It was impossible for the reporter to write this story - which had nothing whatever to do with any election anywhere at any time - without repeating the lie that somehow Nader's 2000 run "cost" Al Gore that election, a widely held belief which can only be held by ignoring simple logic and failing to apply grade school math. As one of the official organs for the dissemination of elite opinion in the US, it seems the Times must necessarily continue to punish any non-corporate-backed candidates for any office for having the temerity to exist in our supposed democracy.
Given a small space in which to reply via "email" (in fact an online form) to the writer, I cobbled together the following:
"Nader had nothing whatever to do with Al Gore losing in '00. The Florida GOP committed fraud before, during and after that election, the Supreme Court handed the election to Bush, Gore was a miserable candidate who lost every southern state including his home state and 10% of registered Florida Democrats voted for GW Bush - many times the total number of Floridians who voted for Nader. This is aside from the fact that no one "owed" Al Gore a vote. Nader's votes did not "belong" to Gore. First the NYT ignores Nader every time he runs and then they lie about the impact of his runs after the fact. The man has a fantastic lifetime of service to the general public and you can't write an article about him without starting it in reference to his alleged impact on a self-serving wanker like Al Gore? The NYT is our News of the World, and I hope you have a similar fate."
There are the plain facts of the matter. This is not a matter of opinion; what gave Florida to Bush was a combination of fraud and, according to exit polling, more than 10% of Florida registered Democrats - about 220,000 voters - voting directly for George W. Bush, presumably for short-term selfish tax reasons. People registered in all parties - this inlcudes a few Republicans - cast a grand total of less than 98,000 votes for Nader statewide.
Not that there would have been much difference between having any corporate, militarist Democrat in the White House as opposed to the equal with an "R" after the name. Anyone with a memory longer than a mayfly might recall that Al Gore - the millionaire son of a Tennessee senator, following in the footsteps of his father in very much the Bush mold, a tobacco farmer with a stake in Occidental Petroleum - cast a deciding vote to invade Iraq the first time around, also based in a series of lies (Kuwaiti babies being torn from incubators, Iraqi troops massing on the Saudi border) some 10 years earlier. He spent his time in Congress voting for nuclear weapons to keep Oak Ridge, TN rolling in taxpayer dough (this is the fellow who wants to "save the Earth" we are to believe), when not advocating for censoring rock and rap along with his born again lunatic wife.
Why this jackass was supposed to have been a much better president than Bush is well beyond me.
It's been evident to me for decades that the Democrats are just the other wing of America's one militarist, corporate party. The difference is that the Dems have tens of millions of people convinced that they are the ones looking out for the little guy, even as they slash social programs, send their children to die in illegal wars and shovel tax credits to corporate criminals. Heck, Joe Lieberman was so stoked to thank his supporters that he quit the damn party.
Me? I've proudly voted for Ralph four times now, beginning as a write-in in '96 after Clinton dicked over every union and environmental group in the country with "fast-track NAFTA." He's probably about the only person in the country who is smart enough for the office and has the best interests of the little guy at heart. He's been incorruptable for half a century and has never backed down from the good fight. We might contrast this with the likes of Democratic (literal) poster boy Barry Obama, who is spending billions on unconstitutional wars against six countries, protecting American torturers and war criminals from prosecution, handed a trillion dollars to his Wall Street pimps and is trying to end Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare as we know it, just as Clinton ended welfare as we know it. Bet on a Democratic president to do the dirtiest work of the Republicans and you'll never lose money. I'll write Nader in a fifth time if I have to. Fuck Obama.
2 comments:
I'm a Nader fan, too, voted for him in 1996 and 2000.
Funny thing, though. You put "cost" in quotes, as though the NYT writer had used it. But that word doesn't appear in the article. Admittedly, that opening paragraph is weasel-worded so that it can be read either as agreement or disagreement with the idea that Nader cost Gore the election. But it doesn't say so: it refers coyly to his "role" in the election, then tells any Thanksralphers to "boil somewhere else" because the writer likes and admires Nader.
Agreed, the Times is primarily a ruling-class propaganda rag. But this column didn't say what you say it said.
Hi PR -
Thanks for the comment.
Those were quotes indicating a disagreement with the meme, not a claim that I was quoting the article verbatim. I wouldn't quote one word out of an article and throw reference quotes around it, I'd quote an entire phrase if I were doing that.
Similarly if writing about the Korean War as a "police action" I throw quotes around the phrase "police action" as I think this is a general abuse of language.
I can see how this would be confusing lacking context. You must also admit that I provided a link to the original article so that a person might read it for themselves.
I regard the notion that one candidate running "costs" another candidate any election to be an inaccurate one; in this case I find it especially insulting to suggest that all Nader voters "owe" their votes to Al Gore.
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