> it's another thing to say, "Don't dare to compete with Kerry, or else"
> -- e.g., Jon Johanning, "If they get enough votes to put Bush back in,
> they will be absolutely blackballed and non-cooperated-with by the
> rest of the U.S." (at
> <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040315/
> 005923.html>). Unfortunately for the poor ABB pundits, however, they
> have no cultural hegemony over "the rest of the U.S." and no power to
> "blackball" anyone. :->
If I am right in judging that the majority of Americans (not just "activists") who consider themselves on the left part of the spectrum are increasingly angry with Nader's actions, and if Bush wins narrowly again, they *themselves* will blackball Nader's supporters from the Left -- by turning their backs on them. I don't think you or other Nader backers are really fully aware of the anti-Nader fury that is building up among folks who are desperate to get rid of Bush. You think you had problems after 2000, but you ain't seen nothin' yet. It will probably be one of the historic splits of the Left in American history. I think we should all hope like the dickens that Kerry wins.
Personally, as a peaceful, meditative type <g>, I feel a fair amount of equanimity about the Nader campaign (I don't say he shouldn't run, just that no one should vote for him); I'm just reporting what's going on out there, as I see it.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ After the Buddha died, people still kept pointing to his shadow in a cave for centuries—an enormous, dreadful shadow. God is dead: but the way people are, there may be, for millennia, caves in which his shadow is still pointed to. — And we — we must still overcome his shadow! —Friedrich Nietzsche