the CIA budget, cut corporate taxes, continue the ban against same sex marriage, and appoint anti- abortion judges to lower level federal benches. The important thing for progressives after 2000 was to apologize to the Democrats for not being team players and promise to be more responsible next time around.
The Green Party decision not to run a real campaign in 2004 is the fruit of this contrition.
At their party convention in Summer 2004 they declined to endorse Ralph Nader’s campaign
and instead nominated a no name California lawyer, David Cobb, to carry the Green mantle. He vowed to run a “safe states” strategy to make sure the Greens didn’t take votes away from Democrats. For this concession the Green Party got nothing from the Democrats but a pat
on the head. The Kerry Campaign didn’t even have to meet with them. They’re intimidation of Green party leaders and activists worked.
The truth about electoral politics is that it’s a zero sum game (particularly with single member districts- something neither the Democrats or the Republicans are going to change) For the Greens to win, Democrats must lose. And the more the Greens cause the Democrats to lose the more serious the Democrats have to take the Greens. When the Democrats start calling Greens about making compromises and adopting planks that’s when the Greens can reasonably think about safe states strategies and similar concessions. If a political party is not building power by forcing its rival parties to the table its wasting the time and money of its members. Better that the cowardly Greens go back to the Democrats and map out a 30 year plan for a progressive take over (the way conservatives did in the Republican Party) then to continue the farce of the third party in the hopes that someday its very existence will compel Democrats to legislate into existence all those reforms that will make third parties viable in the U.S. Message to weak kneed progressives: don’t hold your breath.
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I appreciate that a regular person is just writing this, and it isn't reposted from someplace else.
I would refer people to Nader's recent victory in Oregon, where it was decided in a court of law that the state unlawfully changed the laws to keep him off the ballot.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/09/297017.shtml
I would refer people to Nader's recent victory in Oregon, where it was decided in a court of law that the state unlawfully changed the laws to keep him off the ballot.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/09/297017.shtml
Good article on the shameful Democratic Party's campaign against progressive and independent presidential candidate
Ralph Nader. Wake up, People! The Democrats are not the party of the people, never have been, never will be! All the
Democrats do is act as the willing, loyal opposition lap dogs
they are to the Republicans. Kerry shamelessly endorses Bush's War on the Iraqi People, Supports the Patriot Act, and
offers no solutions to save Social Security, Medicare, and head-off the Trillion $ Train Wreck the U.S.economy is headed for. It's time to build a real Progressive Movement in the U.S. with the strong support of Rank-and-File Labor . . . . . before it's too late!
Ralph Nader. Wake up, People! The Democrats are not the party of the people, never have been, never will be! All the
Democrats do is act as the willing, loyal opposition lap dogs
they are to the Republicans. Kerry shamelessly endorses Bush's War on the Iraqi People, Supports the Patriot Act, and
offers no solutions to save Social Security, Medicare, and head-off the Trillion $ Train Wreck the U.S.economy is headed for. It's time to build a real Progressive Movement in the U.S. with the strong support of Rank-and-File Labor . . . . . before it's too late!
Good article on the shameful Democratic Party's campaign against progressive and independent presidential candidate
Ralph Nader. Wake up, People! The Democrats are not the party of the people, never have been, never will be! All the
Democrats do is act as the willing, loyal opposition lap dogs
they are to the Republicans. Kerry shamelessly endorses Bush's War on the Iraqi People, Supports the Patriot Act, and
offers no solutions to save Social Security, Medicare, and head-off the Trillion $ Train Wreck the U.S.economy is headed for. It's time to build a real Progressive Movement in the U.S. with the strong support of Rank-and-File Labor . . . . . before it's too late!
Ralph Nader. Wake up, People! The Democrats are not the party of the people, never have been, never will be! All the
Democrats do is act as the willing, loyal opposition lap dogs
they are to the Republicans. Kerry shamelessly endorses Bush's War on the Iraqi People, Supports the Patriot Act, and
offers no solutions to save Social Security, Medicare, and head-off the Trillion $ Train Wreck the U.S.economy is headed for. It's time to build a real Progressive Movement in the U.S. with the strong support of Rank-and-File Labor . . . . . before it's too late!
Good article on the shameful Democratic Party's campaign against progressive and independent presidential candidate
Ralph Nader. Wake up, People! The Democrats are not the party of the people, never have been, never will be! All the
Democrats do is act as the willing, loyal opposition lap dogs
they are to the Republicans. Kerry shamelessly endorses Bush's War on the Iraqi People, Supports the Patriot Act, and
offers no solutions to save Social Security, Medicare, and head-off the Trillion $ Train Wreck the U.S.economy is headed for. It's time to build a real Progressive Movement in the U.S. with the strong support of Rank-and-File Labor . . . . . before it's too late!
Ralph Nader. Wake up, People! The Democrats are not the party of the people, never have been, never will be! All the
Democrats do is act as the willing, loyal opposition lap dogs
they are to the Republicans. Kerry shamelessly endorses Bush's War on the Iraqi People, Supports the Patriot Act, and
offers no solutions to save Social Security, Medicare, and head-off the Trillion $ Train Wreck the U.S.economy is headed for. It's time to build a real Progressive Movement in the U.S. with the strong support of Rank-and-File Labor . . . . . before it's too late!
"This and similar efforts to “stop Nader” by folks like filmmaker Michael Moore, comedian Bill Maher, ..."
NOT TO MENTION, IN GENERAL, "ALTERNATIVE" KPFA.
"and others who supported Nader in 2000 reveals a sad lack of conviction and spine."
ACTUALLY, EVEN IN 2000 MOST OF "ALTERNATIVE" KPFA SUPPORTED GORE!
"It appears that what many U.S. progressives wanted wasn’t a viable third party but just some attention. After they got some in 2000 they decided protesting, writing letters to the editor that never get published, and going to seven person meetings to plan more meetings- in short being irrelevant- is preferable to being hated by the liberal establishment."
ACTUALLY SINCE, APPARENTLY, MOST WHITE PROGRESSIVE ICONS SECRETLY *HATE* BEING IRRELEVANT -- AND APPARENTLY BASE THEIR FUNDAMENTAL SELF-ESTEEM ON BEING "RELEVANT" (SOMETHING MOST BLACKS DON'T NECESSARILY DO) -- MANY WHITE PROGRESSIVE ICONS JUST DECIDED THAT THEY'D RATHER *SWITCH*, THAN FIGHT, ANYMORE: THEY JUST JOINED THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AS "LEFTISTS FOR KERRY!!"
THOSE WHITE "LEFTISTS FOR KERRY" ACTUALLY PREFER THE ABJECT *SELF-DELUSION* THAT THEY ARE GOING TO "CHANGE THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FROM WITHIN"! HAHAHA...!!
AND THEY ARE WILLING TO JUST BEND OVER FOR THE DLC CUM 'GOP' DEMS! EVEN A *WHORE* DEMANDS SOME FORM OF PAYMENT! BUT THESE SCARED "PROGRESSIVES" CALL ANYONE -- LIKE NADER -- WHO DEMANDS SOMETHING FOR THEIR VOTES "*IRRESPONSIBLE*" AND "*EGOTISTICAL*"!!
DO YOU KNOW *ANY* OTHER POLITICAL CONSTITUENCY/LOBBY THAT GIVES AWAY ITS VOTES/SUPPORT WHILE DEMANDS *NOTHING*!?
THE ARMS INDUSTRY?
THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY?
THE INSURANCE LOBBY?
THE HMO LOBBY?
THE GUN LOBBY?
THE *ISRAEL* LOBBY?
ETC.
"When the Democrats start calling Greens about making compromises and adopting planks that’s when the Greens can reasonably think about safe states strategies and similar concessions. If a political party is not building power by forcing its rival parties to the table its wasting the time and money of its members."
YET *WHO* ARE THE DEMOCRATS WORRIED ABOUT?:
THE DEMS SURE AS HELL WEREN'T WORRIED ABOUT KUCINICH! (I USED TO ENJOY LAUGHING AT THOSE DELUSIONAL KUCINICH SUPPORTERS -- AND NOW KUCINICH WOULD TRY TO TELL US THAT "THERE'S A *WORLD* OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KERRY AND BUSH.")
I KNEW THAT KUCINICH AND ALL THOSE OTHER TOKEN CANDIDATES WERE JUST WHAT I ALWAYS CALLED THEM: "**BAIT & SWITCH**" DEMOCRAT PARTY VOTER REGISTRATION RECRUITMENT CANDIDATES -- ONE FOR EACH FLAVOR OF *SUCKER*!!
THE DEMS SURE AREN'T WORRIED ABOUT THE GREENS!
BUT THE DEMS RAN TO NADER TO TRY TO GET HIM -- THEY PROBABLY TRIED MIGHTILY TO *BRIBE* HIM (NO TELLING *HOW* MUCH $$$$$ THEY OFFERED HIM) -- TO DROP OUT! AND WHEN THEY COULDN'T DO THAT, THE DEMS HAVE BEEN TRYING EVERY DIRTY *UNDEMOCRATIC* TRICK IN THE BOOK AGAINST NADER.
THE DEMS AREN'T EVEN POPPIN' A BEAD OF SWEAT OVER COBB!
"...than to continue the farce of the third party..."
