Ralph Nader Did NOT call Obama Uncle Tom on Fox TV

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for standing up for reason.

The press keeps acting like he's either a nerd, or from-outerspace for running, while letting Palin and McCain keep saying that they have 'maverick' qualities that americans should love, Ralph Nader is the one who genuinely calls it like it is. He isn't concerned about making everyone love him, and cares more about being honest about issues. Here was his letter to Obama from his website.

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November 3, 2008

Open letter to Senator Barack Obama

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 http://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 http://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

It was incredibly offensive for Nader to say that.........there were a tohusand other ways to make the point he wanted to make,,,,,,,,but he chose to invoke the most vile racist image he could.........it at least prives that he is insane if nothing else; no wonder he has totally marginalized himself --- less than 500,000 votes? Give it up.

If you've been living under a rock for the past century, then maybe you didn't have an occasion to understand that, thanks to Harriet Beecher Stowe's book, "Uncle Tom" is a phrase solely designed to denigrate a Black man. Nader didn't say, "A Titan to the American people or a toady to the big corporations." He clearly selected a perjorative term based on Barack's racial characteristics.

If you are choosing to portray yourself as this naive, then please, at least be honest about the terminology, and not waste intellectual effort parsing whether Barack was actually "called" an "Uncle Tom."

Please. He wasn't talking about Biden. Biden's White.

I don't know how the context of being an "Uncle Tom" to corporations makes it okay to use a derogatory term.

The way I see it using that term, in whatever context, is shameful.

If you read through the following pages you should better understand the tone of Nader's comment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom

As you will see, Mr. Nader was asking Mr. Obama if he would truly represent America, as does the iconic Uncle Sam, or if he will simply be subservient to the overwhelmingly white corporate authority figures and seek ingratiation from them by way of unnecessary accommodation. Although Mr. Nader’s remarks are undoubtedly shocking, they are nevertheless legitimate. After eight years of obvious cronyism by the Bush administration everyone should want to know if the new President will actually make changes or simply fall in line with the same-old-same-old. What we should all want is the truth, not comforting stories that distract us from the decay all around us.

I am truly excited that Mr. Obama is the President-Elect. However, I am also apprehensive as to whether he will act on his promises in a timely and decisive manner. Choosing Mr. Emmanual as his chief of staff does not bode well.

THAT, friends, has been an insult to black people since its origin!

My hope is that someday THAT will become pejorative of white people just as Uncle Tom is pejorative of black people!

I think, to Ralph Nader, that day has long since arrived!

But then again how "Uncle Ralph" of me to give him the benefit of the doubt (you know, like giving Dr. Cosby the benefit of the the doubt when he dissed ALL black men a couple years back?)! All Ralph Nader has ever done with his life is fight for EVERYONE'S equality and wellbeing! Darn slacker is what Ralph is, right?

Email letter (slightly edited for clarity and [added text]) to a highly respected friend of mine, Green party official, and a Nader political associate:

WHEN ONE CAN SHOCK EVEN *FOX* NEWS WITH AN INAPPROPRIATE RACIAL INSULT…!!

RALPH NADER ‘CALLS’ OBAMA AN UNCLE TOM!!

From: Joseph Anderson []
To: [deleted for privacy]
Subject: Nader: “or [whether Obama is going to be] Uncle Tom for the giant corporations” …?
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 22:15:18 -0800

Hi [deleted for privacy],

Nader: “or [whether Obama is going to be] Uncle Tom for the giant corporations” …?

Ralph Nader calls Obama a Uncle Tom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GirBGXVklzY&NR=1

(From *all* the different YouTube videos of this, there have literally been 100’s of 1,000’s of views.)

This interview of Nader on Fox News is a perfect example of what happens when an ARROGANT ‘white’ guy can’t admit when he’s *wrong* — even when repeatedly given the chance (as twice before with me [an African American], related to something else very important). So, I’m not at all surprised. It finally caught up with him — big time.

