Nathan Newman wrote:
> Shame on Ralph. Shame on the Greens.
-True, absolutely true. But what have the Dems done about harassment -of black voters lately? Is it part of the post-election lawsuits?
This is what frustrates me about this whole comparison of Gore and Nader. I consider Nader one of "our guys" - a great progressive - while I am under no illusion that Gore is an ally in anything but an opportunistic manner. So when Nader acts or fails to act in the proper way, it is a failure that should be criticized on its own terms. Now, if left Dems supporting Gore - who I also consider great progressives - failed to speak out on the racial abuses in Florida, I would criticize them. Some have not been as loud as I would like, but a great number of Dems - with Jesse and Kweisei Mfume leading the charge - have loudly denounced the denial of voting rights in Florida. Unions and other progressive groups have mobilized around the issue.
And as for lack of outrage by folks on LBO I noted, you yourself Doug dismissed the Florida violations in a "everyone does it" manner, writing
From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>I'll bet if just about any state's voting procedures were scrutinized
>carefully, you'd find all kinds of abuses, ranging from negligence to
>fraud. How about recounts in the states Gore narrowly carried?
>Doug
So you thought the abuses suffered by white folks in places like Wisconsin and Oregon were likely to be similar to those faced by blacks and latinos in Florida. I think that counts as a lack of outrage, in that world-weary cynicism that folks on the left can sport so easily, and therefore fail to act when truly outrageous harms happen - THAT WE HAVE SOME TACTICAL OPPORTUNITY TO FIGHT.
In most elections, the abuses suffered by oppressed folks are usually ignored because the parties do close ranks to prevent such challenges from undermining the legitimacy of the system. Here, though, you have such a close race that Gore is willing to turn over every dirty rock to increase his vote total, a tremendous opportunity for progressives to force issues of voting rights abuses onto the agenda. Gore is tiptoeing around the worst abuses in Miami, but other left Dems are slowly pushing them onto the agenda. And the problem is that Nader could have used his critical role in the election to jump into the situation and stand up for those folks denied their franchise.
Yet Nader has just slunk back to the sidelines to make potshots and ignored the issue. That is the failure of leadership by Nader that is pretty unforgiveable. He seems to care about empowering marginal cranky white Green voters with proportional representation, but does not think it worth even a trip to Florida to investigate the wholesale disenfranchisement of blacks and latinos there.
-- Nathan Newman