Poor, poor Ralph Nader

[ceebeegee]

What a delusional loser.

Comments

[dry-2olives.livejournal.com]

Hey, you're talking about the candidate I'm most likely to vote for. He has a history as an excellent administrator who can delegate responsibility and get things done by gathering support on a grass roots level. I want my president to be a geek who gets things done.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

His history has no bearing on what he is now. Most of his former supporters have turned thir backs on him, as mentioned in the article. He could barely get 200 supporters in Cambridge, MA, that liberal stronghold, for a rally.

Good. I loathe him.

[dry-2olives.livejournal.com]

Why do you loathe him? Do you disagree with his stand on any issues?

[darksheik.livejournal.com]

Ralph Nader is an American Hero. Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands owe their lives to the safety standards on which he insisted. His writings are the conscience of capitalism.

Do you loathe him because of the 2000 election?

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Yes. His statements that Gore and Bush are exactly the same, "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" is so wrong, it's offensive. Gore who won the Nobel Prize vs. Bush, who started the Iraq war, who fiddled while New Orleans and the Gulf drowned. I can even forgive his spoiling of the election if he recognized that his actions had unintended consequences and that there are better ways to achieve what he claims are his goals. But he won't acknowledge that he made a mistake; even now he's dismissing the current candidates, saying Obama and McCain are the latest "corporate candidate." I can't forgive that kind of egotism, that selfishness, that delusion.

Telling people who criticize him to "get over it"?? Tell that to the mothers of dead soldiers in Iraq. What a shitty, insensitive thing to say; what a pathetic attempt to deflect criticism. I physically tense up thinking of him.

And yes, I know he has a right to run--and we have a right to criticize him.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

He was an American hero--now he's irrelevant.

I agree with what he accomplished re: consumer safety. I remember studying his work in high school. He should've stuck to that because I did have a high opinion of him before 2000. I think he started to buy into his own hagiology.

(IOW, yes.)

[darksheik.livejournal.com]

Nader ran for President in 1992 and 1996 too. Do you also loathe the others who got more than 3,000 votes in Florida?

Browne 18,856
Buchanan 17,356
Phillips 4,280

Are they any less complicit in the presidency of George W. Bush? Should they have just known better?

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

I didn't say anything about Florida.

As I said to Michael above, I can even forgive his spoiling of the election if he recognized that he made a mistake and learned from it. Certainly nobody could anticipate 9/11 (oh wait, except the guys who sent GWB memos in August of 2001...) But he won't. He still says that virtually all candidates but him are the same, "corporate tools," "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" (while plaintively wondering why Gore won't exonerate him). That kind of flammatory rhetoric is going to attract a lot more criticism than the others, and furthermore his naivete directly undermines what he says he's trying to accomplish. If we had a different electoral system, his run wouldn't have had the consequences that it did. However we don't--we have a winner-take-all system--and it did. Instead of siphoning votes, why not campaign to change the electoral system, which is a terrific goal? Then maybe he could get a phone call returned on Capitol Hill instead of being shunned as he is now. He's invalidated his own legacy.

[darksheik.livejournal.com]

What was his mistake, though? Running for president? I agree with a lot of what he said about Democrats of that time. I didn't feel there was much of a choice, and the fact that Nader gathered 3% of the country (Read: three million voters) showed that people felt in large numbers that the two-party system was stagnant.

It's Gore's fault that he lost the election, not Nader's - if Gore had showed half the passion he's shown in recent years when it mattered, he might have actually been attractive enough to beat the bumbling Texas governor.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Well, I said twice above that Nader's mistake--that is, what I loathe him for--is his dismissive hubristic attitude and refusal to recognize that his actions had unintended consequences, not least of which is that now he can't get anything done, because now he's shunned. Like it or not, part of politics is playing well with others. If you think there wasn't much choice between Gore and Bush, then there's not much point in continuing the discussion because I have a fundamental disagreement with that. I just don't agree with that kind of cynicism.

I think it's pretty obvious--and was obvious in 2000 to those who voted for him--that Gore would've made different choices. He had already established a record of vigorous advocacy for the environment and other causes long before 2000; in fact, I remember in 1988 reading his article in Time about the environment and liking it. I remember in 1991 when his candidacy was on the horizon saying to my BF that I liked his ideas and would probably vote for him.

