Most memorable line was Hightower -- difference between Gore and Bush was chicken salad and chicken shit.
mbs
i watched it too. had to laugh at the sign reading "Noam Chomsky for V.P.".
guess SOME anarchists are voting for Ralph.
norm
-----Original Message----- From: Max Sawicky [mailto:sawicky at bellatlantic.net] Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2000 7:21 PM To: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu; lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: The Green Machine
Just back from the Nader rally in D.C. Paid attendance was reported at 12,000. The crowd was mostly young and white. A few observations:
1. Content of the speeches was thoroughly internationalist. They basically rung every bell in the left repertoire on foreign affairs, tho I don't recall any mention of the Balkans. Plenty of reference to Colombia as the next Vietnam, which I think is an important point.
2. So many issues raised, including in Nader's speech, meant a lack of focus. The signature issue -- public financing of election campaigns -- is not a great choice. First, it reduces them to cheerleading for McCain-Feingold, second it's not clear to me that public financing can eliminate 'soft money' in campaigns; third, public financing doesn't necessarily help third parties. You can think of others.
3. The speeches were pretty good. Michael Moore, Cornel West, Jim Hightower, and Randall Robinson were quite good. These are tremendous assets to a movement. West may sound odd in a debate or a roundtable discussion because he sounds like he's talking to 10,000 people. Well, when he actually has a big crowd he is a formidable speaker, practically effortless. Robinson just oozes gravitas.
4. The Greens don't have many blacks, but I predict that will change. Robinson is the daddy of the reparations movement. During the speeches, two fellows carried a big banner around the hall to support 'HR 40', some kind of reparations bill in Congress. I already mentioned West. Nader spoke at length about DC Statehood. At the end of the event, on stage some people unfurled a banner for the "DC Statehood Green Party." In past years the Statehood Party was like a mascot of the local Dems. It had shrunk to the point where any ten people could have taken it over. Looks like that will change.
A second reason is that one could see in the speeches the ingredients of a powerful critique bringing together the abortive war on drugs, the incarceration rates, capital punishment, and the 'prison-industrial complex.' The Dems finesse of the crime issue that helps them get votes makes them vulnerable on this front.
Having Danny Glover (he spoke and read a Langston Hughes poem) involved won't hurt either.
5. Lenin had Latvians. Dukakis had Greeks. Ralph's gonna have Arab-Americans. If not the older ones, the kids will be coming around.
6. At this point, I fail to see any rationale for the Labor Party. People clearly translate politics as elections. The main reason for the LP to keep out of the elections is they had no credible candidates, in the sense of someone who could command attention like Nader. But that reason does not do them credit.
7. ISO was hanging around, selling their lit, in full support of the Nader campaign. I remember IS from 30 years ago, and I knew a few ISO'ers now, but I'd be curious to hear what others knew and thought of them.
8. Nader doesn't use speechwriters, and he should. But he did well enough. Needless to say, his appeal is content-driven.
9. There was plenty of reference to workers and labor issues, but it was all from the standpoint of sympathetic outsider. Workers were some other folks. Biggest cheers were for demands to stop commercial logging.
10. There was plenty of emphasis on what next, after the election. This is where the action is. Tomorrow, I'm looking up the Green Party.
mbs