WHAT IT SHOWED WAS THAT (APPARENTLY) MOST GREEN 'LEADERS' WERE JUST S0-CALLED "THIRD PARTY" WHITE POLITICAL DILETTANTES! -- (OR, PERHAPS, DEMOCRAT '5TH COLUMNISTS') -- LOOKING FOR ATTENTION -- INCLUDING MICHAEL MOORE HIMSELF.
(Actually, it appears that most grassroots Greens did vote for Nader over Cobb: http://www.counterpunch.org/miller08072004.html )
OR AS CHALMERS JOHNSON (AUTHOR OF "BLOWBACK: THE COST AND CONSEQUENCES OF AMERICAN EMPIRE) PUT IT: "YOU *KNOW* WE'RE IN TROUBLE WHEN A LEADING "PROGRESSIVE" ICON SUPPORTS A *GENERAL* (AND ARGUABLY A WAR CRIMINAL AT THAT) FOR PRESIDENT!"
SO IT WAS A FALSE START (NOT UNCOMMON IN POLITICAL HISTORY), AND THE GRASSROOTS GREENS WILL HAVE TO DEVELOP NEW AND *REAL* LEADERSHIP.
[NOT] "...a no name California lawyer, David Cobb [A CORPORATE LAWYER FOR AN *INSURANCE* COMPANY -- WHO'S JOB IT WAS TO DENY WORKING PEOPLE'S CLAIMS, BASED ON THE INSURANCE COMPANY BALANCE SHEET'S BOTTOM LINE EACH YEAR!], to carry the Green mantle. He vowed to run a “safe states” strategy to make sure the Greens didn’t take votes away from Democrats."
OH, COBB WON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT *THAT*: **NO ONE'S** GOING TO VOTE FOR HIM ANYWAY!
NADER CAME TO OAKLAND AND HAD 10,000-15,000 PEOPLE AT JUST ONE OF HIS "SUPER RALLIES". COBB COULDN'T GET MORE THAN *40* PEOPLE TO SHOW UP FOR HIM, AT HIS *BERKELEY* RECEPTION!
COBB HIMSELF *IS* THE "SAFE STATES" STRATEGY -- THE GREENS JUST ELECTED A TALKING-OUT-OF-BOTH-SIDES-OF-HIS-MOUTH ***NOBODY***!!!
OR AS I SIGN OFF MY EMAIL THESE DAYS:
=============================================
It's the liberals and weak-kneed, vacillating, always scared progressives (closet liberals by another name) who over the decades have steadily "lesser evilled" us into the very situation they say is so unprecedentedly dire today.
OR AS BLACK LAW PROFESSOR AND AUTHOR DEREK BELL ONCE PUT IT:
It's we liberals and progressives who keep saving, over and over, just enough of this system to keep it going.
NOT TO MENTION, IN GENERAL, "ALTERNATIVE" KPFA.
"and others who supported Nader in 2000 reveals a sad lack of conviction and spine."
ACTUALLY, EVEN IN 2000 MOST OF "ALTERNATIVE" KPFA SUPPORTED GORE!
"It appears that what many U.S. progressives wanted wasn’t a viable third party but just some attention. After they got some in 2000 they decided protesting, writing letters to the editor that never get published, and going to seven person meetings to plan more meetings- in short being irrelevant- is preferable to being hated by the liberal establishment."
ACTUALLY SINCE, APPARENTLY, MOST WHITE PROGRESSIVE ICONS SECRETLY *HATE* BEING IRRELEVANT -- AND APPARENTLY BASE THEIR FUNDAMENTAL SELF-ESTEEM ON BEING "RELEVANT" (SOMETHING MOST BLACKS DON'T NECESSARILY DO) -- MANY WHITE PROGRESSIVE ICONS JUST DECIDED THAT THEY'D RATHER *SWITCH*, THAN FIGHT, ANYMORE: THEY JUST JOINED THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AS "LEFTISTS FOR KERRY!!"
THOSE WHITE "LEFTISTS FOR KERRY" ACTUALLY PREFER THE ABJECT *SELF-DELUSION* THAT THEY ARE GOING TO "CHANGE THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FROM WITHIN"! HAHAHA...!!
AND THEY ARE WILLING TO JUST BEND OVER FOR THE DLC CUM 'GOP' DEMS! EVEN A *WHORE* DEMANDS SOME FORM OF PAYMENT! BUT THESE SCARED "PROGRESSIVES" CALL ANYONE -- LIKE NADER -- WHO DEMANDS SOMETHING FOR THEIR VOTES "*IRRESPONSIBLE*" AND "*EGOTISTICAL*"!!
DO YOU KNOW *ANY* OTHER POLITICAL CONSTITUENCY/LOBBY THAT GIVES AWAY ITS VOTES/SUPPORT WHILE DEMANDS *NOTHING*!?
THE ARMS INDUSTRY?
THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY?
THE INSURANCE LOBBY?
THE HMO LOBBY?
THE GUN LOBBY?
THE *ISRAEL* LOBBY?
ETC.
"When the Democrats start calling Greens about making compromises and adopting planks that’s when the Greens can reasonably think about safe states strategies and similar concessions. If a political party is not building power by forcing its rival parties to the table its wasting the time and money of its members."
YET *WHO* ARE THE DEMOCRATS WORRIED ABOUT?:
THE DEMS SURE AS HELL WEREN'T WORRIED ABOUT KUCINICH! (I USED TO ENJOY LAUGHING AT THOSE DELUSIONAL KUCINICH SUPPORTERS -- AND NOW KUCINICH WOULD TRY TO TELL US THAT "THERE'S A *WORLD* OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KERRY AND BUSH.")
I KNEW THAT KUCINICH AND ALL THOSE OTHER TOKEN CANDIDATES WERE JUST WHAT I ALWAYS CALLED THEM: "**BAIT & SWITCH**" DEMOCRAT PARTY VOTER REGISTRATION RECRUITMENT CANDIDATES -- ONE FOR EACH FLAVOR OF *SUCKER*!!
THE DEMS SURE AREN'T WORRIED ABOUT THE GREENS!
BUT THE DEMS RAN TO NADER TO TRY TO GET HIM -- THEY PROBABLY TRIED MIGHTILY TO *BRIBE* HIM (NO TELLING *HOW* MUCH $$$$$ THEY OFFERED HIM) -- TO DROP OUT! AND WHEN THEY COULDN'T DO THAT, THE DEMS HAVE BEEN TRYING EVERY DIRTY *UNDEMOCRATIC* TRICK IN THE BOOK AGAINST NADER.
THE DEMS AREN'T EVEN POPPIN' A BEAD OF SWEAT OVER COBB!
"...than to continue the farce of the third party..."
WHAT IT SHOWED WAS THAT (APPARENTLY) MOST GREEN 'LEADERS' WERE JUST S0-CALLED "THIRD PARTY" WHITE POLITICAL DILETTANTES! -- (OR, PERHAPS, DEMOCRAT '5TH COLUMNISTS') -- LOOKING FOR ATTENTION -- INCLUDING MICHAEL MOORE HIMSELF.
(Actually, it appears that most grassroots Greens did vote for Nader over Cobb: http://www.counterpunch.org/miller08072004.html )
OR AS CHALMERS JOHNSON (AUTHOR OF "BLOWBACK: THE COST AND CONSEQUENCES OF AMERICAN EMPIRE) PUT IT: "YOU *KNOW* WE'RE IN TROUBLE WHEN A LEADING "PROGRESSIVE" ICON SUPPORTS A *GENERAL* (AND ARGUABLY A WAR CRIMINAL AT THAT) FOR PRESIDENT!"
SO IT WAS A FALSE START (NOT UNCOMMON IN POLITICAL HISTORY), AND THE GRASSROOTS GREENS WILL HAVE TO DEVELOP NEW AND *REAL* LEADERSHIP.
[NOT] "...a no name California lawyer, David Cobb [A CORPORATE LAWYER FOR AN *INSURANCE* COMPANY -- WHO'S JOB IT WAS TO DENY WORKING PEOPLE'S CLAIMS, BASED ON THE INSURANCE COMPANY BALANCE SHEET'S BOTTOM LINE EACH YEAR!], to carry the Green mantle. He vowed to run a “safe states” strategy to make sure the Greens didn’t take votes away from Democrats."
OH, COBB WON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT *THAT*: **NO ONE'S** GOING TO VOTE FOR HIM ANYWAY!
NADER CAME TO OAKLAND AND HAD 10,000-15,000 PEOPLE AT JUST ONE OF HIS "SUPER RALLIES". COBB COULDN'T GET MORE THAN *40* PEOPLE TO SHOW UP FOR HIM, AT HIS *BERKELEY* RECEPTION!
COBB HIMSELF *IS* THE "SAFE STATES" STRATEGY -- THE GREENS JUST ELECTED A TALKING-OUT-OF-BOTH-SIDES-OF-HIS-MOUTH ***NOBODY***!!!
OR AS I SIGN OFF MY EMAIL THESE DAYS:
=============================================
It's the liberals and weak-kneed, vacillating, always scared progressives (closet liberals by another name) who over the decades have steadily "lesser evilled" us into the very situation they say is so unprecedentedly dire today.
OR AS BLACK LAW PROFESSOR AND AUTHOR DEREK BELL ONCE PUT IT:
It's we liberals and progressives who keep saving, over and over, just enough of this system to keep it going.
