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Ralph Nader’s Urgent Appeal: Vote for Democrats
Fascist politics on the march
When Ralph Nader appeared on “Democracy Now!” last week, a key moment came
as he responded to the final question from host Amy Goodman: “You have
campaigned as an independent and a Green throughout your political life.
You ran for president four times. Why now throw in your lot with the
Democrats?”
“Well, this is clearly the most dangerous political movement since the Civil War, the GOP under the corporate fascist Trump’s thumb,” Nader replied . “He spread a whole breed of many Trumpsters who are getting far too much publicity compared to their opponents. Everything we fought for, Amy, for over 50 years, is at stake here. They’re ready to do everything but tear seatbelts out of cars. They want to let Wall Street lie, cheat and steal with impunity. They want to make sure the corporate crime wave continues to roll across America against workers and consumers and the elderly and children.”
Nader added: “So this is an order of magnitude we have never seen before.” In the week ahead, the crucial question is whether the Republican Party will be successful in capturing Congress. A Republican takeover of the House and Senate would be a huge step forward for fascistic politics.
Nader summarized the Republican threat to democracy: “We have never seen a party literally trying to repress the vote, miscount the vote, purge the vote, intimidate precinct worker volunteers and steal elections. They have actually basically said, ‘Any election we lose is because it has been stolen from us.’ That is the word of a dictatorship party.”
The interview with Nader, reaching many thousands of progressive voters around the United States, could have impact on tight races. The battle for control of the Senate is notably down to the wire in Arizona , Florida , Georgia , Iowa , Nevada , New Hampshire , North Carolina , Ohio , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin . Candor requires acknowledging that Democratic candidates for Congress are mostly an uninspiring lot from progressive vantage points. At the same time, they represent the only means available right now to halt the march of Republican demagogues into congressional control.
Ralph Nader’s influence among some progressive voters could tip the balance. In some contests, the margins of victory could be just a few votes per precinct.
Disappointing -- and sometimes infuriating -- as the current Congress has been, the absence of Republican control has made possible the enactment of some very valuable legislation into law. Any such progress would come to a screeching halt if Republicans run Congress, as Nader pointed out while calling for Democrats to “compare and contrast life under the authoritarian bigoted corporate-indentured GOP with life under the Democrats.”
For example, Nader said, “20 or 25 million people will get a raise to $15 minimum wage under the Democrats. The GOP is against that. The assault on children by the GOP is absolutely stunning, from not using available Medicaid funds to insure them, to exposing them to hazardous pesticides and denying paid family leave and sick leave. The GOP is against that. The $300 a month child tax credit to 58 million children in our country, cutting child poverty by a third, was suspended because of GOP opposition in January.”
Nader was crystal clear: “Your choice in 2022, compare the Democrats and GOP, and the GOP is against every one of these, whether it’s minimum wage, strengthening gun safety laws, taxing the wealthiest firms and the super-rich, guaranteeing freedom and equality for women, ending the dark money in campaigns, providing Medicare for all, raising frozen Social Security benefits, restoring voter rights, funding childcare and sick leave, fighting climate violence with renewable energy, reducing skyrocketing drug prices and increasing funding to prosecute corporate crooks. All of those are opposed by the GOP.”
There are profound differences between the two major parties. Ralph Nader is offering crucial wisdom at this historic moment.
____________________________
Jeff Cohen is co-founder of RootsAction.org, a retired journalism professor at Ithaca College, and author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.” In 1986, he founded the media watch group FAIR.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of “War Made Easy.” His next book, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” will be published by The New Press in Spring 2023. He is the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
“Well, this is clearly the most dangerous political movement since the Civil War, the GOP under the corporate fascist Trump’s thumb,” Nader replied . “He spread a whole breed of many Trumpsters who are getting far too much publicity compared to their opponents. Everything we fought for, Amy, for over 50 years, is at stake here. They’re ready to do everything but tear seatbelts out of cars. They want to let Wall Street lie, cheat and steal with impunity. They want to make sure the corporate crime wave continues to roll across America against workers and consumers and the elderly and children.”
Nader added: “So this is an order of magnitude we have never seen before.” In the week ahead, the crucial question is whether the Republican Party will be successful in capturing Congress. A Republican takeover of the House and Senate would be a huge step forward for fascistic politics.
Nader summarized the Republican threat to democracy: “We have never seen a party literally trying to repress the vote, miscount the vote, purge the vote, intimidate precinct worker volunteers and steal elections. They have actually basically said, ‘Any election we lose is because it has been stolen from us.’ That is the word of a dictatorship party.”
The interview with Nader, reaching many thousands of progressive voters around the United States, could have impact on tight races. The battle for control of the Senate is notably down to the wire in Arizona , Florida , Georgia , Iowa , Nevada , New Hampshire , North Carolina , Ohio , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin . Candor requires acknowledging that Democratic candidates for Congress are mostly an uninspiring lot from progressive vantage points. At the same time, they represent the only means available right now to halt the march of Republican demagogues into congressional control.
Ralph Nader’s influence among some progressive voters could tip the balance. In some contests, the margins of victory could be just a few votes per precinct.
