Jeesh, whatever happened to Harry Boyte? See at the end. He's written a paper for the DLC think tank the PPI. The pitiful, (ex-)populist Institute?
Michael Pugliese
----- Original Message ----- From: New Democrats Online <ndol_admin at dlcppi.org> To: <debsian at PACBELL.NET> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 10:55 AM Subject: NEW DEM DAILY: Who Should Vote For Nader?
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> 25-OCT-2000
>
> Who Should Vote For Nader?
>
> The buzz on the presidential campaign trail this week is that Al
> Gore and George Bush are locked in close races in a number of
> states (Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan
> and Maine) where Green Party candidate Ralph Nader is drawing
> support in the polls well above the margin of difference between
> the big guys. Nader and many of his supporters among the lefty
> intelligentsia and celebrity culture are making a sustained effort
> to convince liberal Democrats to cast a tactical vote for Nader.
>
> One argument (first broached by Texas journalist Molly Ivins but
> since endorsed by The Nation magazine and most recently by
> Nader himself) is that liberals in states that are not "in play" --
> i.e., are sure to go to either Gore or Bush -- should vote for Nader
> to "send a message" to Democrats to move sharply to the left in
> future elections, and to help get the Green Party over the five
> percent national popular vote threshold needed to qualify it for
> public matching funds in 2004. Under this theory, of course, the
> Green vote would drop to zero in all the above-mentioned
> battleground states, while rising to its maximum feasible levels
> in the northeast, the south and the west.
>
> But Nader's own most consistent argument is that liberals
> everywhere should vote for him to punish Democrats for their
> centrist, New Democrat heresies of the past eight years
> (especially the support for international trade agreements and,
> well, for the dangerous economic theory of capitalism), and to
> make the Green Party a permanent "watchdog" in American
> politics.
>
> We obviously don't tend to agree with Mr. Nader on a whole lot,
> but we do think it's important to take him and his candidacy
> seriously, based on what he actually says and represents, not
> on his marginal utility as a vehicle for inchoate concerns or a
> "protest vote." Here is his basic message:
>
> * America is in the grip of a multinational corporate conspiracy
> that controls both major political parties, the nation's economy,
> and most of the federal government's domestic and foreign
> policies.
>
> * Al Gore and George Bush, and the Democratic and Republican
> parties, for that matter, differ "only in the velocity with which their
> knees hit the ground" when corporations call on them for favors.
>
> * American democracy is entirely bogus, bought and sold by
> campaign contributions that control most policy decisions. Only
> full public financing of political campaigns can break this control.
>
> * Life is getting steadily worse, on both economic and cultural
> grounds, for most Americans, and for most of the non-rich
> everywhere else in the world. The 1990s "boom" is a figment
> of the media's imagination, enriching only the rich while making
> everyone else insecure and on the edge of personal financial
> disaster.
>
> * International trade and investment benefit only the multinational
> corporations and other elites, while impoverishing workers here
> and abroad and destroying the global environment.
>
> * Environmental, workplace and labor regulations have been gutted
> during the Clinton-Gore Administration, along with the right to sue
> big businesses. Both government regulation and private litigation
> need to be dramatically expanded to protect the American people.
>
> * The defense budget needs to be deeply slashed and American
> commitments overseas must be scaled back accordingly.
>
> There's a sizeable minority of Americans who may well agree with
> Mr. Nader on one point or another, to one degree or another, but the
> point to ponder is that a vote for Nader is a vote for the whole
> package: its dire vision of an America going straight to hell in a
> handbasket; its dismissal of anyone who disagrees with Nader as
> a corrupt hack; its paternalistic contempt for the American people
> as dumb cattle on the path to the slaughterhouse; and its rejection
> of economic and technological change as inherently evil.
>
> Ralph Nader is not the candidate for liberal Democrats who simply
> want to push their party a few degrees to the left. In fact, the Green
> Party campaign is barely within hailing distance of the national
> mainstream, and is led by a man who has become something of an
> American Robespierre, an illiberal thinker equally convinced of his
> singular virtue and the depravity of everyone else.
>
> More than forty years ago, William F. Buckley launched the
> conservative National Review magazine with an editorial that said:
> "We stand athwart history shouting, 'Stop!'" That's the real message
> every Ralph Nader voter will send to Washington on November 7.
>
> Related Material:
>
> "Nader's Trial Lawyer Populism," by Harry C. Boyte,
> PPI, September 8, 2000:
>
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=115&subsecid=145&contentid=22
31
>
> "Nader: The Next Henry Wallace?"
> New Dem Daily, June 26, 2000:
> http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=1163&kaid=131&subid=192
>
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