[(Previously emailed:) Apparently, as in my particular case, when Nader thinks you're a nobody (even from the left) who's a nobody that nobody publicly &/or professionally important (even *very* important on the left) knows and cares a lot about, that's exactly how he treats you. This so, even if you're from the left and originally once supported him. But, that's often so true with a lot of those even progressive icons, unless you're constantly worshipping them. Or, as Michael Eric Dyson wrote, about many liberal/progressive icons, on p.54, par.2, of his book _Debating Race_: "...[T]hey go, ‘Oh, hell, who is *he*? I’m not going to get the glory anymore because now *that* person is there.’ Insecure, incapable of accepting intelligent, articulate (ordinary) people who just want to help.”]

Nader’s whole sentence (racially insulting Obama) didn’t even make any real sense at that! — especially to most Black people: “…whether he’s (Obama’s) going to be Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom”. What does even, “…whether he’s going to be Uncle Sam”, mean? — since neither figures, for most racial minorities, have a great reputation.

Obviously, Nader must not have any authentic Black personal friends (if any Black personal friends at all) to advise/tell him that this kind of language from him is completely unacceptable. But, if he even had any Black friends, he’s probably so *arrogant* [in this case, a female friend of mine calls it having PMS, Progressive Male Syndrome] and “white” ["white", to me, is more of an (historical) *attitude*, rather than simply a color] that he wouldn’t even consult or listen to them either — or even *ever* feel that he even needs to do so. Hell, what do we Black people know?

Even *IF* the sentiment were politically right, his presumptuous wording was *grossly insensitive* to the national Black community — and grossly *wrong* to say it that way — at least not unless or until Obama might *clearly* demonstrate that. Rev. Wright didn’t even call Obama an “Uncle Tom”. Wright said that, “Obama was just being a politician.” And the reasons Nader itemizes for his epithet aren’t even logically or politically sufficient reasons for saying such a thing (unlike those one could give for someone directly like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or Ward Connerly, or John McWhorter, or even, effectively, Condoleeza Rice).

Obama has arguably come questionably close. [Like, refusing to go to Memphis to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death, when Hillary and even McCain did, but Obama went to commemorate Israel's 60th anniversary of its colonization and take-over of historic Palestine. Obama saying "we must respect the judge's verdict" completely exonerating the pigs (who were allowed to opt out of a jury trial) who legally murdered Sean Bell in yet another hail-of-bullets lynching of a Black man by rogue cops. Obama being a *"Black"* (although I don't know what he calls himself) man from *Illinois* who supports the death penalty, in a state that once had to *release* more men, almost all Black, from death row than were *on* death row during the time (even, consequently, the white Republican governer opposed the death penalty). Obama not letting himself be caught dead in Jena, Miss., for one of the largest national Black marches since the Civil Rights Movement era, after white h.s. students hung a noose, claiming "the white student's tree", in the school yard, but only Black h.s. students were arrested and indicted for their reaction. Obama alluding to -- but refusing -- to even say Martin Luther King by name in Obama's nomination acceptance speech, a man Obama would have also had to condemn, if both were alive today, for King calling the U.S. "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today", let alone condemn conscious Black athletes like Mohammad Ali, or John Carlos and Tommie Smith, back in the day. Obama's speeches about "Black male irresponsibilities", Obama's 'Bill Clinton', "Sister Souljah moment". (Like you don't hear, on television talk / court / other shows every day, about plenty of white guys, from rich to poor, not taking care of their kids, when not busy murdering their entire family.) Obama wouldn't even put on a welcome lei, given to him in Hawai'i upon a campaign visit there, for fear he would look 'too native Hawaiian'! But, these aren't even the kind of arguments that Nader used.]

But, Obama hasn’t yet, directly or effectively, *singled-out* and especially *targeted* Black people for adverse political or economic policies, which is what it would take for the “Uncle Tom” racial insult to be justified. *I* wouldn’t even say what Nader said and I’ve been sociopolitically quite opposed to either Obama and McCain as would-be, imperialist, ‘white-supremacist’, economic neoliberalist, military-industrial complex, pro-corporate, pro-Zionist presidents, promoted from political parties that represent just that.

