I know many people who voted for Nader in '00 - including two members of my own household - who wouldn't do it today, and I think there are many like us. The desire to evict Bush is uppermost in almost every left-of-center American mind today, including many who've surprised me. I've come across very few people who'd vote for Ralph in November, much less any nonentity like Jonathan Farley, whoever he is. ________________________
The fact that many people who voted for Nader in 2000 are now voting for Anybody But Bush not because they have become conservative Democrats but because they feel that their options have been reduced to a narrow and ultimately meaningless imperative. The constant blame Nader drumbeat, combined with the pretense that Bush represents an abberation from the normal course of American gunboat capitalism has obviously been successful in intimidating many people from voting against what their normal political instincts would dictate and take a position that would create some prospects of hope for the future. By voting taking the Anybody But Bush position, progressives are doomed either way. If Kerry wins (a very unlikely possibilty even if you do nt factor in vote manupulation through e-voting) he will have a mandate, like Clinton, to continue the neo-conservative rampage but in a neo-liberal vein, do bare minimum for progressive aspirations, put us on life support while reminding any malcontents that they are lucky Bush is not around to pull the plug. If Bush wins, it will be against a Democrat who did not fundammentally disagree with him on important issues and whose controls a passive, defeated, weak, constituency, and he will therefore launch into an even more emboldened four more years of penury, more 'terrorist' attacks, more conscription of civil liberties and more cowardice from the Democrats (and I'm referring to the 'good' ones here). The Anybody But Bush ploy is a grand capitulation by the progressive movement to the agenda of the ruling class. Progressives need to realize that as Chalmers Johnson noted in 'Sorrows of Empire' America has already crossed its Rubicon, with the Pentagon leading the way. Electoral politics, if it has any efficacy at all, should be employed to build a movement in a different direction with a view longer than one election cycle. It has taken us decades to ge to this point, it will take us much longer to reverse it - if that is at all possible.
Joe W.
Joe W.
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