Good morning, Mr. Anderson!
YOU have got my undivided attention.
I have noticed several of your comments & articles and hope to read much more as we go along.
Thanks for your lucid assessment of the vapid and at times suspect lack of willingness to directly assault the oppositional forces by segments of the "progressive" community.
Nader may be the thing, but without a clear connection that galvanizes the Black, Hispanic, Student, Labor, and Pensioner communities, the momentum is going to soon fizzle out from potentially devastating to muzzled impotence.
Nader as a concept represents a social revolution. Not 3rd parties, but any no. of parties, with the equal airtime to reach out, is another world, under a different type of regime.
Sad about Kucinich.
YOU have got my undivided attention.
I have noticed several of your comments & articles and hope to read much more as we go along.
Thanks for your lucid assessment of the vapid and at times suspect lack of willingness to directly assault the oppositional forces by segments of the "progressive" community.
Nader may be the thing, but without a clear connection that galvanizes the Black, Hispanic, Student, Labor, and Pensioner communities, the momentum is going to soon fizzle out from potentially devastating to muzzled impotence.
Nader as a concept represents a social revolution. Not 3rd parties, but any no. of parties, with the equal airtime to reach out, is another world, under a different type of regime.
Sad about Kucinich.
Until people in the U.S. who are most responsible for making war on Iraq, Haiti, etc., find their life insurance premiums increasing faster than their war profits, I'll have to believe that we're all weak-kneed progressives.
My sentiments exactly.
Thanks, Mr. Anderson, also, for your excellent analysis. It's good to know there are a couple of people in this world who have their eyes open and can stand on two feet and actually speak the truth.
The other night at a meeting I had grown men trying to coerce me into thinking it's all 'okay' and it's really all just 'Nader's fault' for - - whatever - - not showing up at the convention, not being a Green, blah blah blah.
But you've really got it hit on the head when you open up that view of white (males, esp) needing to connect with so-called legitimacy and draw power from that, that somehow they will be relevant by standing with power..
I had another white male screaming at me last night because he was so angry at Bush and needed to 'get him out.' I calmly told him what he already knows about what will actually happen ('BOOM' when the staged terror event happens after Kerry gets in and it's off to endless war) and he got a defeated look, lost, scared. Not only are white males unable to connect to anything but a power figure to feel relevant, they are unable to even think creatively enough to imagine anything beyond the immediate satisfaction of 'get Bush out,' and we'll all pay for that in the end.
What I see in the future is the state of the media.
Right now the CIA is at the tops of all the media (apparently), or likely, worse. But pretty soon there will be entire 'wars' and wiping out of entire cultures, cities, peoples, and NO ONE AT ALL will report it. This is already the case, of course - indeed, just look at Iraq today - but it will get far worse and the scale will be exponential. Instead of sporadic fighting and resistance there will just be a smoking crater where a country once was.
In the same way that we are living in a mild version of Disneyland now, this will escalate, dramatically. There will literally be NO media and I would imagine that trying to cover stories would become a crime. Right now it can be controlled just by the eclipsing of the corporate press of everything. But eventually, when things get bad enough, that won't be enough. Rather than shut down the internet, just make it a 'terrorism' act to report news.
How hard would it be?
Thanks, Mr. Anderson, also, for your excellent analysis. It's good to know there are a couple of people in this world who have their eyes open and can stand on two feet and actually speak the truth.
The other night at a meeting I had grown men trying to coerce me into thinking it's all 'okay' and it's really all just 'Nader's fault' for - - whatever - - not showing up at the convention, not being a Green, blah blah blah.
But you've really got it hit on the head when you open up that view of white (males, esp) needing to connect with so-called legitimacy and draw power from that, that somehow they will be relevant by standing with power..
I had another white male screaming at me last night because he was so angry at Bush and needed to 'get him out.' I calmly told him what he already knows about what will actually happen ('BOOM' when the staged terror event happens after Kerry gets in and it's off to endless war) and he got a defeated look, lost, scared. Not only are white males unable to connect to anything but a power figure to feel relevant, they are unable to even think creatively enough to imagine anything beyond the immediate satisfaction of 'get Bush out,' and we'll all pay for that in the end.
What I see in the future is the state of the media.
Right now the CIA is at the tops of all the media (apparently), or likely, worse. But pretty soon there will be entire 'wars' and wiping out of entire cultures, cities, peoples, and NO ONE AT ALL will report it. This is already the case, of course - indeed, just look at Iraq today - but it will get far worse and the scale will be exponential. Instead of sporadic fighting and resistance there will just be a smoking crater where a country once was.
In the same way that we are living in a mild version of Disneyland now, this will escalate, dramatically. There will literally be NO media and I would imagine that trying to cover stories would become a crime. Right now it can be controlled just by the eclipsing of the corporate press of everything. But eventually, when things get bad enough, that won't be enough. Rather than shut down the internet, just make it a 'terrorism' act to report news.
How hard would it be?
Re: You talk, I´ll listen
by Robert Sprye, Monday, Sep. 13, 2004 at 11:23 PM.
Thanks for the comps! Especially after reading some of your incisive posts, I appreciate it. I've been 'listening' to you too.
My apologies for taking so long to get back to you. I've been reading some of your other posts and, in addition to the one above, you've got more than a thing or two worthwhile and incisive to say too.
You should check out Alexander Cockburn's & Jeffrey St. Clair's new book, "Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils". I might post a review of it here on Indybay when I get a chance to half polish something up on it. But anyway, the book contains essay chapters and, especially, about the first half of the book excellently responds (and provides, in effect, detailed counter-arguments to all the "leftist" KerryCrat arguments (really a stack of pie-in-the-sky lies) that what I call the "Leftists for Kerry!" crowd uses to support him and without -- unlike any other lobby/group -- a *single* demand for their support! No wonder neither Kerry or the Dems don't give those "leftists" the time of day. Who could respect such cowardly abject grovelling and finger-crossing!
Those scared "progressives/leftists" say that Kerry will raise the minimum wage [yeah, marginally at best, but he actually *opposes* a living wage], clean up the environment [even though the Democrat party platform refuses to endorse the Kyoto accords], institute national health care [Clinton's plan was a bureaucratic disaster], appoint "pro-choice" justices and save a woman's "right to choose", bring peace to Iraq and the Middle East [the faster the anti-war crowd ran after Kerry the faster he ran away(!!), and I bet that if he were to be elected, he would ratchet up the draft, big time, just like Johnson did, because as long as the U.S. wants to continue the forced occupation and economic rape of Iraq, he'll have no other choice], and a raft of other pie-in-the-sky promises, or at least have his ear (and I don't mean like Van Gogh). They're just shamelessly *lying*! See what Cockburn, St. Clair, & others in the book have to say about all of that. I've said in radio interviews before that when the weather is stormy and the ship looks like it's imminently sinking, and the waves are crashing over the sides, some people get so desperate that they will frantically scramble about and even blindly grab 'hold of the *anchor*!!
I didn't even listen to the "tweedle dum, tweedle dummer" dog & pony show tonight on tv (the so-called 'debate', or joint Bush-Kerry press conference). I've been catching up on my reading here in Indybay.
Take care
by Robert Sprye, Monday, Sep. 13, 2004 at 11:23 PM.
Thanks for the comps! Especially after reading some of your incisive posts, I appreciate it. I've been 'listening' to you too.
My apologies for taking so long to get back to you. I've been reading some of your other posts and, in addition to the one above, you've got more than a thing or two worthwhile and incisive to say too.
You should check out Alexander Cockburn's & Jeffrey St. Clair's new book, "Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils". I might post a review of it here on Indybay when I get a chance to half polish something up on it. But anyway, the book contains essay chapters and, especially, about the first half of the book excellently responds (and provides, in effect, detailed counter-arguments to all the "leftist" KerryCrat arguments (really a stack of pie-in-the-sky lies) that what I call the "Leftists for Kerry!" crowd uses to support him and without -- unlike any other lobby/group -- a *single* demand for their support! No wonder neither Kerry or the Dems don't give those "leftists" the time of day. Who could respect such cowardly abject grovelling and finger-crossing!
Those scared "progressives/leftists" say that Kerry will raise the minimum wage [yeah, marginally at best, but he actually *opposes* a living wage], clean up the environment [even though the Democrat party platform refuses to endorse the Kyoto accords], institute national health care [Clinton's plan was a bureaucratic disaster], appoint "pro-choice" justices and save a woman's "right to choose", bring peace to Iraq and the Middle East [the faster the anti-war crowd ran after Kerry the faster he ran away(!!), and I bet that if he were to be elected, he would ratchet up the draft, big time, just like Johnson did, because as long as the U.S. wants to continue the forced occupation and economic rape of Iraq, he'll have no other choice], and a raft of other pie-in-the-sky promises, or at least have his ear (and I don't mean like Van Gogh). They're just shamelessly *lying*! See what Cockburn, St. Clair, & others in the book have to say about all of that. I've said in radio interviews before that when the weather is stormy and the ship looks like it's imminently sinking, and the waves are crashing over the sides, some people get so desperate that they will frantically scramble about and even blindly grab 'hold of the *anchor*!!
I didn't even listen to the "tweedle dum, tweedle dummer" dog & pony show tonight on tv (the so-called 'debate', or joint Bush-Kerry press conference). I've been catching up on my reading here in Indybay.
