--
On Tue, 12 Nov 2002 10:35:23
Nathan Newman wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "budge" <budge at el-pleasant.org>
>
>
>On Mon, 11 Nov 2002 at 10:09pm Bradford DeLong wrote:
>>
>> The electors of Florida went to Bush. Had Nader not put
>> his narcissistic candidacy forward, the electors of
>> Florida would have gone to Gore.
Oh, pulllleeeeezzzze!!! As if all of the sheanigans of the GOP had not a thing to do with the Florida debacle!!! And why is Nathan more concerned with trashing the Greens for costing his favorite Democrat the White House than about the very real and vicious assault on Democratic voters (the "felon's list" used to disqualify otherwise eligible black voters; the attempt to swell the "military" absetee ballots, etc.). But I guess that anyone who dares to present the actual failed record of the Democrats as a progressive party will bear Nathan's wrath.
I personally have my own problems with Nader as a candidate (too stuff-shirted, panders too much to the social Right for my own taste, doesn't take on the social issues enough); and I have my own issues with the ultimate goals of the Greens as a viable left alterative to the Dems. But to blame them for Gore's loss and avoid the complete failings of the Democrats themselves (Gore, after all, did manage to lose his own state of Tennessee and Bubba's home state of Arkansas without Nader anywhere around)amounts to sheer sophistry.
--from my recall of the numbers, you could say the same of the
>-SWP, but nobody ever blames them for throwing the election
>-to Bush.
>
>Only within the micro numbers that pitched the decision into the courts.
>Without Nader in the race, the Gore totals would have been so decisive that
>the vote would have never been disputed.
And what does that mean exactly, Nathan?? That Gore, if he had been elected President, would have automatically overwhelmed a Republican Senate, a Republicrat (Republican + conservative Democrat) Congress, and an entrenched conservative judiciary and ushered in progressive legislation??? Need I remind all of you that Al Gore was in fact the most conservative of all the Democratic candidates in 2000?? Remember his pandering to the Cuban exiles in the Elian Gonzalez case?? His ceaseless pandering to the Zionist Right on the Middle East?? His promotion of "ending welfare" and privatizing Social Security?? Yes, Al would be generally preferable to King Dubya, but to say that he would be a genuine progressive is, to be kind, way off.
>
>With the SWP or such votes, the totals still would have been close enough to
>force the case into the whole Florida legal disaster.
>
>One reason I no longer take Green Party arguments seriously is the
>intellectual denial that Nader mattered in the 2000 election. When a
>political trend engages in the level of intellectual self-denial and
>delusion required for these kiinds of arguments, they just can't be taken
>seriously.
>
>Either the Greens justify long-term political gains from throwing the
>election to Bush or they aren't making serious arguments. Since the only
>power of third parties is the threat to play spoiler, they have to justify
>the gains from pulling the trigger on that threat, as Nader did in 2000.
>
>== Nathan Newman
Interesting....I guess that the notion of having political parties being accountable to its stated positions and its constituents must succumb to the praxis of "electability".
The real self-denial, Nathan, is in the myth -- which has been proven false again and again -- that a Democratic Party dominated at the top by wannabe DLC conservatives and funded by the same corporate cannibals that fund the GOP can ever be transformed into a progressive party simply by flooding the electorate with voters. A party divided against itself cannot stand for long; and a party that announces itself as a source for change while simultaneously being dependent upon the political forces most opposed to that change will be eliminated even sooner.
Memo to Democrats: Don't blame the Greens for having principles and passion; go out and get some for yourself.
Anthony
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