This is a demonstration that Nader is emotionally losing it. While there are some very young and fit 70-something year-olds (especially in California), perhaps he’s personally getting too old to stand up to the stresses of constant round-the-country barnstorming for either his book or his erstwhile running for president (that can take a toll on someone of any age), and the constant personal-political attacks even from other white so-called “progressive/leftist” icons. Apparently, not even his political or personal (if he’s got any left with good judgement) friends can help him anymore.

*That’s* how Nader wants to go out? Now he’s *finished* in the national Black community. And, before that, he would have been finished in the San Francisco Bay Area with Black people, as far as my efforts would have been concerned. All that talk of his, before in his book lectures, about his emulating his father’s supposed great judgement, ethics and principles…; my brilliant lefty attorney housemate summed it all up in her usual succinct way when I told her what happened to me from Nader: “Goes to show it’s all just rhetoric.” But, to borrow from and paraphrase Ice Cube, let a ffoolll be a ffoolll!

[But, check this out: since this email, another Green party official privately emailed me and called Nader's remark, "an insensitive, but clearly calculated outburst"!]

Peace,

Joseph

[Berkeley, CA]

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-- MORE ON RALPH NADER (AND JOSEPH ANDERSON)

From: [Joseph Anderson]
To: [two very high officials & candidates of the Green Party]
Subject: FYI: Independent witness re how I was abrasively treated (the first time) by Ralph Nader
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:09:21 -0800

FYI:

Hi [two very high officials & candidates of the Green Party],

I don't know this guy, Robert B. Livingston (I hope to meet him one day since he apparently lives in the Bay Area), but, in a more general web search, I came across this, which I now recall when it was comment posted at DissidentVoice:

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/09/forgetting-911/

Robert B. Livingston said [to Joseph Anderson] on September 18th, 2007 at 3:32pm #:

I happened to be at that [Ralph Nader] book [lecture &] signing [in San Francisco] Mr. Anderson mentioned.

Ralph Nader shocked me when he responded to him [Joseph Anderson] in that disproportionate way.

I have been a long admirer of Mr. Nader, but that moment seemed to me completely out of character – and has troubled me deeply ever since.

I rationalized the situation, and Mr. Anderson’s words have now put that event into a better perspective for me.
It is puzzling to me that Nader has said next to nothing about 9/11 [and *nothing* at all about the languishing, mostly Black, Hurricane Katrina victims].

A friend of mine explained to me once that she does not really think he [Nader] “gets it.” I accepted that. Also, I have thought that Nader is hyper-testy with anyone who appears to be a potential heckler (and he has had many!) But I thought you had honest questions, and were not heckling Nader.

I was disappointed with the crowd for not coming to your defense when some [white guys] ganged up on you, and I was disappointed with myself.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________


Take care,

Joseph

[Berkeley, CA]


P.S. I also sent this letter to a good friend and supporter of mine, and a close political associate of Ralph Nader, in San Francisco.

So he didn't even have the guts to come right out and call Obama an Uncle Tom, he had to couch it in a question--"will he be an Uncle Tom?" Those sorts of BS semantic arguments are what give politicians a bad name. I thought Nader was supposed to be above all that. The fact is he used the phrase "Uncle Tom" in reference to Barack Obama, the day after Obama's historic election. When the Fox news commentator, quite reasonably, expressed amazement and asked Nader if he didn't want to take it back, Nader defended his racist comment and threw a fit, repeatedly accusing the interviewer of being a "bully." And that was not the first racist comment Nader made against Obama during the campaign. Earlier he accused Obama of "trying to act white." When given an opportunity to explain his comment he just dug the hole deeper. Apparently Nader really thinks that a black politician should be primarily concerned with "black issues." That's particularly hypocritical considering I've never noticed Nader being primarily concerned with "Arab American" issues. As usual he holds everyone else to a higher standard than he holds himself, even while self-rightiously and skillfully portraying himself as a purer than the driven snow martyr and all around saintly do-gooder.