Take care
I forgot to Thank You, too, last night. I came in late, after returning from out East.
I really appreciate your real-world example of what I postulated. It was sad, what you said about that white guy's "defeated look", and what you said was exactly right: what happens after another terrorism event? -- perpetrated, staged, or even just allowed to happen. Kerry would be all over the 3rd World like a cheap Persian rug trying to prove his "cajones"!
Right now, these guys can only throw in the towel and go with Kerry. (Unfortunately even including my friend Cornel West, but I'm going to work on his thinking: that's what happens, I guess, when you're stuck way out in the New Jersey hinterland at one of our 'elite' universities, Princeton.) As I've said before, most of these "progressives" (and especially liberals) have steadily, over the years, "lesser evilled" us right into the situation they say is so dire today. One day they'll have us arguing about which dissidents & rebellers concentration camp commandant is the nicer guy.
One of the two particular sentences of yours that I took especial note of was this: "Not only are white males unable to connect to anything but a power figure to feel relevant, they are unable to even think creatively enough to imagine anything beyond the immediate satisfaction of 'get Bush out,' and we'll all pay for that in the end." These guys have become so dejected they don't know what to do -- or how to think beyond merely, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.
Regarding your sentence, "Right now the CIA is at the tops of all the media (apparently)": remember back when (several years ago) it was discovered and exposed that *two* (at least that we heard about) CIA agents were found out working in CNN headquarters in Atlanta?
Your other sentences (I'm going to put the especially salient ones together) that were extremely incisive (I hadn't even explicitly thought of it myself) were: "But pretty soon there will be entire 'wars' and wiping out of entire cultures, cities, peoples, and NO ONE AT ALL will report it. Right now it can be controlled just by the eclipsing of the corporate press of everything. But eventually, when things get bad enough, that won't be enough. There will literally be NO media and I would imagine that trying to cover stories would become a crime. Rather than shut down the internet, just make it a 'terrorism' act to report news."
"How hard would it be?" It looks easy enough already!
(Even now, the panel of formerly 4 or 5 handpicked, friendly "journalists" carefully picked to question the two corporate-handpicked RepubliCrat presidential candidates has been reduced to *ONE* handpicked, friendly "journalist" -- that runs little more than a govt/RepubliCrat press office, of govt officials and fmr govt officials, out of PBS -- no independent critics of govt, its policies, or the RepubliCrats -- in a 'debte' -- or rather, a Kerry-Bush joint press conference with only one reporter allowed in attendance -- that as not only been rehearsed, but carefully and meticulously *staged*, right down to the last detail!)
Would some people think that this is far fetched? Before the 1990's, in the supposedly democratic country of South Korea -- but where actually the U.S. nominally set up a *40*-year dictatorship/semi-dictatorship -- first the students, then later followed by the middle-class, came to the conclusion that Uncle Sam didn't really seem to be South Korea's friend at all! This so, what with Sam, since the end of WWII, propping up their dictators, actually being in operational control of the South Korean military (which couldn't make a *move* without Sam's permission), but letting the dictators and generals periodically send out said military to crush and massacre *literally* 1,000's of people when they rose up (like the Cheju Island massacre in 1948, or the Kwanju massacre in 1980, South Korea's 'Tienamen Squares'). It used to be a *CRIME* punishable by imprisonment, death (or govt assassination) to teach true South Korean **history**, other than the version the government taught!!
Before the 1990's the students used to get together clandestinely and form study groups to research and teach each other the modern (20th century) history of their own country -- and especially the Sam's involvement in it!
By the late 1980's, what with media technology and satellite communications making South Korea more accessable, as well as South Korea wanting to host the international Olympics (which you may recall they did), and South Korean industry wanting to and having become more integrated into the international traded world (with Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo, etc.), it became harder for the govt to hide anymore massacres. Sam, much to its chagrin, also could no longer afford to have one of its three closest Asian allies going around massacring its own people whenever they wanted democracy: it just *looks* bad, you know? Sam couldn't call them *all* -- students (including elite university students), and middle-aged shopkeepers, and union workers, and moms, and dads, and grannies -- "terrorists"!
What all those "3rd World" Koreans did, led by their university students, was what our "progressive/leftists" icons need to be doing: calling for and organizing actions, large and small, out in the streets all over the country to protest this war, the massacre of Iraqis who want their country back (since Sam couldn't find, WMD's, or otherwise got, Saddam, what Sam came for), and our military industrial complex handpicked, wretchedly miserable so-called 'choices' for president.
I'll be looking forward to reading more of your posts, "reader".
I really appreciate your real-world example of what I postulated. It was sad, what you said about that white guy's "defeated look", and what you said was exactly right: what happens after another terrorism event? -- perpetrated, staged, or even just allowed to happen. Kerry would be all over the 3rd World like a cheap Persian rug trying to prove his "cajones"!
Right now, these guys can only throw in the towel and go with Kerry. (Unfortunately even including my friend Cornel West, but I'm going to work on his thinking: that's what happens, I guess, when you're stuck way out in the New Jersey hinterland at one of our 'elite' universities, Princeton.) As I've said before, most of these "progressives" (and especially liberals) have steadily, over the years, "lesser evilled" us right into the situation they say is so dire today. One day they'll have us arguing about which dissidents & rebellers concentration camp commandant is the nicer guy.
One of the two particular sentences of yours that I took especial note of was this: "Not only are white males unable to connect to anything but a power figure to feel relevant, they are unable to even think creatively enough to imagine anything beyond the immediate satisfaction of 'get Bush out,' and we'll all pay for that in the end." These guys have become so dejected they don't know what to do -- or how to think beyond merely, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.
Regarding your sentence, "Right now the CIA is at the tops of all the media (apparently)": remember back when (several years ago) it was discovered and exposed that *two* (at least that we heard about) CIA agents were found out working in CNN headquarters in Atlanta?
Your other sentences (I'm going to put the especially salient ones together) that were extremely incisive (I hadn't even explicitly thought of it myself) were: "But pretty soon there will be entire 'wars' and wiping out of entire cultures, cities, peoples, and NO ONE AT ALL will report it. Right now it can be controlled just by the eclipsing of the corporate press of everything. But eventually, when things get bad enough, that won't be enough. There will literally be NO media and I would imagine that trying to cover stories would become a crime. Rather than shut down the internet, just make it a 'terrorism' act to report news."
"How hard would it be?" It looks easy enough already!
(Even now, the panel of formerly 4 or 5 handpicked, friendly "journalists" carefully picked to question the two corporate-handpicked RepubliCrat presidential candidates has been reduced to *ONE* handpicked, friendly "journalist" -- that runs little more than a govt/RepubliCrat press office, of govt officials and fmr govt officials, out of PBS -- no independent critics of govt, its policies, or the RepubliCrats -- in a 'debte' -- or rather, a Kerry-Bush joint press conference with only one reporter allowed in attendance -- that as not only been rehearsed, but carefully and meticulously *staged*, right down to the last detail!)
Would some people think that this is far fetched? Before the 1990's, in the supposedly democratic country of South Korea -- but where actually the U.S. nominally set up a *40*-year dictatorship/semi-dictatorship -- first the students, then later followed by the middle-class, came to the conclusion that Uncle Sam didn't really seem to be South Korea's friend at all! This so, what with Sam, since the end of WWII, propping up their dictators, actually being in operational control of the South Korean military (which couldn't make a *move* without Sam's permission), but letting the dictators and generals periodically send out said military to crush and massacre *literally* 1,000's of people when they rose up (like the Cheju Island massacre in 1948, or the Kwanju massacre in 1980, South Korea's 'Tienamen Squares'). It used to be a *CRIME* punishable by imprisonment, death (or govt assassination) to teach true South Korean **history**, other than the version the government taught!!
Before the 1990's the students used to get together clandestinely and form study groups to research and teach each other the modern (20th century) history of their own country -- and especially the Sam's involvement in it!
By the late 1980's, what with media technology and satellite communications making South Korea more accessable, as well as South Korea wanting to host the international Olympics (which you may recall they did), and South Korean industry wanting to and having become more integrated into the international traded world (with Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo, etc.), it became harder for the govt to hide anymore massacres. Sam, much to its chagrin, also could no longer afford to have one of its three closest Asian allies going around massacring its own people whenever they wanted democracy: it just *looks* bad, you know? Sam couldn't call them *all* -- students (including elite university students), and middle-aged shopkeepers, and union workers, and moms, and dads, and grannies -- "terrorists"!
What all those "3rd World" Koreans did, led by their university students, was what our "progressive/leftists" icons need to be doing: calling for and organizing actions, large and small, out in the streets all over the country to protest this war, the massacre of Iraqis who want their country back (since Sam couldn't find, WMD's, or otherwise got, Saddam, what Sam came for), and our military industrial complex handpicked, wretchedly miserable so-called 'choices' for president.
I'll be looking forward to reading more of your posts, "reader".
[Portland.indymedia's servers seem a little slow/clunky, so in case this doesn't get successfully posted there, I repost this here:]
> "[Norman Solomon] even joked about the fact that he gets to vote for Cobb in California,"
Norman (a casual friend of mine) would vote for *Cobb* over *Nader* or even *Leonard Peltier*!?
> "but that we don't have that luxury here in Oregon unless we are coming from a place of privilege."
