> When campaigning for Kerry/Edwards, for instance, it would
> be much more efficient for rank-and-file Democrats to make
> sure that all Black voters are registered and actually vote,
> rather than wasting much time on Nader/Camejo supporters.
In the real world, of course, this is exactly what is happening. That is why voter registration offices are brimming with new registrations (collected mostly by 527s rather than the Democratic Party proper), why new Democratic registrations outpace Republican ones considerably, and why Republicans like Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell have been trying to find ever-more-nefarious ways to disenfranchise black and other voters of color. (Blackwell's scheme to reject new voter registrations that were not printed on cardstock was turned back after an outcry -- no thanks to people like Yoshie.)
It is only on the Internet -- the only place the Naderite "left" can be found, apart from when they occasionally show up to hawk Socialist Worker on a picketline -- that the left spends any appreciable amount of time castigating Nader's Traitors. This is because all of these people call themselves leftists or progressives or even revolutionaries, and therefore need to be held to a higher standard. If you call yourself a leftist and attempt -- however incompetently -- to sabotage the most important task facing the progressive movement over the course of the next three weeks, then you deserve to be roundly chastised in the most uncertain terms. You may not be THE problem (only a sophist of Ralph Nader proportions would claim that people are blaming Nader alone for the Bush regime or a possible continuation thereof), but you are a PART of the problem. And that is all there is to it.
- - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!