Disappointing -- and sometimes infuriating -- as the current Congress has been, the absence of Republican control has made possible the enactment of some very valuable legislation into law. Any such progress would come to a screeching halt if Republicans run Congress, as Nader pointed out while calling for Democrats to “compare and contrast life under the authoritarian bigoted corporate-indentured GOP with life under the Democrats.”
For example, Nader said, “20 or 25 million people will get a raise to $15 minimum wage under the Democrats. The GOP is against that. The assault on children by the GOP is absolutely stunning, from not using available Medicaid funds to insure them, to exposing them to hazardous pesticides and denying paid family leave and sick leave. The GOP is against that. The $300 a month child tax credit to 58 million children in our country, cutting child poverty by a third, was suspended because of GOP opposition in January.”
Nader was crystal clear: “Your choice in 2022, compare the Democrats and GOP, and the GOP is against every one of these, whether it’s minimum wage, strengthening gun safety laws, taxing the wealthiest firms and the super-rich, guaranteeing freedom and equality for women, ending the dark money in campaigns, providing Medicare for all, raising frozen Social Security benefits, restoring voter rights, funding childcare and sick leave, fighting climate violence with renewable energy, reducing skyrocketing drug prices and increasing funding to prosecute corporate crooks. All of those are opposed by the GOP.”
There are profound differences between the two major parties. Ralph Nader is offering crucial wisdom at this historic moment.
____________________________
Jeff Cohen is co-founder of RootsAction.org, a retired journalism professor at Ithaca College, and author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.” In 1986, he founded the media watch group FAIR.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of “War Made Easy.” His next book, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” will be published by The New Press in Spring 2023. He is the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
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Now it's important? Like it wasn't in 2000? Fucking get over yourself.
When I sat down for a chat with Ralph Nader more than 20 years ago, I was with Santa Cruz IndyMedia, when was still intact as a local organization, and Ralph was very forthcoming about the need to upend the "2 party system". He was also an avid supporter of IndyMedia.
These are extreme times, and his response is appropriate.
It does give me a laugh that when I looked this up in the search engines, the only source easily found was The Washington Post, where they claim to have his statement as an exclusive and are using it to fundraise for their own pockets.
It's a shame that people who rely on search engines might never know that Amy Goodman had this first, and is giving it away for free, unless you wish to donate.
Yes do that as generously as possible.
Now how to we change how people find news on the internet? We have technology to offer a fair search, who will use it? Google could offer a fair search, but what they offer today is LESS than what they gave use 20 years ago.
When we release our own search engine, based on 2 existing projects, our treatment of real news will be more fair than the commercial choices.
You might consider that Duck Duck Go is served by Microsoft, and no longer does it's own crawls.
Then try searx.org for some improvements, but some of us are doing our own crawls, and Indyradio will soon offer a truly non-commercial alternative, using open source technology from several existing projects.
Here the "inverted pyramid" arrives at the crux of our work, which is based on the fact that the computing power of the entire internet in 1994 is within reach of ordinary mortals today, at low cost.
Furthermore, most of the computer work done by today's "web" is not for you, but to exploit you.
What this means is that we need several orders of magnitude less computing power today to construct anew a "People's Web" that exists for our use, rather than exploitation.
If you use the search facility at indyradio, it is already good enough to reveal a world not centered on commercial exploitation. The only rub is that you may have to hit the "search button a second time after the new window opens, but we're working on it.
These are extreme times, and his response is appropriate.
It does give me a laugh that when I looked this up in the search engines, the only source easily found was The Washington Post, where they claim to have his statement as an exclusive and are using it to fundraise for their own pockets.
It's a shame that people who rely on search engines might never know that Amy Goodman had this first, and is giving it away for free, unless you wish to donate.
Yes do that as generously as possible.
Now how to we change how people find news on the internet? We have technology to offer a fair search, who will use it? Google could offer a fair search, but what they offer today is LESS than what they gave use 20 years ago.
When we release our own search engine, based on 2 existing projects, our treatment of real news will be more fair than the commercial choices.
You might consider that Duck Duck Go is served by Microsoft, and no longer does it's own crawls.
Then try searx.org for some improvements, but some of us are doing our own crawls, and Indyradio will soon offer a truly non-commercial alternative, using open source technology from several existing projects.
Here the "inverted pyramid" arrives at the crux of our work, which is based on the fact that the computing power of the entire internet in 1994 is within reach of ordinary mortals today, at low cost.
Furthermore, most of the computer work done by today's "web" is not for you, but to exploit you.
What this means is that we need several orders of magnitude less computing power today to construct anew a "People's Web" that exists for our use, rather than exploitation.
If you use the search facility at indyradio, it is already good enough to reveal a world not centered on commercial exploitation. The only rub is that you may have to hit the "search button a second time after the new window opens, but we're working on it.
For more information:
https://indyradio.net/?q=node/61
20 years ago "socialism" was a "dirty word". But of course now (with significant contributions by Bernie Sanders's two Presidential campaigns), it's no longer a taboo -- and more young people now favor socialism than capitalism. So it seems it would make sense to make a big push for "socialism" -- whether Bernie Sanders's version, or more radical programs.
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