If you don't have any "The Coup" or "Dead Prez" GO OUT AND GET SOME to enjoy and to support these hiphop rap artists! M1, of Dead Prez, and Boots, of The Coup, are really politically incisive Black community speakers/commentators (Boots was even a public school teacher!). I'd like to see them on a panel with Solomon, Benjamin (also a friend), Parenti (a longtime friendly acquaintance), and especially Chomsky (highly defensive in the face of Black intelligence) or Zinn, or any of those other "leftist/progressive" big name icons. M1 said that he "wasn't *EVER* going to give his vote away for free!," -- that he's got too much, at least, self-respect, let alone community respect, for that -- and that if a candidate isn't addressing, responsive to, or has a supportive track record on his (M1's) issues of importance to his national community, then he is *NOT* going to give them his vote.
It's interesting: most Black progressives (national or local) -- symbolically, society's most vulnerable people, starting with Mumia -- are *anti*-ABB, but the greatly more highly *privileged* white progressives (except, sadly, Cornel West -- but I've been working on him, my friend too) *are* ABB. What does that say!?
As for privilege, it's the, especially, white progressive icons privilege that allow them to, as M1 said, "give their votes away for free". Kerry is going to continue the so-called "War On Drugs" and the institutional and systematic discrimination against Blacks in the criminal-*in*justice system; he's not going to reverse Clinton's, as we call it in the Black community, "Welfare Deform Bill", that forces Blacks to become menial *slave*-wage laborers, instead of greater meaningful advancement real educational or vocational training (or even greater access to mulitimillion-dollar public works jobs for those who have training, but that Blacks are largely shut out of); he's not going to meaningfully raise the minimum wage (only very marginally at best), where most non-college degreed Blacks, Latinos, SE Asians are employed, and he's already said that he's *AGAINST* a *living* wage; he's not going to do anything about national health insurance (he's only going to tinker around the edges of the present HMO system so that more *white* middle-class people will have a slightly easier time with higher and higher premiums -- maybe offer them, at best, a small tax deduction); he's not going to reverse the measures in Clinton's Anti-Crime and Anti-Terrorism Bill that makes it even easier for the police to break into Black/Latino/Native-American/Middle-Easterner homes without a search warrant. And they don't have to live with a continuation of other "Bad Cop, Good Cop", anti-Black masses, RepubliCrat policies.
[Right now, one of my housemates, who is an attorney, said that, given a choice only between the two, she would rather, in general, argue her particular cases, impacting ordinary people, in front of an *old* Republican-appointed judge, rather than a *newer* Democrat-appointed judge. She said that right now on the U.S. Supreme Court, arguably the most generally liberal judges are the two old *Republican* appointees! That's how far to the right the Democrats have steadily moved! In 2008, it'll be ABJ, "Anybody But Jeb!"]
All those white "progressives/leftists" KERRYCRATS won't have to suffer one little bit when they don't make a *SINGLE* demand on Kerry for his support, and for their letting the Democrats keep moving one step to the right everytime the Republicans move to the right. And the only thing that will stop the Dems is when we cost them elections. My friend Medea used to not only *know* this, but *SAY* this!
As the prominent Black law professor Derrek Bell once said, "I sometimes think that it's we liberals or progressives who are the *real* conservatives, because we keep saving just enough of this system to keep it going!"
But Mumia hasn't thrown in the towel; Native American activist & scholar Ward Churchill hasn't thrown in the towel; Arundhati Roy hasn't thrown in the towel (she said that Bush vs. Kerry is like the choice between Tide vs. Ivory: "They're both owned by Proctor & Gamble" -- one brainwashes you with Oxy-power and the other brianwashes you gently!); M1 and Boots haven't thrown in the towel; the National Black Political Hiphop Convention didn't throw in the towel. It's mostly all these *white* "progressives/leftists" who have thrown in the towel and not redoubled their efforts to do the *REAL* work that we have to do, *regardless* of who's elected: instead they are looking for a palliative. They're down on their knees obsequiously hoping and abjectly begging to Kerry. No wonder Kerry is ignoring them: *WHO* would respect them!?
And as I say, "It's the weak-kneed, scared progressives who have over the years steadily lesser evilled us into the very situation they say is so dire today."
Harriet Tubman, "Black Moses" Underground Railroad leader during slavery, once said, "You know, we could have save a lot more of our people, if only they had known they were *SLAVES*!" It's said that she had to pull out a gun on some slaves who got scared and changed their minds in the middle of the night, endangering the mentally emancipated slaves in the escape. Too many "progressive/leftist icons" have become slaves to the Democrat party.
> "I challenged him directly
Good! Our progressive leaders need that more often. As one friend of mine said: uncritically questioned, "Sacred cows turn into hamburger!"
>and informed him that you can acknowledge your privledged status in this society and still understand struggle.
"It's not where you're from, it's where you're at." -- Malcom X
>"I was offended that he would infer that people who vote their hopes instead of their fears are only doing so because they don't have to pay the price for such principled decisions."
Both parties are actually saying "Vote your *fears* and *not* your hopes! Both parties -- and more importantly the leftist/progressive ABB icons -- keep heavily leaning on 'the fear button' – just like the Republicans. But, the Republican voters actually have the feeling that they *are* voting their hopes (especially when the Repubs can trot out, as is said, "God, gays, and guns"). Michael Moore used to know that people who vote their hopes -- had something to vote *for* -- tend to come out as stronger voters than people who vote their fears -- only have something to vote against. Moore used to say that Repub voters could vote for the real thing, not an imitation (or an ersatz Repub). Of course, Moore used to know that we don't even have a *2nd* party, between the Repubs and the Dems.
A clinical psychology friend tells me that even a monkey (or any animal but, I guess, the human animal) will stop participating in a test/excercise they realize is rigged against them.
PLEASE CHECK OUT ALEXANDER COCKBURN'S AND JEFFREY SINCLAIR'S NEW BOOK, "DIMES WORTH OF DIFFERENCE: BEYOND LESSER EVILISM". The first half of the book is especially excellent, because it directly rebuts all the KerryCrat arguments our "Leftists for Kerry!" icons are perpetrating these days.
And check out the thread, "Weak Kneed Progressives buckle Under Democrat Pressure
by Roger White"
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/09/1695394_comment.php#1695483
posted at San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia ( http://www.indybay.org ), in the area where many of these "progressive/leftist" icons live.
> "[Norman Solomon] even joked about the fact that he gets to vote for Cobb in California,"
Norman (a casual friend of mine) would vote for *Cobb* over *Nader* or even *Leonard Peltier*!?
> "but that we don't have that luxury here in Oregon unless we are coming from a place of privilege."
If you don't have any "The Coup" or "Dead Prez" GO OUT AND GET SOME to enjoy and to support these hiphop rap artists! M1, of Dead Prez, and Boots, of The Coup, are really politically incisive Black community speakers/commentators (Boots was even a public school teacher!). I'd like to see them on a panel with Solomon, Benjamin (also a friend), Parenti (a longtime friendly acquaintance), and especially Chomsky (highly defensive in the face of Black intelligence) or Zinn, or any of those other "leftist/progressive" big name icons. M1 said that he "wasn't *EVER* going to give his vote away for free!," -- that he's got too much, at least, self-respect, let alone community respect, for that -- and that if a candidate isn't addressing, responsive to, or has a supportive track record on his (M1's) issues of importance to his national community, then he is *NOT* going to give them his vote.
It's interesting: most Black progressives (national or local) -- symbolically, society's most vulnerable people, starting with Mumia -- are *anti*-ABB, but the greatly more highly *privileged* white progressives (except, sadly, Cornel West -- but I've been working on him, my friend too) *are* ABB. What does that say!?
As for privilege, it's the, especially, white progressive icons privilege that allow them to, as M1 said, "give their votes away for free". Kerry is going to continue the so-called "War On Drugs" and the institutional and systematic discrimination against Blacks in the criminal-*in*justice system; he's not going to reverse Clinton's, as we call it in the Black community, "Welfare Deform Bill", that forces Blacks to become menial *slave*-wage laborers, instead of greater meaningful advancement real educational or vocational training (or even greater access to mulitimillion-dollar public works jobs for those who have training, but that Blacks are largely shut out of); he's not going to meaningfully raise the minimum wage (only very marginally at best), where most non-college degreed Blacks, Latinos, SE Asians are employed, and he's already said that he's *AGAINST* a *living* wage; he's not going to do anything about national health insurance (he's only going to tinker around the edges of the present HMO system so that more *white* middle-class people will have a slightly easier time with higher and higher premiums -- maybe offer them, at best, a small tax deduction); he's not going to reverse the measures in Clinton's Anti-Crime and Anti-Terrorism Bill that makes it even easier for the police to break into Black/Latino/Native-American/Middle-Easterner homes without a search warrant. And they don't have to live with a continuation of other "Bad Cop, Good Cop", anti-Black masses, RepubliCrat policies.
[Right now, one of my housemates, who is an attorney, said that, given a choice only between the two, she would rather, in general, argue her particular cases, impacting ordinary people, in front of an *old* Republican-appointed judge, rather than a *newer* Democrat-appointed judge. She said that right now on the U.S. Supreme Court, arguably the most generally liberal judges are the two old *Republican* appointees! That's how far to the right the Democrats have steadily moved! In 2008, it'll be ABJ, "Anybody But Jeb!"]
