>Nader's distrust of bigness, either corporate or governmental, his
>fear of centralized power, his sharp critique of the
>managerial-bureaucratic mentality, all recall the distinctively
>American tradition of individualist populism. Just as Nader rebelled
>against the corporate socialism of the Democratic Party
>establishment, so the mostly Midwestern progressives turned against
>the New Deal when it became a stalking horse for corporatism and
>war. Nader's views are attractive to the Left but are rooted, at
>least in part, on the libertarian and populist Right.
[...]
>I know Ralph Nader is supposed to be a man of the Left, the Eugene
>Debs or the Norman Thomas of our times, but as I listen to him on
>the stump, I keep hearing the voice of the Old Right.
Bingo. Why do left Naderites have such a hard time recognizing this? It's both painful and amusing to hear self-identified Marxists claiming they're doing the Red thing by voting for this petit bourgeois. When I brought this up the other week with Anthony Arnove of the ISO, he just dismissed it mockingly and refused to engage any further.
Doug