>Messsage du 30/11/2000 18:39
>De : <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>A : <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Copie à :
>Objet : Re: Fw: [ASDnet] What Went Wrong for Ralph?
>
> Christopher B. Hajib-Niles:
> > ...
> > there is so much more to say about nader but since i'm getting
> > depressed thinking about it, i'll just say one more thing:
> > the nader campaign wanted to have its cake and eat it, too:
> > they did not want to alienate potential white supporters by
> > reaching out too explicitely to the black community (an old
> > problem for the democratic party) but they also wanted the
> > black communities votes. their strategy, in so far as it was
> > thought out, seemed to be: get as many black progressive
> > heavies as you can to support nader so that you look like your
> > all about helping the hood and indicate support for vague
> > "feel good" policies like "ending racism" or "support affirmative
> > action."
> >
> > a neo-white man's populism for a post-civil rightr america. yuck.
>
> Yes, but Nader was running in an election whose context was
> peace and considerable prosperity.
ok, i'll play along like a voting kind of guy.
let's remember, it's not real peace or prosperity. the peace is really just an absence of war old fashioned style and the "prosperity" is largely hoarded by a few with the rest of us swimming in huge amounts of increasingly unmanageable debt and working our asses off. in any case, "peace and prosperity," such as it is, is largely a media fiction written by tunnel vision wall streeters and popularized via the corporate media. at any rate, nader could have ripped holes in this fiction. he did not because he has neither the politics or political imagination for him to do so coherently.
I think Nader did about as well as he could have been
> expected to given the fatness of the times.
maybe but maybe not. how many people would have come out to vote if he really ripped on the lie that we live in a democracy instead of basing his campaign on that lie? probobly the green party would have freaked out and chucked him as their candidate. but it is still fun to contemplate.
> Next time around, the Greens might consider trying to establish
> an early alliance with leftish Black and labor groups in order
> to set up a movement with wider credibility and appeal --
its telling that "greens" still mean "white." (in d.c.--chocalate city, that is--the green party had no active black members until they recently became the zero+zero=zero "statehood-green party") it's even more telling that this is the case despite the fact during the last 15 years in this country, the most significant environmental struggles and victories have been fought and/or won by so-called environmental justice activist. of course, that movement is now dead (vulnerable from the beginning to many of the same political forces that destroyed the black rebellion of the 60's), killed rather expertly by clinton's "office on environmental justice" and philanthropic foundations. still, assuming that a green party is a worthwhile function, which i'm not convinced it is, it needs to stop trying to "appeal" to black radicals and black folks in general and restructure themselves based on what they LEARN from studying the history of black struggle. when they do that and do it well, they won't have to appeal to black folks. their interest will grow and they will join the green party in larger numbers. up to this point, the green party has shown no committment to understanding black struggles or race in any comrehensive way. why should black people be interested in them?
> do those people _really_ want to give up on the Democratic
> Party or merely threaten it?
well, there are plenty of black democratic party hacks who use their influence to keep large numbers of black folks voting democrat. that said the real question is: is the green party really interested in the lives of black folk or do they just want to use them in order to increase the prestige of the party?
chris niles
>