All those white "progressives/leftists" KERRYCRATS won't have to suffer one little bit when they don't make a *SINGLE* demand on Kerry for his support, and for their letting the Democrats keep moving one step to the right everytime the Republicans move to the right. And the only thing that will stop the Dems is when we cost them elections. My friend Medea used to not only *know* this, but *SAY* this!
As the prominent Black law professor Derrek Bell once said, "I sometimes think that it's we liberals or progressives who are the *real* conservatives, because we keep saving just enough of this system to keep it going!"
But Mumia hasn't thrown in the towel; Native American activist & scholar Ward Churchill hasn't thrown in the towel; Arundhati Roy hasn't thrown in the towel (she said that Bush vs. Kerry is like the choice between Tide vs. Ivory: "They're both owned by Proctor & Gamble" -- one brainwashes you with Oxy-power and the other brianwashes you gently!); M1 and Boots haven't thrown in the towel; the National Black Political Hiphop Convention didn't throw in the towel. It's mostly all these *white* "progressives/leftists" who have thrown in the towel and not redoubled their efforts to do the *REAL* work that we have to do, *regardless* of who's elected: instead they are looking for a palliative. They're down on their knees obsequiously hoping and abjectly begging to Kerry. No wonder Kerry is ignoring them: *WHO* would respect them!?
And as I say, "It's the weak-kneed, scared progressives who have over the years steadily lesser evilled us into the very situation they say is so dire today."
Harriet Tubman, "Black Moses" Underground Railroad leader during slavery, once said, "You know, we could have save a lot more of our people, if only they had known they were *SLAVES*!" It's said that she had to pull out a gun on some slaves who got scared and changed their minds in the middle of the night, endangering the mentally emancipated slaves in the escape. Too many "progressive/leftist icons" have become slaves to the Democrat party.
> "I challenged him directly
Good! Our progressive leaders need that more often. As one friend of mine said: uncritically questioned, "Sacred cows turn into hamburger!"
>and informed him that you can acknowledge your privledged status in this society and still understand struggle.
"It's not where you're from, it's where you're at." -- Malcom X
>"I was offended that he would infer that people who vote their hopes instead of their fears are only doing so because they don't have to pay the price for such principled decisions."
Both parties are actually saying "Vote your *fears* and *not* your hopes! Both parties -- and more importantly the leftist/progressive ABB icons -- keep heavily leaning on 'the fear button' – just like the Republicans. But, the Republican voters actually have the feeling that they *are* voting their hopes (especially when the Repubs can trot out, as is said, "God, gays, and guns"). Michael Moore used to know that people who vote their hopes -- had something to vote *for* -- tend to come out as stronger voters than people who vote their fears -- only have something to vote against. Moore used to say that Repub voters could vote for the real thing, not an imitation (or an ersatz Repub). Of course, Moore used to know that we don't even have a *2nd* party, between the Repubs and the Dems.
A clinical psychology friend tells me that even a monkey (or any animal but, I guess, the human animal) will stop participating in a test/excercise they realize is rigged against them.
PLEASE CHECK OUT ALEXANDER COCKBURN'S AND JEFFREY SINCLAIR'S NEW BOOK, "DIMES WORTH OF DIFFERENCE: BEYOND LESSER EVILISM". The first half of the book is especially excellent, because it directly rebuts all the KerryCrat arguments our "Leftists for Kerry!" icons are perpetrating these days.
And check out the thread, "Weak Kneed Progressives buckle Under Democrat Pressure
by Roger White"
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/09/1695394_comment.php#1695483
posted at San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia ( http://www.indybay.org ), in the area where many of these "progressive/leftist" icons live.
LISTEN to the "SLAVE REVOLT RADIO" program EVERY FRIDAY EVENING, FROM 6:30-8:10PM, AT 104.1-FM --- hosted by TRACEY JAMES, if you are within the limited signal range of Berkeley Liberation Radio's measily 50 watts (because Stephen Dunifer won't get off his butt and boost the power output, so you need a good radio and an upper floor or to be out in the wide open).
SLAVE REVOLT RADIO is ALSO rebroadcast on SAN FRANCISCO LIBERATION RADIO or on LUVER.COM on Thursdays, 11:OOPM-12:30AM.
Check http://LUVER.COM
or http://www.eroplay.com/luver/
or http://www.eroplay.com/luver/
or http://www.liberationradio.net
for the schedule.
Tracey hasn't thrown in the towel either: Slave Revolt is "A NO KERRYCRAT ZONE".
SLAVE REVOLT RADIO is ALSO rebroadcast on SAN FRANCISCO LIBERATION RADIO or on LUVER.COM on Thursdays, 11:OOPM-12:30AM.
Check http://LUVER.COM
or http://www.eroplay.com/luver/
or http://www.eroplay.com/luver/
or http://www.liberationradio.net
for the schedule.
Tracey hasn't thrown in the towel either: Slave Revolt is "A NO KERRYCRAT ZONE".
Bump to the top -- if I may be so bold.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/opinion/04safire.html?oref=login
Kerry, Newest Neocon, by William Safire, the NY Times's resident neocon.
Congratulates Kerry for outflanking Bush on the right, coming down on the side of the military hardliners in regards to what to do with places like Fallujah, by saying, "What i want to do is change the dynamics on the ground. And you have to do that by beginning to not back off Fallujah and other places and send the wrong message to terrorists..You've got to show you're serious". And Safire notes with glee that Kerry's antiwar supporters "shut their eyes to Kerry's hardline, right-wing, unilateral, pre-election policy epiphany."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kerry, Newest Neocon
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
October 4, 2004
Washington
As the Democratic Whoopee Brigade hailed Senator Kerry's edge in debating technique, nobody noticed his foreign policy sea change. On both military tactics and grand strategy, the newest neoconservative announced doctrines more hawkish than President Bush.
First, on war-fighting in Iraq: Hard-liners criticized the Bush decision this spring not to send U.S. troops in to crush Sunni resistance in the Baathist stronghold in Falluja. Our forces wanted to fight to win but soft-liners in Washington worried about the effect of heavier civilian casualties on the hearts and minds of Iraqis, and of U.S. troop losses on Americans.
Last week in debate, John Kerry - until recently, the antiwar candidate too eager to galvanize dovish Democrats - suddenly reversed field, and came down on the side of the military hard-liners.
"What I want to do is change the dynamics on the ground," Kerry volunteered. "And you have to do that by beginning to not back off of Falluja and other places and send the wrong message to terrorists. ... You've got to show you're serious." Right on, John! Although he added his standard softener of "sharing the stakes" with "the rest of the world," he issued his radically revised military policy: wipe out resistance in terrorist strongholds like Falluja, which requires us to inflict and accept higher casualties.
Just as Kerry propounded his get-tough tactics, the first phase of the assault on centers of insurgency had begun. U.S. troops, blazing the way for recently trained Iraqi forces, have kept their appointment in Samarra. More than 200 insurgents have been killed or captured in that city in the Sunni triangle, beginning to open the area for elections.
At the same time, our aerial strikes at the safe houses of Zarqawi killers in Falluja have intensified. Kerry's belated but welcome hawkish call to "change the dynamics on the ground" supports the joint U.S.-Iraqi seizure of control of that terrorist haven. It will be bloody, but such use of firepower in "serious" denial of sanctuary should save lives in the long run.
Next, to grand strategy: Kerry was asked by Jim Lehrer, "What is your position on the whole concept of pre-emptive war?" In the past, Kerry has given a safe never-say-never response, but last week he gave a Strangelovian answer: "The president always has the right and always has had the right for pre-emptive strike." He pledged never to cede "the right to pre-empt in any way necessary'' to protect the U.S.
But in embracing his right to pre-empt - always derided in horror by the two-minutes-to-midnight crowd as impermissible "preventive war" - Kerry felt the need to interject: "That was a great doctrine throughout the cold war. And it was one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control."
Hold on; nuclear pre-emption was never America's "great doctrine" during confrontation with the Soviets. Our strategic doctrine, which some of us remember, was at first "massive retaliation," later "mutual assured destruction.'' Maybe arms control negotiators listed pre-emption or preventive war as a dangerous notion of extremists, but only kooks portrayed by the likes of Peter Sellers called for a nuclear final solution to the Communist problem.
If Bush had defined pre-emption as such a "great doctrine throughout the cold war," we would have seen sustained snickering on cable and horrified eye-rolling from the Charles River Gang.
Bush did not pick up on Kerry's faulty memory. Instead, the president focused on the Democrat's sugar-coating of his first-strike pill of prevention: his assurance that his pre-emption had to be one that "passes the global test" to make it legitimate. By ridiculing Kerry's notion that such a surprise attack had to have prior world-public approval, Bush was able to prevent his opponent from out-hawkishing him.
On stopping North Korea's nuclear buildup, Kerry abandoned his global-testing multilateralism; our newest neocon derided Bush's six-nation talks and demands America go it gloriously alone. And in embracing Wilsonian idealism to intervene in Darfur's potential genocide, Kerry's promise of troops outdid Pentagon liberators: "If it took American forces to some degree to coalesce the African Union, I'd be prepared to do it. ...''
His abandoned antiwar supporters celebrate the Kerry personality makeover. They shut their eyes to Kerry's hard-line, right-wing, unilateral, pre-election policy epiphany.
