I think this is first time I've disagreed with something you posted, Carl. Pretty shallow analysis, in my opnion, typical of the sort of lifestyle leftism which has pretty much done the VV in over the past decade of so.
> * On the one hand: "One thing is clear: Nader's unlikely charisma – think
> Jimmy Stewart as Ichabod Crane – has transformed ... [a] chaotic coalition
> of progressives into the most powerful alternative to the two-party system.
> As a result, the Democrats are sucking up to the left for the first time in
> perhaps 30 years. Not that Gore is humming the Internationale, but his
> speeches are peppered with rhetoric the Republicans call 'class warfare.'
> And it's working. In the industrial Midwest, his newfound solidarity has
> blown away the Prince Albert image. If Nader accomplishes nothing else, he
> will have pushed Gore to act like the people's alpha male. In a more
> fundamental sense, Nader has shattered the myth that liberalism can only
> survive by co-opting the right. Like Joe Hill in the old union anthem, he's
> proven that progressive politics never died. And he's shown the centrist
> Democratic leadership that the left can bite."
>
Notice what G is saying-Nader's candidacy has been successful because it has forced Gore to change his rhetoric-not because there is any indication that Gore will implement anything resembling a "populist" agenda if/when he gets in. G fails to notice that this is just another page out of the Clinton playbook, talk left when necessary to win, e.g. "putting people first", then govern right.
The inability to distinguish between rhetorical and substantive victories has been a common theme of the academic/aesthetic/lifestyle left, one pretty accurately summed up in someone's remark that over the past two decades our "victories" have consist of our getting the English departments, while they got the Senate, the house the judiciary, and the executive. One attractive feature of Nader's candidacy is it gives some indication that progressives are moving beyond being satisfied with a leader who merely mouths the appropriate multi-cult buzz words and is willing to at least focus on where power really is located.
> * On the other: "... under [Nader's] ... Green veneer lurks the same old
> white man's populism. Ellen Willis, whose new book, Don't Think, Smile!, is
> a critique of social conservatism on the left, calls this blue-collar
> fixation 'an identity politics of class. It is its own cultural nationalism,
> and it's a substitute for real class politics, because if you're really
> interested in doing away with the class system, then you have to realize
> that it's cultural as well as economic.' Sooner or later, the contradictions
> in Nader's strategy are bound to show. Some shop steward will notice that he
> wants to abandon the combustion engine and raise the wages of auto workers.
> Some Green will wonder about marching behind a leader who wants to clean up
> the culture. And someone will draw the obvious conclusion from the profile
> of Nader's supporters in the latest Gallup Poll. They're the most highly
> educated Americans, not the hard hats. Then there's the Nader gender gap.
> Men are twice as likely as women to back him – a margin that pretty much
> matches Bush's."
>
Sooner or later someone will notice? Nader has been bashed repeatedly by pwoggies from all sides from the very first stirrings of his candidacy. Berlet "exposing" of Nader's ties to rightist crank Roger Milliken and the danger of a crypto-fascist element in his campaign. Endless recycling of the "gonadal politics" remark. Doug's constant reminders that Nader is no enemy of capitalism. Nader's anti-unionism within his own organizations etc. Nader's "insensitivity" to minorities. etc.
By this point the charge that any of us are supporting Nader with our eyes closed to his liabilities would be laughable were it not so devisive, probably calculating so, considering the source.
John