[darksheik.livejournal.com]

But your use of phrases like "siphoning off votes" and "spoiling the election" imply that you think the votes Nader got were Gore's to begin with, that he was somehow entitled to them. Clearly he wasn't. To me, it's as ridiculous as saying Gore was siphoning Nader's votes.

"Playing well with others" then, if you're Ralph Nader, is obviously joining the Democratic Party and hoping that the party's nominees will one day stop ignoring the issues you care so deeply about.

Nader has nothing to be sorry about. It was the "fuck you" vote, and I'm glad I made it at the time.

Now, of course, I agree with Michael Moore that eight years of George W. Bush does strange things to a man. I agree with that at least, and I will support the Democratic Party this year. It's a different world.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

imply that you think the votes Nader got were Gore's to begin with, that he was somehow entitled to them.

Not in theory, no--but in effect, yes. There are two ways of looking at it. In theory, of course Nader's free to run. In theory a vote for him is a vote for whatever you see him as representing. But in practice, and certainly in retrospect--a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. His running and conflation of Gore and Bush meant that Bush was elected. I'm sure Bush Sr. supporters felt the same way toward Perot in '92 (though Perot was much more moderate than Nader), only the consequences were different.

eight years of George W. Bush does strange things to a man

I could've told Moore that in 2000.

Nader has nothing to be sorry about.

Then why does he wonder why Gore won't exonerate him? Maybe he's finding out that his disdainful, "I'm better than the rest of you" brand of politics is completely ineffectual--politics *is* about working with others and finding a practical solution, not throwing out everything and starting over at the expense of lives.

Did you read the article? I found it interesting and viscerally satisfying, although I will say, even *I* found it biased! (Against Nader, I mean.)

[dry-2olives.livejournal.com]

Okay, I can understand your objections there. I don't interpret his "Get over it" quite the way you do. I see it more as a defense against those who blame him for the Bush administration when he was simply exercising his right to run for office. I do agree there is a certain amount of "corporate branding" - so to speak - when it comes to candidates for the 2 major parties, molding them into either slightly left or slightly right of center in order to make them electable. I agree that some of his language is inappropriate.

Still, at the moment he's the only candidate I feel I can vote for with a clear conscious. But that won't keep me from looking for others to support. I don't like the idea of voting for the most electable candidate who most closely represents your views. That's not letting your voice be heard.

[darksheik.livejournal.com]

I guess I just look up to Nader a lot... that he has the cojones to truly ante up and try to make a difference for the little people, and I think he has the absolute right to be completely pissed that nobody in the truly powerful positions in Washington cares on the level that he does. He did make a mistake in terms of his own popularity, to be sure.

I actually didn't think George W. was going to be nearly as bad a president as he turned out to be. Let's hope Obama is like that, but in the opposite way.

The article was pretty stacked against him, yes, but so is the rest of the country :). It was complimentary at times.

I found a valid criticism of Obama that underscores Nader's assertion that popular major parties aren't doing enough:

"I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law," he said. "Haven't heard a thing."

Unfortunately, some other comments by Nader in the same article are coming under fire for racial overtones...

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/25/nader-obama-talking-white/#more-8159

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

As I said, I used to admire him and I agree that his pro-consumer advocacy is good stuff.

I actually didn't think George W. was going to be nearly as bad a president as he turned out to be.

November and December of 2000 were torturous to me. And then 9/11 happened--and I remember saying "this is like having a Boy Scout in charge of the 7-11 when it's getting robbed."

I read some of the comments on that blog and one person asserted that Obama's book does indeed talk at length about poverty. I haven't followed Obama's campaign that closely but he certainly doesn't seem to be trying to shy away from the idea of race as Nader suggests. He had that speech in March, and a speech recently where he talked about black fathers.

I think Obama's going to be a great President, if he ends up winning--and I have great hopes that he will.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

I don't interpret his "Get over it" quite the way you do.

I have a visceral hatred for that phrase. I find it so condescending, so dismissive.

I respect your reasons for supporting him (though I reserve the right to disagree!) though :)