Kerry, Newest Neocon, by William Safire, the NY Times's resident neocon.
Congratulates Kerry for outflanking Bush on the right, coming down on the side of the military hardliners in regards to what to do with places like Fallujah, by saying, "What i want to do is change the dynamics on the ground. And you have to do that by beginning to not back off Fallujah and other places and send the wrong message to terrorists..You've got to show you're serious". And Safire notes with glee that Kerry's antiwar supporters "shut their eyes to Kerry's hardline, right-wing, unilateral, pre-election policy epiphany."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kerry, Newest Neocon
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
October 4, 2004
Washington
As the Democratic Whoopee Brigade hailed Senator Kerry's edge in debating technique, nobody noticed his foreign policy sea change. On both military tactics and grand strategy, the newest neoconservative announced doctrines more hawkish than President Bush.
First, on war-fighting in Iraq: Hard-liners criticized the Bush decision this spring not to send U.S. troops in to crush Sunni resistance in the Baathist stronghold in Falluja. Our forces wanted to fight to win but soft-liners in Washington worried about the effect of heavier civilian casualties on the hearts and minds of Iraqis, and of U.S. troop losses on Americans.
Last week in debate, John Kerry - until recently, the antiwar candidate too eager to galvanize dovish Democrats - suddenly reversed field, and came down on the side of the military hard-liners.
"What I want to do is change the dynamics on the ground," Kerry volunteered. "And you have to do that by beginning to not back off of Falluja and other places and send the wrong message to terrorists. ... You've got to show you're serious." Right on, John! Although he added his standard softener of "sharing the stakes" with "the rest of the world," he issued his radically revised military policy: wipe out resistance in terrorist strongholds like Falluja, which requires us to inflict and accept higher casualties.
Just as Kerry propounded his get-tough tactics, the first phase of the assault on centers of insurgency had begun. U.S. troops, blazing the way for recently trained Iraqi forces, have kept their appointment in Samarra. More than 200 insurgents have been killed or captured in that city in the Sunni triangle, beginning to open the area for elections.
At the same time, our aerial strikes at the safe houses of Zarqawi killers in Falluja have intensified. Kerry's belated but welcome hawkish call to "change the dynamics on the ground" supports the joint U.S.-Iraqi seizure of control of that terrorist haven. It will be bloody, but such use of firepower in "serious" denial of sanctuary should save lives in the long run.
Next, to grand strategy: Kerry was asked by Jim Lehrer, "What is your position on the whole concept of pre-emptive war?" In the past, Kerry has given a safe never-say-never response, but last week he gave a Strangelovian answer: "The president always has the right and always has had the right for pre-emptive strike." He pledged never to cede "the right to pre-empt in any way necessary'' to protect the U.S.
But in embracing his right to pre-empt - always derided in horror by the two-minutes-to-midnight crowd as impermissible "preventive war" - Kerry felt the need to interject: "That was a great doctrine throughout the cold war. And it was one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control."
Hold on; nuclear pre-emption was never America's "great doctrine" during confrontation with the Soviets. Our strategic doctrine, which some of us remember, was at first "massive retaliation," later "mutual assured destruction.'' Maybe arms control negotiators listed pre-emption or preventive war as a dangerous notion of extremists, but only kooks portrayed by the likes of Peter Sellers called for a nuclear final solution to the Communist problem.
If Bush had defined pre-emption as such a "great doctrine throughout the cold war," we would have seen sustained snickering on cable and horrified eye-rolling from the Charles River Gang.
Bush did not pick up on Kerry's faulty memory. Instead, the president focused on the Democrat's sugar-coating of his first-strike pill of prevention: his assurance that his pre-emption had to be one that "passes the global test" to make it legitimate. By ridiculing Kerry's notion that such a surprise attack had to have prior world-public approval, Bush was able to prevent his opponent from out-hawkishing him.
On stopping North Korea's nuclear buildup, Kerry abandoned his global-testing multilateralism; our newest neocon derided Bush's six-nation talks and demands America go it gloriously alone. And in embracing Wilsonian idealism to intervene in Darfur's potential genocide, Kerry's promise of troops outdid Pentagon liberators: "If it took American forces to some degree to coalesce the African Union, I'd be prepared to do it. ...''
His abandoned antiwar supporters celebrate the Kerry personality makeover. They shut their eyes to Kerry's hard-line, right-wing, unilateral, pre-election policy epiphany.
It's a sad sight when the blindness is so total that you're calling Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Medea Benjamin and the editorial board of the Nation "frightened liberals."
I understand that you look at the system and find corruption everywhere; that you find John Kerry a player in that system and therefore unappealing or even repugnant. But please consider a few things from a former Nader voter:
1. Nader's being disingenuous when he says that all candidates are "spoilers." This is precisely the political sophistry he's spent an entire career railing against. He knows very well that within the current system -- a deeply corrupt system -- he's got no chance of winning. In that context, a context that Nader understands as well as anyone, he's not being straight, or at best making a political argument. It's bad enough that he's taking money and aid from Republicans who don't support his ideas and backers of the Swift Boaters, but adopting the tactics of the politicians he purports to speak more plainly and honestly than is downright dishonest. He's jeopardizing the chances of the only candidate that can beat Bush. Which leads to:
2. If anyone actually still believes that there's not "a dime's bit of difference" between Kerry and Bush, you may want to check into the reality rehab center Bush is so sorely in need of. I'm betting that women who value the right to make decisions over their bodies might be angry at this statement for example. There are many areas where Bush and Kerry differ. Start here.
3. Ask yourself this: are you the person who has the most to lose if Bush wins? Are you REALLY making a vote of principle or is it actually a vote of 'privilege?'
Ask yourself serious questions about what you're doing. I do think Nader ought to be allowed to run, by the way, he has every right. Illegal efforts to get him off ballots are wrong. But all this beautiful progressive energy ought to go into expanding on and building new forms of alternative media, running for lower, attainable positions (unromantic and difficult as that is), and building a movement to abolish the systems that prevent a viable 3rd party from forming.
The better Nader does in this election, the greater the animosity toward a third party in the future. You will prove nothing.
I understand that you look at the system and find corruption everywhere; that you find John Kerry a player in that system and therefore unappealing or even repugnant. But please consider a few things from a former Nader voter:
1. Nader's being disingenuous when he says that all candidates are "spoilers." This is precisely the political sophistry he's spent an entire career railing against. He knows very well that within the current system -- a deeply corrupt system -- he's got no chance of winning. In that context, a context that Nader understands as well as anyone, he's not being straight, or at best making a political argument. It's bad enough that he's taking money and aid from Republicans who don't support his ideas and backers of the Swift Boaters, but adopting the tactics of the politicians he purports to speak more plainly and honestly than is downright dishonest. He's jeopardizing the chances of the only candidate that can beat Bush. Which leads to:
2. If anyone actually still believes that there's not "a dime's bit of difference" between Kerry and Bush, you may want to check into the reality rehab center Bush is so sorely in need of. I'm betting that women who value the right to make decisions over their bodies might be angry at this statement for example. There are many areas where Bush and Kerry differ. Start here.
3. Ask yourself this: are you the person who has the most to lose if Bush wins? Are you REALLY making a vote of principle or is it actually a vote of 'privilege?'
Ask yourself serious questions about what you're doing. I do think Nader ought to be allowed to run, by the way, he has every right. Illegal efforts to get him off ballots are wrong. But all this beautiful progressive energy ought to go into expanding on and building new forms of alternative media, running for lower, attainable positions (unromantic and difficult as that is), and building a movement to abolish the systems that prevent a viable 3rd party from forming.
The better Nader does in this election, the greater the animosity toward a third party in the future. You will prove nothing.
While Kerry's position on Iraq is admittedly troubling, don't you think that this article from a right wing partisan hack framing it in this context is like a frozen dinner pre-packaged for disgruntled lefties to post all around the web to dissuade those on the fence from voting for Kerry?
"It's a sad sight when the blindness is so total that you're calling Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Medea Benjamin and the editorial board of the Nation "frightened liberals." "
I DON'T KNOW..., THEY'RE LIBERALS AND THEY'RE FRIGHTENED. WHAT WOULD *YOU* CALL THEM?
"[Nader's] got no chance of winning."
MAYBE HE WOULD IF *KERRY* WOULD DROP OUT AND OFFER US SOMEONE WITH A *REAL* -- OR *MEANINGFUL* -- DIFFERENCE FROM BUSH.
"It's bad enough that he's [Nader] taking money and aid from Republicans who don't support his ideas"
NADER IS NOT TAKING ANY MONEY FROM REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS, AND IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT MANY ORDINARY INDIVIDUAL REPUBLICANS OPPOSE THIS STUPID WAR TOO. BUT, IT'S REVEALING: YOU DON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH KERRY TAKING MONEY FROM THE *MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL* COMPLEX, THE ISRAEL LOBBY (ON WHOSE BEHALF THE IRAQ WAR IS GREATLY FOUGHT FOR -- AND WHO GREATLY PUSHED THE WAR), AND EVERY OTHER SLIMEY LOBBY THAT NADER HAS SPENT HIS LIFE FIGHTING AGAINST?
