Fwd: THE FINAL LAP IN A LONG RACE

[Roger Odisio]

Carl Remick wrote:
> 
> Yes, it's worth remembering that voting for Nader as a protest only takes
> you so far.  The following is from James Ridgeway's column in this week's
> Village Voice:  "As for the content of the [anti-Nader] smear campaign,
> Nader is hardly a socialist. He believes in small business competition, and,
> if anything, relies excessively on lawyers to broker the interests of
> ordinary people against corporate interests and government red tape. He has
> been shaped by the values of his hardworking immigrant family. He wants the
> government to regulate private enterprise, not abolish it. From the
> beginning he has based his programs on the idea that the most important
> thing he can do is to encourage an educated citizenry."

Ahh, Carl, as Jack Palance said to Burt Lancaster in "The Professionals"
(circa 1965, when discussing each's support, or lack of it, for Zapata
in Mexico):  you are a true romantic.  You want everything, or nothing.

Voting for Nader is not a protest.  It's one part of an effort to get
people to think about the things that really matter to them, and,
ultimately, to confront the trajectory of global capital.  It doesn't
matter whether Nader can be aptly labeled a "socialist".  He raises the
issues of "corporations", without mentioning this is the dominant form
of capital, and the commodification of everything, without explaining
that as the central imperative of capital as self expanding value. 
That's OK.  He's planting important seeds.  This is apart from what you
or I may think of the solutions he offers.

It's impossible for most people to not respect Nader and the way he has
lived his life. As more people understand the WTO's plans, and what
NAFTA and GATT mean, the possibilities for what to do about them, and
all kinds of other disasters, will multiply, far beyond anything Nader
currently suggests.  Those possibilities, of course, depend on all of
us, not just Nader.

I read your earlier tergiversation about voting for Gore.  Don't do it,
Carl.  Jump aboard and vote for Nader.

RO