Liza
> From: Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 16:47:38 -0400
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Re: Ralph Nader, Suicide Bomber
>
> Today's NYTimes had an op-ed column by a Yale professor that
> puts a decisive challenge to both Nader and the ABB anti-Naderites.
> The idea is seemingly very simple: since the return of Ubu and his
> Bushits is generally agreed to be the worst possible outcome, let
> the two leading anti-Bushit candidates continue to run and to
> argue for their programs *while placing the same names on the
> ballot as presidential electors*.
>
> Could this be done? There may be legal obstacles in some states,
> but these could be removed by legislative measures that
> Republicons could block only at decisive political cost. The
> problem is political: to get agreement between the Nader
> and Dumbocrat campaigns.
>
> Whatever marginal influence leftists have should be exerted
> wholeheartedly to this end. Nader should be told that
> rejection of such an anti-Bushit alliance of convenience
> would mark him as indeed a revenge-motivated spoiler and
> cost him any hope of leftist support. And Kerry should be
> told, in no less certain tones, that rejection of united
> elector nominations would definitively mark him as no
> different from Ubu since he would have chosen the return
> of Ubu and his Bushits as preferable to opening any electoral
> space to the left of the Republicon/Dumbocrat duopoly.
>
> Would this amount to offering support to the Dumbocratic
> faction of the imperialists? Only in the sense that the famous
> rope supports the famous hanged man--once the debate
> between Nader and Kerry were focused on issues like
> military withdrawal from Iraq, cutting war spending in
> favor of all sorts of social and environmental initiatives,
> universal single-payer health care, repeal of
> Taft-Hartley, etc., with no room
> allowed for ABB "spoiler" demagogy, the Nader vote would
> undoubtedly soar--perhaps even enough to win a majority
> of the anti-Bushit vote. And so Nader should be called on to
> suggest one condition for agreeing to the anti-Bushit united
> front: the electors nominated could all be Dumbocrats if
> Kerry insists, but they should be pledged to vote for
> whichever candidate wins the majority of the anti-Bushit
> majority in the *national* vote.
>
> At this point, such a proposal seems to me to merit general
> support from professed leftists (yes, I know that getting
> leftists to agree on any strategy is somewhat harder than
> herding cats). What Nader's response would be I don't know,
> but I believe Kerry's rejection to be all but certain. So be it.
>
> Shane Mage
>
> "When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all
> things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even
> downright silly.
>
> When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all
> things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true." (N.
> Weiner)
>
>
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