"Are you REALLY making a vote of principle or is it actually a vote of 'privilege?' "
IT'S THE HEIGHT OF THOSE PROGRESSIVE ICONS' WHITE AFFLUENT "PRIVILEGE" TO SUPPORT AND VOTE FOR KERRY WITHOUT MAKING A *SINGLE* DEMAND! THEY DON'T HAVE TO SUFFER ONE LITTLE BIT FOR THAT (EXCEPT NOT GETTING ON TV IF BUSH WINS) -- UNLIKE BLACKS/LATINOS IN THE GHETTOS/BARRIOS, THAT SUFFERED EVEN UNDER CLINTON'S POLICIES (BUT HE PLAYED THE SAX -- LIKE HE PLAYED THE LIBERALS -- SO THAT WAS ALRIGHT, HUH?).
IT'S THE MOST VULNERABLE PEOLE, STARTING FROM MIUMIA ABU-JAMAL ON DOWN TO THE BLACK HIPHOP GENERATION, OR BACK UP TO ARUNDHATI ROY (SHE SAID THAT WE HAVE TO FIGHT THE *SYSTEM* THAT GIVES US TWEEDLE DEE AND TWEEDLE DUMMER OR TIDE -- OXYPOWER BRAINWASHING -- AND IVORY -- GENTLE BRAINWASHING), WHO SAY THAT THEY ARE *NOT* GIVING AWAY THEIR VOTES FOR FREE! -- AND THAT THERE IS NOT A ***MEANINGFUL*** DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KERRY & BUSH: JUST "GOOD COP" & "BAD COP"!! WHILE ALL THOSE AFFLUENT LIBERAL WHITES -- ESPECIALLY AFFLUENT LIBERAL WHITE MALES -- ARE BOO-HOO CRYING AND TREMBLING WITH FEAR!
"There are many areas where Bush and Kerry differ. Start here."
ANOTHER STRING OF KERRYCRAT LIES? GO READ ALEXANDER COCKBURN AND JEFFREY ST.CLAIR'S NEW BOOK, "DIMES WORTH OF DIFFERENCE: BEYONG THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS" FOR A REFUTATION OF THE KERRYCRATS PROPAGANDA/PROMISES.
AND ALSO READ:
Double Standards: Bill Clinton and the "Anybody But Bush" Movement
and the article on Thought Control: Ideological Hegemony
at
http://question-everything.mahost.org/
(As for abortion, Clinton was no great protector of abortion rights. The number of clinics actually declined under his watch -- espcially outside of the large cities. He wouldn't provide money so that women in the U.S. military -- fighting for "freedom & democracy" -- overseas could get an abortion. Abortion has been largely protected for university-oriented middle-class and affluent white women -- and as long as they can get them, they largely stay silent about "working-class" and poor women losing access to reproductive rights.)
"The better Nader does in this election, the greater the animosity toward a third party in the future."
THIS IS THE *DUMMEST*, MOST SELF-DEFEATING, NEGATIVELY CIRCULAR ARGUMENT I'VE EVER HEARD!
JUST BE *HONEST* AND SAY THAT YOU'VE THROWN IN THE TOWEL -- AND THROWN IN YOUR LOT WITH THE DEMOCRATS, SO YOU CAN STAY 'RELEVANT' WITH THE ESTABLISHMENT -- LIKE CHOMSKY, ZINN, ET AL, SITTING IN THEIR COMFORTABLE IVORY TOWERS OR STUDIES. (I HEAR THAT NOW CHOMSKY'S GOT A SPANKING BRAND NEW GLITZY OFFICE AT MIT!)
"I understand that you look at the system and find corruption everywhere; that you find John Kerry a player in that system and therefore unappealing or even repugnant. But please consider a few things from a former Nader voter:"
YOU MEAN *ANOTHER* SCARED LIBERAL -- OR A CLOSET *DEMOCRAT*!!?
I DON'T KNOW..., THEY'RE LIBERALS AND THEY'RE FRIGHTENED. WHAT WOULD *YOU* CALL THEM?
"[Nader's] got no chance of winning."
MAYBE HE WOULD IF *KERRY* WOULD DROP OUT AND OFFER US SOMEONE WITH A *REAL* -- OR *MEANINGFUL* -- DIFFERENCE FROM BUSH.
"It's bad enough that he's [Nader] taking money and aid from Republicans who don't support his ideas"
NADER IS NOT TAKING ANY MONEY FROM REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS, AND IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT MANY ORDINARY INDIVIDUAL REPUBLICANS OPPOSE THIS STUPID WAR TOO. BUT, IT'S REVEALING: YOU DON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH KERRY TAKING MONEY FROM THE *MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL* COMPLEX, THE ISRAEL LOBBY (ON WHOSE BEHALF THE IRAQ WAR IS GREATLY FOUGHT FOR -- AND WHO GREATLY PUSHED THE WAR), AND EVERY OTHER SLIMEY LOBBY THAT NADER HAS SPENT HIS LIFE FIGHTING AGAINST?
"Are you REALLY making a vote of principle or is it actually a vote of 'privilege?' "
IT'S THE HEIGHT OF THOSE PROGRESSIVE ICONS' WHITE AFFLUENT "PRIVILEGE" TO SUPPORT AND VOTE FOR KERRY WITHOUT MAKING A *SINGLE* DEMAND! THEY DON'T HAVE TO SUFFER ONE LITTLE BIT FOR THAT (EXCEPT NOT GETTING ON TV IF BUSH WINS) -- UNLIKE BLACKS/LATINOS IN THE GHETTOS/BARRIOS, THAT SUFFERED EVEN UNDER CLINTON'S POLICIES (BUT HE PLAYED THE SAX -- LIKE HE PLAYED THE LIBERALS -- SO THAT WAS ALRIGHT, HUH?).
IT'S THE MOST VULNERABLE PEOLE, STARTING FROM MIUMIA ABU-JAMAL ON DOWN TO THE BLACK HIPHOP GENERATION, OR BACK UP TO ARUNDHATI ROY (SHE SAID THAT WE HAVE TO FIGHT THE *SYSTEM* THAT GIVES US TWEEDLE DEE AND TWEEDLE DUMMER OR TIDE -- OXYPOWER BRAINWASHING -- AND IVORY -- GENTLE BRAINWASHING), WHO SAY THAT THEY ARE *NOT* GIVING AWAY THEIR VOTES FOR FREE! -- AND THAT THERE IS NOT A ***MEANINGFUL*** DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KERRY & BUSH: JUST "GOOD COP" & "BAD COP"!! WHILE ALL THOSE AFFLUENT LIBERAL WHITES -- ESPECIALLY AFFLUENT LIBERAL WHITE MALES -- ARE BOO-HOO CRYING AND TREMBLING WITH FEAR!
"There are many areas where Bush and Kerry differ. Start here."
ANOTHER STRING OF KERRYCRAT LIES? GO READ ALEXANDER COCKBURN AND JEFFREY ST.CLAIR'S NEW BOOK, "DIMES WORTH OF DIFFERENCE: BEYONG THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS" FOR A REFUTATION OF THE KERRYCRATS PROPAGANDA/PROMISES.
AND ALSO READ:
Double Standards: Bill Clinton and the "Anybody But Bush" Movement
and the article on Thought Control: Ideological Hegemony
at
http://question-everything.mahost.org/
(As for abortion, Clinton was no great protector of abortion rights. The number of clinics actually declined under his watch -- espcially outside of the large cities. He wouldn't provide money so that women in the U.S. military -- fighting for "freedom & democracy" -- overseas could get an abortion. Abortion has been largely protected for university-oriented middle-class and affluent white women -- and as long as they can get them, they largely stay silent about "working-class" and poor women losing access to reproductive rights.)
"The better Nader does in this election, the greater the animosity toward a third party in the future."
THIS IS THE *DUMMEST*, MOST SELF-DEFEATING, NEGATIVELY CIRCULAR ARGUMENT I'VE EVER HEARD!
JUST BE *HONEST* AND SAY THAT YOU'VE THROWN IN THE TOWEL -- AND THROWN IN YOUR LOT WITH THE DEMOCRATS, SO YOU CAN STAY 'RELEVANT' WITH THE ESTABLISHMENT -- LIKE CHOMSKY, ZINN, ET AL, SITTING IN THEIR COMFORTABLE IVORY TOWERS OR STUDIES. (I HEAR THAT NOW CHOMSKY'S GOT A SPANKING BRAND NEW GLITZY OFFICE AT MIT!)
"I understand that you look at the system and find corruption everywhere; that you find John Kerry a player in that system and therefore unappealing or even repugnant. But please consider a few things from a former Nader voter:"
YOU MEAN *ANOTHER* SCARED LIBERAL -- OR A CLOSET *DEMOCRAT*!!?
Bump to the top for KALW, "Your Call Radio Show" listeners.
Reference: Bump to the top for KALW, "Your Call Radio Show" listeners.
Cross-Reference:
OPEN LETTER TO PROGRESSIVE ICONS: Brechin, Benjamin, Solomon, M.Parenti, Moore, Zinn, Chomsky
by Joseph Anderson, from Berkeley
Friday, November 12, 2004
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/11/1704944.php
OPEN LETTER TO PROGRESSIVE ICONS: Brechin, Benjamin, Solomon, M.Parenti, Moore, Zinn, Chomsky
by Joseph Anderson, from Berkeley
Friday, November 12, 2004
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/11/1704944.php
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